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What if, around 98 or 99 when the highlight of the Wrestling week was The Rock's promo, a couple of rookies decided to piggyback off that success by taking the ring names Rudy Pugh and Ken Diaz?

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1 hour ago, AxB said:

What if, around 98 or 99 when the highlight of the Wrestling week was The Rock's promo, a couple of rookies decided to piggyback off that success by taking the ring names Rudy Pugh and Ken Diaz?

They’d be feuding for years and across the indie wrestling world with the team of Mark Smart and “The Shooter” Fabian Kaye?

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  • 2 weeks later...
15 hours ago, Happ Hazzard said:

If the whole  "Plan B" thing had gone public back in 1979, would Bob Orton have had his spot in the early expansion era of the WWF, and would Randy Orton have become the major star he became in the 00s? 

Honestly, that's a little hard to know: On the one hand, that would be grounds for a blackballing in the business.

On the other hand, if Orton was blackballed from the NWA, he'd probably end up an outlaw promotion star (and Randy Savage did come from the outlaw promotions, so WWF might have still signed him.) 

Heck, even if Randy Orton does lose a major star, Boris Malenko in the "Plan B" thing may have been WORSE if it went public. Malenko gets blackballed, then Dean Malenko's career never takes off- and suddenly, there's far bigger changes. 

None of Malenko's trainees probably get any fire (so no X-Pac, Molly Holly, etc.) , AND Malenko was a big part of the cruiserweight booking scene in WCW (so lose that, and there's a real chance the cruiserweights don't catch fire and give the American audience a taste for that style, which changes the indie wrestling style and how the WWE style got smaller in the 21st century.) 

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I was trying to think of the least consequential What If ever, and I had wondered if "What If TNA had pushed Young Boy Kazuchika Okada strongly, and he'd arrived back to NJPW as a former World Champion with wins over Angle, Sting and AJ?" would be an example. Because the answer would be NJPW would have immediately pushed him into an IWGP Title shot, and he could have won the belt, and become the new Ace, and headlined the Tokyo Dome, and that's exactly what happened anyway. 

But then I thought no, that would be massively consequential, because potentially it could make Okada a bit smug and lazy, rather than being desperate to succeed like he is. Maybe. But definitely it would mean that NJPW would then see TNA as the ideal US partner promotion, send more excursion talent (or main eventers; Samoa Joe vs Prince Devitt in the Impact Zone instead of NXT, and a few years earlier) over, co-promote big shows and so the ROH alliance probably wouldn't happen. So everyone who got into NJ from ROH either wouldn't have gone, or would have had to join TNA to get there. And ROH would be a much smaller deal because of that.

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Don't know if this one has been asked before but which company do you think books Hogan vs. Flair better if both men are working in the same promotion in the 1980s during their primes (thinking 1986-87)? WWF has the mainstream outreach to make it as big of a deal as they want but  I wonder if the WWF would have the mentality of ignoring all of Flair's past accomplishments.  IF JCP has Hogan, do they pull the trigger on a victory against Flair or try to drag out the feud with as many cheap finishes as they can? Does Crockett allow Hogan to run as the #1 face or is he the #2 face behind Dusty?  Also if (which I can't see any scenario in 80s WWF where he would) Hogan were to jump would the backlash be there like mid-90s WCW?

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#1 - Vince would have went all out with Hogan vs. Flair in 1986/1987 since it would gave given the WWF credibility and most likely drawn huge houses in "NWA" towns like Atlanta, Charlotte, Dallas along with the traditional WWF towns. I think the WWF would still book Flair as "The Real World Champion" but they'd put more teeth into it but still not mention the letters NWA. 

#2 - The only way for Hogan to work in JCP is if Dusty goes back to his home planet.

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On 5/5/2019 at 10:39 AM, AxB said:

I was trying to think of the least consequential What If ever, and I had wondered if "What If TNA had pushed Young Boy Kazuchika Okada strongly, and he'd arrived back to NJPW as a former World Champion with wins over Angle, Sting and AJ?" would be an example. Because the answer would be NJPW would have immediately pushed him into an IWGP Title shot, and he could have won the belt, and become the new Ace, and headlined the Tokyo Dome, and that's exactly what happened anyway. 

But then I thought no, that would be massively consequential, because potentially it could make Okada a bit smug and lazy, rather than being desperate to succeed like he is. Maybe. But definitely it would mean that NJPW would then see TNA as the ideal US partner promotion, send more excursion talent (or main eventers; Samoa Joe vs Prince Devitt in the Impact Zone instead of NXT, and a few years earlier) over, co-promote big shows and so the ROH alliance probably wouldn't happen. So everyone who got into NJ from ROH either wouldn't have gone, or would have had to join TNA to get there. And ROH would be a much smaller deal because of that.

Although it's obviously utter bullshit, you reminded me of one of my favorite wrestling conspiracy theories. That Gedo sent Okada to TNA because he knew he was going to make him the ace the day he got back, knew that TNA would book him as terribly as possible, and knew that would help keep him humble with his big monster push.

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On 5/5/2019 at 10:39 AM, AxB said:

I was trying to think of the least consequential What If ever, and I had wondered if "What If TNA had pushed Young Boy Kazuchika Okada strongly, and he'd arrived back to NJPW as a former World Champion with wins over Angle, Sting and AJ?" would be an example. Because the answer would be NJPW would have immediately pushed him into an IWGP Title shot, and he could have won the belt, and become the new Ace, and headlined the Tokyo Dome, and that's exactly what happened anyway. 

But then I thought no, that would be massively consequential, because potentially it could make Okada a bit smug and lazy, rather than being desperate to succeed like he is. Maybe. But definitely it would mean that NJPW would then see TNA as the ideal US partner promotion, send more excursion talent (or main eventers; Samoa Joe vs Prince Devitt in the Impact Zone instead of NXT, and a few years earlier) over, co-promote big shows and so the ROH alliance probably wouldn't happen. So everyone who got into NJ from ROH either wouldn't have gone, or would have had to join TNA to get there. And ROH would be a much smaller deal because of that.

This honestly is the weird thing for what ifs: Just going for an inconsequential What If? is almost cheating (pick a random house show, say "what if the other result happened?" on some random match, odds are it's done.)

Even finding big things that'd be remotely inconsequential kind of works- a good example there: "What if Verne Gagne gave Hulk Hogan the AWA title?" is a good example there: Even if there was the "Hogan would get the AWA Title", "Gagne presumably gives Hogan his Japan money to keep him", and even "Verne forces Hogan to marry his daughter"- AWA was so much smaller and the opposite of everything Hogan was in-ring wise, Hogan was so larger than life and so ready for prime time, and WWF was so ready for momentum that they'd need Hogan to make it galvanize...that it's fair to say that What If would be an obvious "If Hulk Hogan gets the AWA Title and doesn't sign with WWF in 1983, then he signs with WWF in 1984."

The real fun seems to be in the "find some inconsequential thing that happened in wrestling history that, upon reflection, could have ripples well into the future and really changed things."

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11 minutes ago, J.H. said:

Beefcake getting his face smasged is a prime example of this. He was definitely winning the IC strap at SS that year. So how different would him as IC be?

James

Perfect would have won it back in December. Kerry wouldn't have kept it together enough to have a real push. Some of the individual feuds could have been interesting. Kerry and Perfect were tied together for six months basically before Kerry moved on to Dibiase. Beefcake had already feuded with Perfect though.

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Honestly, I think Pewrfect regains and then Beefcake gets a 2nd reign come Mania. He was jusyt way to over. Then they could have him lose the belt at the following SummerSlam and set him up to chase the world title. I mean that actually seemed to be his path from when I was a kid

James

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I loved Beefer as a kid but I can't see his career path being much different than how it ended up.  I can't picture Vince actually belting him, just a chase at Slaughter or something.  It's not like Brutus was so amazingly talented that he'd be able to draw.  Nowadays, he'd probably get one of the belts though, maybe.

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46 minutes ago, notoriusvig said:

I loved Beefer as a kid but I can't see his career path being much different than how it ended up.  I can't picture Vince actually belting him, just a chase at Slaughter or something.  It's not like Brutus was so amazingly talented that he'd be able to draw.  Nowadays, he'd be a nine time “World Champion.”

 

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Considering how many Wrestlers have a Wrestling Voice they use on TV, that is completely different from how they talk in real life, you wonder why Seth never tried one. 

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