Jump to content
DVDVR Message Board

Wrestling What Ifs


Web Conn

Recommended Posts

What if Bulldog actually gets the title in 1995?  I mean I know there's 0% chance Vince gives up on Diesel so quickly but what if Bulldog wins the Rumble, wins the belt at Mania 11 from Big Daddy Cool and holds it until SummerSlam when we get the SummerSlam 92 rematch between Bret/Bulldog where Davey Boy drops the belt to Bret

Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 minutes ago, Brysynner said:

What if Bulldog actually gets the title in 1995?  I mean I know there's 0% chance Vince gives up on Diesel so quickly but what if Bulldog wins the Rumble, wins the belt at Mania 11 from Big Daddy Cool and holds it until SummerSlam when we get the SummerSlam 92 rematch between Bret/Bulldog where Davey Boy drops the belt to Bret

I would have been all for Shawn Michaels not getting a title reign.

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...
On August 8, 2017 at 11:56 PM, Nice Guy Eddie said:

I would have been all for Shawn Michaels not getting a title reign.

Are we now crapping on Shawn Michaels getting a WWF Championship run? Regardless of what you think of the guy personally, he was extremely talented and over. The "Boyhood Dream" build was incredibly solid. 

The WWF did a lot of things wrong in the mid 90s but putting the belt on Shawn Michaels wasn't one of them. If Bret had stuck around after WrestleMania, you could've pulled a heel turn with Bret and turned him into a bitter grizzled vet to lead into Bret/Shawn II at SummerSlam. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

^ What he said.

With the assorted bullshit that came along with each and every Shawn Michaels title reign I can see an argument for never giving him the belt, but that first reign was an ideal time to get it on him - it was either pull the trigger or ruin his career.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Brian Fowler said:

Shawn was over as fuck, but the Boyhood Dream was treacley bullshit that killed every good thing about HBK.

And he didn't draw flies.

I'm not sure if you can lay that squarely at Shawn's feet though. He had no compelling (and over) options for a long term feud immediately after his title win. Without a strong villain, you're not going to draw shit. There's also the fact that that they lost Bret, Hall, and Nash almost immediately after WrestleMania. For a company with as thin a roster as 1996 WWF, that's a huge blow. 

The "Boyhood Dream" angle should've ended after WrestleMania. There was no reason to keep Jose Lothario around. I did like the idea of it going into WrestleMania because it put the focus on the championship and how important it was to HBK. After WrestleMania, he should've gone back to being a cocky ass, which would've helped fuel the Bret Hart heel turn I mentioned above. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thing is, Nash flopped right before Shawn did. They never elevated Hall into regular main events. Didn't draw shit in the USA for like three years (Bret, at least, drew on foreign tours.)

Hal and Nash jump to WCW, are given back a little of the edge Vince had sanded away, and they both draw like gangbusters basically immediately.

I'm not really laying it on Shawn nearly as much as I am Vince. The sugary sweet babyface stuff was beyond passe, Vince was just that out of touch even then. It took Shane and Russo to drag him kicking and screaming into a new era.

And now twenty years later, here we are again.

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

47 minutes ago, Brian Fowler said:

Thing is, Nash flopped right before Shawn did. They never elevated Hall into regular main events. Didn't draw shit in the USA for like three years (Bret, at least, drew on foreign tours.)

Hal and Nash jump to WCW, are given back a little of the edge Vince had sanded away, and they both draw like gangbusters basically immediately.

I'm not really laying it on Shawn nearly as much as I am Vince. The sugary sweet babyface stuff was beyond passe, Vince was just that out of touch even then. It took Shane and Russo to drag him kicking and screaming into a new era.

And now twenty years later, here we are again.

The WWF had started to give Nash his edge back in late 95 - early 96. His match with Shawn at "Good Friends, Better Enemies" is really underrated work from Kevin and I think that if he stuck around, we get the Kevin Nash that we eventually got in WCW. Once Vince gave up on him being the next Hogan, they started to book him competently, he just left soon after so we never got to see where it would've gone. 

Shawn could've drawn well with the right booking and opponents. You could've also easily maintained the edge that HBK had while still playing up the "Boyhood Dream" angle, especially since I think it did a great job of contrasting Bret, the established and tested WWF Champion from Shawn, the cocky and brash challenger whose whole life has led up to this moment. There were much better ways to book the build to WrestleMania 12 and after.

For all of the shit that Vince Russo gets, he balances out the worst McMahon tendencies (and vice versa). If Russo had stuck around instead of jumping to WCW, he's likely remembered much more fondly. 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Bret as champion was drawing better than either Nash or Michaels. That was why he had bad feelings about being treated as a transitional champion. 

 

10 hours ago, The Nature Boy said:

For all of the shit that Vince Russo gets, he balances out the worst McMahon tendencies (and vice versa). If Russo had stuck around instead of jumping to WCW, he's likely remembered much more fondly. 

By the time he left, the TV was already going to shit. If he were there another year, I imagine it would not have been much better than WCW was at the time. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Victator said:

Bret as champion was drawing better than either Nash or Michaels. That was why he had bad feelings about being treated as a transitional champion. 

 

By the time he left, the TV was already going to shit. If he were there another year, I imagine it would not have been much better than WCW was at the time. 

I don't think that Vince McMahon lets it get that bad. But maybe I'm overstating my faith in McMahon.

Russo is the epitome of a guy that works best on a committee. He does have some good ideas but is rather weak storyteller overall. He does genuinely care for ensuring that everyone on the card have a direction or story of some kind and that is sorely needed in today's WWE. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 8/23/2017 at 3:10 PM, Thomas Bugg said:

What if the oil industry didn't go down the toilet in 1986? Would the UWF lasted into the 90's?

The collapse of the oil industry and recession as the cause of the UWF's demise is b.s. that gets repeated way to much, there were many factors that caused Watts to sell.

The fate of Mid-South\UWF was sealed when Vince sold the TBS timeslot to Crockett, had Watts gotten the Saturday 6:05 slot maybe he doesn't do the costly syndication deals that bite him and then JCP in the ass.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well then that brings up another what-if- what if ESPN took Watts on instead of the AWA, or even the shitty UWF or Global? I would like to think that even in it's down periods the Watts UWF on its worst day was better booked than all three of those combined. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Stefanie Without Stefanie

Who exactly was the target market for Shawn Michaels as a babyface in 1995-1996 anyway? I wouldn't have had any issues with him being champion as a heel, but he was a pitiful babyface.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 8/24/2017 at 8:05 PM, The Nature Boy said:

I don't think that Vince McMahon lets it get that bad. But maybe I'm overstating my faith in McMahon.

Russo is the epitome of a guy that works best on a committee. He does have some good ideas but is rather weak storyteller overall. He does genuinely care for ensuring that everyone on the card have a direction or story of some kind and that is sorely needed in today's WWE. 

One thing you will notice watching 99 WWF when Russo was there, is the quality would rebound. One thing that separates the WWF from WCW was the WWF roster would fight doing stupid shit. WCW by 2000, had talent agreeing to do stupid shit to look like team players. It could be having huge downside guarantees, WCW guys were not as dependent on PPV royalties as WWF guys 

At least for that generation, WWF guys were going to fight if they thought their paychecks would shrink from doing dumb shit.

Sean Waltman said he was in a constant fight to protect Kane from bad booking. Things that would have damaged his character and by extension damage Waltman. 

 

 

34 minutes ago, Sasha said:

Who exactly was the target market for Shawn Michaels as a babyface in 1995-1996 anyway? I wouldn't have had any issues with him being champion as a heel, but he was a pitiful babyface.

Watch a PPV from the era and it was young girls and a few boys, There are ways to get a pretty boy to appeal to men and women, but Shawn was not that guy. 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, Victator said:

One thing you will notice watching 99 WWF when Russo was there, is the quality would rebound. One thing that separates the WWF from WCW was the WWF roster would fight doing stupid shit. WCW by 2000, had talent agreeing to do stupid shit to look like team players. It could be having huge downside guarantees, WCW guys were not as dependent on PPV royalties as WWF guys 

At least for that generation, WWF guys were going to fight if they thought their paychecks would shrink from doing dumb shit.

Sean Waltman said he was in a constant fight to protect Kane from bad booking. Things that would have damaged his character and by extension damage Waltman. 

 

 

Watch a PPV from the era and it was young girls and a few boys, There are ways to get a pretty boy to appeal to men and women, but Shawn was not that guy. 

There's also that too. 

There was some genuinely good storytelling during the Attitude Era. The build up to and execution of Survivor Series was, of course, pretty damn good and helped cement The Rock as a top guy. The Higher Power angle was also well executed and whether you agree with the final reveal or not, you have to admit that it was very compelling television. 

That's the thing with 1998-1999 WWF is that it was at least compelling TV with storylines that made you watch and care about the characters involved. Today's WWE is closer to early-mid 2000s ROH in terms of storytelling than the Attitude Era. There's a reason that I love old school Southern wrestling and the Attitude Era, both told stories that made you genuinely invest in the characters, understand their motivations, and root for (or against) them achieving their end goals. WWE fails to create a reason to care about its characters today. 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

22 hours ago, Thomas Bugg said:

Well then that brings up another what-if- what if ESPN took Watts on instead of the AWA, or even the shitty UWF or Global? I would like to think that even in it's down periods the Watts UWF on its worst day was better booked than all three of those combined. 

ESPN had a deal with World Class as well.  I remember watching reruns of old WCCW shows coming back from the school in the late 80s.

Bill Watts getting the Superstation slot would be an interesting timeline.

 

One crazy idea, would Lawler have accepted the Ronnie Garvin spot in 86 to become a World Champion?

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

39 minutes ago, The Nature Boy said:

The Higher Power angle was also well executed and whether you agree with the final reveal or not, you have to admit that it was very compelling television. 

That was what made the reveal so frustrating. It was until that point very compelling television, then it shit the bed with the least interesting prospect. 

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

18 minutes ago, alstein said:

One crazy idea, would Lawler have accepted the Ronnie Garvin spot in 86 to become a World Champion?

I think so, though I think Flair was weary of dropping the belt to Lawler. He implied that he felt Lawler was not willing to lose it outright. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Stefanie Without Stefanie
10 hours ago, Victator said:

Watch a PPV from the era and it was young girls and a few boys, There are ways to get a pretty boy to appeal to men and women, but Shawn was not that guy. 

I was the target market then! I still found him horribly obnoxious.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...