Wrestling What Ifs

[BloodyChamp]

3 hours ago, odessasteps said:

If you take Dwayne out of the Attitude Era, the whole history of the business changes. Does the company get as hot with just Austin, Taker, Hunter and Foley? Do they get high enough ratings to keep Barry Diller fro, cancelling Raw? 

O yeah...easy. Nothing against the Rock but those other guys were more responsible for the initial turn in the war. Meanwhile of course you had WCW being WCW so you probably could take any of those guys out and the WWF would have still been successful.

[L_W_P]

I think Rock out is really interesting.

He was Austin's main antagonist as a proxy for Vince, he helped legitimise Foley and Triple H, and he did the job for Brock in a huge passing of the torch.

Who else does all that? I could see Shamrock facing Austin, does he work as the straight man for Foley? Can he carry his half of the main event during 2000?

I think if Rock is out then it's impossible to fill that spot with just one person.

[GuerrillaMonsoon]

No Rock = Shawn comes back earlier than he does/people turn a blind eye to how fucked up he was at the time.

[notoriusvig]

This may have already been covered here but do you guys think Nitro and WCW would have done nearly as well if they had been on a different night, other than Monday? Did they really need to go head-to-head to make it work? They were already doing good viewership for the Saturday show and had a good fanbase, by 1995.

[GuerrillaMonsoon]

I don't think it works as well for either party.

A lot of the programming was counter-programming to what the other promotion was putting on at that very minute. The urgency to make every minute count, burn through your cache of dream matches/surprise returns/big announcements etc just isn't there, and you end up with squash matches, replays from syndicated TV, promotions for local house shows as normal.

 

[Ultimo Necro]

If Rock stays in the NFL then Ballers moves from fiction to non-fiction. What that means for wrestling I’ve no idea, maybe Russell Brand’s character would have bought Wrestling Society X.

 

[BloodyChamp]

WCW never reaches it’s peak without going head to head with the WWF. Eric Bischoff being a power hungry little shit doesn’t happen if never gets the WWF in his sights while somebody else finances the whole thing. You could also argue that WCW doesn’t die without that happening also but that’s another can of worms. 

[AxB]

What If in the early 90s, DDP and Mean Mark had been good friends? So years later during the Invasion angle, when DDP gave the Undertaker his match script, Taker read it, liked it and they actually had an exciting back and forth match? As opposed to the zero selling squash match that pissed off Taker actually called in the ring.

[Matt D]

18 minutes ago, AxB said:

What If in the early 90s, DDP and Mean Mark had been good friends? So years later during the Invasion angle, when DDP gave the Undertaker his match script, Taker read it, liked it and they actually had an exciting back and forth match? As opposed to the zero selling squash match that pissed off Taker actually called in the ring.

They didn’t overlap. Page could have helped out Hunter more and been a lifer like Regal though.

[Web Conn]

To add to that what if, Godfather had stated on Photoshoot he was in talks to join the nWo his direct quote was:

Quote

"My [WWE] contract was coming up, and I was in negotiations with WCW coming into the nWo as their bodyguard. And we had arranged a verbal contract. The price was over a three-year deal. And then, I didn't hear from them, and I called the people that I needed to talk to and they weren't returning my calls. And then I'm watching the show one day, and I see Virgil come out as the bodyguard of the nWo.

"I would assume that somebody in the nWo said, 'hey, we could probably get Virgil [for] a lot cheaper, and he's known as a bodyguard.' So, Virgil went there a lot cheaper than what I was gonna go there for. So, I don't really have good feeling over that at all."

That’s an interesting thought, if Godfather had been in the nWo, would Taker have gone back to WCW and would the biker gimmick come into fruition two years before it did. Another interesting thought Is had Ole not told Taler he would never draw is dime which fueled the fire for Taker in the WWF, he was dead set on probing Ole wrong and probably helped the bound between Vince and Taker as Vince was the one to take the chance on him, would Taker have had the chip on his shoulder and felt like he couldn’t put a WCW guy over in regards to Page?

[zendragon]

What happens if Curt Henning's back doesn't give him problems in the early 90's and then again in the mid 90's? Whats his position in The New Generation ear and then The Attitude Era? does he still jump to WCW?

[NoFistsJustFlips]

Bischoff was a Minnesota guy. Hennig would still have made the jump because Bischoff would open the wallet for Larry The Axe's kid. I don't think much changes. Instead of having to go away after dropping the IC Title to Bret he probably slides back down the card and puts over a few new faces. Then gets repackaged in a tag team. Pretty much the M.O. of the day just like Dibiase & Honky Tonk. Looking at the roster in 1991 Shane Douglas was there and probably a good fit in a team with Hennig. Maybe gets a tag title reign, probably not. Probably jumps to WCW in the first wave of guys with Bossman, Earthquake, & Hogan and gets the Starrcade match against Hogan in 1994 instead of Beefcake. Jumps back for 1999 attitude hijinx like Earthquake, Bulldog, & Bossman. No Rap is Crap is about the only real tangible difference in this timeline. Probably doesn't make it past 2000 (like Bossman, Bulldog, & Earthquake).

[AxB]

What if, when Chris Jericho put the first Jericho Cruise together, Vince did allow him to use NXT as the partner promotion, so he never contacted ROH?

[olythegreat89]

On 9/21/2021 at 7:52 AM, zendragon said:

What happens if Curt Henning's back doesn't give him problems in the early 90's and then again in the mid 90's? Whats his position in The New Generation ear and then The Attitude Era? does he still jump to WCW?

Great question! If Curt doesn't hurt his back he probably becomes WWF Champion in the early-mid 90s. He probably feuds with Bret, Bulldog and Piper throughout 91 into 92 over the IC title. He still teams up with Flair when he joins in 91. And maybe instead of Flair beating Savage in the fall of 92 for the title before quickly dropping it to Bret, maybe Savage drops the title to Perfect. Then the roles are reversed going into 93 with Perfect being the heel champ with Heenan by his side and Flair being the babyface but Perfect still beats Flair in the loser leaves town match on Raw in early 93.

A healthy Perfect being champ in the mid 90s would've been great.

[paintedbynumbers]

On 9/21/2021 at 7:52 AM, zendragon said:

What happens if Curt Henning's back doesn't give him problems in the early 90's and then again in the mid 90's? Whats his position in The New Generation ear and then The Attitude Era? does he still jump to WCW?

one thing I can say for certain is Rap would still be crap. 

[NoFistsJustFlips]

4 hours ago, olythegreat89 said:

Great question! If Curt doesn't hurt his back he probably becomes WWF Champion in the early-mid 90s. He probably feuds with Bret, Bulldog and Piper throughout 91 into 92 over the IC title. He still teams up with Flair when he joins in 91. And maybe instead of Flair beating Savage in the fall of 92 for the title before quickly dropping it to Bret, maybe Savage drops the title to Perfect. Then the roles are reversed going into 93 with Perfect being the heel champ with Heenan by his side and Flair being the babyface but Perfect still beats Flair in the loser leaves town match on Raw in early 93.

A healthy Perfect being champ in the mid 90s would've been great.

I'm a huge fan of Hennig and the Mr Perfect character. But the chances he becomes WWF Champion are slim and none. WWF is a babyface territory. They rarely do the heel champ with the face chase in that era. With the steroid trial they moved to lets juiced up body types, sure. But timeline-wise it's either Hennig or Yokozuna. And I just don't see Hennig getting the nod. Yoko had the freak show attraction feel, and the only kind of size they were allowed to have at the time. I would have loved Mr Perfect vs Bret Hart title matches. But pure wrestling on top was not what Vince's instincts liked to book.

I think he gets a quick program with Bret. He probably gets the Rumble 93 match over Razor if he's still a heel. But he was destined to turn face and feud with Flair regardless of being in a manager role or a partner role. He's one of my favorites ever, but he just didn't have what Vince wanted out of a top star in the era. I mean even during the character's peak, he didn't even get a real tv match with Hogan. Smashed the title and his manager gets the match against Hogan? Shows a lack of faith in him on top.

[Technico Support]

Yeah, I think a lot of folks in threads like these, here and elsewhere, have a tough time looking at the 1980s/90s WWF in the context of the times and how things were done.  Like I see stuff like, "why didn't Razor ever get a world title run?"  or the aforementioned "Perfect could have been champion" or "Owen should have gotten a run."  We're kind of missing:

• The world title wasn't a participation trophy that was handed around willy-nilly
• Some guys, as much as we see them as legends today, just were not seen as WWF title material
• @NoFistsJustFlipsmention that WWF was not a heel champion territory

Edited October 21, 2021 by Technico Support

[olythegreat89]

I don't think it would be too farfetched for a healthy Perfect to become champion in 92/93 when they're shying away from big bodies during the steroid trial. If Perfect never injures his back in 91, he stays in that upper midcard and most likely the main event. He was a great worker and could work with pretty much anyone. Yes, the WWF was a babyface territory but you need the occasional heel champion (Slaughter) to give your babyface something to fight for.

If you asked a "smart" fan at the beginning of 1991, who could you see as WWF champ in 1992, the IC champ Mr. Perfect or the tag champ Bret Hart? I'm pretty sure the answer would be Perfect not just on his ability but also taking to account the IC-World Title trajectory Warrior and Savage took before him.  

[Mister TV]

2 hours ago, NoFistsJustFlips said:

I mean even during the character's peak, he didn't even get a real tv match with Hogan. Smashed the title and his manager gets the match against Hogan? Shows a lack of faith in him on top.

Things were different then since it was still about selling tickets to house shows, the smashing the belt angle was to set up Hogan-Perfect on the road, Hogan's SNME matches were either ones that finished their house show run or were ones that weren't going to be on house shows. 

[thee Reverend Axl Future]

The physique difference between "Axe Jr," AWA Curt Hennig and WWF's Mr. Perfect is quite pronounced, so I don't know if he would have been pushable during the trial. That HGH Neanderthal brow --- yow....

[olythegreat89]

31 minutes ago, thee Reverend Axl Future said:

The physique difference between "Axe Jr," AWA Curt Hennig and WWF's Mr. Perfect is quite pronounced, so I don't know if he would have been pushable during the trial. That HGH Neanderthal brow --- yow....

Perfect's physique wasn't anything that stood out compared to other guys they had during that time like Bulldog, Warlord, Kerry, Warrior, etc. If you're in a court room showcasing the rampant use of steroids in the WWF during that time period, Mr. Perfect isn't exactly exhibit A or B to show to the jury. 

[Infinit]

1 hour ago, olythegreat89 said:

Perfect's physique wasn't anything that stood out compared to other guys they had during that time like Bulldog, Warlord, Kerry, Warrior, etc. If you're in a court room showcasing the rampant use of steroids in the WWF during that time period, Mr. Perfect isn't exactly exhibit A or B to show to the jury. 

He would if you showed a picture of Curt from 6-7 years before.

[olythegreat89]

1 hour ago, Infinit said:

He would if you showed a picture of Curt from 6-7 years before.

Bret looks much better in the early 90s than when he was in Stampede. Shawn in 96 looks better than he did 6-7 years earlier. It’s not that out of the question to build your physique over a period of time.

Did Perfect use steroids? I’m 99% sure he did like almost everyone did back then. But when I look at the WWF roster from that time, he’s not someone that stands out as a beefed up muscle head. 

[AxB]

Would The Genesis of McGillicutty have gotten over, if he'd been allowed to get on the gas?

[(BP)]

Curt would probably just end up in WCW anyway once Bischoff was in charge and be in the NWO a year sooner. His ceiling there might be higher in that case, but either way I don’t think he gets any bigger in WWF than an upper midcarder they can plug into a program with the world champion once a year.