Wrestling What Ifs

[elizium]

Haku is Haku, but I don't see anyway that Bad News loses.

[Curt McGirt]

That's a lot of missing noses. 

(Somebody had to say it)

[MORELOCK]

Why are half of these people in the conversation? Paul Roma? Dino Bravo? Did you guys draw these out of a hat?

[GuerrillaMonsoon]

Was Conquistador Dos unavailable?

[Mister TV]

10 hours ago, elizium said:

Haku is Haku, but I don't see anyway that Bad News loses.

Bad News had really bad knees so the chances of someone like Smash jacking one of them up during a take down is plausible. Also the super jacked guys like Muraco, Herc and Reed would be so gassed after 30 seconds whoever they fought could use the Homer Simpson method and push them over for the KO win.

[Mister TV]

Looking at the summer of 1988 here's who I think would have been in a Brawl for All, these guys seem to fit the same kind of mold as who was in the 1998 BFA.

B. Brian Blair - High School Wrestling Champ.

Bad News Brown - I can see Vince and Pat thinking the BFA is a way to build him up for Savage and Hogan.

Bam Bam Bigelow - pretty much the same idea as Bad News, they'd put them on opposite sides of the bracket.

Davey Boy Smith - Bulldogs are winding down their run and is peer pressured by Dynamite Kid to be in it.

Don Muraco - going nowhere and looking for the extra $.

Dynamite Kid - the JBL of this tourney.

Greg Valentine - see Don Muraco.

Haku - the odds on favorite with the boys in the back.

Hercules - gets asked because they need more names to be in the tourney.

Jim Neidhart - Bret Hart passes because he sees that it's a dumb idea but The Anvil jumps at the chance to get in Vince's good graces after the whole head butting a flight attendant incident.

Ray Rougeau - can't remember if this was when he was injured but he was the fighter of the family.

The the following to fill out the bracket.

High Chief Afi - he was still popping up from time to time.

Jos LeDuc - worked a tv taping that June with Frenchy Martin as his manager.

Paul Roma - supposedly could throw hands.

Pete Doherty - why not.

Steve Lombardi - see Pete Doherty.

 

 

Edited April 14, 2020 by happjack

[tbarrie]

7 hours ago, MORELOCK said:

Why are half of these people in the conversation? Paul Roma? Dino Bravo? Did you guys draw these out of a hat?

Well, didn't the actual BFA brackets look like that too?

[odessasteps]

Roma was allegedly a Golden Gloves boxer, so he is an obvious parallel for Marc Mero. 

[ReiseReise]

But the BFA 1988 would still mean putting on oversized gloves, no Submission, limited possibilities for throws... Taking away a lot of BN's strength. If this goes down with a MMA Style ruleset and guys were allowed to switch the huge gloves to go barehanded (therefore only allowed slaps), Allen might be a favourite despite age and injury. He was a world class Judoka, albeit more than a decade ago. 

Edited April 14, 2020 by ReiseReise

[HumanChessgame]

Was Piper in the WWF at that time or was that during his hiatus? I'd think he'd be a lock for a slot if he was around.

[odessasteps]

3 minutes ago, HumanChessgame said:

Was Piper in the WWF at that time or was that during his hiatus? I'd think he'd be a lock for a slot if he was around.

Id think he was too important to be in it. 

[cwoy2j]

I think 86 or 87 would be fun years to do b/c you'd have some batshit insane guys like Billy Jack Hayes, Danny Spivey and Corporal Kirschner to go with some grapplers like Blair, Valentine , Rotundo and Sheiky Baby. Other noted backstage tough guys like Haku, Herc, Butch Reed and Dynamite. Could even throw an oddity like Hillbilly Jim and Adrian Adonis, who despite his weight and gimmick, was apparently a pretty accomplished amateur.

[twiztor]

just take the actual WM4 tournament bracket and book it as a shoot.

[cwoy2j]

2 hours ago, odessasteps said:

Id think he was too important to be in it. 

Yeah I think you need to limit it to midcard guys. Piper likely wouldn't have done it due to not wanting to jeopardize his Hollywood career.

[Brian Fowler]

Haku has a legit sumo background, right?

A lot of the toughest guys in wrestling probably weren't actually all the skilled of fighters, just capable of taking a lot of pain and strong enough to significantly hurt someone they got their hands on.

Like, being a really fucking tough street fighter/bar brawler and being a skilled organized fighter are two wildly different things. It goes back to one of those dumb Twitter questions "in his prime could Haku have beat Connor McGregor?" and the only answer I had was "are we talking with a ref and rules in the octagon, or are we talking the two them get in an altercation in a bar?"

[GuerrillaMonsoon]

How would Sting have fared if he'd jumped to WWF circa 93 to 96?

Would Sting have been able to have been billed as such in the WWF?

If Sting isn't in WCW in 96, does the nWo angle ever finish?

[(BP)]

Sting’s had the trademark to his name for about twenty five years, so that wouldn’t have been a problem. I feel like he would’ve been one of those guys who did a couple of years circling the top of the card in WWF and ended up back in Atlanta by the late 90s. By then he could still be the foil for the NWO.

If he’s not around and everything else plays out the same there’d be homegrowns like Goldberg and DDP to lead the charge for WCW, or established vets like Savage and Piper. It may not have stayed hot for as long as it did without Sting to be sure. 

[Matt D]

Look at the JCP/WCW top card runs in WCW from 88-94

Garvin
Windham
Brainbusters
Dusty
Flair
Steiners
Luger

Sting almost certainly would have followed the same trajectory. Maybe he gets turned heel in 96 as Warrior comes back and gets to be Warrior's Demolition to steamroll. 

[SorceressKnight]

On the contrary- I don't think Sting does as well in WWF during the time period.

Sting owned his gimmick, which is a plus...but the big minus Sting had would have been just how DATED Sting would feel in 1993-95. Sting's gimmick was so 1990-1991 it hurt sometimes, and we saw from the times WWF tried to bring back Ultimate Warrior and how Warrior...never QUITE managed to rekindle the magic in his subsequent runs that Sting would have a couple strikes against him.

The specific "it had to be 1993-96" time period also hurts Sting a lot there, because it puts Sting in the absolute worst timeframe for him to have a prayer at success in WWF- specifically, because "The Crow" came out in 1994, and wasn't a particularly big hit in its year until it started catching on as a cult hit in 1995-96. If "The Crow" hadn't come out at the time, it's likely Scott Hall wouldn't have seen the movie yet- and even if Sting and Scott Hall are in the same company from 1994-96 still, Hall likely couldn't tell Sting "hey, this movie's really good. You're looking for a new character, you should watch this" like he did in real life.

As was said- he probably ends up like Lex Luger or The Steiners: Shows up in WWF, gets a big push out of the gate, but ultimately doesn't really do much and ends up back in WCW...and given things, he might end up closer to "he has to have a short run in ECW to regroup before WCW instead" (and an ECW run would be a BETTER What If: Sting was never a particularly hardcore guy and again, his gimmick was so dated to the 1990s- but ECW was hip enough to get the "The Crow" stuff slightly earlier than WWF/WCW would, and Sting was also a better firey white-meat babyface than Tommy Dreamer and would have almost certainly got the ECW fans' respect that way.)

 

[LoneWolf&Subs]

Has anybody brought up Raven’s initial WCW debut, and the tease of Hogan Vs. Raven. That’s a great what if there. What if Sting defeated Hogan, and his next rival was the mysterious Raven?

Edited April 19, 2020 by LoneWolf&Subs

[(BP)]

11 minutes ago, LoneWolf&Subs said:

Has anybody brought up Raven’s initial WCW debut, and the tease of Hogan Vs. Raven. That’s a great what if there. What if Sting defeated Hogan, and his next rival was the mysterious Raven?

It’d give Sting a new faction to run through, but we’d almost definitely end up in Vampiro territory with shitty gimmick matches and promos about who was darker. 

[(BP)]

40 minutes ago, SorceressKnight said:

we saw from the times WWF tried to bring back Ultimate Warrior and how Warrior...never QUITE managed to rekindle the magic in his subsequent runs 

I’ve come around to the idea that Warrior could have worked in the late 90s WWF. Work rate really didn’t mean shit yet. The matches during the Attitude era always took a backseat to angles anyway. And during that 96 run Warrior actually showed that he had the ability to adapt to the times a bit in his promos. He’d start off with the mystical gobbledygook, but he’d end up incorporating some direct trash talk that could have come out of Austin or The Rock’s mouth. 

I think there would have been money in a short Warrior/Austin program during Stone Cold’s first title run. Ever since I heard they considered bringing in Avalanche to work with him I’ve been intrigued with the idea of Mr. McMahon reaching back to his rock n’ wrestling/early 90s roster to try to unseat Austin and restore order. 

[GuerrillaMonsoon]

I look at the Sting scenario as being "could he have done better than Lex/Diesel/Shawn" at the top of the card at that time.

Sting making his debut as being the guy to bodyslam Yoko instead of Lex would have been money. Not only that but Luger continuing his Narcissist run would have been cool too. Luger/Hart as a summer program instead of Lawler would have been pretty pretty good.

By that point, you run the same finish to Rumble 94, Sting probably doesn't get booed out the building the same way Luger does in reaction to it, and you can proceed from there without having to drop Luger cold.

My only concern is that it comes off very same same from what Sting was doing with Vader earlier.

From there you can go another Sting/Luger program, Sting/Davey Boy midcard tag team probably works better than the Allied Powers, could even reunite the Blade Runners if they weren't really keen on going all in on Warrior again.

[Nice Guy Eddie]

9 hours ago, (BP) said:

I’ve come around to the idea that Warrior could have worked in the late 90s WWF. Work rate really didn’t mean shit yet. The matches during the Attitude era always took a backseat to angles anyway. And during that 96 run Warrior actually showed that he had the ability to adapt to the times a bit in his promos. He’d start off with the mystical gobbledygook, but he’d end up incorporating some direct trash talk that could have come out of Austin or The Rock’s mouth. 

I think there would have been money in a short Warrior/Austin program during Stone Cold’s first title run. Ever since I heard they considered bringing in Avalanche to work with him I’ve been intrigued with the idea of Mr. McMahon reaching back to his rock n’ wrestling/early 90s roster to try to unseat Austin and restore order. 

An Austin/Bam Bam Bigelow program would have been awesome.

[SorceressKnight]

13 hours ago, (BP) said:

I’ve come around to the idea that Warrior could have worked in the late 90s WWF. Work rate really didn’t mean shit yet. The matches during the Attitude era always took a backseat to angles anyway. And during that 96 run Warrior actually showed that he had the ability to adapt to the times a bit in his promos. He’d start off with the mystical gobbledygook, but he’d end up incorporating some direct trash talk that could have come out of Austin or The Rock’s mouth. 

I think there would have been money in a short Warrior/Austin program during Stone Cold’s first title run. Ever since I heard they considered bringing in Avalanche to work with him I’ve been intrigued with the idea of Mr. McMahon reaching back to his rock n’ wrestling/early 90s roster to try to unseat Austin and restore order. 

I don't know if Warrior would have worked in the late '90s WWE even beyond that. Workrate wasn't the issue as much as how the characters and gimmicks had to be changed for the times. the early '90s thing didn't work well, when you consider you had Earthquake, who was a uppercard guy in 1990, and by 1998/99 it was better to turn him to "he's a guy under a mask who idolizes Eric Cartman"...best case scenario it's clear the early '90s roster wouldn't click with the Attitude Era.

Worst case scenario: It has to be said that the whole concept of "I'm a star from the Rock and Wrestling era who's back in WWF to bring back the old, traditional ways of WWF. What a goody-goody jerk I am!" was used...by The Blue Blazer.

So- yeah.