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Lackluster Debuts


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WCW did a shit job with Bret Hart but short of debuting him in Canada, I'm not sure how they could've brought him in with any impact.  Yeah, they could've hyped him up as the real WWF Champion but he just seemed like such a broken man when WCW got him.  I saw him at the Georgia Dome and he got a tepid response and then Flair came out and blew the roof off the place and then ate his lunch on the mic.  WCW and WWF just had different audiences.

 

It's easy.  Have him cut a shoot promo on McMahon and Michaels, claim to be the rightful holder of the WWF title, then get confronted by Hall/Nash.  IIRC Bret, who had creative control, nixed doing that as he just wanted to move on from Montreal.  But that's where the money was with Bret's debut, and everyone knew about The Kliq at that point.  He beats Hall in his first match.  Then he goes through Nash.  Then he challenges Hogan to the match he never got in the WWF, with the winner becoming #1 contender for Sting's title.  Of course this is also predicated on guys willing to work with Bret and put him over, which I'm sure Nash and Hogan weren't willing to do.

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WCW did a shit job with Bret Hart but short of debuting him in Canada, I'm not sure how they could've brought him in with any impact.  Yeah, they could've hyped him up as the real WWF Champion but he just seemed like such a broken man when WCW got him.  I saw him at the Georgia Dome and he got a tepid response and then Flair came out and blew the roof off the place and then ate his lunch on the mic.  WCW and WWF just had different audiences.

 

It's easy.  Have him cut a shoot promo on McMahon and Michaels, claim to be the rightful holder of the WWF title, then get confronted by Hall/Nash.  IIRC Bret, who had creative control, nixed doing that as he just wanted to move on from Montreal.  But that's where the money was with Bret's debut, and everyone knew about The Kliq at that point.  He beats Hall in his first match.  Then he goes through Nash.  Then he challenges Hogan to the match he never got in the WWF, with the winner becoming #1 contender for Sting's title.  Of course this is also predicated on guys willing to work with Bret and put him over, which I'm sure Nash and Hogan weren't willing to do.

 

 

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

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Here's the thing, and the thing is this, and it isn't a knock on Bret as a performer, it's just how it is: It took Bret years to establish himself in the WWF as a guy who was credible enough to hang at the top level, because it was predicated on his in-ring ability and not on any kind of flash or gaga. And that's fine, that's what he was.

BUT, take that same guy and move him to a different territory with a different audience and even with Montreal just happening, he's not going to be a guy who pops a new territory just by showing up in it. Now, it's not as if he's starting at the bottom again, but he's not the type of performer that can start at the top. And looking back WCW understood that better than we remember, but at the same time they were trying to justify their investment, so the result was the start-stop wishy-washiness that we got.

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I don't know man. My introduction to wrestling was right around WrestleMania V (later on I would go back and rent older VHS tapes to see what happened prior to that)... and it wasn't too long after that where Bret started breaking out as a singles performer. EVERY kid I knew was a Bret Hart fan. Nobody cared about Hogan anymore. By '94 I didn't know anyone other than myself and one other kid who still followed WCW. 

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I never said no one cared about him, because certainly fans did. I'm just saying it took him a long time even though not counting his aborted singles push in 1988, Bret was protected as a commodity starting in early 1987.

Bret just wasn't flashy enough to break out in one shot. In his case it had to be done in increments. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.

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Never thought of the above Hall / Nash / Clique scenario, but yeah, that would have been brilliant. To be fair, us lot could probably brainstorm for thirty minutes and come up with 20 different ways to introduce Hart better into WCW. 

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Thinking about it a little, they probably should of held off on debuting Hart until after Starrcade.  Hogan loses the World Title to Sting, next night Savage says he's got a guy who's going to bring the power back to the NWO, the real WWF Champion, Bret Hart.  That furthers dissension within the NWO between Hogan and Savage and I'm pretty sure they had started the NWO split after Starrcade anyway.  Hart comes in, says he came to WCW for real competition not to join the NWO, first program with Savage, then a tag with Sting vs. Hogan/Savage, and then start the build towards a match to determine the "Real World Champion" with Sting vs. Hart.

 

So yeah, there were certainly better ways to debut him than whatever they did (that awful birthday party segment where he gave Hogan a dismembered Hulk Hogan head?), but I still think he was just a broken man when he got there.

 

 

Doing Bagwell vs. Booker in Tacoma, WA was a king sized mistake. Pretty sure they were in the south the following week.

More specifically, WCW's old stomping grounds of Atlanta.  Of course they further watered the angle down by turning all of WCW heel and adding ECW.

 

Looking at it in a vacumn, there was nothing wrong with that match.  People talk about it like Bagwell just sat on a chinlock for ten minutes.  The crowd just didn't care and you can't really blame them, they bought a ticket to Raw and got a WCW main event between two guys that the WWF hadn't built up at all.  Different audiences.

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The whole situation was just weird.

You had Arn Anderson as a commentator, which was quite unusual at the time, you had Buff Bagwell, someone who wasn't realy pushed as a main event talent (No matter what Ric Flair would want you to believe..) against Booker T, the Champion who had just recently attacked main WWE talent and pro WWE guy Stone Cold Steve Austin, and they had it as the first match which would make you think was WCWs best two guys.

And a non-finish to boot.

Just the entire segment was a bomb.

If they had bought in someone, SOMEONE, Schiavone, Tenay to call it with Hudson, even for one night only, changed the match to Booker T vs Lance Storm or Mike Awesome maybe, let Booker go over clean THEN get attacked by the WWE guys..

Well, people might convince you that WWE never wanted it to succeed. They probably knew the segment would bomb.

PS was the ring announcer Stacy Keibler, am I remembering that right? Bringing in Buffer for that one night would have been mega and that alone might have given WCW a shot in the arm.

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The whole situation was just weird.You had Arn Anderson as a commentator, which was quite unusual at the time, you had Buff Bagwell, someone who wasn't realy pushed as a main event talent (No matter what Ric Flair would want you to believe..) against Booker T, the Champion who had just recently attacked main WWE talent and pro WWE guy Stone Cold Steve Austin, and they had it as the first match which would make you think was WCWs best two guys.And a non-finish to boot.Just the entire segment was a bomb.If they had bought in someone, SOMEONE, Schiavone, Tenay to call it with Hudson, even for one night only, changed the match to Booker T vs Lance Storm or Mike Awesome maybe, let Booker go over clean THEN get attacked by the WWE guys..Well, people might convince you that WWE never wanted it to succeed. They probably knew the segment would bomb.PS was the ring announcer Stacy Keibler, am I remembering that right? Bringing in Buffer for that one night would have been mega and that alone might have given WCW a shot in the arm.

I think the fact that you came up with Storm and Awesome as the best possible substitutes for Bagwell speaks volumes. They could have executed it a lot better, but the Invasion was never going to work without all of the people under contract to AOL/TimeWarner that all eventually came in later anyway: Hogan, Nash, Hall, Flair, Goldberg, Rey, Steiner. Savage and Luger should also have come in. Booker wasn't a main eventer until after everyone had stopped watching, so the only WCW guy they had with any name value was DDP.
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yeah, i think taking WCW's biggest name talent that they could get (DDP) and using him in some bizarre stalker angle where he gets destroyed by Taker was probably not a good idea. me and my friends kept waiting for a "People's Champ" vs. "People's Champ" match in Rock vs. DDP, but we never got something along those lines.

 

backstage issues aside, i maintain that Bagwell could've been a main eventer (maybe not full time, but upper mid card with flashes in the main) with the proper build up, which wouldn't even take much. He always got good reactions from crowds, he was flashy, and he was at least average in the ring.

if you have DDP (nwo-era character), Booker T, and Bagwell as the main force of the WCW Invasion, you're in a much better position already. But, when your whole plan is to crush the opposition, it doesn't really matter who it is, does it?

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I don't know if this was lackluster, but the WWF debuted Siva Afi at MSG by having the lights go down, hitting the Snuka music, the crowd goes apeshit, and when the lights came up it wasn't Snuka but "Superfly" Siva Afi. You never heard the air go out of a place like this ever.

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For the record, the InVasion PPV was all kinds of awesome. Everything that followed (outside of RVD) was shit, but that initial PPV was the tits.

 

Summerslam 2001 was a damn good show to.

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I don't know if this was lackluster, but the WWF debuted Siva Afi at MSG by having the lights go down, hitting the Snuka music, the crowd goes apeshit, and when the lights came up it wasn't Snuka but "Superfly" Siva Afi. You never heard the air go out of a place like this ever.

 

Ha!  When Bobby Heenan introduced him as the third member of the Islanders, the crowd went silent and not silent in a good way.  Everyone hoped that the third would be Samu or Fatu.

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I don't know if this was lackluster, but the WWF debuted Siva Afi at MSG by having the lights go down, hitting the Snuka music, the crowd goes apeshit, and when the lights came up it wasn't Snuka but "Superfly" Siva Afi. You never heard the air go out of a place like this ever.

 

Ha!  When Bobby Heenan introduced him as the third member of the Islanders, the crowd went silent and not silent in a good way.  Everyone hoped that the third would be Samu or Fatu.

 

 

I remember that, and I don't recall seeing Avi on TV again after that.

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I don't know if this was lackluster, but the WWF debuted Siva Afi at MSG by having the lights go down, hitting the Snuka music, the crowd goes apeshit, and when the lights came up it wasn't Snuka but "Superfly" Siva Afi. You never heard the air go out of a place like this ever.

 

Ha!  When Bobby Heenan introduced him as the third member of the Islanders, the crowd went silent and not silent in a good way.  Everyone hoped that the third would be Samu or Fatu.

 

 

I remember that, and I don't recall seeing Avi on TV again after that.

 

 

I think that was more because Tama quit after the show (Afi lasted a few weeks on the house show circuit.)  But the one thing I remember about High Chief Afi was that he forgot he was a heel, and he was slapping fans' hands on the way to the ring.

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I don't know if this was lackluster, but the WWF debuted Siva Afi at MSG by having the lights go down, hitting the Snuka music, the crowd goes apeshit, and when the lights came up it wasn't Snuka but "Superfly" Siva Afi. You never heard the air go out of a place like this ever.

 

Finkel: "FROM THE ISLE OF FIJI..." *fans go nuts*

Finkel: "...SUPERFLY..." *fans wetting themselves*

Finkel: "...AFI!" *fans die a million collective deaths*

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I don't know if this was lackluster, but the WWF debuted Siva Afi at MSG by having the lights go down, hitting the Snuka music, the crowd goes apeshit, and when the lights came up it wasn't Snuka but "Superfly" Siva Afi. You never heard the air go out of a place like this ever.

 

Ha!  When Bobby Heenan introduced him as the third member of the Islanders, the crowd went silent and not silent in a good way.  Everyone hoped that the third would be Samu or Fatu.

 

 

I remember that, and I don't recall seeing Avi on TV again after that.

 

 

I think that was more because Tama quit after the show (Afi lasted a few weeks on the house show circuit.)  But the one thing I remember about High Chief Afi was that he forgot he was a heel, and he was slapping fans' hands on the way to the ring.

 

 

Yeah, now that you mention it I remember the Haku/Afi pair showing up in the PWI results, much to my confusion at the time.

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This might get me in trouble but Chris Masters debut was boring as shit.

Turns up in a limo. Gets in Flair's face, hinting he should be in Evolution. Huge pose/pyro intro leading into a snoozefest that finishes with a Full Nelson.

Obviously he got the Masterlock over eventually but seeing such a basic move win a match put people off I think. Turn that into a full nelson slam and maybe he can get over early enough to go to the upper mid card on his own.

As it was, they forced him down people's throats and there was a backlash. A massive shame considering how well hes developed with more years under his belt.

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For the record, the InVasion PPV was all kinds of awesome. Everything that followed (outside of RVD) was shit, but that initial PPV was the tits.

 

Summerslam 2001 was a damn good show to.

 

 

Not as good as Unforgiven 2001. 

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Masters was terrible when he first showed up.  Stiff as a board (not "stiff" an in he hit people hard, but stiff in that he barely moved), green as grass, etc etc etc.

 

He got good just about the time WWE gave up on him.

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For the record, the InVasion PPV was all kinds of awesome. Everything that followed (outside of RVD) was shit, but that initial PPV was the tits.

 

Summerslam 2001 was a damn good show to.

 

 

Not as good as Unforgiven 2001.

 

I'd take No Mercy 2001 over both. No Mercy 2001 also has the classic match between The Rock and Chris Jericho for the WCW Championship.

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