Fantasy Booking/Rebooking

[SirSmUgly]

Yeah, Diesel/Bret at the Rumble is a great match in terms of the work and the run-in fuckery, but an absolute failure in terms of accomplishing the most important thing, which is getting Nash over as your #1 face.

They gave that poor bastard Bret and HBK in his first two major PPV defenses, ensuring a split crowd in both, and then repeated the "plodding big man vs. plodding big man" formula that made the Undertaker's in-ring output so unmemorable and mostly shitty for the first five years of his career through the rest of the summer. 

I wonder what a re-booked Diesel title reign looks like. I'm going to have to think about this one for a minute. 

[AxB]

Putting him with Bret and HBK was presumably an attempt to start him out hot by having his opponents be the biggest draws available in the company. And as far as plodding big men, what else did they really have? 

[Just Dave]

I heard Booker T say once that WWE checked in on him pretty regularly from about mid 1997 on until the purchase of WCW. Someone in the know even joked once that Vince would've spent the 3 million or whatever just to get Booker T. What if he and Stevie Ray come in as Harlem Heat in 1997-98? Do we get the first ever 4 team TLC with the other three mega-worker teams? What would a TLC with Booker doing super athletic shit and Stevie Ray beatin' suckas down even look like? Suckas gotsta know...

[SirSmUgly]

6 hours ago, AxB said:

Putting him with Bret and HBK was presumably an attempt to start him out hot by having his opponents be the biggest draws available in the company. And as far as plodding big men, what else did they really have? 

That doesn't make sense when those two are more over than he is, so it was a bad idea.

They had Luger, Bulldog, and Owen. Turn the former two, who are aimless, and give the latter a spot feud that Nash decisively wins.

They even had Jarrett, who would have been fine as a one-or-two month guy who had no chance of winning, but who could fit in for a feud. 

They did run Diesel/Bulldog on IYH 4, to be fair, and Nash/Michaels vs. Yoko/Owen on IYH 3. They started to get some decent challengers for the guy right at the end of his reign. They needed to turn Bulldog way quicker than they did. That Diesel/Sid feud ran too long, over three major shows. 

I love Mr. Backlund, but I'd probably just run Owen/Bret one more time at Survivor Series and have Bulldog turn and help Owen screw Bret over to win the gold, then have Owen drop it to Nash at the Rumble and go into an XI feud with Bret to finally blow that feud off a year-plus after it started. Even if you argue there's just too much fatigue in that feud, it's still better than what they came up with. Owen and Yoko can always take the belts off the Gunns some other time. 

Then, you can run Nash/Bulldog and Nash/Luger in whichever order you choose, maybe bring Sid in for a one-off on a single PPV like you'd bring in a long reliever for a spot start every once in awhile to keep the rest of the starting pitchers on your softball team fresh. Maybe you do the Luger and Sid feuds to get to KotR, have Bulldog win the tournament, and go into Summerslam running that match. You can run Nash/Jarrett with the Roadie doing henchman work to make it seem like Jarrett might steal one. Then, you can put the gold on Bret as it happened at Survivor Series and start that Diesel heel turn. 

I agree with your argument that the roster is thin, but Owen/Bulldog/Luger/Jarrett/Sid (for a month) is a much better lineup of heels than King Mabel/Sid (for multiple months)/Bulldog. 

Also, I got Owen a two-month WWF Championship reign in the bargain, so obviously my booking is superior. 

Edited May 3, 2021 by Smelly McUgly

[GuerrillaMonsoon]

I'd go Diesel vs Razor at the Rumble - champ vs champ. The only guy he didn't beat at Survivor Series.

Diesel wins after Shawn goes to superkick him, misses again and hits Razor instead.

Luger wins the Rumble after Razor returns the favour to Shawn.

WM XI Razor/Shawn ladder rematch. Diesel/Luger. Luger turns in the build up to Mania, puts Bret on the shelf again after his return from Survivor Series injury.

Shawn wins at Mania. Diesel beats Luger. 

Davey Boy turns on Diesel night after Mania. Feuds with the Allied Powers interchangeably thru the initial IYHs while Shawn accuses Diesel of ducking his challenges. Shawn wins KOTR and gets his shot at Summerslam. Diesel and Bam Bam beat Luger and Bulldog in the main. Bret has his first match since Survivor Series and beats Lawler/challenges Luger for Summerslam.

Summerslam headlined by Shawn/Diesel, Bret/Luger. Diesel retains, Bret goes over Luger. Luger and Bulldog beat down Shawn afterwards for the face turn. Forfeits the IC title. If Luger jumps to WCW, you replace him with Sid or Mabel at this point.

Otherwise, Diesel drops title to Bret as scheduled. 

[SirSmUgly]

Those are absolutely all matches that I'd want to see between the biggest stars they had. I wonder if the crowd is split for Diesel/Razor as much as it is for Diesel/Bret, is my big thing. Razor was waaaaaaay over by that point. 

[GuerrillaMonsoon]

Yeah agreed. My view of it was that Diesel was unsalvageable as a traditional face of the company champ and the best outcome was building him up to be knocked off by Shawn or Bret, and hopefully an even bigger run with the title once he turned heel, as was the case with Roman.

[zendragon]

Alternate Survivor Series 97, Hart Foundation beats down HBK taking him out of the match, gets replaced by Undertaker who's not on the card. Taker wins the belt loses it in the casket match at Rumble. I just wonder if we can still get the Mr. McMahon character with out the screw job.

 

And an answer to the who beats Goldberg question... Heel Jericho. Now this is based on a lot of things in WCW going differently at the time. If you remember Jericho had that fake feud with Goldberg that he claimed he 'won" so Jericho win's WW3 that Hall won... faces Goldberg wins the title via BS (maybe Ralphus with the stungun?) then you got a super over heel, Goldberg protected and a feud that can continue 

[SirSmUgly]

They should have just had Austin beat Bret for the gold, finally get his win, and close that feud out. If necessary, have Austin win on RAW in the run-up and then retain by double-DQ in Montreal. 

@GuerrillaMonsoonI agree in hindsight. Bret and Razor are clearly ahead of him on the totem pole for his whole run there in terms of fan support. 

Probably the best answer of all is to just transition the title onto Razor from Bret via a transitional champ instead of wasting him in a feud against Jarrett.

Every Rumble would come down the pike and Razor wouldn't be in any of them. Wrestling Bret for the WWF Championship in 1993 was fine, but he was stuck in a bad feud and match with IRS in '94, a bad feud and mediocre match with Jarrett in '95, and then an actually pretty awesome feud with Goldust in '96 before leaving. All of those matches are IC Championship matches, which is mindboggling considering how over Razor was. 

Edited May 4, 2021 by Smelly McUgly

[zendragon]

kinda feel like that would be jumping the gun a bit. Austin winning the Rumble, and getting the Mania main event win was so satisfying. Plus Vince didn't feel Bret was hot enough to drop the title to Austin (according to HBK)

[SirSmUgly]

4 minutes ago, zendragon said:

kinda feel like that would be jumping the gun a bit. Austin winning the Rumble, and getting the Mania main event win was so satisfying. Plus Vince didn't feel Bret was hot enough to drop the title to Austin (according to HBK)

This is a fair counterpoint. I think it would be fine and Austin getting set up for a defense against a hot heel who wins the Rumble would have worked. Hey, you can still run Austin/HBK after Michaels wins the Rumble. The bigger issue would be what heels to set Austin up against in the run-in. At that point between 11/97 and 3/98, they're still trying to get their budding main event heels to that level (The Rock, HHH), and their established heels are probably past the point of putting them in that spot (Faarooq being an example of this off the top of my head). 

The other option is just to transition it off Bret on RAW and have Hart/HBK turned into a Loser Leaves Town match, but Bret wasn't jobbing to Michaels, so that's out. I mean, what they did from a booking standpoint was probably the smartest thing to do and shouldn't be re-booked! They got heat on Vince McMahon and had their one red-hot main event heel at the time holding the gold to eventually transition over to Austin as champ. 

Then again, long-term, getting heat on Vince McMahon might actually be the worst thing to happen to this company. 

[zendragon]

I think you can kinda keep some stuff the same as Austin was kinda tweener at that point. Wins the belt off Bret, defends against Shamrock and Taker at the next two PPVs, eight man tag at no way out. HBK Austin at Mania. The question is HBK screwing up his back in the casket match so does he stick around longer and we do a rematch at backlash? Now its possible HBK still goes away at some point due to his pill problem or even with out the casket match his body gives out at some point due to his in ring style. Plus if he sticks around after mania does that throw cold water on HHH by not letting him become the leader of DX?

[GuerrillaMonsoon]

I suppose in that instance, they could have had Kane come out, do the double chokeslam spot on both guys (call back to Taker doing it to both guys), somehow winning the title amongst it all. 

Have Kane beat Taker at the Rumble, do the casket burning stuff, and build Austin up to take the title from the unbeatable monster, while you maybe do a DX split in the background, or have them feud with Owen longer than it did?

[The Natural]

When the time comes for Miro to drop the TNT Championship it should be to John Silver, Jungle Boy or Orange Cassidy. Can't decide whether to go with Jungle Boy or John Silver. Silver, you have him bring the title back to the Dark Order but there may be some taking offense bringing up the late, great Mr. Brodie Lee. I'd hate for a heel to use his passing for cheap heat like when Eddie Guerrero died. I don't expect that from AEW, least I hope.

Edited May 31, 2021 by The Natural

[The Natural]

On 4/24/2021 at 5:23 PM, The Natural said:

Dr. Britt Baker should be the one to end Hikaru Shida's AEW World Women's Championship year long reign. Do it at Double or Nothing III.

Right result.

[Uncle Coaster]

I know that it led to one of the most successful and arguably all time great angles, but 14-year old me still insists Don Muraco should have won the WWF Title at WrestleMania IV. 33 years later I still don’t know how to do it, but I still wish it would have happened. 

Edited June 7, 2021 by Uncle Coaster
Bad Math

[AxB]

So, FTR are managed by Tully Blanchard, and Arn Anderson is the Coach of everyone in the Nightmare Family. So, bring in Barry Windham as the Head Trainer of the Varsity Blondes, and then hire Paul Roma to manage Peter Avalon & Ryan Nemeth. 4 corners match: FTR vs Rhodes/Johnson vs Blondes vs Wingmen. A Horseman in every corner!

[AxB]

So, AEW Rampage Chicago. Here's what I'd do:

You announce 2 undercard matches, Darby will address the fans, TV Main Event of Mox & King vs TH2 or something.

So Darby does his entrance, and gets the Darby pop, plus extra because everyone knows this is Punk's segment. He is then interrupted by Ethan & Scorpio, who get massive heat because it's not their interruption. They reveal that they beat up Sting in the back and now they going to beat up Darby because he's all by himself and there's nobody in Chicago who can save him. And THAT'S when Punk debuts. They do the stand tall babyface deal, it goes to break.

Comes back from break, and we have a Holla Holla tag match as our new main event, and tune into Elevation on Monday for the now postponed Mox and King match (which still happens that night for those fans). So they get Punk's speaking and wrestling debuts the same night.

[Loki]

On 7/31/2021 at 10:21 PM, AxB said:

So, FTR are managed by Tully Blanchard, and Arn Anderson is the Coach of everyone in the Nightmare Family. So, bring in Barry Windham as the Head Trainer of the Varsity Blondes, and then hire Paul Roma to manage Peter Avalon & Ryan Nemeth. 4 corners match: FTR vs Rhodes/Johnson vs Blondes vs Wingmen. A Horseman in every corner!

And with Ric Flair as the referee!