Hey Scott, had a potential article of discussion for the blog. Fantasy booking for the most part is absolutely pointless I know but I often find myself doing it nonetheless, specifically with past wrestling history. I'm willing to bet you've done it yourself on occasion from time to time. I think it'd be of interest to hear your views perhaps on the 5 biggest missed oppurtunities in wrestling booking history. (automatically disqualifying events like Magnum vs Flair at Starrcade 87 etc. due to outside circumstances) Two big ones that come to my mind were Test not winning the WWF title at Survivor Series '99, it should've been him instead of Show, just made sense storyline wise. Sure he was green, but hell just give him that feelgood win and have him drop the strap a week or two later. And my belief as the one angle that absolutely should've happened, the NWO, Hogan, Hall, and Nash debuting in the WWF at Survivor Series 2001 during the WCW vs WWF elimination match towards the end and have them pay homage to BATB 96 by having them clear the ring of say everyone but Rock and Booker as the final two and have Hogan just leg drop Booker and throw Rock over him for the win. Vince would then come out for a group hug with them and just be like "HAHAHA it worked. It took years but it worked" I mean they showed up like 3 months later so why the hell not.
Your thoughts?
I was actually convinced at the time that they were gonna go with Test, but it just would have been SOOOOO stupid to put the belt on him, unless they were having him drop it back to HHH the next night on RAW or something.
As for the NWO thing, their whole signing and debut was very last-minute, desperation stuff from the WWF and in fact they had no idea it was going to be happening back in November, so that scenario would have been impossible. Plus the Alliance thing just needed to be blown off completely and doing a big screwjob finish would have been pretty terrible, I think.
If you’re just going to give Test a feelgood win, then take the belt right off him, it hardly seems like a “missed opportunity”. It’s not like he would have gotten any better thanks to a couple weeks with the title.
Affiliating the NWO with Vince was dumb in any scenario, including the one that actually happened. They went from “outsiders/rebels” (in their heyday mind you) to now being “corporate”. It lost its coolness instantly. Then, as Vince tends to do, over produced vignettes, being verbally slapped down by Rock, etc…all went downhill fast. Nothing would’ve changed Vince’s approach no matter when they debuted.
I was so glad the NWO fizzled out as quickly as it did. After they ran roughshod over WCW for years (both on-screen and behind the scenes), did people really want them pulling the same crap in WWF/E? Hogan ended up working out well as a nostalgia trip. He shouldn’t have won the title but he gave us the match with the Rock and put over Angle and Lesnar in the summer. As for Hall and Nash, thank God that Austin and the Rock cut their legs out as soon as they came in.
I think factually speaking Nash cut his own leg out from under him when he blew a quad stepping into the ring on Raw.
Ooooh you meant politically and in the eyes of the fans, my bad.
I actually liked the way the Survivor Series main 2001 main event turned out. It was a suitably epic blowoff match for that storyline. I don’t think it redeemed the WHOLE storyline, and the wrong guys were probably in it, but it was still a great match. And the right guy went over (of course I would say that).
If you’re fantasy booking, why not just eliminate the need for bringing in the nWo to kill off the Alliance and bring in all of WCW’s big name talent to make the InVasion storyline actually work?
WCW (WWE version) was dead in the water when their first main event was Booker T versus Buff Bagwell and Bagwell was literally booted out of the arena and the promotion forever.
The InVasion was an instance where Vince’s ego kept him from making a ton of money. He should have brought in Goldberg, Hogan, Hall, Nash, Sting, Steiner, etc. right away to give the fans dream matches that they wanted. Instead, he suddenly got fiscal, didn’t want to pay to buy out the contracts of those guys and ended up bringing them in much later for lower prices, hoping that the magic would still be there for the fans.
The result was not HHH vs. Scott Steiner in a life or death struggle for the survival of WWF against WCW, but rather HHH vs. Scott Steiner in gay posedowns and arm wrestling contests.
“The result was not HHH vs. Scott Steiner in a life or death struggle for the survival of WWF against WCW, but rather HHH vs. Scott Steiner in gay posedowns and arm wrestling contests.”
……IN BED!
is there any bigger “missed opportunity” than having Austin and Hogan on the roster and not doing one single match? not even on Raw or SD?
It really speaks to how prominent the WWF championship was in 1999 that I completely forgot Big Show was the champion for a short period.
I think the stockholders should’ve thrown Vince on his keister after the Invasion. That would’ve given the WWF at least 18 months of storylines and it would’ve made McMahon richer than a Saudi prince.
But thanks to Vince, 2001-2003 is as dark a period as 1993-1996.
Vince and his family own the vast majority of outstanding WWE stock, so external shareholders aren’t able to vote him out, and likely won’t ever be able to do so.
But I get your point.
Haha, good. I figured he was bulletproof.
Sorry to go off topic but I just bought Great American Bash 89 for twenty bucks on Half.com. I feel so happy.