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The biggest let down / failure


Winston

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Del Wilkes' WWE run..

 

I thought he would have been bigger than what he was

 

A total unmemorable damp squib

I always thought that was an utterly bizarre run. It probably didn't help that I just thought of him as Marcus Bagwell's tag partner, but the whole thing came out of nowhere. I get that they were playing into the USA/Canada issue, but he just didn't seem worthy of coming in at that level.

 

I missed every moment of WCW between about 1990 and early 1997, so I had no idea that The Patriot wasn't coming fresh from his feud with the Dark Patriot in Global. Always thought his WWF run was strange, but loved how cool Rick Rude looked casually tossing his coffee in Patriot's face.

 

In his Timeline shoot Cornette mentioned that the problem the Patriot had was that as he didn't fall into either of the Bret or Shawn camps, he didn't really have anyone to go to bat for him in terms of a push.

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Except Booker T and DDP weren't making any money at that point, not to mention Rob Van Dam who was completely irrelevant,

 

Booker T was the World Champion, DDP was one of the WCW stars WWF fans would have been aware of from when it was GOOD and the war was at it its peak (along with Sting, Goldberg and the nWo), and Rob Van Dam was relevant enough to get cheered over perennial babyface Jeff Hardy on his first PPV. All three were over like Rover on their first appearances on WWF TV.

 

The Invasion angle started well at, umm, Invasion, but the WWF castrated the Alliance at SummerSlam, and that was that.

 

WCW went out of a business because people stopped caring about the big names they had.

 

WCW went out of business because Jamie Kellner didn't want wrestling on "his" network.

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IF you watch any of the later PPVs or Nitros for WCW (late 00- early 01) it's quite obvious the big stars are still over. Great pops and the crowds are into it. Not having stars wasn't a primary reason they went out of business. New stars was a factor in decline but certainly not what killed them.

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The pop DDP got on his reveal was insane by today's standards, and even at the time it was a big deal. And RVD was clearly a rising star. They could, and should, have made the Alliance stronger. What ruined the WCW guys was the defection of WWFers to the group - it made it obvious that the WCW/ECW guys weren't on their level.

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What ruined the WCW guys was the defection of WWFers to the group - it made it obvious that the WCW/ECW guys weren't on their level.

 

Summarized beautifully at the end, I thought, when the "WWF vs nasty evil outsiders" winner take all match at Survivors boiled down to Rock & Jericho VS Austin & Angle.

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The pop DDP got on his reveal was insane by today's standards, and even at the time it was a big deal. And RVD was clearly a rising star. They could, and should, have made the Alliance stronger. What ruined the WCW guys was the defection of WWFers to the group - it made it obvious that the WCW/ECW guys weren't on their level.

I agree but the disparity would have been ridiculous without those defectors. A Team WWF vs. Alliance 5 on 5 match would have been something like The Rock, Austin, Angle, The Undertaker and Kane vs. DDP, Rob Van Dam, Booker T, Rhyno and Tommy Dreamer. The only established A list guy on the Alliance team would be DDP and as much as I liked him as a performer, his presence wouldn't have been enough to carry such a weak team. They could have been booked stronger, sure, Dreamer could have pinned The Rock clean but doing that would only have hurt the WWF talent who were clearly leagues above those in the Alliance. It's hardly like ROH vs. CZW were the talent level and popularity was on a similar level, the difference between the WWF and Alliance roster was huge and booking them on a level playing field wouldn't make the Alliance look strong but instead, make the WWF wrestlers look weak.

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Daniel Bryan wasn't on Batista's level a year ago. The whole point of wrestling is to build people up as attractions. So all this "they weren't on the level" stuff is just no true. Nobody will be on the level if you dont want them to be. WWF's popularity dropped considerably in 2001, but they drew their biggest buyrate for a B show ever when they pitted WCW vs the WWF. People cared, WWF squashed it and the business suffered for it. They let ego get in the way of a storyline that could have carried them for another 18 months.

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Daniel Bryan wasn't on Batista's level a year ago. The whole point of wrestling is to build people up as attractions. So all this "they weren't on the level" stuff is just no true. Nobody will be on the level if you dont want them to be. WWF's popularity dropped considerably in 2001, but they drew their biggest buyrate for a B show ever when they pitted WCW vs the WWF. People cared, WWF squashed it and the business suffered for it. They let ego get in the way of a storyline that could have carried them for another 18 months.

 

It's particularly frustrating when you wonder about how they might've worked Triple H's return, or think how Benoit and Guerrero might have benefited them when they got back.

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It's obviously the Gobbledygooker.

 

I was going to say the same thing. Given all the hype heading into Survivor Series about that bloody Egg and we ended up with Hector Guerrerro dancing around with Mean Gene while Roddy Piper was trying to play it off as the greatest thing ever.

 

However for me it would be Triple H vs. Booker T at Wrestlemania 19.

 

There was absolutely no way that HHH should have gone over in that match and the racism that Flair and HHH hinted at going into the match was disgusting. Booker was getting himself over and looked a shoo-in to beat Hunter.

 

The thing i'll never forget about that match was the time it took Triple H took to pin Booker after hitting the pedigree. Talk about cutting booker's legs from under him. One of the worst pieces of booking i've seen.

 

A special mention must be given to Goldberg vs. Brock at Wrestlemania 20. Shockingly poor match which made Giant Gonzalez vs. The Undertaker at Wrestlemania 9 almost look like a 5 star classic.

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While they screwed the angle up eventually, the idea that they could have been the new nWo is mad. Apart from Wade Barrett (and Daniel Bryan if we're including him) none of the others had any star potential.

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