"The Wrong Guy Went Over"

[Scott Malbranque]

I was the biggest Diesel and Kevin Nash on the planet back when, but I really didn’t/don’t think he should have beaten Goldberg at Starrcade 1998 and been the man to end the streak.

I was a huge fan of the Fingerpoke of Doom, however.

[JakeRobertsParoleOfficer]

 

noteworthy ones for me:

 

savage vs Warrior, SS 92 - Warrior was massive in Uk and a major star still.

 

Warrior vs Slaughter RR 91. the whole war cashin was a dud and hurt WWF. a rematch with Hogan would have been better (but would rob us of Savage vs warrior)

 

Crush vs Michaels for IC belt KOTR 93: Crush going over would have made him.

 

Rock vs Hogan (WM17) - Hogan going over would have lift the roof off (not that it needed it) & wouldnt have hurt Rock

[Grecian]

Hulk Hogan beating Randy Orton at Summerslam 2006...

 

Orton was still working the Legend Killer gimmick, was a guy you could just tell was headed for big, world title things. I can take him losing to Taker at Mania 21, but it made no sense for one of WWE's top heels to lose to a guy who wrestled once a year and was over 50. If Hogan would have allowed Randy to go over, it would have made him on the spot.

[unfitfinlay]

I agree about Triple H vs Kurt Angle at Unforgiven 2000. They spent ages gradually building up the relationship between Stephanie and Angle, to the point that people were desperate to see them together. Stephanie low blowing Angle and them basically just deciding to forget the whole thing was a massive anti-climax that benefited nobody.

 

I think the best example is Angle beating Samoa Joe in their first match in TNA. I don't think TNA should've adopted a WWE style "bury everybody who worked for the competition" attitude but you still have to protect your own talent. Joe was the hottest thing in TNA at that point, and had gone over pretty much everybody in the company. Having him lose his undefeated streak to a "WWE guy", by submission no less, not only hurt Joe but it made TNA seem totally inferior to WWE. It was a terrible decision all round.

[Sexy Dad]

At the time - Triple H beating CM Punk at NOC '11 was a bitter, deflating end to CM Punk's fight against the man. On reflection it doesn't really matter as Punk had already considered leaving before this and obviously went on to do so but at the time it was a ridiculous decision. Triple H could have lost and become The Authority character that he would become two years later too and it wouldn't have hindered any of his future character plans other than a feud with Brock may have not happened.

 

I also think Jeff Hardy should have never lost the WWE Championship to Edge at the 2009 Rumble. Edge didn't need another hot potato reign and Jeff had the momentum that doesn't get built up with ease. A battle of the babyfaces with Cena or a big TLC match with Edge at Wrestlemania for the championship would have felt a lot more special than a lot of what we ended up with at Wrestlemania 25.

[air_raid]

Brock Lesnar beating The Undertaker and the obvious gains from that result have been debated to death in all the WrestleMania threads (and Liam's podcasts) and rather than make the same arguments again, I'm just going to shake my head and say "some people" in Partridge's voice.

 

noteworthy ones for me:

savage vs Warrior, SS 92 - Warrior was massive in Uk and a major star still.

Warrior vs Slaughter RR 91. the whole war cashin was a dud and hurt WWF. a rematch with Hogan would have been better (but would rob us of Savage vs warrior)

Crush vs Michaels for IC belt KOTR 93: Crush going over would have made him.

Rock vs Hogan (WM17) - Hogan going over would have lift the roof off (not that it needed it) & wouldnt have hurt Rock

 

Warrior/Savage was booked the way it was because they wanted to sell the house shows off the back of Warrior chasing Flair for the title, hence Flair taking the belt back off Savage a couple of days after SummerSlam. Except Flair's injury and Warrior's steroid transgressions put paid to those plans, obviously.

 

A Warrior/Hogan rematch was never going to happen. They clearly wanted the belt back on Hogan but Warrior dropping the title straight back to Hogan would have been a rather public admission that Warrior had failed as champion and basically shown the fanbase "Yeah, Hogan's better than Warrior" even though lots of them probably already felt that. There was still lots of money to be made off Warrior, he was a megastar, so doing a job for Hogan rather than continuing to try and present them as equals (or near-equals) would have been counter-productive. It's straight forward 70s/80s/90s booking ; your incumbent babyface title drops the title to a dirty cheating heel (and stays strong because he didn't go down clean) then your other babyface steps up and puts that heel in his place. Just because we all would have wet our small boys' undercrackers at a second slice of Warrior/Hogan (in 1991, at least) doesn't mean it would have been right.

 

Crush beating Shawn Michaels was completely unnecessary, he stayed over like Rover afterwards and the feud people still were coming to the arenas to see was him getting revenge on Doink - that feud needed to be nowhere near the Intercontinental title, and there had already been massive amounts of groundwork laid for the Michaels/Perfect program. Crush as a detour so soon after Marty Janetty had received his three weeks in the sun would have made Shawn look a total loser that anyone can beat. Crush was still wildly popular when he was getting his title shot on Raw against Yokozuna, so the loss didn't hurt him. Shawn losing (a belt he'd only just gotten back) would have been terrible for him.

 

Hogan beating The Rock at Mania 18 would have got them some good noise and not made much difference considering what happened in the aftermath - Hogan won the belt, Rocky deserted us for a bit. However, they didn't bank on just how popular Hogan would have been in the SkyDome (and everywhere, for that matter) as evidenced by the fact that they changed plans for Hogan to go for (and win) the belt off the back of his reactions in Toronto and Montreal, despite having already announced The Undertaker as the number one contender on TV. In hindsight, Hogan winning would have been pleasing, but I don't think it's a case for "the wrong guy" winning. If anything, they really owed Rocky a big win on Mania given he'd been the show's biggest loser the previous three years in a row.

 

Hulk Hogan beating Randy Orton at Summerslam 2006...

Orton was still working the Legend Killer gimmick, was a guy you could just tell was headed for big, world title things. I can take him losing to Taker at Mania 21, but it made no sense for one of WWE's top heels to lose to a guy who wrestled once a year and was over 50. If Hogan would have allowed Randy to go over, it would have made him on the spot.

 

Yeah, but it's Hogan. He's not just "a guy." If he was, your argument about what it does for Orton becomes contradictory. You book that match because people will pay to watch a PPV that Hogan is on, and the vast majority of people that pay to see Hogan wrestling will want to see him win. That loss did nothing to Orton, ANYONE losing to Hogan gets a pass, because it's Hogan. In regards to how often The Hulkster was wrestling at that point, ask Brock Lesnar how important that is when you're a genuine superstar and drawing card.

 

What did damage to Orton not being "made" to that point was that he'd spent two years fannying around without a run without either World title and then would spend a further year dicking around. Considering how serious they obviously always were about Orton being a guy they wanted to build around, him not having a run between Unforgiven 2004 and No Mercy 2007 while his contemporaries Cena and Big Dave were racking them up, was remarkable.

 

Kurt Angle should have gone over HHH at Unforgiven 2000.  It was the climax of the three way love triangle with the two of them and Stephanie McMahon.  All roads seemed to lead to Steph turning on Hunter and joining Kurt, but the match was a borefest which saw HHH go over clean.

I agree about Triple H vs Kurt Angle at Unforgiven 2000. They spent ages gradually building up the relationship between Stephanie and Angle, to the point that people were desperate to see them together. Stephanie low blowing Angle and them basically just deciding to forget the whole thing was a massive anti-climax that benefited nobody.

 

I agree in part with both of you on this one ; I'm not saying Angle should definitely have won, but SOMETHING should have happened, either via an unexpected result or a storyline development. This might have been the forerunner of "everyone knows THIS is happening, so let's not" in regards to Stephanie going off with Kurt, that we would see with the Rumble 2009 Christian comeback being aborted. The ending of "Hunter wins and him and Steph are fine" was just dull and did nothing for anyone. It's possible their logic was give the increasingly popular Triple H the win over a heel to further cement him as a babyface because they wanted it to be super shocking when they turned him back. Who knows.

 

However :

Seemed a very odd outcome at a time when WWE could do no wrong, but history shows it was at that time that Steph got the pen - first big sign of Steph and HHH booking for their own benefit.

 

I think you're nitpicking here, because it's Hunter. in the months that followed this PPV, after he beat Benoit at No Mercy he then went three consecutive PPVs without winning and did high profile pinfall jobs for Angle at the Rumble and The Undertaker at WrestleMania (which frankly shocked me at the time because of the idea that "Triple H doesn't want to do any jobs" which in hindsight, was unfair).

 

2002-03 Hunter was a bit of a prick, mind.

 

At the time - Triple H beating CM Punk at NOC '11 was a bitter, deflating end to CM Punk's fight against the man. On reflection it doesn't really matter as Punk had already considered leaving before this and obviously went on to do so but at the time it was a ridiculous decision. Triple H could have lost and become The Authority character that he would become two years later too and it wouldn't have hindered any of his future character plans other than a feud with Brock may have not happened.

 

I agree with this on the simple principle that Punk was about to get the belt back, and Hunter pinning him was pointless. It achieved nothing. Given that Punk wasn't going to be able to get revenge on Nash himself for SummerSlam, I don't understand why, especially how popular Punk had been over the summer, he wasn't permitted to take revenge on Hunter.

 

I also think Jeff Hardy should have never lost the WWE Championship to Edge at the 2009 Rumble. Edge didn't need another hot potato reign and Jeff had the momentum that doesn't get built up with ease. A battle of the babyfaces with Cena or a big TLC match with Edge at Wrestlemania for the championship would have felt a lot more special than a lot of what we ended up with at Wrestlemania 25.

 

I agree with this one too, not because of any booking reasons going forward but simply because cutting Jeff's balls off one month after a triumph like his at Armageddon and the post-match celebration, which felt like a genuine "game-changing" ascension to main event, was horrible. Watching Armageddon and thinking "this is it, Jeff, one month, enjoy yourself" is ridiculous, and that was his only run. No, getting the Big Gold Belt is not the same, and don't pretend it was. This was Jeff's only stint as THE MAN.

 

I've just remembered that the original plan for the original planned Christian return/turn would have been Hardys VS E&C at WrestleMania, which while it would have been a fun spectacle, would have been unbecoming for a guy on Edge's level, and a guy on the level that they SHOULD have been pushing Jeff at the time - the level they permitted him to look at Armageddon.

[ColinBollocks]

 

For me Ryback should have gone over Punk for the title in the Hell in a Cell in 2012. I know they had plans all along to have Punk drop the belt to The Rock to transition it back onto Cena but I think they missed a big opportunity to create a fresh new star in Ryback.

 

I think with Ryback it's more a case of 'The Wrong Guy Was Put In The Match In The First Place'. I know he was gathering momentum but if it was going to affect the long-term plan they shouldn't have put him in the position where they'd either lose all that momentum, or scupper their long-term plan.

 

According to Jericho, the year he put over Fandango was the year he was supposed to work with Ryback to get him ready for his eventual main event run. It's a shame Cena ended up getting injured around HIAC, as Ryback may be their top babyface right now. Certainly, the HIAC PPV did a good number with Ryback on top.

 

SummerSlam 2003. Goldberg looked like an absolute star in WWE for the first and only time. He should have gone over Triple H. The roof would have blown off, Goldberg would have gathered momentum and a rematch would have done good business. Instead, they tried to be too clever and the eventual title win was anti-climatic.

Definitely this. It was becoming rather clear WWE wasn't for me anymore, but this result killed my enthusiasm for wrestling. Literally didn't watch a thing, for about 5 years, after seeing them do a Cleveland steamer on big Bill's chest.

 

If it wasn't for them buggering up the Invasion, I'd have WWE Goldberg as the biggest anti-climax/waste of time in the last 20 years. Goldberg is the easiest bloke in the World to book and the one night they give the fans THAT Goldberg it goes tits up again. It still annoys me that match.

[unfitfinlay]

Kurt Angle should have gone over HHH at Unforgiven 2000.  It was the climax of the three way love triangle with the two of them and Stephanie McMahon.  All roads seemed to lead to Steph turning on Hunter and joining Kurt, but the match was a borefest which saw HHH go over clean.

I agree about Triple H vs Kurt Angle at Unforgiven 2000. They spent ages gradually building up the relationship between Stephanie and Angle, to the point that people were desperate to see them together. Stephanie low blowing Angle and them basically just deciding to forget the whole thing was a massive anti-climax that benefited nobody.

 

I agree in part with both of you on this one ; I'm not saying Angle should definitely have won, but SOMETHING should have happened, either via an unexpected result or a storyline development. This might have been the forerunner of "everyone knows THIS is happening, so let's not" in regards to Stephanie going off with Kurt, that we would see with the Rumble 2009 Christian comeback being aborted. The ending of "Hunter wins and him and Steph are fine" was just dull and did nothing for anyone. It's possible their logic was give the increasingly popular Triple H the win over a heel to further cement him as a babyface because they wanted it to be super shocking when they turned him back. Who knows.

 

Yep, I've got no problem with swerves as such but they need to be as good, if not better, than what the crowd is expecting. Otherwise it's going to fall flat.

 

I still think Angle winning would've been for the best though. He still wasn't really established as a headliner at that point. Beating Triple H and stealing his wife would've given him a lot more momentum going into winning the Title the next month and would've made rematches far far more interesting than what actually happened.

[King Pitcos]

Ryback getting fucked over by Punk is the obvious one that sticks out to me. There's a chance it'd have gone to bollocks anyway because he was a new top babyface with muscles and without workrate cred, so the TV crowds might well have turned on him straight after. But WWE hadn't encouraged that behaviour as much in 2012 as they did a year or so later. On the other hand, he was fair sloppy shite at the time and that night killing his mystique (and leading to him doing rubbish for the next two years) likely made him a better performer. And the bully stuff was fun.

 

I'd say Brock Lesnar and Undertaker was probably the wrong call now, knowing that it amounted to fuck all ultimately because they lost their bottle. "Seth Rollins is a sneaky heel" as the WrestleMania 31 ending could've been done without the streak being broken the year before.

 

I'd go with Orton vs Kofi at TLC 2009 having the wrong result, but they'd already screwed that feud up by doing the match multiple times on Raw prior to the PPV. And to be fair, from Kofi's position, a losing effort in a competitive, brilliant match would've helped him too -- but their match was nondescript and I've already long forgotten it.

[LEGIT]

Luger at Summerslam 1993 is the obvious one for me. Granted he did go over, but he didn't really. Brings home the point that the way you win is more important than the statement of a victory.

That wins for me. Luger should have won the belt that day. Everything was geared towards that. It's a shame the way his WWF career went after that, especially after Wrestlemania X

[air_raid]

I'd go with Orton vs Kofi at TLC 2009 having the wrong result, but they'd already screwed that feud up by doing the match multiple times on Raw prior to the PPV. And to be fair, from Kofi's position, a losing effort in a competitive, brilliant match would've helped him too -- but their match was nondescript and I've already long forgotten it.

 

It was essentially booked the wrong way round. Kofi beating Punk then Orton at Survivors, totally unexpectedly, then getting swat back down to his place (the midcard) at TLC, did less than nothing for his prospects and seeing his appearances in early 2010 you would never have guessed they'd tried to elevate him ; he was still just another guy. If you have Kofi left alone with Punk and Orton at Survivors, put in a gallant effort and been narrowly beaten by a cheating Orton, you create some intrigue from people thinking Kofi could beat him, then they watch TLC hoping he DOES, and then they get to see him finally get the win, and just like that he's a star if he's capable of cleaning beating a Randy Orton in singles on PPV. But they didn't, Orton had to win the feud because... I don't know. Because they wanted him strong for a shot at Sheamus at the Rumble? A weird, heel vs heel title match with a shit finish that he wasn't winning anyway? That he could have easily earned winning a top-contenders multi-man on Raw or something. I guarantee by the time Orton turns babyface nobody cares that he lost a few months earlier, but the win could have been the big rub for Kingston.

[fraserbee]

 

Luger at Summerslam 1993 is the obvious one for me. Granted he did go over, but he didn't really. Brings home the point that the way you win is more important than the statement of a victory.

That wins for me. Luger should have won the belt that day. Everything was geared towards that. It's a shame the way his WWF career went after that, especially after Wrestlemania X

This 100%. I cannot understand what they were thinking not giving Luger the belt that night. He maybe wasn't as over as they hoped he would be but not letting him go over Yoko just totally killed him stone dead. Poor Lex also should have beaten Flair in at Starrcade 88. Even if he just got a shortish run and dropped it back would have been ok. After his two failed PPV main events with Flair in 88 though he really slipped down in status until Sting got injured in1990 and people really got behind him again at WrestleWar, only for him to fluff it again.

[The Cutting Edge]

The Nexus vs Team WWE at SummerSlam 2010

 

Nexus should've won, it was a hot angle (I think? Well I liked it) if there was any hope of any of them being legit main eventers or threats then a win over multible former world champions would've helped. They were a solid unit against a heel/face mix that had internal drama so it could've created more stories coming out of it

 

Instead they lost and tried to continue on and had threats of a bigger picture and rumors of Triple H being a surprise leader etc,  Barrett vs Orton at Survivor Series with Cena as ref was weird, Cena getting fired but never being off Raw, Punk stealing the group from Barrett, the group splitting to become The Corre with no pay off apart from a little Rumble showdown.

 

The angle could've been bigger and lasted alot longer but from Summerslam it fell apart, Skip got injured, added then crappy husky harris and mike mcgillicutty and it was another watered down angle that had potential and may have made a few top guys but they're all mostly stuck in the mid card for good.

 

Barrett is doing good now but it took a while to get momentum again 

Skip became Ryback

Husky became Bray Wyatt

Mcgillicutty became Curtis Axel 

 

the rest are gone or superstar fodder 

[PBWFan]

Wyatt going over would have devalued Lesnar's win immediately and made Lesnar a weaker character without him being even near the match.

 

I think Wyatt/Taker was rushed. Or not enough thought had gone into the whole thing other than just "because". Really had hoped that when Wyatt debuted and attacked Kane, they were going to revisit the Taker/Kane backstory and have the Wyatts as possibly another family from the neighbourhood or whatever. Wyatt should have gunned for Taker the second he got there, much in the same way Hade Vansen would have.

 

They missed a beat there I think.

[Supremo]

Looking at what a star attraction Lesnar has became ever since he started smashing fuck out of guys like Taker and Cena last year, it really makes those losses to Cena and Triple H when he came in look pretty dumb.