Jump to content

Pro Wrestling Matchmaking


TheLowdown1987

Recommended Posts

Matchmaking or booking, whatever you want to call it is a very simple thing in Professional Wrestling. I would imagine it's quite easy to make important 'Snow Ball' calls where you book months and even years in advance with the only issues being injuries and contracts. Where as UFC and Boxing don't have the luxury of knowing who is going to win in advance, Pro Wrestling shouldn't get it wrong at all. So what are the worst decisions you have seen?

 

Looking back now, these three stand out for me, all Hogan I know but some really bizarre matchmaking involving him from 1990-1993:

 

Hulk Hogan vs Ultimate Warrior II - WWF World Championship - WrestleMania 7 - Surely it was as simple as 'Look, Warrior wins at 6, build him during 1990 and we have the big rematch at 7 and have Hogan go over. Could have sold 60,000 again easily and maybe they could have filled the LA Coliseum with the right hype job. So they go with Hogan vs Slaughter and Savage vs Warrior. Bizarre. 

 

 

Hulk Hogan vs Ric Flair - WWF World Championship - WrestleMania 8 - Needs no real introduction does it. Flair comes in and you build right away 'Hogan vs Flair' The two biggest names in Pro Wrestling history, it's finally going to happen. But Hogan needs to get past Undertaker first. He beats him at SS91 after shenanigans so doesn't really hurt Taker but wins the belt and it is set. The winner of the RR92 gets the title shot. Flair wins, and there we have it. Now I know Hogan and Flair were not clicking on the house show circuit if you listen to Meltzer but ultimately going out there for 15 minutes and doing what they do best would be pretty easy, surely?. All anybody needs to do is watch Bash at the Beach 94 and see how Heenan and co built that match. They made it seem massive. Have Savage vs Sid in the other match? Doesn't really matter as It would have been all about Hogan vs Flair. Hogan going away during 1992 I understand but you could easily work something out, drop the belt after the match, create a tournament to crown a new champion, anything. 

 

 

Hulk Hogan vs Bret Hart - WWF World Championship - SummerSlam 1993 - I get it, Hogan had Vince's ear and Vince was playing them both off each other. But they way it panned out was odd. Surely Hogan would have been better off going out in a barnstormer with Bret at the 2nd biggest PPV of the year rather than out the back door at the KOTR against Yokozuna. It would have been much easier to have Hogan do his promo at WM9 challenging the winner, have Hart win after shenanigans with Fuji etc and then have Yokozuna win the KOTR and build towards a huge SummerSlam showdown with Hogan.

 

People will say Hogan had creative control etc but I find that hard to believe. I don't think for one minute Vince just allowed Hogan to do what he wanted.  Plus Thunder in Paradise and Hogan's other ventures could have easily been moulded to suit big matches during 1992-1993, I am sure of it. Vince had the final say and during 1990-1993 got it wrong, a lot.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Stone Cold vs. Triple H - Backlash 2001 and onwards. Trips beat Austin at No Way Out 2001 and was surely ripe to be turned face against Austin as a major feud, but he wanted to stay heel. Essentially, Vince or someone else should've stuck firm and told him to man up and be the No. 1 face the company needed with The Rock gone.

 

Speaking of which...

 

The Rock vs. Stone Cold - SummerSlam 2001. I was a new fan that year, but after Austin and Vince screwed The Rock at 'Mania, I really wanted him to get some proper revenge, and whilst the whole Alliance vs. WWF thing got in the way, it nonetheless remains that the only Austin/Rock rematch was at Rebellion, which didn't really have the gravitas it should've had. I get that they were trying to bring Jericho and Benoit to the fore by King of the Ring, but it just didn't have the same effect an Austin/Rock return bout would've.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Paid Members

Hulk Hogan vs Ultimate Warrior II - WWF World Championship - WrestleMania 7 - Surely it was as simple as 'Look, Warrior wins at 6, build him during 1990 and we have the big rematch at 7 and have Hogan go over. Could have sold 60,000 again easily and maybe they could have filled the LA Coliseum with the right hype job. So they go with Hogan vs Slaughter and Savage vs Warrior. Bizarre. 

 

 

The idea of Warrior beating Hogan cleanly was to give him chance to be "The Man" in the WWF. Hogan was fucking off for a bit to do films and simultaneously he wanted to see if he could make it in Hollywood and also he and Vince were already talking about the future i.e. life after Hulk on top because they knew it couldn't last forever and that there was a danger of Hogan burning out. The decision to have Warrior lose the title cheaply so you can present a Mania around Hogan and Warrior beating two heels is simple - they both look strong going into the summer where they each expected to draw big houses in the A and B towns. Beating Warrior cleanly on TV (which logically Hogan would have, if he was taking the title) was never going to be on their agenda. He'd already had less appeal at the gate in the A towns as champion as they would have liked, they wouldn't have dreamed of diminishing his star power further by having him drop the belt clean, much less underline him as "not as good as Hogan" even though attendances suggested people had decided that of their own accord anyway.

 

Would 60,000 people converged on California for a rematch? Who knows. Creatively speaking, I'm pretty happy that we got the one Hogan/Warrior match (which was better than it had any right to be) and Warrior/Savage which was one of the best slices of dramatic storytelling American wrestling has ever produced. Suggestions that Warrior should have done anything else at WrestleMania VII is blasphemy to me.

 

 

Stone Cold vs. Triple H - Backlash 2001 and onwards. Trips beat Austin at No Way Out 2001 and was surely ripe to be turned face against Austin as a major feud, but he wanted to stay heel. Essentially, Vince or someone else should've stuck firm and told him to man up and be the No. 1 face the company needed with The Rock gone.

 

They still would have gone in that direction if Hunter hadn't got hurt. The finish to the tag team title match where they dumped the belts to Jericho & Benoit was sewing the first seeds of dissension - each would blame the other for the loss, Hunter blaming Austin for getting pinned, Austin blaming Hunter for screwing up with his sledgie. After Austin had had a go with Jericho and Hunter with Benoit, they'd have split with Hunter turning.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Paid Members

I am surprised they didn't do Hogan/Warrior 2. Purely for Hogan to get his win back. Obviously it would have denied me my favourite ever match but even still. With hindsight, I'm sure they wish they had given what a flop WM7 was at the gate and Warrior getting fired.

 

The fact Austin/Goldberg never happened seems crazy to me. It would have been like printing money wouldn't it? Considering all the desperate stuff they tried in 2002, it's strange that wasn't one of them.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The Triple H thing always comes up but to be fair Austin and Triple H had pretty much feuded on off from October 2000 - No Way Out 2001 - regardless of if the Heel/Face dynamic had been shifted, for them to have another big feud just two months after there last one ended would have been a bit too much.

 

Least with them together and then going down the route of Trips turning around August time it'd of gave them a bit of a break and more layers to add to the story.

 

I assume had Triple H not been injured he'd of played the role that Kurt Angle ended up playing during the Invasion, probably without dropping the belt so quick after winning it though

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I am surprised they didn't do Hogan/Warrior 2. Purely for Hogan to get his win back. Obviously it would have denied me my favourite ever match but even still. With hindsight, I'm sure they wish they had given what a flop WM7 was at the gate and Warrior getting fired.

 

The fact Austin/Goldberg never happened seems crazy to me. It would have been like printing money wouldn't it? Considering all the desperate stuff they tried in 2002, it's strange that wasn't one of them.

 

Goldberg wasn't available to post WM19 was he, or at least too soon to Mania 19 to build him up for a match.  So when he debuted on Raw the night after it was clear Austin was probably done leaving The Rock as the best choice.

 

If they had the chance to do something with him at Mania I don't know why they didn't

 

Here's one looking at why the hell they did it..

 

Edge Vs Big Show Vs John Cena WM25   "The 25th Anniversary of Wrestlemania" (Heard it reused watching Royal Rumble 2010 and made me cringe this week)

 

I still don't understand how we got to this match really. Edge was in a feud with Jeff Hardy and Christian was on his way back, they could have had a tag match of a 4 way for the title or 2 separate matches. But instead we got this 3 way more about Vickie Guerrero than the title. When I saw this coming it really deflated me for mania.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Paid Members
Edge Vs Big Show Vs John Cena WM25   "The 25th Anniversary of Wrestlemania" (Heard it reused watching Royal Rumble 2010 and made me cringe this week)

 

I still don't understand how we got to this match really. Edge was in a feud with Jeff Hardy and Christian was on his way back, they could have had a tag match of a 4 way for the title or 2 separate matches. But instead we got this 3 way more about Vickie Guerrero than the title. When I saw this coming it really deflated me for mania.

 

Yeah, I haven't got a clue what the plan for Cena would have been for Mania 25 if all the ducks had lined up properly with the Hardys/Edge & Christian run, i.e. if Vince hadn't shitcanned it because Christian returning to help Edge win the belt was "too obvious." Dickhead. But I refuse to believe Cena would have been out there with Big Show one on one. Maybe they had to panic-book because they had previously hoped Big Dave would be back in time.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Paid Members

Hulk Hogan vs Ric Flair - WWF World Championship - WrestleMania 8 - Needs no real introduction does it. Flair comes in and you build right away 'Hogan vs Flair' The two biggest names in Pro Wrestling history, it's finally going to happen. But Hogan needs to get past Undertaker first. He beats him at SS91 after shenanigans so doesn't really hurt Taker but wins the belt and it is set. The winner of the RR92 gets the title shot. Flair wins, and there we have it. Now I know Hogan and Flair were not clicking on the house show circuit if you listen to Meltzer but ultimately going out there for 15 minutes and doing what they do best would be pretty easy, surely?. All anybody needs to do is watch Bash at the Beach 94 and see how Heenan and co built that match. They made it seem massive. Have Savage vs Sid in the other match? Doesn't really matter as It would have been all about Hogan vs Flair. Hogan going away during 1992 I understand but you could easily work something out, drop the belt after the match, create a tournament to crown a new champion, anything.

 

Apparently Sid was promised a Wrestlemania match against Hogan in his contract.

 

Flair vs Hogan at Wrestlemania 8 was just unworkable anyway, to be honest. Hogan wasn't doing the job for Flair under any circumstances, and he was fucking off immediately after the match, with no promises that he was ever coming back. You could do a tournament but unless Hogan was in it, the new Champion wouldn't have any credibility. Especially if it was Flair, who would've just lost to him.

 

Bash at Beach '94, on the other hand, was perfect. Hogan was debuting in WCW against established World Champion Ric Flair. Hogan was obviously going to be the new top guy and Flair was never going to have a problem putting him over.

 

Hulk Hogan vs Bret Hart - WWF World Championship - SummerSlam 1993 - I get it, Hogan had Vince's ear and Vince was playing them both off each other. But they way it panned out was odd. Surely Hogan would have been better off going out in a barnstormer with Bret at the 2nd biggest PPV of the year rather than out the back door at the KOTR against Yokozuna. It would have been much easier to have Hogan do his promo at WM9 challenging the winner, have Hart win after shenanigans with Fuji etc and then have Yokozuna win the KOTR and build towards a huge SummerSlam showdown with Hogan.

 

 

People will say Hogan had creative control etc but I find that hard to believe. I don't think for one minute Vince just allowed Hogan to do what he wanted. Plus Thunder in Paradise and Hogan's other ventures could have easily been moulded to suit big matches during 1992-1993, I am sure of it. Vince had the final say and during 1990-1993 got it wrong, a lot.

Hogan didn't have creative control as such back then but he definitely had a major major influence. Shawn Michaels was one of the worst drawing Champions ever and Vince still bent over backwards to accomodate him. You really think he was going to stand up to the biggest draw in the business? Hogan wasn't bothered about the WWF back then. He cheerfully buried the title to build up his match against Muta in Japan, referring to it as a trinket, a toy etc. He flat out refused to work with Bret because he genuinely thought that working with someone so small would hurt his star power. Flair apparently got scolded by Beefcake for selling too much for Eddie Guerrero, because Hogan thought that he'd look weak working against someone who had previously trouble with someone as small as Guerrero.

 

So, yeah, Hogan was a selfish dick and any plan that required him not to be a selfish dick just wasn't workable.

 

Anyway, the first thing that always comes to mind in threads like this is Angle vs Samoa Joe in TNA. Joe had beaten everybody in TNA, while Angle had just jumped from WWE's C-Show. Joe should've won, refused to shake Angle's hand and refused any suggestion of a rematch, and then won the Title from Sting the next month, while Angle could've talked about how TNA was a step up from what he was used to and busied himself with LAX and their flag burning shite (rather than Petey Williams) and built to a rematch for the title. Instead Angle beating Joe, by tap out no less, just made the entire TNA roster look totally inferior to WWE.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Paid Members
He flat out refused to work with Bret because he genuinely thought that working with someone so small would hurt his star power.

 

Hogan refutes this every time it comes up. In his book he describes his entire title reign coming about because right before Mania he went up to Vince and told him they knew he was done, and since the plan was to go with Yoko, he volunteered to put him over and pass the torch, and suggested that he take the title so Yoko could crush him on his way out. Once Vince agreed, he laughed to himself that he'd scored himself one more payday. The whole Hogan scenario was for him giving the rub to Yoko and Bret was never a consideration, and when Bret got in his face on the day of King of the Ring, Hogan dragged him into Vince's office so Vince could back him up that he'd never even been asked about working with Bret.

 

Bret describes that meeting in his book that he turns to Vince and says "Tell him what you just told me" about Hogan refusing to work with him, and Vince goes "I don't know what you're talking about" because he didn't want Hogan to know he'd been lying to Bret about him. Blame the guy who's leaving for him not getting the belt back rather than just being straight with him that he wanted the belt on Yoko for a bit, or maybe had already decided they were going to try and build Luger (this being about 3 weeks before the bodyslam aboard the Intrepid).

 

We'll never get Vince's side, I'm sure, but Hogan spins the "Hogan won't put Bret over" idea as a work of fiction told by Vince to Bret. The fact that Vince wouldn't repeat that story to Bret in front of Hogan kind of makes me believe that that's exactly what was happening. Why would the idea of Hogan losing the title to Bret even come up anyway, when they'd already put the building blocks in place for Yoko to be a monster heel champion going forward?

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...