This should have happened instead...

[garynysmon]

What the fuck was the WWF thinking in basically shelving Macho Man Randy Savage during 1993?

Star power had never been lower with almost all the real superstars having left during late 1992. Yet, where they had Savage there and available to put the 'New Generation" over, there he was stinking up commentary on Superstars.

In an alternative world, in early April he'd have been there submitting to the Sharphooter in the Las Vegas desert.

 

[Briefcase]

8 hours ago, mim731 said:

I'm not sure I agree. Surely the "anti-American heel" gimmick can only go as far as losing to the All-American hero on the biggest stage possible, and who else fits that role better than Cena? That result was necessary to evolve his gimmick further beyond that singular dimension, but it was their failure to capitalise on his in-ring improvements and fantastic character strides with decent booking that stopped Rusev becoming a top tier heel. 

Agree with this. I think WrestleMania is the one show where sometimes it isn't as straight forward as putting someone over (in this case Rusev), it's almost seen as the end of season show & you need feel good moments where the goodies overcome the baddies. If WrestleMania is the final chapter then it needs happy endings.

Besides Cena has put over the likes of Styles (Summerslam) and Kevin Owens (on his debut) on other shows. 

[The King of Old School]

9 hours ago, Briefcase said:

If WrestleMania is the final chapter then it needs happy endings.

 

This always baffles me.

Wrestlemania is never the final chapter,it's just a big show in the middle of all the other crap. There's usually Mania rematches galore after the show.

The past two years we have had the exact same Universal Title matches at Summerslam to what happened at that years Mania.

[Supremo]

No Mercy 2007, once they realised Cena was injured and was going to have to forfeit the Title, they should’ve called an audible and moved Chris Jericho’s, “save_us,” return forward a few weeks. Despite being more than ten years ago I still remember Vince’s face during the opening promo of that show, the exact moment when he realised he’d dropped a bollock by not bringing Chris in. 

“I’m going to give you fans what you want.”

*RAPID Y2J CHANTS*

”Well, umm, I’m not going to give you that.”

The timing was perfect and it would’ve made for an amazing, memorable moment for Jericho to return and become Champion on his first night back. As it was, no-one really remembers the show and Jericho’s return a few weeks later is remembered for being an awkward, stilted, shitty rehash that didn’t get anywhere near the reaction you’d expect. 

They had their perfect window and they missed it badly.

Also, Bray Wyatt vs. Randy Orton at Wrestlemania should’ve been a Triple Threat with Luke Harper. More Harper and less maggots would’ve saved that from being one of the worst WWE Title matches in Wrestlemania history.

Finally, whilst I don’t think it really mattered in the long run, when you look at it with historical perspective Brock Lesnar’s losses to Cena and Triple H before eventually ending The Streak sure as fuck don’t make much sense. Maybe people may have actually believed he could’ve beaten Undertaker if he’d been an unstoppable monster until that point. But then, maybe the moment wouldn’t have been half as good if people were actually invested and believed he was going to win. For me, the fact I didn’t give a shit about that match and was so certain Taker was winning was precisely what made it so mind blowing when that ref’s hand hit three. Honestly, goosebumps even writing about just now. Best moment ever.

Edited September 17, 2019 by Supremo

[BomberPat]

I didn't mind Lesnar's loss to Cena so much - it was his first match back, I don't think anyone really knew how good he would be (because that match was superb, and a rare example of WWE deviating from their big match formula with great success), and the way it was booked was very much, "Lesnar lost because he got cocky", and that's been a consistent character trait of Brock's ever since. 

The loss to Triple H could fuck off, though, as could the entire feud. It felt like Triple H having to get in on the cool new thing, rather than a feud anyone was clamouring for. And in a period where Lesnar was restricted to very few matches a year, he had five matches in 2012 and 2013 combined, and three of them were against Triple H. One of them was a retirement match, which Triple H had to be goaded out of retirement to accept, which is the kind of set-up hack writers would still be making fun of WCW for twenty years after the fact, yet somehow we've let WWE get away with that one. Plus Triple H having his "arm broken" to zero consequence, and showing up on TV looking fine. The whole feud could fuck off.

[Carbomb]

Yeah, that first Lesnar/Cena match was perfectly booked, for me. Cena looked like he'd barely survived, and Lesnar looked like an absolute monster who'd snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. I don't know that Lesnar would've looked much better if he'd won a more hard-fought contest, and they certainly couldn't have finished the match they did have with Lesnar going over - it would've jobbed out Cena completely, which would go against everything they'd booked him to be. Maybe they could've had Lesnar destroy him, and then do a storyline where Cena has to really dig deep to finally beat the guy, but Lesnar wasn't going to be around much, so it was probably better to have him up against a fresh opponent every match.

[Briefcase]

2 hours ago, The King of Old School said:

This always baffles me.

Wrestlemania is never the final chapter,it's just a big show in the middle of all the other crap. There's usually Mania rematches galore after the show.

The past two years we have had the exact same Universal Title matches at Summerslam to what happened at that years Mania.

Maybe I didn't really word it well and you are right actually, but I always got the impression with Mania that its a feel good end of season PPV, the whole road to WrestleMania in the months before etc. But going back to the other point made earlier I can see why the likes of Cena/Undertaker would win here and there are plenty of other PPV's as you said with rematches for the likes of Rusev to get the wins back, I suppose the way I look at Mania is that its the one PPV where I can understand why the winners/losers are what they are, its almost as if they do the show more for the live audience than those watching at home, as daft as that sounds. 

[Chris B]

The HHH and Kurt Angle feud should have led to Stephanie McMahon leaving HHH for Kurt Angle. It was the first time in a while, around that time, that it felt like they made a serious mis-step, and I still feel it cost them dearly - people were up for the next major development, and instead, it reverted back to the status quo. It was like the 'Higher Power' storyline, where the reveal was just back to what they'd been doing for a while.

People were itching to cheer HHH, and while he'd been a dastardly heel, his long-standing protective nature around Stephanie meant the sympathy was there for him to turn babyface. And Angle was exactly right as the sneaky dickhead who was hilarious to watch. At the time, I knew a bunch of women who were really into the storyline who were really turned off by the ending - while that's obviously anecdotal, I reckon they hit on something strong with the storytelling and then struck out with an audience they'd been growing that they just hadn't had before.

Over the decades, their inability to move storylines progressively, and their reliance on the same names has really hurt them.

[tiger_rick]

Vince should have screwed Shawn Michaels in Montreal. 😢

(@King Pitcos)

[JNLister]

YAY!

 

 

BOO!

[Pinc]

Everyone in the Nexus was rubbish at the time including (especially) Wade Barrett. There was no point in putting any of them over Cena once Bryan had been sacked. Don't understand the persistent fixation on that storyline as a missed opportunity. They got well more than they had any right to out of that batch of NXTers just by getting them to a SummerSlam main.

[King Pitcos]

4 hours ago, tiger_rick said:

Vince should have screwed Shawn Michaels in Montreal. 😢

(@King Pitcos)

He did. He booked him to tap out to Ted DiBiase and Cody Rhodes.

[LaGoosh]

8 hours ago, BomberPat said:

It felt like Triple H having to get in on the cool new thing, rather than a feud anyone was clamouring for. 

I feel like this covers the majority of Triple H's career.

[Sphinx]

16 hours ago, Carbomb said:

Yeah, that first Lesnar/Cena match was perfectly booked, for me. Cena looked like he'd barely survived, and Lesnar looked like an absolute monster who'd snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. I don't know that Lesnar would've looked much better if he'd won a more hard-fought contest, and they certainly couldn't have finished the match they did have with Lesnar going over - it would've jobbed out Cena completely, which would go against everything they'd booked him to be. Maybe they could've had Lesnar destroy him, and then do a storyline where Cena has to really dig deep to finally beat the guy, but Lesnar wasn't going to be around much, so it was probably better to have him up against a fresh opponent every match.

He did a promo for ages after the match which didn't really lead to anything the next night on Raw so I can't fully agree he looked like he barely survived. I was completely hooked by that match until the anticlimatic promo at the end. He should have been absolutely fucked as the show went off the air, not banging on.

[Callum1993]

I disagree that Cena needed that win considering the next month he lost to fucking Johnny Ace to kick off ANOTHER feud with Big Show. If anything that year should have been the year to kick off a Cena heel turn. You had him losing to The Rock at Mania then potentially losing to Lesnar at Extreme Rules. They should have done a self-doubt story with Cena which could have led to a heel turn or if not that at least something different to what he’d been doing for years at that point.