Wrestlemania falls from grace

[JNLister]

Bloody hell, that's what you get for assuming.

My new answer to this question is Papa Shango.

[RIDDUM_N_STYLE]

Bart Gunn has to be up here surely? Went from a high profile Tag Title match with Billy against Owen and Yokozuna at 11 to not making the card at all at 12 and 13 then appeared in the Tag Team Battle Royal that opened 14 (albeit in the failed New Midnight Express gimmick with Bob Holly) before getting knocked out in embarrassing fashion by Butterbean at 15

[air_raid]

10 hours ago, RIDDUM_N_STYLE said:

Bart Gunn has to be up here surely? Went from a high profile Tag Title match with Billy against Owen and Yokozuna at 11 to not making the card at all at 12 and 13 then appeared in the Tag Team Battle Royal that opened 14 (albeit in the failed New Midnight Express gimmick with Bob Holly) before getting knocked out in embarrassing fashion by Butterbean at 15

In isolation, that's not a big deal. The Smoking Gunns did not wrestle at Mania 12 because one half of The Smoking Gunns was out with a neck injury. Thereafter... eh.

Hogan to little people is still the benchmark for me.

[Carbomb]

I don't understand why Bundy wasn't a bigger deal. He was solid in the ring, had a great villain look, and was really quite good on the mike - his promo style was articulate, intelligent, but also menacing.

[Version1.0]

Kane and RVD must have been gutted to be on the pre-show at Mania 19.

[air_raid]

8 hours ago, Carbomb said:

I don't understand why Bundy wasn't a bigger deal. He was solid in the ring, had a great villain look, and was really quite good on the mike - his promo style was articulate, intelligent, but also menacing.

He was a big deal. He feuded with Andre before Hogan and kayfabe injured both. He was still with Andre (during the Heenan Family vs masked “Machines” thing) between Mania 2 and 3 up until the Giant turned and post Mania 3 debacle he still was up there, working Hogan on two SNME and being on Andre’s team at the first Survivor Series - it was only thereafter that he meandered for a bit and disappeared when his tenure hit the 3 year mark - which was about par for the course for “hey, here’s a big guy we can feed to Hogan” for most of the 80s and early 90s.

They maybe might have done more with him on his return. I remember the hype quite well when WWF Magazine said a “440lb behemoth” was coming back specifically to target Bret (who was WWF champ) at the time and if the weight and “returning” didn’t give away that it was him, the “mystery man” in silhouette definitely did. The Bret run ended up a non event restricted to a few matches on the pre-Survivor Series European tour by which time he was back on TV in the doomed Million $ Corporation - maybe plans changed as they often did, maybe the piece solely existed to promote to those buying tour tickets, or maybe they realised, as many of us thought at the time, a big bloke (young though he’d been) who’d wrestled at Mania 1-3 pottering about felt a bit out of place when they were trying to push “The New Generation.”

Incidentally one of the Andre vs Bundy matches was billed as “The Colossal Jostle.” Which is the most Vince thing ever, this side of “cahoots” and “stupendous.”

Edited March 24, 2024 by air_raid
you was the generation that bought more shoes and you get what you deserve

[TheScarlettChad]

I'd love to see a reverse of this thread, Like take Benoit for example, and Guerrero. Both were on nothing matches at 19, then main evented 20. 

[HarmonicGenerator]

1 hour ago, TheScarlettChad said:

I'd love to see a reverse of this thread, Like take Benoit for example, and Guerrero. Both were on nothing matches at 19, then main evented 20. 

If we’re talking reverses, Bradshaw being in a nothing four way tag filler match at 20, followed by going into 21 as the longest reigning WWE Champion in years sticks out.

[Carbomb]

2 hours ago, air_raid said:

He was a big deal. He feuded with Andre before Hogan and kayfabe injured both. He was still with Andre (during the Heenan Family vs masked “Machines” thing) between Mania 2 and 3 up until the Giant turned and post Mania 3 debacle he still was up there, working Hogan on two SNME and being on Andre’s team at the first Survivor Series - it was only thereafter that he meandered for a bit and disappeared when his tenure hit the 3 year mark - which was about par for the course for “hey, here’s a big guy we can feed to Hogan” for most of the 80s and early 90s.

They maybe might have done more with him on his return. I remember the hype quite well when WWF Magazine said a “440lb behemoth” was coming back specifically to target Bret (who was WWF champ) at the time and if the weight and “returning” didn’t give away that it was him, the “mystery man” in silhouette definitely did. The Bret run ended up a non event restricted to a few matches on the pre-Survivor Series European tour by which time he was back on TV in the doomed Million $ Corporation - maybe plans changed as they often did, maybe the piece solely existed to promote to those buying tour tickets, or maybe they realised, as many of us thought at the time, a big bloke (young though he’d been) who’d wrestled at Mania 1-3 pottering about felt a bit out of place when they were trying to push “The New Generation.”

Incidentally one of the Andre vs Bundy matches was billed as “The Colossal Jostle.” Which is the most Vince thing ever, this side of “cahoots” and “stupendous.”

Fair enough. It just feels like there's something missing in his "legend story", as it were, for somebody from the Rock & Wrestling era. I suppose I had to have been watching at the time to really get it.

[air_raid]

36 minutes ago, HarmonicGenerator said:

If we’re talking reverses, Bradshaw being in a nothing four way tag filler match at 20, followed by going into 21 as the longest reigning WWE Champion in years sticks out.

That’s got to be the winner, surely? Just as “one of the Acolytes” to WWE champion was such a ridiculously fast promotion, probably the worst ever, I’m not sure much thought needs going in to the question.

Probably someone thinking Cena is a shout going from “opener” to WWE Champion one year to the next. Oblivious to how he’d been wrestling Lesnar, Taker and Kurt for most of the year prior to Mania XX and at the point he’s pinning Big Show for the US title, it actually looks a big deal for that belt getting put on Cena who’s already carrying himself like an heir apparent. So… yeah, no.

Edited March 24, 2024 by air_raid
Nice packet of Crunchy Nut you've got here. Pretty expensive, as I recall.

[Supremo]

On the reverse front, Becky Lynch went from not even winning the pre-show Battle Royale at Wrestlemania 34, to winning the main event at Wrestlemania 35.

[RedRooster]

Another on the reverse front - Miz, going from a tag match that lasted slightly over 3 minutes at Wrestlemania 26, to main eventing 27. Then, as mentioned earlier in the thread, he plummeted down the card the year following. Best of both worlds, as far as this thread is concerned.

[air_raid]

3 hours ago, Supremo said:

On the reverse front, Becky Lynch went from not even winning the pre-show Battle Royale at Wrestlemania 34, to winning the main event at Wrestlemania 35.

The worst treatment there was for Sasha and Bayley, who the office decided wouldn’t get a proper falling out and Mania match because there “wasn’t time” to build it up properly on Raw despite there being ample table-laying in both the Rumble and the Elimination Chamber, so both had to make do with a confrontation at the end of the battle royal, which was won by… SmackDowns Naomi.

[Carbomb]

Not having kept an eye on things WWE, have to ask: wasn't Jinder Mahal quite quickly raised from a jobber to world champ? I know McIntyre had some time between 3MB and the main event.

[Danny Franchetti’s Jazzbox]

Jinder was runner up in the Andre battle royal at wm33 on the pre show, losing to Mojo after Gronk helped him, and by the next Mania he had won and lost the wwe title, competing and winning a 4 way for the US title at wm34 so a slight improvement on his mania spot but a bit of a comedown from the summer in between.