Opposite Trajectories

[tiger_rick]

I listened to an old review of BATB 96 and during Jim Duggan vs. DDP, there was an interesting discussion about where their respective careers would be in a year. DDP would be absolutely flying in the Randy Savage/nWo feud and becoming a babyface star while Duggan barely made Nitro in 97, let alone PPV. WW3 was not only his only PPV match of 1997, it was his only PPV match between WW3 in 1996 and Fall Brawl 1999, the latter half due to his Kidney Cancer.

Got me thinking about some other examples of careers being completely different one year on from a big match. I know King Kong Bundy is cited as an example of this but that doesn't work here because Hogan was the man at WM2 and still was at WM3.

Most obvious one that jumped out to me was Steve Austin v Bret Hart at Mania 13. A year on, Austin beat Shawn Michaels to cement his status as the biggest star in the industry. Bret wasn't a nobody, by any stretch, but he'd already been downplayed by the WWF, while their World Champion in the Autumn of 1997 and then jumped to WCW in a heartwrenching way which probably killed about 99% of his remaining love for wrestling. He had PPV matches with Ric Flair and Randy Savage and would tag with Hogan against Piper and Savage at GAB but he was in the midst of a feud with Hennig in March and would be a US Title level guy for the rest of the year and everything about his motivation and booking was a million miles from the Spring and Summer of 1997. (Aside - That US Title was fought over by Bret, Luger, DDP, Booker and Scott Hall for the most part. Surely never been a more star-studded secondary title picture ever.)

The recent SCG pod on 2000 brought another one to mind. Jericho v X-Pac in a Steel Cage Match at No Mercy. A year later, Jericho's feuding with The Rock and then wins the unified titles before the end of the year. X-Pac is light heavyweight champion, "X-Pac heat" is becoming a thing and they completely give up on him.

Got any good ones?

[Snitsky's back acne]

Hulk Hogan Vs King Kong Bundy WrestleMania 2.

Next year Hulk would be in the biggest main event WWF promoted v Andre while Bundy was fannying about with Hillbilly Jim and Little Beaver and leaves the business altogether (for a few years) about a year after that. 

[The King of Old School]

Randy Savage vs Ricky Steamboat at Wrestlemania 3.

One of the greatest matches of all time, with Steamboat winning the IC Title which was obviously a huge deal then.

One year later Randy is being primed to win a one night tournament for the big belt and a year long run on top, while Steamboat went out of the said tournament in the first round to Greg Valentine, and then disappeared from the WWF shortly afterwards.

[d-d-d-dAz]

Not quite the right format, but close enough; I find the opposite trajectories taken by The Miz and Daniel Bryan between Wrestlemania 27 and 30 fascinating.

At 27, Miz is in the main event as champ (albeit as a glorified prop in the Rock/Cena story) and Bryan is on the pre-show. Within 3 years, Bryan is the hottest act in the business, has Wrestlemania (re)written around him so he can win the title and Miz is getting eliminated by Santino's snake in the Andre Battle Royale (having the year before been on the pre-show himself).

[Callum1993]

A good one is Wrestlemania 20>Wrestlemania 21 for Bradshaw and Rikishi. Both guys probably fell into the same bracket of perennial low/mid card guys from the mid 90’s onwards who would never quite make it as main eventers. Both had pushes at different times to make them move up the card with Rikishi in 2000 being the one to run over Austin and Bradshaw in 2002 on Raw as the cowboy and Austin’s mate but neither push really worked out.  
 

At Wrestlemania 20 you had Rikishi and Scotty retaining the tag titles over the Bashams, Haas and Benjamin and The APA.  By Wrestlemania 21 Rikishi is long gone from the company and Bradshaw walks in as JBL defending the WWE title against John Cena. Hell even if you look at Mania 20 in the April to that July in that 3 month stretch JBL has changed his character and won the belt meanwhile Rikishi and Scotty have dropped the titles and Rikishi has left the company. 

Edited August 17 by Callum1993

[TheScarlettChad]

Big Show at WM 2000 main events, to going to OVW for being overweight and shit to wrestling for the to hardcore title at WrestleMania X-7.

[Arch Stanton]

33 minutes ago, TheScarlettChad said:

Big Show at WM 2000 main events, to going to OVW for being overweight and shit to wrestling for the to hardcore title at WrestleMania X-7.

And who's the opposite trajectory?

[RIDDUM_N_STYLE]

Tatanka vs Lex Luger - Tatanka turns heel after the match and initially does well, peaking with being part of the Bam Bam/Taylor match at Mania 11 and headlining the first In Your House while Luger feuds with Ludvig Borga and forms a short lived tag team with Davey Boy, opening said Mania

By the end of 95, Luger is back in the main event scene in WCW while Tatanka would be working in the indies by the summer of 96 and not return to WWE for 9 years

[BarryOVega]

4 minutes ago, Arch Stanton said:

And who's the opposite trajectory?

Raven getting lobbed into something presumably 

[d-d-d-dAz]

7 hours ago, Arch Stanton said:

And who's the opposite trajectory?

You could make an argument for The Rock, I guess.

The Rock was in the ascendancy already, obviously, but Wrestlemania 2000/16 was really the last Mania he was involved in the regular meat and drink of wrestling.

Within a few months he was cast in Scorpion King, the non-wrestling obligations built up and his Wrestlemania main events after that were all super mega events as opposed to just matches.

Him and Big Show were probably actual 'colleagues' or 'peers' for the last time at that Mania.

Edited August 18 by d-d-d-dAz

[Kaz Hayashi]

Hogan vs Slaughter (Mania 7)

Slaughter re-appeared in 1990, had a 99.9% win record on build up to bearing Warrior for the title at Rumble 91. He then lost the title to Hogan in March of 91 at Mania 7 and carried on a losing feud with Hulk including the Desert Storm cack. This fizzled out by August and he came back as a goodie in late 91, teaming with Duggan and trading blows with the likes of Mustafa, Jerry Saggs and The Mountie. In 1992 he became a house show specialist. He vanished in 93 but returned at Rumble 94, and carried on his house show run a handful of times with Pierre but vanishing again. I won't go in to his novelty act commissioner 'run' from 97 onwards as it's irrelevant.

He was 44 in 1992, which we all know was like being 84 now, in the eyes of creative back then. Also, it's fair to say he was only really brought in due to the Gulf war, which his whole character was based around. War started in August 1990, and he debuted in August 1990. It's pretty obvious they had absolutely zero plans for him other than waving the Iraq flag, and being a transitional champ between Warrior and Hulk, they naturally turned him face later on for his own safety and because his feuds landed like wet farts. But yeah, less than a year after losing the Title to Hogan, he was jobbing to the Disasters with Duggan. 

I suppose knowing what we know now it's not that surprising, but being 7 at the time, I did wonder where the army bloke who beat Warrior and feuded with Hogan went.

Hogan kept on Hulking and sulking for a while at the top of charts, before going to WCW. 

Edited August 18 by Kaz Hayashi

[Tennessee Moltisanti]

The Rock Vs Triple H at Summerslam 1998;

Rock loses, but he's so over in the match, crowd is loving everything he does. 3 months later he's the World Champion.

Triple H does nothing until he turns heel in March 99, and even then he's dreadfully boring. He finally starts getting some traction in 2000 because Foley puts him over. 

Rock goes straight to the top of the card and Triple H pretty much drops down a level from being Intercontinental Champion, to just another baby face on the roster within a month or 2.

 

Diesel Vs Razor at Summerslam 1994 is another, Diesels clearly the chosen one, in 3 months he's the Champ, and he's on top of the card. Razor seems like he's gets downplayed and demoted because he's stuck in IC title picture until he leaves the company.

[The King of Old School]

24 minutes ago, Tennessee Moltisanti said:

The Rock Vs Triple H at Summerslam 1998;

 

If we're looking at the same people a year on from the suggested match, I'm not sure this one counts.

Summerslam 99 HHH is in the World Title match, and The Rock is facing Billy Gunn.

[TheScarlettChad]

12 hours ago, Arch Stanton said:

And who's the opposite trajectory?

Just wanted to shit on Big Show to be honest with you. As said, up top, The Rock became a movie star and outgrew WWE by WrestleMania 17. He stuck around but he was above most of his peers. Especially Triple H.

Edited August 18 by TheScarlettChad