Biggest company risk in wrestling history?

[bioshock]

I just thought this up after reading about the Bret/Vince screw job.

Here I say is something not talked about, least I never hear about it. Its something that has to be the biggest risk ever taken in wrestling, not only that but one by a company who is the 2nd best in wrestling and fighting week by week in the rating wars. A risk that if not paid off could of maybe meant were watching WCW today instead of WWE?

In the fall of 1997 WWE was getting beat for about the 40th to 50th maybe 60th straight week in the Monday Night wars, Bret was the main company star (like Triple H is today, like Hogan was in the 80s). Undertaker & Shawn Michaels were the next biggest stars.

The main event scene for 1997 featured such stars as: Bret Hart, Undertaker, Shawn Michaels, Vader, and Sid Vicious, and a little bit of Steve Austin & Mankind. So it would be easy to say it wasn't the best looking group of stars. Vader was getting old, HBK had injury problems, Austin had a major neck issue from the piledriver from Owen Hart, Sid was coming and going, Vader was well on the decline.

Here is where the RISK is, Vince lets Bret go leaving just Shawn and Undertaker as the main two wrestlers, at that time it was unknown what would happen with Austin and his neck, he very well could of been done wrestling at that point (even though he was wrestling again by the time Bret left sort of...), the Rock was still no wheres close to being what he became, Mankind also not close to what he became, Kane was still very unknown, Shamrock was still a rookie and already in a PPV main event for the title, in Brets spot somewhat at the DX PPV. Hunter was still almost a nobody even as Shawns sidekick then.

Then Months after that Survivor Series Shawn is injuried, and then comes a massive push with Austin.

So what happens if Shawns done due to his back injury from Taker (he all but was from it as it is, wrestling only one more time), Austin is washed up because of his neck, and WCW while still winning the ratings war has picked up Bret Hart, and Sting has now returned as World Champion, not only that what if Owen had left along with Bret, plus you had the Bulldog and Anvil also done with WWF. Mind you Owen could of become a mega star, Bulldog was a main eventing in 1996 just one year before, Anvil didn;t matter too much.


The WWF could have lost: Bret, Bulldog, Owen, Anvil, Shawn Michaels (did from injury), Steve Austin (could of from injury), and the rest of the rating wars for all of 1998 & possible 1999.

So was it the biggest risk putting the bank on Austin to become the mega star he did, it would be a risk that did payoff, and did finally win the Monday Night Wars, and put a strangle hold on WCW.


Was it the biggest risk? If not what would you call the biggest risk in wrestling history?

 

[Milkyway!]

I don't think theres any secret that WrestleMani I was a huge risk, in that if it failed, so would the entire company. Vince had everything riding on WrestleMania I and had huge faith in Hulk Hogan during it. As you can tell, it paid off BIgTIME, but without the sucess of WrestleMania I wrestling today wouldn't be the same. The WWE wouldn't have ever taken over the Wrestling world, I'm willing to bet that no one would ever try the risk again, and territories would still be active. There just wouldn't be any WWE. The risks you guys mentioned, were chances, but the biggest risk ever? WrestleMania I, theres no debate about it, really.

 

[IrishCanadian25]

Good thread.

1. Hogan the Heel. Setting Hulk Hogan up as a mega-heel and putting him in charge of the nWo was a huge risk. Fans could just have easily been offended by "their hero" turning on them and turned off the TV set. Kids cried, but they kept watching. Had it gone the other way, WCW would have been over before the Monday Night Wars started. Instead, we got another wrestling boom.

2. 12 PPV's. WCW did it first, WWF followed. It was a risky idea. In fact, when Vince set up ONE PPV, it was a risk, before he went to four. But the idea of a monthly PPV? That was a risky proposition for both companies. The result? Better storylines, higher buyrates.

3. The Brand Split. Thin out the talent roster in two places. Book house shows for each half of the company. Book PPV's for each half of the company. The whole idea of the Raw / SD brand split was like a stock split, but riskier. Basically, the split asked fans to watched two more watered down products and follow different storylines and 9 champions. The result? Deeper rosters and more intregue.

 

[robertg316]

I think one of the biggest risks (that didnt pay off) was obviosly WCW's direct attack on WWF. Bichoff's tactics of revealing results of Raw and launching personal attacks on Vince and WWF superstars live on Nitro didnt encourage real die hard wwf fans to switch channels,it just pissed us off.they had a short term success from there direct attacks but in the end,the loyal wwf fans kept on watching and because he backed Vince into a corner,Vince HAD to be radical and the Attitude era was created. It seemed as if every week on Nitro, Bichoff would spend the first 30 minutes of the show making refrences to the competition instead of concentrating on improving his own dire storylines. The attitude era was created out of desperation by Vince because of Bichoffs risk of mentioning WWF on Nitro. WCWs direct and public assault on the WWF ultimatly led to its downfall as instead of building on the success WCW was having they decided to act like di**s and go after vince.

 

[THTRobtaylor]

The biggest risk was Vince Jr's aggressive expansion in the mid 80's by far.... Why was it risky?

Well first of all wrestling was a territorial business, everyone owned their piece and would jealously guard it, often with violence... Many was the story of offers to maim Vince or Hogan to prevent WWE's climb... Vince was taking a huge personal risk of someone taking him out...

Financially, the expansion was also a massive risk... to buy out those territories would have needed large amounts of hard cash. Cash that Vince would have had to borrow... had it gone wrong he would have been in debt forever or bankrupt...

3rdly, there was the risk to the business itself... had it gone wrong, the entire product could have gone into terminal decline, as many of Vince's deals prevented people from running against him for a time period, those with the skill would have been prevented from starting up again... thus the biz could have died...

Anyone care to comment?

 

[SinCityBlitz]

I don't think theres any secret that WrestleMani I was a huge risk, in that if it failed, so would the entire company. Vince had everything riding on WrestleMania I and had huge faith in Hulk Hogan during it. As you can tell, it paid off BIgTIME, but without the sucess of WrestleMania I wrestling today wouldn't be the same. The WWE wouldn't have ever taken over the Wrestling world, I'm willing to bet that no one would ever try the risk again, and territories would still be active. There just wouldn't be any WWE. The risks you guys mentioned, were chances, but the biggest risk ever? WrestleMania I, theres no debate about it, really.

Exactly. If Wrestlemania failed the WWF would have been no more. It was sink or swim. Nothing else even comes close.

 

[Deadman4ever34]

i think the biggest risk in wrestling was indeed Wrestlemania! every promotion after and every pay per view after has WM to thank. if it didnt succeed who knows what wrestling would be today!

I think a second biggest risk would be two wrestlers: the Ultimate Warrior and Brock Lesnar. both men were given the torches, and ran with it for a while, but both should have been long term and for their own reasons they were not. and because of that, Hulk Hogan and the Rock passed the torch for maybe a 2-3 year span! that is also a good reason for the Undertaker`s streak to stay undefeated because that is one truly special Deadman moment!

 

[z99zazn]

XFL - Are you kidding me?

Yeah, the XFL was a huge failure, but it wasn't THAT big of a risk compared to all of the other risks mentioned. It was embarassing to Vince, and it lost the compnay money, but it wasn't nearly as big of a risk as say, Wrestlemania I. It was just an extreme failure. If I recall correctly, during the WWE vs Nuggets angle, Vince even made fun of the XFL. Do you really think he would make fun of it if his biggest risk ever failed? Hell no.

 

[jmt225]

I guess it would have to be Vince McMahon Jr. making WWE a global company, rather than just settling with the New York territory, huh? I mean, with the way the territories were back then... Vince could have made a nice living for himself by just playing it safe and just running one market of the United States. But man... he said fuck that; he wanted to take over the entire business. That takes some serious, serious balls when you think about it. He had to step on countless toes, and ruin hundreds of relationships to make it work, and if it didn't work out how it did... the business is dead and Vince McMahon is soley responsible. It was literally make or break. But Vince risked it, and to me... it will always be the biggest risk in wrestling history.

 

[RH23]

Hogan Turning Heel: He was always known as the top face who told the kids to take their vitamins, so turning him into the biggest villain was a huge risk.

Austin Turning Heel: During the Attitude Era, he was the face of the WWF, he was the rule breaking anti-hero that basically told his boss to F-Off and we all loved it; when we saw him join forces with his arch nemesis, Vince, that was a huge risk because he was the top babyface.

Letting Bret Hart go to WCW: He was one of the top guys in the WWF at that time and letting him go to the rival competition was a huge blow to the WWF and with the Montreal Screwjob no less.

 

[THTRobtaylor]

Can't see how anyone can think the expansion wasn't... many wrestlers attest to the danger Vince was actually in from other promoters... Sheiky Baby was offered money to cripple Hogan, Harley Race was supposedly gonna kill Vince..

To carry on with that over you and a wife and kids HAS to be the greatest risk...

 

[SavageTaker]

It’s probably Vince attempting to go national. This was something that I don’t think anyone else in wrestling had ever tried. Wrestling was always about the different territories in different areas, but it was never about being on a national level. Vince could have failed miserable or be very successful. I think we all know how things went but it doesn’t change the fact that it was a very risky move because of the way pro-wrestling had already been for many years, maybe decades. It was a very risky move for Vince to take and the result was that it worked for Vince and it was very successful.

Another thing that I think could be included as one of the biggest risks in company history is changing Eric Bischoff’s role from WCW Executive Producer to WCW President. It has been reported that he had a lot of mishandlings as Executive Producer and changing his role to President of WCW was a dangerous step because of his past history. Obviously it worked for a couple of years, but it was still risky because of who they were promoting to fill the President of WCW job.

 

[SSJPhenom]

I have to go with the brand extension. I think seperating the rosters was a huge risk and wasn't(still isn't) the most widely excepted decision. We know now that he had to because of how large the roster was and it was going to be virtually impossible to build new stars with the all of them on the same show.

It still doesn't work in every aspect though. Look at ECW, I think that it is safe to say that ECW was real good at first, but it has definately declined since Big Show was champion(this is the last time I consider it good) and is now sort of like a main stream building block for new stars. Kinda like OCW on prime time.

My point is I think this was a very risky choice to make and I still think that it isn't working as well as people might have hoped.

 

[I Beat Dan Gable]

The McMahon's getting on the USA Network with Tuesday Night Titans in the early 80's. The AWA was being broadcast on ESPN and Georgia Championship Wrestling was a mainstay of WTBS when it went up on cable. If cable TV or the USA Network would have failed, there would have been no WWF.

 

[Slam Master]

This is a good post in the sense that it causes one to think, and there is multiple responses, theories, and reasons for this..

It was already decided Bret was leaving..He wasn't forced out as Bret sometimes puts it; Vince told him he wouldn't be able to pay his full salary until later in his contract, suggesting that he talk to WCW and see if he could get the offer he turned down in 1996. Vince then came back to Bret weeks later and said he now could afford to pay him in full, that business had picked up (DX, Steve Austin, Undertaker, the Nation of Domination, the Hart Foundation, and the overall intensity and tension that was in the product started to catch on).

Vince then laid out plans he had for Bret which were 3 major losses to Shawn Michaels, followed by a title win on RAW over HBK, but he'd then drop the title to Steve Austin at WM14. Bret obviously didn't like the fact that he'd be losing more than winning to the guy that he had major issues with. He also realized that he wouldn't be the top guy. He chose to take WCW's offer with Vince's blessing. The screwjob really jolted the WWF because is caused curiosity, anger, and heat that inevitably brought more viewers. Bret was leaving anyways regardless of the swerve which I mentioned earlier, so he wouldn't have been there to talk Owen out of the stunt that killed him.

Steve Austin was being used as a mouthpiece regardless of his neck injury or not. Fans were tuning in every week just to hear him cut promos, vignettes, interviews, and swear. His character was over anyways so if he could just get through matches the fans would like him. When Vince decided to pay Tyson $3 million dollars, that was a bigger risk. Tyson was a hot commodity at the time so it was a good gamble because it brought mainstream media attention.

The Rock was starting to flourish as a heel with the Nation of Domination. He was on his way at the time.

Shawn getting hurt was also inevitable because injuries happen in wrestling, and at the high level he performed I'm surprised he lasted as long a he did. If for some reason Bret decided to stay it would have altered the future of Shawn meaning no casket match and no injured back. That would have thrown everything off and HBK might not be here today if he stayed active and on the road.