Could This Have Worked At Mania - Part 1 - WM16

[The Brain]

We are officially on the road to WrestleMania and one of the most popular topics in the old school section is rebooking old manias. Last year Dagger gave us the opportunity to give our thoughts on each one so I'm going to try not to beat a dead horse and ask about a particular mania card in general. Instead I will attempt to create a series focusing on individual matches that perhaps could have happened at mania. The idea is I will make up a match for a certain mania and give reasons why it would and would not work. You give your opinion if the given match should have happened. I will try to do a few of these. The thread is meant only to discuss the match I propose in the opening post.

Let's start with WrestleMania 16. The proposed match is Triple H vs. Chris Benoit for the WWF title.

15 years ago WCW was in a tailspin. There was some good talent in the company but creatively the company was drowning and morale was in the toilet. In January 2000 four of WCW's best workers, Chris Benoit, Dean Malenko, Eddie Guerrero, and Perry Saturn decided to band together and jump to the WWF. By this time the WWF was further ahead in the Monday Night War than WCW ever was during their 83 week ratings winning streak but the move was still a significant one and some looked at it as the final nail in WCW's coffin. As if losing these four stars wasn't bad enough Chris Benoit had just won the WCW title.

There was a buzz in the crowd the night the Radicals debuted in the WWF. The fans were excited to suddenly have these new stars on Raw. They could have easily been positioned as babyfaces but were instead quickly established as heels. After an encounter with Triple H and Cactus Jack on their first night The Radicals were inserted into a mid card feud with Too Cool and Rikishi. By WrestleMania Benoit was feuding with both Kurt Angle and Chris Jericho, which admittedly was a natural fit, but could he have had more?

If the WWF brought in Benoit as a face and played up the fact that he walked out of WCW as champion could he have been a viable opponent for HHH at mania? It could have been hyped as the WCW champion challenging the WWF champion for the WWF title. It would have been a fresh match, something WWF needed at the time. There are, however, a few problems with this idea.

First of all, the Radicals debuted after the Royal Rumble. With the winner of the Rumble getting the title shot WWF would have had to have figured out a way to get someone that wasn't even with the company during the Rumble into the mania main event. I don't think this is much of a problem though. There have been plenty of times (including 2000) where something has happened between Rumble and Mania preventing the Rumble winner to get his one on one match with the champ. There are ways to work around this. Secondly, Rock was ridiculously popular at the time. It would have been hard to keep him out of the main event. For argument's sake let's assume there was another reasonable option for Rock and just judge Benoit on his own. Which leads to the final question. Was Benoit a big enough name to main event mania two months after his debut? He was well respected and could have been popular if used differently upon his debut but it's not like he was Ric Flair showing up with the WCW belt. With all due respect I don't know that Benoit was ever as popular with casual fans as he was with hardcore fans so he may not have had the name value to headline mania during WWF's most popular time with casual fans.

What do you think? If Benoit was brought in as a face and given more recognition as WCW champion could Chris Benoit vs. Triple H have been a good main event for WrestleMania 16? Remember the question is COULD not SHOULD. There is a difference.

 

[relentless1]

WM 2000 main event should have been Rock vs HHH for the WWF title with Rock going over. End of story.

 

[TheICChampion]

See, it wouldn't have worked, for a number of reasons. First of all, while Vinnie Mac was in competition with WCW, and even after he bought WCW, he was of the mindset that they were inferior to his WWE superstars. Therefore, he wouldn't have positioned Benoit as a credible threat so soon after his jump, at least not without learning the WWE "style", and "paying his dues" in the WWE. Secondly, Benoit DID have a match with Triple H when he came over and was supposedly defeated really quickly. Was anyone going to buy him as a legit contender so soon after that, regardless of whether they knew about WCW and that he came over right after being WCW World Champion?

Look, I like your idea, I just don't see how it could feasibly be pulled off.

 

[Sexcellence of Sexecution]

No, Triple H vs. Chris Benoit could not be a good main event for WrestleMania 16 for two main reasons.

1. The Rock. The Rock had basically become the most popular babyface of all time at that point. He was riding a huge wave of momentum heading into 2000, and it would be a disservice to the audience for the Rock to have a spot any lower than the main event at WrestleMania. Chris Benoit would have no where near the same level of connection with the WWF fans. This would ultimately hurt Triple H, who was trying to establish himself as a main event level guy and needed a strong opponent to work with.

2. WCW didn't mean as much anymore. By early 2000, the writing was pretty much on the wall as far as the Monday Night War was concerned. While it seemed unlikely that WCW would eventually be gone for good, it was clear that the WWF had greatly surpassed WCW and that WCW had become a shell of what it was. A WWF Champion vs. WCW Champion Match just didn't have the same appeal as it once would have.

 

[Wrestlingaholic]

Benoit and Triple H, as an earlier poster noted, did have a match on Smackdown, actually it was Benoit's first WWE match. But it was by no means the quick burial you describe. It was a competetive 8-10 minute match (the standard for tv main events of the time) in which Benoit was booked to look strong but ultimately lose to the reigning WWE Champion. Not every loss damages credibility of the loser!

It also simply furthered the Radicals' storyline: they ALL lost (and all 3 matches, X-Pac v Malenko and the New Age Outlaws v Eddie and Saturn being the other two, were decent other than Guerrero botching a frog splash and dislocating his elbow), with the stipulation that if 2/3 won, they would get contracts. Then the very next Raw they turned heel on Cactus Jack, on my favourite episode of Raw ever, in which the general jist of the story was that Triple H was so impressed with their showings v DX that he offered them contracts anyway, on the proviso that they helped DX (initially) - this led to an amazing 10-man tag on Raw actually (DX and the Radicals v Cactus, Rock, Rikishi and Too Cool) which was able to further 3 stories in one match. Oh the days when WWE booking made sense!!

I do agree with the poster's first point, though: they only really started acknowledging WCW after they bought the company. To the point where, without reading the internet (I had pretty much given up on WCW at this point and the mythical IWC was only in its infancy) I didn't actually know Benoit had won the WCW title until the end of the next month, when Powerslam magazine here in the UK came out with results from the ppv he won it on! I'm not sure WWE even mentioned it after the buy-out, but I could be wrong. But with their policy as it was, there is no way they would have brought in ANYONE from WCW as an immediate challenger for the WWE Championship. Indeed, I think in history, the ONLY man to do so was Ric Flair, but he was a huge name. Even Dusty Rhodes and Harley Race was brought in as mid-carders. (And it wasn't a case of Benoit having to learn the 'WWE Style' - that only came about a few years later when they changed their attitude to development territories).

So ultimately I think the way it worked - allowing Benoit to simmer to the top of the table, helped by pitching him with the best pure wrestler in WWE history in Angle - was far better for all involved. From a purely technical standpoint in could have worked, but from every other angle Benoit was nowhere near ready.

 

[shooter_mcgavin]

Weren't the Radicalz supposed to win one. I think it was the Saturn/Eddie match but when Eddie got injured they had to make a last min adjustment.

I do agree with the poster's first point, though: they only really started acknowledging WCW after they bought the company. To the point where, without reading the internet (I had pretty much given up on WCW at this point and the mythical IWC was only in its infancy) I didn't actually know Benoit had won the WCW title until the end of the next month, when Powerslam magazine here in the UK came out with results from the ppv he won it on!

Not really true WWF never had problems acknowledging other promotions before the buy out. They mentioned WCW and ECW a lot. If you can recall DX invading WCW, or Austin being interviewed before WM14 and he kept talking about how WCW fired his over the phone.

They also had no problems acknowledging past Championships. I remember Jim Ross would always put over The Legion of Doom/Road Warriors saying they won the tag titles in the WWF, WCW, and the AWA.

However to answer the question of the original poster. Rock vs. Triple H was the only option, it's amazing how WWF managed to F*** that up at the time. Sure it was done to death, but 1999 was such a cluserf*** of triple threat, fatal four ways, and 6-Man matches that any combination of Austin, Big Show, Foley, Rock, and Triple H was done twice over.

At least at WM16 it would have been a One-on-One match up, which at that time a PPV Championship Main event bout was actually pretty novel.

I think they could have added some stipulations. Since WM16 was the same venue as WM12 perhaps make it an Iron Man Match with HBK as the special guest referee (since there was some unfinished business at the time).

The undercard could have been great Benoit/Jericho (15 mins), Tazz/Angle (10 mins), Triangle Ladder Match (20), Radicalz vs. Too Cool and Chyna (10 mins), Big Show vs. Rikishi (5 mins), Kane vs. X-Pac (2 min super squash).

It could have had a great undercard with having enough time for an Iron Man Match.

I still WM16/WM2000 was the worst WM ever. The talent pool was great and the booking would have been simple but WWE managed to screw it all up.

 

[SCrooked1]

WM 2000 main event should have been Rock vs HHH for the WWF title with Rock going over. End of story.

Couldn't do that because they were facing off like twice a month on TV in 1999. WM main events usually are considering special matchups that rarely happen on free TV. Could understand why they went with the Four Way, it was a fresh idea. The McMahon's involvement hurt the match though.