I think Sid in many ways was victim of circumstance. Because of his attitude and demeanor, he was always liked by the fans. WWE always had a way or rewriting history. For example, in the '92 Royal Rumble, the crowd went NUTS when he eliminated Hogan. Yet in the SNME when they tagged, they showed a replay and they dubbed the fans booing instead of cheering. They did it again when he powerbombed michaels in 95. I think both WM where he main evented, the buildup was poor. Like I said, in '92, people actually liked Sid and probably wanted to see him as a face over Hogan. In 97, he won the belt, what, like a month before Mania?
People talk about how he had a poor to average workrate. Do you expect a guy 6'8, 300 lbs to chain wrestle?
In respect to his poor work rate, Kevin Nash & Taker are both huge and Ive seen them both put on multiple matches with much better in ring work than anything Sid did.
With respect to the 92 Rumble, WWE made a mistake....it was just assumed that anyone who eliminated Hogan would automatically be booed, but that scenario doesn't play as well in battle royal type match where you spend several weeks hyping the idea of "Every Man For Himself", the biggest appeal of the Rumble is seeing guys who normally are partners or allies forced to fight each other. Hogan had to square off against fan faves Savage & Piper, even though in the storylines both were popular good guys at the time and friendly with Hogan. Likewise Ric Flair, who won the match, had to square off with fellow rule breaker and tag team partner Undertaker, as well as Bobby Heenan family member Haku, recently heel turned HBK, and mega heel Jake Roberts (one of the highlights of the match, at the 30 minute mark, Flair, exhausted, eliminates Kerry Von Erich & Big Boss Man and has maybe a 30 second window till the next competitor joins, It's Piper, Flair is almost in tears knowing Piper hates him and will tear into him which he does, then Roberts enters and sits back allowing the two to fight without getting involved, before he eventually takes out Piper and Flair at the same time, a great sequence playing on all three characters stories and relationships). The way the end was scripted didn't help, down to three men, Sid looks at Hogan, only in the ring a few minutes longer than him, nearly his size physically, and Flair, roughly 5 inches shorter and 50lbs lighter, having been wrestling non stop for the last hour, and decides with Hogan's back turned to eliminate him and take his chances one on one with Flair for the finish. WHO WOULDNT MAKE THAT CALL, it made perfect sense for Sid to act that way, of course the fans wouldn't boo, the fact Hogan was complaining about Sid stealing his title made Hogan look like a jerk, as bullet proof as Hogan was back then, the whole concept of the match and the way they scripted the ending did nothing to make Sid look like a heel or Hogan look sympathetic. The only thing they got right was Flair's finish, of course he'd dump the distracted Sid from behind, suckering him for the win, he was close to death at that point and no one would give him any realistic chance of eliminating Sid face to face. It was a great way to make Flair look strong & smart but a horrible way to facilitate a Sid heel turn.
As for Sid over all, lousy work rate, too many allegations of him screwing fans by no showing events claiming injuries while he was seen publicly playing soft ball, etc, the Arn Anderson incident alone should have blackballed him from the US wrestling industry, both his Mania main events sucked, he had a great look no doubt but he was all show and no go, you can say the same about The Ultimate Warrior but Warrior reached greater heights than Sid.
Other than the obvious names of Icons like Hogan/Savage/Flair and top stars like Nash, HBK, Hart, Sting, Austin, Rock, Taker, there are several more wrestlers I feel made greater contributions to the 90s wrestling scene and were better performers than Sid, including Lex Luger (by a wide margin), Mick Foley, HHH, Yokozuna, Scott Hall, Curt Henning, Arn Anderson, and Vader.
