What Was The Point Of Imposter Razor & Diesel?

[The Brain]

When I ask that question I'm not doing it as a smartass because the angle sucked so badly (even though it did). I really am wondering what was the point. Here's the quick history lesson.

As we all know during the spring of 1996 Razor Ramon and Diesel jumped from the WWF to WCW. It was heavily implied that they were representing the WWF in a real cross promotion war against WCW. WCW purposely avoided addressing them by name as they obviously could not use the WWF trademarks. Eventually the WWF sued WCW and WCW had to come forward saying Razor and Diesel did not work for the WWF and were now going by their real names Scott Hall and Kevin Nash.

A couple months later Jim Ross announced Razor Ramon and Diesel would be retuning to the WWF. This caused mass confusion as Hall and Nash were freshly signed to WCW and involved in the biggest angle in wrestling in years. Well Razor and Diesel did return but Hall and Nash did not. Two relatively unknown wrestlers were brought in to take over the roles of Razor and Diesel. Ross never said Hall and Nash were coming back and that the two new guys had the right to use those names. Many viewed this as an act of desperation and the fans immediately hated the angle.

What do you think the actual point of this angle was? You don't think they actually thought they could just transfer the characters to different wrestlers and pick up where they left off do you? Surely the WWF knew the fans would not accept two other wrestlers playing the roles of Razor and Diesel. Knowing the fans wouldn't accept them were they trying to make two new big heels? They were hated but not in the good way. Were they just trying to stick it to WCW showing them they couldn't have their characters? That didn't matter at all. Was it just a desperate publicity stunt done to attract viewers to Raw for the night of the return and hope to score a bigger rating for at least one week? The WWF had to know the fans would view this as a bait and switch and flip over to see the real thing instead of two lame imposters.

A lot of times we take something we didn't like and ask what the point was. Most of the time we can at least rationalize an objective even if it failed in execution. Whether it be from a kayfabe point of view or a real one we can usually find an answer to our rhetorical question. This time I really am wondering what the point was. What do you think the creative meetings were like as this angle was being discussed? What was the end goal here?

 

[klunderbunker]

Believe it or not, yes that was what they were going for at first. Seriously, they thought they could just put the character out there and say that it was the character instead of the performer. If you really REALLY stretch, you could see the potential in a jab like that with WWF saying Hall and Nash weren't necessary to have around and the strength was all driven by Vince.

However, the reaction was exactly what everyone with common sense would think it was: thinking that the fans would believe it was the original Razor and Diesel. It didn't help that Rick Bognar was about as awful a Ramon impersonator as you could ask for. Glenn Jacobs looked enough like Nash from a distance that it could work, but it was still such a stupid idea that it totally bombed and is in the archives of really bad moves.

 

[jpickens]

I think the reason was to cover their asses. Razor/Scott Hall and Diesel/ were already booked ahead to appear on some bookings so rather than tell the fans the truth JR figured he could pull the wool over their eyes by passing Rick and Glen off as Razor Ramon and Diesel and we all know how that turned out.

 

[berlinbrawler]

I always kinda figured the WWF considered the vast majority of their fans to be dumbasses. Or, to put it more diplomatically, to be "casual fans" with very low attention spans and/or observational skills (after all, they once could be duped into thinking wrestling was real, too). So casual, in fact, that they wouldn't notice that those weren't the same guys. My guess has always been they figured it was worth a shot and that even if it didn't work, it would at least cause some buzz and get people interested in the WWF again. Whatever its ultimate ends, it failed miserably and was nothing but an embarrassment.

 

[Mustang Sally]

What do you think the actual point of this angle was? You don't think they actually thought they could just transfer the characters to different wrestlers and pick up where they left off do you?

Yes, but even while I think they were trying to prove that any two pro wrestlers with the right physical characteristics could play Razor Ramon and Diesel, it's not so much that they were trying to fool the fans, as to demonstrate.....foolishly.....that they could match anything WCW could do, even without spending the mega-bucks that Atlanta was throwing at former WWE performers.

Of course, what actually resulted was to make WWE seem desperate, which they apparently were. That's sad, because in some ways, the point they were attempting to make wasn't a bad one. What if we had never known Scott Hall and Kevin Nash in the roles they originated as Razor & Diesel? What if Rick Bognar and Glenn Jacobs had initially been given those parts to play? Sure, it's easy now to say those fictional characters wouldn't have caught on.....but that's because we saw Scott & Kevin play them first. If Bognar & Jacobs had been there from the start as Razor & Diesel.....what truly would have happened?

Usually, fans of sports entertainment and movies & TV favor the people who originated the characters. People like Tobey MacGuire as Spiderman more than Andrew Garfield.....but if Garfield had originated the role, he might be the preferred actor, because he is doing a really fine job.

Unfortunately, WWE did the angle the way they did. I admit to being at least partially fooled; wondering if Hall and Nash really were about to appear on the TV screen. When they didn't, I could see WWE's point, yet resented their approach.

 

[Ol'Canucklehead]

You know, for only $9.99 you can have the answer you're looking for. They did somewhat see if they could re-use the characters but the main goal was to make it sound like Hall/Nash had resigned with the WWF similar to what WCW did when they introduced them as invaders. They hyped it for weeks and it was for ratings. Pretty simple.

 

[THTRobtaylor]

I genuinely believe at the time Vince felt he owned those characters and it was his vision rather than their portrayers who were over. It's not really any different to a different Aunt Viv in the Fresh Prince or another James Bond every few years... he felt that we as fans would buy into it cos he sold it through JR, who was popular. What he didn't bank on was that Nash and Hall had legit gotten over as themselves during that time and looking back, that last year for both of them they were barely Razor and Diesel as they had been before, they were themselves.

Vince either didn't quite notice that or felt "fans are sheep" and will take it anyway and it backfired.

Looking back it's not the worst thing they could have done, gimmicks have been recast for years... had it not happened Kane would never have been born for example but it was not an "acceptable" course of action to the fans who felt they were being treated as stupid... that more than anything I think led to Vince's "We're not gonna insult your intelligence" speech a couple of years later, cos he knew that time he really had and while WCW had for months with the YETEHH amongst others, they suddenly weren't anymore...and it was near suicidal to do it just then.

 

[closet_fan]

It was Vince's way of showing everyone that Hall and Nash didn't create Razor and Diesel. He did. For some idiotic reason, he felt that anyone could be put into those characters and go over as well as Hall and Nash did. Naturally that wasn't the case. It was also a jab at both guys for leaving.

All it did was make WCW throw even more money at Nash and Hall because they really believed those guys were going to appear on RAW.

I could only imagine what must have went through Jim Ross' mind having to hype up something he knew would be a flop.

Technically Razor and Diesel did come back, but......well you know.

 

[James2293]

Vince thought announcing their return would mean better ratings for him. Wcw thought hall and nash would leave and signes them to even more money so in the end it ended up making nash and hall richer lol

 

[thebarber]

WWE were trying to make a point that they could take any mid card hack like Vinnie Vegas and The Diamond Studd, repackage them with a WWE gimmick and they could become main eventers, which is what happened. Once Hall and Nash left and went to WCW, the nWo took off with Hall and Nash playing themselves, so WWE tried to have us believe that Glen Jacobs and Rick Bogner could become overnight main eventers by taking over their gimmicks. Agreed this was doomed to fail as the audience in 1996 were pretty intelligent, even before the internet took over. The point, by WWE's idea was to prove they could make anybody a star,k but they bombed badly, and even more so when Nash and Hall became even bigger stars in WCW than what they had been in WWE.

 

[THTRobtaylor]

WWE were trying to make a point that they could take any mid card hack like Vinnie Vegas and The Diamond Studd, repackage them with a WWE gimmick and they could become main eventers, which is what happened. Once Hall and Nash left and went to WCW, the nWo took off with Hall and Nash playing themselves, so WWE tried to have us believe that Glen Jacobs and Rick Bogner could become overnight main eventers by taking over their gimmicks. Agreed this was doomed to fail as the audience in 1996 were pretty intelligent, even before the internet took over. The point, by WWE's idea was to prove they could make anybody a star,k but they bombed badly, and even more so when Nash and Hall became even bigger stars in WCW than what they had been in WWE.

To an extent this is true... they were lower rung in WCW and Trips even more so... but what Vince wasn't grasping was that guys were developing without his input but arguably doing "as he said" and he had such a micro management stance that he was missing the bigger picture. He was missing that Razor was dropping the Cuban here and there and that Diesel was slowly getting over cos he was so worried about how Lex looked or even how to make Mabel a star... the Kliq were a fire to be put out each time rather than his core of talent... Bischoff saw he had the core OF that core...if he could have gotten Shawn too... he would have thought he could turn it into gold... it would have killed Shawn and probably WCW but hey... Vince wasn't seeing that, either his "yes men" let him down or he was SO worried about money that it was all about the "next Hogan" rather than growing the business...by all accounts he had to be dragged "kicking and screaming" to sign most of the guys who actually helped turn it around... Austin, Foley, Pillman, Simmons... cos they "weren't his creations..."

Of course the irony is thick... Bischoff took what he thought were the "game changers" and lost with them while letting go the eventual true winners... but Vince didn't want Austin, or Foley... he had to be talked into both... and then they had to deal with his crap cos they weren't his... yet they ended up saving the WWE between them in many ways. No Austin, no counter to the NWO... no "Asses in Seats" speech, the ratings don't change in WWE's favour...

 

[FlairFan2003]

Pillman made a miniscule impact in WWE, most of his best contributions to the Monday Night Wars were in WCW before the NWO. Foley was a cult favorite, he wasnt the star Austin, Rock, HHH & Taker were, he was the guy they beat up. Austin was a game changer, for sure.

The point of the fake skits was to poke fun at WCW, Basically saying Hall & Nash were only special because of WWE, and nothing in WCW was special except for all WWE retreads.

 

[enviousdominous]

What do you think the actual point of this angle was?

Brain, I think you may have had a stroke. Lie down, and relax your mind to some Mitch Miller while I try to answer this question.

You need some closure as to why, in the history of pro-wrestling, this particular occurrence ever managed to happen. Okay. I will try to do that.

Here is a video of Pistol Pez Whatley as Miss Macho Man 1981:

[YOUTUBE]pHbJbWVa73Q[/YOUTUBE]

I show that video to address the point that it is the first time that a black man has been made to dress in drag for the sake of selling tickets to a future pro-wrestling event. On the same train of logic; an equally disturbing notion of pushing an over couple of gimmicks using two nobodies as the actors hadn't failed yet, so why the fuck not.

You don't think they actually thought they could just transfer the characters to different wrestlers and pick up where they left off do you?

I, umm. Whether they thought at all before hand is another debate.

Surely the WWF knew the fans would not accept two other wrestlers playing the roles of Razor and Diesel.

Surely the WWF knew what the outcome of this would be?

Brain, here is a video of Tracy Smothers wrestling a bear:

[YOUTUBE]25BIVy7g0X8[/YOUTUBE]

I'm sure that all they knew before pulling the trigger on the fake Diesel Razor angle was that they could write the show around whatever it became and didn't get far enough ahead in the planning process to determine which one was logically the most likely.

Knowing the fans wouldn't accept them were they trying to make two new big heels? They were hated but not in the good way. Were they just trying to stick it to WCW showing them they couldn't have their characters? That didn't matter at all. Was it just a desperate publicity stunt done to attract viewers to Raw for the night of the return and hope to score a bigger rating for at least one week? The WWF had to know the fans would view this as a bait and switch and flip over to see the real thing instead of two lame imposters.

These are all very good suggestions Brain, I'm sure if the WWF had the ability to predict the future or rather had the ability to see farther than two inches ahead of them they would have realized your argument for whichever one of those suggestions was what they were thinking at the time. Simply, they knee-jerked a response to Hall and Nash behaving in character on WCW programming.

A lot of times we take something we didn't like and ask what the point was.

We should try not asking for a point rhetorically, just saying.

Most of the time we can at least rationalize an objective even if it failed in execution.

Rationalize!? Brain, we watch a type of manufactured reality where beyond the angle in question a violent act is permitted by the temporary inability of a human being to naturally defend themselves. The WWF couldn't rationalize it because at that point careless mockery was all they had for A material, as a fan I didn't bother to rationalize it because fuck it.

Whether it be from a kayfabe point of view or a real one we can usually find an answer to our rhetorical question. This time I really am wondering what the point was. What do you think the creative meetings were like as this angle was being discussed? What was the end goal here?

I think the meeting that spawned the angle in question went exactly like this:

[YOUTUBE]ZgOqcH1Ywzs[/YOUTUBE]

I think the intended end result was to know that Glen Jacobs did something on tv.

 

[Jack-Hammer]

Generally speaking, it always struck me as Vince's typical, petty response to getting his ego bruised. Vince felt betrayed because these were two guys who'd been in the company for several years, had gotten some big pushes, had made a lot of money and were now jumping ship. So how does he react? Rather than behaving like a calm, poised, respectable man of almost 50 years of age, he behaves like a petty douche.

The "fake" Diesel & Razor Ramon were intended as a mockery, an attempt on Vince's part to show that he could take two unknowns, slap them with a gimmick and make stars out of them. The only problem was that it was WWF that ultimately wound up looking bad as the idea was horrible. Vince was a laughing stock and deservedly so. I believe he was justified in feeling betrayed, I think just about anyone else would under the circumstances, especially when you consider how much stroke Hall & Nash had within the company. However, Vince's reaction was horribly childish and petty, maybe even a little humbling, though I expect he'd die before openly admitting that.

It was along the same vein as WWF's mockery of Ted Turner, Hulk Hogan & Randy Savage with the skits portraying "Billionaire Ted", "The Huckster" and "The Nacho Man" from a few years earlier. The only difference is that those skits were intentionally hilarious and entertaining. They were still extremely petty, but at least they were entertaining.

 

[It's...Baylariat!]

To have to follow posts from KB, Brain, Sally, AND Jack-Hammer's a tall task. So if I repeat anything they said already... just go with it... ok?!

In all seriousness, according to the WWE Monday Night Wars on WWE Network (which you can watch for the low, LOW price of 9.99 a month), it was said that Vince actually thought they could put those characters out there w/o missing a beat and it failed miserably.

I remember a segment with JR and Gorilla Monsoon going back and forth about how absurd it would be for Razor and Diesel to come back because they no longer work for the WWE. JR said Razor and Diesel DO work here and will be back next week... then Monsoon goes on to say that HALL and NASH are no longer working for the WWE... to which JR replied that he didn't say Hall or Nash would be coming back, he said RAZOR and DIESEL would be coming back.

And the way this usually goes in any meeting with Vince for creative is an idea is pitched, Vince makes it his own by tweaking small parts of it, and it makes TV. So I'd say JR pitched the idea of having Razor and Diesel come out in character only to show that they don't care what the WCW is doing, only for Vince to turn it into a serious comeback for those characters as opposed to a simple parody, which it should have been in the first place.

It was a mess and it was a major mistake on their part during a time where mistakes could wind up costly in ratings and other avenues.

It made the WWE look bad because they acknowledged their competition by doing something corny and hokey to poke fun at them. When you're in competition, it's best to NOT acknowledge the opponent you're doing battle with when it comes to television. The WWE did the total opposite and it took throwing a Hail Mary like the Attitude Era to save their company.

 

[Just Do It]

The fake Razor and Diesel was a creative low for the WWF in my book. It would have been regarded as a classic angle if it were a one shot deal to further a different storyline. I.E. if a babyface came in the ring on their debut and cleared house, called them out as being fake with a "we don't need them" attitude. But alas, they expected people to treat is seriously.

 

[THTRobtaylor]

Pillman made a miniscule impact in WWE, most of his best contributions to the Monday Night Wars were in WCW before the NWO. Foley was a cult favorite, he wasnt the star Austin, Rock, HHH & Taker were, he was the guy they beat up. Austin was a game changer, for sure.

The point of the fake skits was to poke fun at WCW, Basically saying Hall & Nash were only special because of WWE, and nothing in WCW was special except for all WWE retreads.

We KNOW Pillman's impact was diminished... along with his ability to walk once he rolled his jeep but that was not what was intended. When the deal was made to bring him in, it was for a fit, at the peak of his in ring powers talent with as you say, a cult edge that could be exploited while also having great matches with the top 2 guys in the company of the time... the accident killed the latter part and reduced what Pillman could do but to say he had miniscule impact is wrong... his first promo set the tone for the 3:16 one later that night, he added an "edge" to the Hart Foundation stable and the gun segment was the one that really made people realise WWF was different from what it had been... if Pillman could have gone to the level in the ring intended AND do that, it's not Austin that was gonna get over first...but once Pillman as a main eventer was off the table cos of the accident, they and he did the next best thing and shifted it to Austin...

Likewise the intention for Fake Diesel and Razor was to pop a one off ratings win, end the "streak" but it backfired... I watched the Wars show on the Network again and the reaction was clear... it was just a bad idea, badly executed but perhaps that was kind of the point... it HAD to hit rock bottom for WWE to change... that was their rock bottom point.

 

[Dr.GonzoSM]

Cornette and Bruce Prichard have both said that Vince's take on the deal was that he owned the trademarks and could use them if he wanted. He wanted. Pretty much anyone who said how stupid an idea it was in this thread was pretty much right.

Also, Steve Corino has said in interviews that he was being looked at as being the new 1-2-3 Kid but JR was already against it in the first place and nixed adding another to something that was failing.

 

[WBL]

I'm pretty sure it's a mix of things. Not wanting to lose money on their Diesel and Razor merchandise, wanting to get more mileage out of the gimmicks, wanting to humiliate Hall and Nash, it probably looked really good on paper, or at least felt good to Vince.