What were they thinking?

[thunt41]

So I thought this would be kind of a fun and interesting thread...apologize in advance if its already been done...feel free to play along....

Title speaks for itself...thinking back to old storylines...promo's...matches...just anything in general and ask yourself...what were they thinking? Kinda like Monday Night Footballs "C'mon Man"....could be WCW, TNA, WWE, WWF....

1) Royal Rumble 2004...WWE title match - Brock Lesnar The next big thing defending his title against......HARDCORE HOLLY?!?! C'mon man! this is where the road to Wrestlemania begins...and Lesnar is defending against....sparky plugg? the race car guy turned tough guy...I don't buy it...did anyone actually think he had a chance?


feel free to add your own...

 

[The Brain]

I know what you mean about Lesnar vs. Holly at the Rumble, but it wasn't that bad. Yes, the Royal Rumble is the beginning of the road to WrestleMania. WWE wasn't going to do anything too big at the Rumble. They probably could have done better than Holly but Lesnar's real kickoff to mania came in the rumble match when he ran in and gave Goldberg an F5. That was more important than the title match.

I'm sure there have been several 'what were they thinking' moments over the years. I'll start off with WrestleMania XV. What were they thinking pairing D Lo Brown and Test together to challenge for the tag titles? Unfortunately they couldn't bring themselves to think too far off their original plan. It's pretty obvious that it was supposed to be D Lo and Mark Henry against Owen Hart and Jeff Jarrett. Maybe Ivory and Debra would have been involved in a six person match. Mark Henry got injured shortly before mania and the creative team came up with nothing as a substitute. They had a battle royal on Sunday Night Heat right before mania and the last two standing would team up to challenge for the titles. That's pretty lame. D Lo and Test had nothing to do with each other before or since this match. You would think maybe it would start a feud between the two, but nothing happened after. They went out and lost their match and that was that. A terrible match for mania.

The Hardy Boys should have won the battle royal. They hadn't made their mark yet but were waiting for that chance to break out. It would have been a great underdog story for mania and I'm sure they would have given Hart and Jarrett a great match. The Hardy's could have come so close to winning only to fall just short but winning over the fans and making their mark in the process. I know hindsight is 20/20 and you may be thinking that's easy for me to say considering what the Hardy's would go on to become, but I honestly had this idea that night. Of course the Hardy's would breakout later in the year anyway but it would be nice to be able to look back at mania as their turning point. It would have easily been the highlight of a terrible WrestleMania.

 

[steveom07]

Drew Macintyre and Cody Rhodes winning the tag team titles, coming up with a tag team name (cant remember it of the top of my head) then dropping the titles 1 or 2 weeks later never to be mentioned again

 

[Paralyzer Z]

For me every time John Cena wins the tag team titles is a "what were they thinking" moment.

The formula for his tag title reigns go like this: Win it with your rival at the moment, loose it within a week of winning it. With the exception of his reign with Shawn Micheals all of his runs with it have sucked monkey balls. You know that whether it be immediately after he wins it or within the next week, Cena is not holding the tag titles for a long period of time. They have had the opportunity for Cena to bring star power to the tag titles but they are just props for him to continue his one-on-one feud with his heel counterpart. When he won it with Batista, they chance arose for a great run with the titles, they lost it the next week. With Otunga, they lost it the next night, and with Miz, they lost it on the same night. To me the only time it was done right was with HBK, it continued the progression of the story between them, and at the same time we got a few great matches for the titles. Chance after chance to bring the 2 belts some interest, have been squandered every time WWE waste a Cena/partner run with the championships.

 

[bxbigshow]

What were they thinking...

...putting Sean O'Haire with Roddy Piper!

O'Haire had a great gimmick going with his "devil's advocate" persona, had outstanding promos and backstage vignettes. And WWE ruined it by making him Piper's "lackey", someone to job to Hogan and Zach Gowen and protect Hot Rod.

The fact that they made him "silent" in this matter hurt even more. He could've still played the advocate role and influence Gowen (I believe it was him...maybe Edge?) to walk out on Hogan...making the story a bit more compelling...

 

[Defekt]

1) Royal Rumble 2004...WWE title match - Brock Lesnar The next big thing defending his title against......HARDCORE HOLLY?!?! C'mon man! this is where the road to Wrestlemania begins...and Lesnar is defending against....sparky plugg? the race car guy turned tough guy...I don't buy it...did anyone actually think he had a chance?

In his book, Lesnar talks about his feud with Hardcore Holly like it was a huge step down, and one of the straws that broke the camel's back as far as him deciding to leave.

Other examples:

1. The WWE booked Yokozuna vs Mabel at In Your House 4. They were both heels, and the match (thankfully) only lasted 5 minutes before both were counted out.

2. Speaking of Mabel, and I know this has been discussed alot, but the whole King of the Ring 1995 tournament is WTF. Alot of popular guys competed in this tournament, including undertaker, Shawn Michaels, Jeff Jarrett, Lex Luger, and Yokozuna. Yet the finals came down to Mabel (who wasn't over) and Savio Vega (who know one knew).

3. In Your House 9 featured no title matches. Consequently, it is one of the lowest drawing WWE PPV's ever.

4. Vladimir Kozlov pinned The Undertaker cleanly on an episode of Smackdown. Aside from Hulk Hogan, and maybe Steve Austin I don't think anyone has done this (in his dead man gimmick).

 

[thunt41]

One that really makes me wonder....John Heidenreich....Michael Cole...Poetry in Motion....I think it was a smackdown in like 2004/2005...Kidnapped Cole...leaned him up against a door....read him some sweet poetry...while appearing to dry hump him like a dog in heat...to me...that was ridiculous...it served no purpose...i watched it for the several minutes it was on and sat in silence as I was completely disgusted....c'mon Vince...WHAT WERE YOU THINKING!

 

[bigbootydaddyV]

One of the earlier posts reminded me of this... Summerslam Main Event of Mabel vs Diesel... one of the worst main events of all time... C'mon SON! (Fuck ESPN, Ed Lover was the original!!!)

 

[legendkillerbsal]

Donald Trump vs Rosie O'Donnell. Easily one of the WORST gimmick matches EVER. I understand keeping up with current events and all but holy cow was that terrible. And the crowd let em hear it too. Some of the loudest boring chants i ever heard. Now that made us wrestling fans look bad when non fans were like OMG that so fake!

 

[agentmichaelscarn]

I'm gonna take my "what were they thinking" back a little farther than everybody elses, and that is to Summerslam 93. Admittedly I'm a little bias to this since this was held in my hometown of Detroit and I attended it so I remember this event vividly.

Anyway at the time Luger was over BIGTIME. They were pushing his whole "Lex Express" thing to the moon and people were eating it up. And while I don't think Hogan had officially gone to WCW yet I do know it was pretty clear that he was done with WWE so they needed to make a star to fill him for him. And at the time it looked like it could be Luger. So they push Luger big time and people ate it up and what do they do at Summerslam? They make the match end in a countout. WTF? You have to remember at this time too there were only 4PPVs(well technically 5 but KOTR just started 2 months earlier) and SS was considered a huge deal. So at one of the rare PPVs they have a year they ended one of their most hyped matches in recent history and most pushed wrestler in recent history on a countout. Talk about a major let down. To add insult to injury they did this knowing that the biggest star they ever had(Hogan) was jumping ship, so when they desperately needed to do something right they screwed it all up.

Oh yeah and FYI I know there was the whole rumored Bret vs. Hogan thing for that card but I'm just pretending that that isn't true since it's never been confirmed.

 

[Nada]

Its hard to post anything but the whole 2001-2003 booking, from invasion, nwo, various WCW wrestlers buried its hard to pick one.

I mean we can always pick various storylines in every promotion that makes you go "oh why are they doing that!?" but things such as Invasion, nWo, Goldberg etc could have been litterally better booked by a 8 year old Cena kid today.

 

[MrAsmith97]

I'll say a recent one, swagger winning the title, yes that kid can wrestle but he can not hold my attention for more than a minute. I remeber being at a bar watching mania when he one mitb i looked over to my buddy and said "well thats gonna be awful". In my opinion i was right.

 

[GCB]

I'm gonna take my "what were they thinking" back a little farther than everybody elses, and that is to Summerslam 93. Admittedly I'm a little bias to this since this was held in my hometown of Detroit and I attended it so I remember this event vividly.

Anyway at the time Luger was over BIGTIME. They were pushing his whole "Lex Express" thing to the moon and people were eating it up. And while I don't think Hogan had officially gone to WCW yet I do know it was pretty clear that he was done with WWE so they needed to make a star to fill him for him. And at the time it looked like it could be Luger. So they push Luger big time and people ate it up and what do they do at Summerslam? They make the match end in a countout. WTF? You have to remember at this time too there were only 4PPVs(well technically 5 but KOTR just started 2 months earlier) and SS was considered a huge deal. So at one of the rare PPVs they have a year they ended one of their most hyped matches in recent history and most pushed wrestler in recent history on a countout. Talk about a major let down. To add insult to injury they did this knowing that the biggest star they ever had(Hogan) was jumping ship, so when they desperately needed to do something right they screwed it all up.

Oh yeah and FYI I know there was the whole rumored Bret vs. Hogan thing for that card but I'm just pretending that that isn't true since it's never been confirmed.

So true. I can only think that they saw more potential in Luger chasing the title from the heel Yokozuna and that the original plan was for him to chase it all the way to Mania? Just after Summerslam, if my memory works here, Jim Cornette forced the decision that Luger had had his chance and wouldn't get another apart from the Royal Rumble. There was the story of Yokozuna having two other Japanese wrestlers (Tenru and Kabishi or summat?) whose job was to stop Luger winning.

So there was a seemingly plausible chase story going. Luger winning the Rumble at that point would have made sense but then he shared it with Bret. I can only think that something happened around Survivor Series and Royal Rumble that made Vince think that Luger was losing steam. We ended up with Bret winning the title from Yoko after he had lost to Owen and off we went with a great feud. Luger never got near the title again and was off to WCW within a year.

So yeah, what were they thinking?!!!

 

[MrMojoRisin]

I'm gonna take my "what were they thinking" back a little farther than everybody elses, and that is to Summerslam 93. Admittedly I'm a little bias to this since this was held in my hometown of Detroit and I attended it so I remember this event vividly.

Anyway at the time Luger was over BIGTIME. They were pushing his whole "Lex Express" thing to the moon and people were eating it up. And while I don't think Hogan had officially gone to WCW yet I do know it was pretty clear that he was done with WWE so they needed to make a star to fill him for him. And at the time it looked like it could be Luger. So they push Luger big time and people ate it up and what do they do at Summerslam? They make the match end in a countout. WTF? You have to remember at this time too there were only 4PPVs(well technically 5 but KOTR just started 2 months earlier) and SS was considered a huge deal. So at one of the rare PPVs they have a year they ended one of their most hyped matches in recent history and most pushed wrestler in recent history on a countout. Talk about a major let down. To add insult to injury they did this knowing that the biggest star they ever had(Hogan) was jumping ship, so when they desperately needed to do something right they screwed it all up.

Oh yeah and FYI I know there was the whole rumored Bret vs. Hogan thing for that card but I'm just pretending that that isn't true since it's never been confirmed.

Hart's confirmed it. I believe Hogan's even said it was true at one point.

But you're absolutely right about Luger/Yoko being a WTF moment.

I'm not saying that Lex was the right guy to go with at the time. The turn from the Narcissist to the Red, White and Blue superhero was so sudden and so out of character that it was hard to buy.

But considering that's who they went with, and with the whole Lex Express push behind him, it made zero sense not to put the belt on him at SS. Even worse, was having the celebration with the balloon drop over the count out win. Luger was never credible in the title scene after that, and the whole thing was booked so terribly I have to wonder if Vince secretly wasn't trying to make the WCW guy look bad (who was costing him extra money with perks left over from his WBF contract). Because if that wasn't a burial, then I simply don't understand what McMahon was thinking.

 

[HBsam31]

How about putting the cruiserweight title on Hornswoggle? I know the division was dying, but damn, talk about a slap in the face to the wrestlers in the division. They could have got rid of the division without having to do that. Like right now I think that belt could serve a purpose in giving some of the up and comers a reason to wrestle each other. Lets face it the IC and US titles are not being defended at all. Now all we have is the belt swoggle won and hasn't been seen since. And to go farther back I have four words AKEEM THE AFRICAN DREAM lol. If you aren't familiar with him try and check him out on youtube.

 

[Arsenal]

Hart's confirmed it. I believe Hogan's even said it was true at one point.

But you're absolutely right about Luger/Yoko being a WTF moment.

I'm not saying that Lex was the right guy to go with at the time. The turn from the Narcissist to the Red, White and Blue superhero was so sudden and so out of character that it was hard to buy.

But considering that's who they went with, and with the whole Lex Express push behind him, it made zero sense not to put the belt on him at SS. Even worse, was having the celebration with the balloon drop over the count out win. Luger was never credible in the title scene after that, and the whole thing was booked so terribly I have to wonder if Vince secretly wasn't trying to make the WCW guy look bad (who was costing him extra money with perks left over from his WBF contract). Because if that wasn't a burial, then I simply don't understand what McMahon was thinking.

Agree 100% that the WWF seriously dropped the ball with Lex Luger. WTH were they thinking? Luger was no Hulk Hogan, but he had an amazing look, and was over huge with the Lex Express push. If he lost steam later it was probably because of sh!tty booking, as the WWF basically pulled the rug out from under him.

It would be like if they had Hulk Hogan only beat Iron Sheik in 1984 via countout and therefore not win the title, and then be barred from title contention for almost one year. He probably would have lost steam too if that happened.

 

[zac007]

With lesnar vs holly from the rumble they made that macth because about 9 months prior to the rumble Brock nearly broke hardcores neck in a match they were having so they made it into a storyline were holly wanted revenge. Yeh the match sucked but atleast the reason behind it made sense.

 

[ShinobiMusashi]

What were they thinking in the WWF back in 1995 when they slapped the "Skip", and "Dean Douglas" gimmicks on Shane Douglas, and Chris Candido?

I've been watching a bunch of ECW from 1996-97 in the past week, and I have to say they were highly underused in their WWF runs, especially Douglas. He had the size, the body, good seller, the mike skills, and the actual wrestling ability(plus he could take some hard bumps). Candido, and Douglas could have kept Diesel, and Razor Ramon relevent with the right push in 1996(plus they also would have served as some interesting competition for HBK, Bret, and Owen Hart), but they fumbled it away with rediculous gimmicks.

 

[Meat Boy]

putting the title on guys like Batista Ultimate Warrior The Miz JBL The Great Khali

Mae Young giving birth to a hand

Pat Paterson Gerald Brisco evening gown match

Vince McMahon as ECW champ and turning ECW into the biggest joke

the amount of years that it took for Kane to get one decent heavyweight title run

They had Low Ki on there roster for crying out loud and did shit with him.


I'm not sure how true this is but I rember right around when Hawkins and Ryder became the Edge heads I read on a wrestling website that WWE was orignilly thinking of haveing Ace Steel and Colt Cabana as the Edge Heads if thats true the two of them would have been 1000 times better then the Major Brothers and but instaed the only time we saw Ace Steel on tv was as the fake Donald Trump and Colt Cabana was Scotty Goldman. The really need to sign Colt Cabana

The Raw guest host and pretty much 95% of the stuff going on in WWE in the past 5 years

oh yeah I just thought of something else two words

KERWIN WHITE

 

[Khalifa]

How has nobody said the "Katie Vick" storyline involving Kane and HHH. If nobody knows what I'm talking about let me refresh your memories. During mid 2002 Kane and HHH were engaged in a storyline in which both titles were on the line (IC and WHC) during the fued HHH told a story. The story was that Kane was in a relationship with a girl called Katie Vick. During the relationship they suffered a car crash which resulted in Katie Vick dying. Big whoop right? Nothing big about that hey? But HHH then later goes on to say that Kane raped the corpse of Katie Vick. However when the video was shown it was seen that HHH was dressed up as Kane.

Honestly WWE, what were you thinking! Not only does it make both me look mentally ill in the head but it also is just plain wrong altogether. Something not to joke (or make a storyline about). I guess they were trying to get Kane across as more of a monster but honestly. Thank god they got rid of the storyline before the PPV but the damage was still done.

How can WWE justify that the storyline between Kane or HHH would of benefitted the characters anymore? It wasn't doing anything for HHH except trying to make him more of a heel (even though he was the best heel in the company at the time) and how the hell could that of made Kane more of a monster. Sure he is from "hell" but everyone already knew Kane as a monster! I hope WWE learnt from this (appears they did) and never go through a storyline even remotely close to that.