Hey Scott, I always wondered this, but what happened to Test's push after the whole Stephanie/Triple H wedding angle in 1999? I mean, I remember watching him and he was getting good crowd reactions and even had some good matches. The whole wedding thing just screamed for Test to get his revenge on Triple H and Stephanie and he never did. I remember watching and every week I was waiting for it to happen and nothing.
Why didn't the WWF/E ever have a proper blowoff between these two(this was back when they DID in fact do actual blowoffs to feuds)? I know the endgame was always gonna be Triple H vs the Rock for Mania(which technically didn't even happen) but I always thought these two should have had a feud leading up to that. I know Triple H needed Mick Foley to 'make' him at the Rumble(in hindsight that was the right move) but is there any reason why they just kind of dropped Test and never mentioned him again in this feud?
Well the thing is that the whole Test deal was a pet project of Vince Russo, and when Russo left they really had no reason to continue pushing this guy who they didn't see as a future star of the company. Russo set up the whole wedding angle and they were left without a payoff because this stuff was all booked week to week and only Russo knew where it was supposed to be headed. So it was kind of like Test was a loose end that had to be tied up. Then the week after the wedding they did that tag match where Test looked totally bored and unmotivated while fighting his supposed blood enemy HHH, and that probably didn't help his case either.
Bored and unintrested pretty much sums up most of Test's run
ReplyDeleteThe one thing I will say for him is that he had the best big boot in wrestling.
Whereas guys like Nash and the Undertaker kind of hold their foot up there and wait for the other guy to run into it, Test tended to rifle his foot right at them, keeping his body low.
Looked awesome.
Aside from that definition of meh
Strange as Test would seem to be Vince's ideal wrestler.
ReplyDeleteI still love Test vs Shane.
ReplyDeleteTest always had a attitude problem. I remember back in 08, I ran into Test and Kelly Kelly (who he was dating at the time) @ Cheesecake Factory in Tampa. Him and Kelly Kelly sat at the table behind me and my ex at the time. He cussed some poor waiter out because he didn't get enough ice in his drink.
ReplyDeleteFew months when he died all I can remember is him yelling at the waiter.
Test is strange to me, he looked unmotivated in big sports but seemed perfectly happy in a lesser role. His run with Albert and Trish he actually showed emotion and charisma. And yeah, he seemed like Vince's ideal guy, big, good with some power moves, excellent hair.
ReplyDeleteAlways funny to see guys outside of work, especially sense they all live around here. I swear I have seen Edge and his first wife (Val Venis' sister) in every Village Inn in Tampa.
ReplyDeleteI seen Gangrel around (also when he was married to late Luna Vachon). Of course if your lucky, you will see Hogan hanging out in Clearwater beach which I have twice.
ReplyDeleteI also ran into Madusa (Alundra Blaze) @ Walmart. She was friendly to talk to, she told me she runs a Animal shop I think.
Maybe the story was that Test and HHH were good friends backstage and Test was all,"bros before hoes."
ReplyDeleteI gotta say the douchiest guy I ever ran into was Superfly Snuka. Big money grubbing asshole. By contrast, Gerald Brisco, Terry Funk and Ricky Steamboat might all be competing for the "Nicest person ever" award. I met Raven when I lived in Atlanta and he was surprisingly pleasant to talk to.
ReplyDeleteI agree. If there was anyone that fit the stereotypical Vince love affair guy, it was Test. He didn't have much on-screen charisma though. It's funny b/c everyone who talks about him says he had a great sense of humor but it just never translated to tv. Kinda like Malenko.
ReplyDeleteI forgot about the tag match after all these years but yeah, we wondered the same thing back then. No blow-off and obvious feud. The Russo stuff makes a lot of sense.
ReplyDeleteI agree. For someone as big and athletic as he was, he was incredibly dull to watch. He should have been able to work circles around the other big guys. He just didn't.
ReplyDeleteFar too excellent hair, which is why HHH had to get rid of him.
ReplyDeleteBack when DSW was still running (I lived 2 exits away), people use to always run into wrestlers around McDonough. My friend worked out with Great Khali once, and my brother, who worked at Walgreens back in 2007, said he would always regularly show up there. Half of my friends have FB pictures with the Great Khali on Facebook, lol.
ReplyDeleteAnd in 2005, Palmer Cannon tried to promote a DSW show to me when he saw me reading wrestling magazines in Books-a-Million, lol.
Yeah, he did have a great big boot. The one move that showed me a flash of what he could do was when he gave a pretty awesome pumphandle slam to Kane at Unforgiven 2002. His entrance music was cool, too. But I never saw "world champion" with him.
ReplyDeleteI've met maVen, Victoria/Tara, and Rico, and you couldn't find three nicer people. Victoria even gave me a hug after giving me an autograph, and let me say I've never been happier to be embraced by someone who was way more muscular than I.
ReplyDeleteRaven is one of the nicest guys i've ever met. Hacksaw, Raven, Bushwacker Luke, and the guy who plays Shockwave the Robot, at one table. Best 25 minute conversation ever.
ReplyDeleteThere were a groupf of guys in late 1999 who were being pushed up the card, Al Snow, Val Venis & Test were all feuding with main-eventers, however, the Radicals came, along with Taz, Angle & RDikishi suddenly getting over, so these three had their pushes stopped dead, and sent back to the midcard, they were all tried again later on, but they never caught on.
ReplyDeleteI hung out and chatted with Victoria/Tara at Wizard World 2 years ago, and she was the best ever. Just shootin' the shit about MMA and wrestling and working out for a good 15 minutes...then gave me a free pic and told her manager to fuck off about it lol. Class act.
ReplyDeleteWasn't there a match between HHH vs. Test like a week or two after the wedding and HHH jumped him before and then powerbombed him or something through the announce table? Then HHH celebrated with Steph? I thought that was the end for him and he never recovered since. Total burial.
ReplyDeleteAm I remembering it wrong?
I do remember Al Snow feuding with the Rock over Mick Foley, while Val Venis stole Mr. Socko and at the same time was asking for matches against Austin.
ReplyDeleteMan, late 1999 was weird.
I met Terry Funk at a convention in 2010. He was so nice and humble; unbelievably humble. I told him he was the main reason I was there and he totally didn't believe it, saying "That's nice of you to say if you mean it." And believe it or not, Balls Mahoney was incredibly nice, too. Not the total whackjob he appears to be in his shoots.
ReplyDeleteI remember reading an interview with Test in early/mid 2001 in some wrestling mag or other where he was asked why the wedding angle had no blowoff to speak of and he gave some rubbish answer about how the Fed didn't want to rocket him to main event status just yet and they were going to play the long game with him, and he'd get his kayfabe revenge eventually.
ReplyDeleteIt was basically him saying "I'M GOING TO BE PINNING HHH FOR THE WORLD TITLE SOON! YES INDEED!". Whether he was saying that to make getting relegated to third-rung Shane O'Mac stooge within minutes of his storyline wedding getting derailed look less bad, or the WWF told him that was their plan, we will never know.
Test's problem was that he was an insanely bland worker and couldn't promo worth a damn.
I met Balls Mahoney before an ECW show in 99 and he was super nice. He was signing autographs along with Hak Myers who was also very gracious. Spike Dudley was also pretty awesome.
ReplyDeleteDespite his sometimes douchiness on Twitter, Chris Jericho is one of the coolest guys alive.
ReplyDeletethere was a blowoff match on RAW that happened way too late. Test's revenge for the wedding swerve was to 'call the cops' on HHH.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VBOrEDrvVA
Whatever happened to the Virgil-Bag? I miss stories like this and the ones in replies to John "Cobra Kai" Kreese's comment here.
ReplyDeleteIf they don't get enough quality submissions, they kill things like that or put them on hiatus. Same with their drunken hookup fail series.
ReplyDeleteHe had a very high quality top elbow drop as well. Puts Punk's to shame.
ReplyDeleteElbow only behind Mach and HBK. Dats good company yo.
ReplyDeleteThe straight up aggressive football tackle he hits Shane with on the outside to begin that match is one of the most realistic hate filled moves I've ever seen in a grudge match.
ReplyDeleteI still like the idea of Test returning in 2000 with the debuting Trish Stratus as his new woman (without Albert and the whole TnA tag team deal). They didn't have to run a big feud with Hunter. You could have Test come back and kinda shrug Steph off, then introduce his smoking hot new fitness model girlfriend. Sort of the whole "living happily is the best revenge" sort of thing. You could always revisit the stuff with HHH & Steph, or even Angle, since he was Steph's other charge in 2000
ReplyDeleteIt makes me wonder how different things would have been if the "dating/avenging Stephanie" angle had been given to a better worker/promo guy than Test. A different guy beating the piss out of Shane and going into a feud with HHH, only to get double-crossed.
ReplyDelete