I just finished watching King of the Ring 96 on the network, and I had a thought that I hoped you could help me with. Obviously, in hindsight, Austin was the right choice for winner, but at the time: Vader had been positioned as a monster heel and ended up main eventing Summerslam that year, Mero was being paid a pretty good sum of money, by all accounts, and Jake was on the nostalgia/comeback tour...by the time they got to the PPV, it seems like Austin was the 4th most likely to win the tournament. How did he end up getting the nod from Vince and company?
I don't know if there was any specific reason behind Austin winning other than Vince just deciding that he was the guy that day (and really they had no plans for him at that point anyway), but I do have to call attention to Meltzer at the time doing the most spectacular undersell of a business-changing moment:
7. Austin beat Roberts in 4:28 to win King of the Ring. The storyline was that Roberts was working on badly injured ribs. Ironically it was Austin who was hurt legit as he needed 15 or 16 stitches in the tongue and mouth (done backstage at the building, not in the hospital as was said on television). Austin worked the ribs for about 3:00 and Gorilla Monsoon came in to stop the match. Roberts begged for him to let it go, which he did. At this point they got a lot of heat and Roberts made a quick comeback before being cut off. Austin got the pin with the Stone Cold Stunner and did a strong post-match interview knocking Roberts religion and drinking problems. 1/2*
Yeah, it was a "strong post-match interview", that's for sure.
My guess at their logic is that they wanted a heel to win it, so that cancels out Mero, and Vader didn't need it. So Austin was the best choice left.
ReplyDeleteHere's a question: what if Austin wins KOTR but never cuts the 3:16 promo...anything change?
ReplyDeleteI'm of the opinion he was bound to get over at some point but this definitely helped him get noticed. It's the most overrated moments of all time in my opinion. Sure it put him on the map but it was the Hart Foundation feud that really put him on the map. Didn't he feud with Savior Vega right after KOTR 96?
Vader didn't need the win. He was scary as fuck as a title threat already.
ReplyDeleteHe didn't feud with anyone post KOTR, he just beat jobbers, but it was the fact that he was constantly winning all the time, even if it was just jobbers that got more and more fans behind him.
ReplyDeleteAustin said Vince was walking past him in the parking lot and just casually mentioned that he was going to be winning KOTR. It really sounds like they didn't have a backup plan after HHH.
ReplyDeleteBret hart still would have hand picked him, so he probably still gets over.
ReplyDeleteAgreed. You dont wanna a babyface winning the kotr... they have nowhere unless u have a heel champ.
ReplyDeleteKotr is better suited for a heel for the babyface champ.
I thought he needed a run with a belt...ANY belt. A dominant reign that put over a white-meat babyface would have been good.
ReplyDeleteHe was feuding with Savio BEFORE the King of the Ring, wasn't he? WM12, and IYH: Beware of Dog (1&2) were both before the KOTR.
ReplyDeleteT-shirt sales wouldn't have been as strong.
ReplyDeleteYeah, if Bret still wants him for the comeback match, he's still gonna get over as a heel, and ultimately The Guy.
ReplyDeleteHowever, if Austin doesn't hit "Austin 3:16" in that moment, on that night, it likely never happens unless he randomly crosses paths with another religious character, which the company wasn't exactly overflowing with.
So yeah, he's probably still in the way to the top, but without THAT specific catchphrase, things are probably a tad different. Hard to imagine any T-shirt selling more than that one, but who knows...
It's hard to say, but remember: the 3:16 is STILL the thing people think of when they think of Austin.
ReplyDeleteWithout that, I don't know that the WWE makes the assloads of cash they made off his merch. In fact, I think it's a good bet they don't.
As far as Austin getting over, yes, maybe he would, but Jim Cornette said he was there with Vince the night Vince saw all the 3:16 signs in the audience and said something to the effect of "we've got something here." Knowing how Vince's mind fires in 19 directions at once, had 3:16 never happened, Austin could have been another 6-month "push him and then forget about him" thing.
I love that match just to see Austin come to the ring in full Stone Cold persona, but to the Ringmaster music, and a crowd that does not care.
ReplyDeleteI think that Austin was going to happen to some extent no matter what, but that interview got him noticed, so who knows for sure? Definitely the t shirt sales wouldn't have been there, and so maybe Vince never really signs on to him without that?
ReplyDeleteBret was in his corner which certainly helped.
Meltzer later described the bomb that landed on Hiroshima as 'making a mess'
ReplyDeleteJohnny B Badd was one of those guys I really liked and wished would go to the WWF, and I was tired of Marc Mero after about a month. They actually managed to make him gayer than Johnny B Badd.
ReplyDeleteI thought he or Vader was winning though. Vader made sense since he seemed to be the top but I feared Mero was going to win. I didn't see Austin coming at all.
I always felt that within Austin's feud with Bret, it was the relentlessness that got Austin over the top. Austin was gonna challenge, attack and fight Bret every single week, no matter what. And nobody was gonna stop him.
ReplyDeleteThen as a brilliant effect, rather then Bret put away this savage heel for good, he whined and whined until he turned heel.
I still think he should have traded with Shawn... win Summerslam, DQ fuckjob at SurSer, and Shawn winning the belt back at Rumble, in San Antonio. I bet they would have legit sold out the Alamodome then...
ReplyDeleteBret's promo style wasn't cut out for long live weekly interviews. Hearing him whining about getting screwed once every couple of weeks or in short cutaways might have been fine but going out there every week for 10 minutes complaining about everything was a turn-off. It didn't help that around the same time he was doing his shoot type interviews vs Shawn and was complaining and whining about him to. Most of Bret's issue with Shawn was out of the ring so it went over most people's head and then they're thinking "Jesus, he think HE'S screwing him to? What a whiner!".
ReplyDeleteVince did seem kind of iffy on Vader from the start. He didn't get the monster push you'd expect him to get.
ReplyDeleteWhat really helped Austin was the booking being so on the fly at the time. Once Bret beat him it looked like he'd remain a mid-card heel and it looked like he was on the verge of feuding with a face Bulldog, but with Vince not knowing for sure which way to go, plans changing, the title bouncing around, Austin was kept in the mix to be a pain in Bret's side and it turned out to be what got him really over.
ReplyDeleteYou obviously don't remember the "Game Over?....Damn Right I'm Over!" t-shirt.
ReplyDeleteVince wanted to rename him the MASTODON!... of course Vince didn't get what made Vader interesting. Or he didn't get enough of it.
ReplyDeleteYou'd think it'd be so easy - this big monster who destroys people comes in and destroys people, until the only guy left to stop him is the half-his-size Shawn Michaels. He destroys him to, setting the stage for Michaels to be the ultimate underdog and defeat him. It's Sting/Vader 101.
ReplyDeleteMichaels crying like a bitch because Vader was a little stiff didn't help, either.
ReplyDeleteI think it was supposed to be a turn-off. He wasn't out there to get cheers.
ReplyDelete.... Isn't that precisely what happened? Up until Summerslam, Vader was booked incredibly strong, it's really only around WM 13 that they gave up on him.
ReplyDeleteI still wish Vader would have gotten the title at IYH Final Four and dropped it to Taker at Mania 13. Would have been an actual decent main event and I don't see how the buyrate could have been worse.
ReplyDeleteWell, I felt that Vader and Sid were interchangeable at the time. Both over, both capable big guys. They just decided to give the nod to Sid. But yeah, i wish WWE had gone with Foley's suggestion of Vader vs Mankind at WM 13, would have been tons better than the throwaway tag title match.
ReplyDeleteI don't know. Vader made a splash of a debut in the 96 Rumble, beat the hell out of Gorilla Monsoon which was actually a decent little angle that no one talks about. He main evented SummerSlam and wasn't he scheduled to win the title until Shawn pulled some strings at the last minute? After SummerSlam, I'll agree that Vader never fully headed back into the right direction, but I thought he was real good from the start.
ReplyDeleteTo be fair, I highly doubt anyone suspected what would ensue after that promo. They might've had an idea that Austin would main event, but I highly doubt anyone thought Austin would be the most over guy in wrestling in 2 years.
ReplyDeleteNot to mention that IIRC Austin basically did nothing until the feud with Bret started.
Jim Cornette explains in his 1997 WWE timeline that it was in fact Triple H who was picked to win the KOTR for 1996... Though he was punished as a result of the MSG Incident with the Kliq... He would later go on and win the 1997 edition...
ReplyDelete"Vader was a little stiff" is about as absurd as "Yokozuna was slightly big boned".
ReplyDeleteI don't blame Shawn at all for complaining. The schedule was incredibly grueling as it was, without a 400 lbs guy beating you up legit every night. It's supposed to be fake.
He actually beat the Undertaker at the 1997 Rumble, so there was definitely still something left in him. But hey, they totally stopped caring about him right after, unfortunately. But his first full year, he had a hell of a push.
ReplyDeleteCorrect. mid card rematch against Mero at the next PPV, Pre show match against Yoko at summerslam, Not on the card at IYH Mind Games, Opening match at IYH Buried Alive.
ReplyDelete(can you imagine the 2013-2014 IWC yelling BURIAL at the top of their lungs about that?)
Yep, that was great. I actually remember Sting vs Vampiro having a bit of the same story, but... It was WCW 2000. Nobody cared.
ReplyDeleteFor as much people mock current WWE for not having long term planning the concept of "booking on the fly" has actual merit as you aren't locked in a set plan and can adjust if something doesn't end up working.
ReplyDeleteWCW took that concept to an absurd level though.
The Beatles "got a good reaction" on the Ed Sullivan show.
ReplyDeleteBut Shawn's reaction at Summerslam was horrible. Throwing a fit in the middle of the match. Who did he think he was Randy Orton?
ReplyDeleteFunny thing, watching it as a mark, I just thought it looked like the babyface champion was showing lots of fire, lol.
ReplyDeleteI don't know, there was a whiny Bret promo in December 96 about Shawn, and I think him quitting over Austin cheating in the Rumble was supposed to be a face promo, because technically he was right. But at a certain point I'm sure they started noticing that people were booing him for the whiny promos and amped it up.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I guess it did. He got the pin at Wrestlemania, beat Razor in April...I think the Yokozuna feud was just so brutal I didn't pay attention to it and thought he was just floating and I expected him to win the King of the Ring and he didn't...but he did pin Shawn a couple of times before Summerslam so he was booked pretty well up until then.
ReplyDeleteWhere can I read Meltzer's reviews? I've never read any of his and I've read most all of Scott's.
ReplyDeleteTaker/Vader could have been great. Their Rumble match was good and their Canadian Stampede match rocked too.
ReplyDeleteNothing was gayer than Johnny B. Badd.
ReplyDeleteI don't know, the little leather looking tights, the jungle eyes. Maybe there's just something about Marc Mero that makes every thing he does seem gay?
ReplyDeleteI have to agree with your Mero assessment, because he had zero chemistry with Sable and the whole gimmick came across as him trying way too hard to convince the fans of his manliness after abandoning the Johnny B. Badd character.
ReplyDeleteIt's actually pretty amazing: Mero got a black effeminate character over as a BABYFACE in the Deep South. Think about that for a minute. And yet he ditched everything that made him a success in WCW and basically bombed. I think he could have been the next Adrian Street if he'd simply taken aspects of the gimmick to Titanland with a simple name change ala Dingo Warrior or the Diamond Studd (and "Marvelous" Marc Mero totally works for that).
Yeah, I Cactus Jack wants to take a shit-kicking for the sake of realism, good for him, but not every one should be expected to.
ReplyDeleteDave Meltzer: Yeah, I'm guessing this Elvis guy will sell a few records. Maybe even make a movie at some point.
ReplyDeleteOne thing people are quick to forget is that the Austin interview didn't actually change anything as he was still bouncing around doing nothing for months after KOTR.
ReplyDeleteHe was in a silly pre-show match at SummerSlam, in a thrown-together heel vs. heel IYH bout with Triple H and was only in a key match at Survivor Series because he was hand picked by Bret.
There was also no plans for him at WrestleMania since the direction was Bret vs. Shawn, and that was thrown together at that last minute which Bret wasn't happy about and Austin didn't know about until he saw it advertised on TV.
Basically, he was just sort of 'there', in the mix but with little focus until the WrestleMania match, THEN they put they strapped the rocket to him and went with it before retconning his entire history to "the KOTR promo made him the number one guy in the business overnight."
Wow, Dave Meltzer said Austin had a strong post-match interview at the time it happened. GENIUS!
ReplyDeletewrestlingobserver.com but you have to subscribe, his archives aren't complete, and his reviews are written at the time (i.e. KOTR 96 was written in 1996, with 1996's perspective, hence no lines about what a "business changing interview" Austin gave).
ReplyDeleteAlternatively (cheap plug) http://historyofwrestling.info has paperback and Kindle books of every WWF PPV/VHS release from 1985-2002 if you're in the market for that kind of thing.
Yeah, that's been pretty common knowledge to fans since '96.
ReplyDeletehow quickly we forgot KANYON~!
ReplyDeleteAustin was a very cool Heel act, and was getting a lot of Smart Mark attention, and this just built on it- people LOVED the "Austin 3:16" bit, but the bookers took forever to notice- he beat Yokozuna on the PRE SHOW at Summerslam, didn't he? The increased fan attention got obvious enough later that he eventually got the Rocket Push, but it took until the Bret feud.
ReplyDeleteI always figured that Vader not getting the title was just Vince's way of saying "hey, here's this guy who ran roughshod when he worked for the competition, but here in my company against *real* talent, he's gonna come up short, thereby showing the world that WWF > WCW."
ReplyDelete"he had zero chemistry with Sable"
ReplyDeleteGuess that explains their divorce.
Meltzer...again why does everyone worship this HORSE'S ASS????
ReplyDeleteI like you.
ReplyDelete