Randoms

I’m actually way ahead on the Rumble rants, since the show is two weeks away and I’ve only got 11 rants left to repost.  So we’ll take a couple of days off and resume Tuesday after RAW.  Until then, to the mailbag!

Scott,
A few random questions for you:
1. Were there ever any guys who were rumored to join the Four Horsemen, nWo or DX during the glory years?  I thought the WWF did a good job of not diluting DX the way the nWo was, but were there ever any other significant names that might have made an impact in those groups?  It seems like Eddie Guerrero could have benefited from the nWo's glory years.  Perhaps someone like Perry Saturn during the '98/99 Horsemen when Mongo was MIA for so long?

I don’t recall anyone specifically other than Konnan jumping to WWF with the Radicalz before he pussed out and went crawling back to WCW again.  The natural fit would have been DX there.  Everyone was rumored and likely planned to join the nWo, that’s too broad.  Saturn joining the Horsemen was basically just the Revolution group, except with Shane instead of Flair as the blond figurehead. 

2. Were Test and Stephanie actually together before the HHH relationship in 1999?  Or was Test just the random guy that got the on-screen distinction of 'dating the boss's daughter' for the Union-Corporation feud?

Test was just the random guy who happened to luck into a great storyline opportunity.

3. Was Owen Hart ever close to being released in '97/98 so he could join Bret in WCW?  Was Owen really pushing for that?

He wanted to, absolutely, but Bret talked him out of it because the financial cost of getting out of his contract would have been huge.  If I had a time machine, I’d go back and tell Owen to get out of his contract at all costs and go to WCW, even if it meant retiring for a while.  And then I’d bet a lot of money on sporting events, but the Owen thing first.

4. Has there ever been any sort of 'evidence' of the Randy Savage/Stephanie McMahon rumors, or is it pure urban legend that picked up steam on the internet?  The whole "well, why else would Vince hold such a grudge" theory is no kind of answer, but that's what everyone seems to come up with.

It’s an urban legend to which no one has provided a shred of evidence to support.  To quote Lionel Hutz, “Hearsay and conjecture are KINDS of evidence…”

5. Do you think the '94-'95 WWF would have done better business had Scott Steiner accepted the main event 'jesus push' and potentially been the new, more athletic Hogan?  A Hogan-like Steiner beating Yokozuna and the Dibiase Corporation guys like Bigelow, Kama, etc. and perhaps an eventual Steiner-Hart Wrestlemania match?

Given the short shelf life that Steiner actually had, I’d say no.  It seemed like the right idea at the time, but hindsight says that by the time he made his big return to WCW in late 95 as a roided monster he was already falling of a cliff.