Hey Scott,Was just looking at the KOTR 1997 Brackets on Wikipedia when I saw that HHH has originally lost his qualifying match against Ahmed Johnson via DQ but...Helmsley was allowed another spot in the tournament because he was not properly instructed prior to his match with Ahmed Johnson the previous week that he could be eliminated via disqualification and thus threatened the WWF with legal action; Vader was originally in this spot but sustained a broken nose after his No Holds Barred match with Ken Shamrock at In Your House: A Cold Day in Hell on May 11. This gave Helmsley the opportunity to fill in the vacant space and face Crush. Vader fought Ahmed on the May 26 episode of Raw Is War for his spot, but lost.
Obviously, there is a fair amount of kayfabing going out with the lawsuit but I'm wondering: Was HHH always slated to win the KOTR that year? I ask because this was around the time Vader did the Kuwait interview and basically went downhill from there. Was Vader supposed to win KOTR but screwed himself out of the position (Ironic, obviously, considering what happened to HHH in 1996). Or was this just a situation where they were always going to push HHH to KOTR and were just waiting until after his punishment was over? Or was it something else?
I don't recall hearing anything wacky at the time. Like, as far as I can recall, he was always getting the rocket push whether we liked it or not. Vader was kind of on the outs by that point anyway.
I am pretty sure the WWF booking in 1997 was written on napkins every Monday afternoon. So many cards got changed. Remember the KotR main event was supposed to be Bret/Shawn.
ReplyDeleteAlso, Foley said that he was supposed to feud with Vader (maybe even a singles match at WrestleMania) but that everything got nixed because of the Hart Foundation angle. And Vader wasn't really on the outs...he got the WWF title shot at the July PPV when Ahmed got hurt again.
He was still used mostly as midcard fodder, and the title shot was more "Paul Bearer Guy vs. Undertaker" as to advance the angle of Bearer holding Undertaker's dirty little secret over him, as well as a replacement for Ahmed's umpteenth injury. Then he turns face and really turns into a JTTS. Remember the epic feud with the Artist Formerly Known as Goldust?
ReplyDeleteHHH:legal action::???
ReplyDeleteHow much money did both the WWF and WCW flush down the toilet by not running with Vader more than they did? He more than deserved a WWF title run and could have been a fantastic heel. And WCW was on the cusp of giving the guy a great face run before it all fell apart and he left the company.
ReplyDeleteVader vs. the nWo should have been epic.
As much as he may have worked the system for his own personal benefit (translation: had a good mind for the business and took the time and effort to show up for production meetings on a regular basis, WHAT AN ASSHOLE), could it really be classified as a rocket push in 1997? It was a pretty steady progression from midcard heel to upper midcard face to quasi-main event heel over the span of nearly three years before he was The Guy.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me like classifying this as a "rocket push" is a usage of loaded language to imply he was shoved down our throats super fast, and this isn't really what happened.
Fuck yea. He was to "rough" for hbk. Vince should have run with him for a little. One more casualty for the Kliq
ReplyDeleteVader got hurt early on which took some bloom of his rose. Plus, it's nice to not have everybody hate you and hate working with you.
ReplyDeleteThat 1997 KOTR tournament was atrocious. Only 8 guys instead of the usual 16 (if you include qualifying matches). Jerry Lawler made the semis! Only good match was the final between Triple H and Mankind.
ReplyDeleteDidn't stop Shawn Michaels.
ReplyDeleteI may be wrong, but I'm almost positive he's the only guy to pin Shawn Michaels in 1997.
ReplyDeleteHe had a couple of friends.
ReplyDeleteIf you notice throughout most of the IYH shows from mid 96 to the end of 97, they had 2-5 midcard matches on them but the only midcarders regularly featured were Mankind, HHH, Rock, Austin & Goldust.
ReplyDeleteThey knew exactly who they wanted to push and built them up steadily. Compare to now when guys bounce from main event to not even being on the card in a few months.
People disliked working with Shawn for different reasons. He was a prick and a prima donna - but as far as I know he never stiffed people in the ring the way Vader did.
ReplyDeleteWhat happened to those guys? You'd think with having Shawn as a friend they would've done better.
ReplyDeleteI've said this before: They should have copied the angle he did with Hogan in WCW. He won the U.S. title and some Battle Royal that made him number one contender.
ReplyDeletehttp://youtu.be/k1h7T68eu50
Vince should have had a 30-second conversation about how Vader worked:
ReplyDelete'Leon, pull back on your shots. This isn't Japan. The rest of you shut up and sell'
I think Vader had one more murderous monster heel run in him as a McMahon mercenary once Austin got the belt.
ReplyDeleteI don't think it was just the Kliq. VInce has always seemed unwilling to get fully behind guys who were main-eventers in WCW before jumping to the WWF. And the WWF never really gave heel champions a long run until HHH's title run a few years later.
ReplyDeleteFunny story - I remember hearing a Cornette interview where he said that Vince wanted to get rid of the 'Vader' name completely for Leon and call him 'the Mastadon'. Cornette argued that was ridiculous since everybody already knew who he was.
I think a healthy Vader doing a monster babyface run in 95 could have gotten him over like Goldberg. Killing his way thru the DoD en route to a blowoff with Giant, as you mention. Awesome freakshow appeal
ReplyDeleteAhmed made sense as Kotr that year, but he got hurt. A dominant run thru the tourney en route to a Taker match. Good monster vs monster kind of deal. Ahmed also could have made a good hired gun for Vince against Austin
ReplyDeleteWWF never really gave heels long title runs. HHH's long run was an exception, but that was several years later.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure how much more WCW could have done with him. He was booked as the top heel in the company for several years. And it 'all fell apart and he left the company' because he got fired for getting in a fight back stage.
That Vince story sounds crazy to me. By that logic, he should have changed Sid's name completely when he debuted with the company in '91.
ReplyDeleteThe blow-off with the Giant could have been nice, but I'm not sure killing the losers that made up the rest of the DoD would have had much cachet.
ReplyDeleteI mean they basically did the same thing with Hogan, and it wasn't exactly epic.
I think Vader was one of my choices in the thread a few months ago about who to slot against Austin at Mania 14 if Shawn hadn't been able to go. Throw the strap on him on a random Raw by demolishing HBK.
ReplyDeleteI'm a firm believer that the KOTR winner should get a title shot at that year's Summerslam and since Bret ended up with the title shot that should have made him KOTR winner, though he was still injured around this time, so he couldn't have been booked to win in the first place.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of Vader...why in the great crispy fuck did they call him 'The Man They Call Vader'? That was annoying as hell.
ReplyDeleteConsidering Vince wanted to bring him in as "THE MASTODON"... I'd take what we got.
ReplyDeleteI'm amazed he didn't. But he never went by Sid Vicious in WWF, did he? Sid Justice, Sycho Sid...
ReplyDeleteI'll bet he tried and Sid couldn't remember.
ReplyDeleteNot sure why my comment got deleted...
ReplyDeleteWhat was the reason why Vader was referred to as 'The Man they call Vader'? That was very annoying, although it led to a great running joke between my Dad and I, where he'd refer to me as 'the son I call Billy', or for other things like 'The food I call Dinner', ect.
The leader of the DoD was Sullivan. Not much drama in killing a guy half your size.
ReplyDeleteWho was "They"?
ReplyDeleteThe same "They" from TNA?
They hilariously enough did that the very last year they had a KOTR PPV.
ReplyDeleteWorked a 16 hour overnight ER shift, saved a life and KILLED the Ryan Murphy scale. Suck it Murph
ReplyDeleteActually I think Foley said it was more a case of as soon as Vince found out he had run a program with Vader in WCW as well, that immediately made Vince not want to do it, b/c it wouldn't be "theirs". That's the epitome of how he works after all.
ReplyDeleteThat was pretty bad too, but TMTCV was silly in a 'my cat's breath smells like cat food' kind of way.
ReplyDeleteI'm sipping on a cold PBR right now.
ReplyDeleteAnd it was still FAR better than 1995...
ReplyDeleteLove it. I ain't hating on pbr, got rocked off it many times before.
ReplyDelete$8.20 for a 12 pack at the beer store at the end of my street. Best deal in town.
ReplyDeleteI always thought Murphy was faking it, and that I should be the one that the scale is judged on. That shitty Carrera GT joke I made a few days ago would be about 0.8 Amsterdam Adam.
We can change it to the "Amsterdam" scale...Murphys tough to be a tho...."gf jj date geesh u eyed 333 duudh eueybs rueub"
ReplyDelete...Ryan Murphy.
Tough to beat that
I don't know if I'd go that far. I mean people hated the outcome of that tournament, but at least it had some star power with HBK, Undertaker, and Yokozuna. The problem is that they didn't really put any of those guys through the tourney!
ReplyDeleteI'm nearly positive Jim Cornette said it was the same reason WCW called him Big Van Vader: they knew George Lucas would sue if they simply called him Vader. His name needed a prefix to clearly differentiate them (because that's how show business works) and Vince hated Big Van, so when no one else liked totally renaming him The Mastodon, he settled for The Man They Call Vader.
ReplyDeleteThat right there is why I always thought he was faking it.
ReplyDeleteAND. I wrote a what if.
ReplyDeleteThat's because while Shawn could kick the shit out of any of us, he was NOT a locker room tough guy at all. I think Kevin Nash even joked in one of his shoots that the Diesel/HBK bodyguard thing was art imitating life as Shawn would run his mouth to somebody and Kevin would have to step in to keep the peace.
ReplyDeleteIf Shawn intentionally potatoed someone that wasn't afraid to get fired, they would have beat the shit out of him and he knew it, which is why his in ring temper tantrums never turned physical.
Yeah, but they also had the Roadie (1st PPV match, probably his 2nd or third match on TV at all), Savio Vega (see above, went to the fucking finals FFS even though he was in the company for about 3 weeks), Bob Holly (jobber at that point), and had such stars as Manotaur in the qualifying rounds. Why the hell did Luger get left off this show?
ReplyDeleteYoko beat Luger in a QUALIFYING match. Damn, someone scrambled the books there.
ReplyDeleteWhat the hell, I'll rebook KOTR 1995... Mabel still has to win, and Ramon's still out after Round 1 (injury) I can change everything else.
ReplyDeleteFinals: Mabel defeats Taker
Semis: Mabel BYE, Taker defeats Michaels
Quarters: Shawn defeats Savio (subbing for Razor), Taker defeats Yoko, Mabel defeats Adam Bomb, Jarrett and Luger DCO/DDQ
Out in the First: Kama, Droese, Bundy, Holly, Mantaur, Roadie, Doink, Jacob Blu
Owen and Bulldog still wrestle to a draw, eliminating each other in the qualifiers.
Better? Not by much, but then again I'm doing this in 10 minutes.
It's quite hard to tell because at that point Vader's morale was at an all time low and it was obvious he didn't give a crap anymore and a lot of fans thought he 'lost it' but then once he got fired and worked in AJPW he seemed rejuvenated again.
ReplyDeleteYou're Allright curry. I'm awaiting the condescending comment here
ReplyDeleteI don't like people calling me by my last name. Not being condescending, just saying.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I'm about .3 right now. I'm playing Forza, when I start wrecking the car that's when I know I'm at about .5-.6.
Bush league Adam (see what I did there). 1.2 or bust. I'm push a .2 and killing the Murphy scale
ReplyDeleteWhy does Mabel still have to win? If I had to pick a heel for Nash to face at SS I would have gone with Adam Bomb. At least he works a similar style as Nash, so the match wouldn't have been that bad. Either that or have Owen win again.
ReplyDeleteIt's only 20 past 7 on the East Coast, I've got plenty of time.
ReplyDeleteAsk Vince. I just wanted to "improve" the pairings... Luger/Yoko does NOT belong in the Qualifiers.
ReplyDeleteThread jack: Stephanie got promoted to chief brand officer, and is no longer vp of creative, is this good or bad? I'm reading mixed reactions.
ReplyDeleteDepends on what the fuck a "Chief Brand Officer" does.
ReplyDeleteYea they really didn't go over that in business 101 at wvu.
ReplyDeleteAccepts that she no longer runs Creative.
ReplyDeleteThat would be a WIN. I think.
ReplyDeleteWCW switched from 'Big Van Vader' to just 'Vader' somewhere in his WCW run. I don't remember when, but 'Big Van' was dropped by the time he wrestled Hogan at SuperBrawl.
ReplyDeleteDepends. Is it a return to an industry veteran or MOAR VINCE? I am hoping the former.
ReplyDeleteYeah, he apparently was considering retiring completely towards the end of his WWF run, before he decided to go back to Japan.
ReplyDeleteIs this a covert firing for the lousy stretch of wreslting we've gotten these last 12 months, or so?
ReplyDeleteIt's like in Seinfeld where Elaine kept promoting the mail guy bc she was scared to fire him.
ReplyDeleteWhich was actually a REPLACEMENT qualifying match for when the British Bulldog-Owen Hart went to a time limit draw. So they took two competent guys out with that finish!
ReplyDeleteExactly! I honestly wonder if that's what it is. Obviously Vince can't fire his daughter so...transfer her to something she can't fuck up?
ReplyDeleterandom kotr thought. The gimmick went downhill when they started letting midcarders win it. When main eventers think it's beneath them to participate that starts to resonate with the viewers.
ReplyDeletenote: that thing did nothing to get Austin or HHH over. It's just something they can point to retroactively to try to sell the importance of it. If they really wanted to sell the importance of it HBK-Undertaker should have been the finals in '95
Off topic a little: watching Main Event, and witnessed a rather uninspired Goldust-Ryback match, ending when Curtis Axel intefered.
ReplyDeleteHow long until Ryback gets his future endeavors? The guy botched Goldust's powerslam, landing on his own neck.
I'm guessing PR? Like she builds WWE's Brand, y'know?
ReplyDeleteI plan on challenging the Murph scale myself with Sierra Nevada and a ton of pot tonight. All I have to do tomorrow is go to work for some insurance meeting at 10:30 for like 46 minutes, then I'm dunzo.
ReplyDeleteKind of like MITB.
ReplyDeleteBecause he was a man and that's what they called him.
ReplyDeleteExactly, which is how it should be. Of course, that raises the chicken-or-egg question of whether they became huge stars because of how they were built up, or if they were built up because decision-makers saw they had "it." As always, probably a bit of both.
ReplyDeleteProbably HHH takes over. Which wouldn't be a bad thing if he would just retire and STAY THE FUCK OFF TV! Instead, we probably get Punk and Bryan jobbing too HHH and either Michaels or Nash in a tag match at WM30.
ReplyDeleteIf this was a joke- because wasn't that in the Euro title match where Shawn laid down?- then +1 to you.
ReplyDeleteIf not, and you were seriously saying that as a way of making the argument that he really was getting a rocket push in 1997....I can't help you.
While she could be a voice of reason at times and could be a liason of sorts for the writers and Vince, her ideas generally shit the bed. She is supposed to oversee creative and it has gone from mediocre to awful this year.
ReplyDeleteSo, they create a new position for her (CBOs have been created before in other companies), promote her to it, and she still gets her $375K per year wrestler's contract on top of that. It's good to be Steph.
Yeah, I think that was due to a copyright issue with New Japan? Or wherever he wrestled in Japan, that claimed to own the gimmick. I think he dropped his entrance mask at the time to.
ReplyDeletewrestlers make fans care about events and not the other way around. That's how the WWE thinks it works or wants it to work.
ReplyDeleteAnd then he threatened legal action because he wanted a shot to be the face of the company?
ReplyDeleteHahahahaha, like Vince would ever demote Steph against her wishes.
ReplyDeleteIn all likelihood, SHE told VINCE she didn't want to do the creative thing anymore, so now she collects a paycheck to answer e-mails, make phone calls and show up at mainstream crossover and PR events. Cushy gig if you can land it.
I don't think they ALWAYS did it in the WWE, either. Could have just been a "we're low enough under the radar" thing.
ReplyDeleteThe KOTR really only works to get a guy (more) over if two things happen:
ReplyDelete1. They actually give the winner the "king" gimmick
2. The winner can DO something with that gimmick
King Booker was awesome. King Sheamus was boring. King Ass Man was awful.
Ryback landed on Goldust's neck?
ReplyDeletebut it did turn "Billy Gunn" into a verb!
ReplyDeleteSo it did nothing for Steve Austin.
ReplyDeleteBecause LucasFilms.
ReplyDeleteOr Gordon Sumner, in the case of a man called Sting.
anyone come in on the owen scale though?
ReplyDeleteRyback landed on his OWN neck. Because he didn't get all the way over on the powerslam.
ReplyDeleteI am better than everyone in this conversation.
ReplyDeleteGimme an update bro
ReplyDeleteHahah haha. I just pulled this shit up from my phone to.match the perfect time frame for the obligatory parallax comment.
ReplyDeleteAt the very least how long before he ends up in the Khali role of being a lovable goof? Looking back at it they really should have protected him more like they did with Batista.
ReplyDeleteOne random winner was Edge. He won and then waited another 4+ years before getting a real main event push.
ReplyDelete1. It works if fans care about the guy
ReplyDelete2. The guy actually goes over strong. Not this fluke my way to the finals crap they like to do.
Stephanie sucked at the job. For some reason I feel compelled to say something nice about her so I will. She is currently the only person on television that gives zero fcuks about trying to play the cool heel. She is currently the only true heel they have. Now how sad is that?
ReplyDeleteLol.. not yet my man. Saw some terrible injuries at the ER but that's a story for another day
ReplyDeleteChallenge aaccepted. You're gonna lose Dee Brown!
ReplyDeleteI'm not going to say KoTR did "nothing" for Austin, but the promo was his rocket to stardom. I don't know if he ad-libbed it or what, but without that promo the win would not have nearly meant as much as it ended meaning.
ReplyDeleteThe win didn't mean shit. Austin did that promo then did nothing of importance until his match with Bret in NOVEMBER.
ReplyDeleteYeah, a total tongue in cheek observation on my part.
ReplyDeleteThe rocket push didn't begin until he turned on X-Pac at Wrestlemania 15, and dammit, Vince was going to make Triple H a main eventer no matter what, with or without that chain mail Triple H tried to wear.
It's a damn shame he was a better worker as Skip Sheffield in the Nexus. Kind of funny that him and Axel are paired in that they happen to be my two least favorite guys on the roster
ReplyDeleteEXCUSE ME!?!?
ReplyDeleteWasn't the Bret/Shawn match called off after their real life fight, though?
ReplyDeleteSounds like a textbook case of Kicked Upstairs: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/KickedUpstairs
ReplyDeleteWhy the edit?
ReplyDeleteMan it must be nice to have a job that makes you feel like you accomplished something... I never find myself going "Fuck yeah I unlocked someone's active directory account today!" or "Hell yeah made 4 sales from the eBay store" or "Hell yeah moved that site up another 10 pages on google"... I really miss politics.
ReplyDeleteWelcome to America, Land of the Escalating Failure.
ReplyDeleteCouldn't be worse...
ReplyDeleteI always wonder if the "sycho" was an intentional misspelling or not.
ReplyDeleteSigh. I wonder why Vader was so afraid for his job during the Summerslam match. Cornette more or less suggests that's why he didn't retaliate when HBK kicked him in the head. How awesome would it have been if Vader had just stood up yelled "fuck you!", knocked HBK the fuck out, and walked away with the belt.
ReplyDeleteNah you're wrong dude, HHH fooled people and did 9/11.
ReplyDeleteTopped out at about .7 or so. If I didn't have to work tomorrow (and if I wasn't fucking broke) I probably would have gone full 1.0 Amsterdam Adam. Too cold out to do anything else but sit home and get hammered anyway.
ReplyDeleteNo shit. Who's "they"? Everyone calls him Vader.
ReplyDeleteAJPW, I believe.
ReplyDeleteDrugs/booze, lazy, did a porno and now works indy shows, married to Vince's daughter.
ReplyDeleteI let you figure out who is who.
Randy Savage was Shawn's BFF?
ReplyDeleteI said "married", not "fucked her when she was 14".
ReplyDeleteIt's not unreasonable that an American citizen would prefer working in the U.S. instead of Japan. He already had been fired from WCW. He might not have wanted to wind up completely black-listed from wrestling in N. America.
ReplyDeleteTons of tension to be built up until the point at which you get your hands on the guy. That'd be more of a denouement, the climax would be overcoming the Giant.
ReplyDeleteHe did 9/11 while rehabbing an injured quad? That only helps my argument: HHH just works harder than everybody.
ReplyDeleteThough, with the way the number of deaths was originally exaggerated, you'd think it was Hogan. "Together, Al-Quaeda, you and me lifted 50,000 American lives over our heads and slammed them to the streets of Manhattan, brother!"
I go through this all the time on the board... Bret made Austin. Everything else was nothing more than Austin being '96s version of Zach Rider.
ReplyDeleteThe president and his wife.
ReplyDeleteExactly. Austin didnt have a meaningful feud or angle after kotr until the Bret ones
ReplyDeleteOk, the second person, and neither can take a bump
ReplyDeleteThe win showed that they were open to doing something with Austin, which eventually led to the program with Bret, who was out pouting after WM12 the summer of 1996.
ReplyDeleteI think there was more of a groundswell of support for Austin building after that win than there would have been had he just been left to his own devices.