Scott,
I just read in your recap of Clash III (and I believe that I've read it elsewhere) that Flair was rumored to jump to the WWF for SummerSlam '88. What is the story behind that?
Thanks.
- J
About what you'd expect. Crockett was in trouble and Flair wasn't getting along with Dusty, so Vince tried to sign Flair away and it didn't get that far. Unfortunately the WON archives only go back to 91 so I can't pull up the pertinent details at the moment, but someone else might remember the particulars. It wasn't like Flair was in imminent danger of jumping with the belt or anything, though.
According the Flair's book Vince had planned for him to main event Summerslam against Savage for the title. Would Flair has won it then if he did jump ship? I can imagine them building up to Flair/Hogan at Mania 5.
ReplyDeleteFlair jumping would have been crazy. Do we really think Vince would have put him over Savage immediately, though? Doesn't seem like a very Vince-like thing to do.
ReplyDeleteIf you kayfabe it, it's because Armstrong wastes more energy and time kicking out, and it keeps Rotunda in control, since at that point the clock became Armstrong's opponent.
ReplyDeleteFlairs 92 WWF run was one of the best things ever
ReplyDeleteDepends on if he thought Hogan/Flair would have drawn huge. But in hindsight Hogan/Savage at Mania 5 drew like one of the greatest buyrates ever so it would have been interesting to see how Flair would have compared.
ReplyDeleteIt didn't draw and he was a midcard world champion. It's basically a 2 match run.
ReplyDeleteI don't think it would've compared much only because the Megapowers angle was practically perfect.
ReplyDeleteMeh...it made me a fan for life and created a great year of TV.
ReplyDeleteI'd say flair and staying worked out for the best. Great mega powers angle, great years in 88 and 89 for flair in nwa, and then flair got a great run in 92.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure whoever was running WCW decided to be mean to Flair, for no good reason, while Flair was just being a selfless gentleman.
ReplyDelete(According to Wiki, so stuff about grains of salt.)
ReplyDeleteSteamboat left due to a contract dispute, and other than a trip to Japan where he was pretty high on the card (Facing guys like Muta and Hase), he basically vanished from wrestling until that ill-fated run as The Dragon, exciting newcomer to the WWF.
... and what WOULD have drawn at that time? I'm just wondering what you think could have replaced that program.
ReplyDeleteConsidering how poorly the previous 18+ months had gone, Flair's timing was just no good as far as making the massive dollars goes.
Hard to blame Dusty here, when Flair kept refusing to drop the World title to the hottest babyface they had at the time. And when he did lose it, it was to lukewarm (at best) Ricky Steamboat, and they could barely draw a full house with those matches, as great as they were.
ReplyDelete"WINNER: Mr. Hughes. Another total squash here. So there's Mikey Whipwreck's ECW debut. That's all I have to say about a Mr. Hughes match."
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-WFNbMohTQ&feature=kp
From a "pro wrestling" standpoint, it was (arguably) the greatest series ever.
ReplyDeleteFrom a "business" standpoint, yeah, it needed to do WAY better to be a true success.
As an offshoot, though, it nearly saved Bill Watts' job a few years later.
Yeah, I have to wonder if it's quality thing or an editing thing. Wondering if there is a chance these could be added in the future.
ReplyDeleteWhatta legacy.
ReplyDeleteHave Sting go into a year-long feud with Gnits, an Alaskan fisherman.
ReplyDeleteAnd Flair still considers it the best 18 months of his career.
ReplyDeleteFor some reason, I don't see that being a positive in Dougie's breakdown...
ReplyDeleteThe initial hype for the SummerSlam edition of the Brother Love Show was for a mystery guest--one who "had never been in Madison Square Garden before." That was meant to be Flair.
ReplyDelete(Yes, yes, Flair wrestled there in '75. And Andre wasn't really unbeaten or unslammed before 1987).
When it didn't happen, we of course got a nothing throwaway segment with Jim Duggan.
Not sure about Flair "main eventing" SummerSlam per se, but it's close enough to chalk up to miscommunication or faulty memory rather than wrestler BS.
I just never could see Hogan vs. Flair as viable in WWF in the 80s/early 90s. Hogan was Superman, coming off vanquishing the invincible Andre the Giant. Then he would move on to this little white-haired guy with the physique of a Rougeau Brother? Remember WWF was the land of the muscleheads. And Flair, although popular in the south, was hardly a national/global draw in the big markets.
ReplyDeleteI mean, Savage isn't the biggest dude but his personality was so larger-than-life that you could see him matching up against Hulk. Plus you had that well-crafted story from WM4 to the big heel turn at SNME.
As a young mark back then, I would never have seen Flair as a credible threat to Hulk.
And we got to see Dusty in polka dots.
ReplyDeleteWell.......it worked out MOSTLY for the best...
In 1990 Steamboat had a financial stake in George Scott's NAWA promotion (which was later South Atlantic Pro Wrestling), and wrestled there for a bit. That outfit used a bunch of the remaining territory guys as well as younger folks like "War Eagle" Chris Chavis, "Mr. Wrestling" Vince Torelli (Ken Shamrock), and the American Pitbulls (the ECW ones).
ReplyDeleteIt actually makes me think of what would happen if that angle was presented today. The IWC would rip it apart as being stupid and silly because it was over a woman.
ReplyDeleteAlthough if it was Savage doing it, he'd probably get it over. He played psycho lunatic heel to perfection.
There are criticisms to be made of how Flair was used in the WWF, and it could have gone better. But it also could have gone a lot worse. And yes, absolutely nothing was drawing or could draw to an '80s expansion extent. The bad publicity and scandals were too much for anyone to overcome.
ReplyDeleteI guess this brings up a good question - how good would World Champion Luger have been in 88?
ReplyDeleteI have to side with Flair on this - of course, this was before Luger became totally awesome in 89.
It didn't draw because the WWF fans had been conditioned for a Face Champion. Andre was champ for a couple minutes and the Savage didn't go full heel until they absolutely had to.
ReplyDeleteDusty had good WWF music. It really fit him.
ReplyDeleteOh please. That's such a cop out.
ReplyDeleteI can only guess that he would have been a better draw than "Family Man" Steamboat.
ReplyDeleteI think the opposite would happen, if only b/c you've got 2 dudes fighting over the same girl, with Savage's hidden feelings of inadequacy (compared to Hogan's title reign) pushing the issue.
ReplyDeleteOf course, some in the IWC would have issue b/c they've never experienced fighting for a girl, unless it's a basement brawl for someone's nude Chyna spread...
Sorry 'bout that.
What would've drawn? Sting. I'd've thrown a mint at him.
ReplyDeleteFlair is a goddamn liar.
ReplyDeleteI would've rather seen ROMAN GLADIATOR Ric Flair coming in.
ReplyDeleteIf Steamboat lost to Guile and was told to "go home and be a family man", Steamboat would have said, "okay".
ReplyDelete"He's just a common man....workin' hard, eatin' ham!"
ReplyDeleteThis talk about the Mega Powers makes me wonder if the Randy Savage/Elizabeth story the best WWF ever told. It spanned multiple Wrestlemanias!
ReplyDeleteYou've got Savage winning the world title at WM4 and then holding Elizabeth on his shoulder, his jealousy causing their split and him losing the title at WM5, Elizabeth's revenge at WM6 by supporting Dusty-Sapphire as they beat Savage-Sherri, the teary reunion at WM7 and then Savage's victory for the world title at WM8.
Long-term booking at its finest!
Back then, people followed both feds and there was credible interest to a "dream match" between Hogan and Flair. I think they could've pulled something off in 88 when Flair was at the end of his peak and Hogan was still a household name. In 92? Maybe not so much.
ReplyDeleteThey could have sold Gladiator Flair clip on earrings to the kiddies
ReplyDeleteUm, my basement brawls were over the WWF RAW magazine swimsuit issues.
ReplyDeleteI'll see your Savage and Elizabeth and raise you a "Will Tito Santana win this match?" Dude lost like 8 straight Wrestlemanias, and the one he won was a dark match.
ReplyDeleteFlair considers the original 4 horsemen run his greatest ever with his WWF run second. And to be fair he clarified "greatest" as the most fun he ever had, not how he was booked.
ReplyDeleteTito won the opener of WM1 against The Executioner. Or was that the dark match you're referring to?
ReplyDeleteOh...my...God...Rellik is Killer spelled backwards!
ReplyDeleteThat is like a line from a Wrestling CSI show.
ReplyDeleteok but which heels, since you were quick to dump on Peyton's point
ReplyDeleteWhoooooooooooo are you...doo doo doo doooooooooo.....
ReplyDeleteI'm not saying there are not plenty of other reasons but..NWA fans were conditioned for the chase...long heel runs as champ. WWF fans had face hogan, face savage, a couple months as heel savage and then face hogan again. Hell even Backland and Bruno, the company had never given a heel a long run. So in my mind that had to play into it.
ReplyDeleteSting/Savage is a license to print money in the early 90s.
ReplyDeleteIf Flair had jumped, meant we would have missed the Holy Trinity with Steamboat in '89 so glad he didn't.
ReplyDeleteGuile was the best!
ReplyDeleteSONIC BOOM!!!!!!!
1992 wwf fans and Bruno wwf fans have zero in common.
ReplyDeleteYes they were the Hogan Savage fans...which I listed earlier in that post
ReplyDeleteNot sure he would have based on how Flair was treated in 92. He didn't go over Piper really or Hogan. Vince has never been big one for putting the competition over his guys (see invasion)
ReplyDeleteWhat would have drawn? Young Stallions as Tag Team Champs, Jim Powers as IC champ and Roma as World Champ.
ReplyDeleteFlair's personality was just as "larger than life" as Savage
ReplyDeleteSo a slightly less charismatic, but better working Warrior "clone"? I'm not so sure there...
ReplyDeleteExcept for the one year when he didn't wrestle, Sting was an absolute bust as a draw in WCW.
ReplyDeleteAnd he drew shit in TNA.
business was dying either way. Do I think Flair took WWF by storm? Not really. But he was doing fine. He was the least of WWF's problems. In fact the end of 91 and into 92 revitalized the business briefly from summer of 91 but then started to tank irreperably in the summer of 92.
ReplyDeleteI agree, Savage vs Hogan is the way to go in 88-89, not Hogan-Flair.
ReplyDeleteSavage nationally was more over just by virtue of already being in WWF, he had the built in storyline with Hulk, and his size was much more believable as a threat to Hulk for WWF fans.
Putting Flair over Savage at Summerslam '88 and blowing off the MegaPowers story would have been a mistake.
who did draw in TNA? Sting was ridiculously booked in WCW and one could argue the opposite of WWF in that NWA fans were conditioned to enjoy the chase and didn't know what to do with a face champion. Sting had shit angles once he won and then when WCW was desperate, they chose a heel Luger instead of Sting after Flair left.
ReplyDeleteHe never had the wwf machine behind him.
ReplyDeletedepends on who's paying him. At one point he did claim that when he was on Vince's payroll and doing the Evolution gig.
ReplyDeleteSting and Warrior are completely different characters. And Sting has more charisma than Warrior, not less.
ReplyDeleteThis has been Cults thing for awhile
ReplyDeleteIf Flair jumped in '88, I think the smartest move would have been to spend a year building him up as a top heel and then have him ready as Hulk's foil for after Mania 5. The Brain Busters were in around that time too, right? Reform the Horsemen under Heenan (Flair/Arn/Tully/Rude and...ANDRE), let them kill midcard babyfaces for a year, put Flair over Brutus or Jake or Piper at Mania 5, and then run Flair vs Hogan after that.
ReplyDeletethe stuff is out there. Anyone who wants to buy DVD sets of them or find torrents can find the ECW episodes from then. WWE could buy the missing ones (if that is the issue) for a few bucks. If it is a content issue it's a bizarre one considering some of the other stuff they leave in and how some are single episodes and others are 3-5 episodes grouped together.
ReplyDeleteI could agree with "different", but not "more". Warrior's batshit insane character was a fine fit for the WWE at the time.
ReplyDeleteEarly Sting (87-88) was MUCH closer to Warrior (some no-selling, power-based) than post-injury Sting in overall character. "Surfer Sting" wasn't really common until his Horsemen run, IIRC.
It was...but Savage was also feuding with someone similar at the time in Ted DiBiase with the same rich playboy gimmick.
ReplyDeleterich yes, playboy no. I don't exactly remember Ted swimming in women. In fact my friends and I joked that Ted had Virgil servicing him in more ways than one.
ReplyDeleteI always heard it was also because his wife led him around by the balls
ReplyDeleteIs Sting a better bell to bell worker than Warrior? Sure. But no way did he have more charisma. Warrior's batshit crazy promos and entrance and all that moved more merch and tickets and got bigger responses in a year than Sting did his entire pre-NWO-era career.
ReplyDeleteWhen did surfer Sting ever do well as a draw?
WWF was way more PG, though. Elizabeth was their "hottest chick" and he was always portrayed as classy and elegant.
ReplyDeleteand a better worker
ReplyDeleteHe comparably drew less than other guys who had been on top in the NWA/WCW.
ReplyDeleteExcept by Flair/Perfect... but that was much later.
ReplyDeleteInteresting point. Until Yokozuna, the WWF had gone over a decade without a long dominating heel title run.
ReplyDeleteSuch as?
ReplyDeletecompared to who? Flair? He was basically the only guy on top from 85-91. Dusty was around for some of it. Luger? Sting had some bad luck with the knee injury that cut his big moment down a touch, then after he won the belt he got shit to work with. Then Flair got the belt back and Sting got shunted down the card as if it was his fault Ole's insane. So much of being a draw is when you are on top, who you work with, and ultimately what is going on around you. WCW in 90 had some serious shit as Herd tried to out-WWF the WWF with old time WWF guys and cartoon shit.
ReplyDeleteapparently according to some folks Ron Simmons, Luger, and Vader took WCW to the top.
ReplyDeleteNo, from II-IX.
ReplyDeleteThat was a hoax, dammit!
ReplyDeleteIt still amazes me how Elizabeth died. Based on how coquettish and sweet she seemed on television when I was growing up, an overdose was a shocker.
She was like the Disney Princess of wrestling.
Wait til the sun sets, he'll change his mind.
ReplyDeleteyep. And after yoko they went another few years before HHH. Every heel other than Graham and Yokozuna were transitional champs (Koloff, Stasiak, Iron Sheik, Andre/DiBiase, Slaughter, Flair, Backlund in 94, etc.)
ReplyDeleteIf you watched her WCW run... yeah, the Disney Princess grew into a "woman".
ReplyDeleteBusiness was better with Flair on top, and Dusty as the main face at different times in the 80s. Hell, RnR Express were top faces during a hotter period for NWA business than Surfer Sting was.
ReplyDeleteSting wasn't a success. Yeah he didn't have the WWF machine behind him, and of course Vince can market ANYONE better. But Sting didn't move the needle for WCW at all either.
Nobody took WCW to the top until Hogan/NWO. But Surfer Sting most certainly didn't either.
ReplyDeletebusiness was better period in the 80s. To compare 1990 to 1986 is silly. And remember 89 was tanking even though Flair and his hand chosen opponent were on top.
ReplyDeletethat's my point. You can't blame Sting for failing when nothing was going to save WCW outside of something like Hogan coming in. Business was tanking. Anyon on top was going to be failing and adding in shit booking didn't help.
ReplyDeleteWell then I guess Sting is above reproach.
ReplyDeleteYou can't say he wasn't a draw because he didn't have the WWF machine behind him.
You can't say he (Surfer Sting) wasn't a draw because he was the lead face in WCW from 89-95, and you can't compare that to the 80s.
Yeah, business wasn't as hot in the early 90s as it was in the 80s. But Sting doesn't get some of the blame for that? When wrestling booked characters that people gave a shit about (Austin, NWO, Hollywood Hogan etc) then people paid money again. Surfer STing wasn't one of those wrestlers.
Why that all worked isn't that someone in the office said, "Hey let's turn Savage face and in 4 years after a lot of stuff we reuinite him with LIz." It simply was being logical and recognizing the past and not being afraid to play off of it. It is something that is truly lost these days. In reality Savage was floundering as the Macho King and not happy, but thanks to still being a great worker and bookers who knew how to hit the payoff, we got the reunion
ReplyDeleteWhat Flair lacked in muscle, he made up for in cunning and cheating. Plus his endurance and ability I think it was viable.
ReplyDeleteThat was almost ten years before with essentially a different company. Early 90s Sting in the wwf is everything Warrior should've been. I'm sorry you can't see that.
ReplyDeleteno one is saying he is above reproach. I'm saying that claiming he could never draw and would have been terrible to come to WWF is incorrect. I'm not comparing him to Hogan or Austin or the NWO. I'm comparing to a solid character who was worthy of a world title run when they didn't have a lot else and who could ahve come in and had a great run in WWF.
ReplyDeleteMan, did Sting steal your girlfriend or something?
ReplyDeleteanyone who watched when Hogan competed against Piper or even Ted DiBiase would have no reason to doubt Flair as a viable threat.
ReplyDeleteThere is another board where I post that also has a few folks that just get insane about Sting, acting like defending the guy is like defending Charles Manson or something. Not sure why it is so polarizing. It's not like he's Bret Hart or HBK.
ReplyDeleteMaybe that was the point, as far as Flair was concerned? The fans are favouring him over Steamboat, and he's tight with Steamboat, so it's not like Steamboat would take off and leave Flair behind. If it was up to Flair wrestling would be him and Steamboat popping each other's assholes for 10 years.
ReplyDeleteAs sad as it is that I remember this, the Apter mags had their "Fantasy Tournament" or some ish, and Hogan/Flair was the final. Flair won, as most of the entries cited Flair's stamina.
ReplyDeleteSo when WWF business in the early 90s starts falling when Flair comes in, that's Flair's fault. But when WCW's business in the early 90s does jackshit for about 5-6 YEARS of Sting as the #1 face, it's because "that's the 90s and you can't compare the 90s to the 80s". Gotcha. Nice logic.
ReplyDeleteFact is that Sting was the top face in WCW for the worst 5-6 years in company history, until Hogan (and later NWO) saved their business. Did Warrior draw like Hogan in WWF? No way. But he had a hotter period than Sting ever did in that same time frame, and held up WWF business way better than Sting did for WCW.
Sting was a consistent disappointment as a draw, other than one year when he didn't talk or wrestle. The second he started wrestling and talking again, everyone remembered how mediocre Sting is.
Given that Hogan would eventually return, and Savage was already getting the "Hogan's shadow" stuff since Hogan helped him win, screwing that up would've made no sense.
ReplyDeleteBesides, Hogan and Savage as enemies still made for great business.
I was unaware that Sting was the top face from 1988-1993.
ReplyDeleteLooks like somebody.....
ReplyDelete*puts on sunglasses*
....did a job on Dusty.
YEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
When did Hogan come in? 94? OK so Sting was the top WCW face in 90, 91, 92, 93.
ReplyDeleteSo 4 years. And business was really bad.
Sting got ample time as the face of the company, and he didn't do well. Yeah it sucks he didn't have the WWF machine behind him, but you can't say he didn't have a chance at breaking out. He was the lead face in a national company that had a long history and multiple slots on national cable, and business got worse and worse.
Sting was not anywhere near the number one face for 5-6 years. Flair was a face in 89. Sting was the number one face in 1990 maybe part of 91 (arguably Luger). Off and on in 92, then Flair was the face in 93 again, then Hogan in 94 and 95
ReplyDeleteApter mags had a huge anti-WWF bias. I'll never forget as a kid seeing Martel ranked above Hogan and going WTF?
ReplyDeleteI corrected my mistake, yeah 4 years (90-94) not 5-6 years.
ReplyDeleteAre you saying that the problem was that Sting wasn't pushed hard enough in that period? He was pretty much always their hardest pushed face. If Sting was going to break big, he had plenty of chances.
Anyway, I'm probably coming off harsher on Sting than I should, for the sake of debate. Sting was a solid upper midcard face. If he was in WWF with that gimmick I'm sure he'd have done fine, but I doubt he'd have gotten over anymore than say Bret Hart did if they were in the company together. Sting was realistically below that level of talent/charisma/work.
fair enough. I think Sting was a notch below Hogan/Austin but just as viable a world title holder as Bret, Diesel, Vader, Flair circa 93, HBK, or many others in the mid 90s. The truth was there was no 80s Hogan at that point and Sting was just as good or better than the alternatives. I always get irritated when someone tries to say Nash or Hart or Sting or any of those guys weren't draws in the 90s. First off I question whether the concept of draws was even still true in that era when ppvs and TV became so much more important than pushing towards your next house show. Second, no one not named Austin or Hogan was going to "draw" during the pre-attitude era 90s. Third there was a shit ton of bad booking in both WWF and WCW. Is it possible that Bret, Nash, Sting, HBK, and the rest were poor draws? I guess. I simply question the fact that we have the relevant data in a controlled/scientific type environment to make those determinations.
ReplyDeleteSting didn't even main event Starrcade in 92 or 93 and in 90 his match was against Flair.
ReplyDeleteCena didn't main event Wrestlemanias 24, 25, 26. Was he not the WWE's top face in those years?
ReplyDeleteAre you really trying to prove that Sting wasn't consistently the face of early 90s WCW? Or that he wasn't pushed hard enough? He was on top. WCW didn't do well.
Once again, the only time Sting was ever an actually huge star was the year he didn't speak or wrestle.
He spoke and wrestled on top a LOT in WCW from 90-94, and the results weren't good.
Flair just says that because Vince signs his checks now. The wrestlers hated him...they all pissed in his bed!
ReplyDeleteFlair mentions in his book that at the end of 87, Tully & Arn were pissed about a terrible payoff and were holding out for money and threatening to leave and Flair told Dusty and Jim Crockett that he was with them as a sign of solidarity. Eventually word got to Vince and he offered Flair the main event of the SummerSlam against Savage for the belt. Flair said that he eventually stayed because out a misguided sense of loyalty to the NWA name and Jim Crockett but later learned that the impending sale of the territory to Ted Turner was dependent on him and was upset that Dusty and Crockett never told him. What he fails to mention is that it would have been a terrible business move for one talent to have that much power to hold up a sale for millions of dollars. In the book, it comes off that he never took the offer all that seriously.
ReplyDeleteBut that's according to Bret Hart, and according to everyone here, Bret exaggerates. For all we know, it was Bret, and everyone just watched him do it.
ReplyDeleteBret exaggerates in regards to his own importance but he's not known as someone who makes shit up.
ReplyDeleteThey still fucked him over though in terms of pay though. He should have gotten a multi-million dollar deal, Turner would have agreed to pay it.
ReplyDeleteI'm almost positive he claimed his WWF run was one of his favorites well before the Evolution stuff. But really, compare his boss in WWF to WCW. Say what you will about how Vince treated Flair during his first run but they obviously thought very highly of each other.
ReplyDeleteSadly the more likely storyline would have been for half that time. (W)WWF/E has never been that good with building long-term hot heels, Triple H's 2000 run aside. Even the big time heel runs like CM Punk and Randy Savage started out as face runs. The Horsemen in 1988 WWF would've been cool, but WWF was so focused on the Mega-Powers explode storyline that the Horsemen would take a bit of a backseat and by the time Flair really got to the top he might not have had the heat an immediate main even story would provide like what he got when he eventually did come in as the Real World Champion. I also can't see him getting the WWF belt from Hogan so soon after Hogan would've beaten Savage for the belt. IF it was run as a Crockett/WCW territory? Horsemen vs. Hogan/Savage/Jake/Piper is awesome though.
ReplyDeleteThis feels like it would be the moment in Back to the Future Part 2 when Marty's girlfriend sees her future herself and they freak out and almost break the space-time continuum. Flair jumping really could have killed WCW way earlier if Turner never buys it. So who knows if the lucha/cruiserweights take hold in North America. Certainly no nWo and no epic heel Hogan run (on the plus side: no epic heel Hogan run that ran too long). What happens to Steve Austin if he isn't in WCW and fired? Does he become Stone Cold? As another Austin (Powers) would say, "and now my eyes are crossed."
Or maybe...wcw pushes luger and sting and without the shadow of Flair looming over them maybe they become huge stars and wcw goes IP a level?
ReplyDeleteHave you seen the 91 MSG house show with Piper wrestling Flair? Its on the network I think. Flair goes over piper. I was shocked watching the match because I didn't think piper did many jobs in the WWF and figured it would have no finish.
ReplyDeleteOk, I'm sold -- Flair should've jumped! Always annoyed me that Luger never got that big (any?) win over Flair and Sting's big wins were usually returned back to Flair shortly after. Sure, Flair was awesome, but you need to make other stars at some point.
ReplyDeleteI just watched the whole Luger vs Flair ppv run on the network and looking back its mind boggling. At GAB 88 it was a hot angle and could have made luger a giant star, but the nwa thought the money was in chase and I get that. So run the big rematch at starrcade. Put Luger over there. But to stretch it out until 1991 and then Flair even leaves before you do the match because you dicked round with it so much and didn't put luger over in the next 3 years is senseless booking.
ReplyDeleteYeah it was totally a self-fulfilling prophecy that Luger wasn't ready for the belt. The lead up to that feud with Luger in the Horsemen to keep the eventual "next big thing" from taking on the champ was perfect and the fans were super into him. The turn had him hot as hell as well (even with Dusty putting himself over in the Bunkhouse Stampede for literally NO reason...) and the first matches were hot...and then they decided that since they waited so long to pull the trigger he wasn't hot anymore and wasn't ready. Somewhere in here apparently Flair refused to put Luger over probably because he thought he'd be pushed to the midcard. Then it was Sting's turn to be the next big thing until he got hurt and then it was back to having Lex choke. Like you said by the time they needed Luger to be champ Flair wasn't around to do the job so he looked like a joke. If you want someone to be the guy he has to be given the chance to be the guy. He can't just choke in the big match all the time.
ReplyDeleteGood point. According to Meltzer, Vince didn't think Hogan-Flair could draw as a ppv main event, which was they didn't go with that at at WM VIII.
ReplyDeleteno i haven't I think it was one of the cut down 57 minutes shows that I'm boycotting (yeah I know, WWE doesn't know nor care but I feel better and they have been putting up longer shows recently)
ReplyDeleteECW loved themselves some 45 minute draws back then. Douglas had one with Funk, Tully Blanchard, and Sabu too I think
ReplyDeleteWow what an interesting situation. There was a serious talent raid for a few years there, with Vince netting ALL of NWA' top names.....Flair, Luger, Tully and Arn, Sid, Windham, Dusty, L.O.D. and others such as the Bushwackers, Gigante, Mean Mark, Powers of Pain, and Ronnie Garvin.
ReplyDeleteI really wish Vince would have at least addressed the Four Horsemen stable. Vince had at one point or another some strong version of the group. The angles write themselves, years of story lines, especially back in those years. Flair, Arn, Tully and either Sid or Windham. With of course Heenan.
In a recent post it was mentioned there was almost an Invasion in 1988..... Holy Shit can you imagine? 1988's Horsemen, Sting, Pillman, Luger, Road Warriors, Nikita, Midnights, Rock N Rolls, Steiners and maybe Funk, a returning Steamboat, and MUTA? FREAKING MUTA IN WWF?
From my old copy of The Observer:
ReplyDelete"Flair might be jumping to WWF...one source told me that. But it may not happen. Either way, I'll be sitting on a pile of your cash JACKIN' MY JOHNSON"
Flair acknowledged the rumors in his book. They were legit.
ReplyDeleteSting was the victim of beyond shitty booking when they were supposedly trying to make him their top guy. If he'd been a strong champ from Bash 90 until getting destroyed by Vader at Bash 92, only to successfully pull of the Rocky III story and win the rematch at Starrcade 92 I think he would have been a fine draw.
ReplyDeleteIt's not like Flair was doing comparably better in 89 either.