"The Wrong Guy Went Over"

[thebrainfollower]

Is there a guy in wrestling history who's gone over more often when he shouldn't have than HHH? Heck is there even anyone who's a close second to him?

[Mad Dog]

No, because even a guy like Hogan was justified in not putting people over for a vast majority of his career. HHH was protected like a top guy while never producing like a top guy. That makes him worse.

[Zoo Enthusiast]

Ryback/Punk is definitely one for me.

[Mr. Lacelle]

Greg Valentine over Ricky Steamboat at Wrestlemania 4 robbed us of a chance of not making that show awful.

[C.S.]

I disagree about Ryback/Punk. Should Ryback have lost so much? Maybe not. But the real and bigger problem is that he shouldn't have been put into that position in the first place. He could've been kept apart from Punk and continued to gain momentum against other challengers.

 

Ryback/Henry is another weird one. Henry was the challenger after Ryback though.

[BBscout]

Flair/Luger and that Road Warriors loss in Chicago are the older ones that I remember reading a lot of hate about.

 

HHH at WM2000 is another. That whole match gets shit on but having missed out on that period live, I thought it was a ton of fun having watched it years later blind to its reputation.

 

Ryback-Henry for sure. Was a total WTF and seemed beyond the whole "losing streak" test thing they do with every eventual upper mid-carder the past few years.

 

Whenever the Punk-HHH match comes up, I always think about how they jobbed Austin to Taker in a title match right after WM13. And how he still turned out "alright." Like that could be their excuse to any guy who bitches about their positioning.

[jdw]

The wrong folks won in both the main events at Budokan on March 4, 1995. They got lucky on the first one due to Doc's Narita Nightmare, but that's just dumb luck rather than good booking.

 

People like to point to the wrong guy winning at a certain match in 1994, but it was actually the right guy given the next card and who needed to put over whom. But 1995 was largely a year of poor booking coming off the 03/04/95 card. All of it was entirely predictable, save the Last Match of the Year, which was just dumbass booking as well.

 

July 24, 1996 and October 18, 1996 were terrible booking as well. The first blew the one time Taue was over at that level, and with matches left on the table for him. The second blew the obvious Kawada-Takada (and then Takada-Misawa) that was sitting there when Takada's wrapped his 1996 dates. There was a lot of pretty nifty booking in 1996, mostly tag related but also Taue's upset of Misawa. But there was some major dumbass nonsense.

[The Chief]

 

 

 

 

This is probably blatantly wrong but I think HHH beating Angle at Unforgiven 2000 was the single match decision that did the most to kill the boom.

Not debating that the decision was 100% incorrect, but how is this on the same level as Austin going heel?

Some of you guys can pull out numbers and actually back your stuff up quantitatively. I'm going off of vague memory or feel here, but I guess my argument is that there was a weird buzz around that angle, in that there was a lot of new attention from people who weren't usually engaged with the WWF and that it could have served as a real shot in the arm to help keep the boom going for a while longer, and likewise, that things were already further gone by the time Austin turned. That's my main argument. It drove away a lot of people who were just getting invested in the product and that by the time Austin turned things were already cooling off.

 

As I said, I could be wrong.

Nope Matt, you're right. I know a lot of people that started tuning out because of that. Wasn't that also around the time when Stephanie joined the writing team?

[Timbo Slice]

The wrong folks won in both the main events at Budokan on March 4, 1995. They got lucky on the first one due to Doc's Narita Nightmare, but that's just dumb luck rather than good booking.

 

People like to point to the wrong guy winning at a certain match in 1994, but it was actually the right guy given the next card and who needed to put over whom. But 1995 was largely a year of poor booking coming off the 03/04/95 card. All of it was entirely predictable, save the Last Match of the Year, which was just dumbass booking as well.

 

July 24, 1996 and October 18, 1996 were terrible booking as well. The first blew the one time Taue was over at that level, and with matches left on the table for him. The second blew the obvious Kawada-Takada (and then Takada-Misawa) that was sitting there when Takada's wrapped his 1996 dates. There was a lot of pretty nifty booking in 1996, mostly tag related but also Taue's upset of Misawa. But there was some major dumbass nonsense.

I was gonna bring up the elephant in the room, too. No way Kawada should have jobbed on 6/3/94. Yeah, Misawa made Williams and then Kawada got his first title, but I think it would have worked out better that Kawada won, even if the Williams booking was straight out of the Hansen playbook and was the transition to him as the #1 gaijin. But you know better than I on the intricate details. I just figured it would have been better business for Kawada to be the guy to take the belt off Misawa.

 

I'm surprised that Cena going over Lesnar at Extreme Rules hasn't been mentioned yet.

 

That was circumstance at the time, though. Lesnar wasn't really going to be winning much that year as there were still questions as to whether he was going to be around for the long haul since he signed only a one year contract. That was more precautionary than anything else.

 

I'm trying to think of anything egregious off the top of my head, but it lends itself more to booking the guys that did go over (Sting at Starrcade '97, Austin going heel at WM 17).

 

Here's an interesting one: I think Al Snow should have beaten Shane Douglas at Wrestlepalooza '98. Snow was the most over guy in the company at the time and it would have been great for him to win. Even with him going to the WWF, a win and then him dropping it back would have been great.

[fakeplastictrees]

This thread is going to include a lot of HHH. When I read the title my first three thoughts all involved HHH.

 

1. Sting/HHH at WM31

 

2. Booker T/HHH WM19

 

3. Punk/HHH NOC 11

 

Is HHH the single biggest example of someone refusing to lose in situations that wouldn't have hurt him in the long run? These are three situations where HHH won and didn't come out looking good and neither did his opponent.

[dawho5]

Kawada wasn't ready to beat Misawa in 94. He had just gotten embarrassed in July of 93 with the massively lopsided finish. The 6/94 match was his "almost" match to put him right on the doorstep and rightly so. It's just that it took four more years for him to finally get that singles win and that killed him.

 

The obvious recent one is HHH vs. Sting. After watching WM 30 I was almost impressed with Triple H's willingness to put people over. But I watched 31 first, so I knew better.

[Blehschmidt]

Here's an interesting one: I think Al Snow should have beaten Shane Douglas at Wrestlepalooza '98. Snow was the most over guy in the company at the time and it would have been great for him to win. Even with him going to the WWF, a win and then him dropping it back would have been great.

 

 

Interesting note is that Shane is with you 100% on this.

 

I have ring announced a bunch of shows with him and we have talked a lot, and at one point I inquired about whether or not the laundry list of injuries they attributed to him in this match was a work or not. He assured me that they were 100% real, and that between the sheer amount of pain he was in, and the fact that Snow was so ridiculously over with the crowd, he begged Paul to put the title on Snow, but Paul apparently knew that WWE was planning to take him back sooner than later, so he wouldn't make the switch.

[BBscout]

For sure. That was a flat as fuck PPV ending with Snow losing. If I remember right, it wasn't like it was known if that match would be his last date with them. He was that over that it was almost expected he would win there. Douglas was the drizzling shits for me then too.

 

That's really cool if that's his take on it. Considering he won it back like six months earlier and to have to drop it again so quick wouldn't usually be easy to stomach. All their PPVs fell flat after Barely Legal and this was the one where they had the chance to get it right it felt like. They finally did at Heatwave a few months later.

[Mr. Lacelle]

I have a theory regarding Trips. Vince truly loves his daughter, so much so that he passed over his first born son & let's his daughter run roughshod over the company. He knows that she loves this mediocre draw & talent but her happiness is more important than anything so he keeps putting him over so she will smile. Hunter's monster push is the result of a father's undying love of his daughter.

[JerryvonKramer]

Big John Studd, Rumble 89

 

Chief Jay Strongbow, anytime he won

[jdw]

 

The wrong folks won in both the main events at Budokan on March 4, 1995. They got lucky on the first one due to Doc's Narita Nightmare, but that's just dumb luck rather than good booking.

 

People like to point to the wrong guy winning at a certain match in 1994, but it was actually the right guy given the next card and who needed to put over whom. But 1995 was largely a year of poor booking coming off the 03/04/95 card. All of it was entirely predictable, save the Last Match of the Year, which was just dumbass booking as well.

 

July 24, 1996 and October 18, 1996 were terrible booking as well. The first blew the one time Taue was over at that level, and with matches left on the table for him. The second blew the obvious Kawada-Takada (and then Takada-Misawa) that was sitting there when Takada's wrapped his 1996 dates. There was a lot of pretty nifty booking in 1996, mostly tag related but also Taue's upset of Misawa. But there was some major dumbass nonsense.

I was gonna bring up the elephant in the room, too. No way Kawada should have jobbed on 6/3/94. Yeah, Misawa made Williams and then Kawada got his first title, but I think it would have worked out better that Kawada won, even if the Williams booking was straight out of the Hansen playbook and was the transition to him as the #1 gaijin. But you know better than I on the intricate details. I just figured it would have been better business for Kawada to be the guy to take the belt off Misawa.

 

Ace puts over New Top Gaijin, going all the way back to Rikidozan. Baba did it. Jumbo did it. Kawada wasn't the Ace. Misawa was. It was his spot to put over the new top gaijin.

[Lee]

I never saw the upside to Cena beat Bray at WrestleMania, and don't really see the upside to Undertaker beating Bray at this year's show either. I always figured Bray would be the guy to assume the spot that Undertaker had, and Jake before that, creepy heels who the fans loved so much that they became babyfaces. Bray's lost the big one twice on the bounce now, so I no longer care to invest in him. Can you imagine if they'd put Snuka over Undertaker at WrestleMania VII?

[goc]

People always cite Studd at the Rumble in 1989 (and Hogan the next 2 years) but the Rumble didn't mean anything until they 1993 when they started the "win and you get the WM main event" stipulation. Studd was as good a choice as any since they were planning on a big push for him. They just didn't know yet that he was physically done.

[JerryvonKramer]

Ted needed the win more to get his heat back.

[Matt D]

This basically should be 5 minutes talking about the Roadies in Chicago and then two hours going over Triple H.

[JerryvonKramer]

How about we keep the thread a Triple H-free zone from here on in? Pretty please. Such a tired and boring topic.

[JRH]

Austin/Angle at Summerslam 01. While Angle did win by DQ, having Angle win the belt would have been a huge moment. I know they wanted to wait until Unforgiven so they could have the title win in Kurt's hometown, but you could have just added some "can angle beat the odds?" stipulation to that match to make it more meaningful. Also, i still dont get why Angle was put over Rey Mysterio at Summerslam 02.

[Grimmas]

How about we keep the thread a Triple H-free zone from here on in? Pretty please. Such a tired and boring topic.

If we are going to talk the wrong guy going over, then you can't ignore Triple H. Other topics yes, but this one?

[Matt D]

It's actually sort of interesting to see so many people independently come up with examples for him. It's not like any of us were really straining for another one. Even the podcast that was all about him didn't seem to list them out so explicitly.

[Dooley]

Hogan retaining the world title at the August 1994 Clash immediately stands out to me. It basically sent the message to fans of the pre-Hogan era WCW that they could tune out or else stay and continue to see the company disrespect the old guard in an effort to bring in cartoonish Hogan friends such as Duggan and Honky. It also made no sense from a storyline perspective given the retirement match that was looming. Furthermore, if Flair and Hogan both score pinfall victories, even if Flair is cheating, it keeps them both strong and keeps most WCW loyalists and Hogan bandwagon jumpers interested translating into a significant boost in business. Instead, all they accomplished was a slight boost in pay-per-view buyrates and TV ratings.

 

It would have made no sense to have a 6 month build to Hogan debuting in WCW, winning the world title and then losing it a month later. If you're WCW, you have to go with the investment you made in the guy at that point. Not undercut him in his second match.

 

Greg Valentine over Ricky Steamboat at Wrestlemania 4 robbed us of a chance of not making that show awful.

 

Definitely this. I remember being a kid and being excited at how the brackets were lined up, figuring they *had* to do Savage-Steamboat 2. I mean, we've already bought the show, give us *something*.

 

Flair/Luger and that Road Warriors loss in Chicago are the older ones that I remember reading a lot of hate about.

 

HHH at WM2000 is another. That whole match gets shit on but having missed out on that period live, I thought it was a ton of fun having watched it years later blind to its reputation.

 

Whenever the Punk-HHH match comes up, I always think about how they jobbed Austin to Taker in a title match right after WM13. And how he still turned out "alright." Like that could be their excuse to any guy who bitches about their positioning.

 

HHH at WM2000 is a biggie. I was at a "WM party" in college when that happened and I can't describe how flat the room went when they went that way.

 

As for Austin-Taker in '97, it's worth noting that Taker was still in the afterglow of his WM title win and Austin's main issue was with the Harts, who interfered liberally in that match. Austin also got progressively more over as '97 went on, even with the injury. WM14 was the right time for him.

 

People always cite Studd at the Rumble in 1989 (and Hogan the next 2 years) but the Rumble didn't mean anything until they 1993 when they started the "win and you get the WM main event" stipulation. Studd was as good a choice as any since they were planning on a big push for him. They just didn't know yet that he was physically done.

 

Well ,'92 was actually *for* the title

 

Studd was planned to do a big program with Andre, which Vince had high hopes for. It made sense to heat him up going into it. Unfortunately, neither guy could almost literally move anymore and it got scuttled quickly.