"The Wrong Guy Went Over"

[Mad Dog]

We didn't even bring up all the times HHH went over Orton at key moments in his career.

 

EDIT: Never mind, I missed it in the sea of HHH examples.

[KrisZ]

Bock going over Hogan at Super Sunday

[Bierschwale]

Oh God, absolutely. It's so bad that every time I see Parv/Grimmas's threads for rebooking '83, I think about an AWA rebook and that match.

[JRH]

Here's one that always bugged me, Vader going over Cactus Jack at Halloween Havoc 93. So you have a feud where a heel injures a babyface to the point of amnesia, and it ends with the face losing, and not just that, but in a non-title match no less? Cool match and all, but Cactus losing just soured me on it.

[El Boricua]

Bock going over Hogan at Super Sunday

 

This one may be the biggest in terms of resulting impact on the wrestling industry.

[PeteF3]

Here's one that always bugged me, Vader going over Cactus Jack at Halloween Havoc 93. So you have a feud where a heel injures a babyface to the point of amnesia, and it ends with the face losing, and not just that, but in a non-title match no less? Cool match and all, but Cactus losing just soured me on it.

 

I dunno, I think I'm okay with Cactus being a martyr and saving the Vader loss for Starrcade. I do highly, highly disagree with the cheap-shit way they had Vader win, which helped nobody. Either make Vader look like a truly unstoppable killer, or do the HHH/Jericho "Vader beats the count by 1 second" finish, or have Cactus Jack repeatedly get up until he finally can't. Any of those options would have been better than a Taser to the leg.

[(BP)]

The Horsemen should have beat the NWO at Fall Brawl. Hennig in the NWO didn't do anything for anyone. Losing Wargames could've set up the NWO dissention angle they did shortly after anyway, and they could've imploded and moved on after Starrcade. It was sort of a harbinger for the illogical booking that was going to be a hallmark of NWO stuff for the next year and a half, and it's no wonder Flair assumed it was to embarrass him.

[GOTNW]

 

Keiji Mutoh beating Seiya Sanada in Wrestle-1. Take your up and coming future of the company and don't put him over the aging legend.

Terrible point. WRESTLE-1 can only draw because of Mutoh and Sanada is pretty shitty. Mutoh jobbing to Sanada five times in a row wouldn't make him a star. He isn't very good and his star potential is lmited regardless. The 5000 people that show up whenever Mutoh has a big singles match aren't going to stay to watch fucking Sanada. They gave the rub to a much better guy (KAI) and booked the road to him dethroning Mutoh very well.

[JaymeFuture]

Just wanted to thank everybody in this thread for the awesome suggestions - the podcast discussing a lot of the matches mentioned in this thread where the Wrong Guy Went Over is now available to listen to at the following link:

http://squaredcirclegazette.podbean.com/mf/play/nqmshk/SCGRadio36-TheWrongGuyWentOver.mp3

This ended up being a really fun show, talking the many examples provided by Hulk Hogan and Triple H, main event pushes gone awry in Ryback and Lex Luger, Super Sunday, perfect endings ruined by overthinking, and some outright travesties. Give it a listen and, as always, let me know what you think!

[Loss]

 

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?

 

 

The HHH-Angle-Stephanie soap opera was huge stuff at the time, and this is just based on my gut feeling, but it especially seemed that way among female fans who watched for The Rock and Hardy Boys and this storyline. It had the potential to transcend a normal wrestling angle because it was surprisingly well-written by pro wrestling standards. In the end, it was a wrestling angle all the way. They ended up doing the angle where HHH dumped Stephanie in 2002 and it didn't mean nearly as much as it would have here.

 

I would also submit Lex Luger only beating Yokozuna by countout at Summerslam '93 and looking like an idiot in the process. I suppose that's more of a case of the right guy going over in the wrong way.

[DownNDirtyTN]

I actually believe Luger should have beaten Flair at Bash 88. He was over and could have used the rub. I guess the main thing going against that is Flair would have had to win the belt at Starrcade and he wouldn't have looked very strong if they proceeded with the Steamboat storyline in early 89. Saying that, the NWA and Flair didn't know Steamboat was coming in until very late 88. I think Luger in the late 80s to mid 92 is criminally underrated. He was better than Sting and more deserving in my opinion.

[Jimmy Redman]

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.

 

I remember a while back during a conversation about HHH I ended up listing off the top of my head all of the times he'd undeservedly gone over someone, made people look bad for no reason, or inserted himself into hot angles (I think this was back after the horrible Brock feud). It wasn't a comprehensive list but it was still staggering in volume.

 

- Going over in the WM2000 main event

- Going over Jericho in mid-2000

- Botching the Angle/Steph love triangle

- Going over Austin in Three Stages of Hell, then forming the Two-Man Power Trip instead of playing second-fiddle to Austin the new top heel

- The entire Jericho/Steph storyline for WM18, then going over

- The entire Booker T/racism storyline for WM19, then going over

- Exposing Scott Steiner by trying to cosplay as NWA Champ in long title matches

- Going over Goldberg at Summerslam 2003 on one leg

- Goldberg holds World Title for two months before dropping it back to HHH

- Traded to Smackdown in 2004, traded back for THREE GUYS (RVD and Dudleys)

- HHH vs Shawn Michaels feud in 2004 overshadows Benoit's title run

- Eugene heats up in mid-2004, so Hunter works with him and destroys him

- Going over Orton for World Title after the one-month reign and kicking him out of Evolution

- Works WM22 with Cena, Hunter as the supposed heel continually calls him a shitty wrestler and gets pops

- DX in 2006 - beat all five of Spirit Squad by themselves, generally beat the entire roster all at once habitually and take up masses of TV time along with McMahons

- Squashed Booker T, Carlito, etc. upon his return from injury in 2007

- On more than one occasion beat up Londrick by himself in the ring, while they were tag champs and everyone involved were babyfaces, for no particular reason.

- Did the most horrific, laughable "job" for Jeff Hardy in December 2007 when Jeff was becoming a superstar and being groomed for a title shot.

- Didn't put his good friend Ric Flair over cleanly in his last televised match in Flair Country, during an angle where Flair was booked to win all of his televised matches or else retire. All in aid of some bullshit feud with Regal that ended when Hunter beat him cleanly in about 4 minutes a week later.

- During his Smackdown run in 2008 verbally buried the midcard and beat up multiple people by himself once again

- Beat Jeff Hardy cleanly twice more as he heated up again, and only lost the title to him via Edge in a three way

- Going over Orton at WM25 after Orton was super hot after punting Vince

- Another DX reunion in 2009, going over Legacy, Miz & Morrison, etc.

- Going over Sheamus at WM26, losing at Extreme Rules instead

- Going over Punk at Night of Champions 2011 after Punk was super hot and they had that worked-shoot feud where Hunter got to bury him as a skinny-fat indy geek with ultimately no comeuppance

- The Hunter as COO storyline, where the entire Raw roster revolted against him and he visibly didn't give a shit, he got to bury them all some more before they came back with tails between their legs

- Hunter, now a part-time wrestler and authority figure, works even-stevens with Brock Lesnar for a year after Lesnar had just completely destroyed Cena the company ace, and goes over him at WM29

- As an authority figure, routinely puts himself over the active talent, shows no fear, acts tougher than all of them and buries anyone who challenges him with jokes and smirks

- The entire Daniel Bryan/The Authority storyline (until it was thankfully concluded properly at WM30)

- Going over Sting at WM31 when Sting finally worked for the company after an 18 year wait

- Will possibly work with The Rock at WM32? (I'm not up with the news, just basing this off the angle they shot at WM)

 

I've probably forgotten some things too. Some are worse than others and some I'd argue aren't really that bad, but when you add everything together you really get an overall picture of a guy who is almost pathologically determined to put himself over at the expense of all others.

[soup23]

So glad to see you back posting jimmy redman

[MartelFan38]

I would also consider Nikita Koloff at Starrcade 86. It would have been huge to have had Nikita avenge his "comrade" Magnum and beat Flair giving the NWA fans a rare, unspoiled face victory.

[Woof]

This one isn't blatant, but at the time I thought that Paul E missed the boat by not switching the TV title from Van Dam to Jerry Lynn at Hardcore Heaven '99. Van Dam had done all he could do with the title by that point and everybody knew he was destined to be the next world champ. Lynn was hot as hell coming off their Living Dangerously match. You could have easily transitioned the title here, had Lynn defend the belt against the midcarders that Van Dam had already beat (or wouldn't face because he was a heel), and then moved Van Dam up to take the big belt off of Taz at NR2. Taz essentially said he left for WWF that fall because he felt he had done everything there was to do, but I wonder if that might have been delayed a touch if he had a program with RVD on the horizon. Instead they did a heatless match for the TV title at N2R because even though Taz had already signed with WWF, Paul E wanted to do that match. Total waste of three guys and both titles.

[Grimmas]

This one isn't blatant, but at the time I thought that Paul E missed the boat by not switching the TV title from Van Dam to Jerry Lynn at Hardcore Heaven '99. Van Dam had done all he could do with the title by that point and everybody knew he was destined to be the next world champ. Lynn was hot as hell coming off their Living Dangerously match. You could have easily transitioned the title here, had Lynn defend the belt against the midcarders that Van Dam had already beat (or wouldn't face because he was a heel), and then moved Van Dam up to take the big belt off of Taz at NR2. Taz essentially said he left for WWF that fall because he felt he had done everything there was to do, but I wonder if that might have been delayed a touch if he had a program with RVD on the horizon. Instead they did a heatless match for the TV title at N2R because even though Taz had already signed with WWF, Paul E wanted to do that match. Total waste of three guys and both titles.

I think Anarchy Rulz was the time. Lynn was wrestling injured in the opener. RVD had no opponent since Johnny Smith couldn't be there, so Balls filled in. If they ran another Lynn-RVD match there with Lynn winning, it would had been huge.

[Dewar]

Johnny Smith was at Anarchy Rulz, and Balls brained him with a chair during a pre-match schmozz to take him out of the match with RVD.

[Laz]

That's the primary reason I usually rank that show so much lower than most. Trading a fairly well hyped match between Smith and RVD for the mediocre house show exhibition we got instead sours the whole night.