humanoid92

Man, that was a long ass squash and Backlund got some offense. That's almost as bad as Roberts-Rude, it's like once those guys found out they were going to a draw, they decided to be lazy. What? How can you even compare the two? Backlund vs. Ramon was only like 3 or 4 minutes long. I haven't looked this up yet but I guarantee you it was under 4 minutes. Plenty of squashes were longer. I could list at least 5 matches each from WM 5, 6, and 7 that were longer and served less of a purpose. I'm with Kamala on this one... if it's under five minutes and it's just a squash can it really be actively bad? It just is what it is. This is why we need to define the criteria for "worst".

Well, as Heenan would say: "It was a hip toss!" I don't think Yoko's time with the belt was as awful as people make it out to be. Outside of the Flair/Savage stuff and the brief Bret run, the WWF Title picture had never really been about workrate. It was about monsters. And Yoko was as good of a monster as you'll find. If they were going to push him at all, it made sense that he was as dominant as he was. The workrate in the midcard was so great that Yoko sucking wind in main events didn't matter much. In fact, the midcard singles ranks were arguably better than they'd ever been from a workrate perspective. Bret, Shawn, Perfect, Razor, Jannetty, the Kid, Steiners, Money Inc., etc. were all tearing it up elsewhere on the card. And even as a huge Bret fan I never minded his "demotion" because it gave us: A) his brilliance at KOTR 93, B) the Lawler feud and the awesome Summerslam booking, and most importantly C) the perfect beginnings to the Hart Family feud with Owen. He didn't need the World Title to do any of that stuff, and he finally did go through all that and got it back at WM X, it was an awesome moment and made the Owen feud that much better. I mean, would any of that have had the same effect if Bret had just been champion non-stop from the fall of '92 to the fall of '94? Not at all. And outside of going back to Hogan or biting the bullet and going with Luger (please no), Yoko was the logical champ at the time.

Yeah, it's funny how history remembers things. If not for Enos Slaughter running around the bases like a madman, who knows how they might be remembered? Or how any of the Boston "curse" stuff would have gone down. The Sox actually got their first two guys on base in the ninth inning in Game 7 but couldn't knock them in. I'd have loved to have seen Williams get to the plate, even if he didn't "live up to his standards" during that series... which he was supposedly injured for. I'm sure there are a lot of teams like the '46 Sox that don't get as much respect as they should.

Yeah, I gotta agree with everyone about Baltimore here. How can anyone definitively say they're better than Toronto and likely to finish at least third? I agree that Tampa is a joke, maybe even worse than they've been in the past, and there's no way Baltimore should finish last. But in that tough division, I don't exactly see Baltimore shaking things up. Like everyone said, they just don't have the pitching to compete in that division. You can say all you want about the lineup, but they've had a nasty offense for years (many times better than what they're putting out there now) and it still hasn't equated to a winning record. Even when they got off to that great start in '05, reality quickly caught up with them. The offense really isn't as good as you're making it out to be anyway. Not that they're bad, but I don't see how you can expect them to overperform. The lineup is full of guys that have already had career years that you can't expect them to approach. Can you honestly see Tejada, Roberts, Mora, Millar, Huff, and even Patterson doing anything that exceeds what they've already done? If their best wasn't good enough to catapult this team over .500, what's the difference now? It's a dangerous lineup but it doesn't match up to the Yanks or Sox. Everyone says the starting pitching is full of potential, but I've never liked guys like Bedard or Cabrera. Maybe I'm guilty of slighting Bedard but I just don't like the guy. I mean, you're going to war with Jaret Wright as your number 3 or 4 starter in arguably the toughest top-heavy division in baseball... really? The one thing I will say is that the bullpen is much improved: Baez, Bradford, and Walker are all really good pickups. On a good team that would make a world of difference, but with this squad, how much impact will it have? I like Ray a lot, but like everyone said, it all comes down to the starting pitching. I'm no Toronto fanboy, but on paper the Jays have a better team. The lineup might not look as impressive but BJ Ryan is a pretty dominant closer and Halladay and Burnett crap on any starter the O's have. You could make the argument that if you combine the two starting rotations, Bedard is the only Baltimore pitcher that would make the cut. I don't see how anyone can consider Baltimore higher than the 9th or 10th best team in the AL at this point. I can appreciate the optomism of a die-hard fan, but if you're really banking on all the "what if's" to pan out, prepare to be disappointed.

Sweet. I don't think a lot of people realize just how good those '46 BoSox were.

That's a really hard question to answer because there were never any expectations for Hogan to stick around. He was just there to pop the crowd and transition the belt to Bret. The whole Lex angle was shot precisely to give them a huge babyface with Hogan out of the picture. There are too many moving parts in your scenario to answere the question properly. Basically, the answer is no. Sort of. Yeah, I'm with cheech here. Although, I don't think there was ever any chance they would have had him do it at KOTR. Once KOTR rolled around and they knew they were jobbing Hogan out, they may have already had the bodyslam idea in the back of their heads and probably wanted to "save" it. Plus Hogan not slamming him put Yoko over even stronger. But at WM 9 I doubt they had the foresight to even think about it. So it's pretty fortunate that he never did. I guess at WM 9 they just didn't think it was necessary, since the story was that Yoko was fatigued from his match, the salt in the eyes had to backfire, and they wanted the whole thing to go down as quickly as possible.

This all depends on if your criteria of "worst" is long and boring (Jake vs. Rude), completely forgettable (Demolition vs. Tenryu & Kaito), squasharific (Harts vs. Bolsheviks), a stupid gimmick (Butterbean vs. Gunn), an embarassment (Brock vs. Lesnar), utterly pointless (Duggan vs. Bad News), a screwy finish (Beefcake vs. Honky), matches that should never have been booked in the first place (there are a few on almost every show) or a women's match (pretty much all of them). Some bad matches (for a variety of reasons) that come to mind: - David Sammartino vs. Brutus Beefcake, WM 1 BOOOORING. - Jake vs. Andre, WM 5 A bad, bad match that went nowhere even with a ton of overbooking. - Natural Disasters vs. Money Inc., WM 8 More of a house show match than a WM Title match. LOD should have been challenging here. - Piper vs. Goldust, WM 12 Just a ridiculous idea, though I guess this isn't even technically a match. - Headbangers vs. Godwinns vs. New Blackjacks vs. Furnas & LaFon, WM 13 Four heatless teams, one bad idea (a four way tag team match), one bad stipulation (#1 Contenders). Come to think of it, any four team match goes on this list... I believe WM 18 and WM 20 had them as well. - Rocky vs. The Sultan, WM 13 Why is this dude named the Sultan getting an IC Title shot at WM? And why is this heatless newbie the IC Champ? - T & A vs. Headcheese, WM 16 Don't think I've seen this mentioned but I remember everyone shitting on this online the next day. - Wrestlemania XV In its entirety. Oh, and call me a sucker, but I like the Blindfold match.

Heh, "the Nye Mets are my favorite squadron." Re: Padres I wouldn't be surprised if they finish 1st or 5th. That division is totally up for grabs. A sea of mediocrity. I don't like Colorado but I could see them being the NL's "surprise team." I wouldn't bet on anything regarding this division but if I had to pick something, it'd be a last place finish for the Giants. I just don't like them at all. I know they have some good young pitching with Cain and Lowry, and they added Zito, but I just don't buy them going anywhere. Re: Phillies I think it's great that everyone's picking them to go so far. I know I'm guilty too because I picked them for the wildcard. Sure, the NL is up for grabs and it wouldn't surprise me to see them do well, but I just think it'll be great when they end up winning 85 games and just missing the playoffs... again.

NL East NYM PHI (WC) ATL FLA WSH NL Central HOU MIL STL CHC CIN PIT NL West LA COL ARZ SD SF AL East NYY TOR (WC) BOS BAL TB AL Central DET CWS MIN CLE KC AL West LAA OAK SEA TEX LDS: LA over PHI NYM over HOU NYY over LAA DET over TOR LCS: LA over NYM NYY over DET WS: NYY over LA in 6 And no, I am not a Yankee fan. AL MVP: Guerrero NL MVP: Wright AL Cy: Halladay NL Cy: Oswalt

(EDIT: after Chris' post, I now realize that the easiest way to tally the votes would be if people only write down the upsets they're picking in each bracket. So from now on if you can do as I suggested below but only write the upsets, that'd be great. For example, Chris's post would look like: Pontiac- 9, 12, 13; AC- 12, etc. Thanks.) People are either gonna think this is the dumbest thing ever or be mildly interested in it, but I made brackets containing WrestleMania matches. Three different things inspired this: 1) the stupid WWE.com tournament that has "moments" such as "crowd annihalates Brock and Goldberg," 2) real March Madness, 3) everyone seems to be voting in tournaments on this site anyway. If you just want to look at my brackets, that's fine. If people want to actually vote on these, well... I've never been a big fan of counting up other people's votes but I guess if this is popular enough I can suck it up and do it. But I do ask that instead of bolding your choice or listing your choices in order, you just write the number of the seeds you're voting for. It'll be much easier to keep track of that way. For example, for the Pontiac region, if you vote for seeds 1, 9, 4, and 12 in the first round, please just write: Pontiac 1 9 4 12 etc. It will make it much easier. I encourage you to include your comments and explanations, but please do it at the bottom of the post, separate from the votes. Also, if you're going to vote, simply vote for your favorite match of the two choices. That's the only criteria. Money drawn, buyrates, historical significance, main event over mid-card, **** over ***1/4, clean finish over DQ - all that bullshit is out the window. Just simply vote for which match you personally like more. If you've always hated Hogan vs. Rock, and it's up against Money In The Bank 1, and you love that match, then vote for MITB. Don't feel pressured to vote Hogan vs. Rock just because it's the more famous match. If you loved Honky Tonk Man vs. Beefcake as a kid and couldn't get enough of that match, then vote for that over something you don't care about even if most people consider what you don't care about to be ***1/2. This is about your favorites, not what's universally seen as the best. This will hopefully make the results interesting. There are a lot of matches in this tournament that you wouldn't necessarily think are among the elite WM matches, but that's what makes it fun. We already know how everyone feels about the top matches. We've talked about Bret vs. Austin and Austin vs. Rock a million times before. This gives us a chance to evaluate the middle of the pack stuff and see what the more popular unheralded matches are. What do most people like more? Jake vs. DiBiase from WM 6 or Harts & Davis vs. Tito & Bulldogs from WM 3? Who knows? Well, now we will. A few notes on how I made the brackets: - First off, there are really two tournaments. Two fields of 64. The first field is comprised of matches from WrestleMania I-XI (1985-1995), and the second is from WrestleMania XII-XXII (1996-2006). I did this to get more notable matches on the card. Too many would have been left off otherwise. Plus, the last 6 or 7 shows have been so stacked with main event level matches that combining all 22 events together wouldn't be fair to the earlier shows. - I tried to include infamous matches over standard non-descript matches that may technically be "better" but aren't nearly as memorable. So Bart Gunn vs. Butterbean, the midget match with Bundy, HHH vs. Ultimate Warrior, and other notable stuff like that gets into the tourney instead of, say, Kurt Angle vs. Kane or Tatanka vs. Rick Martel. - I seeded things by general perception, and I gave main event type matches and World Title matches the benefit of the doubt for the most part. Stuff that has cracked the WM elite that wasn't a main event or World Title match weren't punished- they're still seeded very highly. But I tried to rank all the main event matches highly so that a World Title match wouldn't end up as a #8 seed. This will surely make for some upsets. I didn't simply rank my favorites from best to worst. Believe me, there are several lower seeds I like more. It would be pointless to just rank things according to the way the internet already believes they should be. If this doesn't catch on and nobody votes, that's fine. You can just read the brackets and discuss them. I'm not really excited about tallying things up anyway. But if there's enough interest, I'll do it. Unless there's someone out there that's all about stuff like that and wants to take over... I'll gladly turn this thing over to you. Anyway, here we go... 1985-1995 Tournament Pontiac Region 1 Hulk Hogan vs. Andre the Giant (III) 16 Tito Santana vs. The Executioner 8 Dusty Rhodes & Sapphire vs. Randy Savage & Elizabeth 9 Bret Hart vs. Bob Backlund 5 Mr. T vs. Roddy Piper 12 Brainbusters vs. Strike Force 4 Lex Luger vs. Yokozuna 13 Randy Savage vs. George Steele 6 Wrestlemania 2 Battle Royale 11 Wrestlemania IV Battle Royale 3 Hulk Hogan vs. Sgt. Slaughter 14 Brutus Beefcake vs. Honky Tonk Man 7 Rick Rude vs. Ultimate Warrior 10 Tatanka vs. Shawn Michaels 2 Ultimate Warrior vs. Randy Savage 15 Roddy Piper vs. Bad News Brown Atlantic City Region 1 Hulk Hogan vs. Randy Savage 16 Dream Team vs. Rougeau Brothers 8 Undertaker vs. Jake Roberts 9 Andre the Giant vs. Big John Studd 5 Hulk Hogan vs. Andre the Giant (IV) 12 Big Boss Man vs. Mr. Perfect 4 Diesel vs. Shawn Michaels 13 Demolition vs. Strike Force 6 Roddy Piper vs. Adrian Adonis 11 Rockers vs. Barbarian & Haku 3 Randy Savage vs. Ric Flair 14 Billy Jack Haynes vs. Hercules 7 Demolition vs. Andre the Giant & Haku 10 Undertaker vs. Jimmy Snuka 2 Razor Ramon vs. Shawn Michaels 15 JYD vs. Greg Valentine Toronto Region 1 Ultimate Warrior vs. Hulk Hogan 16 Bam Bam Bigelow & Luna vs. Doink & Dink 8 Randy Savage vs. Crush 9 Hillbilly Jim, Little Beaver & Haiti Kid vs. King Kong Bundy, Little Tokyo & Lord Littlebrook 5 Hulk Hogan vs. King Kong Bundy 12 Demolition vs. Powers of Pain & Mr. Fuji 4 Yokozuna vs. Bret Hart (IX) 13 Twin Towers vs. Rockers 6 Mega Maniacs vs. Money Inc. 11 King Kong Bundy vs. SD Jones 3 Hulk Hogan vs. Sid Justice 14 Owen Hart & Yokozuna vs. Smoking Gunns 7 Nasty Boys vs. Hart Foundation 10 Razor Ramon vs. Jeff Jarrett 2 Owen Hart vs. Bret Hart 15 Shawn Michaels vs. Tito Santana New York City Region 1 Ricky Steamboat vs. Randy Savage 16 Mr. Perfect vs. Blue Blazer 8 Hart Foundation & Danny Davis vs. British Bulldogs & Tito Santana 9 Ted DiBiase vs. Jake Roberts 5 Lawrence Taylor vs. Bam Bam Bigelow 12 Jake Roberts vs. Andre the Giant 4 Hulk Hogan & Mr. T vs. Roddy Piper & Paul Orndorff 13 Steiner Brothers vs. Headshrinkers 6 Bret Hart vs. Roddy Piper 11 Brutus Beefcake vs. Mr. Perfect 3 Randy Savage vs. Ted DiBiase 14 Honky Tonk Man vs. Jake Roberts 7 British Bulldogs vs. Dream Team 10 Jake Roberts vs. Rick Martel 2 Bret Hart vs. Yokozuna (X) 15 Lex Luger vs. Mr. Perfect 1996-2006 Tournament Houston Region 1 Steve Austin vs. The Rock (X-7) 16 Mickie James vs. Trish Stratus 8 Edge vs. Mick Foley 9 Undertaker vs. Randy Orton 5 John Cena vs. JBL 12 HHH vs. Owen Hart 4 Hulk Hogan vs. Vince McMahon 13 Butterbean vs. Bart Gunn 6 Shawn Michaels vs. Chris Jericho 11 Undertaker vs. Big Boss Man 3 HHH vs. Chris Jericho 14 RVD vs. William Regal 7 Edge & Christian vs. Hardy Boyz vs. Dudley Boyz (2000) 10 Cactus Jack & Terry Funk vs. New Age Outlaws 2 HHH vs. The Rock vs. Mick Foley vs. Big Show 15 JBL vs. Chris Benoit Seattle Region 1 Shawn Michaels vs. Bret Hart 16 HHH vs. Goldust 8 Undertaker vs. Kane (XIV) 9 Goldberg vs. Brock Lesnar 5 Undertaker vs. Psycho Sid 12 Shane McMahon vs. X-Pac 4 Rey Mysterio vs. Randy Orton vs. Kurt Angle 13 Hardcore Battle Royale 6 Undertaker vs. Ric Flair 11 Chris Jericho vs. William Regal 3 Batista vs. HHH 14 Rey Mysterio vs. Matt Hardy 7 Shawn Michaels vs. Vince McMahon 10 Christian vs. Chris Jericho 2 Steve Austin vs. The Rock (XV) 15 LOD & Ahmed Johnson vs. Nation of Domination Chicago Region 1 Bret Hart vs. Steve Austin 16 Ultimate Warrior vs. HHH 8 The Rock vs. Steve Austin (XIX) 9 Kurt Angle vs. Chris Benoit 5 Shane McMahon vs. Vince McMahon 12 Undertaker vs. Kane (XX) 4 Eddie Guerrero vs. Kurt Angle 13 Akebono vs. Big Show 6 Kurt Angle vs. Shawn Michaels 11 Steve Austin vs. Scott Hall 3 John Cena vs. HHH 14 Gimmick Battle Royale 7 Undertaker vs. HHH 10 Rey Mysterio vs. Eddie Guerrero 2 Chris Benoit vs. HHH vs. Shawn Michaels 15 The Rock vs. Ken Shamrock Anaheim Region 1 The Rock vs. Hulk Hogan 16 Owen Hart, British Bulldog & Vader vs. Yokozuna, Ahmed Johnson & Jake Roberts 8 Money In The Bank (XXI) 9 Money In The Bank (XXII) 5 Edge & Christian vs. Hardy Boyz vs. Dudley Boyz (X-7) 12 John Cena vs. Big Show 4 HHH vs. Booker T 13 Undertaker vs. Mark Henry 6 The Rock & Mick Foley vs. Ric Flair, Batista & Randy Orton 11 Roddy Piper vs. Goldust 3 Brock Lesnar vs. Kurt Angle 14 HHH vs. Kane 7 Chris Benoit vs. Chris Jericho vs. Kurt Angle 10 Undertaker vs. Diesel 2 Steve Austin vs. Shawn Michaels 15 Eddie Guerrero, Dean Malenko & Perry Saturn vs. Too Cool & Chyna

Ramsus- That's quite alright. I know my initial post was kind of a mess, especially with the edit. I'll try to make the directions more clear for the second round. Stang- yes, it's okay if you only want to vote on the first half. At the end, I'll just have to take into account that there's one less vote to consider for the second half. JT- Those are two of my favorite matches too, but it happens. I'm surprised Bret vs. Yoko (X) isn't getting much love. Not that it was a great match by any means, but it was Bret's crowning moment. But that's what I like about this tourney; just keep voting for what you like (or for that matter, against what you don't like). I've tallied up the votes so far and we've got a lot of upsets brewing. What's great about this is you really start to see the variety of people's preferences. Only 10 and a half people have voted so far (Stang only voted on the first half) and only 9 out of the first 64 and 12 of the last 64 matches have been shut out completely. Two different 16's and two different 15's have votes. There's backlash against some of the top seeds already, which I think is great. It'll be interesting to see if/when all the major matches go down. When do you think the second round should begin? I'd like to get as many people as possible to vote so I'll definitely let the first round carry over into the weekday. But when should I end it? I'd like to get at least 30-40 votes but I don't know if that's gonna happen. So I'm wondering if there should be a time limit or a # of voters limit. Any input?

It's possible, but I always thought it was intentional because they mentioned it on TV. Of course, they mentioned the Men on a Mission Tag Title win on TV too and that was accidental. But the difference is, I'm pretty sure I remember them actually showing video footage of the Razor/Jarrett incident, and not the MOM incident. So if I'm right and there were cameras there at the house show, and they went out of their way to document it with visual footage, you'd have to think it was intentional. As for possible reasons for that, a few theories: 1) When business was down, they did to a lot of house show Title changes. '93 had Shawn over Marty in Albany, the Steiners and Money Inc. trading the belts, and '94 had the Quebecers going over the Kid & Marty, the Men on a Mission Tag Title win (accidental or not), the Shawn & Diesel Tag Title win in Indianapolis, and the Diesel MSG WWF Title win. So house show title changes had been taking place every few months over the past two years, probably in an effort to make the house shows seem like they were "can't miss" events, to draw more fans. 2) Razor never did (and to my knowledge was never scheduled to) go over Jarrett to regain the Title on TV. And he never really was to get that one-on-one blowoff to the feud. With Jarrett gaining the upper-hand time after time in the feud, maybe they didn't want the fans to think he was being lowered on the card. And this was their way of giving him somewhat of a victory in the feud, even if he ended up losing the Title right back. 3) I think they went out of their way to make sure Jarrett didn't end up like Honky Tonk Man with a really long continuous reign, because even though he was Champ, they always made him look very beatable. He jobbed to Bret on TV right before he went over at the Rumble to first win the Title. And before that he jobbed to Nash around the horn at house shows. I know he jobbed to Undertaker on TV while was IC Champ (in a non-Title match). I think he had a lot of trouble with Savio Vega as well. Bob Holly actually did beat him for the Title on TV, but the match was held up because both guys pinned each other. Jarrett won the rematch and was then considered a two-time IC Champion. The house show switch with Razor may have been another cheap way to add a reign to his total and make him a three-time IC Champ (it also made Razor a three time IC Champ). For whatever reason, they may have wanted them both to be 3-time champions. Whether it was building to a Razor vs. Jarrett match, a Razor vs. Shawn match, or a Shawn vs. Jarrett match (which did happen and in fact, Shawn won the match to become a 3-time IC Champ himself), the whole 3-time champion label seemed important to them. And remember, two years earlier with Mr. Perfect vs. Shawn Michaels, they were obsessed with the whole "three-peat" possibility at Summerslam (granted, that was a popular phrase at the time because of what the Bulls had just done). That match ended up disappointing, and we never got the Perfect three-peat. I admit, this last one is out there a little bit, but why else would Jarrett have become a three-time IC Champ within five months of first winning it, under bizarre circumstances with the Bob Holly hold-up and the house show switch? Seems like that was the easy way to bill him as a three-time champion with a minimum of disturbing the general flow of things.

Thanks for the responses so far. Not a lot of comments yet but I guess that's to be expected when A) the criteria is to pick your favorite, which doesn't really lend itself to arguments and B) it's the first round. I'd expect we'll get to the more interesting matchups in the second or third round. Also, it's a lot easier to tally the results with the # system so I'll have no problem doing it. For the record, here are my upsets: 1985-1995 Tournament Pontiac Region 9, 12, 11, 10 Atlantic City Region 12, 11 Toronto Region 12, 10 New York City Region 13 1996-2006 Tournament Houston Region 12 Seattle Region 12, 13, 11, 14, 10 Chicago Region 9, 14 Anaheim Region No upsets. I've always loved Jericho vs. Christian and Jericho vs. Regal. I also voted against a few 3 and 4 seeds that I've never really cared for.

What does everyone really think about money in the bank as a concept? I realize I might be in the minority here, but I really hate it. Maybe it's just because I've never liked #1 contender matches to begin with, but the fact that they're doing this yet again just screams lazy booking to me. It just seems like a transparent way to jam as many people as possible onto the card instead of giving the deserving guys something worthwhile to do, and to add a big clusterfuck spotfest of a ladder match to the card, just for the sake of having a big clusterfuck spotfest of a ladder match. And there's really only a few directions to go with the aftermath. I just see it as lazy booking and really don't care for the idea. The first one was fine, but I hate that it seems to be an annual tradition now. I think it takes away from the show more than it adds to it. Thoughts?

I'm assuming you mean me since I've done most of the defending in this thread. I am not passionate about WM 11. Of the 10 WMs that had occured before it I'd definitely take 7 or 8 of them over this show. I just don't like that people bash WM 11 when other shows that are much worse across the board seem to get a free pass. If WM 11 felt more like a Summerslam, as you suggest, then WM 13 felt more like an In Your House, but no one can dare say a bad word about that terrible show because fifteen minutes of it happened to be really good. I don't like that Nash was World Champ either and I don't like that Bret/Backlund got a short blowoff and I don't like the whole LT/celebrity wrestling in a main event. The booking generally wasn't all that great around that time. No argument. But, guess what- Nash was in a great match that night. And the main event was what it was, but guess what- the majority of the PPVs the WWF has ever run have had shitty main events, even for good chunks of the two boom periods. So, this one had a crappy main event... that's nothing out of the ordinary... and then the only other two matches that were no good were 5-6 minutes apiece (the opener and the Undertaker match.) Everything else was good. I'm not saying it's a great show- it is definitely forgettable and certainly nothing special. But the point is that the crap was kept to a minimum. Whereas other shows have a full two, two and a half hours of garbage and get a free pass.

WM 11, just because of the other thread. Instead of tweaking this one, I'm scrapping a few major aspects: No Lawrence Taylor involvement and no Nash Title reign. Instead, Bret regains the Title from Backlund at the Rumble and Owen gets one last shot at WM in a Submission match. - British Bulldog vs. Bob Backlund Bulldog and Bret were involved in a feud with Backlund and Owen stemming from Survivor Series. Put Davey Boy over. - IC Title: Razor Ramon vs. Jeff Jarrett Outside of the finish, there was nothing wrong with this match. Jarrett retains. - Women's Title: Alundra Blayze vs. Bull Nakano Normally I would never advocate a women's match but these two actually had good matches and they ended up doing a Title change the next night on Raw anyway. - Tag Team Titles: 1-2-3 Kid & Bob Holly vs. Smoking Gunns The tag division was weak and this would give closure to the whole tag team tournament/subsequent Title change that happened around the Rumble. I had thought Kid was injured at this point, but apparently he wrestled like five matches at the TV tapings the two days following WM 11, so he would have been good to go here. Including this match does shoot me in the foot though because it's four babyfaces and the face side of the roster wasn't very deep. I'd have liked to have gone with Kid vs. Hakushi instead in an opener, but with Owen and Bulldog in singles matches that gets rid of two tag teams and there's really not a whole lot else to do with the tag division. The Gunns retain. - Shawn Michaels vs. Diesel Even though it's not for the Title, this deserves a prominent slot on the card. Either go with the finish they used, or go with Sid powerbombing Nash to give HBK the bullshit victory, and then go with the HBK face turn the next night because he wanted to get it done on his own. - Undertaker, Lex Luger, Headshrinkers vs. Bam Bam Bigelow, King Kong Bundy, Tatanka, IRS The old eight man tag. They can still do the goofy stuff with Kama and the urn, which would actually be facilitated by the hectic 8 man tag environment. Perhaps a heel turn for Luger, leading to him joining the Corporation. It couldn't have hurt him at that point. And he could have taken the spot that eventually went to Sid... I never thought Sid needed the Corporation. Undertaker, of course, goes over. - WWF Title, Submission Match: Bret Hart vs. Owen Hart Owen may have pinned Bret the year before, Bret may have escaped the Cage at Summerslam, Owen may have caused Bret to submit at Survivor Series against Backlund, but neither had ever made the other submit. This is the culmination of Owen's quest for the Title, and the final blowoff. Bret retains the Title, leading to Owen unveiling Yokozuna as his tag partner the next night/week/month and beating the Gunns for the Titles in a quest to accomplish everything Bret did (KOTR, Tag Champ, IC Champ) before he gets another serious crack at the WWF Title.

WM 6. Had the big-show aura and is still looked upon favorably today, even though the breakdown of the show is as follows: 1 huge main event 1 tag title match 1 mixed tag 2 midcard singles matches (Perfect/Beefcake and DiBiase/Jake) 9 2-7 minute pointless/forgone conclusion/extended squash matches My show surrounds Hogan/Warrior and cuts out the crap. 10 matches instead of 14. Gone from the card are: Koko B. Ware, Hercules, Bolsheviks, Orients, Bad News, Snuka, and Bravo. - Perfect vs. Beefcake - Submission: Martel vs. Santana - Hart Foundation vs. Rockers - Duggan vs. Earthquake - Million $ Title: DiBiase vs. Jake - Steel Cage: Piper vs. Rude - Savage vs. Rhodes - Tag Titles: Demolition vs. Andre & Haku - Boss Man vs. Akeem - WWF Title/IC Title: Warrior vs. Hogan Piper and Rude gets extended a few months and blown off here instead of at MSG. No insta-feud with Bad News for Piper. Scrap the Submission stipulation from the Valentine/Garvin match and give it to Martel and Tito here. New twist to blow off their long feud. Boston Crab vs. Figure Four. Quake squashes Duggan and gives him the aftershock. The rest remains pretty much how it was. Let the girls get involved in the Savage match but leave the wrestling to the guys. Or make it a mixed tag if you think that will draw. Either way. Throw the Harts and Rockers on there for a strong workrate match and an unofficial #1 contenders match. Harts go over. And yes, I realize this is two face vs. face matches on the same show.

I was thinking about WM 15 off the top of my head and I don't even know what they could have done to make that pile of crap better. This was Russo at his absolute peak of stupidity. Without thinking about it too much, I guess you've got: - IC Title: Owen vs. Jarrett The IC Title was a joke and random midcarders traded it every two weeks. It didn't get better until Jarrett gave it some credibility again in the summer and Jericho and Benoit came along. Even if this was heel vs. heel, at least it would have upheld the tradition of the IC Title with two great wrestlers going at it. - Tag Titles: Outlaws vs.... the Acolytes? The Tag Titles were also a joke by this point. And tag teams didn't really exist. These are two of them. This plays into the Ministry of Darkness vs. DX feud... or was the Ministry feuding with the Corporation? Or was it DX against the Corporation? I have no idea. I just know that a few weeks after this the Corporation inexplicably merged with the Ministry to become the Corporate Ministry. Whatever. - Euro Title: Shane vs. X-Pac I guess DX and the Corporation did feud. That must have also been the basis for HHH vs. Kane. I'd actually leave this alone because it was surprisingly mediocre and it was a nice way to ease everyone into accepting Shane as a wrestler. - Hardcore Title: Holly vs. Snow Because you know they just had to defend every title. - World Title: Rock vs. Austin (Special ref: Foley) The obvious main event. Foley gets to ref because it's not like there was any match of note for him to partake in. - Big Show vs. Kane Brutal. But a convincing Show victory may have actually presented him as a threat instead of the joke he quickly became. - Undertaker vs. HHH Because the Ministry didn't like DX. Or something. - Gangrel, Edge & Christian vs. Test, Ken Shamrock & Big Boss Man Because the Brood was sucking up to the Undertaker so they could join the Ministry. And the Ministry didn't like the Corporation. Or something. Wow. Russo really did a number on this one.

Flair was not around, but supposedly Vince let him out of his contract early so he could go back to WCW. But he didn't even end up wrestling for WCW until the end of the year. If he left because of envoking the "main event" clause, there wouldn't have been a problem because this would have put him in the co-main event at WM. Flair's release was supposedly mutual; Ric wanted to go back to WCW and Vince didn't think there was anything left for him to do in the WWF. Still, if they'd really wanted to put the career match off for two months, I'm sure they could have worked it out. I'm sure Flair wouldn't have minded a WM payday. Razor did end up being the odd man out for this show, along with Bigelow. Without Marty, there were more quality midcard heels than faces without concrete programs at this point (Shawn, Luger Razor, Bigelow as opposed to basically just Perfect and Tatanka). It was unbalanced, which is probably why they ended up turning Razor a few weeks later. So yeah, Razor took a backseat this time. But the non-Razor's Edge finish didn't necessarily hurt him. I like that he didn't even need it to put away Backlund. As the Brain said, he beat the wrestler with wrestling. I don't think Martel and Boss Man were still around by this point (although Martel returned that fall) and I'm not sure how Luger would have worked against another heel. If anything, they could have turned Razor face earlier (he was over as a face anyway at that show) and paired the two of them up. Although that would have robbed us of all the subsequent great stuff with the Kid and Money Inc. They could have put Luger vs. Tatanka (another battle of the undefeated streaks) and then slipped Marty into the IC match with Shawn. Like you, I have nothing against the match Shawn and Tatanka had, but the title vs. streak aspect handcuffed them into the lame finish.

WM 13. Since I've been talking about how much I hate the real thing lately. I'm ditching the Bret/Austin match which will cause some controversy. Also, I'm assuming Shawn Michaels isn't "injured." The card: WWF Title: Shawn vs. Bret No Holds Barred: Undertaker vs. Mankind Triple Threat: Austin vs. Owen vs. Bulldog IC Title: HHH vs. Rocky Tag Titles: LOD vs. Furnas & LaFon (w/ Sunny) Gauntlet Match: Ahmed Johnson vs. Nation of Domination Sid vs. Vader (Special ref: Ken Shamrock) And that's about it. If you have to include a token six man tag to stretch out the card, there's Goldust, Flash Funk, and the tag teams that participated in the real card's opener. Or maybe throw in a debut match for Ken Shamrock instead of using him as a ref. Go nuts. Now this is far from the perfect card, but as a whole, I think it's an improvement on the real thing. And man, what a brutal roster once you get past the top 10-15 guys: Flash Funk, Headbangers, New Blackjacks, Godwinns, Rockabilly, Jesse James, Salvatore Sincere, The Sultan, etc. Yikes. This is what I mean when I call '97 overrated- as good as the good stuff was, everything else was hideous. Explanations: Taker and Mankind. True, they had wrestled a million times by then, but they had a really great brawl on PPV the next month so we're moving it up here to stengthen the WM card. Ahmed vs. Faarooq. Bad as it may have been, it deserved a one-on-one blowoff. Have Savio and Crush run constant interference here. This also would have been suited for some sort of gimmick like No DQ and No Holds Barred, but we can't have this and Taker/Mankind stepping on each others toes. One brawl per show is enough. Come to think of it, maybe do the gauntlet match here that they ended up doing at a later IYH. Yes... I'm going to go change that now. Tag Titles: I know- Furnas & LaFon were heatless. But at least they were a real team and solid workers. The other tag teams at this point (other than Owen and Bulldog) were all brutal. Pair Sunny with Furnas and LaFon in an attempt to get them over and to talk for them, because once they were in the ring they could have good matches. I thought about having Savio & Crush as the challengers here, but eh. HHH vs. Rocky. Because it looks cool in hindsight. Yeah, Rocky was green but this eliminates two boring matches and replaces it with one marginally better match. Sid vs. Vader. Heel vs. heel matches usually suck. But this is a better vehicle to establish guest ref Ken Shamrock as a physical presence. He couldn't really get involved in Bret vs. Austin because that would have ruined their story. Between the two of them, Sid vs. Vader had main evented Summerslam, Survivor Series, and the Rumble, so there's some star power there. Would have been easy to create an issue stemming from the aftermath of the Rumble and the Final Four IYH. I remember these two having a match at an IYH (possibly the fall of '96) and it wasn't even terrible. Vader could have used a major match like this at this point. Also, with Shamrock reffing a match between two heels, you can have him take no crap from both guys and establish him as a major face right away. This segues into the Vader vs. Shamrock feud nicely. Bret vs. Shawn. Supposedly the original plan before Shawn got "hurt." Shawn had his run with the Title, with the only bump in the road being Sid. Meanwhile, Bret's been bitter. You can still continue the subtle heel turn with Bret here while having a mostly face vs. face match here with Bret going over, and then you pull the trigger with the Austin thing the next month. And no, I don't think the impact would have been lessened if it the real double turn hadn't happened at Wrestlemania, because the real Wrestlemania felt like a glorified IYH anyway. And finally, the triple threat match. First of all, the idea of doing a triple threat match was still pretty new at the time so this could have been an interesting selling point. The backstory: Owen had been involved with the Austin vs. Bret thing all along. It was Owen who urged Austin to challenge Bret at Survivor Series in the first place. Even though he was a heel against Bret, Austin also had a mini-feud with the heel Bulldog in late 96 and early 97 to establish the whole shades-of-gray thing. So in order to give fans a reason to cheer for Austin, which they were looking for, you have him going after Owen and Bulldog at various points. Meanwhile, you have the whole tension angle with Owen and Bulldog that they were pushing at the time, along with Bulldog going over Owen for the European Title. At some point, they also lose the Tag straps to LOD, either via miscommunication or at the hands of Austin. So you've already got issues between everyone. When it comes to the match, all of a sudden, Owen and Bulldog appear to be on the same page and end up controlling Austin for a large portion of the match, building sympathy for Austin and giving the crowd someone to get behind. Meanwhile, the announcers question what the hell happened and speculate as to why Owen and Bulldog are getting along all of a sudden. You can still do a miscommunication finish with Owen intentionally or accidentally turning on Bulldog and Austin hitting both of them with Stunners to pick up the win. So now the result is the same. There's still tension with Owen and Davey but now there's an extra layer to it. What happened before to help them get along? It's later that we find out Bret had been trying to reconcile them, for the reasons he actually did so and also because he wanted them to work together to take out Austin. The reveal for this can come up sort of the way it really did, OR the next month when Austin is challenging Bret for the Title and Owen and Bulldog end up reuniting with Bret to help him and screw Austin out of winning the belt. As much as I liked the fact that the Harts reunited, I always thought the way they did it with Bret coming to the ring and getting them to hug and make up out of nowhere was kind of lame. This scenario at least gives a little bit more of a backstory to the whole thing.

I like it Al. Definitely gives it a modern feel with the ten man tag, the token ladder match, the Gorilla/Heenan involvement and the Falls Count Anywhere stip. Although, I've gotta say, Neidhart in a MITB match for #1 contendership? As for my WM 5, just sticking with a typical card at the time without the modern twists, I've always felt the tag team booking on this show would have been better if re-shuffled: - Put the Rockers against the Busters. The Busters going over former Champs put them over yeah, but the circumstances with Martel leaving Tito high and dry didn't exactly put them over since they basically won a handicapped match at the end. And fine... I'm just a mark for Rockers vs. Busters matches. - Strike Force vs. Twin Towers. The Towers had already broken up the MegaPowers, so why not have them break up Strike Force here? Could have been a strange little gimmick- the team that breaks up other tag teams. Also, would have been ironic when they ended up breaking up the next year. - Harts vs. Rougeaus. Blow off the Hart Foundation/Jimmy Hart issue. - I never liked the Demolition/Powers of Pain match, but with the Fuji storyline it made perfect sense. Nothing wrong with this. - And then you've got Bushwackers vs. Honky & Valentine, which was a pretty natural fit and in fact eventually happened. This is easily cuttable if you want to go with a cleaner 10-11 match card. The rest of the card pretty much makes sense. Hogan vs. Savage and Warrior vs. Rude stays, like you said. Perfect vs. Blazer can stay as well. DiBiase and Andre could have worked as a team against Beefcake and Jake or Jake and Studd to cut another match out, but then again this card is already loaded with tag matches. Throw in Haku and maybe Hercules to make it a six man. Everything else was pretty pointless, but those were the days of the 45 match WM cards. If you absolutely had to cut it to 9 or 10 matches, and there was no modern twist, I'd have gone: WWF Title: Hogan vs. Savage IC Title: Warrior vs. Rude Tag Title: Demolition vs. POP & Fuji DiBiase, Andre, and Haku vs. Beefcake, Hercules, and Jake (Studd as ref) Harts vs. Rougeaus Towers vs. Strike Force Rockers vs. Busters Perfect vs. Blazer Duggan vs. Bad News Yeah, it's still way too heavy on the tag matches, but it gets rid of a good deal of the crap. Eh.

Wrestlemania IX. I've defended WM 9 in the past, but let's be honest- with their roster at the time, they could have done much better. This one is kind of hard to do in retrospect because it depends on how strictly you stick to what they were hell-bent on doing at the time. Do you have to put Yoko in the main event or do you have to have Hogan return at all? I personally would have never booked Bret vs. Yoko and instead allowed Bret to retain the Title here. There were multiple opponents that easily could have worked in that situation. 1) Randy Savage. Before turning him into an announcer, have him do the honors for Bret in a face-face respect match. A fresh match that hadn't been done. Savage could have gone heel midway through the match a la Bret's face-face matches with Piper and Perfect. This would symbol something of a passing of the torch. And Savage wasn't exactly washed up at this point. He had been WWF Champion six months earlier. Savage always put Bret over huge on commentary anyway. Would have meant more if Savage had this match to cite in doing so. 2) Ric Flair. In my fantasy WM 9 card, I include Flair every time. There's no reason they couldn't have kept him around another two months until this show, especially considering they were so weak at the top of the card on the heel side. The original Bret Title win went under the radar. Why not put Bret over him for good on the big stage? Besides, did Flair even ever get a rematch of any note after dropping the Title? 3) Mr. Perfect. Perfect was red-hot after his return at Survivor Series. With all the history he had with Bret, they could have easily turned this into a marketable face-face match. Although if they were gonna go with a title match like this, they probably definitely would have felt they needed Hogan elsewhere on the card as an extra draw. Of course they did that anyway. And if you really wanna get nuts... 4) Hulk Hogan. Hogan made a big return anyway, and it makes sense that he would have wanted to go right after the WWF Title. This was a heavily rumored program in '93 that never materialized. I've always been curious to see what a Bret/Hogan match would have looked like. Depending on which opponent you choose, you can go in a lot of directions for the rest of the card but here are some possible options: IC Title: Shawn vs. Marty. Still had heat, they had great matches with each other, the Sherri involvement makes more sense here, and this way you avoid the lame booking to simultaneously protect Shawn's Title and Tatanka's undefeated streak. If you want to add some intrigue, you can even make Marty a mystery opponent a la their later Raw match in May. Tag Titles: Without Hogan and Beefcake challenging Money Inc., the Steiners are no-brainers as challengers. Possibilities if you include Flair on the show: - Career match against Mr. Perfect (self-explanatory) - WWF Title match vs. Bret Hart - "Dream" match vs. Hogan (I don't like this one by this point in time) Possibilities for Yokozuna if he wasn't going to be in the Title match: - vs. Savage to put him over a recent WWF Champion (they did do this as a mini-program leading up to the show) - vs. Hogan in the upper-card. This could have been Hogan's return program. - vs. Tatanka in a battle of undefeated streaks... Tatanka's streak ultimately went nowhere anyway. Possibilities for Perfect: - Career match against Ric Flair (self-explanatory) - WWF Title match vs. Bret Hart - IC Title match vs. Shawn Michaels - Grudge match vs. Razor Ramon stemming from Survivor Series Possibilities for Hogan: - vs. Yokozuna in the upper-card. - WWF Title match vs. Bret Hart - "Dream" match vs. Flair (again, I don't like that at this point) - vs. Lex Luger. Just being in the match would have helped establish Luger right away and perhaps his later pushes would not have seemed so forced. Build this one around the loaded forearm angle (perhaps Luger destroys Beefcakes face by knocking him out with it.) But if you look at the top 20 guys they could have feasibly used for the show, there's really no reason why it couldn't have been a great card: Bret, Flair, Perfect, Savage, Hogan, Yoko, Shawn, Jannetty, Luger, Razor, Tatanka, Bigelow, Crush, Doink, Money Inc., Steiners, Undertaker. That's a really solid talent pool to work with. So, that said there's a ton of possibilities. This is only one: WWF Title: Bret Hart vs. Randy Savage Career Match: Mr. Perfect vs. Ric Flair Tag Titles: Steiner Brothers vs. Money Inc. IC Title: Michaels vs. Jannetty (possibly billed as a mystery opponent) Yokozuna vs. Tatanka Lex Luger vs. Hulk Hogan Undertaker vs. Giant Gonzalez Crush vs. Doink Razor Ramon vs. Bob Backlund Headshrinkers vs. Smoking Gunns (I believe the Gunns had debuted by that point.)

Interesting perspective. I can't relate to the whole high school thing because I was 11 at the time. I did recognize that it was on a downward slide, a lot of which, in my eyes, had to do with the Bret/Owen program ending and the decision to take the belt off Bret. I mean, I'm with you in a lot of ways here in that I never liked Nash as Champion, I would have preferred a show centered around Bret, and I never liked Michaels all that much either (I respected his matches but I was always a Bret fan. I also disagree with a lot of their general booking decisions at the time. I too would have liked to have seen Bret crush Backlund at the Rumble and go with a Title defense against either Owen or Bulldog at WM, while Shawn and Diesel wrestled in the upper midcard. I just feel for the direction that they did choose to go in, 11 wasn't terrible. As for WM 13, I'm not really a fan of the Nation/LOD match. Every match on the card other than Bret/Austin was not only garbage in my opinion but didn't even make sense from a booking perspective. People fault Razor vs. Jarrett for the non-finish, but what about the Tag Title match at WM 13? Even worse. And that match didn't even have a reason to take place to begin with. And say what you will about Bret/Austin but the booking of the top guys for that show didn't make any sense. Taker/Sid for the Title? Why? Michaels really fucked them over there. When comparing 11 and 13, in my opinion Michaels/Diesel craps on Taker/Sid, Razor/Jarrett craps on Rock/Sultan, the WM 11 Tag Title match is better than the WM 13 Tag Title match, and as underwhelming as Bret/Backlund was, I'll certainly take it over the LOD/Nation street fight. And at least the WM 11 opener and Taker/Bundy were short. WM 13 had a clusterfuck of a tag opener with guys that didn't even belong on the show (not that the Blus belonged either) and HHH/Goldust was just long and boring as opposed to Taker/Bundy which was short and boring. Bret/Austin obviously craps on Bigelow/LT, but that's all WM 13 has going for it. As for the crowd reaction to Shawn, I think that was more because he was the "cool" heel, not because he was the small underdog type. I think he would have gotten cheered against any face other than Bret and maybe Razor at that point. Even in his mini-program with Bulldog he was cheered. And obviously, they were about to acknowledge this since they turned him face the following night. With the push Shawn was getting, Nash as a flat champion, and the midcard booking of the match, I think a lot of fans were anticipating a Shawn Title win, and wanted to get in on it. But I agree, if you're going to change the booking of the entire period, they could have done much better. Bret instead of Nash as the Champion heading into the show changes the whole landscape for the better.

I love Wrestlemania VIII but I've always been intrigued by the supposed build up to Hogan vs. Flair. It hurts to erase Savage vs. Flair from history because I love that match, but they could have held off on that whole angle until Summerslam. So here we go: Card: WWF Title: Flair vs. Hogan Career Match: Jake vs. Savage Undertaker vs. Sid Justice IC Title: Bret vs. Piper Tag Titles: Money Inc vs. Legion Of Doom Michaels vs. Big Boss Man Tatanka vs. Martel Virgil, Sgt. Slaughter, Duggan, Santana vs. Natural Disasters & Nasty Boys Owen Hart vs. Mountie Explanations: - Hogan vs. Flair for the hell of it as the supposed "dream match." Plus a Flair (cheap) win would really solidify Flair (they hadn't had a great top heel like him since the heyday of Savage) and give Hogan a built-in program for his return. And Warrior still could have returned here to chase off Flair and Perfect after the match and even up the score. - If ever a Career match was warranted, it was here. Jake was leaving anyway. This would have been a better blowoff than what they ended up doing. It would have made sense for Savage to only be able to be reinstated if he could have this one match back to retire Jake. And you can still do the happy ending with Savage regaining the Title at Summerslam in Wembley. I guess they didn't want to give Jake a high profile match to go out on, but why not? - With the other two matches in place, Sid/Taker is obvious. Sid was on his way out anyway so why not give Taker a big rub? And if you really wanted to have Papa Shango interfere here, well, Taker is a pretty natural opponent. - LOD/Money Inc. was the big money tag match. - Santana/Shawn was fine, but Boss Man had more of a rub to give at that point. - The eight man tag could have been the catalyst for the Disasters' face turn. - Owen/Mountie could have stemmed subtlely from the Bret/Mountie issue, which would have associated Owen more directly with Bret a little earlier and given him some more credibility than a win over Skinner did. Booking: Shawn d. Boss Man Tag Titles: LOD d. Money Inc. via countout bullshit Undertaker d. Sid Justice IC Title: Bret d. Piper Virgil, Slaughter, Duggan, Santana d. Nastys and Disasters via heel miscommunication Career Match: Savage d. Jake Tatanka d. Martel Owen d. Mountie WWF Title: Flair d. Hogan via bullshit shennanigans Classic Flair and Perfect cheating with them destroying Hogan's knee with a chair and trapping in the figure four until the ref calls the match while Heenan gloats like a madman. Hogan hulks up but Perfect and Flair destroy the knee, setting up a returning Warrior to provide the happy ending, make the save, and beat up Flair and Perfect. Hogan then disappears for awhile to get "knee surgery." If you want to go with a more feel-good ending, move this to the midcard and put Savage and Jake on last.

Good idea for a thread. Valentine vs. Santana definitely would have been tons better. No Hart Foundation? I know they were in their infant stages at that point (at least I think they had started teaming by then) but if we're doing this in hindsight, why not? I'll have to do a few of these for certain cards for the hell of it.