Moments you never saw coming

[Guest Hass of Pain]

Turning on WCW Saturday Night to see that Ron Simmons of all people had become the World Heavyweight Champion at a house show.

 

Ric Flair leaving WCW in 1991.

[BHK 0]

Cuz Heenan hated Hogan back then and accused him for being a cheat since he debuted in WCW.

So Heenan really didn't mean to give it away then?

No, I am pretty sure he was just doing what his charicter was doing the whole show.

Heenan loved Hogan because working w/ him meant more $$$. But his character has despised him for years and would NEVER trust a guy like Hogan.

 

Plus, there was a sense of paranoia in kayfabe WCW. NO ONE was ruled out as being the 3rd man, so it's natural that Heenan would make that observation.

That's correct. Hennan, in Kayfabe, hated Hogan for YEARS, and was just playing the heel announcer to Hogan's babyface character.

 

I don't know if he knew Hogan was the 3rd man, but if he did he wasn't intentionally blowing it.

[Jericholic82 0]

Without a doubt, it was Bischoff's WWE debut. I think Booker T and Goldust has just finished a skit backstage. Booker turned around, and his jaw dropped, then he asked "What the hell are you doing here", or something to that effect, and the camera panned over to show Eric Bischoff. Never EVER in a million years did I expect him to become a part of WWE.

Well earlier in show shane showed up to confront vince as to who he had picked as gm and he said somethin like "i cant believe its him after what he tried to do to you (put you out of business-ironic cuz shane was like 10 months removed from the alliance trying to put vince out of business) then I kinda had a feeling that it was bischoff.

 

 

booker finshed a promo and said can u dig it suckaa then his face turned with a disbelief look on his face and eric walks up and says hi, then leaves bischoff goes to coach (i think) "Tell me I didnt just see that"

 

I think it would have been more shocking if he didnt show his face till vince announced it, as soon as I saw bischoff backstage I knew he was the gm.

 

 

steph as the sd gm was also rather shocking.

 

 

 

rikishi as the driver floored me (wow that was out of left field there)

 

stephs turn was no surprise to me, the whole IWC pretty much predicted that before the PPV

 

 

Vince as the higher power was really shocking, considering you never would think that WWF would be that dumb enough to pull somethin like that (the vince-stone cold feud should have ended with vince face turn and vince shouldve went off tv)

 

Though I was pretty much calling it, vince at wm 2000 getting beat up by shane but returning later to cost rock the match and reunite with his family made no sense.

[Hunter's Torn Quad 0]

Vince as the higher power was really shocking, considering you never would think that WWF would be that dumb enough to pull somethin like that (the vince-stone cold feud should have ended with vince face turn and vince shouldve went off tv)

Vince being the HP was somewhat of a last minute decision. While there was no firm plan for who the HP would turn out to be, among the names considered were Austin himself and even Mick Foley. Foley turned it down saying it would make no sense for him to turn. I don't know why Austin was considered, but seeing as that would have been beyond stupid, I put that down to Russo.

[Guest Hass of Pain]

Yeah, I was shocked by the higher power thing in a very disappointed kind of way. 1Wrestling had broken this ludicrous story about some fan seeing McMahon and Mike Tyson at a restaurant and asking who the higher power was, only to have McMahon wink and nod in Tyson's direction. Those were the days...

[Jericholic82 0]

Yeah, I was shocked by the higher power thing in a very disappointed kind of way. 1Wrestling had broken this ludicrous story about some fan seeing McMahon and Mike Tyson at a restaurant and asking who the higher power was, only to have McMahon wink and nod in Tyson's direction. Those were the days...

oh yea I remember those bogus tyson reports one fan said that austin and tyson went into his video store and told the guy that tyson was the higher power

 

I wish it would have been Jake Roberts though

[Guest Hass of Pain]

I wish the arena lights would have dimmed, a spotlight would have dramatically fallen on the entrance way and Barry Horowitz would have walked out in his neon pink tights he wore in Global patting his own back. That would have been the shit.

[bob_barron 0]

Turning on WCW Saturday Night to see that Ron Simmons of all people had become the World Heavyweight Champion at a house show.

 

Ric Flair leaving WCW in 1991.

Ron Simmons won at WCWSN- it wasn't a house show

[Guest Fook]

Turning on WCW Saturday Night to see that Ron Simmons of all people had become the World Heavyweight Champion at a house show.

 

Ric Flair leaving WCW in 1991.

Ron Simmons won at WCWSN- it wasn't a house show

That reminds me of another one:

Turning on Superstars one Saturday and seeing Bret with the gold.

[Guest Hass of Pain]

Turning on WCW Saturday Night to see that Ron Simmons of all people had become the World Heavyweight Champion at a house show.

 

Ric Flair leaving WCW in 1991.

Ron Simmons won at WCWSN- it wasn't a house show

I beg to differ. It was a house show in Baltimore, Maryland and the premise was that every wrestler put their name into a drawing and Ron Simmons won the right to fight for the World Title that night. They showed it on WCW Saturday Night, but it wasn't billed as a WCW Saturday Night match as it was taped on a crappy camera and the lighting in the arena sucked as it wasn't set up to be a TV taping. It was like when Ric Flair won the title back from Sting, they just presented it in a "look what happened at a house show" way with a really low rent vibe to the footage. Technical yes, but the match itself didn't happen on a WCW Saturday Night taping.

[bob_barron 0]

I remember it was supposed to be Sting v. Vader, Roberts took out Vader and then Simmons got his name drawn and won. I thought this all took place at WCWSN and not a house show.

 

The history of WCW site says it was a TV Taping

[MillenniumMan831 0]

Haas is correct. This was all also shown on the Power Hour/Pro and Worldwide. It was technically a house show taped for television if that makes any sense . . . similiar to seeing a MSG title change on Primetime Wrestling. You wouldn't say that the title change took place on Primetime, rather it was aired on Primetime.

[The Amazing Rando 0]

"The DX Split" ... yuck.

[LessonInMachismo 0]

Yeah, I was shocked by the higher power thing in a very disappointed kind of way. 1Wrestling had broken this ludicrous story about some fan seeing McMahon and Mike Tyson at a restaurant and asking who the higher power was, only to have McMahon wink and nod in Tyson's direction. Those were the days...

oh yea I remember those bogus tyson reports one fan said that austin and tyson went into his video store and told the guy that tyson was the higher power

 

I wish it would have been Jake Roberts though

I thought it was Goldberg. He hadn't been on WCW TV for a few months and they had "jobbed" him to Bret in that cool armor thing a la A Fist Full of Dollars, so going on the logic that Bret beating him meant that he was leaving, I thought he could be the Higher Power. I had just gotten internet access six months before, so I knew nothing of wrestling websites and I couldn't dispel the theory. I really thought it was true when Austin started yelling "You son of a bitch!" at the end of that Raw when the HP revealed himself only to Austin.

[LessonInMachismo 0]

Cuz Heenan hated Hogan back then and accused him for being a cheat since he debuted in WCW.

So Heenan really didn't mean to give it away then?

No, I am pretty sure he was just doing what his charicter was doing the whole show.

Heenan loved Hogan because working w/ him meant more $$$. But his character has despised him for years and would NEVER trust a guy like Hogan.

 

Plus, there was a sense of paranoia in kayfabe WCW. NO ONE was ruled out as being the 3rd man, so it's natural that Heenan would make that observation.

That's correct. Hennan, in Kayfabe, hated Hogan for YEARS, and was just playing the heel announcer to Hogan's babyface character.

 

I don't know if he knew Hogan was the 3rd man, but if he did he wasn't intentionally blowing it.

Wade Keller all but bashed The Death of WCW for not criticizing Heenan enough. I have seen that BATB'96 footage dozens of times on dozens of tapes and it has never occurred to me that Bobby "gave it away." I have never seen the entire PPV, but given the context of that Mean Gene story that was mentioned earlier in the thread, it was obvious that Hogan was the third man. I think Keller is patronizing fans by suggesting they didn't know that the third man was Hogan the moment he hit that aisle.

 

Does Keller have something against Heenan? I know Heenan is a Republican, and Keller is highly critical of Republicans from what I have observed, though admittedly my observation has been minimal.

[MDH257 0]

Keller seems to be a fan of the FOX News Channel, so I'm not sure about that. He let Pat McNeil model his column after "The O'Reilly Factor" and admitted to being a fan of Sheppard Smith (I remember him saying something about WWE should have a tv segment modeled after Smith's "Around the World in 60 Seconds".)

 

I think Keller just wanted to find a reason to trash the book (maybe he was jellous that an Observer contributer was the co-author) and needed to nitpick to do it.

[Kahran Ramsus 0]

I never saw Ultimate Warrior, in the midst of a massive hot streak, losing the IC title to Rick Rude in what was seemingly a pretty run of the mill feud up til that point (Rude clobbers Warrior after losing posedown, Warrior gets Rude in ring and crushes him).

 

Shawn Michaels collapse on RAW was a big one. I never even knew that was a work until 1998, and it happened in 1995.

 

In a bad way, the finish to Yoko/Taker at the Royal Rumble. I figured Yoko was going to win, because Taker was supposed to be taking time off, but I just sat there shaking my head at how stupid the whole thing was.

 

Ted Dibiase's return to announcing at Royal Rumble 1994, and Hennig's return at Survivor Series 1995 were a couple I didn't see coming.

 

Roddy Piper being the guest referee at Wrestlemania X. I called Perfect as being one, but I had no clue as to the other.

 

But the biggest upset to me was Yoko beating Hogan at KOTR 1993. Hogan had just won the title at Mania and this was his first defense against a guy who had his credibility shot by losing in 5 seconds. I figured this was just a formality and Hogan would move on to either Bret Hart or Lex Luger (who was getting a pretty good heel push) in time for Summerslam. I never dreamed this would be his last match in the WWF until 2002. I didn't like Hogan, but he and the WWF were together as long as I could remember.

[CBright7831 0]

I didn't see the Bischoff thing coming.

 

I couldn't figure out who Shane was talking about.

 

Hell I thought it may have been Shane.

[River City Rocker 0]

Wade Keller all but bashed The Death of WCW for not criticizing Heenan enough. I have seen that BATB'96 footage dozens of times on dozens of tapes and it has never occurred to me that Bobby "gave it away."

To me, it would have been completely out of character if Heenan suddenly yelled something like "I have never been glad to see that man before tonight!" after Hogan made his entrance. Granted, it probably would've made the impact of Hogan's turn just a little more sweeter had Bobby Heenan momentarily dropped his character's animosity towards Hogan, and viewed him as the man who had come to save WCW by attacking the Outsiders.

 

Several years ago, there was a discussion on another forum asking why Bobby Heenan didn't latch onto the NWO when they formed, since he was always the heel announcer. So I wrote out a quick fantasy storyline where Heenan would practically fall in love with the group (Hogan included), and finally run out to the ring one night during a usual NWO beatdown...only to fall victim to another attack.

 

-Ben

[strummer 0]

have to add Honky Tonk man beating Steamboat for the IC title in 1987. Honky was a joke at that point and Ricky's credibility was at an all time high since joining the WWF. Even as an 8 year old, I knew that it wasn't fair to Steamboat as he was a superior wrestler and he lost to a low card gimmick guy. If this would have happened in the late 90's or today, Vince would have been crucified.

[Guest Stunt Granny]

Anytime HHH does something shocking. Mainly beacuse he'll tell me 90 time in his next interview "You NEVER saw it coming!!". It becomes truth if you say it enough times ya know.

[Guest JebusNassedar]

"HOROWITZ WINS!"

[LessonInMachismo 0]

When Austin pretended to sign the contract but didn't and got to kick some ass.

[Guest jumpingbombangel]

 

Funniest thing I'd ever seen...and it shocked the crap out of me, so I guess he did his job!

[Quit Calling My Mama 0]

When Austin pretended to sign the contract but didn't and got to kick some ass.

If you are referring to what i think you are then it was HHH who did that.

 

He only signed one H. Then did a beat down a completed his signature.

[LessonInMachismo 0]

When Austin pretended to sign the contract but didn't and got to kick some ass.

If you are referring to what i think you are then it was HHH who did that.

 

He only signed one H. Then did a beat down a completed his signature.

Okay, either that or WWE did the same thing twice, which is not out of the range of possibility. I just liked it, whoever it was.

 

As for Honky Tonk Man, he was coming off of a Wrestlemania win over Jake Roberts and had a full head of steam (not grease). I have heard that Steamboat had heat because he wanted time off to be with his new baby, but they had just put the belt on him. So while HTM was legitimate as far as I'm concerned, maybe taking the belt from Ricky and putting it on an Elvis impersonator was considered a slap in the face.

 

Interesting, too, how they made HTM the longest-reigning IC champ. Waste not, want not.

[Jericholic82 0]

"The DX Split" ... yuck.

I second that comment

[Jericholic82 0]

I wish the arena lights would have dimmed, a spotlight would have dramatically fallen on the entrance way and Barry Horowitz would have walked out in his neon pink tights he wore in Global patting his own back. That would have been the shit.

I agree 100 percent!!!! The Winner Barry Horowitz was the greatest gimmick ever (he won 1 match in global by like count out or dq or somethin then started calling himself the winner and he came up with the jacket with the hand print on it )

 

actually he also wore the jacket in his wwf jobbing days later

[Jericholic82 0]

Yeah, I was shocked by the higher power thing in a very disappointed kind of way. 1Wrestling had broken this ludicrous story about some fan seeing McMahon and Mike Tyson at a restaurant and asking who the higher power was, only to have McMahon wink and nod in Tyson's direction. Those were the days...

oh yea I remember those bogus tyson reports one fan said that austin and tyson went into his video store and told the guy that tyson was the higher power

 

I wish it would have been Jake Roberts though

I thought it was Goldberg. He hadn't been on WCW TV for a few months and they had "jobbed" him to Bret in that cool armor thing a la A Fist Full of Dollars, so going on the logic that Bret beating him meant that he was leaving, I thought he could be the Higher Power. I had just gotten internet access six months before, so I knew nothing of wrestling websites and I couldn't dispel the theory. I really thought it was true when Austin started yelling "You son of a bitch!" at the end of that Raw when the HP revealed himself only to Austin.

Actually Austins reaction to the unmasking made me pretty much know it was Vince. Someone online said that as well.

 

 

The dumb thing was when he revealed to the world the next week, he said "Its me Austin Its me austin it was me all along Austin" uh duh he knew that already

 

remember how on Nitro that night before the unveiling Bischoff mentioned that the HP's initials were "VKM"

 

actually the whole thing was kinda weird as they did this angle just mere days after Owen died(2 days later they did the raw taping where the power revealed himself to austin).

 

 

I guess in hindsight it made sense as Vince was mad that Rock lost to Austin so he had to go in cahoots with Taker to set up a plot to take the WWF title away from Steve . although I guess its inferred that in KAYFABE Taker was against vince in the beginning but after mania shane and vince made a truce with Taker and hatched the plot.

 

but the problem is that Taker was talking about his HP or Greater Power as it was sometimes called, way before mania

[Jericholic82 0]

and thinking about it. How was Hogan ever able to turn face again after the nWo?

 

 

I mean when he joined at BATB he in kayfabe pretty much said he never cared about the fans he did it all for the money and fame. And when he came to WCW the fans never really took to him and lots were starting to boo, and his ego couldnt take it so he hooked up with Hall and nash (who hated WCW cuz they were mistreated there years ago) to destroy the WCW. That was basically the whole storyline of the nWo, but they kept on adding members which ruined it.