When one program clearly creates a new star

[humanoid92 0]

I was watching Foley vs. HHH from the 2000 Rumble, and got to thinking about how that whole feud really MADE Hunter. Before that feud, HHH was still trying to work his way into that upper echelon. Even though he was the champion, it still didn't feel like he was on the level of a Rock or Austin. Even though he had beat Austin at No Mercy, that match didn't really make him into what he became. The Foley feud did everything right in terms of solidifying Hunter as THE guy. That Rumble match was pivotal to his career, and when the program was done, HHH had been elevated to a level he hadn't previously been at, and he stayed there.

 

This got me thinking about the art of putting people over. Winning a big match and really being put over huge are two entirely different things. Once upon a time, Randy Orton won the World Title but he was never really put over. There have been a lot of great matches and moments over the years, but it's not often that one guy goes out of his way and simply MAKES another guy and transforms his career forever.

 

For instance, Benoit winning the Title at WM XX was a great match and moment but it didn't MAKE him. He was already established long before that, World Champ or not, and six months later he was back to being a midcarder. It was more like a lifetime achievement win than a career altering and defining win. He may have gone over, but the point is that Hunter and Shawn did not MAKE Chris Benoit with that program.

 

Hulk Hogan going over Andre at WM III is one of the defining moments in wrestling history, but you can't really say Andre made the Hulkster. He was already the biggest star in the company and had held the Title for three years.

 

Nobody really made the Rock either. He basically made himself, and his rise to the top was kind of a whirlwind phenomenon. Sure, he had help from the likes of Foley and Austin when he really took off, but nobody made him to solidify him in that spot.

 

Shawn Michaels had kind of a gradual rise. Hall, Nash, and Bret all helped him there but there wasn't that one defining program that solidified him. It was more of a group effort over a long period of time.

 

Anyway, the point is, it's very rare that a wrestler really makes another guy a star the way Foley did with HHH. So my question to you is, what other examples are there of programs in which a guy really made another wrestler to the extent Foley did with Hunter? Remember, it's not necessarily about winning titles or winning PPV main events, or even winning a series of matches. HHH has lost to plenty of guys in the last 5 years, but I don't believe he's made anybody the way Foley made him. It's not about wins and losses; it's about really solidifying the other guy with a program and elevating him into a completely different echelon for good, and not just on paper, but in the perception of the wrestling world. Plenty of guys have been successful, in main events, and even World Champions, but only a few of them can point to one program that clearly catapulted them to where they got. So what examples can you think of that fit this criteria?

 

Two more that immediately spring to mind for me:

 

1) Bret made Austin

 

I'm not denying that Austin would have found another way to get over. But the program with Bret is how he did it. Even though he had won King of the Ring, he was still just another midcard guy until the Bret program. By the time that program had ended, Austin was on fire and it was pretty clear he was the guy being groomed to be the next new Champion and carry the company.

 

2) Bret made Owen

 

That program was huge for Owen. Before it he was just a jobber in neon pajamas, and within a couple months he won the greatest upset ever at Wrestlemania. As soon as he pinned Bret, he became a legitimate WWF Title contender. That program put him into main events, and from that point on Owen was always an upper-tier heel. Now this isn't on quite the same level as the others since Austin and HHH carried the company at points as the champions and Owen never made it to that level. But the point is that program with Bret completely transformed him and launched him to a new level for good.

 

And then, as was mentioned, there's:

 

3) Foley made Hunter

 

Foley made Hunter look like a million bucks. With Austin out of action and Rock as a face, the departure of the writing team that had been so successful (not that I'm a Russo fan), and Hunter as the new top heel with the belt, there was no guarantee that things were going to go smoothly. But everything about this program was perfect, with the way they built up Cactus Jack, only for Hunter to beat him at his own game in some brutally physical matches, culminating in Hunter retiring him.

 

This thread isn't meant to take away from guys like Owen, Austin, and Hunter. This isn't to say they owe all their success to Bret or Foley; they're all legends in their own right. In wrestling, there's never going to be one event that does it ALL on its own. After all, Owen still won the King of the Ring, Austin still ended up with the whole McMahon storyline, and Hunter was still given other perks, like the Stephanie pairing and the Wrestlemania 2000 victory. But when it comes down to it, the three instances listed above are examples of one wrestler going out of his way and clearly making the other guy into something he hadn't been.

 

With Bret Hart on the list twice already, it raises an interesting point about other legends. Hogan, Flair, Michaels, Undertaker, Rock, HHH, Austin, etc. -- did they ever completely make anybody the way Bret and Foley did? What other examples qualify and deserve to be added to this list? I'll leave it up to you guys to decide and debate.

[King Cucaracha 0]

The obvious one is 'Flair made Sting'.

[Above Average 0]

This may be subjective but HHH did make Batista. That was one of the best slow burn feuds in WWE history and Batista is now big enough in managements eyes to possibly end Undertaker's WM streak.

 

Rock didn't make anybody, but he sure as hell tried with Jericho. And Brock's HIAC with Taker gained him a lot of respect and credibility with the fans, but I don't know if it made him like those other series did for there respective winners.

[Cheech Tremendous 0]

On HHH and Foley, that program got him over as a main event heel, but retaining at Mania solidified him as a major star in the company. If he had dropped the belt to Rock at that event, a lot of Mick's work would have been undone.

[CanadianGuitarist 0]

I'd say even Bret/Austin is debatable, as all three guys in that match came away with something.

[daileyxplanet 0]

Ken Shamrock? too?

[naiwf 0]

I'm not really sure this qualifies but does Edge boning Lita and then the subsequent Matt Hardy drama qualify? Before that incident Edge wasn't a legit star, afterwards he was easily the company's top heel. I stopped watching the WWE when he first lost the WWE Title but from the moment the "affair" became common knowledge until then I think Edge was in a completely different stratosphere. I'm not sure if he's there anymore though so that's where I guess someone else can fill in the blanks.

[Cheech Tremendous 0]

Hogan made the Warrior at WM VI. Say what you want about what Warrior became, the second he pinned Hogan clean he was a star forever. Hell, we still talk about him and he hasn't done anything of note in 15 years (besides being crazy).

[Darth Vader 0]

The feud with Razor Ramon and the resulting ladder match made Shawn Michaels. Before then he was just another generic "cocky heel".

 

I would also add Vader as making Shamrock a star. UFC was nothing in 1997 so not many people knew who Shamrock was or why they were supposed to care about him until Vader took several hellish beatings.

 

Rock went from NOD cronie to front man because of his short lived program with Austin.

[Big McLargeHuge 0]

How about Bret? I'm leaning towards the Flair match, but even after he still didn't seem like a legit main eventer. Maybe WM9? KotR 93?

 

Kurt Angle seems like a guy who was 'made' over a period of time, as opposed to having one defining moment.

[CanadianGuitarist 0]

Ken Shamrock? too?

 

Yes. It wasn't nearly on the level of elevation it gave to Bret or Austin, of course, but still.

 

However, my previous response was due to a bit of a discrepancy between the opening post and the topic title. If we're discussing which programs made new stars, as the title states, then unquestionably Bret-Austin qualifies. If it's based on the opening post, which discusses more about which stars made new stars, then I think what I said an hour ago holds true.

[razazteca 0]

And Brock's HIAC with Taker gained him a lot of respect and credibility with the fans, but I don't know if it made him like those other series did for there respective winners.

I wanna think that The Big Show helped Brock's career alot especially with the ring collapsing spot.

[Hunter's Torn Quad 0]

It didn't make him a star, but Undertaker's program with Mankind got Mankind over pretty strong in 1996.

 

Not a program, but Antonio Inoki made Vader a star in Japan by putting him over in 2 minutes in Vader's debut. I think that's a big difference between Japan and the US, in that in Japan you can make someone a star in just one match by putting them over clean and decisively, where in the US it generally takes more time and constantly showing the lower guy to be the superior of the higher guy for that lower guy to be elevated.

[BUTT 0]

I think if a dude came in and just beat HHH or Undertaker cleanly in two minutes and it wasn't presented as a fluke you could make a new star in one night. But that's not the way things are done 'round herrrrrrrrrre.

[EVIL~! alkeiper 0]

What about Jindrak/O'Haire over Luger/Bagwell? They didn't become huge stars, but they were legitimate contenders from that point on.

[Hunter's Torn Quad 0]

I don't think that match did anything for Jindrak and O'Haire, mainly because of how unprofessional Luger and Bagwell were.

[CanadianChris 0]

It didn't make him a star, but Undertaker's program with Mankind got Mankind over pretty strong in 1996.

I agree totally, and almost posted that myself. No one had been able to look strong against Taker almost ever. Mankind got instant legitimacy by going over Taker in 1996.

[Red Baron 0]

Vince Russo making Booker T a solid single action star.

[Corkscrew_Senton 0]

Vince Russo making Booker T a solid single action star.

 

This was something Russo did right, make Booker a top face. Then it got fucked up when Nash beat Booker for the title two months later

[Kahran Ramsus 0]

The feud with Razor Ramon and the resulting ladder match made Shawn Michaels. Before then he was just another generic "cocky heel".

 

I understand your viewpoint, but I must disagree. Shawn Michaels did very well in that feud, but he still spent the rest of the year as the colour commentator on RAW and Diesel's cornerman. What really made HBK into a maineventer was the Diesel feud starting at Survivor Series 1994.

 

I've seen Bret Hart mentioned here a few times for making stars out of people, so I think it would be appropriate to mention the program that turned Hart into a star, that with Curt Hennig over the IC Title in 1991. He had an intial failed singles run in 1989 and was fresh off jobbing the tag titles to the Nasty Boys at Wrestlemania. In 1992 he got to beat Roddy Piper clean at Mania, mainevented both Summerslam & Survivor Series and won the WWF Championship. That match at Summerslam 1991 was huge for him.

[Rendclaw 0]

It didn't make him a star, but Undertaker's program with Mankind got Mankind over pretty strong in 1996.

 

Not a program, but Antonio Inoki made Vader a star in Japan by putting him over in 2 minutes in Vader's debut. I think that's a big difference between Japan and the US, in that in Japan you can make someone a star in just one match by putting them over clean and decisively, where in the US it generally takes more time and constantly showing the lower guy to be the superior of the higher guy for that lower guy to be elevated.

 

 

I saw that match on YouTube, and I was shocked that it was such a squash.....

[cabbageboy 0]

How about this one from ECW: Bam Bam Bigelow and RVD. While RVD was in the mix he really hadn't done something big and that TV title match pretty much made RVD in my view. From there Van Dam held the TV belt for 2 years and got some tag titles with Sabu as well.

[The Mountie 0]

Vince Russo making Booker T a solid single action star.

 

This was something Russo did right, make Booker a top face. Then it got fucked up when Nash beat Booker for the title two months later

 

In fairness though, Booker did beat Nash clean to regain the belt, whereas the previous loss had seen all kinds of shenanigans.

[BUTT 0]

What about Jindrak/O'Haire over Luger/Bagwell? They didn't become huge stars, but they were legitimate contenders from that point on.

Legitimate contenders for the week that WCW lasted after that? They sure as hell weren't legitimate contenders in WWE.

[Papacita 0]

How about Bob Backlund's program with Bret in 94? Despite being a former World Champion, Bob was barely remembered by the time he made his return in the 90's. In one match he went from almost a nobody to being for a time seemingly the most dangerous man in the company and by the fall a man capable of headlining a PPV. Of course, they went and fucked it up shortly afterwards by jobbing him to Diesel.

 

I dunno if it made him, but Michaels winning the 95 Rumble was pretty big. Before that I think he was over and was always one of my favorite characters, but I NEVER could've pictured him as a World Champion or even anything close to a real title threat. That match changed my whole view of him.

[Kahran Ramsus 0]

I dunno if it made him, but Michaels winning the 95 Rumble was pretty big. Before that I think he was over and was always one of my favorite characters, but I NEVER could've pictured him as a World Champion or even anything close to a real title threat. That match changed my whole view of him.

 

Yeah, this was what I was talking about earlier where Shawn became a superstar because of the Diesel program leading up to Wrestlemania XI.

[geniusMoment 0]

Savage-DDP in early 97 made DDP the household name he still is today. Bang!

[humanoid92 0]

I appreciate the responses but some of them don't really fall under the umbrella of what I was going for. Everybody gets help on the way up. Plenty of guys have a standout match or a feud that elevates them in some way, especially in hindsight. But not everybody went through what I was asking about. It seems like a lot of these suggestions are forced- like you can take anybody and pull out a feud from their past that helped them along the way and make it fit into this question. Well yeah, you can do that with almost anyone. But it has nothing to do with what I was talking about. When I said there are fewer than you think, I meant it. You can't just go around to every guy who ever got a push and apply this to them.

 

With the examples I mentioned, the guy at or near the top was used to throw a previous unestablished main eventer into a whole different stratosphere. And not just with one match. WM 10 and WM 13 were the defining moments of the respective Bret/Owen and Bret/Austin feuds, but it was the programs as a whole that accomplished the goal of elevating them. Bret was a top guy and took Owen and lifted him into stardom. He did a similar thing with Austin. And even though HHH was already the champion, the Foley program made him a legit champ (I consider the WM win, which involved Foley as well by the way, to be the exclamation point on this).

 

Flair and Sting? Great example of what I was asking for. Definitely belongs on the list. Sting was pretty much a nobody and by working with Flair, he was all of a sudden a legitimate equal to the World Champion.

 

Undertaker and Mankind is an interesting one. I was actually considering putting that in the original post. Taker had been wrestling a bunch of stiffs and beating them easily for four years and then all of a sudden some newcomer out of nowhere had his number. Taker did put Foley over huge. It's hard to judge the impact since Foley went through so much else and changed his character so much before he turned into what he eventually became, but this is definitely a worthwhile one to debate.

 

Bret and Backlund is another tough one. Backlund as a whole was a weird situation. I mean it's hard to say he wasn't established since the guy had been the champion for years, but you're right that he was completely out of his element and nobody cared about him when he came back in '93. In a way, Bret did make Backlund in his second stint- the guy was nothing when he wasn't working with Bret, and in fact that was really his only major program. Still, so much of his (very short-lived) success also tied into the whole past storyline with Skaaland throwing in the towel and the psycho heel persona which wasn't solely about Bret. I don't really know how to classify this one. Seems like a different beast.

 

Hogan and Warrior probably qualifies. It's hard to judge because Warrior was insanely over on his own before Hogan ever came into the picture. But it's true- beating Hogan clean in the Skydome was HUGE and *should* have thrown him onto a whole new level. Hindsight hurts this one because of what happened with the aftermath, but this still may count. Of course, you could also argue that in order for this to really count, because of how it was designed, Warrior had to really follow through and replace Hogan as THE guy. I could go either way here.

 

HHH and Batista is another borderline one. I'll be honest- I wasn't watching the programming a ton during this time, so I'll admit I'm not the best person to judge. I'll leave this up to you guys now that I hopefully made the question a little more clear. Although, I've gotta stress that just because HHH jobbed to him on PPV a few times doesn't *necessarily* mean that he put him over. It's not just about wins and losses- after all Austin never beat Bret cleanly during their feud, but Bret still made the guy.

 

And finally, Perfect and Bret. This one's really hard for me to say. As a huge Bret fan, I'm well aware of the impact this had on his career but I'm not positive it can be considered the way the others are. For starters, they never really had all that much of a program. It was basically just the Summerslam match. And while it was huge in his development to that point, I don't know that it was bigger than the Bulldog match ended up ultimately being. Also, in my original examples, there was another common thread- Bret lifted Owen up right into his peak status. Bret lifted Austin up to the brink of his peak. Same as Foley with HHH. As far as Bret goes, I'd say the Bulldog match helped him right up into that peak level. And even that wouldn't qualify for the list, because Bulldog never reached down and pulled Bret over the hump. It was more a matter of a culmination of work, success and circumstances. So while Perfect definitely lifted Bret up onto a certain level, I'm not sure how much this one fits.

 

As for other suggestions I've seen mentioned:

 

- Razor/Shawn Ladder match, and Shawn winning the Royal Rumble

 

There's no doubt these both helped Shawn's career a lot, but that alone has nothing to do with what I was talking about. First of all the Rumble had nothing to do with one guy putting him over, or a program that elevated him. He just won the Rumble. Fine way to push someone and it definitely worked, but not what I meant.

 

The Ladder match may have been a defining match, but there was nothing going on in that program that specifically fit the criteria of the question. First of all, Shawn spent the next six months as Nash's lacky, didn't wrestle again until July, and was tagging with Nash until the end of the year. He did absolutely nothing of note until the Rumble, nearly a year later. Also, Razor was not on any level higher than Shawn. So working with Razor did not elevate him. Razor did not reach down and grab Shawn Michaels and catapult him up. Of course WM X helped his career. It helped out both of them. And today it's symbolic of Shawn's rise toward the top. But it has nothing to do with the topic in question.

 

- Matt Hardy/Edge

 

This was an interesting angle, some would even say revolutionary with the way that Matt got hired back because of popular demand. But it was ultimately forgotten a few months later. And again, the fundamental problem here is that Edge was already on a higher level than Matt. So feuding with Matt Hardy did nothing to elevate Edge in terms of the question.

 

- Vader/Shamrock

 

Vader, especially after mid 96 became pretty much a joke in the WWF. Maybe this helped Shamrock out but it was hardly what I was talking about.

 

- The Luger & Bagwell stuff in WCW

 

I didn't follow WCW around the time period of the Luger & Bagwell stuff, but I have a hard time believing this one fits in.

 

One I was going to throw out there was Razor and the Kid, but I'm not sure it should count. This one is kind of like Bret and Owen on a much smaller scale. Bret was a main eventer while Razor was a midcarder. Owen was a low card guy and Waltman was a complete jobber. Owen's big win came at Wrestlemania. Waltman's came on Raw. It's definitely not the same, but it is an upset that did establish Waltman. I guess it's not really high profile enough to count, but I thought I'd throw it out there because it is an example of an established guy (in this case, Razor) going out of his way to work with a guy that's accomplished much less than him (Waltman) and reaching down and making him his equal at the very least. But all in all, I'd have to say it's a no.

[Kahran Ramsus 0]

And finally, Perfect and Bret. This one's really hard for me to say. As a huge Bret fan, I'm well aware of the impact this had on his career but I'm not positive it can be considered the way the others are. For starters, they never really had all that much of a program. It was basically just the Summerslam match. And while it was huge in his development to that point, I don't know that it was bigger than the Bulldog match ended up ultimately being. Also, in my original examples, there was another common thread- Bret lifted Owen up right into his peak status. Bret lifted Austin up to the brink of his peak. Same as Foley with HHH. As far as Bret goes, I'd say the Bulldog match helped him right up into that peak level. And even that wouldn't qualify for the list, because Bulldog never reached down and pulled Bret over the hump. It was more a matter of a culmination of work, success and circumstances. So while Perfect definitely lifted Bret up onto a certain level, I'm not sure how much this one fits.

 

While I will certainly agree that the Bret/Bulldog program made Davey Boy Smith, and he pretty much lived off that one match for the rest of his career, Bret was already a star by that point. Even if you disagree that the Perfect/Hart program made him a star, then he was certainly made after the Piper program for Wrestlemania VIII.

[EricMM 0]

What about this one:

 

Did the Corino / Homicide make Homicide into the ROH icon that he is, or was, today?