SABOTAGED!!!

[Papacita 0]

Because this is my first time starting a thread since God knows when, I need this discussion to be either REALLY good or REALLY shitty! No in between! Go all out for this one, people! This is an event!

 

Basically, I was reading the Debuts and Downfalls thread and started thinking about the wrestlers who, for whatever reason, had their push intentionally sabotaged, and I'd like for you kind folk here at TSM to post about those wrestlers in this thread. The sabotage could be something that was factually proven true, something you speculate was true...fuck, if you were the one who did the sabotaging, then share the details.

 

I've got a few that come to mind, but right off the bat, one I've always thought was fishy--and this is really what inspired me to make this thread--was Scott Steiner's 2003 run with WWE. Most folks will disagree here, since he wasn't all that popular with the net crowd, and because by the time he arrived he was in SUCH bad shape, but here's what I don't get with Steiner:

 

We've had people on here post about how selfish HHH was in a *good* match with RVD just because he decided to work a more old school style, which wasn't really RVD's strength. HBK gets criticized for overselling against Hogan despite carrying him to his most watchable match in years and doing absolutely zero damage to Hogan's reputation. In Steiner, you have one of the most over people on the roster going into Rumble 03 (at least in terms of crowd reaction), and he comes out of a horrible match damn near ruined! Could he have been in better shape? Hell yes, he could have! But you mean to tell me that NO ONE in WWE knew of Steiner's condition going into the match? I remember reports being posted nearly a month earlier that the house show matches between the two were horrible, yet they take this man who's CLEARLY not in shape and give him a damn near 20 minute match??? And you think they were surprised at the result?

 

Oh, and props to HHH for his performance, right??? He was such a pro for selling for Steiner's offense like he did! For doing whatever he could to salvage this match! Right??? Perhaps.

 

In fairness to HHH here, they had already planned to do a rematch at the next PPV, and it was his job to do what he could to set that up. But his bumping and selling was far more harmful to Steiner that HBK's was to Hogan, since it made him (the heel) into the sympathetic figure for seemingly doing all the work, stripped the match of any believeability and Steiner of any credibility he may have had left.

 

Basically, Steiner was in over his head in WWE main event scene, but you can't tell me they wouldn't have gotten more out of him if they hadn't laid the match out the way they did. I believe this match was intentionally booked to expose Scott Steiner's weaknesses on one of the biggest PPVs of the year, and that, my fellow posters, is the very definition of the word...

 

SABOTAGE!!!

 

Your turn. Post!!! And feel free to use as many exclamation marks as you can!!! Spare no expense, baby!!! For this thread, there's never enough!!!

[cabbageboy 0]

Steiner was just so horrible in that Rumble match. If he was actually sabotaged, who cares? The dilemma is that if they wanted to main event him, where else are you going to put him? Steiner in the Big Poppa Pump gimmick is a natural heel, so he was put in the awkward position of being face.

[Boxer 0]

Sabotage eh?

 

Well, first there's Bret Hart's run in 1995 after dropping the title to Backlund. The clique suceeded in demoting him to the mid card for one good year between Survivor Series 94 till 95.

 

Dean Douglas. Didn't get along with Michaels hence his push and IC title run was destroyed within minutes.

 

Ahmed Johnson. Shawn told him to stop doing the high impact moves and stuff that was getting him over.

 

Vader. Because Shawn wouldn't drop the WWF title to him.

 

Owen Hart. HBK didn't want to work with him post-survivor series so instead of becoming a breakout star, he became a mid-carder.

 

Shawn turning heel in 97 sabatoged Hitman's heel run as champion. Shawn became the #1 heel and main evented ppv's while Bret got stuck mid-carding the belt to patroit and running in meaning less tag matches with Bulldog.

 

That's all I got for now.

 

By the way, notice a trend in the sabataging?

[Diamonddust 0]

Anyone invovled with the "Invasion" had a level of sabotage done to them.

 

RVD was ridiculously over the moment he stepped foot in the WWE (I was in Birmingham the next after ECW appeared in Atlanta during the Invasion angle. He wrestled a dark match and got one of the biggest reactions of the night). They had no reason to be hesitant on his push.

 

There were also rumors of a sabotage done to Jericho after he first debuted in 1999.

[Hunter's Torn Quad 0]

There were also rumors of a sabotage done to Jericho after he first debuted in 1999.

I'm surprised that one wasn't mentioned already. Yeah, Jericho was outright sabotaged by Triple H when he arrived. It's been long documented, which is why I'm surprised it took this long to come up, but the Jericho one ranks up there.

[PILLS! PILLS! PILLS! 0]

One that has surprisingly not been mentioned, perhaps only because it goes without saying, was Randy Orton's 2004 World Title reign.

[CanadianGuitarist 0]

There was a guy I backyarded with named Kevin Sabo. His in-ring name was Sabotage. Incredibly, his entrance theme was not Sabotage by the Beastie Boys.

 

What specifically happened with Jericho and HHH? I've never heard that, though given that it was the time when HHH's star began to rise, it won't surprise me.

[Maztinho 0]

There was a guy I backyarded with named Kevin Sabo. His in-ring name was Sabotage. Incredibly, his entrance theme was not Sabotage by the Beastie Boys.

 

What specifically happened with Jericho and HHH? I've never heard that, though given that it was the time when HHH's star began to rise, it won't surprise me.

 

 

I originally read that as Kevin Sorbo... imagine my confusion.

[cabbageboy 0]

Basically the problems with HHH and Jericho stem back to Jericho's initial few months in the company, where HHH was just starting to be a main eventer and viewed Jericho as an obvious threat to his spot. So he got in Vince's ear about how Jericho couldn't really work WWF style or whatever and the result was Jericho struggling in lame feuds with Road Dog, X-Pac, and jobbing to Chyna clean.

 

The heat on RVD circa 2001 was due to him busting people open repeatedly in matches. I recall Austin, Jericho, and Angle all being busted open hardway vs. RVD during this era. This would be the first time I recall hearing about Karen Angle, since she actually posted internet comments badmouthing Van Dam for busting Kurt's nose. Since none of these guys had any serious damage done, frankly I thought they came off like pussies.

[PILLS! PILLS! PILLS! 0]

This would be the first time I recall hearing about Karen Angle, since she actually posted internet comments badmouthing Van Dam for busting Kurt's nose.

 

I remember that. Wasn't she fresh off the pole at this point?

[Lil' Bitch 0]

The problem with Steiner is he obviously had considerable ring rust, didn't really work house shows with HHH in preparation for the Rumble match, had a foot injury, then when the Rumble match actually took place, he wouldn't stop doing suplexes!

[Hunter's Torn Quad 0]

The problem with Steiner is he obviously had considerable ring rust, didn't really work house shows with HHH to preparation for the Rumble match, had a foot injury, then when the Rumble match actually took place, he wouldn't stop doing suplexes!

The problem was that all of that was known and Hunter still wanted to go 18 minutes. Logic says with a guy in the condition of Steiner, to get the most out of him in the condition he was in, you don't go 18 minutes and expose his flaws. You're meant to work around flaws to get the most out of the worker, not use those flaws as an excuse to not even try.

[Jingus 0]

Yeah. Compare this to the matches HHH had with Kevin Nash just a few months later. Nash is even more limited in what he could do than Steiner ever was, but Trips actually tried to have a good match with him. With Steiner, he pretty obviously went out there with the intention of passively making Scott look bad, and then burying him with the old "see, he didn't get over and doesn't know how to work" afterwards.

[cabbageboy 0]

Honestly I don't think HHH could have even carried Steiner to anything decent if he had wanted to. And really, HHH ended up looking like shit in that match too so I don't really see the sabotage on his end when it comes to Steiner. I think it was mostly WWE signed Steiner and desperately wanted to do something big with him since they had basically buried everyone else on Raw.

[Jingus 0]

It had to have been intentional. Even the WWE isn't that stupid. Steiner hadn't wrestled in two years. He had a broken foot. He was still suffering from his longterm back problems. And he was carrying so much muscle mass that even if he was in perfect health, he still couldn't perform a long main event-style match without getting completely blown up pretty quickly. You do NOT take a guy like that and stick him in a 20-minute long match in the main event of a frigging PPV. Yet that's exactly what they did, without even giving him any warm-up matches beforehand. They knew damn well how bad off Steiner was, since they did all that crap with arm-wrestling and posedowns and bench press challenges even before he and Triple H stunk the joint out at the Rumble. They went out of their way to keep Steiner from actually wrestling at all, until he was tossed into the deep end with a high-profile match which was booked to go longer than anyone could reasonably expect Steiner to go. That's gotta be deliberate sabotage.

 

Especially since Hunter was probably the one calling the match (between being the boss's son in law, the champion, the experienced WWE main eventer, the guy who'd actually wrestled over the past year and wasn't rusty, and the heel in the match, he would've almost certainly been the one in charge), so you can most likely blame the bad pacing and repetitive spots on him. Hunter gets to say "well, I tried to get a good match out of him, but he couldn't do anything!". Considering this was in the Quadruple H period where he put out the workout book and was constantly so roid-bloated that he looked like he was always about to explode, I don't think it's too far-fetched to think that Trips might've felt threatened by a guy whose muscular physique was even more freakish than his own.

[rezinda 0]

Dr. Death in 98. Austin/Death feud would've killed

[Diamonddust 0]

Did Dr. Death really get sabotaged or did he get his ass handed to him in the Brawl for All?

[bob_barron 0]

Steiner did a work a few house shows before the Rumble

[cabbageboy 0]

Dr. Death wasn't sabotaged at all, if anything he was put in the best position (in theory) for him to succeed. The Brawl For All was meant as a vehicle to get him over but he got beat down by Bart Gunn in the tourney.

 

I don't know how much it would have worked anyway. At most if Doc had won all he would do is job out to Austin in a minor feud, then probably been the guy on the wrong end vs. Butterbean at WM.

[King Cucaracha 0]

Dusty Rhodes?

[Dobbs 3K 0]

As far as Dr. Death, does anyone remember when he came out in that ridiculous mask and get up in WWF? That might have been something of a burial after he lost the Brawl for All. JR later cut a promo about how stupid the mask was.

[TheDevilAndGodAreRagingInsideMe 0]

I remember when JR came back after his Bells' palsy absence and had his own little one-man announce desk put in front of the regular Raw announce desk. Dr. Death was his body guard.

[Timmy8271 0]

Steve Austin in WCW. I mean he was US champion and a pretty good upper Midcard heel and then Hogan comes in and Austin jobs to Duggan in less than a minute I think.

[Diamonddust 0]

Steve Austin in WCW. I mean he was US champion and a pretty good upper Midcard heel and then Hogan comes in and Austin jobs to Duggan in less than a minute I think.

 

It can also be said that the Hollywood Blondes pretty much got sabotaged once they really got over.