Perfect timing to put the belt on a guy

[Midnight Marauder 0]

I wasn't alluding to anyone specifically jumping with a belt to WWF. Just stating that I doubt Vince would have objected. From what I understand, Vince wanted his new acquisitions to walk out of their respective territories without doing any jobs because he feared the footage would be used on tv. I have heard that Steamboat was one of the guys that was instructed to do this and he didn't go along with it.

[cabbageboy 0]

The thing is with Flair is that it's not like Vince hatched some huge plan to have him show up with the belt...that was Jim Herd's doing. It didn't matter a huge amount to Vince whether he showed up with the belt or jobbed it to Luger or Windham on the way out, as long as Flair showed up.

 

 

[rezinda 0]

The biggest screw up was when WWF did not put the belt on Barry Horowitz after defeating Skip. Horowitz was totally over w/ the fans!!

[TheFranchise 0]

WHAT BELT!?

[Chazz 0]

WHAT BELT!?

 

 

The I.C. Title; Maybe.

 

The Hvt. Championship; No Way

[TheFranchise 0]

I was gonna say!

[cabbageboy 0]

Horowitz was over in an ironic way though. As in it was nice to see a longtime jobber finally win a couple of matches, but I doubt anyone would have taken him seriously as a champion of any kind. Hell, Horowitz was booked as a joke champion when he held a belt in Global.

[rezinda 0]

I was just fuckin around, Horowitz with a belt would've been terrible. Altho it was 1995 so not sure how much worse it couldve been

[TheFranchise 0]

He could have challenged Diesel.

[garfieldsnose 0]

Piper at Starrcade '96. I was young and thought he won the title, but alas it was a non-title bout. I don't remember if they hyped it up as a non-title, or simply didn't say a word about it since everyone thought it was for the title. They could've done the same finish at SuperBrawl '97 with Macho turning on Piper and joining the nWo to get the belt back to Hogan, instead of Hogan holding the belt hostage.

[cabbageboy 0]

Even now I have never understood that Starrcade 96 booking. Why not put the belt on Piper there? Why book Piper against Hogan on PPV in non title matches in the first place? Further, why do this match again at HH 97 with the bigger Sting match on the horizon for Starrcade 97? In an odd way I can actually see Hogan being pissed at having to job to Piper at HH 97 in the cage and then turn around and job to Sting for the title at Starrcade.

 

Basically what I would have done is this: Put the belt on Piper at Starrcade 96, Hogan regains with the Savage heel turn at SuperBrawl 97. Forget the Luger 1 week title run in August since that accomplished nothing in the long run and made Hogan look weak. Have Hogan screw over Luger and retain. Have him screw Piper at HH and go over. Then Sting beats his ass in resounding fashion at Starrcade 97.

[Richard 0]

I think Lex was guaranteed a title win in his contract, which was about to expire.

[Boxer 0]

Horowitz: Intercontinetal Champion.

 

Oh man, that would be something.

 

Problem was the Clique held that title hostage, so even if they COULD, WWE had no chance getting it off of either Hall or Michaels.

[Enigma 0]

Piper never wanted any titles. The only major titles he ever held were the IC Title in 1992 and the US Title in 1998. The only reason he took the IC Title was because Vince was in a bind and needed a face to throw the belt on because Bret all of a sudden started talking to WCW. I'm not sure about the U.S. Title thing in WCW, but he had the title for less than 2 weeks before dropping it to Scott Hall. Maybe Bret wanted to return to job to Piper.

[cabbageboy 0]

So what if he didn't? Put the title on him anyway if it makes sense and would have been good for business. It was insulting to viewers that Hogan vs. Piper at Starrcade 96 was a non title match yet as a PPV main event seemed to obviously be a title program.

[haws bah gawd 0]

I too assumed the match was for the title. I don't remember WCW every specifically stating that it wasn't though. All I remember is a friend of mine called and said Piper had won. So, I was more than a little confused when the nWo limo pulled-up at the beginning of Nitro, and Hogan stepped out with the belt.

 

I still have trouble grasping the concept of having your world champion in a 1-on-1 PPV main event match, and the belt not being on the line.

[Chazz 0]

Especially when you factor in that Hogan almost never defended The WCW Title at the time.

[The Truthiness 0]

Windham should've won the NWA World title in 1987.

[Cheech Tremendous 0]

I still have trouble grasping the concept of having your world champion in a 1-on-1 PPV main event match, and the belt not being on the line.

What was even more baffling is that they never once mentioned that it was non-title in the build-up. I don't even remember when they finally acknowledged it as such. Was it after Piper won?

[cabbageboy 0]

I wonder if Windham didn't get the belt in 1987 because Flair mostly wanted to lose simply to regain at Starrcade, but Windham was too over for a lame duck role such as that. Flair's career is full of this sort of thing, guys who probably should have beaten him for the belt. David Von Erich in 1984, Magnum in 1986, maybe Windham in 1987, Luger in 88, and so on.

[Hunter's Torn Quad 0]

Flair lost the belt because the main event for Starrcade that year, the first Starrcade on PPV, was Flair winning the belt back. Ron Garvin got the nod because he was the only babyface Dusty Rhodes was wiling to sacrifice to Flair. It pretty much killed Garvin as a babyface, because while people were behind him chasing Flair, when he actually showed up on TV with the belt, it just didn't look right. Some people are great in the role of challenger but would flop, and do flop in the case of Garvin, if they actually win the title.

 

[Promoter 0]

I too assumed the match was for the title. I don't remember WCW every specifically stating that it wasn't though. All I remember is a friend of mine called and said Piper had won. So, I was more than a little confused when the nWo limo pulled-up at the beginning of Nitro, and Hogan stepped out with the belt.

 

I still have trouble grasping the concept of having your world champion in a 1-on-1 PPV main event match, and the belt not being on the line.

 

Yeah it was pretty stupid. The only explanation is that they could have built up Piper as just wanting a piece of Hogan and Bischoff not granting him a title match because he just walked into wcw at HH. I don't recall them NOT saying it wasn't a title match either. They knew we would all assume it being a title match because it was the main event of wcw's WrestleMania.

[Ed Wood Caulfield 0]

I still have trouble grasping the concept of having your world champion in a 1-on-1 PPV main event match, and the belt not being on the line.

 

Yeah, especially when Starrcade was traditionally the biggest show of the year.

 

I'm pretty sure Piper himself drew up the contract. So maybe the subtle explanation was that he just wanted a match with Hogan and didn't give a shit about becoming WCW World Heavyweight Champion? It would have been nice if they actually MENTIONED that, or better yet, actually made the match for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship!

 

Anyway, did WCW know that they were going to do Hogan vs. Sting eventually at that point in time (December 1996)?

Edited September 26, 2008 by Ed Wood Caulfield

[cabbageboy 0]

I don't think the time was right to do Hogan/Sting in Dec. 1996. Sting had just started doing the whole rafters gimmick and we didn't even know what his intent was at that point. Thing is, Sting did finally attack the NWO at Uncensored in March 1997 but the actual Hogan match was in December. Either they needed to delay Sting's attack or move up the Hogan match.

[Cheech Tremendous 0]

The original plan was to do Sting/Hogan in the spring (Slamboree maybe?). Once they realized that Sting was getting more over by not doing anything but sit in the rafters, they decided to push the match back to Starrcade.

[cabbageboy 0]

Hmm....Slamboree doesn't seem like a big enough PPV for that match. I'd have done it at either GAB or BATB 97. Maybe GAB if they were adamant about using Rodman for the next PPV.

[Bigelow34 0]

I know this falls out of the 90s, but Raven was a 90s guy. He was over big time in early 2001, specifically around Mania and Backlash. Watch that great hardcore match with Rhyno at Backlash, Raven was crazy over with the fans. I think they could have pushed him up to IC level for a bit there. They eventually buried him enough to kill his heat and he was lost in the shuffle with the incoming WCW guys, but they had something there to build on for a brief time in April.

[cabbageboy 0]

Ah, there's the rub. Raven was tremendous in hardcore matches but I don't really know if he could do that sort of thing in the IC division. The last gasp of making Raven a star in the WWF was a brief angle he did with RVD for the hardcore title during the Invasion. They might could have gotten a PPV match out of that one.

[Ed Wood Caulfield 0]

The original plan was to do Sting/Hogan in the spring (Slamboree maybe?). Once they realized that Sting was getting more over by not doing anything but sit in the rafters, they decided to push the match back to Starrcade.

 

At what point during the buildup did they decide to do the bullshit fast count finish? At any point during the buildup did they ever think of just having Sting destroy "Hollywood" Hulk Hogan and kill the nWo?

[cabbageboy 0]

Eh I don't think they ever were going to have Sting kill the NWO. Hogan's loss would likely have simply caused the split with the Wolfpac that happened anyway in 1998. Hogan still would have gotten the belt back in the nefarious way that he did.

 

Still, an astute point on the goofy Starrcade "fast count" finish. People who complain about the count not being fast are missing the entire point. The whole finish was horribly wrong to begin with even if Nick Patrick DID do the fast count as scripted. This was the biggest PPV in WCW history and they did that horrible finish?