Let's Talk About...Diesel's WWF World title run

[King Kamala 0]

I've decided since I've got a couple minutes free, I'd do another one of these. Let's talk about Diesel's WWF World title run. I think no one will disagree with me in saying that it was one of if not the worst WWF World title run. I've seen people defend Russo-era WCW. I've witnessed people heap praise on XPW, and I've seen people vehemently support the idea of the Ultimate Warrior making a comeback run in the 'E. But I never have nor do I expect to ever meet anybody who thought Diesel's WWF World title run was anything more than medicore. That being said, who to blame for the shittiness of the run.

 

I'm going to play a role I'm not sure I've ever played in this thread, that of the apologist. That's right, I'm going to defend the man the IWC loves to hate...Kevin Nash.

 

Now to rip off ESPN Classic, here's 4 Reasons You Can't Blame Kevin Nash for the shittiness of his title run (I couldn't think of five...)

 

 

4. Lack of Quality Heels: cabbageboy (of all people) made a good point one time about how their was a decided lack of good heels in '95 WWF. All the top guys; Diesel, Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels, The Undertaker,etc... were babyfaces! That meant you had Sid tusselling with stiffs like Sid and King Mabel for most of his run. A nonsensical heel turn by Davey Boy Smith didn't really help matters. Guys like Owen Hart, Bob Backlund, and Yokozuna had been effective as main-event heels in the past but were too jobbed out by that point to pose much of a threat and were thus relegated to the tag team division mostly. Bam Bam Bigelow should have been a title threat but was nonsensically turned babyface after jobbing to Lawrence Taylor at WrestleMania XI. After those guys for heels, you're left with a parade of hasbeens, never weres, up and comers who weren't quite there yet.

 

3. Terrible opponents Again- you're only as good as your opponent, while Diesel could be carried to a good match by a great worker like Shawn Michaels or Bret Hart, he was hopelessly lost against guys like Sid, Mabel, and Davey Boy Smith.

 

2. They tried to turn him into Hulk Hogan Nash is probably at his best as a sneering badass enforcer. He also works well as a sarcastic, lovable jerk. He does not work well as a plain, white toast babyface and that's what he was for the vast majority of his run- right down to a feud that nobody cared about with Sid.

 

1. Almost everything that year was terrible in the WWF Yeah, we can all agree that Diesel's run was terrible but would another Bret Hart run with the title have drawn any better? Would hotshotting the belt onto Shawn Michaels have steered the ship? WWF was still shell-shocked from the steroid trial and while they boasted about a New Generation- the storylines and characters were woefully stuck in the past. Diesel may have been at the forefront of all the crap- but he isn't completely to blame for it.

 

 

So apologists, Nash haters, and all in between, let's discuss the first World title run of everybody's favorite wrestler, Kevin Nash.

[yankovic fan 0]

I think it was ruined from the start with the house show squash of Bob Backlund.

 

"Ladies and Gentleman we have a new NEW champion since Survivor series!"

 

I mean yeah, the face turn was coming after a nice slow burn, but sheesh, putting the belt on him was silly so soon.

 

Give Bob Backlund a LITTLE time with it!

[ChrisMWaters 0]

I think it was ruined from the start with the house show squash of Bob Backlund.

 

"Ladies and Gentleman we have a new NEW champion since Survivor series!"

 

I mean yeah, the face turn was coming after a nice slow burn, but sheesh, putting the belt on him was silly so soon.

 

Give Bob Backlund a LITTLE time with it!

I have to admit though...as a kid, I liked seeing Backlund lose the title in 8 Seconds.

[Hunter's Torn Quad 0]

I think Kevin Nash sends JBL a postcard at Christmas because he's no longer the lowest drawing WWE/F champion of all time, at least for house shows.

 

Another thing that didn't help is that Diesel didn't have the charisma to make up for the poor quality of his opponents and matches. If you've got the charisma, people will overlook, or simply not see, that you're facing stiffs in subpar matches. That would have helped the presentation of Diesel as champion if he had had that larger-than-life charisma.

[King Kamala 0]

Yeah, I may be the only one but I would've liked to see a mini Bob Backlund Vs Diesel feud before Diesel won the belt. I don't really mind Diesel beating Backlund in eight seconds but the fact that it was done with no buildup so soon after Diesel's face turn.

[yankovic fan 0]

Oh naturally. 1994 I was 13 so I was still in my markish phase (as in getting into shouting matches with people that it wasn't fake). I kinda get the selling point of Diesel being an unstoppable force demolishing a crazy guy, but for what? It buried Bret Hart indirectly. We had all this emotion built up from the Bret/Backlund match and the fallout from that, and I don't know, it just felt wasted.

 

I didn't dislike Diesel as champion at the time, but it still felt empty b/c I was hoping Bret would get the title back from Backlund. As King Kamala pointed out, Bulldog going heel during that span was a major WTF moment as well. I had accepted that some guys "turn bad" randomly in wrestling but even for a clueless kid I saw no real motivation for that one.

[Black Lushus 0]

Ironically, it wasn't until his last stretch in late 95 thru early 96 when he became a worthwhile commodity.

[Cheech Tremendous 0]

Yeah, I may be the only one but I would've liked to see a mini Bob Backlund Vs Diesel feud before Diesel won the belt. I don't really mind Diesel beating Backlund in eight seconds but the fact that it was done with no buildup so soon after Diesel's face turn.

 

One of my all time favorite memories as a kid was turning on Raw that evening and seeing footage of the Diesel squash. I know that you don't make money by hot-shotting title changes and doing nonsensical things, but everyone once in a while it's great to do something that no one expects. That vision is burned into my memory. In hindsight it may have seemed like a bad decision, but I don't know how much money there was in Diesel chasing Backlund for the title anyways.

 

As for his reign, it didn't work, but I hardly pin that all on Nash. They neutered his character and put him up against a terrible cast of challengers. Rest of the card was really shitty in 1995 too. I think that he would have been a monster star in the Attitude era had he hung around after Mania XII. His tweener character was basically Stone Cold before we had even seen Stone Cold.

[cabbageboy 0]

Kamala, why put that "of all people" mention about me pointing out the WWF's lack of heels in 1995?

 

Anyway, I think the big problem I had with this whole thing is that I never bought Diesel as anything more than Shawn's bodyguard. Yeah, the dude was huge...we get that. But why would he get a major push over the actual guy he bodyguards? I never bought it when he beat Razor for the IC belt. I didn't buy him getting a PPV title shot at KOTR 1994 against Bret. And I sure as hell didn't buy him getting the world title out of the blue from Backlund in 8 seconds after Backlund went 30+ with Bret to win it.

 

Being a major Bulldog mark, I was desperately wanting him to win the 1995 Rumble and face Bret at WM in a rematch of Summerslam 1992 (my favorite match ever). Think about how close it came to happening too: Bret/Diesel at the Rumble was a draw/schmozz. Bulldog finished 2nd due to the dumbest finish in the history of the Rumble. I was already apathetic towards Diesel as champion, and now I got to see him defend at WM against a guy I outright detested in HBK. The logic made no sense: A 7 ft., 300 lb. babyface champ going against a 230 lb. heel challenger.

 

I don't recall ever being outraged by Diesel's title run. It was mostly that I just stopped caring about wrestling during that period of time, between the WWF's snoozer programming and WCW's sad attempts to recreate the 1980s. ECW wasn't on in my area until mid 1996. But at least in the first part of Nash's title run he got to work with guys like Bret and Shawn, but he really needed to beat Bret at the Rumble to establish himself. The fact that he didn't spoke volumes about their lack of confidence in him. I would have also enjoyed a feud with Diesel vs. UT in 1995, but that never materialized because obviously no one would have bought Diesel beating Taker. Or maybe go back to Diesel/Razor, but Razor was also a face.

 

One underrated aspect here is also Diesel was the wrong guy to have the belt on when they expanded to 12 PPVs a year. He had the title when they started the IYH shows and thus he wrestled guys like Sid or Bulldog, or wrestled tag matches.

 

I would probably put his title run higher than Yokozuna's 1993-94 run, even though I would think Yoko drew more money. I was at least mainly apathetic to Diesel, but with Yoko it was like some neverending nightmare when he had the belt.

[King Kamala 0]

Kamala, why put that "of all people" mention about me pointing out the WWF's lack of heels in 1995?

 

Um...because I disagree with you about 90% of the time. And was surprised to see you make a really good point.

 

I was pretty apathetic about the product myself. Like Cheech- I was super excited when Diesel won the title in record time but then they toned down everything that had made Nash so popular up to that point and turned him into their next attempt to recapture the magic of Hulkamania. It didn't help that he was stuck with a bunch of lame opponents. At the time, I didn't even buy Shawn Michaels as a credible world title challenger at WrestleMania at all (watching that era again through the magic of video I've changed my mind a bit). By King of The Ring '95, I'd almost completely stopped watching WWF and wouldn't really watch full time again until sometime IYH: Beware of The Dog.

[The Truthiness 0]

I think Nash said it best, he won the title in 8 seconds and his 1st big title defense was a draw with Bret.

 

I remember going to Survivor Series in 1995, it was my 1st live PPV. Seeing Bret win it from Nash was awesome, because I always hated Nash. I still to this day think that was Nash's best match ever and he wasn't carried. When I think about that match, it's scary how awesome Nash could've been, if he gave a fuck. Like somebody said those last few months in WWF, he was really coming in to his own as a performer. In WCW he became awesome on the mic, and I think him and Scott was a pretty underrated tag team, but he could've been so much more.

[Dobbs 3K 0]

Even as a kid, I was somewhat surprised when Diesel won the belt so quick. He hadn't really been positioned as a main event singles wrestler yet at that point. I think if they had just waited until the next PPV to put the belt on him, it would have been much more effective. They could have had a short feud with Backlund irritating Diesel, Diesel never getting his hand on him, then finally getting the win at the following PPV.

[ChrisMWaters 0]

Even as a kid, I was somewhat surprised when Diesel won the belt so quick. He hadn't really been positioned as a main event singles wrestler yet at that point. I think if they had just waited until the next PPV to put the belt on him, it would have been much more effective. They could have had a short feud with Backlund irritating Diesel, Diesel never getting his hand on him, then finally getting the win at the following PPV.

So, if you had Diesel win the title at the Royal Rumble (keep in mind these were the days before they started to do the monthly PPV events...that wouldn't come until after the next WrestleMania), then what would Bret Hart have done for that show?

[cabbageboy 0]

Kamala, I wasn't aware we disagreed 90% of the time. In fact I thought we agreed more often than not, haha. I know we at least agree on Diesel and the Hummer angle.

 

In terms of looking back in retrospect, I am shocked at how ahead of his time Nash was during that late 1995, early 1996 period. Along with Lex Luger's WCW work of that period I think this was the beginning of the tweener in mainstream wrestling. At the time I simply thought Diesel did a heel turn when he attacked Bret after the match at Survivor Series, but it wasn't so simple as that. He beat up Bret, tormented UT, but was still teaming with Shawn and playing to the crowd. Luger's WCW work of the same period was easier to view as a tweener since he was teaming with Sting and also flirting with joining Jimmy Hart.

[Cheech Tremendous 0]

Not to turn this thread into fantasy booking, but what would you have done with the title back in 1995? Keep in mind that Bret hadn't exactly set the world on fire in 1994 and had mostly run through all the viable challengers. Where do you go?

 

Do you build to a Diesel win at Rumble or Mania? Have Shawn take the title as a heel and spend the year defending against Diesel, Ramon, Taker and Bret? Put the belt on someone else entirely?

 

I just don't know how many other options there were out there. The Diesel reign sort of sucked, but I doubt that we could have ended up with anything better.

[PILLS! PILLS! PILLS! 0]

I'll never forget the promo that Diesel cut the night after he lost the WWF Championship. He all but overtly acknowledged Vince McMahon as the owner of the company, compelled the crowd to react to him whichever way they please and said that he wasn't going to be the same guy in the locker room, with respect to a few of his friends (read: The Clique). That, to me, was the birth of the modern tweener.

[cabbageboy 0]

This might sound crazy but I would have actually put the belt on Nash in 1995 but done it in a different fashion. I would have kept the title on Backlund and had him go over Bret at the Rumble with an Owen run in (set up Bret vs. Owen II for WM, a bit stale but better than Bret/Backlund). Have Backlund cut a bunch of heel promos badmouthing the New Generation of wrestlers and how he's a superior veteran. At the Rumble I'd book Diesel to repeat his 1994 effort but this time actually win the Rumble in decisive fashion, setting him up as the New Generation's savior to get the belt off the crazy old man Backlund. In the weeks to follow Backlund needs to go over a bunch of the younger guys with the crossface chickenwing.

 

Michaels wouldn't get near the world title at this point since I don't think he was ready for it. Jobbing him at WM XI did him no favors. I'd put Michaels in with Jarrett and Razor and do a 3 way (rare for that time period) for the IC title.

 

Of course at WM Diesel goes over Backlund strong with the powerbomb, though not a squash match. And then Backlund can spend a few months returning the jobs from those he beat.

[rezinda 0]

Bottomline is Diesel sucked. His best title matches were RR - Bret, WM - Shawn, & SS - Bret. Notice any similarities? Only the best workers could make it possible for a good Diesel match. Put him with anything other then great workers & you have subpar, boring matches. Character sucked as well & horrible creativity from WWF at the time. That was one of the most kid geared years by the WWF & as a 12 year old I thought it sucked! Not even fan friendly Pres Gorilla Monsoon could gain interest from us diehard fans.

[King Kamala 0]

Monsoon didn't become WWF President until the tail end of Diesel's run. And as much as I like Gorilla, I didn't think his run as President was all that memorable outside of getting pummeled by Vader.

 

As for fantasy booking, I actually once did a '95 WWF fantasy booking but I never bothered posting it anywhere. I won't do it now but long story short, I would have had Diesel face Backlund at The Royal Rumble and win in a dominating fashion (but not quite the squash it was in real life). Then I would have put him Vs Bret Hart in a Face Vs Face match at WrestleMania XI. After that I would have paired him against Bam Bam Bigelow (on a tear and squashing everybody in sight, enraged by LT beating him) at King of The Ring and Sid. For the latter, I would have tried to avoid singles matches as much as possible. I'd do Diesel and Shawn Michaels Vs Bam Bam Bigelow and Sid at In Your House II and a triangle match between Sid, Diesel, and Shawn Michaels at SummerSlam. In the latter match, Diesel would go over but Michaels would put up a valiant effort and the announcers would play him up as a potential future world champion. Meanwhile, Bret Hart is quietly toiling away in the upper mid-card and picking up victory after victory. Then we get the Survivor Series match between Bret and Diesel that we all know and love.

[Boner Kawanger 0]

Here's a fifth reason: Due to nothing but timing, Diesel was the flagship going into the In Your House era. He had to be champion when the WWF was testing out monthly pay-per-views, and I'm sure a lot of fans were leery about the concept. Especially since, as noted above, WWF '95 was pretty abysmal.

[King Cucaracha 0]

I think the poor opposition has a lot to do with it.

 

Nash, as has been stated, worked well with the right opposition and... uhm, not so well without it. If you've got a champion like that, rule number one is you have to protect him, surely? Position him against guys who are going to play to his strengths. In no way do Sid or Mabel fit into this category. It didn't help that there weren't many workers, good, bad or indifferent, considered main-event talent of course. But they should have realised that and sacrificed star power for talent.

 

Looking at the roster, there were a few options. Obviously Bret and Michaels they went with. Whether Backlund would have made a good opponent in a lengthy match is debatable, but might have been worth a go. You had Undertaker who would at least have been an interesting match-up. You had Razor, again face against face but some intrigue behind it. You had Owen, who could have been positioned over a month or so. Ditto Jarrett. You had Bam Bam on the roster, although his face-turn at Wrestlemania complicated things slightly, he could have been a decent opponent. All better options than Sid or Mabel.

 

 

The timing of the victory was terrible too. Not just because Backlund had only just won the title, but because Diesel had only just turned on Shawn. They built Shawn/Diesel up as a team for a good year or so, had the dissension angle going for a good few months before Survivor Series. Diesel winning the title, if anything, got in the way. Sure the feud continued, but the title win totally undermined the turn by coming so close after. Even coming a few weeks later would have been better than when it did happen.

[Black Lushus 0]

Hold on a sec here, Diesel/UT at WM12 was a pretty darn good big man match when you consider two things:

 

1. We were still in the era of big men wrestling typical "big men" matches...I think they sorta broke the mold in that match.

2. UT was still in Zombie-Taker mode, but was slowly starting to change his style to what we see today.

[rezinda 0]

I really don't see Diesel/Bigelow or Diesel/Backlund being much better then his matches against Sid & Mabel. I truly thing Diesel was near the top of worst champion ever. You want to talk about limited mobility, then you look no further then Yokozuna. But, I think alot of his matches were alot more interesting to watch then Diesel's. Again, this is largely in part to who he faced, but I think Yoko was a pretty decent worker for weighing 500+

 

Maybe I'm just mad because we never got the Diesel-Man Mountain Rock feud

[ChrisMWaters 0]

Hold on a sec here, Diesel/UT at WM12 was a pretty darn good big man match when you consider two things:

 

1. We were still in the era of big men wrestling typical "big men" matches...I think they sorta broke the mold in that match.

2. UT was still in Zombie-Taker mode, but was slowly starting to change his style to what we see today.

Off topic, this makes me wonder...

 

How would a Bret of 1995/6 vs. Taker of today match have gone?

[cabbageboy 0]

Taker might use more MMA style stuff but otherwise it would look a lot like the 1997 match from the UK I would think.

 

I'm not sure about Bret/Diesel at WM XI. The timing doesn't feel right somehow. I always like WM to be a guy's first big title win and it seems like guys who get the belt magically at some vague point around Survivor Series tend to not do that well. Bret's first title run was a hard sell since he got the title out of the blue at a house show and we didn't see the match.

 

The irony of those Diesel vs. Sid or Mabel matches is that I'm sure Vince THOUGHT those were great ideas in a Clash of the Titans type way with two huge men facing off.

[King Kamala 0]

I really don't see Diesel/Bigelow or Diesel/Backlund being much better then his matches against Sid & Mabel.

 

I think you're crazy. Diesel/Bigelow or Diesel/Backlund probably wouldn't be **** barnburners or even *** matches but they surely would have been leagues better than his matches with Sid and Mabel. Backlund and Bigelow are competent at worst and fantastic with the right opponent. Sid like Nash only has good matches against Bret and HBK and I don't think Mabel's ever had a decent match against anybody.

 

And if we're talking about worst champions ever workrate wise, I'd put Sid and Warrior below Nash and maybe Yokozuna too. Not really sure about pre-expansion era WWWF/WWF World Champions but from the little I've seen of them, I don't think any of them were worse than those four.\

 

And ya know I sure I'm the only one but Sid Vs Diesel could have been a good angle. Hell, the basis of it was pretty decent (Diesel defends the honor of his former friend who brought him into the WWF and gets revenge on batshit insane Sid) but it was just booked so lethargically (like most things in '95 WWF were) and there was really no reason to drag a clearly bored Ted DiBiase and his band of hasbeens and neverweres and a babyface Bam Bam Bigelow with no heat into it.

[The Truthiness 0]

Hold on a sec here, Diesel/UT at WM12 was a pretty darn good big man match when you consider two things:

 

1. We were still in the era of big men wrestling typical "big men" matches...I think they sorta broke the mold in that match.

2. UT was still in Zombie-Taker mode, but was slowly starting to change his style to what we see today.

 

Co-sign, I always thought UT/Diesel at mania was criminally underrated, it was the match of the night in my opinion.

[The Truthiness 0]

I really don't see Diesel/Bigelow or Diesel/Backlund being much better then his matches against Sid & Mabel.

 

I think you're crazy. Diesel/Bigelow or Diesel/Backlund probably wouldn't be **** barnburners or even *** matches but they surely would have been leagues better than his matches with Sid and Mabel. Backlund and Bigelow are competent at worst and fantastic with the right opponent. Sid like Nash only has good matches against Bret and HBK and I don't think Mabel's ever had a decent match against anybody.

And if we're talking about worst champions ever workrate wise, I'd put Sid and Warrior below Nash and maybe Yokozuna too. Not really sure about pre-expansion era WWWF/WWF World Champions but from the little I've seen of them, I don't think any of them were worse than those four

 

And ya know I sure I'm the only one but Sid Vs Diesel could have been a good angle. Hell, the basis of it was pretty decent (Diesel defends the honor of his former friend who brought him into the WWF and gets revenge on batshit insane Sid) but it was just booked so lethargically (like most things in '95 WWF were) and there was really no reason to drag a clearly bored Ted DiBiase and his band of hasbeens and neverweres and a babyface Bam Bam Bigelow with no heat into it.

 

He had a great match with Lashely.

[HarleyQuinn 0]

I think Diesel could've worked better if some of the mid-card heel acts had been pushed a little more (possibly as challengers for the series of In Your House events). Ironically, Diesel did face several of the following opponents in Monday Night Raw matches.

 

The following opponents could've been decent options as heel feeders for Diesel to build his reputation on...

- Owen Hart: Was coming off a feud with Bret Hart and was in the corner of Bob Backlund for a period of time. Could've easily been narcissistic and claimed he'd finish the job that Backlund couldn't do. Also would've been a means to "gloat" over Bret that he got a WWF Title Shot instead.

- Jeff Jarrett: Decent enough worker, decent on the mic and could work out a great match when necessary (See IYH 2 with Shawn Michaels). He could've been the IC Champion setting his sights higher and demanding his 'rightful' WWF Title shot.

- Tatanka: Would've been a better option than Mabel at the least. Again, decently tolerable worker and Ted Dibiase could've used Tatanka to build up against Diesel. Total feeder but it could've helped segue into the Psycho Sid feud a bit more too. HBK teams with Sid to take on the Million Dollar Corporation and hires Sid... Sid ambushes HBK, etc.

- Bam Bam Bigelow: All things considered, you could've easily had Diesel "run" through the Million $ Corporation through say three months with Tatanka, Bam Bam Bigelow, and Psycho Sid as the trio. You'd help build up Diesel's ability to get through a stable as well as "building up" in terms of size opponent wise too.

- Yokozuna: He was in a solid tag team with Owen Hart for most of 1995 and could've been a great option for Diesel to overcome later in the year as a one month event stopgap opponent. It'd be interesting to see Diesel go up against a Yokozuna who was back to squashing all his opponents and defeating several solid faces. Not to mention you'd have the Champion vs. Former Champion aura.

- Lex Luger: Had his moment in the sun during 1994 but could've easily been turned heel again (where he's more natural IMO) and been a 1-2 month feud for Diesel to overcome. Luger turning on a friend of Diesel's could've helped the feud get some heat and Luger could've gone back to the awesome forearm plate of doom gimmick.

 

Not a whole lot of "great" heel options but there were some viable candidates during 1995. Granted, most of the workrate wouldn't be ***-**** but most of the above were decent enough and could handle a mic if given the opportunity or had mouth pieces for them.

[Dobbs 3K 0]

Co-sign, I always thought UT/Diesel at mania was criminally underrated, it was the match of the night in my opinion.

 

I agree. I liked it more than the Bret/HBK main event.