Biggest "Drop the Ball" Moment in Ever

[Guest Smues]

I swear I posted in here already, but I guess not. How in the world have we gotten almost 60 posts in without mentioning Sid stabbing Arn Anderson with a pair of safety scissors right as he was about to get a world title run? That's not dropping the ball, that's throwing it at the ground then taking a swing at it.

[Toxxic 0]

The man has a point.

[Kahran Ramsus 0]

I swear I posted in here already, but I guess not. How in the world have we gotten almost 60 posts in without mentioning Sid stabbing Arn Anderson with a pair of safety scissors right as he was about to get a world title run? That's not dropping the ball, that's throwing it at the ground then taking a swing at it.

 

On the same note, what about RVD who had just won two World Titles then got caught with marijuana and promptly ended up losing both within a day of each other?

[Hunter's Torn Quad 0]

Didn't the Invasion PPV do like 750,000 buys? That's really good for a PPV built around DDP and Booker T. as invaders. How many more buys could they have realistically gotten by bringing in the big guns? Those were the days when hitting a million buys would have been the absolute max.

 

I believe that's one of the top buyrates ever, and that's for a show as awfully booked as that one. Now imagine a show with WCW guys people cared about.

 

It was the best number of non-WM buys the company ever did. Though, apparently adding a number of top stars wouldn't have meant that much more...

 

To comment further on the Invasion....no, I don't think that having Hall, Nash, Hogan, etc. in 2001 would have made a bit of difference. Once again, these guys weren't drawing a dime in WCW post 1999, so why would they suddenly draw?

 

Hall and Nash had stopped drawing a dime in the WWF, and some would say had never even started drawing to begin with, when Vince let them go. Hulk Hogan's drawing power in the WWF had waned considerably when he was let go, both on PPV and at the house shows. Randy Savage had long since stopped meaning anything in the WWF by the time 1994 rolled around. Yet all four did big business for WCW when they jumped. One could also point out that Chris Jericho was never pushed as anything special in WCW, was mired in the midcard for the first couple of months of 1999, and wasn't even on TV from April of that year. Yet the moment he walked onto Raw he was treated like a superstar by the crowd. There are countless examples of a wrestler having run out of drawing power in one territory or promotion and moving to another group and promptly meaning something at the gate.

 

It didn't matter who the WCW side had on their roster for the Invasion, because at the end of the day the company was out of business and Vince wasn't remotely going to let a bankrupt company beat his WWF juggernaut. Why would he?

 

Because he owned the company now?

[EVIL~! alkeiper 0]

It was the best number of non-WM buys the company ever did. Though, apparently adding a number of top stars wouldn't have meant that much more...

 

Probably not. After all, you have a finite number of wrestling fans you can draw. There's the law of diminishing returns at work. Most of the fans you draw with eight big stars would have bought the show if you had four big stars.

 

Most of the WCW guys in question were making six or seven figures. Is it worth paying that kind of money for marginal returns? You can create great looking fantasy cards, but it just can't work in practice.

[bob_barron 0]

Most of the WCW guys in question were making six or seven figures. Is it worth paying that kind of money for marginal returns? You can create great looking fantasy cards, but it just can't work in practice.

 

How do you know that?

 

The InVasion, a show featuring scrubs and Booker T got an insane buyrate. Now imagine they keep running invasion shows, but with real WCW wrestlers and stars. They'd have enough matches to cycle through months or years.

 

[Enigma 0]

I've always insisted that if Vince was deadset on doing WWF vs. WCW and not keeping them separate, he should have bit the bullet on Hogan, Hall, Nash, & Bischoff and had them show up at that Atlanta Raw that took place the week after the Booker/Bagwell disaster. And then have the nWo actually join up with WCW to go against the WWF. The only issue is that WCW's main two guys were still only Booker T. and Diamond Dallas Page. It would have been a lot more of an effective visual to have Hogan et. al together with Flair, Sting, Goldberg, etc. And the idea of Bischoff coming in and leading a unified WCW/nWo against his blood rival Vince McMahon would have given it another great perspective.

 

I know they would have had to eat a ton of money on those contracts, but if this shit was booked properly, they would have made that money back x10. As mentioned, InVasion did an astronomical buyrate with just Book, DDP, a bunch of WCW mid-carders, and WWF guys disguised as wrestlers from ECW, a promotion that had been dead for 6 months. Imagine if they had actually done it right. There probably would have been no limit to the money that could have been made.

[Cheech Tremendous 0]

Just about every argument for bringing those guys in has started with the caveat "if booked properly." I think we all know that's a pipe dream. That was Steph's first year in charge and creative was just awful. They fucked up everything they touched for years.

 

The original invasion could have worked too if booked properly. It's all about selling a storyline. Hall and Nash couldn't draw flies to shit in WWF, but they were the biggest stars in the world when they jumped to WCW because of how they were booked. The Invasion was a failure because of politics and total ineptitude in the front office, not because it was Booker instead of Hogan.

[bob_barron 0]

The Invasion was a failure because of politics and total ineptitude in the front office, not because it was Booker instead of Hogan.

 

The fact that it was ONLY Booker as a top star really hurt.

 

They brought in the nWo and Easy E less than a year after the Invasion ended, you can't tell me they couldn't bring them in during the actual Invasion?

[Cheech Tremendous 0]

They were waiting for their contracts to expire.

 

Hogan, Hall, Nash, Goldberg, Sting, Flair, etc. were all on huge deals with massive guarantees. I think we talking million dollar range on a lot of those guys. The WWF waited until the contracts expired or they accepted buyouts from Time Warner before bringing them in. That would have been a lot of extra dough to fork over for a wrestling angle that was already doing big business.

[bob_barron 0]

They were waiting for their contracts to expire.

 

Hogan, Hall, Nash, Goldberg, Sting, Flair, etc. were all on huge deals with massive guarantees. I think we talking million dollar range on a lot of those guys. The WWF waited until the contracts expired or they accepted buyouts from Time Warner before bringing them in. That would have been a lot of extra dough to fork over for a wrestling angle that was already doing big business.

 

But said angle stopped doing big business about a month later.

 

[Enigma 0]

They were waiting for their contracts to expire.

 

Hogan, Hall, Nash, Goldberg, Sting, Flair, etc. were all on huge deals with massive guarantees. I think we talking million dollar range on a lot of those guys. The WWF waited until the contracts expired or they accepted buyouts from Time Warner before bringing them in. That would have been a lot of extra dough to fork over for a wrestling angle that was already doing big business.

 

The big business crashed really quick once fans realized that Booker T. and Diamond Dallas Page were as big as it was going to get.

 

I don't even want to think about how sick the numbers would have been if they had done this properly and stretched this thing out to WM18 with a show that featured both Steve Austin vs. Bill Goldberg and The Rock vs. Hollywood Hogan. Rock/Hogan was big enough on its own, but within the context of WWF vs. WCW, it would have been even more. I don't think we can even fathom the business they would have done if they had eaten Goldberg's contract and properly built to Austin vs. Goldberg at WM18. It would have been out of this world.

 

Instead we got 3 months of Steve Austin vs. Kurt Angle, which meant jackshit because these guys were both WWF guys. They were all good matches, but they were in a ridiculous context with Austin, a WWF guy for almost 6 years at this point, having aligned with WCW/ECW and their historical significance in 2009 in zilch. No one talks about that epic Steve Austin vs. Scott Hall WM18 match either.

[TMC1982 0]

I swear I posted in here already, but I guess not. How in the world have we gotten almost 60 posts in without mentioning Sid stabbing Arn Anderson with a pair of safety scissors right as he was about to get a world title run? That's not dropping the ball, that's throwing it at the ground then taking a swing at it.

 

On the same note, what about RVD who had just won two World Titles then got caught with marijuana and promptly ended up losing both within a day of each other?

 

And Sid was actually filmed as the World Champion (since WCW was taping their syndicated Disney shows well in advance) before Starrcade '93 actually took place. Once Sid was out of the picture, WCW had pretty much no other choice but to turn to Ric Flair (who had just returned to WCW after several years in the WWF) in order to bail them out.

 

[Maztinho 0]

Two Words...

 

Hollywood Blonds

 

I'm going to jump in on this, actually while they were horribly underused, the Hollywood Blonds where more two guys just tossed together for no reason making something out of the situation. The fact that they got themselves over to such a degree that we think that they were misused speaks volumes for what they actually did.

 

So if anything, they over achieved from what they were planned and forced the company to do something with them.

 

Opposed to something that should have been big and wasn't.

[King Cucaracha 0]

Most of the WCW guys in question were making six or seven figures. Is it worth paying that kind of money for marginal returns? You can create great looking fantasy cards, but it just can't work in practice.

 

How do you know that?

 

The InVasion, a show featuring scrubs and Booker T got an insane buyrate. Now imagine they keep running invasion shows, but with real WCW wrestlers and stars. They'd have enough matches to cycle through months or years.

 

No matter who the stars were, I'd say a large portion bought the PPV on WWF vs. WCW alone, just the concept. Having the bigger names might have attracted a few more buyrates, but I think the majority of the people who were going to buy the show on the concept did. And the majority of those who would have bought it on name value wouldn't have, because by that time the casual wrestling fan had given up on WCW (and when the casual fan gives up, they don't usually come back easily). And with WCW's demise being so fresh, WCW's fanbase who still cared about the Hogans and Goldbergs would have been at a premium. So, it probably would have been a bigger buyrate, but I don't know as it would have been as big as you do, personally.

 

As for them having more matches to cycle through, that's true. But the law of diminishing returns says that the buyrates would have progressively dropped in the same kind of way. Outside of the big matches, if you're selling every PPV on the WWF vs. WCW concept, the concept would become less of a draw with every succeeding PPV. Invasion was pretty much sold on being 'never before seen'. By the time you got to Wrestlemania, that'd be 8-9 PPVs.

 

Again, it all depends on how they booked it, which is the stumbling point. Even with the big names you're talking about, it never would have happened. Invasion angles never really work because everybody's got an agenda, not least the guy overseeing the booking.

 

For every fantasy booking scenario of Hogan vs. Austin, there's one where Vince decides since he made Hogan the star he is Hogan should be on the WWF's side and he turns within a couple of months, just like the WWF NWO angle. WCW would probably still get the raw deal because Vince would naturally be more loyal and protective of his brand. If the WCW guys got over, the heel-face ratio would have been skewed and you'd probably have guys switching in a desperate attempt to right it all. The big name WCW guys probably would have made it a political minefield the same way they always do. The WWF side was largely made up of jobbers and midcarders anyway, so they probably would have looked even worse off.

 

So maybe the big names would have helped, but I don't think it's as simple as people make out, "if they had Hogan and Goldberg the Invasion would have been HUGE!"

[ivpvideos 0]

They were waiting for their contracts to expire.

 

Hogan, Hall, Nash, Goldberg, Sting, Flair, etc. were all on huge deals with massive guarantees. I think we talking million dollar range on a lot of those guys. The WWF waited until the contracts expired or they accepted buyouts from Time Warner before bringing them in. That would have been a lot of extra dough to fork over for a wrestling angle that was already doing big business.

 

But said angle stopped doing big business about a month later.

 

It isn't even just a matter of the money you pay them. Say you give Hogan/Hall/Nash huge contracts, then when renewal time comes around Austin/Rock/Angle want huge contracts as well. Then it trickles down to the midcard and they want more money. It would have completely changed the WWE pay scale not just for that time, but for years and years in the future. Vince made the right choice to wait until the Turner money dried up and then give those guys WWE scaled contracts.

[Angle-plex 0]

I doubt bringing in those big names would have done much more business. People that are not interested in wrestling are not going to buy the show no matter who or what matches are on it. How many wrestling fans did NOT buy InVasion because there weren't enough stars on it? Those are the only feasible people that would buy a PPV with more WCW guys on it, and I bet that number is rather small.

[Kahran Ramsus 0]

The problem is not the number of people who didn't order Invasion because of the lack of names, but the ones who didn't order Summerslam, Unforgiven and so on because that is when the buyrates started to dive. Unless you're trying to tell me that Austin/Angle would have been just as big a draw as say Austin/Goldberg. The buyrate for Invasion is probably about the max it would have been gotten, but with bigger names the WWF could have gotten Invasion-like buyrates for months. Instead ratings, attendance and buys were down across the board coming out of 2001 compared to what they were coming into the year.

[BruiserKC 0]

Putting the TNA World title on Samoa Joe should have taken place at Bound For Glory 2007. Joe was hot at the time, and was on a full-fledged steamroll towards a date with Angle then. However, they killed the momentum by waiting until Lockdown five months later to do it. While Joe had a decent run, he was much hotter a few months prior and so much more could have been accomplished.

 

Also, with all the talk of the Invasion in 2001, why the WWE at that time didn't put the title on Rob Van Dam at that time is a head-scratcher. RVD was WAY over at that time, even when the Invasion was getting booed out of the building he always got the big pops. If Vince could have put his ego aside, RVD could have been The Whole F'N Show at that time.

[Slickster 0]

Indeed. I thought for sure RVD would get the strap in that triple threat match at No Mercy 2001.

[Hasbeen2 0]

Pro Wrestling USA and the subsequent Super Clash III PPV.

 

These 2 things are not connected. Super Clash 1 in Sept 85 was the Super Card not a PPV

 

I'm refering to the 1988 PPV (the first and only timet that the AWA got on PPV), which united the AWA with World Class and the Memphis group. I don't completely understand that these three promotions (they already had timeslot with ESPN), with their backs against the wall (in the face of the WWF and the NWA/WCW, who had Ted Turner backing them) didn't work better as a cohesive unit. But then again, egos and politics will always get in the way of good business sense.

 

The talent roster wasn't there to make a dent. The AWA at that point was all way over the hill guys or no name rookies

 

Memphis had little after Lawler

 

And World Class was dead in the water as the fans had given up on the Von Erichs, and Eric Embry wasn't going to cut it as a national star

 

The booking at this event was awful (Gagne over Garvin for the belt by countout?), the location in Chicago was awful. Put it in Memphis or Dallas and I guarantee you'd had more than 3000 fans attend. The women's battle royal was beyond awful. Instead of wasting Madusa and Richter in a 6-man tag, put them in a match for the belt. Embry didn't get over huge, as a face, until later when he was fighting Tojo and Skandor Akbar's goons. The talent from other areas should have been appearing on ESPN regularly in the weeks before the show, I don't remember many of them at all being even mentioned. Why would fans in Chicago get excited to see Brickhouse Brown, Robert Fuller or the RPMs when they've never seen them on TV and the AWA show doesn't explain who these guys are? I don't remember why Kevin Von Erich wasn't there but he should have been, at the very least seconding Kerry. Way too many familiar names were wasted or misused, Garvin a year after holding the NWA belt, Morton and Gibson, Slaughter who was still over but involved in an awful feud with DeBeers, Michael Hayes as a face.

 

December 13, 1988 - AWA SuperClash III PPV in Chicago, Illinois: The Guerreros (Hector, Chavo & Mando) b Cactus Jack & Tommy Lane & Mike Davis, Eric Embry b Jeff Jarrett, Jimmy Valiant b Wayne Bloom in 24 seconds, Iceman King Parsons b Brickhouse Brown to retain the World Class Texas Heavyweight title, Paul Diamond & Pat Tanaka & Madusa Micelli b Ricky Rice & Derrick Dukes & Wendi Richter, Greg Gagne b Ronnie Garvin by count out to win the AWA Television title, The Syrian Terrorist won a “Lingerie Street Fight Battle Royal” (Also Involved: Bambi, Peggy Lee Leather, Laurie Lynn, Brandi Mae, Malibu, Nina, Pocohantas & Luna Vachon), Sgt Slaughter b Colonal DeBeers in a “Boot Camp” match, The Samoan Swat Team (Samu & Fatu) b Michael Hayes & Steve Cox to retain the World Class Tag Team titles, Wahoo McDaniel b Manny Fernandez in an “Indian strap” match, Jerry Lawler (AWA Champion) b Kerry Von Erich (World Class Champion) to win the WCCW Title when the referee stopped the match due to Von Erich’s excessive bleeding, The RockNRoll Express (Ricky Morton & Robert Gibson) vs Jimmy Golden & Robert Fuller ended in a double count out.

[Hasbeen2 0]

One wonders with Hogan however....would the AWA have been big enough to sustain his ego? Or would he have eventually left for NYC and the big time anyway?

 

Gagne pushed the Road Warriors and Bruiser Brody who were hardly traditional AWA technical wrestlers even though he was evidently stunned the fans would cheer for them instead of the faces. With a superman push Hogan over the next couple of years could have gone over Bockwinkel in rematches, Wahoo McDaniel doing the bitter old man gimmick he used against Magnum TA, Jerry Blackwell (maybe then befriending him against the irate Sheik Adnan, before Blackwell turns again), Stan Hansen, Slaughter, Brody and the Road Warriors in single matches. The money made on those feuds and teamups (Hogan and the Road Warriors in a six-man against Brody and the rest of the Sheik's army) maybe could have convinced him to stay for a while longer. They could have doubled the Comiskey Park and Metrodome gates. He would have probably left eventually but by then maybe the AWA could have been big enough to get Savage, Steamboat, Kerry pre-motorcycle accident, etc, keep the Warriors, etc. That ESPN slot may be the biggest drop of the ball. This was before there were dozens of cable channels to choose from and especially no large sports channel selection.

[TMC1982 0]

One wonders with Hogan however....would the AWA have been big enough to sustain his ego? Or would he have eventually left for NYC and the big time anyway?

 

Gagne pushed the Road Warriors and Bruiser Brody who were hardly traditional AWA technical wrestlers even though he was evidently stunned the fans would cheer for them instead of the faces. With a superman push Hogan over the next couple of years could have gone over Bockwinkel in rematches, Wahoo McDaniel doing the bitter old man gimmick he used against Magnum TA, Jerry Blackwell (maybe then befriending him against the irate Sheik Adnan, before Blackwell turns again), Stan Hansen, Slaughter, Brody and the Road Warriors in single matches. The money made on those feuds and teamups (Hogan and the Road Warriors in a six-man against Brody and the rest of the Sheik's army) maybe could have convinced him to stay for a while longer. They could have doubled the Comiskey Park and Metrodome gates. He would have probably left eventually but by then maybe the AWA could have been big enough to get Savage, Steamboat, Kerry pre-motorcycle accident, etc, keep the Warriors, etc. That ESPN slot may be the biggest drop of the ball. This was before there were dozens of cable channels to choose from and especially no large sports channel selection.

 

The AWA was very lucky to have the ESPN slot (since the WWF was on USA while NWA/WCW was on TBS at the time). This was before ESPN got really, really big (imagine the current ESPN airing pro wrestling ). But it seemed like the AWA never really made the most out of the slot (there was never a proper sense of storyline continuity or building). Take for instance, the Team Challenge Series, which was a good made for television concept in theory, but horribly executed.

[Kurt Angle Mark 0]

The Kurt/Steph/HHH love triangle

 

One of the few times in pro wrestling history in which there was a storyline that appealed to both men and women and it was just dropped with no real resolution. If Steph would have left HHH for Angle, HHH would have been a monster face and Angle w/ Steph a monster heel. If they would have built to a match at WM 17 where HHH gets revenge, WM 17 would have been even bigger than it was.

[EVIL~! alkeiper 0]

That womens battle royal at Superclash III aired on Legacy last month, and it was awful. With David McClaine on commentary it came off incredibly sleazy.

[BruteSquad_BRODY 0]

That womens battle royal at Superclash III aired on Legacy last month, and it was awful. With David McClaine on commentary it came off incredibly sleazy.

 

They pushed it to be sleazy themselves. Lee Marshall in particular was gushing weekly about seeing women's clothes torn off.

[The Buzz 0]

As far as fans that didn't tune in to see the Invasion-based ppvs in WWE because of a lack of stars. I think they did lose a lot of potential fans when WCW died. I know WCW didn't have as many as they once did, but I think a lot of wrestling fans stopped being wrestling fans when WCW died. Had a stronger roster been used for the invasion I think word would have gotten around and people would have tuned in.

[Promoter 0]

They were waiting for their contracts to expire.

 

Hogan, Hall, Nash, Goldberg, Sting, Flair, etc. were all on huge deals with massive guarantees. I think we talking million dollar range on a lot of those guys. The WWF waited until the contracts expired or they accepted buyouts from Time Warner before bringing them in. That would have been a lot of extra dough to fork over for a wrestling angle that was already doing big business.

 

The big business crashed really quick once fans realized that Booker T. and Diamond Dallas Page were as big as it was going to get.

 

I don't even want to think about how sick the numbers would have been if they had done this properly and stretched this thing out to WM18 with a show that featured both Steve Austin vs. Bill Goldberg and The Rock vs. Hollywood Hogan. Rock/Hogan was big enough on its own, but within the context of WWF vs. WCW, it would have been even more. I don't think we can even fathom the business they would have done if they had eaten Goldberg's contract and properly built to Austin vs. Goldberg at WM18. It would have been out of this world.

 

Instead we got 3 months of Steve Austin vs. Kurt Angle, which meant jackshit because these guys were both WWF guys. They were all good matches, but they were in a ridiculous context with Austin, a WWF guy for almost 6 years at this point, having aligned with WCW/ECW and their historical significance in 2009 in zilch. No one talks about that epic Steve Austin vs. Scott Hall WM18 match either.

 

I completely agree with you. What some people are not realizing is that MANY fans thought the Invasion WOULD have Hogan and company. Why? Because the nWo Takeover was built that way in 1996. Hogan was nowhere to be found when nitro was going on with Hall and Nash. You see the parrallels? Booker T(wcw champion) and DDP and Buff Bagwell could have been seen as seeds being planted and BANG at Invasion we see Hogan, Hall, Nash, Sting, Goldberg in an angle like Hogan turning heel joining the nWo, but it would be the aforementioned joining up with Booker and company against the wwf.

 

Remember The Rock was also up in the air to some fans too. Once fans realized Booker T and company were as big as wcw's side was going to get the masses tuned out. This was something fans wanted to see ever since the monday night wars began.

Seriously, the fans thought we would get the REAL Invasion and got disappointed. It was bad enough Austin had turned heel at WrestleMania and Rock took off to film a movie leaving fans with nothing really to cheer about. That whole thing was completely BOTCHED and they have paid for it big time. Not even the brand split got things back on track. They pissed off ecw, wcw, wwf fans all in one punch.

 

 

[Enigma 0]

They're lucky Rob Van Dam emerged in that whole mess and exploded, or else it would have been a total quagmire.

[jester 0]

Just about every argument for bringing those guys in has started with the caveat "if booked properly." I think we all know that's a pipe dream.

 

You're right, a lot of fantasy discussions end cold if we don't assume things are booked properly, which is a BIG assumption.

 

But here we go, "if booked properly":

 

I think the Invasion's biggest drop the ball factor was that it could have re-hooked the WCW fans who had long since departed. Most of those guys probably tuned in for about 10 minutes when they heard about it, saw WCW no-names being slapped around, and left for good again. If not, they were gone for sure by the end of the PPV. WWE had an opportunity to reclaim a lot of fans, and they blew it.