Rebook 1995 King of the Ring PPV

[Unocal 76]

3 things I would have done:

1. Have Yokozuna win the King of the Ring (If Bret can win KOTR despite already having been a WWF champion, then it could have happened here)

2. Have Bam Bam Bigelow face Sid one-on-one with the stipulation that if Bigelow wins, he gets 5 minutes in the ring with DiBiase

3. Diesel faces Owen Hart for the WWF Championship

[Boo!]

I think I'd rather just have taken the night off to be honest.

[Lila]

I read the title as 'Reeboks 1995 King Of The Ring PPV'

[Slammy Award-Winning Cannibal]

Big Daddy V's wife is gonna lose her shit when she reads this thread.

[Hassan bin Sober]

Mar 1, 2014 17:00:59 GMT -5 Lila said:

I read the title as 'Reeboks 1995 King Of The Ring PPV'

So did I.

[Spider2024]

Put Taker/HBK/Yoko in the second round, like I was thinking/hoping would happen in the first place. As for who wins, I like the idea of Yoko winning like what OP said. Diesel/Yoko as a main event of SS95 sounds pretty good, maybe would've sold a few more buys than Diesel/Mabel.

[rnrk supports BLM]

To make things fair, let's work from the assumption that Razor is booked for a fairly significant role until legit injuries mean he needs a last-minute replacement.

Free For All: Savio Vega beats IRS to qualify for King of the Ring

King of the Ring Quarterfinals:
1. Bam Bam Bigelow defeats the 123 Kid. Bam Bam stays a heel in this reality, because his face turn was stupid and sucked. The loss to LT at Wrestlemania just pisses him off enough to be even more vicious and unhinged then before.
2. Savio Vega defeats Yokozuna via countout, Yoko and Owen beat down him and Razor after the match
3. Undertaker fights Hakushi to a time-limit draw
4. Lex Luger defeats the British Bulldog (after the match, Davey Boy looks pissed but half-heartedly shakes hands with his Allied Powers tag partner, foreshadowing his heel turn later in the summer)

King of the Ring Semifinal:
5. Bam Bam Bigelow defeats Savio Vega

"Kiss My Foot" King vs. King Match
6. King of the Ring '93 Bret Hart vs. King of the Ring '94 Owen Hart, with special ringside enforcer Jerry "The King" Lawler. Loser agrees to kiss the winner's feet.
-Bret wins, in spite of blatant interference from Lawler. Owen flees after the match, so Bret makes Lawler kiss his feet instead.

King of the Ring Final
7. Bam Bam Bigelow defeats Lex Luger to become the King of the Ring '95

Main Event
8. Diesel and Shawn Michaels vs. Sid and King Kong Bundy
-First teamup between Diesel and Shawn since Survivor Series '94. Play up whether HBK's really forgiven Diesel for beating him at Wrestlemania, or if he's in the M$M's pocket. Bundy sucked in '95, but he still had more credibility than f***ing Tatanka. Since there's three lumbering giants here, Michaels carries the majority of the match. The faces win, of course.

[Hulkshi Tanahashi]

I know I would have had Shawn Michaels and Undertaker face off against one another. I mean, they had absolute classics with one another in their 40's. Obviously, if they had wrestled 1995, it would have been amazing. Plus, logic just dictates that you would have your two best wrestlers in a tournament wrestle one another.

[DoubleDare]

I'm guessing razor was hurt or something......cause I would have had him win.
Shawn Michaels is my choice, no reason why he shouldn't have won.

[JTG Fan]

If I'm only using the tournament and card as structured and changing the booking, Kama Mustafa wins the KOTR and goes on to face Diesel for the WWF Title at Summerslam. In the weeks leading up to it, he showcases his surpeme fighting skills, making dudes tap out in under a minute.

[thegame415]

I would've had Shawn win the KotR tournament.

[Aceorton]

Mar 1, 2014 18:45:02 GMT -5 rnrk supports BLM said:

To make things fair, let's work from the assumption that Razor is booked for a fairly significant role until legit injuries mean he needs a last-minute replacement.

Free For All: Savio Vega beats IRS to qualify for King of the Ring

King of the Ring Quarterfinals:
1. Bam Bam Bigelow defeats the 123 Kid. Bam Bam stays a heel in this reality, because his face turn was stupid and sucked. The loss to LT at Wrestlemania just pisses him off enough to be even more vicious and unhinged then before.
2. Savio Vega defeats Yokozuna via countout, Yoko and Owen beat down him and Razor after the match
3. Undertaker fights Hakushi to a time-limit draw
4. Lex Luger defeats the British Bulldog (after the match, Davey Boy looks pissed but half-heartedly shakes hands with his Allied Powers tag partner, foreshadowing his heel turn later in the summer)

King of the Ring Semifinal:
5. Bam Bam Bigelow defeats Savio Vega

"Kiss My Foot" King vs. King Match
6. King of the Ring '93 Bret Hart vs. King of the Ring '94 Owen Hart, with special ringside enforcer Jerry "The King" Lawler. Loser agrees to kiss the winner's feet.
-Bret wins, in spite of blatant interference from Lawler. Owen flees after the match, so Bret makes Lawler kiss his feet instead.

King of the Ring Final
7. Bam Bam Bigelow defeats Lex Luger to become the King of the Ring '95

Main Event
8. Diesel and Shawn Michaels vs. Sid and King Kong Bundy
-First teamup between Diesel and Shawn since Survivor Series '94. Play up whether HBK's really forgiven Diesel for beating him at Wrestlemania, or if he's in the M$M's pocket. Bundy sucked in '95, but he still had more credibility than f***ing Tatanka. Since there's three lumbering giants here, Michaels carries the majority of the match. The faces win, of course.

Agree that they should have had Bigelow win the tournament (though as a face), for three reasons:
1. Thank-you for the Lawrence Taylor angle
2. Surprise element, considering most people thought Michaels was a lock to win
3. Give Bigelow real credibility in his singles push that he never got playing second banana to Diesel.
Had they done this (and had him beat DiBiase's goons along the way), I don't think he would have fizzled like he did. A face vs. face title match with his "friend" Diesel, with neither fully trusting the other, would have been an intriguing SummerSlam main event, too. Lord knows the match would have been 1,000 times better.

I'd have gone this way:

KOTR qualifying match: Savio def. Bundy

Quarterfinals:
Shawn def. IRS
Tatanka def. Savio (Corporation gets payback on Savio for beating Bundy)
Luger def. Bulldog as described, foreshadowing Bulldog's heel turn
Bigelow def. Kama

IC title match (in place of Kiss My Foot match because Jerry Lawler by this point had no business wrestling on WWF PPVs)
Jeff Jarrett def. Bob Holly (rubber match to the mini-feud where Holly appeared to have won the belt from Jarrett)

KOTR Semifinals:
Tatanka def. Shawn (MAJOR upset when Sid comes down during a ref bump and gives Michaels a power bomb on the floor)
Bigelow def. Luger (good match between faces; Luger shakes Bigelow's hand afterward, but then Corporation attacks and leaves both guys lying, injuring Bigelow's ribs and setting up the "Will he be able to compete in the finals?" injury speculation)

Main Event for WWF Tag Titles: Yokozuna and Owen def. Diesel and Bret
Play up the rocky past between Diesel and Bret, foreshadowing their feud reigniting by year's end; Sid runs down again, drawing Diesel into a brawl late in the match, and this allows the heels to double-team and finish off Bret. After the match, Bret is pissed at Diesel because he thinks he abandoned him.

KOTR Final:
Bigelow def. Tatanka

[Hanzo]

I would have put HBK vs Undertaker in the first round. That way, people would have known for sure they were going to get that match and it would have probably sold more tickets/PPVs.

Which, I guess, would have also given us Mabel vs. Kama in the first round...

[TGM]

I wouldn't have had 3 Savio Vega matches in one night for starters...

[Andrew is Good]

The roster was real thin at the time, and hit a link and f***ed up what I was doing, but in general, here's what I'd want.

Bam Bam Bigelow turns back heel and wins it. Basically, they were building up a monster challenger for Diesel. The 8 participants would have been:

Bam Bam - The winner of the whole thing.
Undertaker - Loses to Bam Bam in the finals, and you have a program after SummerSlam for Bigelow.
Hakushi - If Bret Hart was the Champion, he's the guy I'd pick. He's stay heel and at the time, they seemed to want to push monsters against Diesel, and this maybe one reason why have a 7 foot baby face as your top guy is a bad idea, and it showed with the time period.
Savio Vega - Still an underdog baby face who was new and he still could have replaced Razor Ramon who got injured. Give him the rub.
Lex Luger - Maybe have him in the semi-finals. He was still a decent sized star, but not big enough to have him win. Bam Bam would likely beat him.
Tatanka - He wasn't as buried as he would be in late 1995-early 1996
1-2-3 Kid - Over babyface, why not.
Mabel - A heel to put in there after the M.O.M turn

It's still gonna be a bit rough, for a couple of reasons. Here's who I would definitely NOT put in:
Jeff Jarrett - I do believe he was the IC Champion so you don't want to beat him.
Shawn Michaels - Feuding with Jeff Jarrett, and you don't want to beat him either, or even do a time limit draw. I wouldn't want any in this tournament, as I'd want Bam Bam to fight all three guys to make him more of a monster
Triple H - Too new, don't want to beat him
Waylon Mercy - Too new, don't want to beat him
Roadie - Made the tournament look bad, not positioned very well
Bob Holly - Same as Roadie

So the tournament would go like this

Bam Bam - Winner
1-2-3 Kid

Lex Luger - Winner
Tatanka

Undertaker - Winner
Mabel

Hakushi - Winner
Savio Vega

Bam Bam - Winner
Luger

Undertaker - Winner
Hakushi

Bam Bam - Winner
Undertaker

[doinkmark]

As tempting as booking a 1995 Shawn Michaels vs Undertaker match in Philly is, I want to book as realistically as possible, and the rules are that faces rarely fight each other. So, given the roster at the time, here's what I've come up with.

Following the WMXI loss and being kicked out of The Corporation, Bigelow vows to go through his former allies one by one. He beats Bundy instead of Shawn in the First Round and beats other Corporation members leading up to the pay-per-view, building him back up as a winner after the LT loss.

Following his return from injury, Shawn vows to get revenge on Sid who betrayed him the night after WMXI, and then says he'll focus on Diesel and the WWF title again. They were supposed to have a blowoff match at SummerSlam, but Sid was gone by then, so I'd pay the feud off earlier. It also makes sense that Shawn would want vengeance before focusing on anything else, including winning a tournament he didn't really need to win.

Diesel, who received a legit injury in real-life, sits out KOTR but will be in Shawn's corner to combat The Corporation. The Corporation tries to buy Diesel off leading up to the show.

Fatu beats IRS instead of Savio Vega to claim Razor Ramon's spot. Going from "the streets" to a potential King ties into his "Make A Difference!" gimmick nicely and puts over the importance of the tournament.

Yokozuna beats Fatu

Jeff Jarrett costs Roadie the match vs Bob Holly - maybe accidentally, maybe not - setting up their eventual breakup and adding another face to the heel-heavy roster at the time. This also makes sense since Roadie made the tournament and Jarrett didn't. As a heel, Jarrett would potentially be jealous of this.

Bam Bam beats Kama, continuing his quest.

Mabel beats The Undertaker for an upset win in order to build up another, less-hyped threat to Diesel's title and to get the obvious tournament winner eliminated to build excitement.

Yokozuna squashes Bob Holly.

Bam Bam beats Mabel.

Bret wins the Kiss My Foot match. I liked that angle and would keep it as-is.

Yokozuna beats Bam Bam Bigelow in the finals. He was a former champion and a more credible threat to Diesel, but at least Bigelow would have made the matches more watchable.

Shawn Michaels (with Diesel) vs Sid (with Corporation) - Shawn gets revenge and Diesel stays a face.