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Post by Oh Cry Me a Screwball on Jul 11, 2022 19:02:14 GMT -5
I don’t believe that’s officially been confirmed. I believe the official story is Ventura wouldn’t raise a heel’s hand. The whole title picture around this time was a mess. They were considering Chyna going over for a while too. Plus, I think Austin's explicitly denied it being him refusing to drop the title to Triple H, hasn't he? Which, yeah, sometimes he probably glazes over some of his unflattering episodes, but he does own up to some of his faults, too, as well as his "executive decisions", like refusing to lose to Erik Watts in WCW because he felt like it was going to pigeonhole him doing that even on a house show at that time. Austin's body was also being held together with scotch tape and a rubber band at that point, so a triple threat helped hide his ever growing limitations. Hell, they even wrote him off for a month at the end of the show. |
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Post by sungod2020 on Jul 11, 2022 19:09:41 GMT -5
In hindsight there wasn't a lot of great choices for the 1999 KOTR. Road Dogg was more popular than Billy but he had the same problem of being a perfect tag guy who was probably never going to work as a big singles star. X-Pac was in the middle of his tag-team with Kane. Big Show was apparently the original choice but he had gained so much weight and was putting in such terrible performances at the time he didn't deserve any kind of accolade. They were trying to push Hardcore Holly at the time but that would probably have been worse than Billy. You could give it to HHH as he built towards his Summerslam title shot but I don't think they wanted a repeat winner. I'd have given it to Holly or Venis (who was defeated by Chyna in the first round). Holly could have made it work. He was in the middle of his delusional "super-heavyweight" thing at the time, and this would have given him an undeniable accolade to brag about. Plus, few would have seen it coming. Billy and X-Pac were the smark predictions heading in. Holly winning would have been like Austin in '96, when most people figured Vader or Mero was taking it. That said, Holly as KOTR requires the same kind of caution they failed to use with Billy, i.e. don't throw him right into a program with the friggin' Rock (unless Holly is going to pull off an upset win). I like the idea of Holly as a dark horse winner of the tournament, but where do you go with him after that? The King of The Ring was suppose to be a "career-making" moment(even if it didn't always pan out that way), and if you don't want to make him look like a buffoon like Billy was, he should avoid The Rock or any main eventer(not that there was any room for him anyway). The most I can see him do with that win is to firmly cement him as a midcarder/occasional upper midcarder. Give him a solid European title run(in place of the British Bulldog's second one), and possibly an IC title reign somewhere in 2000(Val Venis' maybe?). I just don't know how a Holly KOTR win would work, he certainly wasn't main event material, except maybe on a one-off RAW, but no further than that. |
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CMWaters
Ozymandius
Rolled a Seven, Beat the Ads.
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Post by CMWaters on Jul 11, 2022 19:13:45 GMT -5
I'd have given it to Holly or Venis (who was defeated by Chyna in the first round). Holly could have made it work. He was in the middle of his delusional "super-heavyweight" thing at the time, and this would have given him an undeniable accolade to brag about. Plus, few would have seen it coming. Billy and X-Pac were the smark predictions heading in. Holly winning would have been like Austin in '96, when most people figured Vader or Mero was taking it. That said, Holly as KOTR requires the same kind of caution they failed to use with Billy, i.e. don't throw him right into a program with the friggin' Rock (unless Holly is going to pull off an upset win). I like the idea of Holly as a dark horse winner of the tournament, but where do you go with him after that? The King of The Ring was suppose to be a "career-making" moment(even if it didn't always pan out that way), and if you don't want to make him look like a buffoon like Billy was, he should avoid The Rock or any main eventer(not that there was any room for him anyway). The most I can see him do with that win is to firmly cement him as a midcarder/occasional upper midcarder. Give him a solid European title run(in place of the British Bulldog's second one), and possibly an IC title reign somewhere in 2000(Val Venis' maybe?). I just don't know how a Holly KOTR win would work, he certainly wasn't main event material, except maybe on a one-off RAW, but no further than that. Well, maybe if he had won KOTR and then at least the IC title, he could have been seen as a more legitimate threat to Lesnar in 2004. ...probably not, but there's a hint of potential there. |
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Post by sungod2020 on Jul 11, 2022 19:21:04 GMT -5
I like the idea of Holly as a dark horse winner of the tournament, but where do you go with him after that? The King of The Ring was suppose to be a "career-making" moment(even if it didn't always pan out that way), and if you don't want to make him look like a buffoon like Billy was, he should avoid The Rock or any main eventer(not that there was any room for him anyway). The most I can see him do with that win is to firmly cement him as a midcarder/occasional upper midcarder. Give him a solid European title run(in place of the British Bulldog's second one), and possibly an IC title reign somewhere in 2000(Val Venis' maybe?). I just don't know how a Holly KOTR win would work, he certainly wasn't main event material, except maybe on a one-off RAW, but no further than that. Well, maybe if he had won KOTR and then at least the IC title, he could have been seen as a more legitimate threat to Lesnar in 2004. ...probably not, but there's a hint of potential there. And that's the problem, Jeff Jarrett was the IC champ and a heel at the time, so how would that mesh with Holly's "too big for his britches" character feuding with mysogynist asshole Jarrett? Unless you wanted to turn Jarrett face after Owen died(he did show emotion at OTE), but I don't know if how well Jarrett can play a face character. |
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CMWaters
Ozymandius
Rolled a Seven, Beat the Ads.
Bald and busy
Posts: 63,103
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Post by CMWaters on Jul 11, 2022 19:43:09 GMT -5
Well, maybe if he had won KOTR and then at least the IC title, he could have been seen as a more legitimate threat to Lesnar in 2004. ...probably not, but there's a hint of potential there. And that's the problem, Jeff Jarrett was the IC champ and a heel at the time, so how would that mesh with Holly's "too big for his britches" character feuding with mysogynist asshole Jarrett? Unless you wanted to turn Jarrett face after Owen died(he did show emotion at OTE), but I don't know if how well Jarrett can play a face character. Simple solution: Remember that Holly was in that Triple Threat match at Royal Rumble 2000 against co-IC Champs Chris Jericho and Chyna. All you need to do is switch the finish so that Chyna and Jericho's animosity costs them and thus Holly picks up the fall (either Jericho putting Chyna in the line of fire or Chyna hitting Jericho with a low blow). Holly then gets history as IC champ (without it being taken away like in the 90s on Superstars or Action Zone, don't remember which show for sure), fuel for the Royal Rumble when Chyna enters and Jericho is there, and even if it's a short reign to re-align history to how we know it, Holly still would have that accolade and could potentially get it again. Could see him having a better short-lived face run than Gunn did as "The One" and having decent enough matches with Eddie Guerrero and Chris Benoit for the title too. Sure it would take a bit of time between a King of the Ring win and Royal Rumble, but despite what history teases, Austin didn't really do much with his King of the Ring win until the Bret Hart feud started. |
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Post by carp (SPC, Itoh Respect Army) on Jul 11, 2022 20:02:00 GMT -5
The WWE has always had this weird passive-aggressive thing they do where they have a guy who they think should be more successful or over, and they don't know why he isn't. They push him with very little for the fans to latch onto and then gripe when it doesn't work. The Billy Gunn fiasco reminds me how they treated Shelton Benjamin and Lance Storm and Albert (more than once).
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Post by Aceorton on Jul 11, 2022 20:37:30 GMT -5
Well, maybe if he had won KOTR and then at least the IC title, he could have been seen as a more legitimate threat to Lesnar in 2004. ...probably not, but there's a hint of potential there. And that's the problem, Jeff Jarrett was the IC champ and a heel at the time, so how would that mesh with Holly's "too big for his britches" character feuding with mysogynist asshole Jarrett? Unless you wanted to turn Jarrett face after Owen died(he did show emotion at OTE), but I don't know if how well Jarrett can play a face character. - Holly wins KOTR, upsetting Kane in the final in a surprise finish, then goes totally overboard in the weeks after, claiming he's now one of the top dogs
- Declares he's on the "Road to SummerSlam" and issues challenges to several main-event guys, but is ignored (or, in Austin's case, Stunnered for his trouble)
- Mankind returns in July and interrupts a Holly promo: "Hardcore Holly, I may not be a super-heavyweight like yourself, but I am a two-time WWF champion, and I do know a little something about hardcore ..."
- Mankind-Holly at SummerSlam in a hardcore rules match
- They can even go super-meta and remind everyone that Mankind beat Holly in his debut with the company
- VERY IMPORTANT: HOLLY WINS AT SUMMERSLAM after Crash arrives and helps him
- The next night, he formally introduces Crash
- Mankind-Holly feud continues into fall, with Holly continuing to sneak away with wins (this replaces Mankind's weird filler feud with Venis)
- After Chyna beats Jarrett for the IC belt at No Mercy, Holly challenges her at Survivor Series and wins the IC title (again, with sneaky shit from Crash)
- Holly holds the belt through most of the winter, with the Chyna-Jericho "frenemy" thing developing out of them both feeling they should be the one to challenge Holly
- Holly beats them both in a triple threat at the Royal Rumble to retain the belt
- Holly finally loses the belt to Kurt Angle in February when Crash's interference backfires, causing the Hollys to beat the hell out of each other
- Crash vs. Hardcore singles match at WM2000 (Hardcore wins)
- Holly then is involved for the remainder of 2000 in a very awesome IC title picture with Benoit, Jericho, Rikishi, Venis and Eddie, and gets a second reign at some point
- Becomes a much bigger player during the InVasion as a WWF defender
- Potential elevation into the main-event picture by the time of the first brand split in 2002
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