anakin
Mike the Goon
Posts: 39
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Post by anakin on Feb 16, 2023 11:51:08 GMT -5
Watching the RAW after Mania in 2001. With Austin turning heel and Rock leaving for Hollywood, they really should have gone with Triple H as the top face.
As much fun as the 2 Man Power Trip was, that pop when Triple H came out on RAW was amazing. They should have ran with him as a face.
I’d kept him face until the Shawn betrayal a year later and kept everything the same from there.
Would have been interesting as the quad tear wouldn’t have happened and he would have been involved in the Invasion angle.
Thoughts?
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Post by Rolent Tex on Feb 16, 2023 12:09:36 GMT -5
Watching the RAW after Mania in 2001. With Austin turning heel and Rock leaving for Hollywood, they really should have gone with Triple H as the top face. As much fun as the 2 Man Power Trip was, that pop when Triple H came out on RAW was amazing. They should have ran with him as a face. I’d kept him face until the Shawn betrayal a year later and kept everything the same from there. Would have been interesting as the quad tear wouldn’t have happened and he would have been involved in the Invasion angle. Thoughts? Don’t bring any of this up around Hunter. The boner he’d get from the mere idea of squashing so many WCW guys at one time might injure him. |
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Post by Jindrak Mark on Feb 16, 2023 13:47:50 GMT -5
Even as a kid who usually didn't question booking decisions at the time even I remember thinking it was strange that they kept him heel.
Fans were begging to cheer him from around July 2000 onwards and he basically did play face in feuds with Angle and Benoit but then they swerved and revealed him as the mastermind behind Austin being ran over. So the night after Wrestlemania when he came out to confront Austin in Texas to that massive babyface reaction I thought surely it's for real time but nope it was another fake-out.
With Austin heel and Rock going to film movies HHH made perfect sense to be the top babyface for that Wrestlemania-Summerslam period. Keeping him heel meant your top faces were Undertaker/Kane/Jericho/Benoit. Taker and Kane at the time were better served as number 2/3/4 type faces, not THE top guys expected to main event PPVs. And Jericho and Benoit needed to be built up more after being upper-midcarders for most of their runs. HHH seemed like the obvious choice to tide things over as a face until Rock got back and/or the Invasion angle started and even 2 decades later I'm still surprised they didn't go with that.
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Fade
Patti Mayonnaise
Posts: 38,299
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Post by Fade on Feb 16, 2023 13:55:14 GMT -5
It really surprised me when Prichard said it was Hunter who didn’t want to go the face route.
I wonder what the thinking was. That he couldn’t cut it or what.
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Post by Captain Stud Muffin (BLM) on Feb 16, 2023 17:08:11 GMT -5
It really surprised me when Prichard said it was Hunter who didn’t want to go the face route. I wonder what the thinking was. That he couldn’t cut it or what. I think he figured eventually Austin would go back face but HHH also saw his most success as a heel and probably didn't know to navigate as a top babyface |
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4real
Wade Wilson
Posts: 27,930
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Post by 4real on Feb 16, 2023 17:12:42 GMT -5
Being about 6 months or so after it was revealed HHH arranged for Austin to be run over and then turning him face against a heel Austin I think would have been too much. Them teaming up was bad enough.
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Post by Captain Stud Muffin (BLM) on Feb 16, 2023 17:18:59 GMT -5
Being about 6 months or so after it was revealed HHH arranged for Austin to be run over and then turning him face against a heel Austin I think would have been too much. Them teaming up was bad enough. I mean we saw dumber turns later like Austin turning babyface after he was part of the Alliance the night before |
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Bo Rida
Fry's dog Seymour
Pulled one over on everyone.
Got away with it, this time.
Posts: 23,664
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Post by Bo Rida on Feb 16, 2023 18:01:21 GMT -5
It really surprised me when Prichard said it was Hunter who didn’t want to go the face route. I wonder what the thinking was. That he couldn’t cut it or what. I think he figured eventually Austin would go back face but HHH also saw his most success as a heel and probably didn't know to navigate as a top babyface Yeah a large part of pay was based on card position and performance back then. He'd be in more main events and high profile matches as a top level heel rather than risking being lost in a stacked line-up of faces. |
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Post by TOK Hehe'd Around & Found Out on Feb 16, 2023 18:08:07 GMT -5
I thought that a HHH face turn was the ultimate goal of the Two Man Power Trip. Hunter would be the top guy of the WWE after Steph becomes the figurehead of the Alliance going after dominating heel champ Austin at WM 18.
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Post by theghostofalwilson on Feb 16, 2023 21:32:42 GMT -5
It really surprised me when Prichard said it was Hunter who didn’t want to go the face route. I wonder what the thinking was. That he couldn’t cut it or what. This would have been a very valid reason not to turn babyface in the fall of 2000 with the Rock being at his peak popularity wise and Austin just coming back. After Wrestlemania with Rock leaving and Austin going heel, not so much. In the end it probably didn't matter, since Hunter ended up getting injured two months later anyway and turned face the night he came back. (And yes we don't know if he had ended up getting injured if he had turned face and the Benoit/Jericho vs Hunter/Austin tag never happened, but he was just as likely to get injured whether he was face or heel. And there's the wear and tear aspect). |
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