Post by tafkaga on Mar 7, 2023 12:56:56 GMT -5
Adams had just left the WWF in protest to the Montreal Screwjob so him being involved with Bret makes sense. However I don't think they acknowledged it when he debuted. IIRC Bret was skeptical even before it was revealed it was a setup and Adams was part of the NWO.
I agree that having him as Bret's ally initially and having him turn later would've been a better way of doing it. Would've played off real life and at the same time also got at least a little of usefulness of Adams in that at least maybe a program with him and Hart would maybe come off as at least somewhat important after the buildup. A lot of the reason for the hasty pivot to Hennig is probably because they didn't have enough confidence in Adams to be in a upper card feud like that. However I guess they also had Bulldog and Neidhart as well so I guess maybe they felt it would be too many hanger-ons for Bret.
Either way seems like the no brainer match would be a tag match Bret and Flair against Hennig and Adams. I get thinking Adams would be in over his head in a singles program with Bret however in a tag scenario like that I think the selling poing of Bret and Flair teaming together combined with both of their star power would've been enough to make it a credible semi main event on a PPV.
I believe they ended up doing that match on Thunder. It's easy to miss, how many little side feuds they started doing in '98, just to set up a main event for Thunder. In fairness, the main events they were doing on Thunder in early '98 were better than their Nitro main events, but they definitely had the effect of making everything look a lot more convoluted than it needed to be.