Say Dr. Death had won Brawl for All

[chronocross]

As a teen, I didn't care much for the Brawl For All. Whenever my friend would tape Raw for me, I'd skip over it.

[CJ Lee]

Jul 8, 2016 21:55:44 GMT -5 Dr. Mantis Toboggan said:

Jul 8, 2016 21:45:30 GMT -5 CJ Lee said:

I'm not sure why, but I always mix up Dr. Death and Dan Severn. They don't even look all that similar but I always confuse them.

They gave Dr. Death Severn's theme in WWF Attitude. That may be it.

That honestly could be why. Good call.

[chazraps]

I do wish they would have tried doing something with Bart. They put all that time and effort into Brawl for All, give him a one-month feud with Austin for the belt that will just cement Austin further as a badass.

[cabbageboy]

The problem is that I don't know where you go with Dr. Death at the main event level anyway. There was already a concerted build to Austin/Taker and that whole epic tale, so I fail to see how a random Austin/Williams match on PPV fits into anything. At the end of the day no one cared who won the Brawl For All. It was a horrible waste of time, wasn't entertaining, and got a bunch of guys hurt.

[Deleted]

This should have been won by Steve Blackman. If anybody needed a boost in credibility, it was him.

I barely remember him in anything else up until very late-1998.

[Mozenrath]

Jul 8, 2016 22:07:28 GMT -5 chazraps said:

I do wish they would have tried doing something with Bart. They put all that time and effort into Brawl for All, give him a one-month feud with Austin for the belt that will just cement Austin further as a badass.

I think Austin would have shot that right that down with enough speed to make Jarrett think Austin had gone easy on him.

[Magnus the Magnificent]

Butterball knocks him the F out at WM15?

[Squirrel Master]

I poo-poo the Brawl For All as it elevated no one whatsoever.
I think that Steve Williams would have best been utilized in WWE as a tag team with Terry Gordy. They saw success everywhere across the planet from Japan to '92 WCW.
I think if WWE had Williams and Gordy feud with Doug Furnas with Phil LaFon over the world tag team titles, that may have been the hottest series of matches ever.
In earlier years, Williams and Gordy would have been great foils for the MegaPowers too.

[-Lithium-]

Not a chance in hell they'd waste 98 Stone Cold on shitty Dr Death. No one gave a shit about him prior to this, and no one would have given a shit about him if he won. Same way no one gave a f*** about Bart Gunn once he won. This was the Monday Night Wars. You don't just hand out feuds to people who aren't massively over cause they have a friend in management and did something (that no one in the then current day audience knows about) in another fed years prior. This guy was never getting a main event push in 98. Ever. Anyone who believes it would have been carried out is deluding themselves.

[The Dark Order Inferno]

Jul 9, 2016 19:48:14 GMT -5 -Lithium- said:

Not a chance in hell they'd waste 98 Stone Cold on shitty Dr Death. No one gave a shit about him prior to this, and no one would have given a shit about him if he won. Same way no one gave a f*** about Bart Gunn once he won. This was the Monday Night Wars. You don't just hand out feuds to people who aren't massively over cause they have a friend in management and did something (that no one in the then current day audience knows about) in another fed years prior. This guy was never getting a main event push in 98. Ever. Anyone who believes it would have been carried out is deluding themselves.

The notion of Steve Williams getting a brief program with Steve Austin because he had a friend in management is as silly as The Rock having to feud with a not that over Billy Gunn or broken down Bulldog, Triple H having a high profile feud with Eugene, Brock Lesnar having to feud with Bob Holly or CM Punk at his hottest having to feud with a near 20 years past his prime Kevin Nash, the WWF/E is too well booked for things like that to happen... Except all the times it hasn't been.

[Sephiroth]

Though as a result of Brawl for All, we actually got one of my favorite obscure matches of all tie: Bob Holly vs Bart Gunn for he hardcore title. The stuff they were actually using in that match was insane, i think one of them literally hit the other with a crate of bananas.

[sonofsharknado]

Jul 8, 2016 21:19:59 GMT -5 Reflecto said:

Jul 8, 2016 17:46:16 GMT -5 bmfjules said:

It makes me wonder--who would have been the best option (if any of them) to give a modern day Brock Lesnar style push to out of the options of Dr. Death, Severn, and Shamrock? Each could have been sold as legit killers. I think Severn was menacing enough, but boring in the ring. Dr. Death could suplex people to death, but needed a mouthpiece to really take it over the top. Shamrock I think perhaps works the best as he could talk somewhat decently, could also suplex people to death and had a very over finisher. Even though of the three, he's the least "monstery" by far.

Even that wouldn't have worked since Lesnar could get this modern day style push because of his legitimate fighting credentials as former UFC champion.

Compare that, and ONLY Shamrock could do it. Shamrock was the most well-known UFC competitor at the time (and the face of UFC when people thought mixed martial arts was lawless, human cockfighting, real-life Mortal Kombat). Dan Severn was a indy wrestler who had appeared a couple times in UFC in the past, and Steve Williams...had no real shootfighting experience to speak of, but all the boys in the back considered Williams a really, really tough dude.

That's really not giving Severn enough credit. He didn't just show up in UFC a few times, he won two tournaments, was the runner-up in a third, and was UFC Superfight Champion. 

[-Lithium-]

Jul 9, 2016 20:12:54 GMT -5 The Dark Order Inferno said:

Jul 9, 2016 19:48:14 GMT -5 -Lithium- said:

Not a chance in hell they'd waste 98 Stone Cold on shitty Dr Death. No one gave a shit about him prior to this, and no one would have given a shit about him if he won. Same way no one gave a f*** about Bart Gunn once he won. This was the Monday Night Wars. You don't just hand out feuds to people who aren't massively over cause they have a friend in management and did something (that no one in the then current day audience knows about) in another fed years prior. This guy was never getting a main event push in 98. Ever. Anyone who believes it would have been carried out is deluding themselves.

The notion of Steve Williams getting a brief program with Steve Austin because he had a friend in management is as silly as The Rock having to feud with a not that over Billy Gunn or broken down Bulldog, Triple H having a high profile feud with Eugene, Brock Lesnar having to feud with Bob Holly or CM Punk at his hottest having to feud with a near 20 years past his prime Kevin Nash, the WWF/E is too well booked for things like that to happen... Except all the times it hasn't been.

This is 1998, peak of Monday Night Wars WWF. Billy Gunn got a feud cause they were obsessed with pushing him for some reason and the WWF had easily won the war by that point. Eugene was massively over in the Summer of 2004. Lesnar had a short feud with Holly cause he had nothing to do for a month leading into WM 20 and Holly had his neck broken by Brock. CM Punk feuded with Nash likely because WWE didn't want CM Punk to continue being easily the most over guy in the company.

Austin had PLENTY to do in 98. This was before Vince had 30 shitty Hollywood writers to try and convince himself he wasn't the carny that he is, so shit wasn't just being thrown against the wall to see what sticks. Also, like I said this was during the peak of the MNW. Not one week could be wasted to give some nobody a main event against the biggest name in the company as a favor to an executive. Let alone an actual program. The only possible way would be if Dr Death was to get majorly over, and that was never ever going to happen.

[No Longer a Produceman]

Nope. Would've been KICK! WHAM! STUNNER! and back to the midcard you go.

[Big DSR Energy]

Did Dr. Death have any actual wrestling matches during this run? Literally the only thing I remember about him is JR getting on a microphone and bitching that management wanted Steve to wear a stupid mask.

[canal]

Broke Neck Stone Cold taking a backdrop driver or a Doctor bomb. Never.

That right there tells you how that feud would've gone.

[The Dark Order Inferno]

Jul 9, 2016 22:13:35 GMT -5 -Lithium- said:

Jul 9, 2016 20:12:54 GMT -5 The Dark Order Inferno said:

The notion of Steve Williams getting a brief program with Steve Austin because he had a friend in management is as silly as The Rock having to feud with a not that over Billy Gunn or broken down Bulldog, Triple H having a high profile feud with Eugene, Brock Lesnar having to feud with Bob Holly or CM Punk at his hottest having to feud with a near 20 years past his prime Kevin Nash, the WWF/E is too well booked for things like that to happen... Except all the times it hasn't been.

This is 1998, peak of Monday Night Wars WWF. Billy Gunn got a feud cause they were obsessed with pushing him for some reason and the WWF had easily won the war by that point. Eugene was massively over in the Summer of 2004. Lesnar had a short feud with Holly cause he had nothing to do for a month leading into WM 20 and Holly had his neck broken by Brock. CM Punk feuded with Nash likely because WWE didn't want CM Punk to continue being easily the most over guy in the company.

Austin had PLENTY to do in 98. This was before Vince had 30 shitty Hollywood writers to try and convince himself he wasn't the carny that he is, so shit wasn't just being thrown against the wall to see what sticks. Also, like I said this was during the peak of the MNW. Not one week could be wasted to give some nobody a main event against the biggest name in the company as a favor to an executive. Let alone an actual program. The only possible way would be if Dr Death was to get majorly over, and that was never ever going to happen.

You're giving the WWF/E far too much credit. All the other examples I listed were horrible ideas but they happened anyway because wrestling is a place where logic gets tossed out the window when it comes to pushing people management like, and unlike what we saw with Jarrett, Austin would have gone along with it as Dr. Death had the support of one of Austin's closest friends in good ol' JR.

The Austin/Williams program is unlikely to have happened in 1998 because the Brawl for All tournament finished in the tail end of August, around the point they'd turned the tide and fans were turning on WCW because of the relentless Hogan push and Williams needed time to establish himself. In 1999, as we saw with the unwanted Gunn push, logic was going out the window so yes, it was very much possible to have Austin against hired gun Dr. Death as a match on one of the B ppvs.

[brody]

Had he not been injured, he'd probably fail to get over as a top guy and would then settle into a nice role in a tag team within Vince's Corporation. Bossman or Shamrock would both work as partners for different reasons. Option B would be that Vince would use him in a poor way to mess with Ross.

[SAJ Forth]

Jul 8, 2016 21:52:42 GMT -5 Mozenrath said:

Brawl for All is probably the dumbest thing that was ever done in WWF proper, so, discounting stuff like WBF or XFL, where it was not in the company proper.

Brawl for all was a bigger waste than Nathan Jones and Brakkus combined.

Damn right, plus, they did not learn anything because of WrestleMania XV.

[Hit Girl]

They should have avoided the BFA entirely and just had Dr Death attack Stone Cold, have a quick feud, put Austin over and be done with it.