What if Austin didn't beat Michaels at WM

[willywonka666]

Reading the Hogan/Sting thread in (w)rest, it was noted that the WWF gave the fans what they wanted and WCW didn't and it was the beginning of their downfall. But say Shawn was healthy and for some reason Austin didn't win the title-with the trouble the WWF was already in, what might have happened?

[TWERKIN' MAGGLE]

Shawn and Hunter live sex celebration.

[Thunderbolt]

Taker would have beat the shit out of HBK.

[The Rick Jericho]

Dec 27, 2018 21:57:28 GMT -5 Thunderbolt said:

Taker would have beat the shit out of HBK.

The sight of Taker taping up his wrists when Hogan didn't job to Sting in WCW would be absolutely amazing!

[cabbageboy]

No way Austin agrees to job to HBK in that scenario. So we're looking at Montreal 2.0 except this time I think Shawn gets screwed. Otherwise we're looking at another scene where Shawn forfeits a title due to "injury."

[CubsFan71]

Are we saying Vince scripts Shawn to go over or Shawn ignored Taker and goes into business himself? I mean either way it’s bad for the WWF but the latter could be really bad for HBK

[repomark]

The only way it would make sense is if Tyson is the reason Austin loses, and it is leading to Tyson v Austin.

A key point is Sting did actually win the match against Hogan at Starrcade 97 - it was the manner in which he won that was the problem. A closer scenario would be if HBK purposely sabotaged the match in some way to make Austin look bad in victory - but I am struggling to see how that would be possible given the momentum Austin had and that there was nothing overly complex in the booking of the match that could be manipulated (in the same way as the ref not fast counting Sting in the Hogan match.)

Ironically, Tyson does fast count HBK’s shoulders to the mat after the stunner - so it is like the anti Starrcade 97 conclusion.

[J. Hova]

The only way it would work is if it led to Tyson vs. Austin, but there are problems with that as well:



    Tyson was huge box office. A lot of people here are probably too young to remember, but Mike Tyson was PPV for a lot of the late 80s and 90s. It     was a license to print money. Would you really want to waste the box office draw on Summer Slam (assuming it leads to Austin vs. Tyson at     Summer Slam) or would you try to slow burn it to the next WM and try to blow everything out of the water then?



    Tyson was suspended from boxing at the time of his appearance thanks to biting Evander Holyfield's ear. This is weird to say, but then, a lot of     states still had some sort of wrestling commission that overlapped with boxing. If your license to box was suspended, you couldn't wrestle. If you     burned the build all the way to next year's WM, his suspension would have been up (I believe he was suspended for a year). He was making tens     of millions per fight at the time, no way VKM is giving him anything close to that.



    Tyson was also unpredictable. He has mellowed out quite a bit in the recent decade or so, but he was always in trouble of some sort back then.     Pretty much for fifteen years or so, from the time that D'Amato (his first manager and surrogate father) died to about 2004/5, Tyson was a mess.     I'm not saying he's an angel now, but I don't think anyone who is promoting him is taking out massive insurance policies for his personal conduct     like they did in the 90s.

I'm pretty sure that they would have had a riot if they didn't put the strap on Austin then.  Both in the crowd and the locker room.  Austin was THE GUY and everyone knew it.  It would have been a tremendous mistake not to put the title on him.  

Big picture, we'd possibly would be relegated to watching indies or old wrestling tapes for our fix.  By not putting the title on Austin, WWE fans would have been turned off, WWE doesn't reach the heights that it did and possibly fails as a whole.  WCW still fails.