What were they thinking with king of the ring 95?

[Wieners=$$$]

Feb 24, 2019 18:21:49 GMT -5 Spider2024 said:

I was mainly upset that a final 8 featuring The Undertaker, Shawn Michaels & Yokozuna featured a final 4 of none of those 3 men.

Instead we got The Roadie in there. Not even "Road Dogg" where at least he was good at promos. The Frickin' Roadie was one of the 3 men left to win the King Of The Ring.

Commentator Vince: Haha, anything can happen in the WWF!

[auph10imitated]

What an absolute mess of a PPV that was.

They could have had a really good tournament had they used Shawn Michaels, Bret Hart, Owen Hart, Undertaker, Hakushi, Razor Ramon, British Bulldog & Jeff Jarrett as the 8 participants.

[Wieners=$$$]

Feb 24, 2019 20:07:20 GMT -5 Zen411 said:

I just can't believe that they looked at their whole roster and went with the tall one from men on a mission.

[The Summer of Muskrat XVII]

I just remember being so f***ing confused that the big dude from Men on a Mission won the KotR. Kinda stopped watching for awhile around this time. Didn’t watch much of 1996, came back around in 97.

[4real]

Is there any way they could have had Diesel drop the belt to Sid, have HBK win the KOTR and have HBK face Sid at Summerslam instead? They could have still done Mabel v Diesel if they absolutely wanted to just not for the title. Mabel could have still beaten Taker to look strong for Diesel just not win the bloody tournament.

Or was Sid injured at that point is that why he wasn’t on Summerslam?

[cjh]

Feb 25, 2019 9:29:16 GMT -5 4real said:

Is there any way they could have had Diesel drop the belt to Sid, have HBK win the KOTR and have HBK face Sid at Summerslam instead? They could have still done Mabel v Diesel if they absolutely wanted to just not for the title. Mabel could have still beaten Taker to look strong for Diesel just not win the bloody tournament.

Or was Sid injured at that point is that why he wasn’t on Summerslam?

Sid wasn't injured.  They just thought the show needed Shawn/Razor, which Gorilla Monsoon basically admitted on TV when he announced that it was replacing Sid/Shawn.  Sid was shown on SummerSlam watching the ladder match backstage, and he wrestled Shawn the next night at the Raw tapings.

[Wieners=$$$]

Feb 25, 2019 7:41:29 GMT -5 Wieners=$$$ said:

Feb 24, 2019 20:07:20 GMT -5 Zen411 said:

I just can't believe that they looked at their whole roster and went with the tall, fat one from men on a mission.

fixed

[auph10imitated]

I beleive the original plan was Sid/Diesel at Summerslam, Michaels wasnt supposed to turn babyface so soon, the Michaels/Sid vs Diesel fued was supposed to run through the summer with Sid meeting Diesel at SS. But Vince spotted the fact that Michaels was getting cheered and they pulled the trigger on his face turn, changing the plans and therefore brought the Sid/Diesel matches forward

[The Thread Barbi]

Feb 24, 2019 23:46:53 GMT -5 Milkman Norm said:

Why do people have a hard time believing that Vince McMahon would look at a guy who's 6'5 450 lbs and think "God damn that guy's gonna be by next top heel."? It's Vince McMahon. It's what he does.

Nash pretty much credits his championship run to the fact he was a legit near seven-footer at 300 lbs without "enhancement" during the steroid trial, and Vince loving big men.

[Deleted]

Feb 24, 2019 16:10:42 GMT -5 Zen411 said:

It was as out of touch a show as they could possibly put together.

Some things never change, just not the things we want to change.

(And as I was typing this, I was reminded of the "guys holding the doors open" thing and remembered they did this 11 years later at a Royal Rumble.)

[SmashTV]

Feb 25, 2019 11:24:22 GMT -5 auph10imitated said:

Vince spotted the fact that Michaels was getting cheered and they pulled the trigger on his face turn, changing the plans and therefore brought the Sid/Diesel matches forward

According to Bruce Prichard, Vince was the last to notice. He and Pat Patterson had apparently tried convincing Vince for weeks - if not months - to turn Shawn face due to the reactions he was getting, but Vince ignored them as he could only see Shawn as a heel.

Then one day during a meeting between them Vince blurts out ‘Am I the only one here who sees that Shawn should be a face?!? Goddamit, Bruce, why didn’t you or Pat see this for yourselves?!!’

Oh that crazy Vince...

[Wieners=$$$]

What the real tragedy was the long, slow burial of Bam Bam Bigalow throughout '95. How different would things have been if Bigalow had a redemption story-arc, and won the KOTR? If Diesel turned heel, like he should've been for his entire reign, this would've made for a good SS main event.

EDIT: I rewatched Diesel vs. Bam Bam from a Raw sometime after Wrestlemania, and it is one of the best big man vs. big man matches of that era, or up to that point in time. Both men were crisp and fast, and Bam Bam sold the Jacknife like death.
Hidden gem.

[Deleted]

Feb 25, 2019 13:41:43 GMT -5 Wieners=$$$ said:

What the real tragedy was the long, slow burial of Bam Bam Bigalow throughout '95. How different would things have been if Bigalow had a redemption story-arc, and won the KOTR? If Diesel turned heel, like he should've been for his entire reign, this would've made for a good SS main event.

Yeah, this is what I was going to say. If you don’t look at it with the benefit of hindsight, as others have said you can see WHY the Mabel push happened. He was huge, imposing, reasonably over for the era, and the WWF was still putting out the cartoony product of the early-90s, and Mabel certainly fit the bill as a monster heel. There was a dearth of talent in the company, particularly on the heel side, and Diesel needed a super villain to beat. Mabel fit the bill. But, if Bigelow hadn’t been buried so far down the card, he could have fit the bill AND was a much, much better in-ring worker. It’s unfortunate he had become such a non factor after having main evented Mania within the year.

KOTR itself was always gonna suck because, like others have said they wanted to build Mabel up but protect all of their most over faces. So you wind up with Savio Vega making a deep run, probably in the hope that he would strike a chord with the Latin American audience and move into an upper midcard role.

[nickcave]

Vince was pivoting back to wanting to push big men and since I believe they were still testing for steroids around this time the best Vince could come up with as far as new monster heels go was push people who were fat and intimidating like Mabel. It's the same reason Yokozuna was pushed as hard as he was in 93-94

[Jumpin' Jesse Walsh]

This is one those shows that totally deserves its reputation. There are bad shows that are still fun to watch but this ain’t one. I’m less offended by the weird booking than I am by the fact that it’s so frickin’ boring.

[héad.casé]

Yeah I get the idea behind it all - the underdog Savio going through four matches in one night, just to lose to the new, young monster at the end, but the execution was just all wrong. Mabel wasn't built up nearly enough for people to buy it, and honestly, neither was Savio. You can't just put the dude with Razor, say they've been life long friends and expect the new guy to be over just by association.

Also, were Razor and Kid really injured? Or was this a kayfabe reason to protect them too?

["Gizzark" Mike Wronglevenay]

Feb 24, 2019 23:51:14 GMT -5 carp (SPC, Itoh Respect Army) said:

You know what? Savio Vega deserved better. I think he was perfectly decent in the ring, and with better booking (and a better outfit; christ) he coulda been a good upper-midcard face.

He also gets shat on a lot for showing up at No Way Out 1998 despite being one of the only times that the WWF ever had some rock-solid continuity due to the Austin feud.

[jason1980s]

I don't think Savio gets enough credit for most of his run with WWF. He was put in a tough spot for a newcomer in going all the way to the end of the KOTR and also he had enough credibility to really help establish Stone Cold as a future player during their feud. Even Steve Austin he was still with Ted Dibiase it was obvious they weren't clicking and Austin was the type of character to go solo and working with Savio helped lead Austin on that path.

[chronocross]

Feb 26, 2019 6:46:10 GMT -5 héad.casé said:

Yeah I get the idea behind it all - the underdog Savio going through four matches in one night, just to lose to the new, young monster at the end, but the execution was just all wrong. Mabel wasn't built up nearly enough for people to buy it, and honestly, neither was Savio. You can't just put the dude with Razor, say they've been life long friends and expect the new guy to be over just by association.

Also, were Razor and Kid really injured? Or was this a kayfabe reason to protect them too?

Razor was hurt after a ladder match in NY vs. Jeff Jarrett about 2 weeks before the PPV, not sure about the Kid.

[ThankGodForSidJustice]

Feb 27, 2019 17:47:51 GMT -5 jason1980s said:

I don't think Savio gets enough credit for most of his run with WWF. He was put in a tough spot for a newcomer in going all the way to the end of the KOTR and also he had enough credibility to really help establish Stone Cold as a future player during their feud. Even Steve Austin he was still with Ted Dibiase it was obvious they weren't clicking and Austin was the type of character to go solo and working with Savio helped lead Austin on that path.

Turning him heel was a bad move as he was terrible in that role and as a result I think it negatively effected how he's remembered. Same thing happened to Tatanka who was pretty effective as a midcard face and then just got super lazy and lethargic once he turned heel. However as a midcard face I agree that Savio was very underrated. Great fire, always worked hard, and pretty much always put on a good match. He was basically like early 90's Tito Santana except that he could actually win some big matches here and there.

It also seems like Savio was a very respected guy in the locker room. Austin, JBL, and Goldust have all given him a lot of credit and praise in doing a lot to help them along and get their footing in the company as they were all booked in programs against Savio early in their runs. Knowing that it makes his heel turn even more dumb. If the new heels like working with him so much and he's doing such a good job putting them over then why switch him?