Tatanka winning the IC Belt at Wrestlemania 9 yes or no

[mauled]

OK so as everyone knows at 9 Tatanka went in undefeated and while still winning the match he didn't win the belt. Basically he did a Lex Luger before Luger was cool 😎
But should he have become IC Champion which is the question.
Side question; was this the first time Shawn played politics that he would become infamous for and kept his belt ?

[Mozenrath]

I am honestly fine with it as-is, but it would have totally been fine had Tatanka won. Tatanka was not a wrestler with much range, but he did have momentum.

On the other hand, if this would have meant Ludvig Borga winning the title belt, I'm glad HBK cried foul.

[chazraps]

Tatanka was absurdly over and kept having great matches well-through 1994 and the Summerslam turn the following year, so this would have been great. So many options to book him against.

This would mean the Marty-Shawn surprise victory for the title and then Shawn winning the belt back with assistance from a debuting Diesel might not necessarily happen, which is an interesting butterfly effect, so it'd be curious to see how those intersecting stories align throughout 1993.

But for Tatanka's sake, he would have been a great champion and absolutely continued to deliver.

[Manute Bol]

I’d have had Shawn go over Macho Man in what could have been a show stealer and star-making moment for Shawn.

Keep Tatanka undefeated by having some kind of a draw against Razor Ramon in a battle of up-and-coming upper midcarders.

The only other change to the card I’d make in this scenario would be having Lex Luger and Jerry Lawler go over Mr. Perfect and Bob Backlund as a follow up to the Royal Rumble.

Same amount of matches, no one gets removed from the card, Macho Man and Jerry Lawler get added. I think these three tweaks would have improved WrestleMania IX a great deal.

[The Dark Order Inferno]

Yep, it was the best point in his career to do so. He was decent enough in the ring, like a less sloppy Warrior and if they really wanted it off him, there were heels waiting who could have carried him to something good.

[Aceorton]

WM9 was such a weird show. With the exception of Headshrinkers-Steiners, pretty much every match has some kind of WTF factor.

I would have left Luna and Sherri out of the booking and just had Shawn and Tatanka tear it up without ringside distractions, with Shawn winning and retaining by the skin of his teeth. Tatanka had beaten Shawn clean twice on TV heading into WrestleMania, so wrestling law (at least in those days) is that the same wouldn't happen a third time. If you want to do more with Tatanka's undefeated streak ending, you could always insert Bigelow (and Luna) for some kind of hijinks at the end. The Bigelow-Tatanka feud started in April anyway. Just kickstart it at WrestleMania instead, with the idea that Bigelow was mad he got left off the card and somehow blamed Tatanka.

[jason1980s]

I think not getting the title hurt him just as much as the heel turn. During his next few PPV matches he was pretty much just an extra and he unfortunately took the hit on the face side of the Survivor Series match. And it especially sucks since Borga barely made it to the next year with WWF. I think Rick Steiner would have been more expendable or even Scott but then you don't have the streak killing angle.

Apr 14, 2021 9:46:44 GMT -5 Aceorton said:

WM9 was such a weird show. With the exception of Headshrinkers-Steiners, pretty much every match has some kind of WTF factor.

I would have left Luna and Sherri out of the booking and just had Shawn and Tatanka tear it up without ringside distractions, with Shawn winning and retaining by the skin of his teeth. Tatanka had beaten Shawn clean twice on TV heading into WrestleMania, so wrestling law (at least in those days) is that the same wouldn't happen a third time. If you want to do more with Tatanka's undefeated streak ending, you could always insert Bigelow (and Luna) for some kind of hijinks at the end. The Bigelow-Tatanka feud started in April anyway. Just kickstart it at WrestleMania instead, with the idea that Bigelow was mad he got left off the card and somehow blamed Tatanka.

That would have been a good time to start the feud, have Tatanka celebrate too long after the match and Bam Bam coming out for his match bumps into him. They fight to the back and the match with Kamala never happens so there's a good excuse why the match was cut.

[mauled]

Apr 14, 2021 9:46:44 GMT -5 Aceorton said:

WM9 was such a weird show. With the exception of Headshrinkers-Steiners, pretty much every match has some kind of WTF factor.

I would have left Luna and Sherri out of the booking and just had Shawn and Tatanka tear it up without ringside distractions, with Shawn winning and retaining by the skin of his teeth. Tatanka had beaten Shawn clean twice on TV heading into WrestleMania, so wrestling law (at least in those days) is that the same wouldn't happen a third time. If you want to do more with Tatanka's undefeated streak ending, you could always insert Bigelow (and Luna) for some kind of hijinks at the end. The Bigelow-Tatanka feud started in April anyway. Just kickstart it at WrestleMania instead, with the idea that Bigelow was mad he got left off the card and somehow blamed Tatanka.

The Luna thing was weird since her character was not someone Shawn's character would hang with. I don't think he even acknowledged her once in the match. She served no purpose out there

[mauled]

Apr 14, 2021 3:42:33 GMT -5 chazraps said:

Tatanka was absurdly over and kept having great matches well-through 1994 and the Summerslam turn the following year, so this would have been great. So many options to book him against.

This would mean the Marty-Shawn surprise victory for the title and then Shawn winning the belt back with assistance from a debuting Diesel might not necessarily happen, which is an interesting butterfly effect, so it'd be curious to see how those intersecting stories align throughout 1993.

But for Tatanka's sake, he would have been a great champion and absolutely continued to deliver.

You could have Tatanka job the belt back to Shawn (including the whole Diesel angle) on Raw if you wanted the belt back on Shawn. It just feels this DQ finish was a bad way to end Tatanka match

[SmashTV]

All the signs pointed to him getting the belt, and while I was never really a fan of Tatanka, having him take a hollow win was incredibly anti-climatic. A few months later it’d get repeated with Luger at Summerslam.

[The Thread Barbi]

I'd say Tatanka was one of the hottest acts they had during the lull years so he should have been rewarded at Wrestlemania.

Sorry, but HBK in '92 and '93 was no where close to the showstopper we came to appreciate and him losing to Tatanka wouldn't have hurt his credibility one bit.

In kayfabe logic also, Shawn Michaels had trouble putting away Ric Martel at Summerslam 92, yet Tatanka bulldozed through Martel at Wrestlemania 8. So if A > B and B = C, therefore A > C

[fw91]

Did Shawn play politics here? I just thought the result was always the plan. Keep the undefeated streak going, while keeping the belt on the hotter act.

[mauled]

Apr 14, 2021 19:30:17 GMT -5 fw91 said:

Did Shawn play politics here? I just thought the result was always the plan. Keep the undefeated streak going, while keeping the belt on the hotter act.

Was Shawn the Hotter act at the time ?
Besides his Survivor Series match with Bret which was a last minute booking job, I can't think of anything big he'd done. His match with Marty at the Rumble had been pretty poor before this.

[petef3]

I highly doubt that Shawn's politics had anything to do with this result.

If you are going to put the belt on Tatanka, you're going to need a solid plan for how to get it off of him and end the streak. I don't know if putting the IC title on Borga is the right move if you're trying to set him up as a main eventer. Using Tatanka and his streak to make Borga may not have been the *right* plan, but at least it was a plan. Doing a cheap turnaround with Shawn on Raw is not much of a plan.

[lildude8218]

They kinda booked themselves in a corner with the undefeated streak. Give him the title and you pretty much telegraph every title defense he has from there on until you get someone to beat him. Then at that point you have to find someone really huge to not only dethrone him but end his undefeated streak. That's my biggest problem with undefeated streaks. You can screw a guy at any point and have him take a pinfall and it won't hurt him if he's really over. At least then you're not constantly worried about that variable.

[evilone]

Tatanka deserved the title and he needed the title to get the hype to another level. That was Warrior build up right there.

Shawn deserved to be propelled into main event but man had his doubts in business that makes promises at bed time and by the morning those promises turn into "you didn't hear that right" He was genuinely worried what would happen to him once he drops the belt, would he march on or would he get relegated. I don't think anyone in the office even knew that. He has used all he got to keep that belt until he solidifies as a link in decision making chain. In the process he screwed over Tatanka as his whole undefeated storyline got derailed and got no meaning without the belt.

Perfect scenario would have been Tatanka takes IC belt into his undefeated streak and takes over Luger's position and everything comes down to Yokozuna vs Tatanka when he vacates IC belt in prder to do champ vs champ where Yoko gives him his first loss. In the meantime Shawn and Bret feud starts on KotR 1993 Finals and it goes wild from there, former champ vs former champ kind of feud. Actually their feud would have been the main feud building up all the way to world title when Shawn defeats Yokozuna (with help of Diesel) and taunts Bret for not being able to do such thing. Then Tatanka defeats Shawn (who also had Diesel do the run in) in WM9 rematch to become transitional champ and suddenly all four of them are leveled. Enter Final Four (before the real Final Four of 97) where we have a monster Yoko, brawler Tatanka and two of the best workers WWF has, and they all go for the world tile in one match on WMX - one pinfall or submission takes it all. Hell, I would book it Background of the match: Bret never got over Yokozuna, Shawn never got over Tatanka

.. let's think of the outcome.. Most logical would be Bret submits Yokozuna to get his win back but let's make it more interesting. Bret get Tatanka into small package and Bret vs Shawn feud can go on with a premise Bret has defeated Tatanka but Shawn never did, Shaw has defeated Yoko but Bret never did that. Then comes in Diesel in the picture as solidified main eventer and whole mess gets even messier. Even Bret vs Tatanka would make sense and Diesel gets to work with Yoko as well. I would still make Diesel a champion somehow out of all this mess.

[mauled]

Apr 15, 2021 8:28:12 GMT -5 evilone said:

Tatanka deserved the title and he needed the title to get the hype to another level. That was Warrior build up right there.

Shawn deserved to be propelled into main event but man had his doubts in business that makes promises at bed time and by the morning those promises turn into "you didn't hear that right" He was genuinely worried what would happen to him once he drops the belt, would he march on or would he get relegated. I don't think anyone in the office even knew that. He has used all he got to keep that belt until he solidifies as a link in decision making chain. In the process he screwed over Tatanka as his whole undefeated storyline got derailed and got no meaning without the belt.

Perfect scenario would have been Tatanka takes IC belt into his undefeated streak and takes over Luger's position and everything comes down to Yokozuna vs Tatanka when he vacates IC belt in prder to do champ vs champ where Yoko gives him his first loss. In the meantime Shawn and Bret feud starts on KotR 1993 Finals and it goes wild from there, former champ vs former champ kind of feud. Actually their feud would have been the main feud building up all the way to world title when Shawn defeats Yokozuna (with help of Diesel) and taunts Bret for not being able to do such thing. Then Tatanka defeats Shawn (who also had Diesel do the run in) in WM9 rematch to become transitional champ and suddenly all four of them are leveled. Enter Final Four (before the real Final Four of 97) where we have a monster Yoko, brawler Tatanka and two of the best workers WWF has, and they all go for the world tile in one match on WMX - one pinfall or submission takes it all. Hell, I would book it Background of the match: Bret never got over Yokozuna, Shawn never got over Tatanka

.. let's think of the outcome.. Most logical would be Bret submits Yokozuna to get his win back but let's make it more interesting. Bret get Tatanka into small package and Bret vs Shawn feud can go on with a premise Bret has defeated Tatanka but Shawn never did, Shaw has defeated Yoko but Bret never did that. Then comes in Diesel in the picture as solidified main eventer and whole mess gets even messier. Even Bret vs Tatanka would make sense and Diesel gets to work with Yoko as well. I would still make Diesel a champion somehow out of all this mess.

When it comes to Bret at that time I'm guessing that Vince was still probably assuring him not to worry, Hogan gonna put him over at Summerslam 😐😕