The 411 Wrestling Top 5 11.18.09: Week 50 - Signs of the Apocalypse

Posted by Michael Bauer on 11.25.2009

From Hulk Hogan joining the nWo and the Benoit Family Tragedy to ECW and WCW shutting down in the same year and the Rob Feinstein Incident, the 411 Wrestling staff thinks that these are the Top Five Signs of the Apocalypse, as far as wrestling goes. Check out the full column to see what moments made the list and why!

Hello everyone and welcome to 411 Wrestling's Top 5 List. What we are going to is take a topic each week and all the writers here on 411 wrestling will have the ability to give us their Top 5 on said topic, plus up to three honorable mentions. So, on to this week's topic…

THE TOP 5 SIGNS OF THE APOCALYPSE

Oh yeah, every sport, hobby, and forms of entertainment has those moments where what you are seeing so unreal, so unbelievable, that you seriously knew nothing would be the same again. Even worse, you could swear that the world was going to end. Those moments are the Signs of the Apocalypse.

So what did our group of writers select? Let's find out…



Ryan Byers

5.TNA Finds Its Money Mark (2002) - I don't think that you can fully comprehend how unbelievable TNA Wrestling's continued existence is unless you were following professional wrestling closely in 2001 and 2002. A massive void was left in the wrestling world when WCW and ECW closed their doors. It is true that, if you look at the number of people who were watching wrestling on Monday nights prior to and after WCW failing, the vast majority of the fans who watched that company exclusively gave up on wrestling altogether when the plug was pulled on Monday Nitro. However, it took a while for the wrestling community to figure that out, because there were immediately numerous attempts to become the second biggest promotion in the country behind the WWF. Main Event Championship Wrestling. World Wrestling All-Stars. The XWF. WXO. All of them tried to accomplish something, and all of them flopped hard. Thus, when NWA: TNA debuted, it was easy to write them off as another fly-by-night startup. It looked like they were destined to go out of business months after they opened their doors, and, at least according to Jarry Jarrett's 2004 book The Story of the Development of NWA: TNA, the company WOULD have gone out of business within a few months after they started if not for the fact that Panda Energy bought a large interest in it and absorbed literally tens of millions of dollars of losses over the next several years. Still, regardless of the means, it was amazing after seeing so many flops that a second, somewhat-national wrestling company was able to survive, even if it wasn't necessarily thriving.

4.Misawa Bails on AJPW; Mutoh Replaces Him (2000 / 2002) - Some may say that I'm cheating by lumping two incidents into one, but the first leads into the second, so I'm going to argue that I'm playing fair. When the Giant Baba, founder of All Japan Pro Wrestling, passed away, the company fell into political discord. His wife was put in charge of the promotion, and she regularly clashed behind the scenes with Mitsuharu Misawa, one of its top stars. It was not long at all before Misawa was meeting with AJPW's television network, Nippon TV, about forming a new promotion that would replace them. NTV asked that the plan be tabled for a year after Baba's death in a show of respect for him, and Misawa agreed. Then, during the summer of 2000, the puroresu world was rocked when it was announced that Misawa was leaving AJPW and taking all but two of its Japanese wrestlers with him to form Pro Wrestling NOAH, a move that would seemingly kill All Japan dead on the spot. The formation of NOAH was amazing enough, but perhaps more amazing still was the fact that AJPW managed to limp along for a couple more years thanks to some help from its former rival New Japan Pro Wrestling. However, it still seemed like just a matter of time before they were going to keel over . . . until 2002, when New Japan's longtime top star Keiji Mutoh jumped ship from NJPW to AJPW. The company still had a few rough years after that and hasn't reached the same level of popularity that it had in its heyday, but it has stabilized and remains a viable major promotion in Japan. This massive reshuffling of the deck within only a few months time was surreal, and perhaps even more surreal still was the fact that we got three surviving major Japanese promotions out of it instead of two.

3.WCW Goes Head-to-Head with the WWF (1995) - I wasn't on the internet or reading the dirt sheets in 1995, so I had no clue that this was coming until one day a new WCW show on TNT was announced on an episode of my beloved "muthaship," WCW Saturday Night. I looked at the graphic that they put up on the screen, noted the time so that I could watch the show, and then had a sudden moment of realization: "Wait a minute!" I thought to myself, "That show will be on at the same time as Monday Night Raw! How can I manage to watch both shows?!" The answer was that I would spend the better part of six years flipping back and forth between the two programs whenever something would catch my fancy. Of course, the thoughts that were running through my head when I saw that initial graphic weren't the most important part of this story. WCW and WWF were going to war, and it was a war that I don't think that I need to comment on the significance of given the level of coverage that it has gotten around these parts ever since it occurred.

2.WCW and ECW Fold in the Same Three Month Period (2001) - This was so, so incredibly surreal. From 1996 through 1998 we had WCW and the WWF engaging in a back and forth, all out fist-fight over who would be the number one professional wrestling promotion in the United States and perhaps even the world. Though it was never a legitimate contender to be number one, ECW was a solid number three and nipped at the heels of both promotions, arguably coming very close to being number two when WCW was in its death throws in 2000. When 2001 rolled around, it was clear that the WWF had won and placed itself on a level significantly higher than either of its opponents. However, there was always some hope that one promotion or both would get a new booker or a new financial backer that would rocket them back into contention. Rumors of that nature certainly abounded, whether it was ECW supposedly getting onto the USA Network or Jerry Jarrett and/or FX having some interest in WCW. Then, seemingly overnight, the word was that ECW was over and done with. Talk of WCW closing up shop had a little bit more build, but, after about a month's worth of speculation regarding whether the promotion would continue under new ownership and/or on a new television network, TNT made it clear that they no longer wanted to run professional wrestling, which sent the value of the company plummeting and shot it into the waiting arms of Vince McMahon. The WWF was the only game in town when it came to pro wrestling in the United States, and it wasn't clear that anybody was going to surface at any point in the near future in order to challenge them. Nobody knew what this meant for the wrestling industry as a whole, both in the United States and worldwide. In some ways it was an exciting time to be a fan, because we had no clue what was going to happen. In other ways it was a frightening time to be a fan, because it meant that, if the WWF went downhill, pro wrestling as a whole could die on a national level. It was quite literally "the apocalypse" for two companies, and it could have been the beginning of the end for the business as a whole . . . but fortunately it was not.

1.Chris Benoit Kills Wife, Son, Self (2007) - Many wrestling fans long for the "sport" to gain some degree of mainstream acceptance as opposed to being the laughing stock that it often is among non-fans. As a result, these fans will jump all over any mainstream coverage that wrestling gets and declare that it is a great boon for whatever wrestler or promotion is garnering the attention. However, when word came out that WWE star Chris Benoit had killed his wife Nancy (formerly a valet under the stage name "Woman") and their seven year old son Daniel, professional wrestling began to receive a level of mainstream attention and scrutiny that, at the time, felt like it could have revolutionized or perhaps even killed the business. Everybody reading this knows that professional wrestling has had its problems. It has had its problems with drugs, it has had its problems with serious injuries going untreated, and it has had its problems with harboring a criminal element and turning a blind eye to behavior such as domestic abuse. However, aside from the Vince McMahon steroid trial and Mel Phillips scandal in the early 90's, very little of these problems have ever received legitimate, mainstream media criticism. The Benoit tragedy blew the lid off of all of that, as soon numerous television talk shows were teeming with discussion of the insanely high number of wrestlers who have passed away before seeing their fiftieth birthday and the factors that may have lead Chris Benoit to do what he did. It seemed like the sort of news story that could lead to serious reform within the wrestling industry, if not a significant number of fans departing the genre when they came to realize just how twisted it can sometimes be beneath its pomp and circumstance. Hell, even the United States Congress got involved at one point, doing a formal investigation into drug use within the pseudo-sport. For a two month period, it appeared that Benoit's actions could be the catalyst for major changes within the industry which would be felt for decades to come . . . and then it all just faded away. Funny how things like that work.



Jake Chambers

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Warrior comic book issue #1 – Destrucity.

WCW Hardcore Title, Junkyard Invitational Battle Royal (Bash at the Beach 1999) - The closest thing pro-wrestling has ever gotten to a post-nuke, forbidden zone sci-fi action movie.

Bryan Danielson vs. Colt Cabana, 2 out of 3 Falls (ROH Gut Check) – I thought there had been some blip in the time stream when I watched this obviously pre-recorded DVD, where I already knew the outcome of the match, and yet in the final minute I just thought there was no way possible that Colt Cabana wasn't walking out with the ROH Title.

5. The Big Show/Brock Lesnar ring collapse - When that ring buckled so perfectly after this massively unbelievable superplex was finally complete, the explosion of excited people around ringside and the reverberations throughout the universe made me feel, for a moment, like world had just blown up!



4. The Sandman, ECW 1994 - That this drunken, crazy was an actual professional wrestler seemed like a sign that the end times were upon us. Sure there had been weapon wielding, no-move-having wildmen in the business before, like The Sheik or Tiger Jeet Singh, and pot-bellied brawlers like The Crusher, but The Sandman, particularly following his feud with Tommy Cairo, set a new standard for how little someone had to actually do in the ring. He would basically just stare angrily and emptily at his opponents like a fading bully at a bar and then decimate them with a Singapore Cane (for a reason that now seems as dated as the naming a professional basketball team the Raptors). The guy literally drank in the ring, and often finished a match and pulled out a miraculously un-crushed package of cigarettes from his pocket and started smoking like he had no where else to be. All this might not seem so bad today, but at the time it felt like society was deteriorating right before my eyes, and I was loving every second of it!

3. Mankind going off the top of the Hell in the Cell - When Undertaker threw Mankind off of the top of the cage, anyone who watched that live, had to have thought, at least for a split second, that they'd just seen a murder. At the very least, if that had been true, it would have marked the end of the WWF, and that would have been as close to the end of the world as I would have liked back then!

2. Hulk Hogan vs. Triple H (WWF Backlash 2002) - In 2002, it was bad enough that the Hulk Hogan who all pure WWF fans had been conditioned for years to hate because of his age and workrate, actually came back to the WWF and had a decent match with The Rock, but then he brought back his red and yellow Hulkamania persona and proceeded to eat up precious Smackdown time with his long ring intros, pandering for applause, and horrible matches. Even worse was that he somehow earned a title shot and then actually won an absolutely detestable PPV main event against the Triple H and claimed the coveted Unified WWF Title.

This seemed like the end of the world to me, since the combination of the WWF and WCW titles had flowed so naturally out of the brilliantly booked (retrospectively) WWF vs. Alliance feud, with legendary WWF Attitude era icons the The Rock and Stone Cold losing in one night to the epitome of anti-WCW crap, Chris Jericho, a man who's ascension to the top was a wet dream for pure wrestling fans. Jericho's title reign was supposed to be the smart direction for wrestling's future, and a final capping of justification for all those WWF loyalists who helped destroy the WCW by refusing to tune into the liquefied crap they were saturating the Turner broadcasting networks with at the time. Having Triple H take over the title was acceptable as well, since in 2000-2001 he'd proven to be the heir to the Ric Flair throne of psychology and workrate. But there was no rational explanation for the title win by a hobbled and hacky Hogan, and for the first time in years the WWF showed short-sited-ness rather than the innovation that fans had supported so passionately during the brand wars.

I can tie all of my current distrust in the WWE to this single moment, when economics and stock prices began officially driving creativity into the ground. As a life long WWF fan, this was my apocalypse.

1. The first "This is the End" Intro video package (WWF Armageddon 2000) - Self explanatory:





Aaron Hubbard

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Austin 3:16 (1996) - While I personally didn't make think this was anything more than a brilliant marketing idea, a lot of people in my church would see this as the sign of the depravity of younger generations and the upcoming apocalypse.

The Rob Feinstein Incident (2004) - I don't know how ROH managed to survive this, but it seemed as if it would be done and independent wrestling as a whole would suffer, and fans looking for an alternative to WWE would have to look elsewhere.

Hulk Hogan's Returns To Canada (2002) - Some people try to downplay this a lot now, but I watched it live and it seemed as if the world would end with a never-ending chorus of cheers from the Canadians.

5.Undertaker vs. Mankind, Hell in a Cell (1998) - For a brief moment in 1998, time stood still. Nothing else existed except for the fallen body of Mick Foley in the rubble of the Spanish Announce Table, and the Undertaker standing sixteen feet above him on a gigantic steel cell. Everyone who saw this live thought they had seen murder committed. Had it been, it would have been the end of WWF and possibly the end of wrestling altogether.

4.The McMahons vs. Shawn Michaels and "God"(2006) - For about a month in 2006, I lived in a bizarre state of excitement and fear. Vince McMahon was mocking God by feuding with Him, and every time McMahon was on screen, I was glued to see if he would be smitten by the Almighty Smiter. The idea of God making a public display of someone and saying "I will not be mocked!" was always in the back of my head, as was the ramifications of said smiting. Imagine if this happened: blatant proof of God's existence would be played on every news station around the world and billions of new believers would be made. The idea of an early rapture was certainly in my head at that point. Fortunately, or depressingly depending on your point of view, Vince was not smitten.

3.WCW and ECW Fold in the Same Three Month Period (2001) - This was absolutely surreal. My brother was a WCW loyalist and since I had not yet reached the age of reason, so was I. The thought of WCW ever closing never entered my head. Sadly, I missed out on wrestling from 1999 and 2000 (Kids, don't powerbomb your kid brothers on cars if you want to watch wrestling). But in 2001, we heard the news that WCW was closed and that ECW (a company I was vaguely familiar with due to it's cult like following) had closed as well. Suddenly, the WWF was the only game in town. It was one of the most surreal things to ever happen in wrestling.

2.Hulk Hogan Turns Heel and the n.W.o Forms (1996) - Anyone in my generation or older remembers this. For those too young to remember, or those to old to have experienced it at my age, let me put this in perspective. I was six at the time. There was never a time in my life when Hogan WASN'T the biggest star in wrestling. No Theszs, no Brunos, no Backlands. I grew up in a wrestling world saturated with Hogan's presence. And he was the ultimate good guy. In my young mind, Hogan was a hero, like Hercules or Paul Bunyan or any other legend I heard when I was a kid. Now, going into the Bash at the Beach, things were scary enough. Kevin Nash and Scott Hall were the Outsiders and said they would take over WCW. But then, Hulk Hogan comes out, betrays WCW and turns heel. He claims he only wrestled for the money, that he never cared about prayers, training, or vitamins. He declares that this is the New World Order of wrestling. This was an unbelievable moment and certainly shattered my world when I was six. It's perhaps ironic that this moment was one of many that led to Wrestling's biggest boom period.

1.The Benoit Family Tragedy (2007) - I've intentionally chosen several moments where I can exaggerate and make levity with. I cannot do that here. There is no need for exaggeration and levity is not proper. I lament posting this because I know this will open old wounds and the huge, pointless debate will begin. Whatever your feelings on Chris are now, be it hatred, apathy, or bittersweet appreciation, remember the feelings here. Remember the sadness, the shock, the anger, the horror. This is the surest sign of evil ever seen in wrestling, proof that men are just a step away from becoming monsters. If there is not some form of final judgment for this evil, then there is no justice in this world or any other.



LARRY CSONKA

5. TNA Loses Funding, Then Finds A New Money Mark - With WCW and ECW dead, ROH and TNA rose from their ashes and tried to take their place. They had their business plan, they had some talent, and they seemed to start off well. But then the reports came in that they were fed false reports of their buys, they over spent, and then health South pulled out as a backer. The predictions that they would be done in three months looked to be a reality, and the business was about to be dealt another blow. But Panda Energy saved the day, and the company is still alive today.

4. The Rob Feinstein Incident (2004) - Much like TNA, ROH could have folded in 2004 when the Rob Feinstein Incident hit the net. Implications that he was a pedophile came out after a "bust" by a TV news station, and the shit hit the fan. TNA pulled their association with the company, and most thought that the company would die, and again, hurt the industry. Thankfully Feinstein was bought out, and the company survived. And I am glad it did. The company has produced many, many great matches and a place for fans that just want wrestling to go and have fun. Add into that the talent they have helped develop that has made it to WWE and TNA, and ROH has carved out an important part in wrestling history.

3. Hulk Hogan Turns Heel and the n.W.o Forms (1996) - Joke are always made about signs of the Apocalypse, but in all honesty to anyone that grew up on "Hulkamania", saying their prayers and taking their vitamins had to be completely shocked when their hero, who had left THE COMPANY for the lesser one turned his back on the fans, told them to stick it and joined with the Outsiders. I had friends that were devastated by this.

2. The Benoit Family Tragedy (2007) - Truth be told, this tragic event could have destroyed the wrestling industry. When Chris Benoit took the life of his wife, child and then himself, the mainstream media was on the attack in regards to pro wrestling. Some of it had merit, some of it was sensationalistic bullshit. Some felt that this could destroy the business, and thankfully it didn't. That doesn't diminish how sad the entire event was, people died, and the image of a hero was destroyed, but the business survived.

1. WCW and ECW Fold in the Same Three Month Period (2001) - When WCW folded and was bough by WWE and ECW closed, many thought that the industry was in big trouble. And in many ways it has never recovered. While WWE is still a money making machine, and I will not dispute that, buy rates are down, ratings are down overall from the boom, and for the most part, WWE is the only game in town. TNA is trying, ROH has TV, but things aren't the same, and many of us think back to the time when all three companies were running hot, and it was bliss being a fan.



Jeremy Thomas

5.Undertaker vs. Mankind, Hell in a Cell (1998) - Seriously, watching this live you really did feel like you'd watched someone get killed in the ring. Don't get me wrong, it was a fantastic spectacle and it's earned its spot in wrestling history as an iconic moment, but at the time I was absolutely in shock. Jim Ross's commentary has been much talked-about and it goes without saying, but he totally sold this as utter barbarism in the ring and Foley was just unbelievable in the things he had Taker do to him. When he went through that cage, I could have sworn that would be the last we'd ever seen of Mankind outside of a coffin.

4.The Montreal Incident (1997) - The Montreal Incident was one of the first times you ever saw the IWC just completely explode. There is so much that's been said about this moment, but never before had I seen something so unbelievable happen. Obviously, I knew that wrestling was scripted at this point, and that actually made it worse. We're used to seeing dirty, nefarious tactics within kayfabe, but behind the scenes, that dirty? To see Bret get screwed as strongly as he did and finding out the truth afterward was just a moment I thought that the WWE might never recover from. How could they possibly get any kind of respect from their fans, if they were being just as back-biting behind the camera as they were in front of it? Well, obviously they did but at the time, it was unbelievable.

3.Rob Feinstein is caught by Perverted Justice (2004) - I didn't admit to being a wrestling fan for a while after this. Feinstein was not well-known to the mainstream United States before this moment, and when news came out that a promoter of one of the bigger US independent promotions had been outed as a pedophile it brought up all the scorn for wrestling and those who liked it all over again. I still watched, but I didn't admit it to anyone for a couple years after that, and I'm as glad as anyone that Ring of Honor managed to survive it and become an important indy promotion again.

2.WCW & ECW Go Out of Business (2001) - This was one of those periods that I don't think you can explain properly unless you experienced it. It really did feel like the industry was crippled at this point, as two of the biggest three wrestling promotions in the country had gone under one after the other. Like Larry says it has never truly recovered from those days and while a lot of people at the time cheered WCW's demise, I do believe it was one of the worst things to happen to wrestling. All the rumors and news that went flying about during this time just made for the kinds of panic you expect to see in an "End of the World" film, just on a much smaller scale and it's certainly a strong candidate for the number one spot. BUT, there is one greater (or worse) moment and it is...

1.Chris Benoit Murder-Suicide (2007) - Here's another one I don't think we've recovered from. Benoit's murder-suicide was all over the news, and WWE was right in the cross-hairs. There was so much speculation and so many accusations flying around at this time. I remember coming here to 411 many times a day and seeing newer and newer headlines that just revealed how screwed up this whole thing was. That just added to my shock and numbness. And much like the Feinstein incident, it made it very difficult to be a fan. Many people still have not gone back to watching wrestling because of this. I remember that I was working at Yahoo! at the time, and I had a large Raw vs. SmackDown poster up in my cube. That poster soon came down for a while, because people were giving me looks like I was some kind of leper. If you doubt this is still a huge hot-button issue, just look below our words here, where the comment section will surely be filled with comments of hate and comments defending Benoit, as a performer at least. It may not have had quite the industry-wide impact that the number two pick here did (though there certainly has been industry-wide impact), but it's also more of a tragedy and still a very, very raw wound to almost all of us as wrestling fans.



Chris Lansdell

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Eric Bischoff promises to revolutionise professional wrestling...and people believe him - Then he goes and ruins it by turning Goldberg heel. At the time Bischoff made this announcement, WCW Backstage Assault was either about to released or had just been released, and people actually thought that Bischoff might do something crazy like remove the ropes, or the whole ring. D'oh.

5. Vince McMahon buys WCW - This comes in low because it was spoiled for me before Raw started. This was the height of the IWC's rise, when everyone and his dog had a rumours website. Nobody really thought that Vince was a possibility as a buyer for the ailing WCW, and most had Eric Bischoff managing to put together a buying consortium to keep the company afloat. When Vince power-walked out to start Raw and announced that he had made the purchase, my jaw hit the floor. And that's despite having read about it all afternoon.

4. David Arquette, WCW Champion - This one is low because, by this point, WCW was starting to be incapable of surprising me. Or so I thought. Sure we should have seen it coming when the match was announced and the stipulations explained, but surely nobody could be stupid enough to put their world title, with all the history behind it, on a scrawny actor? Bzzzzt.

3. Eric Bischoff is the new Raw GM - Far too many things on this list have to do with Bischoff. This one was not his fault though, as Vince McMahon hired and personally introduced (and embraced on LIVE TV) the man who not only tried to put him out of business (and almost succeeded), but also the man who had on numerous occasions challenged him to a shoot fight. I had heard nothing about it, and so when the name was announced I was flabbergasted. Seriously? Isn't that kind of like Dubya hiring Kanye West to write his speeches?



2. Hulk Hogan turns heel - This is the "cats and dogs sleeping together" section of the list. I'm not old enough to have seen heel Hogan when he was in AWA, so I had only ever known Hogan as a face. He was the guy that made me a wrestling fan, and the sole reason I started watching WCW at all. Bash at the Beach 1996 not only changed the face of wrestling, it completely blew me away when Hogan came down and dropped a series of big legs on Randy Savage, much to the disgust of the Daytona crowd. What sort of world are we living in when childhood heroes can be turned heel?

1. A McMahon breaks rank - If number 2 was "dogs and cats sleeping together", this is "dogs, cats, mice, elephants, Madonna and a diseased yak having an orgy while Jimmy Valiant lies under a glass table jacking off". The McMahon family has been all about professional wrestling for 4 generations. In that time, everyone has worked in the business. Even people who married into the family were involved in the company in some way. Shane McMahon was the first McMahon to take his ball and go home, and it came out of nowhere. At a time when the internet is telling wrestlers they've been fired, this news broke out of nowhere with the official announcement. Worse yet, it appears Young Simba may be looking to get involved with MMA, possibly even WWE's biggest competition in the UFC. And if that's not a sign of the Apocalypse, I don't know what is. It would be like John McCain picking Hilary Clinton as his running mate.