Brooklyn Brawlin' 9.17.08: On Second Thought - Talk About a Serious Case of Hart Failure
Posted by Dan Torkel on 09.17.2008
WCW was winning the ratings war. They just got one of the biggest WWF stars right before their biggest ppvs of the year. There's NO way they could screw this up... Oh I said WCW, forget it.
Welcome back to the column the books and re-books the world of pro-wrestling. On Sunday night, TNA held its No Surrender ppv, live from Canada. This show felt like they were treading water until October when they goes balls to the wall for their version of Wrestlemania, Bound for Glory.
No Surrender Thoughts:
- Sting hasn't wrestled a match in a long while. Why in the blue hell is he the # 1 contender? Now I understand that Sting is a legend and marketable, but at least can we have a story reason? How bout he wins a # 1 contender match on Impact? How bout he wrestles for the company instead of doing main event interviews. Just a thought.
- So Val turned on Jay and went with Sonjay... I for one am totally awed by Vince Russo's surprise booking.
- Bashir winning the X-Title is a good move as it now books Creed as an all-American savior at BFG
- I love tag wrestling and LAX but it is enough. Hernandez is awesome and deserves a singles run, and Homicide is one of the best wrestler/brawlers in the world today and could totally re-energize the X-Division. Tag teams can get stale if not freshened up every now and then (ask Team 3D) and Beer Money are great right now.
- Kudos to Booker T. This is 100% serious, we often view wrestling and sports as the end all be alls, but sometimes life intercedes. Booker's home city was decimated last week by Hurricane Ike and he was justified in missing a ppv.
- Joe retaining - the best move for business because Joe/Sting is a definite money match that has never been done. Plus Angle vs. Jarrett has some appeal as well, as a top card match.
- Overall - Not a bad effort all around but nothing blow away great, and with AJ, Joe, Angle, Cage and other great workers, I expect a great match every now and then.
Raw Thoughts:
- So much for long slow building feuds. After Unforgiven, I was convinced Shawn was taking some time off. Not only did he wrestle Jericho with an arm injury, but he gave the impression he was upset with himself for acting the way he did. All signs pointed towards Shawn taking some type of league of absence. Jericho could've defended against Batista, or JBL or have a triple threat. Now Shawn is back and they announce a Ladder match. Many comments I've seen on Raw posts were happy about this but I am not. This is a blood feud. Shawn wants to rip Jericho apart. So his solution is to choose a match where instead of pinning Jericho, he has to climb up and away from him. The last match of this feud should've been one of two matches: 1) I Quit, or 2) Ironman. "I Quit" would be perfect as it allows violence to ensure within a psychological wrestling match, and Ironman would work because it allows Shawn to have an hour with Jericho to make him his bitch. Either way it looks clearly like they will go with Shawn winning, losing to Batista and building towards Cena/Batista at Wrestlemania which is where the title picture looked destined to go all of a month ago.
- I like the build of Evolution 2.0 with a good win for Simply Priceless. Orton had another good return promo as well.
Giving WCW a Hart
With September being Flair month on WWE 24/7, we get loads of Flair interviews in the Shorties area, one being the January 1998 in ring confrontation with Bret Hart. For a little background, Bret was the victim of the Montreal Screwjob in November 1997, and after severing ties with Vince (and blackening his eye), he showed up at Starrcade, WCW's premiere ppv in December and served to count the submission of Hulk Hogan to Sting in the f'd up main event.
Somehow, someway, the hire ups decided Bret's first major feud should be the logical choice: RIC FLAIR!? Remember when everyone thought debuted Goldberg (WCW's main guy) against the Rock was a bad idea? This was worse. Bret was going up against WCW's main attraction for years. In his first ppv match, he defeated Flair clean with the Sharpshooter. Soon enough he was doing the thing everyone was doing in WCW, going around with Hogan and the NWO, even tagging with him at a Spring ppv main event. What? Bret Hart should NEVER be tagging with Hulk Hogan. Soon, Bret was quickly downgraded to the TV and US Title hunts, lost a feud with DDP by winter 98 and then took a near year hiatus before returning for his classic with Benoit in Kansas City. His ppv re-appearance was a loss to Lex Luger (by submission no less), before he got his chance to shine and win his only major WCW Title in November 99, a month before an errant Goldberg ended his career thrust kick. Here is how Bret's run should have gone.
After Starrcade, Ric Flair (whom the NWO nearly killed a few before in the War Games at Fall Brawl) shows up with NEW WCW Champion Sting and newcomer to WCW, the "best there is, was, and ever will be" Bret "Hitman" Hart. With no Horsemen around, 2 cornerstones of WCW and the new man in town form an alliance to end the reign of terror of the NWO and Hollywood Hulk Hogan. Bret would have no problem discussing his history with Hogan and his failure to pass the torch in 93. Instead of rushing a Bret/Flair program, they should've built his first major feud as Hogan. How better to one up the other company: give the fans a match they never saw before between 2 of their greatest champions! It is amazing that Bret and Hogan never had one program ever. Hogan, pissed at Bret for his actions at Starrcade challenge him at Souled Out. Meanwhile Flair and World Champion Sting could tag against Hall/Nash, or any other NWO combo. They could do a NWO run in finish in the main event to save the blow off for later. Sting would defend against NWO stars Nash, Hall, Giant, Steiner (who turned heel in early 98). Flair and Bret could tag together with Roddy Piper in 6-man action at Superbrawl leading to Uncensored where Bret and Hogan could have their blow off. With Hall and Nash splitting around this time, it seemed the perfect time to begin the demise of the NWO for good.
From there, WCW could've been a gold mine for Bret Hart. Perhaps a feud with Sting leading to who the master of the Deathlock/Sharpshooter really is. It would have been sweet to have him face Sting for the title at Starrcade a year after his intro to the company. How would Goldberg fit in to this? Goldberg could've beaten Sting for the Title and feuded with Bret in the Fall into Winter months. The Flair feud could have and should have come much later on once the WCW fans got to know and respect Bret.
Bret Hart was too good a wrestler and performer to have a run the way he did in WCW. The booking haphazardly treated him like any other wrestler and not the former 5 time WWF Champion who could've run the company for the 98 year. A Flair, Bret, Sting, Goldberg alliance vs. the NWO would have been the money angle to combat the Vince/Austin super feud.
I have a 4 year climbing on me, so until next week, have fun storming the castle!
TNA Impact May 14, 2007 in a King of the Mountain Qualifying Match
Posted By: hombre (Guest) on September 17, 2008 at 03:44 PM
Hogan/Hart never had a program? Technically, that may not be true. After the Honky Tonk/Hart Foundation SNME attack on Randy Savage (the same attack that formed the Mega-power partnership) Hogan/Savage faced Honky/Harts in 3 on 2 matches on house shows across the country. I was on hand to see one as a child in Huntsville, AL. Don't know if you'd really call that a program, but they definitely locked up a few times in the late 80's.
Posted By: Brad K. (Guest) on September 17, 2008 at 04:51 PM
While I agree that they misused Bret, my argument is slightly different. After leaving WCW, Bret came across as a victim (justified or not), and thus had a good deal of sympathy. However, him interfereing in the Starrcade 97 title match (whether justified or not), seemed to undercut his argument, especially due to the fast count that wasn't. This nearly killed his WCW career out of the gates. Furthermore, they never seemed to know what to do with him, as he came in as a face, but turned heel within months. Even worse, he was a WWF main eventer, who was essentially nothing more than a midcarder for most of his WCW run, not even getting a shot at the world title until he had been in the company for almost two years.
Their treatment of Bret is one of what I consider to be the biggest mistakes WCW made in 1998.
The others?
Driving future superstar Chris Jericho away with how they handled his fued with Goldberg. They didn't even bother to give the fued a blowoff match, which indirectly lead to his departure.
Trying to fire and then suing one of the business's true Icons, Ric Flair, then never even really using him after his emotional return.
Running the NWO Black & White v. Wolfpac fued and not even giving it a true blowoff. Warrgames would have been perfect, but they changed the rules to unrecognizability (beyond the double-ring cage).
Hogan v. Warrior II. This was the fued that made some WCW higherups believe that Hogan could be a face again (even though he was only popular in comparison to the Warrior), and it indirectly led to the end of the British Bulldog's career. I can't think of an aquisition to the major feds that was so fueled by ego and yet so completely disasterous as the Warrior.
Posted By: Michael L (Guest) on September 17, 2008 at 05:11 PM
Actually Joe/Sting has been done:
TNA Impact May 14, 2007 in a King of the Mountain Qualifying Match
Posted By: hombre (Guest) on September 17, 2008 at 03:44 PM
------------------------------------
Stop smarking up the place
Posted By: Malone (Guest) on September 17, 2008 at 05:20 PM
"league of absence"...? a new group consisting of lazy superheroes...?
Posted By: KanyonKreist (Guest) on September 17, 2008 at 07:22 PM
By the time Hart came into WCW, they were spiraling out of control. WCW never had a plan for Bret Hart. They were just happy that they had a guy who was recently the WWF Champion working for them. You could've lined up at least 10 WCW stars that Bret "should've" faced when he first got to WCW, but Flair was at least game enough to accept the challenge. I'm glad they booked Bret to beat Flair because even 10 years ago, Flair was old.
Btw, one of the reasons that Goldberg came to WWE was The Rock. He and Rock are friends and Rock was one of the few guys in WWE that Goldberg trusted. So that's why Goldberg faced Rock when he came into WWE. Plus, WWE didn't want to immediately feed Goldberg to HHH even though they had legit heat with each other before Goldberg came to WWE.
Posted By: dude11767 (Registered) on September 17, 2008 at 08:12 PM
What was the point of that?! That read like the introduction part of an article rather than an entire piece! Heck, why stop at being as lax as above?! It's only a hop skip and jump to:
Bret Hart really was misused by WCW. I would have used him more. He would have had a good match against lots of people and they should have had him have more good matches against more people and that would have been good.
Write something of worth or don't bother!
Posted By: Wiener boy (Guest) on September 18, 2008 at 01:16 AM
I would actually expect Jericho to retain at No Mercy so HBK can say that Jericho won the match, but never pinned him or made him tap.
This leads to a truly epic, proper blow-off at Survivor Series (I Quit would be best).
A feud this good deserves a Big 4 blowoff.
Posted By: Mr Quimby's Beard (Guest) on September 18, 2008 at 08:01 AM
for one thing I'd say that its more likely Jericho will retain, then weasel away from Batista for a wee while before dropping the belt, probably to Shawnterference at the Rumble and that leads us to Batista chasing Cena for the belt, or vice verse, and the suggested Shawn-Jericho I Quit match at Mania.
Posted By: chris (Guest) on September 18, 2008 at 10:29 AM
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