The Shimmy 01.26.09: Still Bothered

Posted by Andy Clark on 01.26.2009

Seven years later and Andy Clark is still bothered by the way WrestleMania X8 was booked. Read on as he rebooks one of the biggest WrestleManias of all time!

Happy post-Rumble Monday, everybody. Today is normally a big day in terms of wrestling excitement because following last night's show we are officially on the Road to WrestleMania. Booking plans and the like are a little clearer now, and even though we've still got some stops including No Way Out and a seven week break between NWO and Mania, this is where things really get started. The Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade has passed and the Christmas season has begun, if you will.

As such I wanted to do something this week in the spirit of the season. Unfortunately I figured the online traffic caused by such a momentous evening would no doubt hinder me from inputting any last minute Rumble thoughts into this week's column in time for my deadline, so any actual analysis of last week's show will be saved for next week's column. So what of this week's column?

Last week as I was reading the 411 Wrestling Top 5 column based on Top Royal Rumble Performances, one of the things mentioned by Jake Chambers struck a chord with me. Let me share what he wrote:

2. [tie] Austin vs. Rock in 2001 / Hogan vs. Warrior in 1990, Wrestlemania preludes – Face vs. Face battles are often the highlight of Royal Rumble matches, but these two in-ring confrontations between mega-stars created butterfly-in-the-stomach fan frenzy showdowns during magically perfect moments of dramatic calm in the middle of the ring. Both sequences were so excellently captured by the WWF production crew that even ten years apart they were able to undeniably inject any wrestling fan with an equal feeling of anticipation and excitement for the eventual, all-time classic, Wrestlemania VI and X-7 matches.

Jake has a great point, and you can even include last year's John Cena-Triple H Rumble final in that list to a certain degree. These were big moments in Rumble history that helped tie them to WrestleMania and make those main events seem even bigger. This got me thinking about the one WrestleMania show that was misbooked so badly that it still bothers me to this day. That show is WrestleMania X8 and all you have to do is look at the 2002 Royal Rumble Match to see how badly WWE missed the boat. To be fair the 2002 Rumble itself was largely a poorly booked event with a few bright spots that WWE creative could have, and should have, capitalized on. WWE was already going to have a hard time living up to the previous year's WrestleMania, a show largely considered to be the best wrestling show of all time (an assessment I strongly agree with), and they did themselves no favors. In this week's column I will give you my fix for this show and retrobook the eighteenth installment of the Showcase of the Immortals.

Before we begin, here's what that card looked like. Matches with stars next to them will be the recipients of my hatchet job.

WrestleMania X8: As Is

Sunday Night Heat, Six Man Tag Team Match: Rikishi, Scotty 2 Hotty, & A-Train vs. Mr. Perfect, Test, & Lance Storm*

Intercontinental Title Match: William Regal© vs. Rob Van Dam

European Title Match: Diamond Dallas Page© vs. Christian

Hardcore Title Match: Maven© vs. Goldust (followed by running hijinx throughout the night that included Spike Dudley, Al Snow, Hurricane Helms, Molly Holly, The Godfather, and Christian)*

Kurt Angle vs. Kane*

Street Fight: Undertaker vs. Ric Flair

Edge vs. Booker T*

Stone Cold Steve Austin vs. Scott Hall*

World Tag Team Title, Fatal Four-Way Match: Billy & Chuck© vs. The Hardys vs. Dudley Boyz vs. APA

The Rock vs. Hulk Hogan

Women's Title, Triple Threat Match: Jazz© vs. Trish Stratus vs. Lita

WWE Title Match: Chris Jericho© vs. Triple H*

So we have a twelve match card, and I believe have of them should have been changed.

We'll start at the top. Jericho vs. Triple H is one of the most maligned WrestleMania main events of all time. In full disclosure I'll let you know that my dissatisfaction with this match comes only in hindsight. At the time I was thinking that this was the best possible Mania match based of these two men's histories and prior matches, notably Jericho's phantom WWE Title win and their Last Man Standing Match in 2000. Their were two key differences from those matches and this one though: 1) The roles were reversed. The dynamic between these two men was much better with Triple H as the dominant heel and Jericho as the plucky babyface fighting from underneath. Now you had a chickenshit heel Jericho going up against an unstoppa-face Triple H. 2) The focus of the feud. Stephanie McMahon was actually a big part of the original Trips-Jericho matches because the whole thing was born out of Jericho insulting The Game's wife. The thing is, the feud eventually progressed from that point to where it was actually a personal issue between the two. Here it was pretty much all about Stephanie. It has been recounted before that the real feud was Triple H vs. Stephanie, not Triple H vs. Jericho. In that regard it really could have been any heel in Jericho's role acting as a surrogate for Mrs. McMahon-Helmsley.

Now let's look at our other option. In late 2000/early 2001, Triple H and Stone Cold Steve Austin had a feud for the ages. Their 3 Stages of Hell Match at No Way Out 2001 is a favorite of many fans and often cited as one of the best, if not the best, matches of both men's careers. Following Stone Cold's heel turn at WrestleMania the two rivals teamed together to form the Two-Man Power Trip, but not after teasing a big time confrontation first. The Rattlesnake and The Game worked together for a few months but eventually it looked like the seeds had been planted for an eventual breakup, this time with Triple H playing the face role. Before we could get to that, though, Triple H suffered his first quad injury, putting him out of action for months. By the time Triple H had returned both he and Austin were faces and both men were looking for spots at WrestleMania. Austin and Triple H were both entered into the Royal Rumble and Austin even revisited his 1997 strategy of throwing superstars out one at a time. Then the time came. The time the Motorhead music kicked in and The Game entered the ring. The two former partners and enemies faced off and the crowd went nuts. Just like the classic encounters of Hogan and Warrior and Austin and Rock, these two icons squared off in the middle of the Royal Rumble. The majority of the match from that point on focused on Triple H and Stone Cold and the way they tore into one another. Triple H won that Rumble and won the No. 1 Contendership for the WWE Title at WrestleMania. We know that he went on to face Jericho, but based on the reaction we saw at the Rumble it should have been Austin. Austin even got a shot at winning the title from Jericho at No Way Out, but came up short thanks to interference from the nWo. In my version of events Austin wins the title at No Way Out and goes on to defend, and drop, the title to Triple H at WrestleMania. These booking changes also help post-Mania plans. Winning the title from Austin would have given Triple H much more momentum coming out of the show than winning it from a lame duck Jericho, plus that left WWE with the option of running the Stephanie endorsed Jericho angle as Triple H's first challenge after Mania. Giving Austin a run with the title, short as it would be, and a WrestleMania main event may have even kept the Rattlesnake from walking out of the company later that spring as well.

So with Austin in the main event, where does that leave Scott Hall? Glad you asked. Another one of things that bothered me about this show as that Kevin Nash and Big Show were not booked at all. Now there were some reasons for Nash not being booked as he was a little banged up (surprise surprise) and there are rumors that WWE wanted to keep him out of a match in case they ended up firing Scott Hall before Mania and needed a replacement in the Austin match. There was no excuse for not booking Big Show, though, especially after they had already set him up for a match for the Hardcore Title that never materialized. Instead he was "holding up your fat kids" (as he would later complain in a promo) at WWF New York. Let's clear up both of these situations. With Hogan losing and subsequently turning face in his match with The Rock later in the show, if the nWo was really going to be a force post Mania they could use a big win. Scott Hall really had no business going over Stone Cold in there match (as Austin rightly pointed out to management), but I think a tag team win over two former World Champions was certainly doable. So instead of Stone Cold vs. Scott Hall with Kevin Nash in his corner, we would instead have had The Outsiders vs. Big Show & Kane. Show and Kane had teamed in December to challenge for the World Tag Team Titles, but after that had a falling out and even a mini-feud. Still, with the threat of a New World Order invasion I think these two men could team up, if only in a losing effort. Hell, you could even have Big Show turn on Kane on the show to immediately replace Hogan instead of waiting a few weeks later on Raw. And if Scott Hall did get fired not only would you have Sean Waltman, who eventually joined the nWo anyway, on hand as a tag team replacement, due to the past issues between Show and Kane you could conceivably change the match to a big man's Triple Threat with Show, Kane, and Nash.

With Kane getting put in the tag team match that takes away Kurt Angle's WrestleMania opponent. While their match actually ended up being pretty good (in many people's opinion it's the best match of Kane's career), it always bothered me that Kurt Angle, a man that had been named the No. 1 Contender for WrestleMania just a few week's before this show, was facing a guy that wasn't even on the No Way Out card. In my version of things Angle instead faces former Intercontinental Champion Edge at WrestleMania. These guys tore things up in the spring and I'd just be starting their feud a few weeks earlier. In fact the seeds for their feud had even started a bit before WrestleMania anyhow as Edge took up the slack on the week that Kane was off selling a concussion. Their feud would almost fit the same timetable as Angle's feud with Chris Benoit a month earlier. Even if Edge had lost this match it still would have been a hell of a rub for a young star to have a great match with a talent like Kurt Angle at WrestleMania.

Now I realize I'm in a bit of a predicament here. I mentioned that I felt Angle deserved a better opponent given the way he had been booked up until Mania. What then should I do with Chris Jericho, a man that had been WWE Champion up until a month prior to the show? I've already booked all the top faces into matches. Well, the best option I can come up with is Maven. Maven had been on a roll, at least in terms of fan support, ever since winning Tough Enough. He got the big elimination over Undertaker at the Royal Rumble and even got a WWE Title shot against Jericho on Raw shortly thereafter. Maven had been playing with the big boys and was over quite well with the crowd, so why not capitalize on it and put him in there with Jericho? Any worries WWE might have had over Maven's progress in the ring should have been laid to rest by the talent of Y2J. While it's not exactly the stuff legends are made of I think it could have worked, and they may have even been able to keep the Hardcore Title in the mix with Jericho stating he'd want to reclaim some kind of gold. I suppose an alternate match would be to have Jericho go up against RVD and find an opponent for William Regal, but I like RVD winning the IC Title at Mania, so let's go with Jericho-Maven.

So far I have changed four of the five main show matches that I set out to correct. That allows me to actually bump the Sunday Night Heat match up to the main card but with some tweaking. With Edge facing off with Angle, Edge's WrestleMania opponent Booker T would be in need of a match. Add him to Mr. Perfect's team where his tag team partner Test was already a member. On the face side of the equation I wouldn't want to mess with the Rikishi/Scotty/Albert dynamic too much, so I'd either add a tag team rather than one or two singles wrestlers. That's where Tazz & Spike Dudley come in. Tazz & Spike were World Tag Team Champions until a few weeks prior to WrestleMania, even leaving No Way Out as the champs. Oh, and who did they defend those titles against at No Way Out? That's right, Booker T & Test. To fill in the last spot on the heel's team I'd go with Goldust. I suppose Val Venis could fit as well since he'd fit in with Test and Storm as Canadians wrestling in Toronto, but Goldust was just coming off a feud with Rob Van Dam at No Way Out and seemed more important, plus it would be a good primer for the eventual Booker T/Goldust partnership. Quite frankly I think this would be a better use of Goldust than that Hardcore Title mess.

As for Sunday Night Heat? Prior to WrestleMania Tajiri was getting a good amount of screen time as the director for the Japanese shampoo commercial Edge and Booker T were fighting over. With that feud now no longer existing Tajiri would need to find another purpose in order to maintain his semi-push. How about by defending that Cruiserweight Title he'd been defending for months? The Hurricane ended up on the actual WrestleMania show so he'd be the perfect opponent. Stick those two bad boys on Sunday Night Heat (add Billy Kidman if you really want to) and voila.

So there you have it. I hope I haven't bored you too badly with this retro-fantasy booking, but it's something I wanted to share just in case there was anyone else out there still dissatisfied with WrestleMania X8. And yes I know I'm a sad and pathetic person. Thanks.

The Shimmy Likes It Raw!

What's on tap for tonight's show?

It's the night after the Royal Rumble and we're full speed ahead on the Road to WrestleMania. We still have a stop at No Way Out in three weeks, so what will we have in store for that show? Plus, what's the condition of Mr. McMahon?

That does it for this week's column. Thanks for reading. Until next time, go Steelers. Clark…out.