Ask 411 Wrestling: Was Ultimate Warrior Set to Turn Heel at Summerslam 1992?

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Through Hel Stryer and brimstone . . . it’s Ask 411 Wrestling!

I am your party host, Ryan Byers, and I am here to answer some of your burning inquiries about professional wrestling. If you have one of those queries searing a hole in your brain, feel free to send it along to me at [email protected]. Don’t be shy about shooting those over – the more, the merrier.

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HBK’s Smile is oozing with destrucity:

Regarding SummerSlam 1992, I recently heard that Warrior was originally supposed to beat Randy Savage for the title along with turning heel, but he nixed that in order to preserve his marketability. Is there anything to the rumor? If so, would he have aligned with Perfect and Flair or would it have happened independently? Given that he had a wellness violation a couple of months afterward, he (like Bulldog) would have had to quickly drop the title, but is there any indication he would have been willing (or unwilling) to put Bret over? I would think if not, Taker would have been Plan B, or am I overlooking someone?

In looking back at reporting from 1992, I was unable to find any contemporaneous accounts which said that the plan was to turn Warrior heel. In fact, if you read dirt sheets from the time, they’re more talking about what Warrior would be doing when/if he won the championship at Summerslam as a babyface, with Dave Meltzer in particular speculating that he might drop the title quickly to Ric Flair because Flair/Warrior was the program that made the most sense at that point, and it would do better with Warrior chasing the title as opposed to defending it.

Despite the reports at the time not mentioning a heel turn, there are at least two books written on the subject of wrestling that do state a plan to turn Warrior heel during the summer/fall of 1992 was thwarted by the man himself. Those books are 2003’s Wrestlecrap: The Very Worst of Professional Wrestling by R.D. Reynolds and 2025’s Titan Shrinking by James Dixon. That said, I’m not sure either tome cited its sources on that point.

For those reasons, unless there is more evidence out there that I’ve simply missed, I am more inclined to say that the heel turn was not in the cards in any serious way.

Nick would appreciate a cool drink:

What happened to Ron “H20” Waterman in regard to his WWE developmental run?  I thought he was supposed to come up with Batista, John Cena, and Randy Orton, but it never happened.  His Wikipedia page didn’t shed any light.

Waterman’s release came at a time when WWE was undergoing a lot of cuts in developmental to save money. Within the same week or two of his release, the company cut back to just one developmental territory, ending its relationship with Les Thatcher’s HWA while keeping ties to Danny Davis and Jim Cornette’s OVW. This saw a ton of developmental contracts terminated, including Steve Bradley, Heidenreich (though he came back later), BJ Payne, Kim Neilsen (later “Desire” in TNA), Jason Sugarman, Flash Flanagan, Chad Collyer, and Race Steele, as well as a crew of guys who had been picked up after WCW folded, like EZ Money, Mike Sanders, and Horace Hogan.

Though Waterman was with OVW and not HWA, the proximity in time points to this being part of the same cost cutting measures, particularly because OVW would have needed room for HWA guys like Lance Cade who were with HWA but not cut by WWE.

The July 22, 2002 Wrestling Observer Newsletter noted that Waterman’s age had been considered a strike against him in some other conversations about his moving forward in the company, so that could have been a factor in including him among the budget cuts. He would have turned 37 in the year he was let go.

For what it’s worth, H2O wasn’t totally done with wrestling after his WWE tenure, as he had a handful of matches in New Japan in 2005, during an era where they were kind of obsessed with bringing in guys who had MMA backgrounds. Speaking of, Waterman also went back to MMA after WWE, having 17 more fights prior to his ultimate retirement.

Tyler from Winnipeg needs beer money:

What are your top three APA moments?

The first is really basic, but the first time I saw a backstage skit in their “office” and the door to it was just a freestanding door in a frame, I laughed much harder than I realistically should have.

Second comes from the Vengeance 2003 pay per view in which the team hosted the APA Invitational Bar Room Brawl, in which the Acolytes and twenty other wrestlers fought in a makeshift bar set built near the entrance ramp. It wasn’t Flair/Steamboat in terms of technical merit, but it was goofy and different and featured some comical moments like Steve Lombardi legitimately wiping out and falling on his ass or Nunzio accidentally pulling shelf full of glassware over on himself.

The third and final moment comes from the April 10, 2000 episode of Monday Night Raw, when TAKA Michinoku was fed to WWF Champion Triple H as an “easy” opponent, only for he and Sho Funaki to reveal that they had hired the APA for the evening, which gave them the protection they needed from any interference by the Corporation and created some openings in the match against HHH. Granted, it was really TAKA’s time to shine, but, as a fan, seeing Faarooq and Bradshaw walk the aisle before the match definitely let you know that this was going to be more than a basic squash.

Rahil keeps us on our Rey Rey theme:

Billy Kidman has beaten Sting and Rey Misterio, Jr., has he beaten any other former world champions?

There are quite a few, actually, especially if you take an expensive view of what is considered a world championship. Note that, for this answer, I’m going to be focusing solely on one-on-one matches.

Kidman holds a disqualification victory over “Macho Man” Randy Savage, taking place on the July 19, 1999 episode of WCW Monday Nitro. Savage was doing a particularly unhinged version of his character at the time, so the match featured him choking Kidman with a Slim Jim (no, really) before drawing the DQ by decking the referee. The Macho Man’s upcoming PPV opponent, DENNIS RODMAN, made the save.

Eddy Gurrero was beaten by Kidman in both WCW and WWE. Specifically, Latino Heat fell to the master of the shooting star press on a March 15, 1997 WCW house show (via count out), the November 30, 1998 episode of Monday Nitro, and the 1998 Starrcade pay per view, where Kidman retained the Cruiserweight Championship. A little over three years later, Kidman defeated Guerrero again, this time in a match taped for Smackdown on January 2, 2003. Granted all these matches were before Eddy became a world champion, but I assume that is fair game here because that’s also true of Kidman’s wins over Rey Misterio, Jr., but Rahil still referenced those in his question.

Similarly to Guerrero, Kidman once defeated Chris Jericho when they were both in the cruiserweight division. This match was on October 7, 1998 on a WCW house show.

In one of the more obscure matches on this list, Kidman once defeated Chris Benoit. This was on a May 22, 1999 house show for WCW, so there are not a lot of details about the match.

Kidman has one victory over the master of the Diamond Cutter, Diamond Dallas Page, coming on the August 16, 1999 episode of Monday Nitro. At the time, WCW was promoting a pay per view that was just footage of the Nitro Girls writhing around in bikinis, because the 1990s were a very different time. As part of promoting the show, they had Kidman cut a promo in which he said he had watched this PPV A LOT and that his favorite Nitro Girl was Kimberly. Jealous husband DDP demanded a match but lost via rollup, though he destroyed Kidman afterwards.

Not long after his initial WWE debut and matches with the likes of Kurt Angle and Chris Jericho, John Cena was turned heel and put into a mixed tag feud where he teamed with Dawn Marie against Kidman and Torrie Wilson. Kidman and Torrie were legitimately dating and would get married the next year. This feud got Kidman two victories over the future Never Seen Seventeen, one on the episode of Smackdown taped on October 22, 2002 and one on a house show two days later.

Speaking of Kurt Angle, Billy Kidman has beaten him too, via count out in a match taped for Smackdown on August 20, 2002. The COTR came when Angle was distracted by Rey Misterio, Jr., though the Olympic Hero got his heat back by destroying Kidman after the bell.

Christian! Christian! At last you’ve lost to Kidman! In fact, he’s lost to Kidman twice. Once was on a WWE house who on May 6, 2002. The second was the very next day in a match that was taped for WWE Jakked, one of the company’s syndicated programs at the time. This victory saw Christian getting disqualified against Kidman.

John Bradshaw Layfield joins our list. This was part of a WWE house show in Glasgow, Scotland on March 21, 2004, and Kidman won with a rollup.

The last person who Kidman beat and who unquestionably held a world championship is Bryan Danielson. This one happened on the indy scene, with Kidman defeating Danielson on June 3, 2007 in Newcastle, Australia on a show co-promoted by World Series Wrestling and the Australasian Wrestling Federation.

Now we get to the victories that some people may not want to count towards the list because they may not consider the championships involved to be world titles.

Kidman has two victories over Jerry Lynn, who is a former ECW and ROH Champion, though both of those are on the bubble as far as world titles go. The two matches were held in WCW, with Kidman getting a win in an August 30, 1996 match taped for WCW Worldwide and a February 7, 1997 match taped for WCW {Pro}. In an interesting note, the first of those matches saw Lynn wrestling under that name whereas the second match was Lynn wrestling under his masked persona of Mr. JL.

Two more wins over a former ECW Champion came when Kidman met Mikey Whipwreck. The first match was actually Whipwreck’s WCW debut match, which came on the 1999 Uncensored pay per view on March 14 and was for Kidman’s Cruiserweight Title. Kidman defeated Whipwreck a second time in a WCW Thunder mtch taped on July 8, 1999.

There was a somewhat infamous feud in WCW between Billy Kidman and Shane Douglas, which featured a Viagra on a Pole match between the two. Kidman lost that bout, but he did defeat the Franchise three times as part of the feud, twice on house shows held on July 22 and 23, 2000 and the third being on the August 13, 200 pay per view New Blood Rising.

Sticking with ECW Champions, Billy Kidman and Tazz wrestled exactly once during their careers, and it was Kidman winning a 98 second match on the October 15, 2001 episode of Monday Night Raw.

Kidman also has several victories over former ECW Champion Rhyno, all of them coming during the men’s WWE careers and all of them on house shows. The first two Kidman wins were back-to-back, occurring on October 26 and 27, 2003. They took some time away from wrestling each other, though Kidman beat the Manbeast again on March 18, 2004 in Newcastle Upon Tyne, England, which is one of my favorite place names.

The final ECW Champion who Kidman defeated also held the NWA World Heavyweight Title during that belt’s darker days. It’s Steve Corino. Like Kidman’s win against Bryan Danielson, this was a show for Aussie indy group the Australasian Wrestling Federation, and it took place on August 12, 2007. Fun fact: Former author of this column, “Massive Q” Mathew Sforcina wrestled on the undercard of this show, losing to Steve Ravenous.

Did you know Norman Smiley is a former CMLL World Heavyweight Champion? He is, and Billy Kidman also beat him once, that being on the November 8, 1999 episode of WCW Monday Nitro. This was part of a tournament for the then-vacant WCW Championship, and Kidman won after Smiley was attached by WCW hardcore division rival Brian Knobs.

Now let’s talk about people who were TNA Champions or at least NWA Champions during that belt’s TNA era. The first of these folks is Ron “The Truth” Killings, who wrestled Kidman in the WWF during the Invasion angle, when Truth was still known as K-Kwik. In a match taped on July 10, 2001 for Sunday Night Heat, Kidman beat K-Kwik to retain the WCW Cruiserweight Title. (And, yes, calling Truth a cruiserweight is a stretch, even then.) Kidman also beat him on July 23, 2001 in a dark match before a WWF television taping.

Kidman has three wins over former TNA Champion Matt Hardy, who is also a former WWECW Champion if you want to count that. These were all in WWE and came in matches taped for Smackdown on January 7, 2003, Velocity on January 21, 2003 (which was a DQ victory), and Smackdown on February 4, 2003.

The last and most interesting Kidman win over a former TNA Champion occurred on October 7, 2003 in a match taped for WWE Velocity. In that bout, Kidman defeated a young enhancement talent named Bobby Rude, who is better known with the alternate spelling of Bobby Roode.

Finally, if you consider the Ring of Honor Championship to be a world title, Kidman has a ton of victories over Jamie Noble who became an ROH Champ briefly when he was between WWE stints in 2005. Two of those matches were televised, one being taped for the November 12, 2002 episode of Smackdown and one being part of the 2002 Survivor Series pay per view. Kidman also beat Noble on WWE house shows nine times, those being on June 1, 2002; Decembr 1, 6, 8, and 14, 2002; May 2 and 3, 2004; and June 3 and 6, 2004.

Matt B left his striped shirt in his other luggage:

Do you think Paul Heyman providing the three count for RVD’s WWE Title win at One Night Stand added or detracted from the moment?

I just saw a clip with Taz commentary laughing going “I guess, alright!”

I get having Heyman in the ring as it was a big deal for ECW but at the same time you’re hesitating wondering “Is this legit?”

I don’t think it was a huge problem. Really the purpose behind it in my mind was to give John Cena and the fans who supported him an “out,” allowing them to say that their guy was beaten in an illegitimate manner, while the ECW faithful still got to celebrate their big moment. It’s the kind of thing that, in the old days, would have been used to build to a rematch that conceivably have drawn even more money, but WWE chose not to go that way for whatever reason.

That does it for this week. We’ll return in seven-ish days, and, as always, you can contribute your questions by emailing [email protected]. You can also leave questions in the comments below, but please note that I do not monitor the comments as closely as I do the email account, so emailing is the better way to get things answered.