That Was Then 11.28.07: Wrestling’s Most Hated Moments Vol. 1

We’re all wrestling fans and of course we like good wrestling and angles that make sense, and will complain to no end whenever we get…well, whatever goes on Raw on most Monday nights. But let’s be real here, as much as we love the good wrestling, we also really like bitching when stuff sucks. Am I right or am I right? So since I love bitching as much as the next guy, I decided to talk about two of the most hated angles to ever grace our TV screens.

King Of The Ring 1995

King Of The Ring has been known to have some of the most memorable matches and angles on PPV, but if you watched the 1995 edition of the show, you’d never know it because it was one of the worst PPVs of all time.

First, there was the tournament itself. The opening round matches were the Undertaker vs Mabel, Shawn Michaels vs Kama, Bob Holly vs the Roadie (BG James before he meant anything) and Yokozuna vs Savio Vega. That last match was supposed to be Yokozuna vs Razor Ramon, but Razor was injured and unable to compete, so Savio, a newcome at that point, won a qualifying match the night of the PPV, meaning that if he were to win the tournament, he’d have to win four matches in one night and one more than anyone else in the field. He did end up beating Yokozuna by countout and then beating the Roadie in the semifinals to advance to the finals, and it appeared that a fairytale story was happening right before our eyes. But we’ll get back to Savio later.

In the meantime on the other side of the bracket, bad, bad things were happening. Because of the way he was built up leading into his WWF Title match at Wrestlemania 10, Shawn Michaels had gotten over huge, and got even more over after losing, when a lot of the fanbase had wanted him to beat Diesel and take the title. He was turned babyface pretty much because there was no way they could keep him as a heel with the crowd reactions he was getting, and everybody expected either he or the Undertaker to cakewalk through this tournament. Instead, Michaels went to a time limit draw with Kama in the first round and was eliminated. Undertaker, who now should have had an easy road to the tournament win, was instead eliminated in the first round as well thanks to interference from Kama, allowing Mabel to legdrop Undertaker and pin him to advance. Also, because of the time limit draw between Michaels and Kama, Mabel went straight to the finals.

So now we’ve got a final match of Mabel vs Savio Vega, and while most of the fans were completely let down that neither Undertaker or Shawn Michaels (or Razor Ramon, who was still advertised as appearing until the day of the show) were in the finals, there was still a chance for a happy ending if Savio could win four matches in one night and win the tournament. Instead, Mabel squashed Vega to win the tournament, and then he and Mo beat up Savio, Razor, and the 123 Kid as well. When he went to the throne for his coronation as King Mabel, the fans were actually throwing stuff at Mabel because they were so pissed off at the outcome of the tournament.

Now let’s move on to the non-tournament matches. First was the main event pitting Diesel and Bam Bam Bigelow against Sid and Tatanka. Diesel had had surgery on his elbow shortly before this and barely spent any time in the ring, and instead we got fifteen minutes of Sid and Tatanka beating up Bigelow before Diesel came in and cleaned house. But instead of Diesel getting his hands on Sid (which was the main event feud at the time), Side just walked off and left Tatanka to get powerbombed and pinned by Diesel.

Then of course was the infamous Kiss My Foot Match between Jerry Lawler and poor Bret Hart. These two had actually had a really hot feud back in 1993, but the magic was gone when they tried rekindling things in 1995, and it became more of a comedy feud than anything. Lawler had used interference from Hakushi to beat Hart at the first In Your House a month before this, and would only give Hart this rematch if the loser would kiss the winner’s foot. To prepare for this match, Lawler spent weeks training in horse stalls and dirty bathrooms to ensure that his feet were totally disgusting by the time he got in the ring with Bret. Of course, Hart beat Lawler and made him kiss his foot, then to really finally bury the feud once and for all, he pulled Lawler’sw boot off and made him kiss his own foot. After this, we were treated to backstage vignettes of Lawler alternately vomiting and rinsing with mouthwash. This of course led to Lawler getting his evil dentist, Isaac Yankem, DDS, to come to the WWF to wrestle Bret. And you thought Montreal was the only time he was getting screwed.

The Fingerpoke Of Doom

The Fingerpoke Of Doom has become one of the most renowned bad moves in wrestling history and is often pointed to (no pun intended) as one of the main causes of the downfall of WCW. While I won’t go that far because there was a lot of other problems WCW had than just this one incident, but it was a real doozy.

First, a little bit of background: Bill Goldberg had come into WCW in late 1997 and immediately started mowing over everybody in his path. While he started off as a heel, his penchant for completely squashing anyone thrown in the ring with him got him over big time with the WCW fans, and as the wins kept coming, somebody noticed that he was undefeated (unless you count a non-televised loss to Hector Guerrero prior to his TV debut), and the fans really got into the winning streak. Nobody kept track of the numbers to any great degree, and in fact WCW probably made up the number each week, but Goldberg was very carefully protected through that initial run and was not allowed to look the slightest bit bad, except for the Regal Incident, but that was a one time thing.

Anyway, he eventually got pushed to the US Title, which he won in a squash over Raven the night after Spring Stampede, and then just three months later was put clean over Hulk Hogan on an episode of Nitro for the WCW World Title. Even after winning the title, Goldberg continued to squash everyone in his path, including Perry Saturn, the Giant, Curt Hennig twice, Konnan, and Diamond Dallas Page. It seemed that nobody was ever going to be able to stop him.

Now, flash forward to November at the World War III PPV. Kevin Nash, who had split off from the main now and formed his own splinter now Wolfpac group, won the World War III main event battle royal, earning himself a shot at the WCW World Title at Starrcade 98 in the process. While Nash had his day, by 1998 the internet community had turned against him, feeling that he used his political power backstage to keep himself in a position on the card that he didn’t deserve. And indeed, over the weeks leading up to Starrcade, Nash (who was by this point the booker) began putting himself over other big, muscular guys to show that he could hang with a guy like Goldberg. People began to suspect that Nash was going to use his power as booker to put himself over Goldberg and, at Starrcade, everyone’s worst fears were realized when Nash did indeed end Goldberg’s undefeated streak and win the WCW World Title.

But now the real fun begins. Due to the large amounts of interference in the Goldberg-Nash match (including Hall zapping Goldberg with a tazer to set up the Nash win), Nash offered Goldberg a rematch on Nitro. However, the night of the rematch, Miss Elizabeth had Goldberg arrested on bogus harassment charges and he would be unable to make the rematch. Nash appeared upset at this, and even more upset at Hulk Hogan, who was floating around backstage that night. See, Hogan had “retired” following the loss to Goldberg and announced he was running for President, presumably to spoof off of Jesse Ventura’s legitimate run for Governor of Minnesota. Hogan was at Nitro that night campaigning, but when Hogan started laughing about the Goldberg arrest, Nash challenged him to take Goldberg’s place if he still thought he was so big and bad. Of course Hogan accepted, and came out to face Nash in the main event of the evening. However, instead of the clash of two behemoths that one might expect from these two, Hogan simply poked Nash in the chest and Nash fell over like he had been shot dead. Hogan laid on top of Nash and the puzzled referee counted three. Hogan and Nash got to their feet and laughed while giving one another a big hug. They were joined in the ring by Scott Hall, Scott Steiner, Lex Luger, and Buff Bagwell, the new “elite” NWO.

Turns out the whole arc of Nash winning the title from Goldberg, the rematch, and Hogan’s involvement at the very end was a big ruse designed to get the title back on Hogan. However, the series of events which saw Nash put himself over the hottest babyface in the company, then dropping the title in such a manner to Hulk Hogan of all people was too much, and everybody completely turned on the angle. What’s worse, the whole angle destroyed Goldberg because, while he would continue squashing people after this as if nothing had happened, the magic was gone. The problem was that Goldberg was never a very good wrestler. That’s why they had him just go out and squash people in thirty seconds, because he wasn’t equipped to carry anything longer than that. Once the undefeated streak was over, a very vital part of the Goldberg formula was gone forever, and Goldberg, who was now forced to get over on his own merits as a wrestler, was never the same.

* * *

Stuff sucked, right? So next time you think that bad booking started after 2001, just remember that bad booking in general and Kevin Nash in particular have been around for much longer than that. See you next time.