The Contentious Ten 03.19.12: Top 10 Wrestling Regrets

Hello, and welcome to The Contentious Ten! My name is Nick Bazar, and I thank you for clicking.

No matter how aggressively you say otherwise, there are always things in life that you regret. Things so shameful or embarrassing that you wish you could have a makeover or re-do. The following looks at such things in the world of professional wrestling. Decisions and storylines that wrestling companies probably wish they could take back; decisions and storylines that cost people money and time, and ruined images and reputations. Obviously, this is a list of some of the worst in wrestling, so try not to cringe too much. And so, the Top Ten Wrestling Regrets…

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The XFLsize=6>

I can understand a company wanting to broaden its horizons and expand its business plan, but sometimes, you just have to know what kind of company you are and stick to it. There may be no better piece of evidence to back that up than Vince McMahon’s strange urge to get into the professional football arena with the XFL in the early 2000s. When people have too much money, they tend to do odd things. Some buy more houses, cars and boats that they’ll ever need; others, like McMahon, begin their own football organization. Before it even got underway, critics, the media and sports experts all predicted the XFL’s doom, and for once, they were right. Although it got off to a promising start, the ratings plummeted in its second week and never recovered. Once the first season concluded, the XFL was never heard from again. It’s actually pretty reminiscent of McMahon’s venture into Hollywood movies with WWE Films- another side project that hasn’t produced very favorable results. If this has taught us anything, it’s that the WWE should just stick to wrestling.

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WWF Resigns Ultimate Warrior…Againsize=6>

Like with pretty much every business in the world, the wrestling business is built on finding people and products that will make you money. This explains the WWF’s decision to bring the Ultimate Warrior back to the company in 1992 after a very bitter and unprofessional split in 1991. He was a valuable commodity who became one of their biggest stars and the fans wanted him back- I get that, it makes sense. However, not even a year passed and Warrior was released again. There are conflicting reports as to the reason behind it, but the belief was that he failed a drug test. At this point, you have to start measuring Warrior’s worth as a moneymaker against the damage he was inflicting on the company. After all, his second departure led to a sudden change to the Survivor Series 1992 card. You have to start questioning whether he’s worth the trouble. Fast forward to 1996, and the WWF was in financial trouble. They needed something big, and apparently, any hesitations that came with Warrior were thrown out the window as he was brought back again. Of course, the third and final run resulted in much of the same as Warrior ended up spurning the company once more. The difference was, in 1996 he had absolutely nothing to offer, and the entire run was a complete waste of time.

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WCW 2000size=6>

The year 2000 for WCW has to be seen as one of the worst for any wrestling company in the history of this business. Not only was the quality of all their programming abysmal, but TV ratings, buyrates and attendance all went down. People say the “Fingerpoke of Doom” from early 1999 was the final nail in the coffin for WCW, but they still weren’t in that bad of shape for the remainder of year. Rather, the year that has to be seen as regretful was 2000. From David Arquette and Vince Russo winning the World Heavyweight Championship to Goldberg turning heel and Sting’s never-ending feud with Vampiro, I’ll bet there are many things WCW wished they could have taken back from that year. Even if some of those things contributed to some short-term publicity (i.e., Arquette winning the championship), none of it helped build any kind of foundation for them to have any shot at long-term success. It also didn’t help that none of the veteran talent that a company is supposed to go to for leadership seemed motivated in the slightest. Simply put, WCW in 2000 was a lifeless company just waiting to be put out of its misery.

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Sting Doesn’t Go to WWEsize=6>

“Who wouldn’t want to say that they did at least one Wrestlemania? I’m not going to lie to you, of course I’d like to be able to say that I at least did one of those.”- Sting. Then do it Stinger! Go! It’s still a shame to me that a guy like Sting hasn’t been in a WWE ring. While Sting and the WWE have had talks in the past, nothing has ever materialized from it, and we still haven’t gotten that elusive Sting vs. Undertaker Wrestlemania match. I very much respect Sting’s loyalty to WCW and TNA, and I admire his ability over the years to make a huge name for himself in wrestling without ever needing the marketing machine that is the WWE, but even he admits that there’s at least a little bit of regret on his part. It doesn’t even have to be for a match against Taker at Mania. Let’s get him on a few Raws, a Hall of Fame induction and a Wrestlemania appearance so he can truly say he’s done it all in professional wrestling.

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TNA Hires Vince Russosize=6>

The troubles between Vince Russo and TNA began right at the start of the company in 2002. Jeff Jarrett wanted to bring him in, but Jerry Jarrett wanted to be the main guy in charge of creative. They eventually began to work together, but it was never a smooth ride. However, back in those days, I can understand Jeff wanting to bring a guy like Russo in. It immediately creates some kind of buzz for the upstart promotion among the internet crowd, and separates it from all other independent promotions. My problem comes when they decided to bring Russo back in the Fall of 2006 after they had severed ties with him in 2004. By 2006, TNA was a rapidly growing company. They had secured a great deal with Spike TV, had a fantastic mix of veteran talent and new stars, and the television they were producing was legitimately entertaining. They didn’t need Vince Russo. They didn’t need the baggage that came with whatever buzz he carried. At this point into their existence, Russo didn’t have much to offer other than resentment from fans. It’s not a shocking coincidence that late 2006 was also the time period when many fans began to turn on the TNA product. Russo did damage to TNA’s image from 2006 to 2011- an image that TNA is just now starting to recover from.

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WWF Ruins the Invasionsize=6>

The Invasion angle in 2001 could have, and should have, been the biggest storyline in the history of professional wrestling. Two companies feud for years, one eventually buys the other out and they settle their anger for one another in the ring in a wrestling epic. Instead, we got a severely watered down version of the ideal that featured barely any mainstay WCW and ECW names, and focused on a feud between the McMahon family as opposed to a feud between the WWF and WCW. To say they completely butchered the Invasion angle would be an understatement. Even worse, we didn’t even get a true presentation of what WWF vs. WCW would look like. Hell, Steve Austin and Kurt Angle were on Team WCW at different points! This was a feud that could have transitioned fans and the WWF from the Attitude Era to the post-Attitude Era smoothly with the introduction of the new stars of the future. Instead, fans lost interest and began to leave wrestling behind in huge numbers.

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Owen Hart Repelssize=6>

I honestly don’t think anyone is directly to blame for Owen Hart’s tragic accident, as it was just that, an accident. But looking back, there has to be regret on the part of the WWF for choosing the “Sting entrance” for Hart’s Blue Blazer character at the Over the Edge pay-per-view in 1999. Had it just been a regular entrance, the quick-release feature on his harness would have never malfunctioned and his life would not have been taken away at such a young age. Once again, I do not believe anyone involved was directly to blame for the accident, but there’s no question that they would have taken it in another direction had they known then what they know now. As fans, we could have gotten many more years of Owen Hart performances, a Hall of Fame induction and probably even a DVD chronicling his career. However, most importantly, a family would not have lost a father, husband and brother.

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Bret Hart in WCWsize=6>

This was regretful from two perspectives: First, there’s regret on the part of Bret Hart because it halted his wrestling career in its tracks (although, he was making an obscene amount of money, so he at least had that going for him). Second, there’s regret on the part of WCW because of how horribly they butchered his run with the company. Here you have a guy who was just the WWF Champion; a guy who had about as much buzz as you can get in the wrestling business due to his departure from the WWF. Bret Hart going to WCW in 1997 should have been the end of the WWF. However, WCW being WCW, they immediately put him on the backburner and had him play second fiddle to Hollywood Hogan and the New World Order. Within a couple months, all that buzz and excitement behind the Hart name was completely gone. By the time they finally decided to make him their “main guy” in late 1999 (two full years later), it was already far too late. They had already lowered his stock to nearly zero, and fans had moved on.

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WWE Crowns Chris Benoitsize=6>

Chris Benoit’s double-murder suicide in June of 2007 tainted the image of the WWE worse than pretty much anything else could have tainted it. When the story dominated news reports and newspapers, all we saw were images of Benoit holding the World Heavyweight Championship over his shoulder- the biggest prize the company has to offer and something wrestlers should be proud to wear. It’s not something you want associated with a murderer, but that was the image being portrayed to millions of people. It’s the reason he has been erased from the WWE’s memory- the reason we no longer see highlights of Wrestlemania 20 or hear any mention of the 2004 Royal Rumble on WWE programming. Two huge events in the history of wrestling vanished. It was a PR nightmare, and one they are still recovering from. For all those reasons, I have to believe that the WWE has much regret about crowning Benoit as the World Heavyweight Champion in 2004. At the very least, it cost them a large amount of time and money to erase him from memory, editing him out of videos and footage, and forcing them to do away with significant moments from their company’s history.

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WCW Releases Steve Austinsize=6>

This was like the time I had a Drew Brees rookie card, but I threw it away thinking it’d be worthless. One Superbowl victory and a major passing record later, and we have ourselves a completely different story. At one point in time, WCW had a young Steve Austin. Not seeing anything in his ability to become a moneymaker in the wrestling business, they fired him and the WWF gobbled him up. Within a couple of years, he was the biggest star in the wrestling world and the major reason for the WWF’s ultimate defeat of WCW. Funny how things work out. I would have loved to have seen Eric Bischoff’s face the night Austin was sharing a ring with Mike Tyson on Monday Night Raw, making history and drawing in new fans. You think he regretted firing him over the phone? Probably just as much as he regrets the time he was Bronco-busted by Mae Young. Either way, seeing what a huge impact this had on the wrestling industry, I have to list WCW’s firing of Steve Austin as the biggest regret in wrestling.