Stealing the Spotlight - 1997

Jay M. Punkster

Indy Moderator

nice work man very intresting

Blitzkrieg

Why didn't WWE give Owen a chance at the belt in '95? Shouldn't that be a question running through the minds of everyone? Instead of Diesel going on a year long run as champ, which nobody cared about, why couldn't they have given Owen a chance then? He was fresh off his feud with Bret and hot as a firecracker.. Instead, he ends up tagging with Yokozuna and other bullshit..

Jay M. Punkster

Indy Moderator

The could have even continued his feud with Bret but for the belt. It would have been amazing, imagine both brothers fighting at WM for the belt.wow..

horrorfan_1986

I wouldn't have Owen be champion. Like you said, it would be pointless to have Owen be champion before Wrestlemania. Instead, it would just be Owen putting up some hard fought matches against Michaels. I would even say don't have Owen lose cleanly. Have Michaels get DQ'd or whatever. Having a competitve short feud with Michaels, in my eyes could of been a lot more productive then being jobbed out to Hunter.


Triple H wouldn't have had to be jobbed out. There's many ways to make both guys look good in a feud. Just look at Hunter's feud with Rocky later on in the year. Even though Triple H technically won the feud, that feud really launched The Rock into being main event worthy. The Triple H/Owen feud was all about making Owen Hart look bad night after night.

There's no doubt that Austin would of been the top main eventer. But in 1998, the WWF's main event roster was very thin. You had Steve Austin and The Undertaker and a few guys who kept jumping from division to division when needed (Kane and Mick Foley). Pushing Owen as the number 2 babyface could of led to him possibly being a main eventer in the future.

To make this simple (I'm thinking I just didn't really explain myself well enough), have Owen and Michaels feud for a month or two. Michaels keeps cheating helping him get more heel heat leading into Wrestlemania. Meanwhile, Owen in losing still looks very good. Not being beat cleanly by the World Champion will help push Owen. In reality, they cut the feud to only approx 3 weeks and then set out to have a good 3-4 month feud with Triple H jobbing Owen Hart out. By the end of that feud, Owen looked pretty bad and was a fry cry away from the top being the top heel midcarder he was the year before.

Blitzkrieg

Alright, cool. We're on the same page then.. I agree with everything you just said. Great post and topic, by the way.

Markus

I agree Owen as world champ would have been better then Diesel cause Diesel was a good wrestler but a bad world champion and his reign was boring as well.

horrorfan_1986

It took awhile, but I'm glad we're finally seeing eye to eye. Ha.

Diesel's title reign is probably one of the most underrated ever. Diesel was actually a good champion. However, in 1995, the WWF had such a weak talent pool. They were still trying to build Shawn Michaels up, Yokozuna was really out of shape and I assume the WWE officials didn't have much trust in him, Bret Hart took some time off and Taker was doing his typical feuding with the bizarre or big men. Because of all that, Diesel was stuck facing all midcarders who was tested in the main event. You had Shawn Michaels, Mabel, Sid and The British Bulldog all thrust into the main event until they could figure out what they were going to do. Michaels proved to be a good opponent, but they smartly knew that he needed to be built up more. Sid was completley lazy in the matches. If you rewatch them, you can see that Nash was putting in a lot of effort and working his ass off trying to get something good out of it. Mabel was Mabel, someone who had the size to be a main eventer, but he wasn't too talented and the fans didn't take to him. The Bulldog proved to be a reliable temporary main eventer that could put on a good match, even if he didn't really have the full tools to be a full time main eventer.

So while Nash's reign gets a lot of hate, I feel it's unfair hate. For what he had to work with, Nash did better than most would of did. Meanwhile, what could Owen really have done? Face main eventers were almost non-existent outside of Diesel and Bret Hart (Keep in mind he wasn't always active). Personally, even back then I saw Nash as a more realistic main eventer than Owen was. So I feel as if they made the right call.

Rated R Phenom

Well, I'm very clearly in the minority here, but I was not an Owen Hart fan at all. I just could not get into him whatsoever. I'd rather watch paint dry. Flame me all you want, but I found him about as interesting as a cinder block. Good wrestler....I'll give him that, but charismatic? I thought he was always incessantly whining and I was constantly telling him to "shut the fuck up" every week on my TV.

God

Super Moderator

I believe his gimmick was to be annoying at one point. If it had you shouting at the TV, i'd call that a success.

horrorfan_1986

I guess the question is did he make you change the channel when he was on? If the answer is no, then perhaps he was a better heel then you realized then.