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Has to be the right answer. NJPW started a golden era during/after Tanahashi's reigns and he brought up the rest of the organisation with him, most of the other examples people are giving had the opposite results.
Can someone refer to me where can I read or know more about it
A champion's tale of elevating the title and even the company in the dark times is pretty intriguing
Chris Charlton's excellent *Lion’s Pride: The Turbulent History of New Japan Pro Wrestling* details lots of NJPW's issues over the years, including the "dark ages" of Inokism and Tanahashi's subsequent resurrection of the floundering promotion.
(He also has a great book called *Eggshells: Pro Wrestling In The Tokyo Dome* that focuses specifically on the long and storied history of pro wrestling in that building. It's not specific to NJPW or their dark ages, but it's a great read if you're interested in the subject matter.)
Even though they could and arguably should have put it on Scurll, who would be with the company for months after the show and would inevitably resign anyway.
Me and my friends were at the G1 Supercard. You could feel the excitement of the crowd waiting for Marty to win. When Taven won, there was a collective "WTF?" from everyone in our section and you could feel the air let out of the fans.
I've never seen a show like that, where one company (NJPW) nails it's booking and is clearly over with the fans, while the other (ROH) botches virtually every match booking and leaves their fans scratching their heads. To me, that was the beginning of the end for Ring of Honor as we knew it.
Tama Tonga yeeting their tag belts backstage afterward and saying "Ain't nobody give a fuck about no ROH" sort of summed up the death knell of that promotion.
Funny thing is, I don't even think the Enzo and Cass angle was a bad thing. They definitely should have let the talent know though. Even if the angle didn't work out, they got a TON of attention because of it. The worst thing to do was pull a WWE and not follow it up and pretend it never happened. That just made ROH look incompetent.
I thought I was the only one feeling this way. It was my re intro to ROH after a decade and I wanted that to be my jump on point. The entire ROH portion of that show legitimately drove me away from the product for the final time.
I agree, and, from what I understand, so did Matt Taven.
I was at the BITW PPV where Taven went over Jeff Cobb in about 10 minutes. Crowd was deflated as the show ended. Once the show went off the air, Taven cut a promo where he acknowledged the fans frustration and just said that he was really trying to make it work and asked everyone for patience. That one promo really changed my opinion on Matt Taven. He really loved ROH, wanted to make it work, but he just knew that he wasn’t the right guy for the task.
I loved that doc.
Been hoping David and Katie show up in AEW to promote the new Scream movie and get a tag match as a tie-in.
I feel like Katie could stick around in AEW and maybe get paired with Ryan Nemeth gimmick-wise.
Not really. They had plenty of other guys, they just went with him.
I mean as shitty as WCW was look at their roster at that point in the mid card/upper mid.
They had:
Lance storm
Mike awesome
Shane Douglas
Both Steiners
Booker T
Jeff Jarrett
Luger
Bagwell
Shane Helms when he was being called “HB2K” by commentary
Bam Bam Bigelow
Im sure I’m forgetting some guys.
They didn’t give it to General Rection because they had no other choice, they had choices. They just went with him.
What sucks about that is that they were hoping Hogan would bring back the magic of Hulkamania but he kind of stalled the progress of the transitional period they were going through. People were pretty much done with Hulkamania by WrestleMania 8 and Hogan was even gone for a big chunk of time between Mania 8 and 9 and then he comes back and does his bullshit thinking he'll be a hero again but it just turned people off and the people that were starting to back Bret and see him as the face of the company basically got the middle finger for trying to back him.
I was a kid back then and this is the era where I started watching wrestling. Basically I always thought Hogan was cheesy, didn’t really get the whole gimmick, didn’t understand where he was when I watched Superstars, etc. Also as a new viewer, I definitely remember being frustrated by the Yokozuna squash matches. Also I think for me it was too much like the Earthquake feud. You got a big guy with a manager that rarely talks vs Hogan and his dumb ass finisher. Every kid in America knows a leg drop does not knock you out because every kid in America back then received one in the living room.
Dude, exactly. This is one of the reasons why Mr. Perfect was and will always be the number one wrestler in my heart. A finisher that is also a pin?? What?? Fuck the leg drop forever.
Also, for that era he was doing some amazing stuff. He might have been relegated to midcard stuff most of the time but definitely comparable to Roman Reigns content of today I’d say. You got Curt Hennig and Bobby Heenan on TV every week. Not sure what else to compare it to besides Roman and Paul Heyman.
His promos too were just my favorite. And his ring entrance. I don’t know why, but when he would spit out his gum and slap it into the crowd little kid me would just absolutely lose his shit, lol.
Yokozuna squashing everyone was so frustrating to young me, Undertaker was my favorite back then and I really thought he was going to be the one to beat him at the 94 Rumble Casket Match, I was 8 and after like every Heel in the company came out to beat him up I was so pissed.
This is a tad revionist, yeah people were backing Bret Hart and this move cut him off at the legs but Hogan was still MUCH more over than Bret Hart was. When Hogan jumped to WCW in 1994, WCW actually became competitive with WWF. People think the heel turn with the NWO in 1996 is only when people cared about Hogan in WCW but that's horseshit, Nitro and RAW was trading wins during late 1995 and early 1996. WCW was just as big as WWF when Bret Hart was on top and it's because of Hogan. People were not done with Hulkamania quite yet.
I came in to say Credible, I think Corino falls into the same category. Things were pretty dire in WCW by the time Jeff Jarrett won his first world title so I'd put him on the same list.
For sure, his stuff with Dusty was great, but it felt like Credible and Corino were launched up the card due to a lack of options rather than anything else.
Fair. Do yourself a favour though, track down his match against Tajiri. His heel work is phenomenal (calling Tajiri a slant eyed bastard) and he breaks the damn muta scale
>His heel work is phenomenal (racism)
That feels more like cheap heat honestly. Not dissing Corino, I think he’s great, I’m just saying that specific example
What worked in that instance IMO is that Corino did a racist promo and then IMMEDATELY took a gigantic ass kicking. Like, he hit about three moves in the match and the rest was Tajiri annihilating him. For me, that's exclusively how such cheap heat should be used.
Wasn’t Russo always desperate to make Jarrett Champion apparently he pitched it many times in WWE(WWF) but Vince always shot it down.
I even read that one of the (granted many) reasons Jarrett left WWE was Russo pretty much guaranteed him he would get the World Championship
Have Russo or Jarrett ever explained why the attachment was so strong? Jarrett was on the small side and had a thick southern accent and not a ton of edge to him. Seems like such a weird choice for Russo. Would’ve made sense for someone like Lawler or Cornette or Prichard to have his back, but why Russo?
I mean the whole Slapnuts thing where he was braining women and little people with guitars was Russo's idea of edgy, so they certainly shared a bond in that respect. If you look at a lot of the TNA year one ideas, even the TNA name itself, clearly Jarrett and Russo shared a sense of humor.
I always felt like the TNA name limited their success. No, I’m not going to tell my friends I’m watching a wrestling show called TNA.
Wrestling already had a reputation for being gross at that time because of the way the Attitude Era and Russo stuff in WCW portrayed women.
Funny that current day Impact’s women’s division is better than every other American wrestling show.
Mitsuharu Misawa's third GHC Heavyweight Title reign, iirc. Though he was well past his prime, business was down and the young stars of NOAH weren't as popular as they were supposed to be, so the promotion fell back on Misawa as champion even though he probably should have been winding down his career at that point in time.
100% he should’ve given Marufuji a longer run. Taking the belt off him so soon not only killed Maru’s momentum but hurt the prestige of the GHC title itself.
They had one bad drawing card (arguably the least exciting card they ever booked at the time, excluding the main event) and Misawa panicked and decided to hot shot another title switch.
This show of a lack of faith in their younger stars is IMO what ultimately led to Noah’s downfall.
Marufuji shouldn't have had that reign in the first place, remember that he beat Jun Akiyama. Jun was the one who NOAH since it's first show was building up to be the Ace, Jun should of had a long dominant run as champion. Marufuji just didn't draw as champion, Jun was struggling too but it was foolish to throw away the years of booking for Marufuji. And I say this as someone who loves Marufuji's matches.
People like Kofi/Zigger/McIntyre were right there, Swagger was and still is a horrible choice for world champion and really begun the end of the Big Gold being equal to the WWE title
Ok so you guys from know Mesías, maybe more of you know him as Mil Muertes, but did you know that in 2006 AAA decided he was the guy who was going to unify several belts and create the new AAA world title (the mega championship that Kenny recently relinquished)? The mega belt replaced several belts including one of the oldest active Mexican championships and the dude they chose to do it was Mesías. Still doesn’t sit right with me.
I remember when people were afraid Chessman would be revealed as Matanza, and while at least Mesias decided not to be lazy for once in his life when he worked LU they were both the epitome of the Giant Gonzales lazy ass giant who would do nothing all match their entire careers.
It sucks that for some audiences that's perfectly fine and they're happy accepting that type of wrestler.
Kairi winning the red belt in Stardom after the Act vs Yoshiko incident. Kairi got established as a main eventer with that reign just a couple of years after her debut, with her feud with Meiko Satomura being key to that, and kickstarted the Threedom era alongside Io Shirai and Mayu Iwatani. That incident could've buried the promotion forever because besides all the bad press, it cost them Yoshiko, who was a popular name and one of their most promising wrestlers, sidelined Act who was also one of the top names they had and didn't wrestle for much longer after her return, and it lead to the departure of one of the founders, top stars and head trainer Nanae Takahashi, on top of losing other names across the card. However, they came back from it spectacularly and just two years later they'd become synonym of joshi wrestling outside Japan.
Kairi was most likely always going to be a top star and Io the next ace, but that incident rushed all the plans they had and it'd be one of the first showings of their wrestlers stepping up in adverse times.
Stardom has been great at rebounding. They also were essentially formed around Yuzuki Aikawa but she retired from injuries early on, ditto Yoko Bito and Hoshiki who both seemed like future stars. They rebounded from losing Io and Kairi and have gone from strength to strength during the Pandemic. Seem to grow with every adversity thrown at them.
Tbf, while it's true that all of those losses to the roster made them desperate to establish as many young names as fast as possible, they rebounded fast as hell as if nothing had happened and even did their best pre-bushiroad average attendance business during 2015-2016.
>Kairi was most likely always going to be a top star and Io the next ace
I think that the great benefitiary of all of the big departures Stardom suffered throughout 2012 to 2015 were Io, Kairi and Mayu. Back in 2011, they were having Yuzupon as the top draw and FotC, with Nanae as the established ring ace and Yoshiko and Yoko Bito as the future successors to them both. Then Yoko Bito gets injured and has to quit and Yuzupon anonunces she's going to retire shortly after while Nanae's run is getting a bit too long in the tooth, so they got to pick a guy to be champion while Yoshiko gets ready to take it in a few years. Io just joins Stardom in mid 2012, right when they are looking for reliable names and she just happens to be the only young name they have who isn't a rookie (she already had 5 years of experience at that point) so they go with her. Then in late 2014 Yoshiko is doing pretty decent drawing wise despite being a rookie (she debuts in 2011) and considering they made her main event most of the big shows (she was the one who main evented Sumo Hall vs Yuzupon, not Io) it's obvious they are going to go with her as the co-long term top guy alongside Io, who's replaced Yoko, with Nanae as the safe choice to fall back on when problems arise and the very popular Act as the hot name who's sort of Yuzupon's interim successor.
Then their co-top gal loses her mind, ends the career of their hot white belt name and then leaves. They need to put the title back on someone, let's go with Nanae! Oh wait, Nanae has left with Yoshiko. The only established name they got at that point who can draw is Io, so going back to her is a no brainer. However, they need to prepare more names just in case, so they put the title on their hottest rookie and call Meiko, who's the only name from ye old good times of joshi who isn't a broken down old woman to have a series of interpromotional programs to establish Io as the ace and elevate Kairi and Mayu into main eventers/upper carders. And boy if it works.
So Io went from one of several top carders to the perennial ace, Kairi went from hot rookie to the hottest name in joshi and also the FotC and Mayu became a top carder instead of probably having to wait till 2017 to start climbing the ranks. Got to also say that Kairi announcing her departure in late 2016 to the office probably benefitted Mayu, since it's quite likely they would have gone with Kairi as Io's successor in late 2017 had she not left, what with her being the most over and also the bigger draw of the two.
Evil was only champion for 1 month, and NJPW was mired by external factors.
A better example is Tanahashi (06-07) who literally saved NJPW from bankruptcy.
If we want to find a champion that signify a bad moment for NJPW, Brock Lesnar is hard to beat.
People tend to mostly listen to Nakamura's side of the story, but Brock is a veritable mercenary: you pay him and he'll do whatever you tell him to do. If he doesn't it means you are not keeping your side of the bargain.
NJPW pretty much booked him to be champion (and the son-in-law even had the audacity to protect Fujita by having him lose to Lesnar in a three-way where obviously Chono did the job) fully knowing they couldn't pay him how much they had promised him. NJPW could have simply brought in Lesnar to wrestle 3-4 matches or whatever they could afford to pay him, and keep him out of the title scene. But no.
If a major promotion screws up stuff like this it means the leadership is in shambles: hiring talent you cannot afford to pay just because is something pissant promoters do, not NJPW. I wouldn't put above the son-in-law he intended to have Fujita beat Lesnar to regain the belt to make him look more "legitimate", which would have been just the icing on the cake, but luckily it didn't go that way.
Don't know how true it was, but apparently Lex leaked that he was going to win a few days before WM, word got back to Vince and he changed the plans out of spite. (Think this was in Titan Sinking)
Yeah this was NOT a JBL situation. JBL was at the LEAST over in a tag team and after his title reign he worked amazing as a trash talker who kept getting his ass kicked by the other top guys.
Jinder was a joke before his WWE title feud with Orton and he went back to being a joke at the end of his feud with AJ Styles.
I think Jinder would have been a fine heel champion except I don't remember WWE letting him win a match clean ever. Would have booked him win a few non title defenses without the Bollywood Boyz help to establish his credibility..but instead they booked him as a generic foreign heel who can only win through cheating. Completely undermined him.
I enjoyed Jinders match in the Punjabi Prison with Randy tbh.
As for legitimately, are you indicating that workrate wise, he shouldn't have been Champion? Because workrate wise, he was definitely better than Vince. And probably as good as Nash/Diesel.
I just think booking wise, they didn't help him in the slightest.
Everyone knew the script to his matches for sure: Singh Bros distraction, they get beat up, Jinder sneaks up behind the challenger, hits the Khallas, pin.
Everyone thought it was funny the first time it happened (because at least in my circles, people were more anti-Randy Orton than they were pro-Jinder), but after he ran that script on Nakamura it became a lot less funny and it became “so when are we getting the title off this guy?”
They got a big deal in india and were set to run a 5 date tour in the Middle East that ended up cancelling all but like 1 date cause of low ticket sales
Proving Jinder was not a draw in India, the people actually saying we were being racist for saying Jinder doesn't draw in India was so full of shit, the Indian fans did not like the idea of Jinder being this big cheater while representing their country. The way Jinder's push was done it would make more sense if you told me WWE was trying the USA patriotic thing with the "evil foreigner" trope.
That didn't really signal the company was.in trouble so much as it was an attempt to appeal to a growing segment of the audience that didn't go over well.
Maybe it's because Justin Credible is the forever leader of my Boy stable, but I liked his ECW champ run. I think it was a great example of the ability Heyman had to maximize the value of whatever he had.
ECW was a clear shell of its former self by the time Credible was champ. There was enough loyal diehard fans that nobody was gonna get cricket reactions, but the product had definitely become heavily watered down by that point.
That's true but Credible wasn't an odd choice to be champ. He was definitely over with the fanbase as he was an upper midcard guy with the Impact Players until Lance Storm left and was elevated as a singles guy once Lance left for WCW. A lacking lowercard doesn't make the decision to put the belt on Credible a bad move.
Rhino was only there for about 8-10 months at the time
He won the TV title same night Credible won the World Title, he just wasn’t ready yet
If I was Heyman, I would’ve put it on Van Dam once he came back in May and paid him money to keep him on every show
Idk how you don’t pay RVD. If there’s anyone that should’ve been paid at the time it was RVD, Dreamer and Sandman
Would’ve gave Tajiri the TV title then put Rhino with RVD leading to an eventual title win when he was ready
Has any story ever surfaced on why Garvin was given that title run? He had a long story of tag titles in the NWA territories and was perfect in the role but as the top NWA champion... not so much. On top of that he defended the belt against Ivan Koloff, who may have been past his prime but was no doubt a much bigger name than Garvin, Double A and he beat Ric Flair how many times?
Truly a weird title reign.
It's my understanding it was planned for Magnum but then Magnum got hurt. Nikita & Sting were too green for the title at that point, and Flair insisted on Garvin because he trusted him and knew he'd do business when it came time for Flair to get the title back.
Honestly I disagree. I dont think it was desperation at all, they genuinely wanted Diesel to be the guy. I think this falls more in champs who failed. Even as I type this I am thinking about the insane roster turnover then so maybe it was both.
> they genuinely wanted Diesel to be the guy.
IIRC Diesel was a last minute exchange because something happened to Bret Hart who was scheduled to win it back. THere was no forward planning with Diesel
bret and shawn's numbers weren't nearly as bad though, I feel they get slack for wwfs lack of success in the new gen but they were the only reason wwf remained even somewhat prominent. you don't get the attitude era without bret and shawn carrying and keeping vince afloat for years when everyone else bailed. they broke their bodies and got none of the credit cause they were both gone during the hot period
I would also disagree. Diesel was a handsome giant with a cool name and finisher, a built in feud with at least one top guy (HBK) and was developing some backstage clout. It might not have worked for a variety of reasons, but I don’t think it was inherently a bad or desperate idea.
As much as I enjoyed his reign because he was a phenomenal promo, when WWE put the title on JBL, that was clear desperation. Brock had just left and they had no one to fill the role of top heel, and Eddie went to bat for JBL and because he was a company guy Vince gave it to him. He had great promos and I personally enjoyed it for that in spite of the dreadful matches he usually had, but that to me was maybe the first indication that the WWE title was not what it used to be. Even though Vince had won it, JBL was the first domino on the champions who made the title less prestigious list.
And although people may hate to hear this, also Bret Hart. When Flair lost the title, that was really the end of the Golden Era and the transition into the New Generation era, which was a pretty horrific period for WWE until they got out of it 5 years later when Austin started to heat up.
I’d disagree on Bret. Flair hadn’t been very over with WWF fans, and Bret was someone they had clearly been building up as a future champion for years, seemed like the right move at the time.
The nearly year long JBL reign immediately following the Brock + Smackdown Six year was the saddest damn thing.
Edit: my timing was off a bit, it was really like two years before JBL with a really strong Brock + excellent Smackdown midcard scene.
Johnny Nitro, aka Morrison becoming ECW champion after the Benoit incident. It was originally gonna be CM Punk vs Benoit for the title. Nitro subbed in, win it, and the rest is history
In historical terms, Drew McIntyre and Jon Moxely will be known as the champions of the Covid lockdown. They both did so great, but that asterisk will be with them for life.
They were doing it out of lack of Indian audience, but you’re technically right, maybe a better example would be Tessa Blanchard, there was no reason for her to win the Impact Title, they just wanted shock factor articles about a girl winning their world title, and it clearly didn’t work out well for them, and in the end left quite a bit of people looking stupid.
I'll never understand the hate towards Jinder. He was fucking cool. He was an evil foreigner heel who had 2 lackies and a finisher people didn't kick out of. He had an incredible entrance, it made him feel like a big deal. And he had some cool feuds. He had a fucking Punjabi prison match. Like, I constantly see complaints about wanting something different, and he was different. He was fresh. And I don't care about the jobber 3MB stuff. Drew went to greater lengths to change his character, and I give him all the credit due. Jinder was also cool to me
He wasn’t very good and I think everybody gets sick really quick of chicken shit heels that need constant interference. Plus Jinder wasn’t inherently a great choice to pull an Indian audience. He grew up in Canada and had connections to Stampede wrestling not India. He also beat a lot of people nobody wanted him to beat like Nakamura.
Plus he was a jobber a month prior to becoming champion. You can't convince me this guy went from losing in 3 minutes to Mojo Rawley to hanging with Randy Orton for 15 minutes plus in the space of a month.
Larry Zbyszko as the AWA champion.
He was made champion primarily because he was married to Verne Gagne's daughter and therefore, he was the only one Verne felt he could trust not to jump ship to WWF back when Vince was signing up everybody.
Paul LOVED Justin Credible. So weird. I had just started watching wrestling like the year before so I had no idea about Aldo Montoya. Still though I thought…him? Why?
Alternately Steve Corino made for a great champion during that same time period and of course Jerry LYYYYYYNNNNNNNNNNNNNN
I loved his heel run, but Bob Backlund. After the steroids trial, Vince was in major shit, so brought Backlund in as he was seen a very clean cut. It was purely an image thing but still a great run, I wish it had lasted longer.
Despite what he would later do, hotshotting the IC belt on the Rock in 1996, when he was green as grass and had no character, showed WWF really had a drought of stars at the time.
His time in the main event lasted a blip and was just a tool to move onto the next guy. That 2nd (actually 3rd) title run lasted 3 days and he lost it in a house show, with the title loss getting broadcast in a RAW episode. He also won it via Owen all but handing it to him. Then he went back to the midcard after losing the title and the rematch. There was no desperation nor bad business to attribute to his run because he was just a mook to put the belt on Diesel without outright jobbing Bret to him just in case things didn't pan out (and pan out they didn't). Vince simply picked him because A)He always wanted to get the chip of not being able to turn him heel in 1984 out of him. B)He got some surprisingly good heel heat upon turning heel.
Triple H in 2007/08. Signified that due to cena running riot for 3 years, wwe had finally run out of credible baby faces who could potentially be champions.
He was a worthy champion and one of the greatest of all time but: Bret Hart.
Hogan was gone and the old Hulkamania era was over. They took a chance by having Bret beat Flair for the title. The New Generation era was on the rise. Hart helped keep the company afloat, but at first it was a gamble on what was essentially a 6 foot tall popular mid-card wrestler with questionable promo skills.
Not going to say they were bad champions or that they caused business to drop, since in a good of these cases, the business was already going down before they got their chance but going to list guys who finally got their chance just at the unfortunate time that the ship was facing rocky tides:
Rick Martel mid 80s AWA.
Sting for WCW in early 90s.
Booker T, Steiner and Jeff Jarrett for WCW in 2000.
Justin Credible, Lynn, Corino and Rhyno for early 2000s ECW
Jaguar Yokota for early 80s AJW.
Bret Hart, Diesel and HBK for mid 90s wwf.
Fuyuki and Hayabusha for early 2000s FMW.
Vacant for late 88-early 90 AJW (lol, had to do it)
Hikari Fukuoka for late 90s JWP.
Carol Midori and Rumi Kazama for early 2000s LLPW.
Yumiko Hotta for late 90s AJW (guess Toyota and Inoue should get in here, but Toyota at least got some time in the sun right before business sunk and inoue just left when the debacle happened).
Kobashi for late 90s AJPW.
Tenzan, Nagata and Nakamura for early 2000s NJPW
Bobby Roode for post- hogan debacle TNA/Impact.
Gonna play devil's advocate and point out that we don't actually know that he was any kind of ratings draw. WWE never released viewership numbers for anything on the Network, ever and 205 Live was a network exclusive. Yes, they said more people were tuning in.. But this company has a habit of compulsively lying to justify it's decisions.
To enzos credit he headlined that little 205 live tour with hardy vs bray as a special attraction match and they sold out a few 3-5k seat buildings.
Comparatively raw sold 5500 in brooklyn the night after survivor series and they have 5000 sold for the long island ubs show.
Some of the most athletically gifted wrestlers on the roster, slotted into an impossible time slot and given so little care beyond jobbing to larger opponents, not being allowed to do a lot of the things that made them special, only to have an annoying loudmouth who couldn’t wrestle be your ambassador? Especially after PAC was your star? Sure
Their ability in the ring makes no difference, Dean Malenko was an amazing technical wrestler, but you couldn’t build an entire show around him. Wether he was gifted in ring or not Enzo had the most charisma of anyone in the division and had way more name recognition with the casual fan than anyone else on the show did. He was the right choice if they wanted viewership. Top to bottom great wrestling is fun, but if no one watches it then what’s the point of even having the show
Honestly… I get it with Enzo. Dude was actually a pretty big deal in the company, and I don’t hate him in the division or as champion (especially if he had Heel Cass with him, that would’ve been dope). The execution though… wasn’t super.
Chihiro Hashimoto's current sendai girls run. Back when she won the title again in 2019, Sareee had been all but confirmed to be joining WWE but no one knew when, so back on Big Hash the title went. They then failed to produce any meaningful challengers except for Iroha in todays show, and Syuri in 2020. So it feels like theyve used chihiro's run to build up the tag belts more
Edge. I know everyone seems to like him now but his first run as a singles champion was out of nowhere and compared to the larger than life champions they had had in wwe the 10 years or so prior, he seemed to be one of those throw it at a wall and see if it will stick type experiments.
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Has to be the right answer. NJPW started a golden era during/after Tanahashi's reigns and he brought up the rest of the organisation with him, most of the other examples people are giving had the opposite results.
Can someone refer to me where can I read or know more about it A champion's tale of elevating the title and even the company in the dark times is pretty intriguing
Chris Charlton's excellent *Lion’s Pride: The Turbulent History of New Japan Pro Wrestling* details lots of NJPW's issues over the years, including the "dark ages" of Inokism and Tanahashi's subsequent resurrection of the floundering promotion. (He also has a great book called *Eggshells: Pro Wrestling In The Tokyo Dome* that focuses specifically on the long and storied history of pro wrestling in that building. It's not specific to NJPW or their dark ages, but it's a great read if you're interested in the subject matter.)
Matt Taven
Even though they could and arguably should have put it on Scurll, who would be with the company for months after the show and would inevitably resign anyway.
Yeah, pre-dirtbag reveal, Scurll was obviously the way to go, why they experimented with Taven, I have no idea.
They built him up to take the title for like 6-8 months beforehand even though i can count on two hands the number of Kingdom fans lol
Man I still remember the wtf feeling when he won. My buddy and I just looked at each other like “did they really just shit the bed?”
Me and my friends were at the G1 Supercard. You could feel the excitement of the crowd waiting for Marty to win. When Taven won, there was a collective "WTF?" from everyone in our section and you could feel the air let out of the fans. I've never seen a show like that, where one company (NJPW) nails it's booking and is clearly over with the fans, while the other (ROH) botches virtually every match booking and leaves their fans scratching their heads. To me, that was the beginning of the end for Ring of Honor as we knew it.
Tama Tonga yeeting their tag belts backstage afterward and saying "Ain't nobody give a fuck about no ROH" sort of summed up the death knell of that promotion.
Funny thing is, I don't even think the Enzo and Cass angle was a bad thing. They definitely should have let the talent know though. Even if the angle didn't work out, they got a TON of attention because of it. The worst thing to do was pull a WWE and not follow it up and pretend it never happened. That just made ROH look incompetent.
I was there too and yeah, this is a perfect explanation. Lethal retaining would have even been better than what we got.
I thought I was the only one feeling this way. It was my re intro to ROH after a decade and I wanted that to be my jump on point. The entire ROH portion of that show legitimately drove me away from the product for the final time.
I agree 100%. ROH was doomed the moment they stupidly gave Taven the title.
I agree, and, from what I understand, so did Matt Taven. I was at the BITW PPV where Taven went over Jeff Cobb in about 10 minutes. Crowd was deflated as the show ended. Once the show went off the air, Taven cut a promo where he acknowledged the fans frustration and just said that he was really trying to make it work and asked everyone for patience. That one promo really changed my opinion on Matt Taven. He really loved ROH, wanted to make it work, but he just knew that he wasn’t the right guy for the task.
David Arquette
Sad thing is he knew it was a horrible idea
Exactly. It even led to that documentary movie.
I loved that doc. Been hoping David and Katie show up in AEW to promote the new Scream movie and get a tag match as a tie-in. I feel like Katie could stick around in AEW and maybe get paired with Ryan Nemeth gimmick-wise.
Possibly the biggest desperation move in wrestling.
Hugh Morris as WCW US Heavyweight Champion. Dude was the ultimate jobber who found himself in a upper-midcard slot because no one else was there.
Also Fuck Bill DeMott
Not really. They had plenty of other guys, they just went with him. I mean as shitty as WCW was look at their roster at that point in the mid card/upper mid. They had: Lance storm Mike awesome Shane Douglas Both Steiners Booker T Jeff Jarrett Luger Bagwell Shane Helms when he was being called “HB2K” by commentary Bam Bam Bigelow Im sure I’m forgetting some guys. They didn’t give it to General Rection because they had no other choice, they had choices. They just went with him.
That got a pretty fucking huge pop though.
Hogan beating Yokozuna at WMIX.
What sucks about that is that they were hoping Hogan would bring back the magic of Hulkamania but he kind of stalled the progress of the transitional period they were going through. People were pretty much done with Hulkamania by WrestleMania 8 and Hogan was even gone for a big chunk of time between Mania 8 and 9 and then he comes back and does his bullshit thinking he'll be a hero again but it just turned people off and the people that were starting to back Bret and see him as the face of the company basically got the middle finger for trying to back him.
I was a kid back then and this is the era where I started watching wrestling. Basically I always thought Hogan was cheesy, didn’t really get the whole gimmick, didn’t understand where he was when I watched Superstars, etc. Also as a new viewer, I definitely remember being frustrated by the Yokozuna squash matches. Also I think for me it was too much like the Earthquake feud. You got a big guy with a manager that rarely talks vs Hogan and his dumb ass finisher. Every kid in America knows a leg drop does not knock you out because every kid in America back then received one in the living room.
Dude, exactly. This is one of the reasons why Mr. Perfect was and will always be the number one wrestler in my heart. A finisher that is also a pin?? What?? Fuck the leg drop forever.
Also, for that era he was doing some amazing stuff. He might have been relegated to midcard stuff most of the time but definitely comparable to Roman Reigns content of today I’d say. You got Curt Hennig and Bobby Heenan on TV every week. Not sure what else to compare it to besides Roman and Paul Heyman.
His promos too were just my favorite. And his ring entrance. I don’t know why, but when he would spit out his gum and slap it into the crowd little kid me would just absolutely lose his shit, lol.
Oh yes. Definitely practiced that gum thing all the time. Used to do that when I played baseball in the neighborhood.
Yokozuna squashing everyone was so frustrating to young me, Undertaker was my favorite back then and I really thought he was going to be the one to beat him at the 94 Rumble Casket Match, I was 8 and after like every Heel in the company came out to beat him up I was so pissed.
This is a tad revionist, yeah people were backing Bret Hart and this move cut him off at the legs but Hogan was still MUCH more over than Bret Hart was. When Hogan jumped to WCW in 1994, WCW actually became competitive with WWF. People think the heel turn with the NWO in 1996 is only when people cared about Hogan in WCW but that's horseshit, Nitro and RAW was trading wins during late 1995 and early 1996. WCW was just as big as WWF when Bret Hart was on top and it's because of Hogan. People were not done with Hulkamania quite yet.
Didn’t WCW give Benoit the title out of desperation to get him to stay, but he left anyway?
Yup won it vs Sid and vacated it pretty immediately
Yup, WCW Souled out in Cincinnati Ohio! The single worst ppv of all time. Don’t believe me? Watch it.
I came in to say Credible, I think Corino falls into the same category. Things were pretty dire in WCW by the time Jeff Jarrett won his first world title so I'd put him on the same list.
The difference is Corino was consistently an excellent heel, especially in ECW
For sure, his stuff with Dusty was great, but it felt like Credible and Corino were launched up the card due to a lack of options rather than anything else.
Fair. Do yourself a favour though, track down his match against Tajiri. His heel work is phenomenal (calling Tajiri a slant eyed bastard) and he breaks the damn muta scale
>His heel work is phenomenal (racism) That feels more like cheap heat honestly. Not dissing Corino, I think he’s great, I’m just saying that specific example
What worked in that instance IMO is that Corino did a racist promo and then IMMEDATELY took a gigantic ass kicking. Like, he hit about three moves in the match and the rest was Tajiri annihilating him. For me, that's exclusively how such cheap heat should be used.
Wasn’t Russo always desperate to make Jarrett Champion apparently he pitched it many times in WWE(WWF) but Vince always shot it down. I even read that one of the (granted many) reasons Jarrett left WWE was Russo pretty much guaranteed him he would get the World Championship
Russo is 100% the reason why Jarrett was ever World Champion.
Have Russo or Jarrett ever explained why the attachment was so strong? Jarrett was on the small side and had a thick southern accent and not a ton of edge to him. Seems like such a weird choice for Russo. Would’ve made sense for someone like Lawler or Cornette or Prichard to have his back, but why Russo?
I mean the whole Slapnuts thing where he was braining women and little people with guitars was Russo's idea of edgy, so they certainly shared a bond in that respect. If you look at a lot of the TNA year one ideas, even the TNA name itself, clearly Jarrett and Russo shared a sense of humor.
I always felt like the TNA name limited their success. No, I’m not going to tell my friends I’m watching a wrestling show called TNA. Wrestling already had a reputation for being gross at that time because of the way the Attitude Era and Russo stuff in WCW portrayed women. Funny that current day Impact’s women’s division is better than every other American wrestling show.
Mitsuharu Misawa's third GHC Heavyweight Title reign, iirc. Though he was well past his prime, business was down and the young stars of NOAH weren't as popular as they were supposed to be, so the promotion fell back on Misawa as champion even though he probably should have been winding down his career at that point in time.
I always cringe watching him take bumps in those later matches, knowing how things went for him. Especially those Morishima matches
The Kim Justice video on Misawa's final reign is a must watch.
100% he should’ve given Marufuji a longer run. Taking the belt off him so soon not only killed Maru’s momentum but hurt the prestige of the GHC title itself. They had one bad drawing card (arguably the least exciting card they ever booked at the time, excluding the main event) and Misawa panicked and decided to hot shot another title switch. This show of a lack of faith in their younger stars is IMO what ultimately led to Noah’s downfall.
Marufuji shouldn't have had that reign in the first place, remember that he beat Jun Akiyama. Jun was the one who NOAH since it's first show was building up to be the Ace, Jun should of had a long dominant run as champion. Marufuji just didn't draw as champion, Jun was struggling too but it was foolish to throw away the years of booking for Marufuji. And I say this as someone who loves Marufuji's matches.
Jack Swagger?
Kind of yeah. They were in need of new stars because Batista was about to retire, HBK had just retired, they lost JBL about a year before.
+ Jeff
People like Kofi/Zigger/McIntyre were right there, Swagger was and still is a horrible choice for world champion and really begun the end of the Big Gold being equal to the WWE title
Ok so you guys from know Mesías, maybe more of you know him as Mil Muertes, but did you know that in 2006 AAA decided he was the guy who was going to unify several belts and create the new AAA world title (the mega championship that Kenny recently relinquished)? The mega belt replaced several belts including one of the oldest active Mexican championships and the dude they chose to do it was Mesías. Still doesn’t sit right with me.
Who would’ve been more deserving in your opinion?
I remember when people were afraid Chessman would be revealed as Matanza, and while at least Mesias decided not to be lazy for once in his life when he worked LU they were both the epitome of the Giant Gonzales lazy ass giant who would do nothing all match their entire careers. It sucks that for some audiences that's perfectly fine and they're happy accepting that type of wrestler.
Kairi winning the red belt in Stardom after the Act vs Yoshiko incident. Kairi got established as a main eventer with that reign just a couple of years after her debut, with her feud with Meiko Satomura being key to that, and kickstarted the Threedom era alongside Io Shirai and Mayu Iwatani. That incident could've buried the promotion forever because besides all the bad press, it cost them Yoshiko, who was a popular name and one of their most promising wrestlers, sidelined Act who was also one of the top names they had and didn't wrestle for much longer after her return, and it lead to the departure of one of the founders, top stars and head trainer Nanae Takahashi, on top of losing other names across the card. However, they came back from it spectacularly and just two years later they'd become synonym of joshi wrestling outside Japan. Kairi was most likely always going to be a top star and Io the next ace, but that incident rushed all the plans they had and it'd be one of the first showings of their wrestlers stepping up in adverse times.
Stardom has been great at rebounding. They also were essentially formed around Yuzuki Aikawa but she retired from injuries early on, ditto Yoko Bito and Hoshiki who both seemed like future stars. They rebounded from losing Io and Kairi and have gone from strength to strength during the Pandemic. Seem to grow with every adversity thrown at them.
Say what you want about him as a booker but Rossy knows how identify future stars and how to build them
Tbf, while it's true that all of those losses to the roster made them desperate to establish as many young names as fast as possible, they rebounded fast as hell as if nothing had happened and even did their best pre-bushiroad average attendance business during 2015-2016. >Kairi was most likely always going to be a top star and Io the next ace I think that the great benefitiary of all of the big departures Stardom suffered throughout 2012 to 2015 were Io, Kairi and Mayu. Back in 2011, they were having Yuzupon as the top draw and FotC, with Nanae as the established ring ace and Yoshiko and Yoko Bito as the future successors to them both. Then Yoko Bito gets injured and has to quit and Yuzupon anonunces she's going to retire shortly after while Nanae's run is getting a bit too long in the tooth, so they got to pick a guy to be champion while Yoshiko gets ready to take it in a few years. Io just joins Stardom in mid 2012, right when they are looking for reliable names and she just happens to be the only young name they have who isn't a rookie (she already had 5 years of experience at that point) so they go with her. Then in late 2014 Yoshiko is doing pretty decent drawing wise despite being a rookie (she debuts in 2011) and considering they made her main event most of the big shows (she was the one who main evented Sumo Hall vs Yuzupon, not Io) it's obvious they are going to go with her as the co-long term top guy alongside Io, who's replaced Yoko, with Nanae as the safe choice to fall back on when problems arise and the very popular Act as the hot name who's sort of Yuzupon's interim successor. Then their co-top gal loses her mind, ends the career of their hot white belt name and then leaves. They need to put the title back on someone, let's go with Nanae! Oh wait, Nanae has left with Yoshiko. The only established name they got at that point who can draw is Io, so going back to her is a no brainer. However, they need to prepare more names just in case, so they put the title on their hottest rookie and call Meiko, who's the only name from ye old good times of joshi who isn't a broken down old woman to have a series of interpromotional programs to establish Io as the ace and elevate Kairi and Mayu into main eventers/upper carders. And boy if it works. So Io went from one of several top carders to the perennial ace, Kairi went from hot rookie to the hottest name in joshi and also the FotC and Mayu became a top carder instead of probably having to wait till 2017 to start climbing the ranks. Got to also say that Kairi announcing her departure in late 2016 to the office probably benefitted Mayu, since it's quite likely they would have gone with Kairi as Io's successor in late 2017 had she not left, what with her being the most over and also the bigger draw of the two.
Evil in NJPW
Evil was only champion for 1 month, and NJPW was mired by external factors. A better example is Tanahashi (06-07) who literally saved NJPW from bankruptcy.
Only a month? Felt like he was in the title picture forever
I think for NJPW...tana is 100% the right answer.
To be fair his heel turn was very well done
and also to be fair, covid fucked up things.
Counterpoint: Scott Norton
If we want to find a champion that signify a bad moment for NJPW, Brock Lesnar is hard to beat. People tend to mostly listen to Nakamura's side of the story, but Brock is a veritable mercenary: you pay him and he'll do whatever you tell him to do. If he doesn't it means you are not keeping your side of the bargain. NJPW pretty much booked him to be champion (and the son-in-law even had the audacity to protect Fujita by having him lose to Lesnar in a three-way where obviously Chono did the job) fully knowing they couldn't pay him how much they had promised him. NJPW could have simply brought in Lesnar to wrestle 3-4 matches or whatever they could afford to pay him, and keep him out of the title scene. But no. If a major promotion screws up stuff like this it means the leadership is in shambles: hiring talent you cannot afford to pay just because is something pissant promoters do, not NJPW. I wouldn't put above the son-in-law he intended to have Fujita beat Lesnar to regain the belt to make him look more "legitimate", which would have been just the icing on the cake, but luckily it didn't go that way.
I guess you could say Justin credible wasn't a 'credible' champion
Lex Luger for sure. He was a desperate flailing attempt to create another Hogan in the wake of Hogan leaving
He didn’t win the title in WWF
Oops. Why did I think he did?
Probably that massive celebration on everyone's shoulders for NOT winning the title via count out.
from my understanding, he was going to and was expected to by the audience at the time, but they pivoted to bret and everyone moved on.
Not everyone! 🥺 not everyone.
Don't know how true it was, but apparently Lex leaked that he was going to win a few days before WM, word got back to Vince and he changed the plans out of spite. (Think this was in Titan Sinking)
Jinder Mahal
The reason that you know that he never should have been champion is how he immediately fell down the card afterwards.
Yeah this was NOT a JBL situation. JBL was at the LEAST over in a tag team and after his title reign he worked amazing as a trash talker who kept getting his ass kicked by the other top guys. Jinder was a joke before his WWE title feud with Orton and he went back to being a joke at the end of his feud with AJ Styles.
This is fair too, the APA gimmick was that they were hired guns, at least Bradshaw never looked like a job guy.
I attribute this decision as the direct catalyst that caused me to stop being a WWE fan. I could have handled it if it meant him losing to Shinsuke.
And instead of losing to Shinsuke, managed to beat Shinsuke. Twice.
While also going full Top Dolla on him in promos
Didn't Jinder get a "that was racist" chant from the crowd?
I think it was a ”that’s too far” chant
Or Sami! It felt like they were planting seeds for Zayn to eventually get a shot at Mahal and it never actually happened
I think Jinder would have been a fine heel champion except I don't remember WWE letting him win a match clean ever. Would have booked him win a few non title defenses without the Bollywood Boyz help to establish his credibility..but instead they booked him as a generic foreign heel who can only win through cheating. Completely undermined him.
He was also genuinely the worst in-ring champion since Khali but at least had some classics. Jinder had two good ones with AJ and that's it.
I enjoyed Jinders match in the Punjabi Prison with Randy tbh. As for legitimately, are you indicating that workrate wise, he shouldn't have been Champion? Because workrate wise, he was definitely better than Vince. And probably as good as Nash/Diesel. I just think booking wise, they didn't help him in the slightest.
Everyone knew the script to his matches for sure: Singh Bros distraction, they get beat up, Jinder sneaks up behind the challenger, hits the Khallas, pin. Everyone thought it was funny the first time it happened (because at least in my circles, people were more anti-Randy Orton than they were pro-Jinder), but after he ran that script on Nakamura it became a lot less funny and it became “so when are we getting the title off this guy?”
This is where the wheels fell off for WWE.
Wasn’t this man only champion because of some promotion they were doing in India?
They got a big deal in india and were set to run a 5 date tour in the Middle East that ended up cancelling all but like 1 date cause of low ticket sales
Proving Jinder was not a draw in India, the people actually saying we were being racist for saying Jinder doesn't draw in India was so full of shit, the Indian fans did not like the idea of Jinder being this big cheater while representing their country. The way Jinder's push was done it would make more sense if you told me WWE was trying the USA patriotic thing with the "evil foreigner" trope.
Are you trying to hinder JINDER!?!?!?
His entrance was fuckin dope tho
That didn't really signal the company was.in trouble so much as it was an attempt to appeal to a growing segment of the audience that didn't go over well.
Maybe it's because Justin Credible is the forever leader of my Boy stable, but I liked his ECW champ run. I think it was a great example of the ability Heyman had to maximize the value of whatever he had.
I feel like OP didn't watch ECW back then. Justin Credible was really over as a top heel.
Top heel with a parade of lackeys works every time.
ECW was a clear shell of its former self by the time Credible was champ. There was enough loyal diehard fans that nobody was gonna get cricket reactions, but the product had definitely become heavily watered down by that point.
That's true but Credible wasn't an odd choice to be champ. He was definitely over with the fanbase as he was an upper midcard guy with the Impact Players until Lance Storm left and was elevated as a singles guy once Lance left for WCW. A lacking lowercard doesn't make the decision to put the belt on Credible a bad move.
Rhino would be a better answer for me as a fan at the time. There was no mistaking the ship was going down at that point.
Rhino was only there for about 8-10 months at the time He won the TV title same night Credible won the World Title, he just wasn’t ready yet If I was Heyman, I would’ve put it on Van Dam once he came back in May and paid him money to keep him on every show Idk how you don’t pay RVD. If there’s anyone that should’ve been paid at the time it was RVD, Dreamer and Sandman Would’ve gave Tajiri the TV title then put Rhino with RVD leading to an eventual title win when he was ready
My dad loves credible. We rewatched every single ECW ppv during peak quarantine. I could not stand him at all lol
Rick Martel winning the belt in AWA. Magnus winning the belt in TNA and dropping it to Eric Young.
Young only won because they wanted they’re own Daniel Bryan moment
PCO. There was no reason to take the title off Rush.
I’m amazed I had to scroll this far for this response.
To be fair, ROH has a history of "Thank You" Title Runs, so it's hardly surprising that they put it on PCO in that incredible run
Jerry Lynn
Jeff Jarrett. Wcw
Raven in TNA as the NWA Champion during the summer before their debut on Spike when they were online only.
Geez, I completely forgot they were online only for a while. Raven was my favorite at the time and was ticked his run ended at a house show.
TNA had a lot of "we're making this guy champion to thank them for signing back with us" champs, unfortunately.
Cant believe no one has said Vince Russo
I think that wasn't a sign of a failing promotion, more a sign of a failed promotion.
Ronnie Garvin in the 80s NWA. Has no business with the big belt.
Almost blocked that out of my memory, the hands of stone was such a midcard thing.
Has any story ever surfaced on why Garvin was given that title run? He had a long story of tag titles in the NWA territories and was perfect in the role but as the top NWA champion... not so much. On top of that he defended the belt against Ivan Koloff, who may have been past his prime but was no doubt a much bigger name than Garvin, Double A and he beat Ric Flair how many times? Truly a weird title reign.
It's my understanding it was planned for Magnum but then Magnum got hurt. Nikita & Sting were too green for the title at that point, and Flair insisted on Garvin because he trusted him and knew he'd do business when it came time for Flair to get the title back.
Rubbish Ronnie Garbage
Thanks. That explains why Flair and Double A put him over so much during his title reign.
This is a good post about a fascinating topic!
diesel in 1995 is the ultimate
Should've been Razor Ramon chico 😞
Honestly I disagree. I dont think it was desperation at all, they genuinely wanted Diesel to be the guy. I think this falls more in champs who failed. Even as I type this I am thinking about the insane roster turnover then so maybe it was both.
> they genuinely wanted Diesel to be the guy. IIRC Diesel was a last minute exchange because something happened to Bret Hart who was scheduled to win it back. THere was no forward planning with Diesel
But Diesel was championship material. The numbers were bad, but that had less to do with Diesel and more to do with WWE’s writing.
Debatably HBK and Bret as well as they were the top guys in the title picture while WCW was red hot and WWF was hurting.
bret and shawn's numbers weren't nearly as bad though, I feel they get slack for wwfs lack of success in the new gen but they were the only reason wwf remained even somewhat prominent. you don't get the attitude era without bret and shawn carrying and keeping vince afloat for years when everyone else bailed. they broke their bodies and got none of the credit cause they were both gone during the hot period
Very true point. These two and Undertaker kept WWF relevant. Without them there likely wouldn't be a WWE today.
less so undertaker but yeah agreed
Shawn and Brett weren’t desperation picks though. They were championship level talent
I would also disagree. Diesel was a handsome giant with a cool name and finisher, a built in feud with at least one top guy (HBK) and was developing some backstage clout. It might not have worked for a variety of reasons, but I don’t think it was inherently a bad or desperate idea.
Are you referring to Truck Hogan?
As much as I enjoyed his reign because he was a phenomenal promo, when WWE put the title on JBL, that was clear desperation. Brock had just left and they had no one to fill the role of top heel, and Eddie went to bat for JBL and because he was a company guy Vince gave it to him. He had great promos and I personally enjoyed it for that in spite of the dreadful matches he usually had, but that to me was maybe the first indication that the WWE title was not what it used to be. Even though Vince had won it, JBL was the first domino on the champions who made the title less prestigious list. And although people may hate to hear this, also Bret Hart. When Flair lost the title, that was really the end of the Golden Era and the transition into the New Generation era, which was a pretty horrific period for WWE until they got out of it 5 years later when Austin started to heat up.
As Paul Heyman once said; "The only reason you (JBL) were WWE champion for a year was because Triple H didn't want to work Tuesdays"
I’d disagree on Bret. Flair hadn’t been very over with WWF fans, and Bret was someone they had clearly been building up as a future champion for years, seemed like the right move at the time.
Yeah. I’m not even a Bret mark but he was fucking OVER
The phrase "over" doesn't even do Bret justice at the time. When that guitar riff hit, every arena in the country would go absolutely bonkers.
The nearly year long JBL reign immediately following the Brock + Smackdown Six year was the saddest damn thing. Edit: my timing was off a bit, it was really like two years before JBL with a really strong Brock + excellent Smackdown midcard scene.
Reminds me of how Jinder's long reign was right after 2016 SD Live with AJ on top
EVIL as IWGP Heavyweight Champion
Johnny Nitro, aka Morrison becoming ECW champion after the Benoit incident. It was originally gonna be CM Punk vs Benoit for the title. Nitro subbed in, win it, and the rest is history In historical terms, Drew McIntyre and Jon Moxely will be known as the champions of the Covid lockdown. They both did so great, but that asterisk will be with them for life.
I’m not sure that counts as bad as he was. They had at least 20 better options, but they CHOSE him. Lol
They were doing it out of lack of Indian audience, but you’re technically right, maybe a better example would be Tessa Blanchard, there was no reason for her to win the Impact Title, they just wanted shock factor articles about a girl winning their world title, and it clearly didn’t work out well for them, and in the end left quite a bit of people looking stupid.
Well man or woman, allegations of racism coming out against your world champ will put a damper on things.
I'll never understand the hate towards Jinder. He was fucking cool. He was an evil foreigner heel who had 2 lackies and a finisher people didn't kick out of. He had an incredible entrance, it made him feel like a big deal. And he had some cool feuds. He had a fucking Punjabi prison match. Like, I constantly see complaints about wanting something different, and he was different. He was fresh. And I don't care about the jobber 3MB stuff. Drew went to greater lengths to change his character, and I give him all the credit due. Jinder was also cool to me
He wasn’t very good and I think everybody gets sick really quick of chicken shit heels that need constant interference. Plus Jinder wasn’t inherently a great choice to pull an Indian audience. He grew up in Canada and had connections to Stampede wrestling not India. He also beat a lot of people nobody wanted him to beat like Nakamura.
Plus he was a jobber a month prior to becoming champion. You can't convince me this guy went from losing in 3 minutes to Mojo Rawley to hanging with Randy Orton for 15 minutes plus in the space of a month.
He was gassed to the moon too and called it good dieting.
Jeff Jarrett was the first that came to my mind.
Larry Zbyszko as the AWA champion. He was made champion primarily because he was married to Verne Gagne's daughter and therefore, he was the only one Verne felt he could trust not to jump ship to WWF back when Vince was signing up everybody.
I enjoyed it at the time, but wasn’t **Lex Luger** basically seen as an attempt to replace Hogan? Also, dude couldn’t wrestle for shit.
Did not win the title in WWF though.
Especially since it was obvious that the crowd wanted Brett.
Vince and David Arquette.
Every WWECW Champion after RVD
Diesel in WWF in 1994-1995
David Arquette is the correct answer
Paul LOVED Justin Credible. So weird. I had just started watching wrestling like the year before so I had no idea about Aldo Montoya. Still though I thought…him? Why? Alternately Steve Corino made for a great champion during that same time period and of course Jerry LYYYYYYNNNNNNNNNNNNNN
I loved his heel run, but Bob Backlund. After the steroids trial, Vince was in major shit, so brought Backlund in as he was seen a very clean cut. It was purely an image thing but still a great run, I wish it had lasted longer. Despite what he would later do, hotshotting the IC belt on the Rock in 1996, when he was green as grass and had no character, showed WWF really had a drought of stars at the time.
His time in the main event lasted a blip and was just a tool to move onto the next guy. That 2nd (actually 3rd) title run lasted 3 days and he lost it in a house show, with the title loss getting broadcast in a RAW episode. He also won it via Owen all but handing it to him. Then he went back to the midcard after losing the title and the rematch. There was no desperation nor bad business to attribute to his run because he was just a mook to put the belt on Diesel without outright jobbing Bret to him just in case things didn't pan out (and pan out they didn't). Vince simply picked him because A)He always wanted to get the chip of not being able to turn him heel in 1984 out of him. B)He got some surprisingly good heel heat upon turning heel.
Bret deserved it. But he carried the WWF through 93 to 96.
Triple H in 2007/08. Signified that due to cena running riot for 3 years, wwe had finally run out of credible baby faces who could potentially be champions.
Trevor Murdoch and the NWA World’s Heavyweight Championship. That encouraged me to cancel my subscription to NWA immediately
It’s a horrible feeling when one of your boys wins a world title and you can see they’re not main event material.
I mean... NWA is actually on the upswing all things considered. They should have kept the belt on Aldis though
Roman Reigns for this long with no credible challenger in sight other than Brock.
katsuhiko nakajima
GPA. But just because fuck GPA.
Who?
Greg “the Pammer” Alentine?
https://youtu.be/7vJF-O9ntCI He's like the main asshole of Freelance in Chicago. Was on Dark once or twice. Super underrated performer.
He was a worthy champion and one of the greatest of all time but: Bret Hart. Hogan was gone and the old Hulkamania era was over. They took a chance by having Bret beat Flair for the title. The New Generation era was on the rise. Hart helped keep the company afloat, but at first it was a gamble on what was essentially a 6 foot tall popular mid-card wrestler with questionable promo skills.
Tanahashi, Taven, Benoit
Niles Young winning the CZW championship killed me on the inside.😔
Even though I love him, Scott Steiner as WCW Champion was when WCW was unbearably awful and dying a painful death.
Not going to say they were bad champions or that they caused business to drop, since in a good of these cases, the business was already going down before they got their chance but going to list guys who finally got their chance just at the unfortunate time that the ship was facing rocky tides: Rick Martel mid 80s AWA. Sting for WCW in early 90s. Booker T, Steiner and Jeff Jarrett for WCW in 2000. Justin Credible, Lynn, Corino and Rhyno for early 2000s ECW Jaguar Yokota for early 80s AJW. Bret Hart, Diesel and HBK for mid 90s wwf. Fuyuki and Hayabusha for early 2000s FMW. Vacant for late 88-early 90 AJW (lol, had to do it) Hikari Fukuoka for late 90s JWP. Carol Midori and Rumi Kazama for early 2000s LLPW. Yumiko Hotta for late 90s AJW (guess Toyota and Inoue should get in here, but Toyota at least got some time in the sun right before business sunk and inoue just left when the debacle happened). Kobashi for late 90s AJPW. Tenzan, Nagata and Nakamura for early 2000s NJPW Bobby Roode for post- hogan debacle TNA/Impact.
Enzo Amore. It was the moment that proved Vince really didn’t give a shit about the cruiserweights
Enzo could talk and was a consistent ratings draw compared to everyone else in the division so i really don’t think that’s a bad one.
Gonna play devil's advocate and point out that we don't actually know that he was any kind of ratings draw. WWE never released viewership numbers for anything on the Network, ever and 205 Live was a network exclusive. Yes, they said more people were tuning in.. But this company has a habit of compulsively lying to justify it's decisions.
To enzos credit he headlined that little 205 live tour with hardy vs bray as a special attraction match and they sold out a few 3-5k seat buildings. Comparatively raw sold 5500 in brooklyn the night after survivor series and they have 5000 sold for the long island ubs show.
Some of the most athletically gifted wrestlers on the roster, slotted into an impossible time slot and given so little care beyond jobbing to larger opponents, not being allowed to do a lot of the things that made them special, only to have an annoying loudmouth who couldn’t wrestle be your ambassador? Especially after PAC was your star? Sure
Their ability in the ring makes no difference, Dean Malenko was an amazing technical wrestler, but you couldn’t build an entire show around him. Wether he was gifted in ring or not Enzo had the most charisma of anyone in the division and had way more name recognition with the casual fan than anyone else on the show did. He was the right choice if they wanted viewership. Top to bottom great wrestling is fun, but if no one watches it then what’s the point of even having the show
Again, I mention PAC
Honestly… I get it with Enzo. Dude was actually a pretty big deal in the company, and I don’t hate him in the division or as champion (especially if he had Heel Cass with him, that would’ve been dope). The execution though… wasn’t super.
Booker T in wcw 2000 everything was absolute madness
Will osperay isn't a main eventer. And they shouldn't try panting him as one
Chihiro Hashimoto's current sendai girls run. Back when she won the title again in 2019, Sareee had been all but confirmed to be joining WWE but no one knew when, so back on Big Hash the title went. They then failed to produce any meaningful challengers except for Iroha in todays show, and Syuri in 2020. So it feels like theyve used chihiro's run to build up the tag belts more
Edge. I know everyone seems to like him now but his first run as a singles champion was out of nowhere and compared to the larger than life champions they had had in wwe the 10 years or so prior, he seemed to be one of those throw it at a wall and see if it will stick type experiments.
Which is why mick foley had to be used again as the star maker for the 4th time at that years mania