What If's in Pro Wrestling History

[King Kamala]

Those sound nice but given Austin and WWF creative's antipathy towards each other in 2002, I'm guessing we would've gotten to the Steve Austin Vs Big Show feud a few months early.

 

[Valeyard]

Austin breaks the streak.

 

[King Kamala]

That brings up another "What If"? If the Streak ends before 2005, The Undertaker's career trajectory is different as hell. Like I bet honestly, he's closer to the debate between The Big Show or Kane than even in WWE's false narrative that he's one of the GOAT

 

[Valeyard]

It depends on who ends the streak and how. It wasn't a huge part of his identity until 2005 or 2006, it seems like. Like before that it was a really cool trivia thing for people like me to obsess over (I still remember the over-worrying I had about the match at WM19 because I loved the stat and didn't want the streak broken if stupid Nathan Jones got pinned).

By all rights either HHH at WM17 or Orton at WM21 should've broken it anyway. Both had the exact perfect finish to do so and it would've been accepted. If they didn't push it so hard afterwards then it wouldn't be as big a deal and I think the fact he is the goddamn Undertaker would've made up for it.

They never talked about how the Bossman match would've been 4-0 Bossman vs 7-0 Taker though and in hindsight that kinda blows.

 

[King Kamala]

They started mentioning it in a non incidental way at X-7 and was kind of a big deal in the early '00s but it wasn't a really big deal until '07 (besides the Orton match).

The Mark Henry match at 22 is odd because WWE wanted to sell Mark Henry as a legitimate challenger to The Streak but you could tell that even they really didn't believe that anyone believed he had a shot. I think there was legit backstage chatter that Henry would be the one. I almost kind of would've liked to see it. As much as the IWC flipped out in 2014, I imagine it would've been even crazier if almost but not quite good Mark Henry did it!

 

[Valeyard]

I always heard it in passing. "Oh and don't forget he is undefeated at WM!" like as he is coming down the aisle or something. Then by 2005 it became a big deal and like you said stayed that way except for Henry.

Hey what if Angle and Taker got what they wanted and main evented 22? Aside from the show being dramatically saved.

 

[alfdogg]

I remember JR mentioning as early as WM13 that he had never lost at the show.

 

[King Kamala]

Vince brings it up at WrestleMania XI or XII IIRC. It got brought up fairly on but like I said it wasn't a consistently big deal until '07.

 

[King Kamala]

Listening to a podcast about the 25th Anniversary of Bash at the Beach '96 and they discussed what would have happened if the third man had been someone other than Hulk Hogan and whether or not WCW would have been so dominant late '96-'98. HONESTLY, I'm not of the mindset that "WCW would have been in the tank if Hogan wasn't the third man" (one of co-hosts said WCW would have been out of business by '98 if it wasn't Hogan). I think things were already trending in WCW's direction in first half of '96.

411MANIA | Eric Bischoff on How Big the NWO Would Have Been If Hulk Hogan Wasn’t The Third Man

Eric Bischoff on How Big the NWO Would Have Been If Hulk Hogan Wasn't The Third Man

411mania.com

Bischoff himself addressed this "What If?" on 83 Weeks this week.

I agree with him basically. I think WCW was on its way to dominating the Monday Night War in '96 and '97 after Hall and Nash showed regardless of who was the third man but I think they're probably less moderately dominant if Sting is the third man. It's probably more of an AEW over NXT levels dominance than 83 weeks of ratings wins in a row.

 

[BruiserBrody]

Hogan beats them all by Starrcade, potentially on a weekly basis.

Can you imagine an extended Brutus Beefcake/Nash feud?

 

[King Kamala]

Well, I think difference is Hall & Nash were able to push back somewhat on Hogan's BS. Whether that leads to Hogan bending or one of them returning to WWF years earlier IDK but I feel like worst case scenario, Hogan Vs the nWo is way better than Hogan Vs Dungeon of Doom & Four Horsemen.