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What if the Nexus storyline revealed CM Punk was the mastermind behind it? Wade Barrett once alluded to a higher cause they were working towards, and I guess it never made sense why they helped Kane in his Buried Alive match against the Undertaker. Revealing CM Punk as the mastermind, and I suppose combining it with what was left of the Straight Edge Society could have been something. It would probably need some rejigging of the personnel, especially at NXT Season 1 level (more former indy talent basically), so a line-up of, say Daniel Bryan, Chris Hero, Cesaro, Kaval, Wade Barrett and Darren Young (goes way back with D-Bry, Hero, Cesaro and Kaval, Barrett is there because the other guys vouched for him and their word is good enough for him, and he'll always look out for Darren Young because he was his NXT rookie, and he's shown nothing but loyalty - something like that). Benne posted:Hero Shield is DOA the moment Vince takes a look at his body. Putting Roman in that spot was the right call. People also liked Roman in The Shield. A lot of the resentment against him seems to come from his massive forced push after he came back from his hernia operation and the lovely promos he had to recite.
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Mar 27, 2020 01:25
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The solution there is to tell Hero to never take the vest off where Vince might see him. Shower in the hotel dude.
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Mar 27, 2020 01:39
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Benne posted:Hero Shield is DOA the moment Vince takes a look at his body. Putting Roman in that spot was the right call. Which is a drat shame, because Fat Chris Hero is a vastly better wrestler than thin but miserable Chris Hero. What if HHH's quad tear in 2001 had ended his career? He was a 4-time big strap holder at that time, and didn't marry Stephanie until 2003. Does he come out with remotely the same influence in the company, even if they still get together? I don't think so, without 10 years in the main event and with his lips to Vince's ear. That also gives us likely successful Scott Steiner and Goldberg runs in WWE without the Shovel Lord burying them, as well as Angle maybe never going to TNA, and Punk not having to put over an effectively-retired has-been when he was at his hottest. Liquid Communism fucked around with this message at 02:50 on Mar 27, 2020 |
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Mar 27, 2020 02:46
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Jericho probably becomes a much bigger deal without HHH holding the glass ceiling above him. HHH retiring is full butterfly effect because SO MUCH of WWE revolved around him for such a long period of time and he had so much to do with wrestlers either getting over or (more often) not getting over.
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Mar 27, 2020 08:50
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Booker T becomes World Heavyweight Champion at WM19, that's for sure.
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Mar 27, 2020 14:03
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Liquid Communism posted:What if HHH's quad tear in 2001 had ended his career?
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Mar 27, 2020 14:28
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stephanie mcmahon was originally going to marry owen hart.
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Mar 27, 2020 14:39
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I think an interesting one now is What if Vince/HHH let Jericho have NXT talent on the Jericho Cruise? This was noted as a big thing that led to the breakdown of their relationship and Jericho’s loyalty to WWE ending up in his run in NJPW and AEW.
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Mar 27, 2020 15:01
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If Stephanie married Test, would he still be alive today?
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Mar 27, 2020 15:30
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Malcolm Excellent posted:If Stephanie married Test, would he still be alive today? Would Steph be dead too? Because that excites me more (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Mar 27, 2020 21:35
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gross
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Mar 27, 2020 22:22
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What if in 1996 Diesel and Razor Ramon re-upped their contracts with WWF? Does this mean Brett Hart actually does leave in September for WCW? Does Hogan come back or just waits out 96 for a year to let his heat come back, maybe comes back at Starrcade still as a face to make the save for whatever top babyface in peril for the main event (I assume Sting vs a revitalized 4 Horsemen angle)? DX wouldn't happen, it would just be The Kliq because I can see Vince doing that as a heel faction to play kayfabe off the real backstage stuff going on.
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Mar 31, 2020 23:54
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super macho dude posted:What if in 1996 Diesel and Razor Ramon re-upped their contracts with WWF? I think Hogan really does get his wish of Yokozuna coming into WCW if the Outsiders never come in.
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Mar 31, 2020 23:58
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Ad by Khad posted:It's interesting to wonder if maybe NJPW would never have gotten cozy with ROH if this happened How did TNA ruin a Wrestle Kingdom?  I never get tired of hearing stories about TNA's reverse midas touch
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Apr 1, 2020 14:20
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Randaconda posted:How did TNA ruin a Wrestle Kingdom? They treated every visiting talent with, well... all the respect and good booking you fully expect from TNA. As I recall, Okada was sent there supposedly because he was being a cocky poo poo and needed to get knocked down a peg or two. Then TNA, well.. TNA'd. E: Here's the wiki on it: quote:Okada made his TNA debut at the February 16, 2010, tapings of Impact!, losing to Alex Shelley in a dark match.[17] At the March 9 tapings, Okada was defeated by Jay Lethal in another dark match.[18] On March 20, Okada made his debut for Jersey All Pro Wrestling (JAPW) at Wild Card VI, where he was defeated by fellow TNA wrestler Samoa Joe.[19] Okada's dark matches for TNA continued on March 23 with a loss against Daniels.[20] On April 6, Okada, using only his last name, competed in his first televised TNA match when he and Homicide were defeated by Generation Me (Jeremy and Max Buck) in a tag team match, which was later broadcast on the Xplosion television program and the company's official website and YouTube channel.[21][22] That same week, Okada also began wrestling at TNA's live events.[23] On May 4, Okada and Homicide were defeated in another Xplosion match by Ink Inc. (Jesse Neal and Shannon Moore).[24] On May 17, X Division Champion Douglas Williams defeated Okada in a non-title Xplosion match.[25] On July 15, Okada made his first appearance on Impact!, running out to the ring in an attempt to stop former ECW wrestlers from taking over the show.[26] At the August 9 tapings, Okada picked up his first victory in TNA, defeating Kid Kash in a dark match.[27] On the October 8 Xplosion, Okada formed a tag team with compatriot Kiyoshi, but the two of them were then defeated in their first match together by Ink Inc.[28] On the November 26 Xplosion, Okada was defeated by Rob Terry.[29] On the December 17 Xplosion, Okada was defeated by Stevie Richards.[30] Okada and Kiyoshi had a rematch with Ink Inc. at the December 7 tapings of Xplosion, but were once again defeated.[31]
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Apr 1, 2020 16:00
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Hirez posted:What if Seth Rollings didn't almost kill Sting? Would he have ever won a WWE match?! He won 2 matches on the 9/14/15 episode of Raw.
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Apr 1, 2020 16:14
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What if Riki Choshu and Ishin Gundan don't jump to All Japan in the 80's?
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Apr 1, 2020 20:48
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What if Japan treated American Talent like America treats Japanese talent? I mean I know the question is politically loaded but even taking ethics and morality out of it the implications seem huge. Again looms the possibility of no AEW (I swear so many of these end with AEW not existing that it's a miracle AEW does exist). ChrisBTY fucked around with this message at 21:03 on Apr 1, 2020 |
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Apr 1, 2020 21:00
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The immediate fantasy booking question that always comes to my mind is What if Vince just decided to pay Bret Hart for the rest of his contract instead of the bullshit that actually happened, ut I think that one has been talked to death maybe?
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Apr 1, 2020 21:18
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HulkaMatt posted:The immediate fantasy booking question that always comes to my mind is What if Vince just decided to pay Bret Hart for the rest of his contract instead of the bullshit that actually happened, ut I think that one has been talked to death maybe? stone cold was still taking off but i dont know if they tap into the vince mcmahon character there to give austin the foil that would make him absolutely explode in popularity
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Apr 1, 2020 21:29
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HulkaMatt posted:The immediate fantasy booking question that always comes to my mind is What if Vince just decided to pay Bret Hart for the rest of his contract instead of the bullshit that actually happened, ut I think that one has been talked to death maybe? Or, what if Vince screwed Shawn at Survivor Series 1997? Or would that be a given in this scenario? HBK would probably jump to WCW and join the nWo. No idea what'd happen to HHH and Chyna though.
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Apr 1, 2020 23:04
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What if Ric Flair, Mr Wrestling, and David Crockett had died in a plane crash in 1975? One of the formative parts of the Ric Flair mythos is him surviving a brush with death when his plane ran out of fuel and crashed on the way to Wilmington NC in late 1975. The injuries to Flair caused him to change his style from power brawler to a more technical and flamboyant approach and ultimately led to his adoption of the "nature boy" moniker. But what if he hadn't survived? What if the NWA had entered the 1980s without its major franchise player? Would WWF have become more dominant sooner? A further, stranger counterfactual. The plane had been chartered by Jim Crockett Jr, who had influenza so gave his place on the flight to Bob Bruggers. How different would wrestling be had Crockett and his brother both died in 1975?
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Apr 1, 2020 23:24
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Is it possible they might have made a play for someone like Nick Bockwinkel? How would a Horsemen unit look led by Bockwinkel and possibly managed by Bobby Heenan?
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Apr 1, 2020 23:32
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SatoshiMiwa posted:What if Riki Choshu and Ishin Gundan don't jump to All Japan in the 80's? Ooh, that's a good one. I assume you've seen Jumbo/Tenryu vs. Choshu/Yatsu? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9pDU0MOnvM This was one of the most important AJPW matches of the 1980s, because it was one of the first examples of the faster, more workrate-oriented style that Jumbo and Tenryu soon adopted (to great effect in 88 and 89, since Tenryu/Kawada vs. Hansen/Gordy and Jumbo vs. Tenryu 6/5/89 are still regarded as two GOAT matches today) and the Pillars perfected in the 90s. That style stems entirely from this match - AJPW's most celebrated heavyweight matches before this had a lot of mat wrestling, a heavy influence from traditional southern wrestling, a wee bit of brawling and garbage wrestling from folks like Hansen, Brody and Abdullah, and generally not too much else that stylistically differentiated AJPW from NJPW. Throughout the 80s, however, NJPW's main event style actively shifted away from the previous JWA mold. Around this time, the UWF largely folded back into NJPW, and from 1986 onwards, folks like Maeda, Takada and Yamazaki began to influence NJPW's main event scene with a stiffer, more shoot-influenced style, forming the basis of what we now call strong style. In contrast, from what I can tell, AJPW stuck with what drew for them, and it worked. But it wasn't going to work forever, and Baba, being one of the smartest men in the business, knew that. He was seeing how southern wrestling had begun to die out in the US, especially as the WWF encroached on the NWA's traditional strongholds in the south. If Baba kept things as they were, he ran the risk of not only losing an audience who wanted faster, more dynamic wrestling, but also opening the company up for fuckery by the Vince McMahons of the world. So it was a godsend that Riki Choshu, one of the best wrestlers in Japan at that point (if not one of the best in the world), wound up in Baba's lap, because Inoki was a loving idiot. Now, Choshu was not only a great technical wrestler, but an excellent brawler - take this match with Fujinami from 1983, for example - Choshu's strikes and suplexes are really loving good, and crucially, he has no trouble controlling the pace when he needs to. That ability to control the pace is an integral part of King's Road, and Choshu was a master of it by 1986. Baba adapted Choshu's energetic style for his company, and it became the basis of King's Road in the 90s. But this isn't about Riki Choshu. This is about Inoki being a loving idiot. From this translated discussion between Akira Maeda and Keiji Muto: Maeda and Muto posted:Maeda: I got interview with Choshu on Playboy while ago. After the interview, he said… Inoki didn't know it at the time, but when he ordered Choshu to go to AJPW, he basically gave them the keys to the King's Road. If this was attempted sabotage, it totally backfired on him, and not only was it greedy as gently caress, it was also really loving stupid. So basically, your question has two parts to it. (I considered three, but I realise that the UWF would've happened anyway, since a large part of it was the increased martial arts emphasis, which they were promoting in direct contrast with NJPW.). The first is, what if Inoki thought for a second and realised, wait, if I send out Ishin Gundan to make JPW and partner up with Baba, I'll run out of Japanese stars to feud with in about a year or so (which happened in our timeline), and he kept them in NJPW? If this happened, he'd probably push them all to the top in 1985. You know how the 1985 IWGP League was a single-elimination tournament with only three Japanese wrestlers, those being Fujinami, Seiji Sakaguchi and Kengo Kimura? Yeah, that probably wouldn't happen. The folks who'd been moved to JPW and AJPW in our timeline would make up a fair chunk of the round-robin block, and Choshu would probably win the tournament and maybe even beat Inoki for the title that year. When UWF merges back into NJPW in this timeline, Ishin Gundan will probably turn face en masse and go head to head with Maeda, and Inoki will likely gradually retire and go into politics as he did IOTL. Riki Choshu and Tatsumi Fujinami will be the faces of the company going into the 90s, and they'll be in a prime position to go to war with the new generation of dojo graduates, likely lead by the Three Musketeers. I dunno if there'd be a Sumo Hall incident ITTL, but it's possible. The second, and imo more interesting part, is: how would AJPW's style have evolved if Ishin Gundan hadn't jumped? Well, they'd probably lean much more on the brawling side of things at the start of it, less mat wrestling and more chairshots and foreign objects and crowd brawls and that, kind of like Hansen and Brody were doing in Puerto Rico at the time. When Onita comes out of retirement, I imagine Baba would re-sign him and introduce more straight up gimmick matches - not deathmatches as such, but more ECW style garbage matches. I feel like AJPW would soon become the Japanese WCW soon enough, but unlike their American counterparts it'd probably be booked competently. Venomous fucked around with this message at 03:20 on Apr 2, 2020 |
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Apr 2, 2020 03:16
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What would've happened if Austin didn't break Chono's neck?
edogawa rando fucked around with this message at 03:44 on Apr 2, 2020 |
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Apr 2, 2020 03:41
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This is a really dark one but something I've often wondered. What if Benoit performed at Vegance after the murders rather than committing suicide?
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Apr 2, 2020 03:53
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OpenSourceBurger posted:This is a really dark one but something I've often wondered. ???? He would've been arrested probably? Either that or Vince would've pretended Chris didn't speak English and gotten the investigation closed.
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Apr 2, 2020 05:06
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What if HBK doesn't gently caress up his back on the casket and goes on to continue performing between 98-02.
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Apr 2, 2020 07:14
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What if they discover a way to make replaceable arms and instead of blading Brock Lesnar pulls Ricochets arm of like Hulk did to Wolverine but they can reattach it no problem. It could happen to a different guy ev every PPV
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Apr 2, 2020 07:20
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Beer_Suitcase posted:What if they discover a way to make replaceable arms and instead of blading Brock Lesnar pulls Ricochets arm of like Hulk did to Wolverine but they can reattach it no problem. It could happen to a different guy ev every PPV Ladies and Gentlemen, we're joined today by the Chief Editor of DC Comics.
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Apr 2, 2020 07:40
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OpenSourceBurger posted:This is a really dark one but something I've often wondered. I get the distinct feeling the trial would be a complete circus and keep the whole thing in the news cycle much longer.
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Apr 2, 2020 10:24
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TheKingslayer posted:I get the distinct feeling the trial would be a complete circus and keep the whole thing in the news cycle much longer. He was meant to be ECW champion, right? With the RVD arrest and their champion being a literal murderer in the space of about a year, I'd imagine they'd have folded the brand a lot earlier than they ended up doing.
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Apr 2, 2020 11:45
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Also as bad as things ended up being for WWE, had Benoit lived and there been a massive media focused trial with major focus on concussions and how they are handled it would have been catastrophic for the company. Hell I imagine it could have come close to destroying the company outright.
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Apr 2, 2020 14:07
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What if Shawn Michaels jumped to WCW with Nash and Hall?
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Apr 2, 2020 20:24
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BodyMassageMachine posted:What if Shawn Michaels jumped to WCW with Nash and Hall? he would have been the third man and squashed by hogan in 6 months
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Apr 2, 2020 20:26
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What if Owen Hart didn’t die? I’ve always figured he’d be in the role Eddie Guerrero was in the early ROH shows, the veteran hand who can work / show off how he can still hang with the modern talent. Bryan Danielson vs. Owen Hart would’ve been incredible.
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Apr 2, 2020 21:20
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The story was always that he was planning to retire at the end of his WWF contract, and was interested in becoming a fire fighter. My guess is after a couple of years, he would have shown up in TNA as a favor to Jeff Jarrett, since they were close.
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Apr 2, 2020 21:58
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Obviously Austin was never going work with him (I'm assuming in this hypothetical universe, the SummerSlam 1997 incident has happened), but would it be possible he'd have had a major role in 2000 as a reliable workhorse? A possible long-term outcome is that Jeff Jarrett may have not been put back in the Intercontinental Title picture, resulting in him never demanding a pay-off to drop the title to Chyna (or demanding money that he was owed to begin with, depending on whom you ask), leading to him being retained when Vince bought out WCW as a upper midcard workhorse, which was probably the more realistic ceiling for him anyway. Would he then go on to form TNA? And would that have given people like AJ Styles a platform to get to where he is now?
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Apr 2, 2020 22:01
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If Owen didn't die, then he'd have doubtless worked with The Rock when Austin was recovering, maybe won his first world title because of it, but I don't see him staying long past X-7.
Venomous fucked around with this message at 01:45 on Apr 3, 2020 |
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Apr 2, 2020 22:44
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We would’ve got Owen vs Jericho at least. Crazy to think that match never happened.
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Apr 3, 2020 03:06
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