1. What's the real story behind his '96 run? The doc made it seem like he flamed out/was a an unwelcome relic from a bygone era.
alot of revisionist history here. thats not how it went. i remember it vividly.
warrior was the most over wrestler & biggest draw they had in '96. they were going to put the belt on him by the fall. vader was supposed to go over hbk at summerslam and transition the belt to the warrior.
the audience didnt shift away from warrior. the only place the audience shifted was over to WCW, who wanted the warrior so bad that they creqted a clone. and the warrior was the last ditch effort to keep that audience in the WWF. once he got deavored, it was a wrap.
but of course, they aint gonna tell you all that chit, when the only people speaking on it are dudes who hate the guy. they acknowledge the huge pop at wrestlemana 12 because they have no choice. its a high-profile show and he clearly shut it down. but they wont tell you that hes the one who sold the show, and the fans started leaving after his match, not really caring about the rest of the card. the overrated bret/hbk iron man match that the WWF glorifies, ended up taking place in a half-empty arena because nobody cared.
he was beating owen hart on the house shows and was getting the biggest pops. i wouldnt say that he was starting a program with owen. it was moreso a lead-in to the hbk/ahmed/warrior vs camp cornette 6-man tag at the upcoming ppv. then vader was supposed to get the strap at the following ppv, and warrior was gonna get the belt off of him. if the warrior was such a flop in '96. these plans wouldve never existed.
the only thing lukewarm was the fact that warrior didnt do much on TV. he would show up on raw twice a month, to either cut a promo or shoot an angle. so basically all we really got from him in the bright lights was the triple h squash, the bullchit storyline with goldust ducking out of their match or whatever, and the silly feud with jerry lawler. by the time they gave him something worthwhile. the fallout happened. NOBODY talks about this in-depth. instead they talk around everything and push their agendas. its easy to take that resume and manipulate it into a burial for people who werent around. same way its people on here that werent around but are influenced by the docs. they'll run to google to post ratings, but werent around so they dont know that the warrior wasnt even on raw like that, so of course his return wasnt gonna boost ratings for too long in that time period.
warrior was gone by the time austin started taking off. and the warrior wouldve had absolutely no problem fitting in with the attitude era, seeing how the warrior always did edgy chit. not to mention, the undertaker of all people was prominently featured thru the entire attitude era for pete's sake.
a warrior title run wouldve def been competition for WCW, and vince knew it. hence, the reason why vince tried to bring the warrior back less than 2 years later.
but they aint gonna tell you all that.
