Kane beats HHH for the title on RAW in 2003.

The original plan was to have Hogan drop the WWF world title to Bret at Summerslam 1993 before Hogan nixed it. There was a WWF Magazine article sometime in early summer 1993 that basically foreshadowed the planned match. Then it never happened. As a Bret fan (13 years old) who wanted the torch passed to him, I was really disappointed. That's the angle/match I would change/make happen.

Turning Owen into Blue Blazer was the most disgusting thing ever and I'm not even talking about his death.

This. Though it almost seems unfair to put things done by Russo.

chris masters should have gone over at new years resolution 2006

Waylon Mercy should have beaten Savio Vega in whatever IYH PPV he lost to him in.

WrestleMania VI - Attendance 67,678
WrestleMania VII - Attendance 16,158

The Coliseum holds 90,000+ so I find it hard to believe WWE took a massive massive gate hit because of this:

Meltzer was actually asked about this in a recent mailbag and it sounded pretty legit and not like he was purely hating. They basically were going to get crushed if they tried to hold it at the Coliseum.

I agree with a lot of this. No way Wade Barrett doesn't become a huge star in the next couple of years though.

Yep, no one should have ever broken the Master Lock.

In my heart, he's still undefeated

Booker T losing that match at Wrestlemania was the most angry I ever was watching WWE. The way he lost was absolutely horrific. I'm still pissed about that.

Same here

In that line of thought: I know it isn't really an angle or story line proper but Heyman not being the head booker for all of WWE the past 10-ish years is what I would change if I could. Can't even imagine how dramatically different and awesome the current aidscake on rye that is WWE would be with him in charge instead of Stephanie McBlueboy and co.

I would rewrite it so that the Blue Blazer walked to the ring.

Kane burns me more than Booker T because I didn't actually see that WM match, although I remembered the angle well, and it sucked. I was a really big fan of Kane, and wanted to see him win the strap one more time, and the buildup was so large and with all the bull**** he went through with the Katie Vick storyline, and how over he was at the time, I figured it was going to be a PPV quality match and due to the stipulation, there would be no bull**** and that Kane would win. I really think it's the last time a face not winning a title match angered my inner mark.

Plenty of others, however, did buy the reason the WWF gave for moving it, and from VII to XXII most Wrestlemanias had less then 20k attendance. They apparently were willing to have it at smaller arenas quite frequently, as I'm sure they could have done much better a lot of the time e.g. in 98-2000.

In any case, overall, according to the Death of WCW book, Wrestlemania VII made the most money of any pre 1996 Wrestlemania other then Wrestlemania III. For Wrestlemanias the arena attendance figure doesn't tell anywhere close to the whole story in terms of overall people entertained and $.

I'd have kept the NWO really small for a lot longer period of time. Have it be Hogan, Nash, Hall, and Waltman with Ted DeBiase as their manager. The most fun of the NWO was seeing what havoc they would reek and when. When the membership blew up to the point that they were in every other match they really lost their cachet.

Heading into the end of 1997 and into 1998, I would have worked a three way power struggle between the pro-WCW guys (Luger, Sting, Savage, Piper) against the Four Horsement (Flair, Benoit, Hennig, and DDP maybe? someone other than Mongo) against the NWO guys for control.

I don't know where I'd go from there, but surely not in a "fingerpoke-of-doom" direction.

The fingerpoke of doom gets a lot of hate, and it was a really stupid angle but part of the reason was because of Goldberg. Goldberg was supposed to fued with the NWO after the FPOD but he punch a window in a limo and nearly had to have his hand amputated so he was out for like 6 months.

This is partly a luck being a residue of design issue, however. They had two hot face commodities: the NWO Wolfpac and Goldberg. They decided to turn one heel and run with all their eggs in the inexperienced, mistake and botch prone Goldberg basket.

Random fact: The day after the Fingerpoke of Doom, Giant/Big Show faced Luger in the main event dark match of some tv tapings. Giant came out without his wrestling gear, acted like he was going to pick up Luger for a slam but then just laid down, and him and Luger laughed. That was the entire 10 second main event, apparently Fingerpoke of Doom part II.

Instead of having God no-show as Shawn Michaels' partner, I would have actually had him show up and turn heel on Michaels. Maybe do his famous "Heaven's Gate Chokeslam" all the way to hell.

moorobot your post doesn't make sense. So were they getting death threats all of those other years? No of course not they just couldn't draw huge paid crowds so they used smaller venues. The live gate from Mania is an enormous source of income for WWE so they didn't do it to be more intimate they did it so 80% of the seats weren't empty and as soon as they had the ability to draw they went back to huge arenas again.

I loled

I've heard this as the excuse countless times, but I always respond with this:

This was the best idea they could come up with? All kinds of ways to turn Nash while still allowing the match to play to a winner. Why not just let them have as good as match as they could put on at the time and turn him afterwards? And, why are you turning Nash anyway? Your big face star (Goldberg) really had no mic skills or charisma (I honestly never understood how he even got over), and Nash was at least serviceable in that regard.

Ok so your explanation for the facts are: in 1988, the Wrestlemania right after the build up SNME that was the single most watched wrestling program in history with a rating over 15, and the Wrestlemania right after one that drew 90,000 people, couldn't draw, so they had it in a small venue that year.

Later, during the 1998-2000 peak, the WWE couldn't draw with Stone Cold and the Rock at their peaks. So they had to have Wrestlemania at smaller arenas.

Whether the truth makes sense to you or not, it is the truth. During years WWF could have drawn huge crowds in huge arenas, they instead had it in smaller arenas.

Aside from the obvious (Invasion), I thought Flair's WWE run post Mania 8 was pretty awful. He could have won the belt from Macho at SS92, and lost it to Bret on Survivor Series. The fact that they didn't televise Bret's win in Sep 92 (or was it Oct?) still confuses me.

Flair was injured at the time of the match in which he dropped the belt to Bret and claims it was a horrible match. Warrior had botched a suplex on him, dislodging a chip in Flair's ear and giving him problems with his balance. Explains why he didn't lose it to Bret at the Series, and why the match wasn't shown.

In Bret's book he says something similar, still think regardless of match quality it would have had a huge payoff.