Another thing with that moment is that Flair had won the title back recently enough from Savage that when Mean Gene introduced "the new WWF Champion," it didn't seem particularly odd that he would be referring to Flair that way. A look at Wiki indicates that this reign was 41 days, so that part checks out with my memory of it.

Reminds me of ~6 months later when young me only ever watched Superstars and never knew the PPV results, and the Superstars after WM IX opened with something on the order of, "So, who is the WWF Champion...is it Yokozuna, or is it...Hulk Hogan?" Obviously reasonable to be really confused by that. Although I wasn't into Bret or Yoko, my reaction to the news of Hogan winning was definitely something of an eye-roll. I didn't full-on hate Hogan, but he was never my #1 guy and I was always ready for something else. Even if I wasn't into the alternatives, I was 100% ready to be done with the neverending Hogan show.

This was another thing that really didn't work for me about Bret as WWF Champion at first: he never really squashed anyone. He gave up too much offense to everyone. This had already become a well-established pattern for him when they announced one week that he would be taking on Virgil in a WWF Title match on the next Superstars. I thought, "Finally, he's just going to wreck someone." Nope. Gave up a ton of offense to Virgil too. It all seemed beneath a world champion.

Despite understanding that wrestling was a work from almost the very beginning of my fandom, it still always affected my view of wrestlers to see how dominant or not dominant they were. Bret Hart fighting everyone and making everyone look like they were almost equal to him was hugely damaging in my eyes. It absolutely cut Tatanka down at the knees for me when, after weeks of vignettes, his first televised jobber squash featured him giving up a lot of offense.

I've said it before, but it took that horrible pussy babyface character of Shawn Michaels in 1996 to finally convince me to join Bret's side and become a fan for the first time since he was in the Hart Foundation.

Funny that when I think of how they billed him that I also first think of the Virgil match. I wholeheartedly agree with you.

I don't remember Tonto giving up much offense in his first match but I'm more surprised that he had vignettes for his debut

All of this is bringing back traumatizing memories of the dark mid-90's period. I couldn't get behind either Shawn or Bret. When I think back to this time period, I can't even remember who my favorites were. Vader got raped by Hogan in WCW and was gone in summer of 95 and I'm not sure I especially liked anyone in WWF.

Thinking about that has me realize that even how bad nowadays is, at least I have a few people I can get behind strongly (KO, Sami, Brock, Ronda, Bryan).

The bar for vignette treatment wasn't always super high, of course. Waylon Mercy had awesome vignettes, then his only PPV appearance was jobbing cleanly to Savio Vega in a curtain-jerker at an IYH.

The oddity with Tatanka's vignettes is that they were always introduced as hyping him under his real name of Chris Chavis. Suddenly he shows up for his first jobber squash and his name is...Tatanka? What?

Now that I look further into this, I see that his first Superstars squash was against Pat Tanaka, so he didn't get a purer jobber on the level of Reno Riggins or whoever. Would explain him giving up some offense. I still held it against him. (It's also weird that they suddenly switched to the name "Tatanka" and thought the best opponent to give him was someone named Tanaka.)

In terms of having someone to root for, shortly after Bret's title win came the Mr. Perfect face turn, and I was really behind him more than anyone. That also served as a bridge since Randy Savage suddenly transitioned to a part-time wrestler/part-time announcer role, and he had been my favorite to that point.

Perfect's face push didn't work out, but I got behind the Lex Luger face turn to a greater extent than it seems many fans did. They strung me along with that until WM X, after which it was clear that Luger wasn't going to be the guy. From there it took a while until I had a proper favorite on the active roster again, but eventually Owen Hart stepped into that role.

That vignette's the most hokey thing ever. It's no wonder he never got that over despite having 400+ wins or whatever.

In 94/95, I liked Owen but, like Bret, I didn't buy him as a world champion even if it meant beating Bret multiple times.

Thinking more about 93-96 WWF, I didn't really have a favorite. In WCW, I liked a bunch of people. Arn, Ric, Vader, Sting, Cactus, and others lesser. All of these guys (minus Cactus) got neutered by Hogan by spring of 95. Once SS 96 came around and Austin cut that promo "you can look in the mirror and know that you've been beaten by a real man", I finally had a WWF guy to cheer for.

I knew Owen was certainly cannon fodder for Bret at SummerSlam '94. Held out no real hope of him winning that cage match. The only time I really saw Owen as drawing live to a WWF Title was that IYH when they had the Tripleheader match of Diesel/HBK vs. Yoko/Owen, where I thought there was some longshot chance they would go with the biggest upset result (Owen winning the WWF Title) just to really put over the match concept as unpredictable.

I was big into Shawn Michaels during his heel run and was excited for the possibility of him winning the WWF Title at WM XI, and I even followed him into the start of his face run and was excited by his IC Title win at the July '95 IYH against Jarrett, but then started growing tired of him before fully turning on him and hating him after that worked concussion and return to win the Rumble in '96.

I only started watching WCW in 1995. I was a Flair guy back to his WWF days, so I latched back onto him. When a new rendition of the Horsemen formed, that was my #1 attraction. Also really liked the cruisers, especially Dean. Funny to look back and think about how I totally shrugged at both Eddie and Jericho early in their WCW runs though. I basically didn't like either one until they turned heel and started showing some real personality.

On the 10/24/92 Superstars, the Survivor Series Report, Gene says, "This news will blow you out of your socks...the British Bulldog will defend the Intercontinental Title against The Mountie!" Pretty sure Bulldog is out of the company before Survivor Series.

Actually, just taking a look at how things went down, Bulldog drops the title three days after the airing of this show, and yes the Bulldog was gone from the company right at that moment. I wonder if he failed a drug test just in the couple of days prior to the SNME taping where he lost the title. If they knew they were taking the strap off him, it would be odd to have announced that match.

On the 10/31/92 Superstars, four days after Bulldog dropped the title (in a yet-unaired match) and left the company, they're still hyping the Bulldog-Mountie title match for Survivor Series. I get that they're not going to announce Bulldog's forthcoming fate when his title loss was to be aired on SNME, but it's odd that they felt the need to take time to keep hyping a match that they knew wasn't happening.

On an unrelated note, I'm sure that Lapsed Fan partially made me hyper-aware of this, but holy **** does Shawn Michaels lean on the "I've got news for ya" crutch in his 1992 promos. Seems like he was especially bad about saying that every two sentences back when he was still getting his legs as a singles star.

This was failed drug test. It was talked about in the SummerSlam 92 episode of TLF. It was him, Hawk, and Warrior who wouldn't stop taking them. I feel like Sid was mentioned but not 100%.

Speaking of HBK. I wish I had any interest in watching old wrestling these days. I feel like I never had an appreciation of his first run work. Need to rewatch that Jarrett match you mentioned, his matches vs. Owen, Mind Games vs. Mick, and just a bunch of stuff.

Yeah, Michaels's run in 1995-96 was pretty ridiculous. He managed to throw in one awful match against Bulldog at the Beware of Dog PPV, but had a whole lot of greatness. One that I feel like I haven't seen in too long is Michaels-Diesel from Good Friends Better Enemies in '96, which has to be my favorite of Kevin Nash's matches (low bar though that might generally be).

Here's an oddity from The History of Wrestling's records regarding 1992 WWF.

According to it, Bret Hart actually taped his live promo as new champion on September 21, 1992, three weeks prior to Bret actually winning the belt. I feel like that flies in the face of every account I've read of that scenario, where everyone seems to have made it out as though Vince made a fairly sudden decision to give Bret the title that night in Saskatoon by putting him over Flair. I generally take History of WWE's records on faith because they're so detailed (and even things like Tito Santana pinning The Undertaker have held up to fact-checking), but this seems dubious to me if I'm reading it right.

One that I just listened to from Bryan/Vinny was HBK/Austin vs Bulldog/Owen from just before KotR 97. I think I may watch that now before sleep and give a trip report...

All of that seems ridiculous. As you said all accounts say it was very sudden. I tend believe a self loathing Bret in his book over that site.

I downloaded this and watching it now. Upon watching the first ten seconds of this I have two observations:
1. Vince McMahon in his hype voice made me laugh hysterically.
2. lol VHS quality. I could get network quality but why?!?!

Yeah, I just looked at my writeup of that tag match and I see that I gave it ****1/4. Not sure where I got it into my mind that I was disappointed in it on a modern-day rewatch, because that last viewing wasn't that terribly long ago.

Highlight of the match: The inflatable KotR chair!



A damn good match between the two. This match seems like a match any team can do but wouldn't be as good because in this match the crowd actually cares and is invested in all 3 characters (Austin/HBK/Harts).

Seeing Austin move around and do things like drop downs seemed rather odd but then I remembered this was pre-neck injury.

Bulldog crotching HBK on the ropes from the military press was awesome and surely was gif'ed in your thread. Owen doing this spinkick to cutoff babyface comebacks was incredible:


There was also a fun spot with a running Davey Boy glancing clothesline running through HBK that was a great comeback killer as well.

The finish came out of nowhere and that was pretty refreshing as well. The quickness with which Austin makes the cover because the tag titles actually mean something and he wants to hurt The Harts as well is a nice touch. Finish is here in a 22 second gif but not putting here because it'll slow page forever.

Verdict: Extremely entertaining and recommended. idk about star rating. I don't think it was an all-time classic or anything but it was great and set out what it wanted to do. I guess if I had to give a rating, I'd go 4-4.25*

Yeah, the finish was a highlight for sure because it really didn't seem believable that Austin and HBK would actually walk out with the belts, and the suddenness of the finish actually added some shock factor, at least for me when I first saw it live.

Here was my writeup on it: https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/s...&postcount=517

I meant to mention the belly-to-belly. Owen so good at that even though it seems simple.

Thinking more on this match, it's extremely similar to my favorite WWF tag match: Austin/HHH vs. Benoit/Jericho. It's a very southern style match and very paint by the numbers but the story and atmosphere just make it that much more. Sad it'll never be that way again. Rabid fans are gone.

Perhaps I'll check out another match tomorrow. Either Owen vs. HBK from Feb 96 or HBK vs Jarrett from ???. I wonder if HBK ever faced Waltman in this period. Will check tomorrow but bed time for now (at noon ).

I see that they wrestled on the 3/4/96 Raw, but I also see in my MNW thread that I labeled it as a disappointment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b42E0yxmWVw

Stands to reason that Shawn and the Kid would have done something great together, but I'm not sure it ever happened (one-on-one anyway...the Action Zone Diesel/Shawn vs. Kid/Razor was great).

Shawn vs. Jarrett is July IYH '95 if you end up looking for it. I gave it ****1/2. So did Meltzer.

Both great matches! Some of the best from the New Generation Era.

I have never seen that Action Zone match but have seen literally dozens of people give it 5* on another forum. I gotta find it and watch it later tonight.

I do remember watching the Jarrett/HBK match from the GMOAT thing we did years ago but completely forget it aside from loving it.

edit: while searching for the tag match in a HBK megapack I found this: Shawn Michaels vs. 1-2-3 Kid Superstars • April 27, 1996