Missed Ships

[monkeystyle]

Shelton had huge momentum and the crowd behind him when he was drafted to Raw and beat HHH clean on the draft night and the following week.

Unfortunately WWE did what it usually does and squashed all potential out of Benjamin within weeks after that.

 

[Airfixx]

"...squashed all potential out of Benjamin within weeks after that."

...By him beating Flair and only narrowly missing out on a PPV IC title win against Orton?

...And then a few months down the line giving him the longest IC-title reign this decade?

 

[kingovkings]

Yeah what he said

 

[monkeystyle]

"...squashed all potential out of Benjamin within weeks after that."

...By him beating Flair and only narrowly missing out on a PPV IC title win against Orton?

...And then a few months down the line giving him the longest IC-title reign this decade?

Beating Flair at that point meant nothing.

The IC title at that point was worthless. The length of the reign was nice and all but what did it actually do for Shelton? Nothing. No meaningful feuds, no memorable title defenses. All in all during that time he had two notable matches and that was the first MITB and his Gold Rush match with HBK. Aside from that? Zip. His lengthy title reign much like London and Kendrick's extended tag title reign was only that long because they had no better ideas.

However, in one night WWE had more or less created a new star in Shelton Benjamin and instead of following up on his matches with HHH there was not a proper feud to be found anywhere.

Just one single feud with HHH over the belt win or lose would've done a lot more for Shelton than the big fat load of nothing disguised as something.

 

[straight_edge76]

Shawn O'Hair back in like 2003.

 

[noumenon]

^Oh absolutely. That gimmick was fucking immense... I was pissed that didn't go anywhere.

Mortecai/Kevin Thorn is another that springs to mind.

 

[straight_edge76]

Yeah, I thought when Mertecai was brought In a potential Taker feud was in the works which would have been awesome.

O'hair was another example I was expecting him to be a major player for years to come feuds with Angle and Lesner in that time could have really helped

 

[Kizza]

Shawn O'Hair back in like 2003.

How could I forget O'Haire? This guy was amazing. He was big, just what WWE like, and he could wrestle. Same with Jindrak, who's just showing off how good he is in Mexico.

 

[noumenon]

O'Haire had such a strong debuting gimmick, the promos were awesome and the guy could go in the ring. Damn shame he went nowhere.

They failed on Kevin Fertig twice.
They blew potentially a legendary feud with Undertaker.
And another great dark gimmick which actually worked in Kevin Thorn.

 

[He who knows more than Nation]

@ Enzo: Any thought what could have been done with Owen...

Thought about this before and I'll be honest, the idea of him fueding with Vince rather than Austin doesn't quite scream ratings to me. Always found Owen to be a bit of anomaly... His demeanour always came across a bit 'wet' & 'geeky' to me and because of this I've never been able to picture him a world champ (Especially not in THAT era).


Good call re: RVD at that time.... He was by far the best thing about the Invasion storyline, was having some of the best matches I've seen from him in WWE and should have been a breakout star off the back of that angle and in the mix for the undisputed title mini-tournament.

The fact that Owen didn't do a PPV with HBK following the screwjob was insane. The sheer amount of heat would have made Owen the undisputed second face and would have done tremendous things to help cement him. He was pretty rough in those following weeks as the "black" or "lone" Hart character he was doing, especially when he jumped inside the DX limo to attack HBK, they went nowhere with it, he became HHH feud fodder and they wasted a HUGE opportunity to build on the montreal screwjob and make another main eventer. Never really thought of a Vince feud but it could have worked if there had been a proper Owen-HBK feud.

RE: RVD, dude went from main eventing a PPV with Angle and Austin after being in the company for two months to doing jack shit for the next three years. Just go watch that match (really fun match with the drastically different styles of the three) and listen to the pop RVD gets everytime he hits a big move. Its baffling to wonder how the E didn't capitalize on that, or with Jericho, just listen to that thunderous pop he got on Raw when everyone thought he won the strap from Trips in 2000, it was the loudest ovation I can recall from 2000 till Austin returned. WWF didn't do anything to capitalize on how insanely over Jericho was as well with RVD, they waited till it was late on both of the guys. Some missed ships could have had some moderate success but with Jericho and RVD they could have had bonafide bankable stars that had a good 10-15 years in the tank, you just can't find that anywhere, especially since the only bankable dude they've capitalized on in the past decade is Cena.

 

[straight_edge76]

Agreed on RVD throughout the entire Invasion angle he got some of the biggest pops night in and night out and post Invasion I think they really should have catapulted him into Main Event and been for years what he was the last few months before he left/got fired

 

[noumenon]

They were still on their burying the majority of the ex ECW and WCW stars kick at that point.

 

[straight_edge76]

Yeah sadly and the ironic thing was that they couldn't get Sting to come to the WWE which would have made it so much more awesome. But honestly I am glad they didn't he would have been misused so damn bad. But A Sting/Taker feud would have been EPIC!

 

[Headfirst For Hardcore]

^I think Sting would've been great if he went to WWE at anytime. In every interview, I've never heard anyone badmouth him. He would've been huge, early 90's, attitude era, whatever.

Kevin Thorn missed being a big deal a year before the whole Vampire craze started.

Of course, there's Elijah Burke. He was on the path to success until he lost to CM Punk about 20 times in a row.

Chris Jericho's initial return was another missed opportunity. Could've been done way better if it was somewhat of a surprise.

Paul Burchill. I don't see what's wrong with him.

Muhammad Hassan. They might have crossed the line (shit.) with him, but it was just a modern version of an old school gimmick that would've got lots of heat.

 

[The Rated R CMStar]

Booker T in 2003, Wrestlemania XIX. In an argument of "HHH buries people and should have jobbed to X wrestler" this is one of the only times I agree Triple H should have lost.