Do you believe in a "butterfly effect" in pro wrestling?

[Johnny Vegas]

- Like if Hogan stayed retired the first time around in about '92, would the nWo ever have been established? For that matter, if the nWo was never established, would wrestling not have been as popular during '96-98?

- What if, got rest his soul, Owen Hart never passed? Would he have been WWE champ at all? Would it have effected Jeff Jarrett's career at all? Would Bret Hart have not had that stroke because eventually he and VKM would have made up and instead of a Goldberg/Hart main even at Starrcade, Bret would have wanted Owen to jump ship to WCW and start a fued that would've ended at Starrcade '99?

- What if SCSA was never fired when he and Pillman, as the tag team, became one of the best tag teams ever. Or maybe a HBK/Janetty thing where SCSA was the Janetty of the two? Would we have seen the "apex" of wrestling ala "Attitude Era"?


I mean the list is endless, but i do think that the right people were there at the right time. For example, i don't know about any of you, but Hogan is the only one i could think of at that time that would be that "mystery partner" or Bash At The Beach '96. He was too popular, was always the "good guy" and it just worked. Period.

Idk what im trying to get you guys to reply, but you see what i'm saying, right?

[Aguakate]

...What if you had never been born?

Would this thread have been made anyway?

...what came first? The chicken or the egg?

[The Pope]

Dont like the thread, but I like your sig.

[LuigiD]

I have thought of that before.
I remember WWE.com had an article once about Austin winning King of the Ring. JR said something among the lines of..had Austin not won that..probably would have become just as popular..it might have just taken longer. I use to think what would have happened if ECW had gotten a decent TV deal with support. Would they had been capable of becoming a decent competitor to WCW and WWF? what if scenarios are always interesting.

[Shadrick]

JV, i hate when you make threads because I always end up lookin at your sig and all of the blood leaves my head, messing up my thought process for a response.

[Vastardikai]

JV, i hate when you make threads because I always end up lookin at your sig and all of the blood leaves my head, messing up my thought process for a response.

JV made a thread? I thought just posted pictures of girls with amazing asses.

[Rollermacka]

JV, i hate when you make threads because I always end up lookin at your sig and all of the blood leaves my head, messing up my thought process for a response.

JV made a thread? I thought just posted pictures of girls with amazing asses.

Yea, and if you look really closely there's also a picture of a train there too. (why do I have a feeling this is gonna end up being all about your lovley pics?)

[Johnny Vegas]

Because no matter what happens in the world, a guy will always look to his left to see dat ass

[Steveviscious89]

Interesting thoughts....this thread does not deserve the crap it's been given so far.
I believe the nWo would have gone on either way because I'm not even sure Hogan was the only choice to be the third man. They knew they wanted him to be a heel, just not sure how right away. However, the nWo would not have been nearly as successful without the antagonistic nature of Hogan at the time. But all of these things you've mentioned are probably the building blocks of what made pro-wrestling what it was in the late 90's and I think things like this are what's missing from wrestling right now, among other things.

[Schlomey]

- Like if Hogan stayed retired the first time around in about '92, would the nWo ever have been established? For that matter, if the nWo was never established, would wrestling not have been as popular during '96-98?

- What if, got rest his soul, Owen Hart never passed? Would he have been WWE champ at all? Would it have effected Jeff Jarrett's career at all? Would Bret Hart have not had that stroke because eventually he and VKM would have made up and instead of a Goldberg/Hart main even at Starrcade, Bret would have wanted Owen to jump ship to WCW and start a fued that would've ended at Starrcade '99?

- What if SCSA was never fired when he and Pillman, as the tag team, became one of the best tag teams ever. Or maybe a HBK/Janetty thing where SCSA was the Janetty of the two? Would we have seen the "apex" of wrestling ala "Attitude Era"?


I mean the list is endless, but i do think that the right people were there at the right time. For example, i don't know about any of you, but Hogan is the only one i could think of at that time that would be that "mystery partner" or Bash At The Beach '96. He was too popular, was always the "good guy" and it just worked. Period.

Idk what im trying to get you guys to reply, but you see what i'm saying, right?


1. There still would have been an NWO without Hogan but it would not have been as impactful. WCW would have folded earlier.

2. Owen would never have been champ. He was in a throwaway gimmick and was at the very end of his career as it were.

3. Without SCSA in the WWE I guarantee the Attitude Era still would have happened but obviously the Mr. McMahon character would never have been so known and hated.

[Jeritron]

If a butterfly effect exists in real life, which I think it obviously does to some degree, then it obviously exists in pro wrestling too

[Savio]

If Bret did not go to WCW Owen probably would still be living.

[Xero]

1. There still would have been an NWO without Hogan but it would not have been as impactful. WCW would have folded earlier.

2. Owen would never have been champ. He was in a throwaway gimmick and was at the very end of his career as it were.

3. Without SCSA in the WWE I guarantee the Attitude Era still would have happened but obviously the Mr. McMahon character would never have been so known and hated.

I agree that the Attitude Era would have happened, but without Mr. McMahon vs. Austin the Attitude Era would have been VERY different, because that feud crossed paths with so many other high-profile feuds and was the focal point of about a two year span.

[Johnny Vegas]

Thats what i mean @ Xero. Like, that Austin/McMahon fued affected so many different fueds. It affected Mankind, The Rock (Corporate Champ), Undertaker (McMahon being the "higher" being during the Ministry angle), etc.

[Nark Order]

What is that ass? Stop posting threads, you dickhead.

[Johnny Vegas]

fuck you, turkey necked faggot

[Nark Order]

Hint: People that annoy you.

N_GGERS

[Nark Order]

Nagging jerk!

[Johnny Vegas]

People that annoy you even more:

_arcissus with his double-mint chins!

[Shadrick]

1. There still would have been an NWO without Hogan but it would not have been as impactful. WCW would have folded earlier.

2. Owen would never have been champ. He was in a throwaway gimmick and was at the very end of his career as it were.

3. Without SCSA in the WWE I guarantee the Attitude Era still would have happened but obviously the Mr. McMahon character would never have been so known and hated.

2. Actually, Owen was set for a huge push. He was going to win the title that night, and then some months later, given a run with the championship belt. It's a fact that thats what creatives plan was.

[The Pope]

If Randy Orton and CM Punk weren't born, the WWE would be dead.

[Nark Order]

People that annoy you even more:

_arcissus with his double-mint chins!

That wasn't even a proper pop culture reference!

[Johnny Vegas]

But double-mint gum is known in pop culture!

[Nark Order]

I won't allow it! And besides, you wouldn't even be able to make fun of my double chin if I chewed alot more double mint gum. You're shooting yourself in the foot, sir.

[Johnny Vegas]

I'm not Plaxico Burress, sir

I bet you can't even remember the last time you chewed some double-mint gum!

[XL]

Wasn't HHH scheduled to win King of the Ring in 96? But he was punished for the Curtain Call incident and had to wait unitl 97 to win it.

Of course, the man that won in 96 was Steve Austin who then went on to cut the "Austin 3:16" promo in reference to his oppnent in the final Jake Roberts. So, without HHH being bumped we might never have got Austin 3:16 or Stone Cold at all.

[Krimzon7]

First, damn who is that stallion on the left in your sig?
Second, xL makes the best possible point for a butterfly effect with that KOTR

[Mr. Nerfect]

I was thinking about Owen Hart the other day, and just what would be happening with him if he had not passed. I decided that he definitely would have won the WWE Championship at some point, and that eventually we would have gotten a nostalgia "part-time" return of The Blue Blazer. I somehow came up with the theory that this could have helped Gregory Helms' career, as I imagine that The Hurricane and the Blazer could have teamed up occasionally, and been quite an over and successful unit. It might have replaced Helms' team with Kane in history.

A really morbid one is the Chris Benoit incident. There are obviously the ramifications it had on the WWE's policies and such, but just look at what creative impact it had, too. Benoit was all set to have a match with CM Punk over the ECW Title. The WWE fucks a lot of things up, but I guarantee that match would have been awesome, and that Benoit would have initially gone over and continued his program with Punk over the belt -- eventually getting Punk to be seen on the level of a main eventer when he initially won the title. But with Benoit doing what he did, the most decorated man on ECW was Johnny Nitro, and I truly believe this is the moment where the ECW Title was dropped off from World Title status to mid-card level.

And a third one: Maybe I am entirely wrong, but back before he got his second wellness suspension, I am sure that William Regal was scheduled to win the WWE Championship from Triple H using his "Evil King General Manager" powers. He would have then used his powers of corruption to ensure he kept the title, only to be unseated by CM Punk using Money in the Bank. It just seemed so...natural. But then Regal did get suspended, and his push was stopped. Imagine how different we'd be looking at Regal if he never got himself into that dire zone of being one strike away from being released. It makes me very sad.

A fun one to discuss is how different the WWE would be if Brock Lesnar never left the company.

[Kane Knight]

I don't think you're using the right term. The instances you're giving are almost direct cause and effect and readily identifiable as such. That's not the notion in chaos theory, and the idea in popular culture is that minute details can have profound impacts.

Hart's death, Hogan's retirement, etc. are more direct cases of what might have been. While it can be fun to speculate, it's not really a butterfly effect. I mean, the premise itself is "a butterfly flapping its wings," after all.

Major causes are already considered to have major impacts. That's why they call it the butterfly effect, not the "atomic bomb effect."

Few, if any of these, are small enough or indirect enough to qualify. Maybe the Steve Austin bit.

[XL]

YES! I got it right. Maybe.

[Emperor Smeat]

NwO could still occur without Hogan but it defiantly would have lost the initial reaction from the crowd when the long-time fan favorite Hogan suddenly became a heel and turned his back on all his fans/children that grew up watching him. The event would still have been a shock but probably not to the degree of fans tossing stuff in the ring and being legitimately hateful of Hogan as both a wrestler and person.

Owen probably would end up as a champion in the future since WWE has pushed a lot of wrestlers who have been loyal to the company for long periods of time as a token or "thank you" reign.

Attitude Era would still have occurred mostly because the fan base of the WWF grew older from their origins as the Hogan/1980s fan base the last time WWF had a "boom" period. ECW still would have been an influential piece to the era because they appeared years before the actually start of the Attitude Era. The only thing that would have been missing would be the critical Stone Cold vs McMahon and maybe Stone Cold vs Rock feud which helped define the era.

[Testicle]

Another Austin one...

What if he wrestled someone other than Jake Roberts in the '96 King of the Ring finals?
No Jake equals no biblical promo. No biblical promo equals no 3:16. Its funny how many small things can add up to something significant.

[Kane Knight]

Another Austin one...

What if he wrestled someone other than Jake Roberts in the '96 King of the Ring finals?
No Jake equals no biblical promo. No biblical promo equals no 3:16. Its funny how many small things can add up to something significant.

Probably would have just been something else. I mean, I don't think it would make much of a difference unless his alternate catchphrase was "I like puppies, fuzzy wuzzy woodle."

[Testicle]

Probably would have just been something else.

Probably.

Didn't Lawler use 'I love puppies'? Not sure about fuzzy wuzzy woodle getting over though.

[Vastardikai]

hmm... how about...

What if the Shockmaster had NOT have tripped on his way through the wall?