Storylines with tremendous build but terrible payoff
 

Been thinking about some of the most disappointing storylines in terms of the final payoff. There have really been some tremendous angles/feuds in wrestling in which the buildup was tremendous, but the climax was weak. The ones that come to mind for me are:

Sting v nWo (Fall Brawl 1996-Starrcade 1997)
This may be the most disappointing to me. A match that was a culmination of perhaps the largest angle in WCW history. Starrcade '97 even drew WCW's largest buyrate. Huge angle, with about 15 months of buildup, wasted when Hogan decided to exert creative control and insert a tainted finish in his match with Sting. This could have brought a close to the nWo angle, or at least began to "turn the tide" in favor of WCW. Instead, we get a rematch, which Sting wins albeit still not cleanly, and the nWo continues to expand out of control until it splits into two factions, with most of the main WCW guys joining either nWo Hollywood or nWo Wolfpac. Including Sting.


Who ran over Stone Cold Steve Austin? (Survivor Series 1999-Survivor Series 2000)
A year long storyline that could have been huge. But, as it turns out, Rikishi ran over Steve Austin. For the Rock. :| But then go on to find out that HHH was in on it. :eek: So, Austin and HHH decide to settle it once and for all. Austin gets the last laugh by trapping HHH in a car, lifting the car with some sort of loader/forklift, and then dropping it smashing HHH upside down in the car. :wtf: End of story, right? Wrong. HHH is back on Raw within a few weeks and he's miraculously uninjured. :|

But at least they did go on to put on an incredible 3 Stages of Hell match a few months after this.


Who's side is Mr. Perfect on? (Summer 1992-Summerslam 1992)
Going a bit oldschool here. At Summerslam 1992, Randy Savage was set to defend his WWF Title against the Ultimate Warrior. Pretty intriguing match up for the time as they were the top 2 faces in the company at the time. Added to this, Mr Perfect, who was Ric Flair's Executive Consultant came out and began saying he was going to be in the corner of either Randy Savage or the Ultimate Warrior. The next few weeks of WWF Superstars was filled with speculation about whether Savage or Warrior had "sold out". During the match at Summerslam, Perfect accompanied neither man to the ring. However, he did show up during the match but seemed to favor neither Savage nor Warrior. Eventually, he ended up assisting Flair in attacking Savage, until Warrior ran them off.
In the end, it turns out Perfect was working for Ric Flair all along and this was a way of getting at both Warrior and Savage, in order to help Flair regain the title. Flair would eventually regain the title (at a house show, with virtually no fanfare or buildup to the match) and he would then join forces with Razor Ramon to take on Savage and Warrior at Survivor Series. Unfortunately, Warrior got canned, Savage asked Perfect to be his partner, Perfect accepted and turned on Flair. While that was pretty cool to see Perfect get back in the ring, it completely nullified the whole "divide and conquer conspiracy" angle that had been going on since the middle of the summer.

And of course, there's the Invasion angle, but I figured that would be the "cliché" response.

Vince's bastard child: Kennedy was on his way, but he got popped for drugs or got injured...again. Forget which one.

Who blew up Vince: Caught us all off guard. Then Chris Benoit died and Vince had to end it. Sad.

The White Hummer in WCW. They built it up so much and dropped it then brought it back and dropped it then Bischoff ended up driving one on screen one time years later.

jerichos tag team partner when edge was hurt...just a disappointing choice

Is he alive or is he dead? i was hoping it was paul bearer ......mysterio?:-\

Wasn't HHH on Raw the very next night after he got dropped with just a neck brace on?

As good as Edge/Jericho was/could have been Jerishow is even better. It the smartest wrestler in WWE and the biggest and baddest, what more could you want?

The biggest let down is of course Sting/Hogan. I mean, that was the greatest build to a match in the history of pro wrestling, so much patience, it was brilliant. Now we will probably never get a build that will last that long.

What should have happened is this....


Sting beats Hogan cleanly then goes into the first WCW vs WCW World Title feud in a year against Ric Flair, where Flair would turn heel (WCW heel not NWO heel) because he can't predict the new Stinger and gets freaked out by
his new character. While that is happening Scott Hall and Nash start an NWO uprising against Hogan because he dropped the ball. Hall and Nash being an NWO split to the Red and Black, and team up with Luger and Savage to feud with Hogan, The Steiners, and The Giant. AND on top of that Bret Hart comes into WCW with the total super good guy Hitman character and feuds with Curt Henning. Boom! WCW would have lived.

Mania 25

Orton/HHH was a fucking abortion compared to the hype they generated from 3 months of TV

Ugh...Jordan X, why do I always have to come in here and interject a history lesson? The reason for the tainted finish was because they wanted to somehow include Bret Hart in the main event, because the only other thing he was doing was refereeing the Bischoff/Zabysco match. It kind of played off of what happened to him at the survivor series not more than a month before that. I think a lot of people forget about Bret being involved with that angle at the last minute.

Booker vs HHH in 03

By the by...now that Hogan 'runs' TNA, we could possibly similar stories being built up like that. Let's just hope the finish is more concrete.

Ugh....Stupid dumb ass newb, why must I spend my time explaining to you why that all fucking sucked.

Hogan didn't want to do a clean job, after 12 months of build, the biggest match in WCW's history finished with:

1. Patrick 'Fast Counting' although actually slow counting (on Hogan's say so)
2. Bret fucking Hart coming out and the best WCW could come up with him was a 'kayfabed insider' wink/nudge to the competition, it's Bret Hart on your biggest show of the year, you couldn't find a fucking match for him?
3. Match re-starts, HOGAN STILL DOESN'T PUT STING OVER CLEAN, submits on Bret's say so, even though he never tapped or said I quit.

And you think that was a good finish?

I'm probably still bitter over that. And the fact that the storlyline changed halfway thru it. It was supposed to be a nearly 5-year builduip of Orton getting back on top after HHH ruined him in '04. Then cus of a few attacks, now HHH is the one that needs revenge, and gets it.

Tazz.

Bubba Ray cut an awesome promo on HHH and it obviously didn't go anywhere.

G-TV never had any conclusion. It was stupid anyways..."who has been setting up these secret cameras and then broadcasting it during RAW?"

No way could it be the WWF's production staff, the only people likely to do anything like that, it had to be some wrestler.

:l

Despite some general cheesiness, I don't think who ran over Stone Cold Steve Austin had a terrible payoff. Remember, we got a six man Hell in a Cell out of it, and, of course..."I did it for the Rock!"

Remember when they brought GTV back as RAW-View or whatever? What was up with that?

Also, for the Bubba thing, I remember Bubba saying in a shoot that he dropped Hunter awkwardly or something and that's why that storyline never went anywhere.

Truer words were never spoken. Just an absolute stupid fucking move on the WWE's part. The WWE completely shit the bed with Orton and Legacy from February onwards....after doing a tremendous job of building them up.

I think the WWE could have done more with the Triple H-Stephanie-Kurt Angle storyline from 2000 (although I understand why they went the route that they did).

Wasn't G-TV supposed to be Tom Green or Goldust?

Band aide

It was supposed to be Goldust.