These WWE successes had no business being as great as they ended up being!
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00:0010. Vince McMahon's Stooges
00:23I mean, in many ways, this would be the equivalent of Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock returning
00:27to be Triple H's lackeys in 2023. But back in their day, Pat Patterson and Gerald Briscoe
00:32were legends. No one in their right mind would predict come the turn of the century, they'd
00:37be the best comedy act in wrestling. For those who happened to miss the Attitude Era though,
00:41they were. As Vince McMahon's Stooges, they were happy to play the village idiots week
00:45in and week out and it was just a joy. They deserve all the credit for it as they threw
00:49themselves into this. You could just see they were having a blast. Pat and Jerry were also
00:53desperate to impress The Boss, which is why Austin in particular would always go after
00:56them, and it lasted ages. Why would you stop? It was a treat. When they did start to fade
01:02out in the year 2000, I think there was a genuine sadness, and man, just to finish this
01:06off, those matches with the Mean Street Posse were so damn good.
01:109. The Hurricane Debuts Mid-WCW Invasion
01:14When the WWF bought WCW in 2001, Shane Helms must have been pumped. He was a young up-and-comer
01:20that deserved a bigger push so this could be his time. As it turned out, the man himself
01:25had a much better plan. Why not cement a super long career for yourself by going full sports
01:31entertainment and becoming The Hurricane? This rocked. On paper it sounds like nonsense
01:36because Helms wanted to be a fake superhero in the middle of a WCW invasion, but man,
01:41it was so good. Despite being on the hillside, everybody loved it, and while many other talent
01:45vanished when all was said and done, The Hurricane just got better and better, and he went and
01:50beat the flippin' rock. Again though, if you had chatted about doing comedy when we
01:53had an angle millions had been waiting for, few would have bought in. We were all wrong,
01:58however, and Helms continues to do this character today. What a decision.
02:038. Too Cool Parodies The Hardys
02:05In 1999, Scott Taylor and Brian Christopher were the team of too much, and they weren't
02:10really doing anything. Vince Russo spotted this and sat them down with an idea, and man,
02:15what a shout this was. He had seen what Matt and Jeff Hardy were doing, so told these two
02:19to go out there and copy it, but in the most obnoxious way possible. This soon meant they
02:23transformed into out-of-touch nerds, and yep, it was magic. They also renamed themselves
02:28to Scotty Too Hotty and Grandmaster Sexay, which is stupid, and they started to dance
02:33a lot. The end result was some people having so much fun, the fans lapped it up, cos why
02:38shouldn't we have a good time?
02:40Somehow even Rikishi worked in this act too, which was even more mad, but hey, it goes
02:44back to the intro. There's no right or wrong with wrestling, it all depends on the reaction.
02:48They boosted all three of their runs, and more power to them, cos many, many people
02:52still look back on this with happiness in their hearts.
02:557. Triple H's Revamped War Games
02:57So if you're new to wrestling, this has been awesome. A double cage with a bunch of
03:01wrestlers going nuts? Hell yeah. The more traditional fan raised an eyebrow though,
03:06because it was Triple H taking a Dusty Rhodes tradition, and tweaking it a bit. The roof
03:10was gone for one, and that didn't sit right. Sometimes you just want what you had. As it
03:15turned out, there was absolutely no need to worry.
03:17It was quite clear Paul Levesque had made this cool to pay homage to a classic, and
03:21every single time we've rolled this out, it's been great. In fact, it's been a
03:25pleasure to have it back. It also enhanced the whole thing from a modern perspective,
03:28because wrestlers could now climb up to the top and do something crazy. And let's not
03:32pretend in 2023 that's not expected.
03:34If you want to now argue some of the best War Game matches have happened since this
03:38switch, I think you could, but either way, none of it has been a failure. It's almost
03:43like Triple H knew what he was doing.
03:456. Judgment Day 2.0
03:48We have said this on Ups and Downs. The version of the Judgment Day where Edge was in charge,
03:52just wasn't clicking. Couldn't really put your finger on why. It's just the way
03:56sometimes, you try, you fail, go and do something else. As it turns out, what we needed to do
04:01was let Rhea Ripley, Damien Priest and Finn Balor fly on their own, and then throw in
04:05Dominic Mysterio. Boom. Ever since those changes, it has been so good, and every single person
04:10has benefited.
04:11Balor's version of everybody's drunk mate is fantastic, Ripley is about to potentially
04:15headline Night 1 at WrestleMania, Damien Priest is just a force, and Domiboy is the
04:19best thing on the show, and I mean it. It only got stronger after these changes, and
04:23with all these rumours of a split after Mania, well no, just don't do it. There's so much
04:28more gas in the tank, and I can't wait to see it.
04:315. The New Day and Their Silliness
04:33So once again, we just read the facts. Big E, Xavier Woods and Kofi Kingston are going
04:38to join forces, play a trombone and pretend to be unicorns. That will never work, and
04:42if it was anybody else, you'd likely be right.
04:45Because these three have amazing chemistry though, and have no issue hamming it up, they
04:48not only made this work, but they turned it into one of the best groups ever, hence why
04:53almost one decade later, they are still going strong.
04:56What started as gospel singers transformed into a trio of wonderful goofs, as far as
05:00I'm concerned they're already Hall of Famers. The sheer joy they have given me over the
05:05years. It also saw Kofi become the WWE Champion, Big E do the same, whereas Woods achieved
05:10his dream of being King of the Ring, and I just couldn't love this more. It's been
05:14a joy since day one, and let's never break them up, they're too too good.
05:184. Sami Zayn Will Invade The Bloodline
05:21Don't pretend you knew how good this was going to be after the fact. When Sami Zayn
05:25started to hang around with Roman Reigns, it felt like it was just a nice aside, because
05:29that's what it was meant to be. WWE had this penned in for three weeks, and then we
05:33were going to move on. Which is when the crowd started to make noise.
05:37Around the month mark, it was very clear there was more here than met the eye, mostly because
05:41Zayn is so damn lovable. You wanted to see him accepted into the group because damn it,
05:45look at his face. The reason it seems so ridiculous is because of where they were at in the pecking
05:49order. Roman was the face of the company and basically untouchable, whereas Sami had just
05:54done a jackass match at WrestleMania. Now look, that was brilliant, but would the head
05:58of the table ever do this? No, never.
06:00Chemistry is undeniable though, and look what we did. Whether it was down to Triple H seeing
06:04its worth and carrying it on or whatever, it has carried Smackdown for the past eight
06:09months or so, and for my money, is the best storyline WWE has told in ages. Long may this
06:14approach continue too, it has been flubbing fantastic.
06:183. Mankind Is Dude Love
06:20Only Mick Foley could have pulled this off. Imagine we did this today, fans would be on
06:24Reddit before you could say Riot, one wrestler pretending to be somebody else, try again.
06:30With Foley though, he just got it. After years of being the tortured mankind he had proven
06:34he knew how to connect with the audience, so when it was time for something new, we
06:38tapped into his very real past and introduced Dude Love, it was wild.
06:43This was Mick's first character that he had created as a child, and we got our first
06:46glimpse of him in 1997, when about a year later, Mr. Love was feuding with Steve Austin.
06:52That wasn't by mistake. It also let us do the three faces of Foley in the Royal Rumble,
06:56which will never be topped, but this was insane. What do you mean you're not the same person
07:00that I've been watching for years?
07:02There was help with this, much like when we did it with Cactus Jack and Triple H sold
07:05like he'd seen a ghost, but it just shows how awesome Foley was. He totally knew what
07:10to do and when to do it. The man is a proper legend.
07:132. Mr. Socko Takes Off
07:15Which is why this worked too. Again, let's break it down.
07:19After a career of throwing himself off cages and into floors, Mick Foley couldn't do
07:22what he once did, so he thought outside the box. The main goal of wrestling was fan reaction,
07:27hence his crazy bumps, so what else could he do? Well, he could pull a sock out of his
07:32underwear. Bingo.
07:33It sounds borderline insulting, but you can't argue with the results. This version of Foley
07:37may very well have been the most popular because he embraced his goofy ways, and everybody
07:42lapped it up. He was having fun, so we could too.
07:45Socko's debut was amazing too because it was part of that classic Vince McMahon in
07:48the hospital segment, and I tell you, we never looked back. From that moment on, this exploded
07:53and I'm so glad it did. It was joyous and what I needed in my life, and yes I still
07:58do.
07:591. The Undertaker's Boneyard Match
08:01Now while that sounds terrible and like a euphemism I don't mean it that way, but
08:05when we got to WrestleMania 36 and the pandemic had stopped the world from moving, we had
08:09to come up with a brand new idea for The Undertaker. This was quite disappointing beforehand because
08:13it was meant to be the Deadman vs AJ Styles which would have been a phenomenal match,
08:18and that was a pun, when all of a sudden they turned it into a cinematic contest, and my
08:22word it was great. I mean there was huge potential that this was going to look like a Bad B movie,
08:27and I suppose at times it did, but because everybody bought in and we came up with so
08:31many good ideas, this was genuinely a highlight of the weekend.
08:34And there were others that tried to compete with this too, like the Swamp Fight between
08:37Braun Strowman and Bray Wyatt, or that thing in the dentist's office between Britt Baker
08:41and Big Swole, but nobody ever came close to this, and that's because everybody totally
08:46smashed it. I remember watching it live and just remembering how cool it made everybody
08:50seem too, and when The Undertaker rode off into the sunset, well let's face it, that
08:55was basically the perfect goodbye.
08:57Have any other WWE success stories that should have sucked but were absolutely brilliant?
09:01Let me know in the comments below, and don't forget to like the video, share the video,
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09:16My name is Simon from WhatCulture, thank you so much for joining me as always, and I look
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