Re-Writing The Book – Chapter 10: Warrior ‘96

There are times in wrestling history where a beloved character of the past returns and everyone is overjoyed. Take a look at Hogans WWE run in the 2000’s or how about every time the Rock returns to television. The Ultimate Warrior returned in 1996 by squashing HHH at Wrestlemania and next thing you know he was gone. He was there long enough to have a Jakks action figure made I remember that but by time Summerslam was here he was gone. If you’ve listened to Something To Wrestle… or read online you know that things didn’t click with officials backstage this go around. We aren’t here to hash out what happened or why it did. Instead we are here to talk about what if he hadn’t of left and what we could have gotten from the Warrior this go around. If you remember he was featured on the King of the Ring poster and defeated Jerry Lawler at that PPV. He was then set to team with Shawn Michaels and Ahmed Johnson at International Incident. We will pick up there where that event took place.

WWF In Your House: International Incident featured a six man tag match as the main event having Shawn Michaels (wwf champion), Ahmed Johnson and Ultimate Warrior taking on Camp Cornette with Vader, Bulldog and Owen Hart. The ending of this match would have been the same with Vader pinning Michaels in the ring after a Vader bomb. After the match the faces would take out the heels and Warrior would press slam Bulldog specifically. This would lead to Warriors opponent at Summerslam.

Leading up to Summerslam you would have Ultimate Warrior continuously feuding with Jim Cornette and Bulldog every week. We would finally get to Summerslam and Warrior would defeat Bulldog. This would put Camp Cornette behind Warrior and he would would now have a new feud and that would be with Goldust. The eccentric Goldust and Warrior would end up having the feud they wish would have worked with Papa Shango. Week after week Goldust would get the better of Warrior by playing mind games with him. Also we would see the return of Sid during this time who would start feuding with Vader (you know after the HBK/Vader stuff from Summerslam).

So at In Your House: Mind Games we would have the first match of Goldust and Ultimate Warrior. This match would end in a disqualification when Goldust would utilize a foreign object. Although Warrior would win this match this feud would not be over yet. The mind games between Warrior and Goldust would continue and this feud would continue at In Your House: Buried Alive. So at this event Vader and Sid would face off to determine the number one contender for the WWF championship. Undertaker would face off against Mankind in a buried alive match and Warrior would take on Goldust.

Here we would see Warrior get the win over Goldust clean in the ring. Putting aside the Golden one and setting his sights towards the WWF title. We would see some tension between he and Shawn however Cornette would be back out and say that although Vader lost to Sid he would still be ahead of Warrior in the title chase. This would lead to Vader vs. Warrior at Survivor Series. Warrior would go over Vader at Survivor Series and believe he is the number one contender for the title. Sid would defeat Shawn Michaels for the title at Survivor Series. Shawn would go away for a while and Bret would have just defeated Austin at Survivor Series.

Austin would end up facing Warrior at the next In Your House while Bret would take on Sid for the title leading up to Royal Rumble in San Antonio. Warrior would defeat Austin and Sid would defeat Bret and retain the title at In Your House: It’s Time. This would lead us to Royal Rumble where Sid would defend his title against Shawn Michaels and you would have the Royal Rumble match. The Rumble would still end screwy with Austin eliminating both Warrior and Bret after being eliminated himself and “winning” the Royal Rumble. Michaels would of course defeat Sid and the next night would lose his smile.

So at In Your House: Fatal Fourway we would have a match to crown the champion. It would be Warrior, Austin, Bret and Sid vying for the WWF title. Warrior would pin Austin to become the WWF title and go into Wrestlemania with the title. Wrestlemania would have looked much different than it did. We would have had Vader vs. Undertaker, Austin vs. Bret, and Sid vs. Warrior for the WWF title at Wrestlemania. Warrior would be the champion going into the big event.

You would have still had Austin and Bret steal the show and solidify Austin as the next guy in the company. Undertaker would have defeated Vader as Vader’s stock was low however could have had a good match against Undertaker. Vince would have stuck with Warrior and had him go over Sid at this event even though Vince supposedly loved Sid. After this I think you would have had Bret as a heel after the double turn at Wrestlemania and I think he would have been the natural next feud for Warrior. By this time it would seem that Warrior would have been difficult to deal with (just by his history) and people may have been pushing for Bret and his new heel turn to take the title.

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I think over the next few months you would have had Hart and Warrior feuding over the title with Hart ultimately taking the title from Warrior. This likely would have led to Warrior leaving the company as Bischoff at this time was always lurking with big money guarentees. You could have seem Warrior pop up over there however it always seemed like Warrior and backstage officials were always on edge with each other. Here you would have Warrior who felt like he saved them and likely let it known to everyone backstage. This is where i’m going to wrap up this chapter of Re-Writing the Book. Let me know your thoughts in the comment section below or shoot me a message on twitter @awesomephinatic. Until next time be awesome.

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