So King Of The Ring 98 is known primarily for two things; Hell In A Cell and also Kane defeating Stone Cold Steve Austin in a First Blood match (thanks to a deliberate chairshot from Undertaker) to win the WWF Championship… which he would lose the next night on RAW back to Austin in order to pop some sort of rating… which they didn’t need to do because they were already handing WCW their ass, but I digress.
So the thought occurred to me the other day… what if Kane had been champion a little longer than a day? Maybe… let’s say about a couple weeks before the next PPV. Give Austin something to chase for a bit. Could you have produced some compelling television with that piece of business? I don’t know… maybe…
Here’s the thing with that angle. It could have worked because of the Undertaker factor. The whole thing with Taker and Kane and whether they’re in cahoots or not probably would have worked better if Taker was doing whatever he could to protect Kane and his title from harm… not necessarily out of brotherly love, but mostly so that when the time came, he’d be the one to challenge Kane for the title and no one else. Maybe you keep Austin off TV for a week or two to sell the chairshot he ate from Taker before he comes back and issue the man-to-man challenge to Kane, who accepts at the next PPV and then while Undertaker gets his title shot at Summerslam, Austin regains the belt from Kane and then we can do business as usual.
It could have been interesting, I suppose… but then again, am I just waxing nostalgia for the good old days or am I just doing whatever I can to avoid talking about the current WWE product… which is kinda, sorta sucking right about now?
I dunno… just a thought.
dtm666 