- 12 hours ago
Butterfly effects that changed WWE, AEW and the entire wrestling world.
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00:00Think of this, something you do today could change the world.
00:05No one ever knows when they're going to make a serious impact, so remember that.
00:08You may be about to hit levels you never thought capable of.
00:12You're basically a superhero.
00:14This is the same in wrestling too, but it's way more dumb, and therefore better.
00:18So I'm signed from WhatCulture, please do hit that subscribe button.
00:21And this is 10 wrestling moments more important than you realized.
00:25Number 10, Christian doesn't answer his phone.
00:27In 2001, Stone Cold Steve Austin rang Christian.
00:31They both had weird senses of humor, so the rattlesnake began to ask questions,
00:34answer them with the word what, before asking the question again.
00:38He thought this was so funny, he decided to do it live on the microphone.
00:41Here we are.
00:4321 years later, and crowds are still doing it, much to the chagrin of many.
00:48How mad is that?
00:48No one ever thought Austin buzzing his buddy was going to do this, and what if he had picked up?
00:53Maybe they would have shared a joke, and that would have been that.
00:55Random wrestlers wouldn't be watted out of the readers.
00:58So a monster was born on this day, although fair play to Steve.
01:01He made a fortune off this in merchandise just by printing one word on a t-shirt.
01:06It's almost like he understands the wrestling business.
01:09Number 9, WCW fires Paul Heyman.
01:11Whoops!
01:12In hindsight, WCW probably shouldn't have done this.
01:16In terms of the fans, thank goodness they did.
01:18Modern fans may only know Paul as Roman Reigns or Brock Lesnar's friend,
01:21but a quick dip into his history and you shall see he is an innovator.
01:25Aside from being a decent manager in World Championship Wrestling,
01:28he was responsible for ECW, a promotion so influential that it shaped one of the most successful periods in all of wrestling.
01:35It didn't last, as we know, but it really caused some disruption between the top two companies,
01:40and WCW must have kicked themselves for letting Heyman go in 1992.
01:44He soon signed on as Eddie Gilbert's assistant at the new ECW,
01:47and while the E meant Eastern at the time, it would soon be changed to extreme and we'd never look back.
01:54A proper moment, to say the least.
01:56Number 8, Vince McMahon pisses off Ted Turner.
01:59Today this is known as Black Saturday, or the 14th of July 1984.
02:03Using his money and power, Vince McMahon had done away with Georgia Championship Wrestling on Ted Turner's Superstation
02:09and replaced it with his WWF show instead.
02:12So far, so TV.
02:13Fortunately, those used to GCW wanted nothing to do with the World Wrestling Federation,
02:18so they just stopped watching.
02:20Didn't see that coming.
02:21It meant Vince and Ted started to have more heated discussions because ratings were the be-all and end-all,
02:26and when Turner realised this wasn't going to work, he decided to get more involved.
02:30As I'm sure you can figure out, the WWF was soon booted off this,
02:33and it's when WCW started to become a thing,
02:36and after a short while, that would be a viable competitor.
02:39You couldn't write this stuff.
02:40So if McMahon hadn't gone for this market, there's every chance none of this happens,
02:44and I tell you, that totally changes what wrestling is today.
02:48We may never have got that spark.
02:50Number 7, McMahon fires Jeff Jarrett live on TV.
02:53This is still mad if you watch it now,
02:55but one of the first things Vince McMahon did after he bought WCW in 2001
02:59is sit there on Monday Night Raw and fire Jeff Jarrett.
03:04This wasn't an angle either, which sucked for Double J,
03:06because he thought it was...
03:07Nope, the real deal.
03:08It meant when his contract ran out, there weren't that many options,
03:11and as he was never going to go to WWE, he did what we all would do.
03:15He started his own company in 2002.
03:18Known as TNA, and I'm sure you've heard of it,
03:20it has now been around for 20 years, as it still runs as Impact Wrestling.
03:24I don't think Jarrett envisioned that when he had this idea,
03:27and while he's not involved with it at all anymore, it's still crazy.
03:30I wouldn't say TNA ever competed with WWE properly, but it had its moments.
03:35Also, had its bad times.
03:36See, everything Hulk Hogan.
03:38If Vince had decided to play ball, though,
03:40maybe Jarrett doesn't have the spite in his belly to wage this war,
03:43and that would also mean we never got that reverse battle royal.
03:46If you know, you know.
03:47Number 16, Ambrose gets frustrated wrestling Brock Lesnar.
03:50Okay, so this is pure wrestling, but stay with me.
03:52Before Jon Moxley was Jon Moxley, he was Dean Ambrose, and he had a plan.
03:57At WrestleMania 32, he was going to have an insane match with Brock Lesnar,
04:01and that would show everyone that his character needed a shake-up.
04:04On paper, this sounded awesome.
04:05He even came up with some brutal spots that Brock could do to him,
04:08until Lesnar put the brakes on that, and basically any and all ideas,
04:12because he wasn't into it.
04:14Yep.
04:14Probably half that he didn't want to work with Ambrose,
04:16and half that he was training for a secret UFC return,
04:18and didn't want to get hurt.
04:19Treating Dean in this fashion was one of the earliest lightbulbs mentioned
04:23when Mox realised he probably needed to get out at some point.
04:26Obviously, there's loads more to the story than that,
04:28and Ambrose was still around for a while,
04:30but you've got to imagine that had Brock said,
04:32yeah, cool, let's go bonkers,
04:33it may have opened up other doors that the man was desperate to walk through.
04:37Instead, Jon Moxley did do that,
04:39but he just so happened to do it in a company called AEW.
04:42Number 5, The WWF Signs Mark Merrow.
04:45This story will make you laugh, kinda, not really.
04:49But when Jim Ross signed Mark Merrow and introduced him to Vince McMahon,
04:52Merrow's wife just happened to be present.
04:54Her name was Reena, and Vince took one look at her and said,
04:57there's a star, and months later we were introduced to Sable.
05:01There was more to this though, because it all happened in 1996,
05:04when Mark also got the first ever WWF guaranteed contract.
05:09They're commonplace today, but 25 plus years ago,
05:11it was Scott Hall and Kevin Nash going to WCW that started these off,
05:14meaning McMahon felt eventually like he was gonna have to follow suit.
05:18Therefore, even if the Wildman gimmick didn't work out,
05:20and it didn't,
05:21Mark was still going to get every single penny promised to him,
05:24and that's exactly what happened.
05:26From this point on, it became the norm,
05:27so while a big nod needs to go to Razor and Diesel,
05:30it was Merrow who was the benefactor of it all,
05:32changing the way that WWF did business forever.
05:36I mean, it seems like it's only fair,
05:37but at one point, it absolutely was not.
05:40Number 4, A Random Raw Divas Match.
05:42From 2015 to 2018, WWE got very strong with the women's revolution push.
05:47It was long overdue and should have happened years prior,
05:49but we don't really talk about the trigger to all of this,
05:51which was a random raw in February 2015.
05:54On that show, we had Paige and Emma vs. the Bella twins,
05:58and it was over so fast,
05:59I'm not sure what any of them were meant to do.
06:01It was also the final nail in the coffin,
06:03as the hashtag Give Divas a Chance started to trend,
06:05backed up by legends such as Mick Foley,
06:07agreeing the women needed more TV time.
06:09So these 30 seconds got the attention of everyone,
06:12fans started chanting it in the arenas,
06:14and before long, the change was on,
06:16and the female talent were finally being portrayed as they deserved.
06:19Even on the running order that day,
06:21this match was basically the least important thing on the broadcast,
06:24so little did we know.
06:25Thank goodness, too,
06:26because it really was getting ridiculous.
06:28Number 3, Medusa Trashes the WWF Women's Title in WCW.
06:32This is not here for the reason you're thinking.
06:35Yes, Medusa joining WCW as the WWF Women's Champion
06:38throwing it in the bin did spark a lot of madness,
06:41but there was something else here that changed everything,
06:43because look at it like this.
06:45If this hadn't have happened two years prior,
06:47do you really think Vince McMahon would have been that worried
06:49about what Brat Hart may or may not do with his title
06:52after the Survivor Series 1997?
06:54I mean, you can argue it either way,
06:56but it certainly does raise an eyebrow.
06:58I would bet nobody would have even thought about this,
07:00because it only became a thing after it was a thing.
07:03And I'm not saying Medusa is responsible,
07:05and she has talked about why she did it a lot,
07:07but the WCW WWF war was so personal by this stage,
07:11I imagine it did play a part.
07:13So if that doesn't happen,
07:14maybe we don't get the Montreal Screwdrop
07:16or the birth of the Mr. McMahon character,
07:19and given how much we use that as a jumping off point,
07:22my word, it burns your brain.
07:24Number 2, Chris Jericho gets chewed out.
07:26Kevin Owens and Chris Jericho were excited about WrestleMania 33,
07:29because as far as they knew,
07:30they were going to be fighting for the Universal title,
07:33so I can see why they would be pumped.
07:35The program in 2017 was great anyways,
07:37but this would be the icing on the cake,
07:40and then Vince McMahon changed his mind.
07:42After Goldberg's comeback the previous year had done the numbers,
07:45the championship was switched to him and Brock Lesnar,
07:47with Jericho's match being moved to second on the card.
07:50As Chris himself has talked about,
07:53this was the biggest slap in the face,
07:54because that's an awful spot to be in.
07:56At the very least,
07:57you want to start the show with a hot crowd.
07:59Coming after that just made you feel like an afterthought.
08:02McMahon also didn't like the match and told both guys this,
08:04so when it came to return to WWE,
08:07Jericho decided against it.
08:08It was clear how the company saw him,
08:10so he went to New Japan and became an even bigger star,
08:13and then helped launch AEW.
08:16I will wager all the money that if Vince could do this over,
08:19he would tell Chris Jericho he was the greatest person ever
08:22and make him all the champions.
08:25The stress this has caused.
08:26Number one, Jake Roberts' 1996 comeback.
08:29If you listen to either Jim Ross or Bruce Prichard,
08:31they admit this didn't exactly go to plan.
08:33Jake Roberts had star power,
08:35which the WWF needed in the mid-90s,
08:37but the snake wasn't in a good headspace,
08:39and it showed life is hard, man.
08:41Tying in to how he was trying to sort this,
08:43Roberts soon took on a religious gimmick of sorts,
08:46and while this was short-lived,
08:47do you remember what happened in the middle of it?
08:50He took on one Steve Austin at the King of the Ring,
08:52and after being told Jake had cut somewhat of a biblical promo on him
08:55after the semi-finals,
08:57the rattlesnake dropped in the Austin 316 line,
09:00and he changed the world.
09:02This means if we hadn't have gotten Roberts back,
09:04Stone Cold would have had no reason to say this,
09:06and it may never have been a thing.
09:08Given how much money it made all involved,
09:10I bet internally they flippin' love the 1996 Jake Roberts return.
09:14Who knew?
09:15Now, any other wrestling moments more important than you've realized?
09:18Make sure you let us know in the comments below,
09:19and don't forget to like the video,
09:20share the video,
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09:30And also,
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09:33Why don't you watch another?
09:34My name is Simon WhatCulture.
09:36Thank you very much for joining me as always.
09:37I want you to know that I love you with all of my being,
09:41and one day we will have crumpets of tea,
09:43because that's what us Brits do,
09:45and we'll do it with the Queen.
09:46Goodbye.
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