Vince McMahon was a genius in many ways when it came to professional wrestling and what fans wanted to see, but as we’ve all learned, it all came down to what he liked and thought was best.
There have been plenty of stories about him changing his mind on a wrestler, their angle, or even their entire career.
In some cases, it was due to the idea that matches had to be faces vs. heels or some feeling threatened by another’s growing popularity.
One of those instances happened with Jake Roberts during his first run in the company when he was expected to feud with Hulk Hogan, but he started getting babyface reactions at house shows.
Others have talked about this before, and Roberts went into greater detail when he sat down with wrestlingnews.co’s Steve Fall.
Being too over
Roberts was one of the premier talents in the WWE in the 80s and it didn’t matter to fans if he was a heel or not, he had a presence about him that made us want to watch and that made him a threat.
Special thanks to Wrestlingnews.co for the transcript.
“I couldn’t wrestle Hogan because the crowd was split. Not my fault they don’t like Hogan. It’s not my fault they’re cheering for me. You know, let’s get out there and go. Hell, we were selling out. We only wrestled twice and both of them were sellouts, so what the hell’s the problem? This was right after the Steamboat incident and stuff. We did a couple of things. We did some vignettes and stuff out in Phoenix and it looked like we were gonna go with it. Whenever I DDT’t Hogan on The Snake Pit, I had The Snake Pit going, and left him laying.
“I came to the back and Vince is like, ‘Stand right here and wait til these people come up and start cheering for Hogan. They’ll chant his name, blah, blah, blah, blah. You guys are gonna make so much money.’ I’m waiting, and I’m waiting, and I’m waiting, and then people started sharing, ‘DDT, DDT’, that was the end of it. Vince said, ‘I’m pulling the plug on this sh-t.'”
It would take McMahon until the Attitude Era to understand that fans don’t always want the heroes to win, but because of his belief fans should always support the faces, we lost out on what could’ve been a great feud.
How much Hogan really played into it is anyone’s guess, but we don’t doubt he had a hand in it in some way.
Did we miss out on a great feud? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
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