10 Times WWE Wasted HUGE Teases
In which you are punished for trusting the process.
Remember how little it really mattered just who lifted that f*cking briefcase away from Steve Austin's grasp at King Of The Ring 1999 by the following night's Raw? More importantly, do you remember why? The reasons were twofold.
For one thing, 'The Rattlesnake' won the WWE Championship in the evening's ratings-gobbling main event against The Undertaker. This was the thing about Stone Cold, and indeed WWE's booking of him as the top babyface - he'd been outwitted and screwed the night earlier, but fans were never given long enough to lose faith in him, nor the process that had aided his rise. The thinking, and much of this had to be driven by Austin's pestering of McMahon before showtime, it would take some grand plan for heels to win a battle, and they'd still lose the war.
That played in to reason two. On the Raw before the pay-per-view, the Big Boss Man appeared to leave the Corporate Ministry. On the show, the briefcase was lifted despite a blanket ban on corporate interference. On the post-show Raw, without reason or rationale, Boss Man rejoined the group with a big hug and even bigger smile. Had this been another layer to the scheme?
If it was, it was great, but they never explained it and dorks like your writer have spent intros like the one above pretending it doesn't matter when it does - everything does.
Sigh. Wasn't the first, won't be the last...
10. GTV
In 1999 we'll briefly stay, not because this was the year GTV was paid off, but because it was the year it was born.
Grainy hidden camera footage started airing on television, knackering all sorts of clandestine plans made by Superstars that understandably assumed they were scheming in secret. If this sounds familiar, it's because it served as the inspiration for one of 2020's biggest teases. But more on that later, because at least that one actually had a payoff in the end rather than none at all.
Indeed, after years of monitoring the actions of any and everybody, GTV gained a Raw-exclusive imitation (F-VIEW, nyuk nyuk) before disappearing completely. What can we take from the experience overall?
Well, we can assume the original intent of the idea was to return Goldust to television. It was originally branded "GDTV" before Dustin Runnels left for WCW in the summer. A number of wrestlers have suggested it was set to be then-TV megastar Tom Green before Vince McMahon actually saw his act. This checks out - Green was good at gross-out, and GTV constantly filmed people in f*cking toilets.