1996 WWF Questions

By Scott Keith on 6 April 2014

Hey Scott,

Long time fan since at least 1998. Anyway I've been watching old 1996 PPVs on the WWE Network and have some questions for you:

1) What was up with Shawn Michaels having Jose Lothario as his manager? HBK was already super over and was fine on the mike. Was this something Shawn wanted or was this a Vince idea? Lothario was pretty useless outside of the angle at the Survivor Series and felt like he was absolutely out of place with HBK.

2) What were the long term plans with the Warrior? Were there any? Assuming Warrior stayed would he have just done exactly what Sid ended up doing?

3) I know Vader was originally suppose to win the title at Summer Slam but Shawn fought against it but was Mankind really suppose to win the title at Mind Games? If so why didn't Shawn veto that? I think I remember reading in your old rant that Vince changed the finish on the fly during the match can you explain in details how that happened? Did he simply get word to Shawn, Mankind and the ref the changed finish as well as everyone in the back to do the run in?

4) Was Vader going to win the title at Survivor Series? The December PPV was named "It's Time" obviously after him. So why did they put the title on Sid instead?

1. It was Shawn's idea, and yeah, it was stupid. Thankfully they dropped it after the San Antonio Rumble.

2. As far as I can remember, yes, that's correct. Warrior was going to end up in the World title picture after Summerslam.

3. No, the Mankind thing was a bullshit rumor that I passed on mistakenly. He was never scheduled to win and nothing was changed.

4. Vader didn't have the right friends, as Meltzer said on a recent show. Poor guy got his title win veto'd TWICE in the same year.