Bob Backlund
By Scott Keith on 6 April 2015
Scott,
Long timer. I was actually the guy who compared Adolph Hitler the painter to Benoit. That made it into your book. In any event, just joined the Network tonite and checked out the 1994 Survivor Series. That night I was pissed, but looking back, good lord was heel champion Bob Backlund the bee's knees. Why did Vince pull that trigger only to switch to Diesel days later? Was Nash the plan all along? Why blow off Backlund so quick when he was an obvious hated heel?
Nash was definitely the plan all along. Vince specifically wanted a guy for him to squash in 8 seconds and obviously Bret wasn't going along with that, so Backlund was the guy picked. Now why they had to rush from Backlund to Nash so quickly is another thing entirely, because Bob still had pretty good heat going and could have carried it until Royal Rumble at least. They could have super-duper-copied Hogan's introduction by setting up a rematch with Backlund v. Bret at the Rumble, only for Bret to get injured by someone at the show and Diesel taking his place as a surprise challenger.