It was announced today that after 20 years in the biz, good 'ol JR is leaving the WWE.
Rumor has it that his departure by have something to do with the drunken WWE 2K14 press conference fiasco last month or so. Maybe this will lead to one last Jim Ross embarrassing beatdown/mockery. Man, I sure hope not. Twenty years is long enough.
Kwang vs. Ray Hudson - WWF Wrestling Challenge (1994)
In yet another attempt to package someone up as something they are not - as the WWF loved doing around this time - management decided to place Savio Vega under a "ninja" mask and send him off as a martial arts specialist, Asian wrestler. And while Vega did the best he could with the gimmick, including the green mist and having Harvey Wippleman in his corner, it just wasn't enough and he was soon phased out.
Phased out to become Savio Vega, Razor Ramon's friend of course.
Also, I'm aware that Savio Vega previously had a sort of "oriental" martial arts gimmick when he was TNT in WWC, but if you look at him there, were he actually got to speak his native language and show his face (just with facepaint on), it's a lot different than just being just dressed up as a ninja warrior with no character of his own.
Anyways, here's Kwang in his first match against a jobber named Ray Hudson according to Jim Ross.
Stone Cold Steve Austin vs. Hunter Hearst Helmsley - WWF In Your House: Buried Alive (1996)
Long before Triple H hit Stone Cold with a car in an attempt to finally get the spotlight Stone Cold was robbing him of, Triple H was just Hunter Hearst Helmsley, a rich snob from Connecticut who was never going to get over as long as Stone Cold Steve Austin was around.
I don't know if this was ever true or not but rumor has it that Hunter was originally going to win the 1996 King of the Ring - but after losing to Jake Roberts in the first round, it was Stone Cold Steve Austin who would go on to win it all and begin his era with his famous Austin 3:16 speech. Triple H would go on to win the next years King of the Ring tournament but didn't really get over the way Austin did until he took over D-Generation X after another spotlight stealer, The Heart Break Kid Shawn Michaels lost his smile... I mean hurt his back or something... a few years later.
This is also at the height of Good ol' JR's "microphone difficulties" which eventually was worked into an angle where he blamed all the messy headphone activity he was getting at Vince McMahon as some sick joke. This then led to the short-lived JR heel-turn remembered mostly by the fact that he brought in Fake Razor Ramon and Diesel, but that a different story for a different day.
Here's the very first PPV match-up of HHH and Stone Cold Steve Austin.
