This is just an excuse to discuss what an incredibly awesome character Jake was during this run. He wasn't in many great matches, but that wasn't really the modus operandi of the Fed during this era. Whether this was partially influenced by his supposed neck injury (Honky claims Jake exaggerates this and his substance abuse issues were the real issue) or not, I'm not sure. But in terms of character work, promos and angles, he was phenomenal.

In terms of memorable angles/moments in nearly all of his feuds, he may be untouchable for this period.

- Wells frothing at the mouth with Damien on him at Mania 2
- DDTing Steamboat on the concrete and Steamboat using a komodo dragon to combat Damien
- Honky hitting him with the guitar on The Snake Pit
- Rude hitting on his wife Cheryl
- Andre being afraid of snakes and having a "heart attack"; also eliminating himself at the Rumble due to Damien
- Stealing the Million $ Title and placing it in Damien's bag, ultimately leading to Bossman's face turn
- Bad News getting some mutant New York sewer rats that he planned to get to eat Damien
- Martel blinding Jake with Arrogance on the Brother Love Show, leading to the Blindfold match
- Quake squashing Damien and cooking up Quakeburgers/Snakeburgers
- The three dark tests with the Warrior to help him combat Taker, leading to Jake's heel turn and teaming with Taker
- The wedding reception crashing, snakebite and Liz slapping during the Savage feud
- Taker's face turn on the Funeral Parlor, with his hand trapped in the casket as Jake attacks him with a chair and DDTs Bearer

The fact that I didn't need to look any of that up shows how memorable of a run Jake had.

I do wonder what the original plan was for him in late 1991. Obviously his feud with Warrior was just getting going when Warrior was fired so you can imagine it running on for a few more months. But they did do the wedding reception angle with Sid chasing them off before Warrior was fired. Maybe the plan was to do a sort-of Jake/Taker vs. Warrior/Sid feud with Jake moving from Warrior to Sid. And was the Macho reinstatement and feud pushed forward after Sid got injured pre-Survivor Series? Who would Jake have feuded with after Taker if he had stayed around?

So feel free to share your thoughts or some clips/promos/matches of Jake the Snake's WWF prime.

My favorite period of Jake's first WWF stint was his 91-92 heel run where he was maybe the most evil character I had seen in WWF up to that point. I was a fan of his during this period....but not too big a fan since he couldn't fully be trusted. Why he might turn on Undertaker or mess with Ric Flair at any moment! You just don't know with this guy! He had a sort of loose cannon vibe going on.

Having only known Jake as a good guy, I was shocked when he swerved Warrior to join forces with Undertaker. Great angle. Then he crashed Savage's wedding. Then came the snake bite, which was the talk of the schoolyard for weeks, and was so extreme for its time that one of my friends was no longer allowed to watch wrestling anymore because of it. Taker's face turn angle was also awesome. He dragged the casket! I wanted to see Taker kick Jake's ass after that.

I also have a soft spot for the blinding angle and especially the Wrestlemania VII Blindfold Match with Martel.

The snake bite on Savage was one of those things(along with Dan Severn's performance in UFC 4) that led to me just refusing to believe that wrestling was fake.

Awesome that you two have real avatars now Baker Strobe, I hated those fucking bald headed generic avatars.

I was immediately drawn to Jake simply because he didn't have the typical WWF physique. He was creepy at first and I really thought he put Ricky Steamboat out of commission with the DDT on the floor. Once he turned face though he was a slam dunk favorite as the DDT/Damien combo was so cool and he would remain in my top 3 or 5 WWF guys for the rest of his first run. Here's an early promo of how Jake really got the DDT over in the fan's minds as the most devastating hold in wrestling:

This promo also weirded me out but it garnered a ton of sympathy from the fans. He was brilliant at manipulating people's emotions.

 According to Bret during his timeline 1992 shoot he was scheduled to wrestle Jake at Summerslam.

Dec 3, 2017 8:08:23 GMT Shootist said:

I was immediately drawn to Jake simply because he didn't have the typical WWF physique.

This is a good point, he does look quite territorial, but I do also think it is interesting that we often talk like it was guys such as Warlord that were pushed in the upper cards when you had Piper, DiBiase, Jake, Honky, Dusty, Slaughter, Flair all in prominent, sometimes top, spots during the Hulkamania era. Character, charisma, promo ability and look (as in memorable, rather than just being ripped) is what mattered.

Dec 3, 2017 8:08:23 GMT Shootist said:

According to Bret during his timeline 1992 shoot he was scheduled to wrestle Jake at Summerslam.

You would have thought that Jake/Taker would've run through to SummerSlam if Jake was planning to stay. We were only shown the backstage Taker save from SNME on Feb 23rd, the Taker turn and hand stuck in casket segment on Feb 29th and Mania was just 5 weeks later. If Jake is staying, I could see them doing a non-finish at Mania (bye bye Streak) or, more likely, Taker winning by DQ or CO.

There would have been a lot of gas left in the Jake/Taker program. Jake trying to use snakes, but Taker being his first opponent to not fear them. Building to the first coffin/casket match at SummerSlam. Maybe even some cool spot with snakes in the casket, Jake being put in it and (in a pre-taped backstage segment) when the officials get it back open, Jake has them wrapped all around him.

I wonder what sort of angle would've been planned for a feud with Bret?

Jake's final year is such an interesting period in terms of the number of pivots that were made due to feuds breaking down for various reasons. Such perfect fodder for fantasy booking and what if discussions.

After Mania VII, he starts his feud with Earthquake, who squashes Damien. Around the same time, Andre (who had previously been booked for the 91 Rumble but fucked his leg in Japan in late 90) was doing an angle where he was looking for a manager. He went around humiliating the heel managers that tried to court him and eventually Jimmy Hart thought that he had acquired his services to partner him with Quake to form a mega tag team. But Andre turned him down, so Quake attacked Andre's knee with the megaphone and then dropped a number of elbows and splashes on it, giving Andre an excuse to use crutches on screen for his bad leg. Since they didn't get Andre, Jimmy Hart and Quake managed to convince Tugboat to turn and become Typhoon, to form the Natural Disasters.



At this point there was still some misguided hope that Andre would be able to wrestle in a limited capacity (like he had with Haku in the Colossal Connection) and they started to build to Andre joining forces with his old foe Jake, who was also having his issue with Quake. Jake/Andre vs. Disasters was planned for SummerSlam, but it was soon realised that Andre was not going to be able to perform even minimally so it was scrapped and we got Disasters vs. Bushwhackers with Andre in their corner, with things changing drastically for Jake.

Warrior had been feuding with Taker and used Jake to train him to combat the dark side, but it turned out Jake was playing with him and turned heel (I like to think that Quake killing his beloved pet Damien led to this). While all this was being set up, Warrior and Vince were butting heads over payoffs and contract issues and Warrior was suspended immediately after SummerSlam, so this Jake/Warrior feud never happens. But they were prepared and had set up the replacement feud with the post-show angle at SummerSlam with Jake and Taker crashing Savage and Liz's wedding reception and new guy Sid chasing them off.

So Jake's feud is now with Sid, which was built up on TV and ultimately planned for them to clash as opposing Survivor Series captains, but circumstances got in the way again. Jake barely works any house shows in August and September (I don't know if there was some sort of drug suspension going on here), while Sid takes Warrior's spot working the advertised casket matches against Taker. Jake and Sid do finally start their house show run and work 10 matches in 8 days, before Sid tears his bicep and that's that. Jake's next feud had been getting set up simultaneously anyway, with Savage (after the wedding reception incident) trying to get reinstated and failing, having to rely on hoping Sid would destroy Jake for him. When Sid got injured, Savage replaced him on house shows as Mr. Madness (presumably from the same town as Mr. America) and the WWF was clearly loving pixelation (Big Gold Belt) around this period.



I love the idea in kayfabe that somehow this was succesfully deceiving Jake Tunney. Maybe a masked Savage, making no attempt to hide his voice, had signed a deal with him with Tunney none the wiser. We can only hope. They run the amazing snakebite angle, which was probably always planned as the way that Tunney would actually reinstate Macho, but may have been moved forward after Sid's injury. So you'd think Savage would just replace Sid at the Survivor Series but uh-uh. Instead the Survivor Series tag just becomes a 3-on-3 with LOD/Bossman vs. Disasters/IRS and they basically just use the show to build up a new shorter PPV 6 days later with Macho's return against Jake and the Hogan/Taker rematch.

At this point, it is looking like the big two matches at Mania will be Hogan/Flair and the Savage/Jake blowoff. Some people have claimed Hogan/Flair was never really planned and there are reasons to believe that (such as them running it on house shows in late 1991) and not believe that (I would imagine it was definitely considered on option while Sid was out for 3 months, with all the potential issues that injury rehab presents, and still a face). So Savage/Jake gets an unsatisfying finalé on a SNME, we get the Taker face turn and him and Jake only have a few weeks before they face off at Mania and Jake is gone.

So much could have been different there.

- If Andre's leg recovered enough so that he could work minimal involvement tags, would Jake have even turned heel at all?

- If Warrior and Vince had come to truly amicable terms, it is possible that there would have been no wedding crashing. Savage was always going to be coming back at some point, so how would it have been done? And who would Sid have been feuding with? Probably Taker initially, since Hogan worked no shows for the 2 months after SummerSlam.

- If Sid had not gotten injured, would that have impacted on anything? We were always heading for Savage/Jake anyway at that point and I could see lots of Savage/Sid vs. Jake/Taker house show tags in Nov/Dec. Maybe if there was 3 months of getting reports of Sid getting cheered a lot on house shows, it would've turned Vince away from any idea of a heel turn and we'd have gotten Hogan/Flair, Savage/Jake and Sid/Taker at Mania VIII.

Arguably the best promo in the business. He was an unbelievably great heel. Such a shame that his era was LOADED with all-time greats. He'd have been a phenomenal champion. If he came along today, unchanged, he'd be viewed as the top heel of all time.

Must have been frustrating times for him towards the end of that run. Had things gone more smoothly without the stop/start feuds he could have stuck around for a few more years.

Reading this fantastic thread truly does highlight what an amazing character he truly was. 80's Jake could probably wrestle in pretty much any territory/promotion from any era and be successful. I do feel kinda bad that he was such a tormented soul away from the cameras, making his onscreen character that much more deeper, and, at its core, a bit sad. No way he wasn't up for, like, days on end at a time, high as a f@€king kite thinking of some fucked up shit to come up with some of those legendary promos. Yes, we got some amazing moments, but without such a troubled existence, would we have got the same results? 

The DDT was a big part of the deal too. It was perfect for him. I hate the bastardization of the move since Jake stopped being a thing, although it does make Jakes DDT that much more special. Like, his DDT is to DDT's what Hansens Lariat is to clotheslines: "I don't give a flying $hit if you do it, when I do it you ain't getting back up" type of thing.

Strobe, a selfish request but you got me thinking...

In the spirit of keeping the tag main event a continuous "thing" for the early SummerSlams, what do you do for 1991? Hogan/Warrior vs. Jake/Undertaker? Do you still incorporate Sid as the special guest ref? How would you build to it? Or do you do something different?

I'm really loving the idea of stretching SummerSlam tag main events as far out as possible for some reason. :lol:

'88: Hogan & Savage vs. DiBiase & André [feat. Jesse Ventura as special guest ref]
'89: Hogan & Beefcake vs. Savage & Zeus
'90: Hogan & Warrior vs. 'Quake & Bravo
'91: Hogan & Warrior vs. Jake & 'Taker (?) [feat. Sid Justice as special guest ref?]
'92: Warrior & Savage vs. Flair & Perfect/Sid [whichever one is less injured or less suspended?]
'93: Yikes, gets tough... I have no idea...
'94: OK, maybe the tag main event idea is no longer viable... :lol:

Dec 15, 2017 3:14:45 GMT 🤯 said:

Strobe , a selfish request but you got me thinking...

In the spirit of keeping the tag main event a continuous "thing" for the early SummerSlams, what do you do for 1991? Hogan/Warrior vs. Jake/Undertaker? Do you still incorporate Sid as the special guest ref? How would you build to it? Or do you do something different?

I'm really loving the idea of stretching SummerSlam tag main events as far out as possible for some reason. :lol:

'88: Hogan & Savage vs. DiBiase & André [feat. Jesse Ventura as special guest ref]
'89: Hogan & Beefcake vs. Savage & Zeus
'90: Hogan & Warrior vs. 'Quake & Bravo
'91: Hogan & Warrior vs. Jake & 'Taker (?) [feat. Sid Justice as special guest ref?]
'92: Warrior & Savage vs. Flair & Perfect/Sid [whichever one is less injured or less suspended?]
'93: Yikes, gets tough... I have no idea...
'94: OK, maybe the tag main event idea is no longer viable... :lol:

1993 Luger/Bret vs. Yoko and Lawler

1994 Bret/mystery partner (the returning British Bulldog) vs. Owen/Neidhart

1995 it gets pretty thin here, Bret/Diesel vs. Yankem/Mabel? (ugh)

I still don't see Jake lasting much longer in the WWF if he stayed. Who knows, he may have got caught up with his buddy Hawk and got lost in drugs after Summerslam '92 if he stuck around.

Dec 15, 2017 3:14:45 GMT 🤯 said:

Strobe, a selfish request but you got me thinking...

In the spirit of keeping the tag main event a continuous "thing" for the early SummerSlams, what do you do for 1991? Hogan/Warrior vs. Jake/Undertaker? Do you still incorporate Sid as the special guest ref? How would you build to it? Or do you do something different?

I'm really loving the idea of stretching SummerSlam tag main events as far out as possible for some reason. :lol:

'88: Hogan & Savage vs. DiBiase & André [feat. Jesse Ventura as special guest ref]
'89: Hogan & Beefcake vs. Savage & Zeus
'90: Hogan & Warrior vs. 'Quake & Bravo
'91: Hogan & Warrior vs. Jake & 'Taker (?) [feat. Sid Justice as special guest ref?]
'92: Warrior & Savage vs. Flair & Perfect/Sid [whichever one is less injured or less suspended?]
'93: Yikes, gets tough... I have no idea...
'94: OK, maybe the tag main event idea is no longer viable... :lol:

In my rebooked universe for 89-94 (where, as God, I can determine whether people do or do not get injured and can make anyone happy and stay - although I do try to keep a modicum of reality to it), which I come back to from time to time and may eventually finish one day, I blow Jake/Quake off (with Andre in Jake's corner) at a newly introduced June PPV (along with Hulk/Slaughter), do the Jake turn a little sooner and do the SummerSlam 1991 main that you mentioned.

I do keep Sid as ref, as I thought the whole "is he good or bad" introduction was good and it would help lead into the Sid/Jake feud after Slam even better (Warrior still leaves here).

It may seem a little too early to have heel Jake take a fall, but he wouldn't be too hurt by it. During the match, Taker looks like a monster, hardly affected by Hogan's offence and then a finish involving ref Sid stopping Jake using the snake or the urn or both and it leads to Jake getting hit by the urn behind Sid's back and taking the leg drop for the pin. That protects Jake and leads into Snake/Sid perfectly. The Savage/Liz wedding follows that match (which you could argue ends the tag main events,but that's a segment not a match) and the show ends with Heenan at Hogan's door ready to challenge him on behalf of Flair and the show fades to black (not Hogan slamming the door and Heenan dropping the belt silliness). Then do the wedding crashing as well anyway (shown on TV the next week) with Sid chasing Jake and Taker off. So you have Jake/Sid, Hogan/Taker and Hogan/Flair all getting set up even better than happened in reality (along with Jake/Macho still getting set up the same way).

And yeah, I go for Savage/Warrior vs. Flair/Sid in 92, since I can convince Sid to stay (along with Jake and I can make Savage and Liz's real-life unhappy marriage trundle on a few months more). Unfortunately in reality, Sid was gone and Perfect wasn't fit yet to return. But let's forget nonsense like reality.

At Mania, Sid loses his temper after being unable to put away Taker and hits him with a chair for the DQ loss, flickers of a heel turn to come. Savage beats Jake in a cage match with an elbow off the cage in a match involving Liz and snakebite teases. Post-match (shown on TV the next week), the SNME angle is run here instead with Taker turning face by stopping a Jake attack behind the curtain. During Hogan/Flair, you get a ref bump and Perfect jumps Hogan, bringing out Sid with a chair (as if he is still carrying it from before) to make the save. But Sid turns and hits Hogan with the chair for the DQ (the ref is now back up), since even as God, I still don't think Hogan could be convinced to take the pin here. They lay a beating on Hulk until Warrior returns (as if he knew this would all go down and was just chilling in the back waiting) and chases them off, giving fans their happy end to Mania.

Coming out of Mania then, the big feuds are Flair/Savage (doing the "Liz was mine" deal), Warrior/Sid and Taker/Jake and you get that tag main at SummerSlam, along with Taker finishing off Jake in the first ever casket match (a perfect way to write someone out).

After shinobimusashi mentioned the possibility of The Mega Warriors (just make Hawk's drug addiction go away and definitely don't introduce Rocco) in a universe where the steroid scandal didn't happen or didn't really matter in his Survivor Series thread, I got the idea to really change up my rebooking to fit them into Survivor Series 1992. Against a sort-of Horsemen. Hogan can be brought back earlier here for one-off big shows. Flair, Perfect and Sid are all buds coming out of Mania and then we add Rick Rude (who never left in late 1990 here; or if you arent happy with that then make it HBK or DiBiase I guess) to them after SummerSlam. Finally, we introduce Luger a few months early (some agreement is reached regarding his non-compete) and the huge main for Survivor Series is set:

Hogan/Savage/Warrior/LOD vs. Flair/Sid/Perfect/Rude/Luger

Then you can have LOD working tags against Perfect/Rude and Sid/Luger going forwards, upper carders like LOD should be working against really. And I could see Sid eventually turning face again down the line in 1993 and using him to put over The Total Package. Not sure what the SummerSlam tag main would be for 1993 in that universe. Hadn't quite thought that far ahead and whether Hogan would be a semi-regular by then or when Flair would go back to WCW.

In the real 1993, yeah, Shootist has it about right with Bret/Luger vs. Yoko/Lawler which I could see being fun.

Well, that became a complete ramble. But there was some stuff about Jake in there, so let's just say it fits the thread.

And since I have no problem with any thread becoming a rebooking/fan fiction/speculation thread, I wonder if anyone suggested the possibility of last second changing the 91 SummerSlam handicap tag to Hogan/Warrior vs. Slaughter/Jake/Taker? I don't think anyone would complain about that. The Jake turn was only shown on TV 9 days before the show, but announcing this match could've given a late boost to PPV buys. You get a hot match and Slaughter is there to take the fall. An argument against is perhaps not wanting to taint Jake/Taker with any of the Iraqi stuff.

------------------------------------------------

And in a universe where the steroid scandal didn't happen and Hawk's problems don't exist, I just realised the awesome potential of a LOD heel turn. LOD vs. The Mega Powers. LOD vs. The Ultimate Maniacs (which sounds more like a Hulkamaniacs team than a Macho Madness team). LOD vs. Hogan/Warrior (who we really need a team name for; I guess it could be Mega Warriors, but I prefer that for the collective with Savage and LOD as you've got the Mega Powers, Ultimate Warrior and Road Warriors).

-------------------------------------------------

And as another aside, I've just become aware of a WWF stadium show called WrestleFest that drew 19,000 in July 1991 that had an original card that was close to what a PPV around that period would've been (as this collected all the big matches being run on the various house show circuits), except a bunch of no shows for different reasons destroyed the undercard.

ORIGINAL CARD

Hogan vs. Slaughter for the WWF Title with Savage as ref (it's not a Desert Storm match, but still pretty good)
Warrior vs. Taker in a casket match (they'd been doing bodybag matches; this might be the first casket match ever)
Jake vs. Quake with Andre in the Snake's corner.
Piper/Virgil vs. DiBiase/IRS I'd prefer just Piper/DiBiase with Virgil getting involved post-match to continue the issues, but we do get proto-Money Inc. here
Perfect vs. Bulldog for the IC Title
LOD/Bossman vs. Nastys/Mountie two feuds being built for SummerSlam combined, and LOD would team with Bossman later in the year at Survivor Series so I like them pairing up here
Bret vs. Steamboat I imagine this was booked purely to be a great match, as Bret was working Barbarian around this time
Duggan vs. Mustafa old rivals but Sheiky in a different gimmick; the little version of Hogan/Slaughter in terms of the Iraq angle
Tornado vs. Warlord these two had been working non-finishes around the loop

But Jake, Perfect, Piper and Hawk couldn't make it, causing the card to get shuffled. The changes were:

- Duggan replaced Jake against Quake. They'd faced off on house shows the year before, but they didn't have a current issue.
- Bret was moved to replace Piper. Bret/DiBiase did work together on the April SNME so this does fit a bit, but not as well as Piper obviously
- Freshly turned Typhoon replaced Perfect, a massive downgrade.
- The 6-man just became a handicap match with the numbers against Bossman and Animal.
- Because Bret had been moved, instead we get Steamer/Tanaka, which could be pretty good actually but not Bret/Steamer
- Since Duggan had to replace Jake, Snuka takes on Mustafa instead, meaning a shit undercard match doesn't even have a story element to help it.

I read someone suggest this may have been planned for release on tape as well if the no shows hadn't happened.

I wonder what caused those no-shows? It's not like the summer has weather-related travel issues, right?

As far as team names for the Hogan/Savage/Warrior combos, I always feel like WWF got it a bit wrong.

Should've been Macho Maniancs for Hogan & Savage since Savage was the fucking champ at the time and thus technically/arguably should've had more of an emphasis. That no-good spotlight-stealing Hogan!

Then should've been the Ultimate Maniacs for Hogan and Warrior. Again, with emphasis going on Warrior since he would've been the champ. This name made way less sense for Savage and Warrior.

Then Warrior and Savage should've been the Macho Warriors. How fucking cool does that sound!?

Hogan and Brutus could've still been the Mega Maniacs or Butt Buddies or whatever.

Then, if Hogan/Savage/Warrior ever paired up all together Avengers-style, that's when you can either bust out the Mega Powers name or try something like the Mega-Powered Macho Maniac Warriors... I dunno.

Dec 16, 2017 20:33:13 GMT 🤯 said:

I wonder what caused those no-shows? It's not like the summer has weather-related travel issues, right?

Hawk and Jake were also busted for drugs in the spring of 1991 nearly costing LOD their tag title run later that year (their suspensions were both up just before Summerslam). Perfect may have been resting his back and Piper I'm not sure about.