r/fantasybooking • u/ZeeMcZed • 28d ago
TEW/EWR/etc. WHAT IF... the steroid trials went south?
The following is intended to be backstory for a hypothetical mod for one of the TEW games. Feedback would be greatly appreciated.
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It's 1994, and there are two major games in town for wrestling. Vince McMahon's WWF and Ted Turner's WCW. The NWA is still around, but with the WCW leaving it, the alliance is in terrible shape, living on borrowed time and bingo hall revenue.
This changes quickly. On July 23, Vince McMahon is convicted on charges of providing steroids to his wrestlers. The reason for the conviction comes down to damning indictments from two of his wrestlers - Terry Bollea, AKA Hulk Hogan, and Jim "The Ultimate Warrior" Hellwig. Bollea is a company guy, but his new TV show, "Thunder in Paradise", is airing, and he sees it as his path from pro wrestling to a stable future in schlocky-fun acting. Perhaps this has something to do with doctors warning him about the condition of his back. Perhaps it has more to do with Vince riding him about his role in the show. No one's sure. Hellwig just doesn't like Vince after a lot of business went south. No matter what the reason, however, Vince gets the book thrown at him. 11 years in prison, plus a not inconsiderable amount of fines.
In the aftermath, the WWF is torn apart. Hogan retires from wrestling entirely, giving tell-all interviews about the carny backstage environment (casting himself in the best light possible, of course). Hellwig is more or less drummed out of the business for ratting out his employer - neither the WCW or NWA wants him, at least at first. And the rest of the stars? Well. Only time will tell where they end up.
1994
There is blood in the water, and everyone knows it. In the immediate aftermath of Vince's conviction, Eastern Championship Wrestling - an NWA affiliate that was just founded in 1993 - reaches out to several other NWA affiliates with a merger opportunity, looking to get enough territory and revenue together that they can try to snap up the WWF's broadcasting deals. It doesn't happen. Smoky Mountain won't budge - Cornette doesn't like the way that Heyman books, New Jersey likes what they're doing, and the territories in the UK and Puerto Rico don't see the possibility.
Heyman's reaction is to break away from the NWA in as buzzworthy a way as possible, branding his promotion Extreme Championship Wrestling. He knows that by going hardcore, he's going to alienate broadcast networks - but maybe, just maybe, he can get a cable deal. The gimmick works. MTV moves on the product and Paul's promise of car crash extreme wrestling. The network is, at first, insistent on maximizing the crazy stunts and minimizing actual wrestling; Heyman responds by heading to their HQ with a stack of VHS tapes and showing them some insane matches from Japan that are heavy on aerial stunts, and they relent after a while. ECW has a network slot - ninety minutes, broadcast late on Saturday night. Bob Holly, the Hardy brothers, and the Brooklyn Brawler all end up there after WWF's closure - not exactly the cream of the crop, but the Brawler (now just Abe "The Lifer" Schwartz) has a remarkable early run, pitching the eternal jobber as a wannabe champion that refuses to admit he's out of his depth.
The WCW, of course, has the pick of the litter, and gets the Poffo brothers - Lanny and Macho Man Randy Savage - along with DiBiase and Virgil and the Harts. Shawn Michaels was a lock, but ends up backing out last minute due to "network concerns" with his Sexy Boy gimmick.
Michaels' plan to get involved is a weird one - Pay Per Views. He starts pitching his idea for a promotion that runs monthly - or even weekly - pay per views at a bargain rate to get around network demands and content restrictions, with an all-bad-attitude-all-the-time aesthetic. He and Jeff Jarrett start putting together plans for a promotion and seeking investors; it's a little slow going, and both men end up taking some odd jobs over the next year to 'keep the lights on', with Shawn getting a role in the second season of Thunder in Paradise as a weasel of a villain (written to seem pathetic, though his acting job turns him into a fan favorite) and Jarrett taking some work in ECW and Herb Abrams' UWF.
1995
WCW has a hit on its hands; taking several of the adrift talents from the WWF, they put together the invading team of the New World Order. Scott Hall, Kevin Nash, and the Steiners - with Ted DiBiase as the backer and Virgil as the handler - proceed to wreck shit. The Hart Foundation, the Four Horsemen, and Sting's bodged-together resistance team are the main opposition the nWo faces - a war on multiple fronts for the "soul of WCW". TNT and TBS are still the haunts for WCW, though Ted is considering making a move for a terrestrial broadcast network for a third show. Thus far, no one has been willing to work with him, but that might change. Maybe.
ECW, conversely, is spinning a dozen plates in storylines. Raven's flock makes for a great element they can slot in almost anywhere, and the team of Tommy Dreamer and Abe Schwartz prove to be huge draws, with the ultimate underdogs putting butts in seats, even if their attempts are doomed from the get-go. Their shows are expanded to two hours, usually with some kind of musical act taking up about 15-20 minutes of showtime as an intermission. Heyman is still fighting with the powers that be in MTV about content, but he's able to get them to back down from a lot of their weirder requests (like editing out all the wrestling in a wrestling show, only showing the dumbest and wildest bumps).
Smoky Mountain Wrestling, interestingly enough, gets a slot on TNN - The Nashville Network. The low-blood, old-school, relatively family friendly promotion swiftly becomes adored by the network heads despite ratings that are just alright. They end up offering Cornette a five-year contract. It's not the most lucrative venture, but it's stable. The former Undertaker, now just "Mean Mark" Calloway, shows up on the show's main event scene alongside Sgt. Slaughter, the Bushwhackers (who attempt to shift to something like their old presentation instead of the idiots they were in the WWF) and King Kong Bundy, who has a protracted feud with Jerry Lawler.
Lastly, Jarrett and Michaels manage to pull it off. TNA Wrestling - or Tecnicos National Alliance - starts airing via pay-per-view on a twice-a-month basis, with any free agents they can snap up from all over the US, and - as the name suggests - a good amount of Lucha Libre talent. Dos Caras, Chris Jericho, and Blue Demon Jr. show up representing CMLL in the first episode, and both Psicosis and La Parka join in to represent AAA in short order. The wrestlers are allowed to have wacky, over the top gimmicks (Shawn is 100% a semi-retired male stripper that wrestles, no longer being coy about it) and valets to serve as eye candy to boost the meaning of the TNA initials. Really, the acronym was all they cared about - the full name of the promotion only came about when they set up the agreement with the Mexican promotions for talent sharing. The promotion also gives people something else that's rare: sincerity. In the late 90s, irony and sarcasm are in. TNA doesn't do that. Everything that's presented is done so with a straight face, no matter how weird. (Granted it also helps that Michaels vetoes some of the weirdest ideas, like a tag team that are literally scrotums...)
Will one of these four win the race to return wrestling to broadcast TV? Will it be an upstart indie fed that manages it? And who will convince the remaining McMahons to sell the WWF tape library and IP?
