Question about a big, sexy man

Recently there was a thread on the blog about Diesel’s WWF title run, in which the claim was made that his reign was sabotaged by the fact that he didn’t go over decisively in his first PPV title defense at the ’95 Rumble. I’ve heard Nash offer the same opinion in shoot interviews and many BOD commenters were echoing this line of thinking.
But here’s the thing I haven’t seen anyone mention: that type of booking was hardly exclusive to Diesel. In 1992, Savage’s first PPV title defense at Summerslam ended in a countout after lots of interference. In 1993, Yokozuna’s first PPV title defense was a countout loss at Summerslam. In 1994, Bret’s first PPV title defense was a DQ loss to Diesel himself at King of the Ring. And in 1996, Shawn’s first PPV title defense ended in a double pin at Beware of Dog.
You can agree or disagree with that type of booking all you want. Perhaps a strong win over Backlund or Owen at the Rumble would have been a better alternative for Diesel. And maybe you don’t like the booking in the other examples above. But to say that the finish at the ’95 Rumble tanked Diesel’s reign off the bat is misguided in my opinion. If Diesel had gone over strong at the Rumble, he would have been the exception, not the rule. If that booking was really so detrimental to Diesel’s reign, then how come the same booking is never criticized when it happened with many other champions?
Thanks for keeping the blog going after all these years.
Nick

I think the whole PPV ordeal is just one of the many, many things that cut Nash’s reign off. After he won it, during the house shows he was either up against Backlund or Bundy. How the hell do you expect him to have a decent match with either of those guys? Then you’ve got things like Shawn screwing up the Jacknife at WM11, which Nash believes was intentional. Being booked against Sid for a multi-month feud. Then who’s he head-lining SummerSlam against? King freaking Mabel. That’s just ridiculous. Although I did rush home to watch SummerSlam on ScrambleVision because I had to see that as well as Bret vs Yankem.

So while it may have happened to others, this was just the beginning for Nash and his God-awful run.