As a wrestling fan, I can believe just about anything. As long as a story makes sense, any wrestler can become a main event guy in my mind. Of course, the wrestling ability has to be there. However, there was that one time I just couldn’t wrap my brain around a push.
Enter Billy Kidman. At 5’11’’, Kidman gained success in the Cruiserweight division starting in late 1998 and won the championship three times while WCW was in existence. By mid 1999, Kidman would win the WCW World Tag Team Championships with Rey Mysterio and was part of an apparent youth movement in the company.
I was all for a youth movement for the company, as it was much needed at that point. With the ratings slipping and fans losing interest fast, WCW needed to push their talented young wrestlers to the main event scene.
Sadly, Billy Kidman just wasn’t believable in that role. When the New Blood formed in April of 2000, Kidman was seen as one of the leaders. He entered into a feud with Hulk Hogan and beat Hogan several times on television.
Don’t ever say Hogan never laid on his back for anyone. He allowed Kidman to get wins in an attempt to make him a star.
But the wins did more harm than they did good. I mean, you’ve got Hulk Hogan who feuded with the likes of Andre the Giant, Earthquake, Randy Savage, Sting, and Sid Justice among countless others but loses to Billy Kidman.
I’m not discrediting Kidman’s ability. The guy was great in the ring with the likes of Mysterio, Juventud Guerrera, Psychosis, Chavo Guerrero Jr. and other cruiserweight wrestlers. When it came to competing against the likes of Hulk Hogan, it just didn’t work.
Some people may be wondering why Kidman wouldn’t work in the role, but Rey Mysterio Jr. did. That’s a great question. It took Rey four years to become a WWE Heavyweight Champion when he entered the WWE. At first he started as a cruiserweight and worked his way up to being a believable contender.
We were expected to buy into Kidman almost overnight. It doesn’t help that Kidman was a heel and his offense is hard to boo. I can’t possibly go to an arena and boo someone who hits a move like the shooting star press.
I understand that at the time WCW was completely depleted of stars thanks to the Radicals bailing on the company for the WWE, but it was moves like this that damaged WCW’s image in its dying days.
At the most, Kidman would have been a fine WCW US Championship, but to even suggest he would have been main eventing pay per views with the likes of Hogan, Goldberg, Nash or Sting at any time is rather laughable.
Did you buy into a main event push for Kidman? Leave your thoughts below.
Thanks for reading.
I agree. I was a huge Kidman fan but his main event push didn’t catch on. Like you said, it was too rushed and we had no reason to believe that Kidman could beat Hogan. He hadn’t really been put in a ton of matches against bigger sized guys.
That was a very good article. I thought Kidman was a very talented cruiserweight. I hated that entire New Blood angle. WCW was trying to discredit Hogan and Flair, but the fans sided with Hogan and Flair so that backfired big time on WCW.