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Wrestling, as in life, is full of forks in the road. What if questions if you like. One that springs to mind immediately is how Sid Vicious was on the cusp of being the guy in WCW in 1994 - before he got fired after an incident with Vader in Europe at the end of October 1993. Sid was set to defeat Vader at Starrcade for the World Heavyweight Championship, how that would have affected WCW in 1994 we will never know.
It feels quite astonishing, in a way, given how 1993 ended that Sid was going to be the guy. Ric Flair jumped into the main event spot at Starrcade and defeated Vader in his home town of Charlotte, North Carolina. It was a match that he would have to retire from wrestling were he to lose, a story that was the main thread of what up until the main event was a largely uneventful show.
Flair and Vader competed in a classic, in front of a hot crowd Vader beat the living day lights out of Flair for well over 15 minutes of the 22 minutes the match was allocated. Flair rallied and defeated Vader using a slightly contrived roll up. It earned my vote for the match of the year in 1993, and setup Flair as the top guy in the company headed into 1994. Given how Flair transitioned to accommodate Hogan, it's hard to work out a scenario where Hogan and Sid would've worked as the main attraction.
READ MORE: The Untold Story of WCW and ECW Working Together in 1994
It does beg the question as to whether Hogan would've ever joined the company if Sid was on top. It was Sid bragging about his status in the company and his new deal that caused all this in the first place. On the companies European tour in October of 1993, in Blackburn of all places, Sid would get into a fight in a hotel room with Arn Anderson. Scissors were involved an it's quite fortunate that neither went away with serious injury. Sid would ultimately end up being fired from the company a short time later, and wouldn't resurface on a national wrestling scene until he re-joined the WWF in 1995.
But what if Sid doesn't get into the fight with Arn Anderson? He was going to get the ball, that's almost without question, but what would've come after that? Would WCW have still have signed Hogan if they had Sid's rumoured half a million dollar a year contract on their books (it was Sid bragging about his pay increase that partly caused the fight with Anderson in the first place).
The answer to the Hogan question is still probably yes. Hogan's signing wasn't really one of economics for the company - his deal was ridiculous and any gains made by his acquistion were going to go straight to Hogan's pocket. Of the near $2.5m WCW made on Halloween Havoc, Hogan made $600,000.
The bigger question is whether Hogan vs Sid would've done anywhere near as well as Hogan vs Flair. Assuming Sid was lined up to be the first to face Hogan - not a guarantee I suppose, would it have drawn anywhere near as well? Would the matches have been any good? If Hogan joins and has a dud feud with Sid, do WCW re-sign him at the end of 1994? As Mark Madden said on one of the Pro Wrestling Spotlight shows (available on PW Torch VIP) it wasn't Hogan that revitalised WCW in 1994, it was Hogan vs Flair.
After that it's anyone's guess. Hogan, presumably, would've landed back in the WWF with a year with the Diesel experiment failing so miserably. His run on top would've continued in earnest, the Monday Night Wars never happen. It's fun to speculate over these things!