Rebooking Canadian Stampede

Neal Wagner: As evidenced in my review of In Your House: Canadian Stampede, it was a great show that had a few hiccups preventing it from G.O.A.T. status, especially when it comes to the main event.

According to Something to Wrestle With…Bruce Prichard, Goldust wasn’t originally supposed to be in the historic 10-man tag team main event. Goldust took the spot of Psycho Sid, who had been involved in a car accident a few weeks beforehand. Although Goldust would go on to have a scandalous feud with Hart Foundation member Brian Pillman, I would rebook the tag match to include Undertaker instead. Initially, Undertaker was scheduled to defend the WWE Championship against Ahmed Johnson at Canadian Stampede, but Johnson got hurt just weeks before the show, and Vader replaced him. Well, let’s scrap that altogether and insert the Deadman into the main event.

It doesn’t hurt for there to be some screwy finish and have Bret Hart pin Undertaker or even just take Taker out of the match in some form, which could lead to their championship match at SummerSlam just one month later. You can also stay the course with Shawn Michaels becoming the special guest referee for that match.

Keep the finish of Owen Hart pinning Steve Austin if you wish, then Austin can stun Owen and flee Canada. Owen can vow his revenge and still put the Intercontinental Championship on the line at SummerSlam and you can keep pace there even. Just putting Undertaker into the match can change the dynamic of the whole match and finish so much.

Now, do we want to run a three-match card on pay-per-view? NO! It’s the summer of 1997 in WWE, so just do another faction warfare style match with the Nation of Domination and the Disciples of Apocalypse. You have the natural build already with the brawl from weeks ago and then you can have Faarooq say that his group wants revenge for injuring Ahmed. Maybe steal a WCW idea and do a battle royal amongst all the gang members and the last man standing wins the rights to a match of his choosing against any member of the losing team the next night on Raw.

This show is really good regardless of how you cut it and I don’t deny the fact my changes could make the show worse, but there were different options to be taken from information known at this point.

John Corrigan: Canadian Stampede, particularly its main event, is perfect. At the time, it was a tremendous homecoming for the Hart family. Their arrival for the main event still gives me goosebumps. In retrospect, it was the last hurrah for the family: Pillman would die less than three months later, Owen died less than two years later, Davey Boy Smith died five years later and then Jim Neidhart died in 2018. Much like the Von Erichs, the Hart family was rife with tragedy, but at least they had this special night.

No rebooking necessary.