>>8695611Tatanka wasn’t a high flyer or anything, but neither was hogan. What really made hogan (and probably would’ve neutered a hypothetical champion tatanka sooner or later) was the opponents. If you try to ask “what do you do with hogan after he becomes champion”, the answer isn’t to have hogan do some sort of character development or whatever, it’s to throw nastier and bigger and meaner heels at him for 7 years until finally people get sick of it (and booking fucks up by accidentally giving him x-pac heat against Sid). If tatanka had been champ, there would’ve been nothing to do with him, but that would be the rest of the rosters fault, not his. The same thing happened to Bret in our timeline and it would’ve happened to any other hypothetical baby face champ you can come up with. It’s even happening to Roman right now!
I’m telling ya, some cheap crowd pleasing bullshit, a relatively straight-edge gimmick, some basic ring psychology, and a conga line of opponents, that’s all the champ actually needs, especially back then. The simpler the better.
