what was more of a letdown

[jason88cubs]

finding out Rikishi ran down Austin or Vince being the higher power?

[hbkbigdaddycool]

Rikishi easily.

Rikishi was so over at the time and seemed like he could have been headed to being WWF Champion in 2000 at times and then they turn him heel and he lost all the steam for being a main event player.

With Vince, it was kind of talked about before hand that he was gonna be it. So that didn't shock me at all.

[The Brain]

My vote goes to Rikishi as well

Could never take a guy with his ass hanging out a serious threat

[hbkjason]

Both sucked, but I vote for Rikishi it made less than zero sense.

[ASR (therockisback)]

Rikishi. Vince was bad as well but still funny lol.

At least we got "I did it for The Rock" & "It's me Austin" outta that trash hahaa.

[JokerFC]

Rikishi. Easily...I remember being WTF over that reveal.

[hbkjason]

Jun 8, 2024 2:02:01 GMT -5 ASR (therockisback) said:

Rikishi. Vince was bad as well but still funny lol.

At least we got "I did it for The Rock" & "It's me Austin" outta that trash hahaa.

And The Rock calling him a "thong wearing fatty" 🤣🤣🤣

[Old Zeke]

Both sucked, but I'm going to be the minority and say Vince. 5-year-old me was disappointed by that.

Rikishi also didn't make sense, but hey-ho, Vince was worse in my book.

[Evil Abed]

Rikishi was way worse for me. I remember as a kid spending the majority of that year excited for who the reveal was gonna be (kept thinking it was going to be someone from WCW maybe). It was the first time where I felt like they really tried way to hard to make a star instead of letting it happen naturally. And it failed miserably. 8 months later Kishi was back to dancing.

[TheEvilDoink1987]

The Vince one was almost too obvious maybe even lazy. He had been a "face" I guess for not even two months when they revealed him as The Higher Power so it didn't really have too much of an impact. We simply went back to our regularly scheduled Austin/McMahon programming of that era.

I think the Rikishi heel turn was definitely more of a surprise, but then again not for the greatest reasons. He along with Too Cool were one of the most over acts in pro wrestling in 2000. The pops they received every week were insane. Maybe they didn't have the mileage to be a long-term success at that level, but creative definitely pulled the plug early on them. Rikishi getting immediately stomped out by Austin didn't help either.

The problem was they booked themselves into a corner at Survivor Series 1999. They panicked trying to come up with some crazy angle to write off Austin and expected to just figure it all out at a later date. I know he was in the OVW doghouse at the time, but revealing Big Show as the wheel man would have made sense. He directly benefitted from Austin being taken out of that match by replacing him in the main event where he won the title and it would have been a way more logical reason as opposed to "I did it for The Rock."

[MKSavage]

Jun 8, 2024 0:38:17 GMT -5 The Brain said:

My vote goes to Rikishi as well

Could never take a guy with his ass hanging out a serious threat

This. 

He just wasn't main event material. He was a good hand, but nothing more. 

[tmnt316]

Rikishi.

Vince was dumb but at least I can kinda get it with no depth he won't go to fu** over Austin.

[ASR (therockisback)]

Jun 8, 2024 6:01:32 GMT -5 hbkjason said:

Jun 8, 2024 2:02:01 GMT -5 ASR (therockisback) said:

Rikishi. Vince was bad as well but still funny lol.

At least we got "I did it for The Rock" & "It's me Austin" outta that trash hahaa.

And The Rock calling him a "thong wearing fatty" 🤣🤣🤣

Classic 😆 🤣 😂

[koreygunz]

The Higher Power was more of a "let down" because of all the hype it had around it of who might be coming in and starting this new storyline (Jake Roberts, Sid, Christopher Daniels, etc). Then after all that excitement it was just Vince....

Rikishi didn't work as a Heel, but at least is was new. They tried...

[Lone Wölf]

As an Undertaker fan I was a very pissed off 9 year old when Vince revealed himself.

[theoutlaw1999]

Vince being The Higher Power resulted in one of the funniest segments in WWE history. 

Rikishi running over Austin was not an obvious suspect so I applaud them on that, but the aftermath was awful and he was a super over face who shouldn't have turned heel.

[J-MANN]

Hands down, Rikishi.

[PJ]

I did it for the Rock.

[Ohtimate Wahriah]

Man, IDK about that one. I was intrigued by the prospect of why Rikishi would do that. He was a huge babyface, I couldn’t even fathom it was true…so I was at least curious to know why he would do that.

The Vince thing on the other hand, I immediately changed channels to WCW and didn’t think about it haha. I was so bored by that revelation.

[cordless2016]

Rikishi being revealed as the hitman for me. Rikishi was a great midcard face, but he just didn’t have the mic skills to hang with the top-guys at the time, especially as a heel. Everyone points to Billy Gunn being outshined by The Rock in 1999, but nobody points to Rocky completely outclassing Rikishi in 2000 when they feuded. Rock destroyed him on the mic and Rikishi didn’t really ever look dominant in the ring either for a man of his size. Maybe they thought with his athleticism that they could make him a dominant heel similar to Vader from his WCW days…but that never transpired. He got his ass handed to him by Austin, Rock, and Taker in three straight feuds before being injured for the majority of 2001.

I know that the “Austin was hit by a car” thing was a spur-of-the-moment idea to write off their biggest star for a year, but nobody made more sense than HHH. Is it the boring and predictable choice? Yeah, but it made complete sense from a storyline perspective. They could say HHH and DX did it and call it a day. Big Show is the only other one that made some sense from a storyline perspective but he was also in the doghouse at the time (Jeff Jarrett would have made sense too had he not left for WCW before Survivor Series).