Ronnie's Rasslin Video Round-Up #9: The Madison Square Garden Incident May 19, 1996

"The Kliq" that dominated the WWF backstage politics in 1996 consisted of friends Shawn Michaels, Diesel(Kevin Nash), Razor Ramon(Scott Hall), and Hunter Hearst Hemsley(later Triple H). By May 1996, Hall and Nash were leaving the WWF for better pay-contracts over at WCW and at Madison Square Garden, they performed their last WWF program at a house show.

The hero Michaels just beat the baddie Diesel in the show's main event steel cage match. Scott Hall came into the ring to hug Michaels, but that was no big deal. Both were faces at the time.

Its when the "heel" Hemsley, who earlier that night lost a match to Hall, walked into the ring and hugged Michaels and Hall...then Nash gets up and hugs his "enemies" as well.

Notice the kid's voice that goes "WHAT?!?!", with many other people, when this happened.

Mind you, WWF was still absolute strict in trying to keep kayfabe real, and when these 4 workers broke kayfabe and broke that illusion to an audience, there was hell to pay.

But Nash and Hall were off to WCW, and Michaels was a hot-ticket main event guy, so all the punishment for the "Madison Square Garden incident" was Helmsley. He went from heavily-pushed future main event wrestler into a "jobber to the stars"(i.e. lose all the time to the stars). He was slated to win the 1996 King of the Ring tournament, but instead it was given to another wrestler.

A wrestler named Steve Austin.

http://www.wrestlinggonewrong.com/video/kliq_punished.html