WWF secures Hunter, loses Kid
“1-2-3 Kid” Sean Waltman is headed to WCW this month while fellow Clique member Hunter Hearst Helmsley committed to three more years with the WWF.
After a several month hiatus for health reasons, Kid was ready to return to the ring, but the WWF offered him a choice.
Even though his contract didn’t expire until February 1997, if he wanted to follow his fellow Clique members and good friends, Scott Hall and Kevin Nash, to WCW, the WWF wouldn’t stand in his way.
Because of problems with injuries and his health, Kid was seen as both an asset and a risk by the WWF and they didn’t want him around if he was going to be unhappy or unreliable.
The WWF had booked Kid in a mid-level position doing jobs most of the last year he wrestled in the WWF.
Kid gave his notice Friday and is awaiting his official release from the WWF, at which point he will sign a multi-year deal with WCW.
It is apparent he will join Hall, Nash, and Hulk Hogan in an on-camera “clique” of sorts – the New World Order.
The plan as of now is for NWO to eventually consist of five wrestlers, the fifth being Jeff Jarrett, who did not get an early release from the WWF, but has an agreement with WCW to sign come October when his WWF contract expires.
Vince McMahon decided the WWF was not going to be the grooming grounds for WCW’s future main eventers.
Bitter over the losses of Hall and Nash, McMahon decided not to push anyone who isn’t willing to make a long term commitment to the WWF.
Hunter Hearst Helmsley entered the WWF doghouse after a showing of unity with Hall and Nash on their final night with the WWF (the infamous MSG Clique Curtain Call).
The curtain call upset fellow wrestlers who saw it as an arrogant breaking of storyline, so management made an example out of him, pulling him from his summer push (which at one point included a King of the Ring tourney win).
Hunter has done jobs ever since as the WWF awaited his decision – either commit to the WWF for three years or be buried until his contract expired.
Last Tuesday (July 9) Hunter agreed to a multi-year contract including a minimum guarantee, now a WWF contract standard.
