erisi236
Fry's dog Seymour
... enjoys the rich, smooth taste of Camels.
Not good! Not good! Not good!
Posts: 21,904
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Post by erisi236 on Jun 12, 2011 14:21:21 GMT -5
I'm just watching some older Nitros and I got to the infamous "finger poke of doom" ep which was Jan 4th of '99, and it just boggles my mind that nearly 2 years to the date later WCW was no more.
Looking at the crowd at that show compared to the crowd at the "Night of Champions" 2 years later just makes you think it was two different promotions entirely.
I know there's DVDs and books devoted to the subject, but still when you sit down and watch those shows and think on it a minute, damn. Such an abject lesson to never say "it'll be around forever".
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Post by dlg3000 on Jun 12, 2011 14:28:57 GMT -5
I cannot believe it either. I don't recall any organization that lost as much money and also as much credibility as WCW did in later years. It was like TNA, if that is a fair comparison. They had so much potential and so many talented stars, but they screwed the pooch, and I mean Scooby Doo pooch.
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Dean-o
Grimlock
Haha we're having fun Maggle!
Posts: 13,865
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Post by Dean-o on Jun 12, 2011 14:36:50 GMT -5
WCW from 96-98 was must see television. Sadly, it all came crashing down in 1999. The same guys wrestling over and over, just simply turning heel/face to "freshen things up"
Before you know it, it crumbled from within. Titles quickly became meaningless, feuds and angles were stupid and had swerves on top of swerves. Their roster by the end was a joke.
I stuck around till the last show, but man it was horrible television.
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Post by Hit Girl on Jun 12, 2011 14:58:00 GMT -5
With Bischoff and Russo running the show, I can easily believe it fell so hard.
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DavidArquette
Don Corleone
The actor formerly known as avanteproject
Posts: 1,542
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Post by DavidArquette on Jun 12, 2011 16:23:30 GMT -5
I still found WCW entertaining during it's final year and couldn't believe it when I found out Vince had bought it. But yeah, watching WCW in late '97 to early '98 and then comparing that to the product a year and a half later, the difference is insane!
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Post by Danimal on Jun 14, 2011 0:24:50 GMT -5
Bisch let the inmates take over the asylum. Say what you will about Russo but the guy did inherit a company where egomaniacal politicians had the run of the place. Bisch also wasted a ton of money on celebrity tie-ins that did nothing. I like Bisch as a heel and he had some good ideas but he had too many bad ones.
Russo could've saved it and failed but Bisch is the one that put WCW on life-support.
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El Dandy
Don Corleone
Who are you to doubt El Dandy?
Posts: 1,901
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Post by El Dandy on Jun 14, 2011 0:30:49 GMT -5
Having PPV quality matches on free TV pretty much killed potential dream matchups that should have been main events that were built for future major events. Goldberg vs. Hogan for instance. Great TV moment, but that was built for a big PPV.
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Post by johnnyk9 on Jun 14, 2011 5:28:58 GMT -5
like they said on the rise and fall of WCW all they cared about was the ratings war and didn't notice Vince was doing better things then them at the time
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Post by Ryushinku on Jun 14, 2011 7:20:48 GMT -5
It is pretty scary stuff.
The way their PPV buyrates particularly fell year-on-year is just terrifying. Look at Starrcade '99 compared to Starrcade '98 for one example, a 72% drop for the 'Grand Daddy of them All'. If next year's WrestleMania only pulled in 280k buys, Vince would probably have an aneurysm.
Up to about...say...mid '99, WCW still looks and acts like a genuine rival to the WWF. But then after that point, it's like air going out of a balloon.
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Post by rchi84 on Jun 14, 2011 7:42:38 GMT -5
crash and burn, if I ever saw one
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Jun 14, 2011 10:45:01 GMT -5
I can believe it. They were run by morons. For the longest time the only things that saved them were the nWo angle, Goldberg, and the cruisers putting on good matches all the time. They somehow managed to screw all of them up.
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Post by "Handsome" Whitey Fats on Jun 14, 2011 14:40:09 GMT -5
Sadly, WCW was actually getting decent at the very end.
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Post by Citizen Zero on Jun 14, 2011 14:41:48 GMT -5
I can believe it. They were run by morons. For the longest time the only things that saved them were the nWo angle, Goldberg, and the cruisers putting on good matches all the time. They somehow managed to screw all of them up. Well that and Sugar Daddy Ted.
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Post by joebob27 on Jun 15, 2011 2:06:50 GMT -5
Yep, that's the thing that gets lost, it wasn't a functional business. That's how it falls as hard as it did. Even if WWE totally went to shit, it'd still exist as a business.
Turner proped them up. Turner goes away, WCW is dead because now it needs to be functional.
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Post by molson5 on Jun 15, 2011 7:56:24 GMT -5
Ya contracts dropped them more then bad booking. They basically needed the wrestling boom to continue forever at the rate they were spending money, and that was never going to happen even if they had better booking.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Jun 15, 2011 8:47:29 GMT -5
Sadly, WCW was actually getting decent at the very end. I agree, I came back to WCW at the end. I liked the direction of the Cruiserweight division. Couldn't tell you when I stopped watching WCW altogether - probably the middle of 1999. The only time I watched WCW in between was when my brother brought over a friend's copy of Bash At The Beach, just so I could see and give my impression of Vince Russo running down Hulk Hogan. That's right. Not to see the actual PPV itself, just to see the promo.
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Post by woodface on Jun 15, 2011 11:30:43 GMT -5
Ya contracts dropped them more then bad booking. They basically needed the wrestling boom to continue forever at the rate they were spending money, and that was never going to happen even if they had better booking. Millions upon millions of dollars still get lost by WCW in 2000 if the entire roster worked for free.
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Post by kingoftheindies on Jun 15, 2011 11:44:36 GMT -5
it's interesting if you listen to what Nash, Sid, Bischoff, and Russo all say.
Nash pointed out that part of the problem was Hogan's creative control. Not putting full blame on it, but he basically said he had no idea how hard it was to book a tv show, and there were a few times he and the rest of the crew would have a show written, and Hogan (who only showed up 2 to 3 hours before they went on air) would invoke his creative control and the bookers would have to rewrite the show.
Russo said similar things happened with him, but he and Bischoff both said that after Turner and Time Warner merged, network executives would show up to booking meetings, and also take a bunch of things out of the show. Russo said it was more of a problem for him because of how much he wrote, Bischoff got himself in trouble because he wouldn't have things prewritten.
Sid said in his shoot he felt that everybody was too concerned about ratings and not about attendance. He said that the WWF got better because, even when he was there in 96/97, the ratings for the WWF weren't great but they were starting to sell out the house shows again. Sid basically said that if WCW would have been more concerned with getting the house show quality up, the ratings would come and not vice versa.
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Post by turkeysandwich on Jun 15, 2011 15:07:38 GMT -5
Sid said in his shoot he felt that everybody was too concerned about ratings and not about attendance. He said that the WWF got better because, even when he was there in 96/97, the ratings for the WWF weren't great but they were starting to sell out the house shows again. Sid basically said that if WCW would have been more concerned with getting the house show quality up, the ratings would come and not vice versa. It's funny because I never think about the fact that WCW ran house shows. I would always hear about WWF house shows, and interesting things that happened at them, especially at MSG. But I can't remember hearing any stories of things that happened at WCW house shows.
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Post by "Handsome" Whitey Fats on Jun 15, 2011 15:10:28 GMT -5
Didn't Booker beat up Steiner at a house show?
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