I have to agree with WCW not really caring about their house shows too much, and this has gone on as long as they started coming here in 1988. Every WCW event I've ever been to, there would ALWAYS be (at least) one match scheduled that never happened.
Get to the arena, find parking, walk to the building, wait in line. Get inside.
You'd buy the program - which was just a WCW Magazine with a match line-up shoved inside - and followed along.
Gary Michael Cappeta would welcome us to the Hammond Civic Center, like he's the Mayor and spent more than 5 minutes there in his life. (I know every nook and cranny in that building. Circuses, basketball games, fun fairs.)
He'd run down the card ("The Masters of the Powerbomb, Sid Vicious and the Man They Call Vader, will battle it out in the ring tonight!"), gets you pumped for the show, then tell us "Oh by the way, one of our wrestlers is on his way and trying to make it to the show, so we revised the line-up."
Okay, there's PN News against Steve Austin. Michael Hayes would be scheduled on the paper, but he's not there. Eh, no loss. (Austin loses. I seethe in anger.)
More matches, mainly stuff you wouldn't care about if it was on TV (ooh, Rip Rogers and Rick Steiner - main event anywhere in the country right there
), but you cheer 'cause it's live. (Live wrestling IS fun.) In between each match, Gary tells you to go to the merchandise stand and buy the new Sting or Sid Vicious T-shirt, or call the WCW Hotline! (Funny, they have to remind us when the TV shows are and on what channels. Yeah, I've lived here almost 20 years, I know where WGN Channel 9 is - it's one of the 7 channels you can get without cable. What a moron.)
Fourth match usually is a continued angle, like Ron Simmons and Butch Reed just fighting until the ref throws the match out.
Intermission.
After about 5 minutes, Gary runs down to the ring.
"Ladies and gentlemen, I have received word that the next time we return to Hammond (on such-and-such a date), we will have Butch Reed and Ron Simmons in a steel cage!" Okay, some go to scoop up tickets. I usually do, but I was broke that night. So I can wait. I bump into a couple of friends and we hang out by the merchandise stand.
You get to your seats after about 15 minutes, and there's Gary again. "Ladies and gentlemen, I must regret to inform you..."
You're hearing all sorts of cussing from every corner of the arena. (They really needs to sell pens with the match line-ups, they could make another $2500 easy. They never have a full show remain intact.) Maybe Ric Flair, or Lex Luger aren't going to be here. Eh, I seen them before. I'll deal with it. (I
know Rick Rude was there, we saw him peeking out from behind the curtain. We yelled at him, he gave us a thumbs-up gesture.)
"Sid Vicious will NOT BE ABLE to make the show."
(So they hustled his T-shirt so all sorts of people can wear his shirt when he's
not even going to be there!" Idiots!)
They continue with the card, and it's a good main event. (Can't be that good if I can't remember it. I know Sting was there. I think Rick Rude was on the other team.)
Fans start chanting "We want Sid! We want Sid!"
Match ends, fans are happy Sting gets the pin. Then you think, "That was pretty good...wait a damn minute here, where the hell was Vader?!!"
This has got to be the only company that can book an event so fans "go home happy", yet can have at least 1,000 fans chanting "B.S! B.S.!"
(Believe me, I stopped going for a long time after that event. I didn't go back to their shows for 4 years, when the nWo was hot.)