Why did Bret suck in WCW?

[OGBoardPoster2005]

Was it just apathy for wrestling from him or did he just lose a step or was it just the wrong opponents?

[Racksman]

Bret didn't suck in WCW, he was booked horribly for the most part. He had great feuds and matches with Ric Flair, Chris Benoit, DDP and Booker T, and the basic idea of the feud with Goldberg would've been great if WCW didn't squander it the way they did. He also cut some of the best promos of his career there, at least from a heel aspect, probably because he was so pissed off anyway.

[RedSmile]

I think it was a combination of several things.

He joined WCW in '97, and spent the next couple of years without much of a direction marked by several face/heel turns and bad angles, then Owen dies in '99, and then he suffers his bad concussion(s) against Goldberg soon after that. He seemed to be the victim of a lot of tragedy and bad fortune in a relatively short time span.

[kingoftheindies]

Multiple reasons. Some Bret's fault, some WCW's, some things neither could control (injuries and the Owen tragedy)

[2coldMack is even more baffled]

WCW's general ineptitude leading to a loss of motivation to perform at the level he could achieve at his best. He's not an isolated case.

[Baldobomb-22-OH-MAN!!!]

Vince told Bret that Bischoff wouldn't know what to do with him and he was right.

[jmule]

It was el dandys fault!

[Big Poppa Pumpkin]

He could still work an amazing match but between getting screwed by Vince, being booked horribly in WCW and Owen's death, if he did lose his passion for the biz then who could possibly blame him.

[thegame415]

They should've put him with Neidhart and Davey Boy. Make a feud between The Horsemen and The Flock with Sting in the middle.

[Paco]

May 11, 2015 19:25:28 GMT -5 Racksman said:

Bret didn't suck in WCW, he was booked horribly for the most part. He had great feuds and matches with Ric Flair, Chris Benoit, DDP and Booker T, and the basic idea of the feud with Goldberg would've been great if WCW didn't squander it the way they did. He also cut some of the best promos of his career there, at least from a heel aspect, probably because he was so pissed off anyway.

This. The Benoit, Booker & DDP matches show he still had it. No real feuds there though. They had nothing for Bret till like '99.

[Magnus the Magnificent]

May 11, 2015 21:51:09 GMT -5 jmule said:

It was el dandys fault!

I very much doubt that.

[The Dark Order Inferno]

Horrible booking. They took the hotted free agent in wrestling, a man who came into the company with a whole load of sympathy and momentum, a man who could claim to be the other company's world champion and have a point and they did nothing with him except flip him from face to heel and back over and over and over until his heat evaporated. He had good matches with pretty much all comers when he didn't have to deal with standard WCW hi-jinx, but you can't have a truly great match without a feud to back it up and you can't have a good feud if you're simply not booked to have them, Flair was another guy who was similarly squandered, Sting too after 1997, heck, they also did a great job of relegating DDP to the midcard to keep the NWO trundling on. Bret would have had an easier time had he come in as a midcarder, while he wouldn't have gotten near the world title, he would have had a whole load of feuds with some amazing talent without ever coming near the NWO angle so would have been spared the interference in his booking, sadly he entered as a main eventer so was crushed to make way for more Hogan matches and feuds because Bischoff had no other plan aside from more NWO and protecting Hogan at all costs.

The whole company was built around heels at the main event level and the faces were thrown under the bus one by one with no real endgame in sight, and they wondered why people lost interest. Over in the WWF, the heroes won once in a while and ultimately, that's why they won the ratings battle, it doesn't matter how 'cool' they are, people will not pay to see the villains being booked and protected at the expense of the heroes for very long.

[MC Blowfish]

Horrible booking from the beginning. You had Bret Hart come in from WWF and the Montreal screwjob and you did nothing with it. It could have been a huge story. WCW did nothing with it and nothing with Bret.

[Hit Girl]

Because it was WCW.

[evilone]

May 11, 2015 20:53:46 GMT -5 Baldobomb-22-OH-MAN!!! said:

Vince told Bret that Bischoff wouldn't know what to do with him and he was right.

Yup. That came from a mouth of a guy who signed Bret into 20yrs contract and suddenly came to conclusion he didn't know what to do with him. He didn't know what to do with him to a point that he even rejected any contract renegotiations.

[Mozenrath]

They didn't have much planned for him. They spent so much money bringing him in, but mostly just to take him away from Vince, not due to having any specific desire to use him, it seemed like. I think this had to be intensely frustrating for Bret, and he would have likely been better if he has a direction to go in, other than "Stand around and do stuff I guess".

[Deleted]

There were certainly factors upon factors. But since this thread is about Bret Hart's end, I'll say a big reason was that he couldn't work as a babyface the way he did before. He also probably wasn't as creative or inspired as he used to be.

Bret's greatness was in visualizing a story and bringing it to life in the ring. None of his WCW matches seemed to have any of that story to it. He was either working heel, which he could still do but it was basically him destroying someone's legs for the duration of the match, or working face without the fantastic storytelling and babyface sympathy he used to have going. And a lot of that goes back to WCW's shitty booking and bad finishes.

It really does always come around to WCW's environment being the problem, but Bret's output was not good either at that point. It wasn't him putting on great matches but WCW screwing it up, the great match part wasn't even happening.

[Magic knows Black Lives Matter]

Didn't Bret himself outright say he never really liked working for WCW? That probably had a lot to do with it.

[Gravedigger's Biscuits]

I really hate the way fans tend to take the side of the companies and the promoters and the bookers, instead of the wrestlers.

This myth that Bret showed up to WCW and just didn't bother is such horseshit. He was booked atrociously from the very first day. How the hell are you supposed to get invested in your character and your storylines if the people in charge have no idea what they're doing, you turn heel/face every other month and you're booked to do dumb shit like run people over with monster trucks?

It's just a way for guys like Eric Bischoff to absolve himself of his terrible management in his last couple of years at WCW.

["Gizzark" Mike Wronglevenay]

May 12, 2015 10:21:17 GMT -5 Gravedigger's Biscuits said:

I really hate the way fans tend to take the side of the companies and the promoters and the bookers, instead of the wrestlers.

This myth that Bret showed up to WCW and just didn't bother is such horseshit. He was booked atrociously from the very first day. How the hell are you supposed to get invested in your character and your storylines if the people in charge have no idea what they're doing, you turn heel/face every other month and you're booked to do dumb shit like run people over with monster trucks?

It's just a way for guys like Eric Bischoff to absolve himself of his terrible management in his last couple of years at WCW.

Precious few people in this thread are blaming Bret at all. Even the OP isn't really.