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Post by OVO 40 hunched over like he 80 on Dec 28, 2017 12:17:42 GMT -5
While wcw is remembered fondly in our childhood, it's also one of the worst run companies in the history, I would go as far as put it in the top three with the worst management ever. So I thought it would be fun to list examples of Bischoff and the rest of the brain trust embarrassing themselves and the company.
The Lanny Poffo contract. The Genius actually was signed to a multi year deal for a hundred grand each year and I don't think he ever appeared more than one time.
The Iron Sheik contract. This one predates Bischoff. George Scott hired the Iron Sheik who was so old and bad that according to Jim Cornette, he was below enhancement level talent and was quickly kicked out of tv, instead of firing him they just sent the Sheik home and forgot to fire him so he got signed an extra year.
Signing Big Bubba Rogers around 96. Apparently Bischoff was f***ed up in a bar when he agreed to hire the former Big Bossman, and in order to get rid of him they started to drug test him, Bossman was clean so they had to keep him around.
Budget issues.
Around 1999 and 2000 there were like 90 wrestlers signed and probably less than a third were actually used. Russo also according to Gene Okerlund f***ed up their budget by ordering vehicles to be destroyed and explosions that had no rhyme or reason.
Advertising stars for house shows and not even bothering telling them so they never even showed up. According to Tony Schiavone's podcast, Goldberg was advertised for live events right after he won the belt from Hogan, but management never told him so Goldberg never even showed up.
Lack of authority.
At the end there wasn't a Vince McMahon type of figure that everyone respected or feared so everybody did what they wanted. Sid no showed tv so he could play softball. Kevin Nash would miss shows and when he actually decided to show up he appeared five minutes before the show would start. DDP was once asked to not mention Scott Hall in a promo because he was suspended, Dallas did it anyway. Scott Steiner went outside the script and insulted Ric Flair and DDP, later instigating a real fight with Dallas, Steiner almost took out Page's eye but wasn't even suspended or reprimanded.
The only authority figure around that time was Terry Taylor...Steiner actually threatened his life.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Dec 28, 2017 12:53:35 GMT -5
The Mikey Whipwreck story from his debut appearance on PPV is AMAZING.
3 agents told him 3 different finishes. He went out there and had a pretty good match with Kidman, got over right off the bat.
Got backstage and Bret came up to him "Great match" "Thanks" "You know that means you're ****** right?"
I'm paraphrasing a bit there but it kind of sums the place up. Noone knowing what was happening and anyone who wasn't meant to get over making an impression getting the elbow.
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auph10imitated
Dennis Stamp
Sigs/Avatars cannot exceed 1MB
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Post by auph10imitated on Dec 28, 2017 12:58:33 GMT -5
Bossman was signed in 1993 and still a name and given a pretty strong push, I’m sure he was hired because they wanted to hire him
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Post by OVO 40 hunched over like he 80 on Dec 28, 2017 13:23:54 GMT -5
Bret also said that there was a time when he went to tapings and creative told him he wasn't in the plans for that week's Nitro and that they would call him if he was needed.
They didn't call Bret for months and he just stopped caring and just collected the money.
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Cranjis McBasketball
Crow T. Robot
Knew what the hell that thing was supposed to be
Peace Love and Nothing But
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Post by Cranjis McBasketball on Dec 28, 2017 14:17:34 GMT -5
Guys flew for free for years on WCW’s dime. They’d buy airline tickets for every guy under contract and not book them. So guys would exchange their tickets for whatever, vacation or what not.
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Sam Punk
Hank Scorpio
Own Nothing, Be Happy
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Post by Sam Punk on Dec 28, 2017 14:26:03 GMT -5
They gave Hall and Nash big raises to stay when Jim Ross was promising to bring back Razor Ramon and Diesel.
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Post by OVO 40 hunched over like he 80 on Dec 28, 2017 14:27:29 GMT -5
Guys flew for free for years on WCW’s dime. They’d buy airline tickets for every guy under contract and not book them. So guys would exchange their tickets for whatever, vacation or what not. Allegedly Paul Heyman was behind that scam and had a briefcase full of the unused tickets. This ones are sad and hilarious about wcw never exploiting free publicity. George Bush Sr, yeah as in the president, during a fund raiser, personally invited Ric Flair and even introduced him at the event, wcw didn't even bother to send a camera or mentioned it on tv. Years later when baseball was at an all time high of popularity during the home run chase, Mark McGuire invited Goldberg to a game and even rubbed the bat on Goldberg's shoulder saying that it would bring him luck. WCW didn't sent a camera or mentioned it on the air.
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Post by OVO 40 hunched over like he 80 on Dec 28, 2017 14:29:37 GMT -5
They gave Hall and Nash big raises to stay when Jim Ross was promising to bring back Razor Ramon and Diesel. Lol during a legends round table Kevin thanked JR because that got him an extra hundred grand. Nash explained the difference between the companies. He said that the wwe was the modern and sophisticated us army, and that wcw was the revolutionary troops from hundred of years ago.
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Post by James Fabiano on Dec 28, 2017 14:30:17 GMT -5
Bossman was signed in 1993 and still a name and given a pretty strong push, I’m sure he was hired because they wanted to hire him The Boss...man is he big.
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nm
Hank Scorpio
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Post by nm on Dec 28, 2017 15:45:50 GMT -5
"it looks like something a bird left on the hood of my car"
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crash1984
Unicron
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You don't need pants for the victory dance
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Post by crash1984 on Dec 28, 2017 16:31:24 GMT -5
For a long time I had been working on doing some notes on WCW. I never did get around to posting them so here are a few of them.
-In early 1999 WCW thought the reason WWF was beatiung them was because WWF depended a lot on pre-taped segments, so WCW decided to start usiung pretaped segments a bit more. Sounds like a good idea right? Well WCW had way too many of them, then the stuff would last several minutes, and the stuff would make no sense. Worst of all though WCW thought that the announcers would be better off not seeing them. This made the announcers look like idiots several times.
-In 1999 WCW though the way to get higher TV ratings was to bring in singers to preform a song. So they brought in Megadeath to perform on Nitro. The Megadeath concert was one of the lowest rated segments in Nitro history. WCW's next move was to bring in Chad Brock (a country singer who had trained at the power plant in the early 1990s) and later KISS. Of course those two bombed equally as bad as Megadeath.
The July 5, 1999 had the Megadeath concert, Goldberg returning after a lengthy absence, Bret Hart returning to Nitro for the first time after Owen's death, and a kickboxing match between Jerry Flynn and Ernest Miller. Anyone want to take a guess as to which of these was the only thing WCW bothered to hype?
-After the failure of the Kiss concert WCW decided to do a pay-per-view on 12/31/99 in Arizona. Part of the pay-per-view would have included a full length Kiss concert
-One week on Nitro they spent most of the show talking about how they were going to have a contest where a fan could win 1 million dollars and told everyone to tuune into Nitro the next week. It was never mentioned again.
-There is actually a story as to why the contest was dropped. Following that Nitro Bischoff was sent home due to the struggles WCW was having. IN an effort to save money the contest was dropped. Also dropped was the New Years Eve pay-per-view and the Road Wild Pay-per-view
-When WCW changed the logo in early 1999 they ordered new business cards to show the new logo. When they got the cards it gave WCW's address as Altanta
and my personal favorites:
-During commercials it was common to have the Nirto Girls Dance for the people at the audience. Later they brought on DJ Ran to play music as well. One time in an effort trying to get fans to comes to the shows Bischoff was telling that and Bobby Heenan made the comment that “The commercials are better than the show”
-Of all the times Nitro lost in the ratings to what was on USA the most humiliating one came on February 14, 2000 when Nitro lost not to Raw, but to the Westminster Dog Show
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Honeybear Lyder
ALF
It's called a title match, dammit! I'll fire your ass, dammit! Get me a snowcone, dammit!
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Post by Honeybear Lyder on Dec 28, 2017 16:48:41 GMT -5
IIRC, there was a time when Bret Hart pitched some angle idea he had about him and Goldberg to Eric Bischoff, and Bischoff told him he has to get an OK from Hogan to do the angle. Said angle had nothing to do with Hogan.
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Post by OVO 40 hunched over like he 80 on Dec 28, 2017 18:50:38 GMT -5
For a long time I had been working on doing some notes on WCW. I never did get around to posting them so here are a few of them. -In early 1999 WCW thought the reason WWF was beatiung them was because WWF depended a lot on pre-taped segments, so WCW decided to start usiung pretaped segments a bit more. Sounds like a good idea right? Well WCW had way too many of them, then the stuff would last several minutes, and the stuff would make no sense. Worst of all though WCW thought that the announcers would be better off not seeing them. This made the announcers look like idiots several times. -In 1999 WCW though the way to get higher TV ratings was to bring in singers to preform a song. So they brought in Megadeath to perform on Nitro. The Megadeath concert was one of the lowest rated segments in Nitro history. WCW's next move was to bring in Chad Brock (a country singer who had trained at the power plant in the early 1990s) and later KISS. Of course those two bombed equally as bad as Megadeath. The July 5, 1999 had the Megadeath concert, Goldberg returning after a lengthy absence, Bret Hart returning to Nitro for the first time after Owen's death, and a kickboxing match between Jerry Flynn and Ernest Miller. Anyone want to take a guess as to which of these was the only thing WCW bothered to hype? -After the failure of the Kiss concert WCW decided to do a pay-per-view on 12/31/99 in Arizona. Part of the pay-per-view would have included a full length Kiss concert -One week on Nitro they spent most of the show talking about how they were going to have a contest where a fan could win 1 million dollars and told everyone to tuune into Nitro the next week. It was never mentioned again. -There is actually a story as to why the contest was dropped. Following that Nitro Bischoff was sent home due to the struggles WCW was having. IN an effort to save money the contest was dropped. Also dropped was the New Years Eve pay-per-view and the Road Wild Pay-per-view -When WCW changed the logo in early 1999 they ordered new business cards to show the new logo. When they got the cards it gave WCW's address as Altanta and my personal favorites: -During commercials it was common to have the Nirto Girls Dance for the people at the audience. Later they brought on DJ Ran to play music as well. One time in an effort trying to get fans to comes to the shows Bischoff was telling that and Bobby Heenan made the comment that “The commercials are better than the show” -Of all the times Nitro lost in the ratings to what was on USA the most humiliating one came on February 14, 2000 when Nitro lost not to Raw, but to the Westminster Dog Show The commercials are better than the show describes how bad wcw got at the end. Bischoff is a f***ing idiot, the company is losing money and he wanted to give the winner of a f***ing contest a million dollars. For years I defended Bischoff saying that he had a raw deal and wcw dying wasn't his fault, but after reading the death of wcw and other shoot interviews, the guy was the village idiot who got lucky and was in over his head. If anyone at Turner gave a f*** about wcw they would've either fired Bischoff years for being a f***ing idiot. WCW at one time had the worst booker of all time in Russo and the worst businessman in Bischoff.
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Cranjis McBasketball
Crow T. Robot
Knew what the hell that thing was supposed to be
Peace Love and Nothing But
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Post by Cranjis McBasketball on Dec 28, 2017 18:57:10 GMT -5
Telling announcers to react to everything as a shoot. Heenan said “We’d say nothing. We’ve never seen a shoot”.
Asking Heenan why he wouldn’t bash WWF on air. He said “I worked there 10 years, I’d look like a jerk bashing them. Besides, you hired me to put over this product. Sears doesn’t talk about JC Penny”.
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Post by Alexander The So-so on Dec 28, 2017 19:19:22 GMT -5
Chris Jericho receiving a FedEx envelope from WCW in the mail that literally had nothing in it.
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Post by 2coldMack is even more baffled on Dec 28, 2017 20:18:20 GMT -5
Chris Jericho receiving a FedEx envelope from WCW in the mail that literally had nothing in it. To say nothing him getting f***ed on merch royalties because action figures of him and Malenko were counted as being for Sting and Hogan.
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Post by OVO 40 hunched over like he 80 on Dec 28, 2017 20:27:14 GMT -5
Telling announcers to react to everything as a shoot. Heenan said “We’d say nothing. We’ve never seen a shoot”. Asking Heenan why he wouldn’t bash WWF on air. He said “I worked there 10 years, I’d look like a jerk bashing them. Besides, you hired me to put over this product. Sears doesn’t talk about JC Penny”. Bobby said in his book that when Bischoff didn't tell the announcers the finish and wanted them to react as if it was a shoot, Heenan told him that wrestling was a fake business and that there had never been a shoot because everything is a work, Bischoff apparently just kept quiet. Flair gave one of his robes to wcw for their restaurant, they lost said robe. During a segment they sent a real EMT to the ring, wcw never bothered to tell Scott Steiner that the EMT wasn't a plant or a worker so he started to beat up the guy, the EMT pressed charges and Steiner was arrested the following day. Sabu found out he got fired after listening to WCW's hotline. Jericho's wife bought his action figure, but on the receipt it read that it was a Hulk Hogan figure. A couple of years later there was a lawsuit against wcw from wrestlers like Kevin Nash who complained that they got f***ed during royalty payments, because apparently when people bought shirts or toys the receipts claimed it was Hogan's merchandise when it clearly wasn't. Big Show once received a royalty check from THQ because of the world tour and revenge games, Bischoff called him a couple of days later and asked Show to give him back the check because it was sent to him by mistake. Big Show told him to f*** off because the royalty check was bigger than what he made each month. Makes you wonder how many video game checks Bischoff kept from the talent.
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Sephiroth
Wade Wilson
Surviving
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Post by Sephiroth on Dec 28, 2017 20:34:31 GMT -5
The whole Scott Hall legacy. The man gets into all kinds of shit due to his drug and alcohol issues-and WCW sends him home with pay, effectively sending him on a paid vacation. Whatever else we can say, no way that would fly in today’s WWE.
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Cranjis McBasketball
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Knew what the hell that thing was supposed to be
Peace Love and Nothing But
Posts: 41,891
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Post by Cranjis McBasketball on Dec 28, 2017 21:03:16 GMT -5
Telling announcers to react to everything as a shoot. Heenan said “We’d say nothing. We’ve never seen a shoot”. Asking Heenan why he wouldn’t bash WWF on air. He said “I worked there 10 years, I’d look like a jerk bashing them. Besides, you hired me to put over this product. Sears doesn’t talk about JC Penny”. Bobby said in his book that when Bischoff didn't tell the announcers the finish and wanted them to react as if it was a shoot, Heenan told him that wrestling was a fake business and that there had never been a shoot because everything is a work, Bischoff apparently just kept quiet. Flair gave one of his robes to wcw for their restaurant, they lost said robe. During a segment they sent a real EMT to the ring, wcw never bothered to tell Scott Steiner that the EMT wasn't a plant or a worker so he started to beat up the guy, the EMT pressed charges and Steiner was arrested the following day. Sabu found out he got fired after listening to WCW's hotline. Jericho's wife bought his action figure, but on the receipt it read that it was a Hulk Hogan figure. A couple of years later there was a lawsuit against wcw from wrestlers like Kevin Nash who complained that they got f***ed during royalty payments, because apparently when people bought shirts or toys the receipts claimed it was Hogan's merchandise when it clearly wasn't. Big Show once received a royalty check from THQ because of the world tour and revenge games, Bischoff called him a couple of days later and asked Show to give him back the check because it was sent to him by mistake. Big Show told him to f*** off because the royalty check was bigger than what he made each month. Makes you wonder how many video game checks Bischoff kept from the talent. I’ll always dispute the Jericho receipt story as having any meaning. I was high enough in retail I can tell you I had the power to tell the computer what the receipt should say. I could make the receipt say a purchase of carrots said “Hulk Hogan figure”. Hogan isn’t getting that cash. At a store level, it means nothing.
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Post by Captain Stud Muffin (BLM) on Dec 28, 2017 21:28:30 GMT -5
Telling announcers to react to everything as a shoot. Heenan said “We’d say nothing. We’ve never seen a shoot”. Asking Heenan why he wouldn’t bash WWF on air. He said “I worked there 10 years, I’d look like a jerk bashing them. Besides, you hired me to put over this product. Sears doesn’t talk about JC Penny”. Big Show once received a royalty check from THQ because of the world tour and revenge games, Bischoff called him a couple of days later and asked Show to give him back the check because it was sent to him by mistake. Big Show told him to f*** off because the royalty check was bigger than what he made each month. Makes you wonder how many video game checks Bischoff kept from the talent. If I remember correctly I believe Show talked about that on either Jericho or Austins podcast Also while Show was getting paid well for a guy new in the business when he went to redo his contract to get "fair pay" for a guy who's always in the main event, I believe Bischoff told him no
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