How close were WWF and WCW before Hogan turned heel?

[Jindrak Mark]

Okay, maybe this isn't news to anyone else but I was always kind of under the impression WCW was the distant number 2 until the NWO angle shot them into the stratosphere so it kinda surprised me that in the 44 weeks between Nitro debuting in September 1995 and the NWO forming at Bash at the Beach 1996 Raw won the ratings war 16 times and Nitro won 20 times with 2 draws and 6 pre-emptions.

Looking at PPV numbers from 94-96 WCW weren't really far behind there either other than Wrestlemania. There's a big difference in the Hogan PPVs and the non-Hogan PPVs though. Stuff like BATB 94, Halloween Havoc 94, Superbrawl 95, Uncensored 95, BATB 95 and Superbrawl 96 had massive buyrates by WCW standards but others were terrible. Starrcade 1995 for instance only got 75,000 buys.

For those who remember, was it perceived as being like a 50/50 battle at the time or was one company seen as clearly bigger?

[tafkaga]

My experience.

I was attending high school in southern Missouri at the time, and was a WWF loyalist. It was hard to find kids in my peer group who watched Raw. Seemed like everyone was talking about Nitro. In my part of the world, Nitro kinda made wrestling cool again. What's interesting though is that a lot of people called it "WWF", I'm guessing because they grew up watching most of those guys in the WWF and wrestling/WWF were kinda synonymous terms.

Hogan, Savage, and familiar WWF guys most assuredly contributed to the perception that WCW was "where the big boys played", even if WCW never reached the same level of brand recognition. It was impossible to ignore, even as someone who pledged his loyalty to Vince, that those '95 Nitros were just more exciting, more cutting edge than what WWF was doing at the time, and they were doing it with older wrestlers headlining.

[Oh Cry Me a Screwball]

It probably depends on where you lived at the time. WWF seemed to have the edge in most of the country (especially in the Northeast), except for the south, where WCW and it's predecessors always had the edge.

[tirtefaa]

Honestly at the time, WCW seemed like the bigger deal by default.

Despite WWF having Bret, Shawn, Diesel, Razor and Undertaker, none of those guys really felt on the same level as Hogan, Flair, Savage, Sting and even Vader. However, the bigger factor to me personally was presentation and the full roster. WWF lacked severely in these categories, and despite what a lot of people will say about champions who draw, if the rest of the card looks awful I'm going to pass on it, and WWF in 1995 put out a lot of terrible product.

[Triangle Lancer]

Aug 16, 2022 2:31:17 GMT -5 tirtefaa said:

Honestly at the time, WCW seemed like the bigger deal by default.

Despite WWF having Bret, Shawn, Diesel, Razor and Undertaker, none of those guys really felt on the same level as Hogan, Flair, Savage, Sting and even Vader. However, the bigger factor to me personally was presentation and the full roster. WWF lacked severely in these categories, and despite what a lot of people will say about champions who draw, if the rest of the card looks awful I'm going to pass on it, and WWF in 1995 put out a lot of terrible product.

It was a back-and-forth struggle on both sides.
The Flair-Savage feud and the beginning of Nitro was getting people's attention.
Nitro wasn't "winning" the ratings battle every week, but it wasn't completely one-sided either. The nWo was the kick in the ass that WCW needed to (pardon the pun) take over.
Look at how they portrayed these guys. "We know they're here, but what are they planning to do?!?" You're building intrigue, telling people they will see them if they just stay tuned. (Interesting how, a year-plus later, the WWF instilled the exact same kind of thing for Austin.)

[KAMALARAMBO: BOOMSHAKALAKA!!!]

I grew up in Massachusetts and kids around here were aware of WCW in the early 1990s. But it was more like, “WWF is the big time wrestlers then there are these other guys that aren’t as good.” Although kids still thought Sting was cool.

[wildojinx]

I grew up in New Hampshire and most of the kids who watched wrestling were mainly watching WWF (though I did know some WCW fans in Middle School, I lost track of them once I went to High School), though some WCW fandom did start creeping in during the NWO angle. Of course, almost immediately after WM14, all the kids were WWF fans.

[A Platypus Rave]

From my experience in New York I never heard really anyone talking about WCW until the NWO.

[thecrusherwi]

I watched and liked both as a kid. While I liked WCW, I always thought that the ex-WWF guys couldn’t hang with the New Generation so they went to WCW. You had guys like Duggan, Bossman, and Earthquake who were getting beaten left and right on their way out of WWF and then going to WCW and dominating. As an 8 year old, I thought that made WCW look like the bush leagues.

As far as popularity, I don’t remember either being very popular in the grand scheme of things, but I definitely remember WCW eating into WWF’s shelf space at video rental stores and toy stores from 1995 on.

[Ultimo Gallos]

Now I grew up in the deep south,Born in Biloxi and grew up in Forts Lake MS. When I started school everybody watched what became Mid South. Then Hogan came to WWF and out of no where we were getting most of the WWF syndicated shows on tv plus SNME. Sure the kids that lived in areas with Cable saw JCP/WCW. But without cable you got one syndicated JCP show that aired at like 2am on Saturdays.

As time passed and cable got to more and more areas more people got into JCP/WCW.

By the time Nitro started WCW was huge in the area. But they also toured the area often. Where you might be lucky and have WWF come to NOLA once a year.

[The Thread Barbi]

WCW felt like MLS compared to Premier league football, for lack of a better comparison.

Like a place where aging star players go for a big payday but not compete at the same level and at a less rigorous schedule.

Hall and Nash turning up, being New Generation stars, and in their primes, was more exciting to me than a Hogan heel turn.