Ever wonder how bad those 1998 Nitro main events were?

["Evil Brood" Jackson Vanik]

Wonder no more! I was very bored today so I decided to look through the main event match of every episode of WCW Nitro in 1998 since they were very infamous for not actually delivering any sort of finish. I basically counted four different possible outcomes - DQs, No-Contests, Countouts/Draws, and Pins/Submissions. Pins/submissions does not mean there weren't shenanigans but at the end of the day, someone pinned/submitted someone else. They didn't do many gimmick matches back then but someone winning a ladder match or escaping a cage would also fall under that category. With that being said, here are the results!

1. DQs - 22 (43%)
2. Pin/Submission - 20 (38.5%)
3. No-Contest - 8 (15.4%)
4. Countout/Draw - 2 (3.8%)

So 61% of the time, you did not get a conclusive finish of any kind to WCW Nitro. And honestly, most of those pin/submissions involved Goldberg's streak over the summer where they basically forced themselves into beating people. You cut that out, and it's almost every week.

So yeah, glad things are mostly better now. 

[CMWaters]

I mean, that was just how shows were at the time from what I remember. I'm sure there is a close similar scale for Raw around that time, or if not 98 then 99.

[Mozenrath]

Jan 19, 2024 19:49:22 GMT -5 CMWaters said:

I mean, that was just how shows were at the time from what I remember. I'm sure there is a close similar scale for Raw around that time, or if not 98 then 99.

WCW was worse about it than Raw was, but it's still definitely a ton of non-finishes for both shows. Honestly, it was pretty bad in the mid-card, too, that one maybe worse so in WWF than WCW.

[HMARK Center]

Honestly, the whole formula was kind of why the excitement of the Monday Night War era could only last so long before people felt burned out on it: a huge part of its allure was that you were going to get major stars against major stars every single week, at least in the main event, but it was still an era where a lot of wrestlers didn't want to job unless it was a big stage and, end of the day, both promotions wanted to save the more definitive match endings for pay per views...and even then they often did screwy PPV main event finishes as a hook to get people to watch the next night on Nitro or Raw!

Shit, I remember the reason I watched my first full episode of Nitro was that I was channel surfing in early '98 and heard that the main event was Hogan and Savage against Sting and Luger...yet I have basically no memory of the actual match. You can only tease and play up a main event combination being a big deal then just give a nothin finish and make clear the matches don't matter so many times before fans start to catch on.

["Evil Brood" Jackson Vanik]

I did look at WWF in 1999 and WCW in 2000 to compare and both delivered main events with significantly less DQs and No-Contests. Now they still had a lot of other things like screwjobs going on but they generally gave you a winner and loser. Not sure if Russo actively tried to make that happen since there were DQs elsewhere on those cards but he definitely did not seem as worried about beating guys as WCW was in 1998 (and I imagine the guys working there at the time had a lot to do with that).

[thegame415]

Is it wrong I'd rather have a 5-minute World Title Hogan vs Giant DQ finish than a 20-minute, multi-commercial match with no point?

["Gizzark" Mike Wronglevenay]

Jan 20, 2024 22:23:07 GMT -5 thegame415 said:

Is it wrong I'd rather have a 5-minute World Title Hogan vs Giant DQ finish than a 20-minute, multi-commercial match with no point?

I don't totally agree but do see your point

Sometimes Dynamite would open with a 20 minute banger that is about nothing, and I need a reason for good wrestling happening for it to actually feel like good wrestling to me

[HMARK Center]

Jan 22, 2024 3:32:03 GMT -5 "Gizzark" Mike Wronglevenay said:

Jan 20, 2024 22:23:07 GMT -5 thegame415 said:

Is it wrong I'd rather have a 5-minute World Title Hogan vs Giant DQ finish than a 20-minute, multi-commercial match with no point?

I don't totally agree but do see your point

Sometimes Dynamite would open with a 20 minute banger that is about nothing, and I need a reason for good wrestling happening for it to actually feel like good wrestling to me

I think it boils down to what constitutes "nothing" for people, since it seems that can vary at times; like, is the match a showcase for someone getting a main event push or something? Meantime the Hogan/Giant match is at least quick, but at the same time you were told you were getting a pay per view level main event and instead you get Vincent and Buff Bagwell running down five minutes in to get the match thrown out, so that comes with disappointment, but at least it's over fast...but does that match end up pointless, too?

[David-Arquette was in WCW 2000]

Jan 22, 2024 6:46:47 GMT -5 HMARK Center said:

Jan 22, 2024 3:32:03 GMT -5 "Gizzark" Mike Wronglevenay said:

I don't totally agree but do see your point

Sometimes Dynamite would open with a 20 minute banger that is about nothing, and I need a reason for good wrestling happening for it to actually feel like good wrestling to me

I think it boils down to what constitutes "nothing" for people, since it seems that can vary at times; like, is the match a showcase for someone getting a main event push or something? Meantime the Hogan/Giant match is at least quick, but at the same time you were told you were getting a pay per view level main event and instead you get Vincent and Buff Bagwell running down five minutes in to get the match thrown out, so that comes with disappointment, but at least it's over fast...but does that match end up pointless, too?

It depends how it fits the narrative. However, if run ins happen all the time, the narrative is 'Hogan is going to retain due to his nWo buddies causing shenanigans. Setting this match up was pointless'.

[Eunös ✈]

Wasn't watching Wrestling at the time.

But watching Wrestling Bios Reliving the War every Thursday is fun to see what I missed out on.

A lot of it is very much a product of its time.. Even the attitude era hasn't really aged that well.

[thecrusherwi]

Honestly, the number of non-finishes didn't really even register with me at the time. That was just wrestling in the whole era I grew up with. In the pre-MNW Era, it felt like most star vs star TV matches ended in some screwy way. The difference is prior to the Monday Night Wars, it felt like you'd wait weeks for a big star vs star match to show up on Superstars or Worldwide or something, whereas the novelty of just seeing the stars every week was enough to feel like a big improvement. I agree with HMARK above that this wasn't sustainable once people got used to seeing the stars, but I don't remember any one I knew who watched wrestling thinking that there wasn't enough finishes. The new fans didn't seem to care and the old fans were used to it.

[celtics543]

I think this might be a flawed way of looking at the quality of the show though. A lot of those screwy finishes were to further the story until they got to the ppv. I definitely know they all weren't but I would argue that the story was way more important than the actual matches. And honestly, for me, wrestling is at its best when they are more concerned with the quality of the story and do things based on story than quality of match.

I don't want a technical masterpiece if the story calls for a brawl that spills all over the arena. I believe this point is valid when you look at the top grossing stars in the history of the business. Some were good to great workers but all were excellent story tellers.

[lucas_lee]

Good lord why would you do this to yourself man haha. Great data but at what cost?

["Evil Brood" Jackson Vanik]

Jan 22, 2024 13:57:14 GMT -5 lucas_lee said:

Good lord why would you do this to yourself man haha. Great data but at what cost?

It honestly only took me 15 minutes haha. It would have been torture if I actually tried to decide if there was a clean finish or not. 

[HMARK Center]

Jan 22, 2024 8:55:35 GMT -5 David-Arquette was in WCW 2000 said:

Jan 22, 2024 6:46:47 GMT -5 HMARK Center said:

I think it boils down to what constitutes "nothing" for people, since it seems that can vary at times; like, is the match a showcase for someone getting a main event push or something? Meantime the Hogan/Giant match is at least quick, but at the same time you were told you were getting a pay per view level main event and instead you get Vincent and Buff Bagwell running down five minutes in to get the match thrown out, so that comes with disappointment, but at least it's over fast...but does that match end up pointless, too?

It depends how it fits the narrative. However, if run ins happen all the time, the narrative is 'Hogan is going to retain due to his nWo buddies causing shenanigans. Setting this match up was pointless'.

Yeah, that's kind of the point; we know Hogan's a cheat and a coward who ducks behind the nWo to protect his title, it's 100% fine to establish that as a major story beat, but it's tough when Bischoff's telling Schiavone to remind us how "this is a PAY PER VIEW QUALITY main event!" or "don't you DARE think of switching to the competition!" and then most of the time you end up just getting a thrown out nothing match that just hammers home what you already know.

That said, yeah, in the moment I agree it wasn't that bad; there was just the excitement of seeing guys like Hogan, Savage, Sting, and others on regular weekly TV instead of waiting for PPV or a one-off episode of Saturday Night/Clash of the Champions, and the episodic nature of things did make you want to come back to see if there was something building off of what happened the previous show - plus, it did take the big moments that you DID get, like Hogan losing to Luger and Goldberg, and elevated them because you expected a bullshit finish but didn't get one. Plus, yeah, the era right before then was RIFE with guys refusing to job, hence stuff like all those Roddy Piper "brawl to the back" endings from the late 80s/early 90s in WWF before he ok'd fully putting Bret over clean in '92 (note: not blaming Piper for that, it was still an era of needing to protect your aura, and the rarity of name vs. name matches in that time made it easier to swallow as a fan, since you were just excited that Roddy was actually facing, say, Bad News or Rick Rude).

But ultimately, it all meant something I've always thought about the MNW era: it just had a built-in expiration date, because you can only pull the rug out from under the audience so many times. WWF managed to somewhat transition from it in 2000-2001 when they brought in a lot of great workers to go along with their top name stars (e.g. putting Rock and post-neck injury Austin in there with guys like Benoit, Angle, and Jericho), but WCW transitioned to Russo-ism and...yeah, there were more definitive winners and losers, but it was the era of the swerve, regardless.

That sweet spot of circa '97 through most of '98 was pretty magical in both companies, though, but it just doesn't age well in retrospect.

[tafkaga]

I feel conflicted about this, because while yes those main events were mostly a waste of time, having big matches with clean finishes on weekly shows is not going to do anything but devalue your pay per views and run everything into the ground.