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Post by tmc1982 on Dec 27, 2008 4:39:04 GMT -5
WCW seemed to be at its cheesiest when it tried to emulate (I'm probably going to answer my own question) WWF's "sports entertainment". I suppose with Turner Broadcasting backing you, you're going to be given carte blanche to do a lot of stupid shit.
The heart of WCW (and what set it apart from WWF) was mainly, that it focused on athleticism (i.e. subtance over style, like what Vince McMahon was for the most part, offering). The old "NWA World Championship Wrestling" show had a more grounded in reality, PG-13 (a la, Ric Flair coming on TV to talk about his many encounters with the opposite sex), "good ole boy" feel to it. Part of what killed WCW in my estimation, was it not fully embracing itself as an alternative to WWF's product.
I know that when Jim Herd (a.k.a. the regional Pizza Hut manager in St. Louis, who managed to piss off and scare away WCW's biggest draw, Ric Flair) was running the day-to-day operations, the cartoon-like content seemed to be seeping in. There was for instance, the Black Scorpion angle, RoboCop coming to the aid of Sting, Big Josh (a lumberjack with two dancing bears), a tag team called the Ding Dongs, etc.
Even after Herd was kicked to the curb, the cartoonish crap continued. Right around the time that Ric Flair came back after spending about 2 and half years in the WWF, we get the Shockmaster incident on "A Flair for the Gold" (Ric Flair's talk show at the time). There was also the "mini movies" like "Catcus Jack: Lost in Cleveland" and the Beach Blast movie involving Sting, Davey Boy Smith, Vader, Sid Vicious, and Cheetum, the evil midget.
By Hulk Hogan's second year in WCW (1995), the main angle was that goofy as hell fued that he had involving the Dungeon of Doom ("It's not hot!!!"). Even when the nWo angle was kicking into high gear, a lot of the main people in WCW were people who initally gained most of their notority in the WWF (i.e. Hogan, Randy Savage, Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, Roddy Piper, etc.).
By the time Vince Russo showed up, WCW was foolishly trying to emulate or reinact WWF's "Attitude" product.
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Post by Joe Neglia on Dec 27, 2008 4:49:27 GMT -5
Turner.
Or rather, Turner's people. They wanted to compete with the national WWF, whereas WCW was still trying to pull itself out of the NWA/Crockett shadow of being a "southern rasslin'" thing. So they ditched what was working and tried to ape McMahon. If he has zombies and tax men and repo guys, they needed them too.
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Post by tmc1982 on Dec 27, 2008 5:02:03 GMT -5
Turner. Or rather, Turner's people. They wanted to compete with the national WWF, whereas WCW was still trying to pull itself out of the NWA/Crockett shadow of being a "southern rasslin'" thing. So they ditched what was working and tried to ape McMahon. If he has zombies and tax men and repo guys, they needed them too. That was pointed out on Ric Flair's DVD from WWE, when Flair was talking about how Ted Turner had friends, who ran to him and told him that they wanted to run a wrestling company. The end result was people being put in charge despite having having no real clue about what the hell they were doing. It's no surprise then, that WCW (despite being backed by a powerful media mogul like Ted Turner) was so poorly managed from say 1988 through at least, late 1993.
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Post by Cap'n Crud on Dec 27, 2008 5:59:40 GMT -5
Because sadly at the time both WCW and WWF were convinced that was what the fans wanted. It wouldn't be until the mid 90s when ECW came into the picture that the big two finally realized the milk and cookies characters and cartoon storylines of the past just weren't gonna cut it anymore.
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Post by Single H on Dec 27, 2008 9:21:51 GMT -5
It was WCW trying to emulate WWF and try to compete with them. The 80's cartoonish gimmicks is what the WWF still had going at the time. WCW didn't realize they were on a downward spiral and tried to emulate them. To no avail. They did gain mainstream publicity though by bringing Hogan in (94) who brought some of his over the hill friends from WWF with him. Who were famous for there 80's cartoonish charachters. Then they tried the dungeon of doom vs a very outdated Hogan and even tried to copy a feud. One of (if not the biggest feud in History up to that point) in Andre The Giant (The Giant) VS Hogan. Realizing this is not what fans wanted to see. They got serious and brought the NWO in and got rid of most of there cartoonish gimmicks and really brought the WCW into a new age. WWF followed through but took a little longer to reach where WCW was and begun there own 'Attitude Era'.
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greeby
Hank Scorpio
Posts: 7,088
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Post by greeby on Dec 27, 2008 10:19:35 GMT -5
The thing that ultimately brought them down: Constant obsession with what the WWF was doing. Part of the talent exodus towards the end came from management basically telling (through their booking) every wrestler who had made their show different "You'll forever be second fiddle to the WWF guys we bring in".
Tbh, it's not exactly a new statement, but that's what I see happening now with TNA.
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Post by VenomFang on Dec 27, 2008 12:30:52 GMT -5
Sorry but I love the cartoonish stuff. Thats what I grew up on. If the current WWE was more cartoonish I'd like it a lot more.
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Post by BitterAF on Dec 27, 2008 13:28:57 GMT -5
WCW. Robocop. Awesomeness.
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Post by toodarkmark on Dec 27, 2008 14:03:07 GMT -5
Turner. Or rather, Turner's people. They wanted to compete with the national WWF, whereas WCW was still trying to pull itself out of the NWA/Crockett shadow of being a "southern rasslin'" thing. So they ditched what was working and tried to ape McMahon. If he has zombies and tax men and repo guys, they needed them too. That was pointed out on Ric Flair's DVD from WWE, when Flair was talking about how Ted Turner had friends, who ran to him and told him that they wanted to run a wrestling company. The end result was people being put in charge despite having having no real clue about what the hell they were doing. It's no surprise then, that WCW (despite being backed by a powerful media mogul like Ted Turner) was so poorly managed from say 1988 through at least, late 1993. 1989 in the NWA was my favorite year in wrestling ever. So please let me have that poor management again. BUt it did go down hill. Jim Herd was in a long line of idiots who get put in charge of wrestling promotions. They had cartoonish elements. But the Dangerous Alliance wasn't cartoonish to me. Ricky Steamboat wasnt cartoonish. Doom vs The Horsemen didnt seem cartoonish. But that was Pro Wrestling then in general. WWF was ALL cartoon. They didn't even have humans anymore, just characters. Same with Global Wrestling. UWF. Thank god for Paul Heyman.
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Post by Single H on Dec 27, 2008 15:26:03 GMT -5
I love the cartonish yeaers also. However thjats what I was brought upon so probably htink of it more fondly than OI should. I love 93,94,95 and 96 as the best years in wrestlnig even athough there prboealby the wrost years for ratingsd andf buy rates and 98 and 99 werre much better.
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Triple Kelly
Vegeta
Not once, twice, but three times a Kelly
Posts: 9,470
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Post by Triple Kelly on Dec 27, 2008 18:59:14 GMT -5
1989 in the NWA was my favorite year in wrestling ever. So please let me have that poor management again. BUt it did go down hill. Jim Herd was in a long line of idiots who get put in charge of wrestling promotions. They had cartoonish elements. But the Dangerous Alliance wasn't cartoonish to me. Ricky Steamboat wasnt cartoonish. Doom vs The Horsemen didnt seem cartoonish. But that was Pro Wrestling then in general. WWF was ALL cartoon. They didn't even have humans anymore, just characters. Same with Global Wrestling. UWF. Thank god for Paul Heyman. Yeah, I adore 1989 NWA as well. And very late 91 and all of 92 was when WCW finally tried being non-cartoonish and disposed of Jim Herd (after the 2 1/2 years of bulls***) in late 91 and the promotion finally getting serious with The Dangerous Alliance, Sting, Steamboat, Cactus Jack, Pillman, Vader, etc. But when all of this failed to send the promotion into the stratosphere like management wanted, then in 93 they went back to the same cartoon characters formula.
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Frank Castle
AC Slater
Trying to be a heel in a heel loving world.
Posts: 221
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Post by Frank Castle on Dec 27, 2008 19:54:30 GMT -5
With regards ro Paul Heyman, ECW was like an adult cartoon, so you can't really say that he did away with the cartoony elements of pro wrestling when he gave us the Blue Meanie, the Dudley Boyz, The Tazmaniac, Sabu, Balls Mahoony and such.
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Post by Trip Fisk a.k.a. Foley is Good on Dec 27, 2008 20:27:01 GMT -5
I agree with ECW being an adult cartoon like wrestling promotion.
The original character of Balls Mahoney was that of a gay biker for example.
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Dean-o
Grimlock
Haha we're having fun Maggle!
Posts: 13,865
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Post by Dean-o on Dec 28, 2008 3:40:31 GMT -5
Sorry but I love the cartoonish stuff. Thats what I grew up on. If the current WWE was more cartoonish I'd like it a lot more. The WWF from the early to mid 90's is my favorite wrestling era of all time...well maybe second to the nWo but still, I love that stuff. Probably because I was just a kid then, but the WWF was packed of colorful, entertaining characters. Just looking at my Hasbro WWF figure collection brings back a ton of great memories. I honestly wouldn't mind a bit more cartoonish characters now. It'll be great to see the IWC argue about the quality of a match between a mailman and a hair dresser.
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Post by tmc1982 on Dec 28, 2008 4:30:28 GMT -5
Sorry but I love the cartoonish stuff. Thats what I grew up on. If the current WWE was more cartoonish I'd like it a lot more. The WWF from the early to mid 90's is my favorite wrestling era of all time...well maybe second to the nWo but still, I love that stuff. Probably because I was just a kid then, but the WWF was packed of colorful, entertaining characters. Just looking at my Hasbro WWF figure collection brings back a ton of great memories. I honestly wouldn't mind a bit more cartoonish characters now. It'll be great to see the IWC argue about the quality of a match between a mailman and a hair dresser. WWF seemed to get even more cartoonish around 1992-1995. It seemed like virtually everybody had to have a far out there gimmick (e.g. Doink and Papa Shango) or a "non-wrestling job" as part of their gimmick (e.g. Bob Holly's race car driver persona, Issac Yankem, the dentist, etc.). It seemed like Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels for the most part, were the only guys on the roster during that era who were essentially being themselves.
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Post by toodarkmark on Dec 28, 2008 14:11:00 GMT -5
1989 in the NWA was my favorite year in wrestling ever. So please let me have that poor management again. BUt it did go down hill. Jim Herd was in a long line of idiots who get put in charge of wrestling promotions. They had cartoonish elements. But the Dangerous Alliance wasn't cartoonish to me. Ricky Steamboat wasnt cartoonish. Doom vs The Horsemen didnt seem cartoonish. But that was Pro Wrestling then in general. WWF was ALL cartoon. They didn't even have humans anymore, just characters. Same with Global Wrestling. UWF. Thank god for Paul Heyman. Yeah, I adore 1989 NWA as well. And very late 91 and all of 92 was when WCW finally tried being non-cartoonish and disposed of Jim Herd (after the 2 1/2 years of bulls***) in late 91 and the promotion finally getting serious with The Dangerous Alliance, Sting, Steamboat, Cactus Jack, Pillman, Vader, etc. But when all of this failed to send the promotion into the stratosphere like management wanted, then in 93 they went back to the same cartoon characters formula. That was the Bill Watts era into Kip Frye. Kip was real popular with the workers, even if he wasn't a big wrestling guy. I wonder what would have happened if he had stayed in power and not left on his own accord. The first two years of Bishoff are really not all that good, until Nitro, nWo, and such. The cartoon stuff is just what people think the kids want to see, and maybe that's true.
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Post by tmc1982 on Dec 29, 2008 2:15:19 GMT -5
I remember Ric Flair saying in his book that when Jim Crockett was booking shows like Starrcade '87 and Bunkhouse Stampede '88 in places closer to WWF's territory like Chicago and New York (respectively), they considerably bombed at the gate because the crowds saw the NWA/Jim Crockett Promotions product as "second rate". Jim Crockett was trying so hard to compete on Vince McMahon's level, despite not having enough fire power behind him, that it wound up biting him in the end. In the long run, that also happened to WCW, except they didn't have the foresight to realize that some of the stuff they had the offer were utterly intelligence insulting.
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Post by BlackJackRobby on Dec 29, 2008 18:59:41 GMT -5
What really makes this period stick out is WCW went from realistic 80's wrestling to emulate WWF in about a week.
Then they hired Kip Fry, and it got worse.
The they hired Watts and it got uber realistic again.
Then fired him to bring in Eric to find the happy succesful medium.
Even though Eric had more then a fair share of shames in that time.
Beach Blast
Where in the world is Cactus Jack
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Triple Kelly
Vegeta
Not once, twice, but three times a Kelly
Posts: 9,470
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Post by Triple Kelly on Dec 29, 2008 19:10:12 GMT -5
What really makes this period stick out is WCW went from realistic 80's wrestling to emulate WWF in about a week. Then they hired Kip Fry, and it got worse. The they hired Watts and it got uber realistic again. Then fired him to bring in Eric to find the happy succesful medium. Even though Eric had more then a fair share of shames in that time. Beach Blast Where in the world is Cactus Jack I'm just curious, how did Kip Frye make it worse? As I saw it, the company became 100 times better wrestling, storyline and character-wise because Frye boosted the morale of the locker room in general with his pay bonuses. Bill Watts is the one that most everyone hated because of his nutty rules but the wrestling and characters were still pretty good. And contrary to popular belief, Eric was not behind the mini-movies or Cactus Jack's amnesia. Sharon Sidello was the Turner Exec behind the mini-movies idea and the Lost in Cleveland angle was the brainchild of Dusty Rhodes.
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Post by Joe Neglia on Dec 29, 2008 21:30:41 GMT -5
What really makes this period stick out is WCW went from realistic 80's wrestling to emulate WWF in about a week. Then they hired Kip Fry, and it got worse. The they hired Watts and it got uber realistic again. Then fired him to bring in Eric to find the happy succesful medium. Even though Eric had more then a fair share of shames in that time. Beach Blast Where in the world is Cactus Jack When you say Kip, do you mean Jim Herd by any chance?
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