MolotovMocktail
Grimlock
Home of the 5-time, 5-time, 5-time, 5-time 5-time Super Bowl Champion 49ers-and Wrestlemania 31
Posts: 13,984
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Post by MolotovMocktail on Jan 4, 2016 15:37:37 GMT -5
I'm going to harp on this until I'm blue in the mouth because WWE is making the same mistake: moving Nitro to 3 hours over-extended the product, and made it tedious to sit through for even hard-core fans, let alone casual ones. The WWF had more action in less time. Once Vince Russo came on board, nothing made sense. Bad gimmick matches, and turns coming out of nowhere with no explanation or a ridiculous one. The nWo had overstayed its welcome, and become very diluted. Rather than focusing on the core of Hogan, Hall and Nash, it became half the roster. Bad booking made talent leave in droves. Once the Radicalz jumped (with Benoit winning the World Title the night before), the writing was on the wall. 1. As a fan I NEVER had a problem with the three hours. Compare that 3 hours to the current Raw 3 hours and it's light and day. 2. WCW went into the gutters cause they stopped doing the nWo properly. When reformed with a small group in early 99, WCW had great ratings. The problem was the WWF was beating them and Bischoff couldn't take that, he panicked, went paranoid, got burned out and quit. If Eric would have calmed down and forget the WWF and continue doing the nWo they would still be alive today. 3. The Radicalz had no effect on anything at all in WCW or WWF. Gaining the Radicalz didn't have a huge impact on the WWF (though they did play a role in the Austin/HHH feud), but I would contend that losing them was a major blow for WCW. These were 4 guys firmly established as WCW guys, and when they jumped - with one of them winning their main title the night before - the thought was, if these guys could leave, anyone could. It was a clear message that WCW talent wasn't happy, and that anyone was fair game to defect. |
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Post by benstudd on Jan 5, 2016 5:17:35 GMT -5
I never really understood why the Radicalz left WCW. If I remember, at the time they were pissed b/c Sullivan had the book but also because they weren't getting the proper pushes. But here's a list of their accomplishments: Dean Malenko - 4 time Cruiserweight champion/former US Champion/former tag champion Eddie Guerrero - 2 time Cruiserweight champion/former US Champion Chris Benoit - 2 time US champion/3 time TV champion/2 time tag champion/former world champ To say they didn't get a push is beyond ridiculous. In fact Benoit's the only triple crown guy out of the bunch. Malenko didn't really get out of the Lightweight division in the WWF anyway. But yeah, them leaving killed their mid-card. In hindsight, WCW had two changes to get this right. '97 - Sting should have won the belt clean, should have done the rematch w/Hogan at Superbrawl then Sting can feud with the likes of Bret Hart, DDP, even Goldberg, Benoit, Booker T. He wouldn't have had a shortage of challengers in 1998. '98 - in a vacuum, the screw job of Goldberg at Starrcade and the fingerpoke of doom wasn't that bad. The problem was the follow-up. If that was the plan all along, the easiest storyline would have been Goldberg chasing Hogan for the belt. Goldberg wins at Starrcade 1999, wrapping up a year long storyline. From Starrcade 99 on, I'm not really sure what they could have done. The 4 guys leaving put a dent in the mid-card, everyone is older. All things being equal, I'm sure they would have plucked guys like RVD and Lance Storm from ECW anyway but as other posters have said...the decisions made in 97 and 98 affected things in 99 and 2000. And let's be real here, WWF was still a shit show for most of 1999. WCW still had a chance if politics didn't get in the way Exactly. The fingerpoke was fine. It brought the nWo back stronger than ever. And their ultimate act was they took out Goldberg. The following storyline writes itself out, have Goldberg roll over the whole nWo group and he destroys them in the end. Instead these fools had the nWo feud with Flair. Made no sense. |
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Post by benstudd on Jan 5, 2016 5:25:43 GMT -5
1. As a fan I NEVER had a problem with the three hours. Compare that 3 hours to the current Raw 3 hours and it's light and day. 2. WCW went into the gutters cause they stopped doing the nWo properly. When reformed with a small group in early 99, WCW had great ratings. The problem was the WWF was beating them and Bischoff couldn't take that, he panicked, went paranoid, got burned out and quit. If Eric would have calmed down and forget the WWF and continue doing the nWo they would still be alive today. 3. The Radicalz had no effect on anything at all in WCW or WWF. Gaining the Radicalz didn't have a huge impact on the WWF (though they did play a role in the Austin/HHH feud), but I would contend that losing them was a major blow for WCW. These were 4 guys firmly established as WCW guys, and when they jumped - with one of them winning their main title the night before - the thought was, if these guys could leave, anyone could. It was a clear message that WCW talent wasn't happy, and that anyone was fair game to defect. Maybe it was a message but had these guys stayed in WCW, it wouldn't have changed a thing. They had Benoit win the title cause they were afraid he was gonna leave. But for example, without the threat of leaving, would any of these guys had gotten a big in WCW? Nope it would have never happened. And some would say they never really big became top guys in the WWE even if Eddie and Benoit the titles. Those were thank you wins. And really WWE wanted to use Eddie to cater to the Hispanic market on Smackdown. Also WCW had such a big roster and back then there was so much talent in the US that it was easy to pick up a bunch of guys and replenish the mid card. In fact that is what they did by bringing in Vampiro, Lance Storm, etc.... Personally, when I saw these four little guys on Raw, I wasn't much impressed. Cause they mattered so little at the heights of the Monday Night Wars. I was more worried about WCW having a shitty product and the Russo shit booking and WCW wasting all the good stuff they did from 1996 to early 99 to become WWE-lite. |
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Futureraven: Beelzebruv
Bill S. Preston, Esq.
The Ultimate Arbiter of Right And Wrong
Spent half my life here, God help me
Posts: 15,139
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Post by Futureraven: Beelzebruv on Jan 5, 2016 5:47:37 GMT -5
1. Acknowledge that you have two fan bases. The old Mid-Atlantic and Georgia Championship fans and the newer fans that came with the WWF guys who jumped. Book accordingly. 2. Stop Goldberg from being an idiot who puts his arm through a window 3. Have a healthy Goldberg go through the nWo building up from minor guys to Hall to Nash to Hogan as Nash described in his shoot. 3A. Have a back up plan because as seen at the Starrcade 98 match Goldberg wasn't over with the "smart" fans. Nash got a huge pop when he beat him. 4. Use what ever ego tricks you can to get Hogan to do what you want. Well the second point you couldn't stop, the prop to make it safe failed literally as they were filming. And the 3rd, Hogan would never have allowed anyone to get that dominant in the main event, he'd have found a way to undermine him, as another poster said, you can have amazing plans, Hogan says something just before airing and they're all screwed. |
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Post by Cvslfc123 on Jan 5, 2016 6:25:14 GMT -5
They should have made Scott Steiner the main focus of the show, that would have saved them
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Tony Schiavontay
Dennis Stamp
This is the greatest post in the history of this board!
Posts: 4,083
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Post by Tony Schiavontay on Jan 5, 2016 8:30:19 GMT -5
They should have made Scott Steiner the main focus of the show, that would have saved them It would have been interesting to see what they were cable of. |
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Post by Cvslfc123 on Jan 5, 2016 8:42:54 GMT -5
They should have made Scott Steiner the main focus of the show, that would have saved them It would have been interesting to see what they were cable of. It's the reason why I have no sympy for their demise. |
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ICBM
King Koopa
Didn't know we did status updates here now
Posts: 12,288
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Post by ICBM on Jan 5, 2016 22:25:28 GMT -5
I love the post on the first page about the crock of shit notion that WCW never did anything with Benoit, Malenko, Guerrero or Saturn. I've been saying this same thing since 05 in the wrestlecrap forum days and finally I have a like minded brother in arms. You would not believe they crap I got for saying that about them, Jerecho and Big Sh...Giant back in 05-06 in here. That said, I do not blame them for trying WWF. It's the pinicle and certainly was more stable when they left. I also agree their departure did nothing to the product either way, but did have the impact on talent considering how bad wcw was and hw greener pastures awaited.
The NWO rebirth set in motion by th finger poke of doom was designed to reboot the most successful cash cow they ever had in wcw. I think it could have done the trick after they boiled it down to core members who were strong. The problem though is they were all either main event workers or just outside of it and you simply could not get time for everyone. Either way it didn't go and they let it fizzle out.
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Post by JTG Fan on Jan 5, 2016 22:34:04 GMT -5
Say what you will about the nWo being played out, people were still watching. Once the nWo went away and DDP became WCW Champion and in the main program, ratings greatly slipped and never recovered.
I also think Russo killed off the struggling WCW PPV market for good with his bunch of thrown together bullshit. You can get away with slapping together Nitros, but even in those heady days of wrestling's boom period and soaring economy wrestling fans still wanted a reason to order PPVs. Russo never gave them any because his emphasis was always on TV.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Jan 5, 2016 23:48:14 GMT -5
Say what you will about the nWo being played out, people were still watching. Once the nWo went away and DDP became WCW Champion and in the main program, ratings greatly slipped and never recovered. I also think Russo killed off the struggling WCW PPV market for good with his bunch of thrown together bullshit. You can get away with slapping together Nitros, but even in those heady days of wrestling's boom period and soaring economy wrestling fans still wanted a reason to order PPVs. Russo never gave them any because his emphasis was always on TV. and I seem to recall a number of title changes that happened on the PPV, but then were overturned on Nitro. Why pay for the event, if the end result doesn't matter at all? |
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Post by gatordone on Jan 6, 2016 0:31:25 GMT -5
Why are we wasting another thread on the problems with WCW before they went out of business. If we really listed every problem with the way WCW was ran or the backstage politics then this forum would run out of bandwidth. It's dead. Let it go.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Jan 6, 2016 0:39:54 GMT -5
They should have made Scott Steiner the main focus of the show, that would have saved them I know you're joking, but I think you are absolutely correct. Steiner was over in the late 90's, they waited way too long to capitalize on him. Still, he was definitely the highlight of 2000 and had WCW's MOTY with Goldberg at Fall Brawl 2000. |
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Post by Cvslfc123 on Jan 6, 2016 3:35:05 GMT -5
They should have made Scott Steiner the main focus of the show, that would have saved them I know you're joking, but I think you are absolutely correct. Steiner was over in the late 90's, they waited way too long to capitalize on him. Still, he was definitely the highlight of 2000 and had WCW's MOTY with Goldberg at Fall Brawl 2000. I was being 100% serious  |
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Johnny Flamingo
Hank Scorpio
Killing the business one post at a time
Posts: 6,524
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Post by Johnny Flamingo on Jan 6, 2016 3:43:38 GMT -5
One of the big things that hurt WCW was perception. Back then there was a common narrative between fans that WWF listened to their fans and pushed younger guys while WCW only pushed Hogan and his friends and the old guard while holding down younger talent such as Jericho.
Not saying that narrative was entirely true but it was definitely a common thought back then.
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Post by Hit Girl on Jan 6, 2016 5:59:02 GMT -5
It switched to Bravo over here, and from that point on, I knew it was doomed.
I loved WCW on the Cartoon Network/TNT.
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Post by The Dark Order Inferno on Jan 6, 2016 7:09:03 GMT -5
Why are we wasting another thread on the problems with WCW before they went out of business. If we really listed every problem with the way WCW was ran or the backstage politics then this forum would run out of bandwidth. It's dead. Let it go. In that case, why discuss anything that isn't present day WWE/RoH/TNA? It's over, let it go, no point in discussing anything from wrestling history as other people have done so already. |
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Futureraven: Beelzebruv
Bill S. Preston, Esq.
The Ultimate Arbiter of Right And Wrong
Spent half my life here, God help me
Posts: 15,139
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Post by Futureraven: Beelzebruv on Jan 6, 2016 7:53:33 GMT -5
Why are we wasting another thread on the problems with WCW before they went out of business. If we really listed every problem with the way WCW was ran or the backstage politics then this forum would run out of bandwidth. It's dead. Let it go. In that case, why discuss anything that isn't present day WWE/RoH/TNA? It's over, let it go, no point in discussing anything from wrestling history as other people have done so already. Exactly, I mean, it's a fascinating story on it's own. Ted Turner supplies the money for a 3rd rate announcer to take an also ran promotion to the top of the world, almost crushing WWE, only to crash and burn in a few short years. That's before you get into the similarities of approach between WCW and current WWE on a "those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it" angle. The story of WCW is analysed and recounted for damn good reasons. |
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Big Poppa Pumpkin
Dennis Stamp
I'll be in the back polishing............ my belt.
Posts: 4,987 
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Post by Big Poppa Pumpkin on Jan 6, 2016 8:00:26 GMT -5
They should have made Scott Steiner the main focus of the show, that would have saved them I know you're joking, but I think you are absolutely correct. Steiner was over in the late 90's, they waited way too long to capitalize on him. Still, he was definitely the highlight of 2000 and had WCW's MOTY with Goldberg at Fall Brawl 2000. That run from Starrcade in December to the last PPV (Sin or Greed or whatever it was) in March 2001, where Steiner was holding the strap the whole time, was also the best run of PPVs they had since everything went to shit in 1999. Too bad the damage had already been done by then |
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Renslayer
Bill S. Preston, Esq.
every time i come around your city...
Posts: 16,691
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Post by Renslayer on Jan 6, 2016 23:24:34 GMT -5
Not getting the title back on Goldberg. After doing the fingerpoke, he needed to be the one that finished the nWo once and for all. After that, you could transition to Goldberg vs Bret (this assumes WCW actually utilizes Hart properly of course)
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Post by lebuddha on Jan 7, 2016 4:31:52 GMT -5
I'll let you know what was going through 10-year old me's mind as I was channel-hopping inbetween the last WCW Thunder and WWF Smackdown:
[seeing Dusty Rhodes and Ric Flair fight over kissing a donkey's ass]
"WHY THE f*** ARE THESE TWO OLD FARTS STILL ON TV?"
I knew who Flair was since I was 6. I was surprised he was still wrestling 5 years later in 2001.
So yeah, too much old talent. If I wanted to see younger guys like The Rock kick some ass, all I had to do was flip the channel. Hogan couldn't even land punches on people, they needed to run into his fists and big boots. When did WCW give Scott Steiner the title belt? Not until he was like 38 right?
Wasn't the last WCW PPV Steiner vs DDP? A 38 year old man vs a 44 year old man. Me and my friend didn't want to see this and were already making jokes about WCW employing old f***s in the 5th grade. Sorry but even a 10 year old knows that younger talent is better.
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