Saddest end of a promotion

[hulksmash87]

Which promotions end was the saddest to you? For me it was the uswa I loved watching the studio show and as it slowly died and went to the checkered floor studio and then the pink studio with almost nobody there was heartbreaking to me

[Tiger Millionaire]

WCW, because it killed any challenge to Vince.

[AwamoriRock]

Hustle, because it meant less Riki Takeuchi in wrestling.

[Fade is a CodyCryBaby]

I mean, it hasn’t ended, but TNAs ever decline has been sad.

[Joe Neglia]

Dec 31, 2018 20:40:51 GMT -5 hulksmash87 said:

Which promotions end was the saddest to you? For me it was the uswa I loved watching the studio show and as it slowly died and went to the checkered floor studio and then the pink studio with almost nobody there was heartbreaking to me

Speaking of pink studios, my answer:

[Johnny Flamingo]

ECW.

Always felt different from everyone else. To me wrestling seemed to lose a creative spark and edge once ECW died.

[Convoy]

Dec 31, 2018 20:50:50 GMT -5 AwamoriRock said:

Hustle, because it meant less Riki Takeuchi in wrestling.

I’ll second this. Such a fun promotion, even with the loss of Generalissimo Takada as the main villain.

[Kevin Hamilton]

WCCW just for the slow inevitability after multiple tragedies

[The 1Watcher Experience]

ECW. It made wrestling cool when mainstream wrestling was pretty ridiculous back in 1995. It was such a huge influence on WWF and WCW during the Monday night wars. You wouldn’t have tables getting broken, tap out finishes, the resurgence of the cruiserweight style, hardcore matches, shoot promos, lucha being given a chance, three way matches, etc. without them.

One night in January 2001 in a little town called Pine Bluff the lockeroom feared it was the end and it was. Doesn’t get much sadder than that for a promotion that was so popular, influential and was running PPVs on a fairly regular basis at the time.

[adamclark52]

ECW mad me sadder but watching WCWs was saddest

[Deleted]

Jan 1, 2019 1:39:20 GMT -5 The 1Watcher Experience said:

ECW. It made wrestling cool when mainstream wrestling was pretty ridiculous back in 1995. It was such a huge influence on WWF and WCW during the Monday night wars. You wouldn’t have tables getting broken, tap out finishes, the resurgence of the cruiserweight style, hardcore matches, shoot promos, lucha being given a chance, three way matches, etc. without them.

One night in January 2001 in a little town called Pine Bluff the lockeroom feared it was the end and it was. Doesn’t get much sadder than that for a promotion that was so popular, influential and was running PPVs on a fairly regular basis at the time.

ECW dying meant the end of Chilly Willy, Bilvis Wesley, The Prodigy, The Prodigette, and Big Dick Hurtz ("look at my dick! he is vascular").

[brown bricks]

For me it will always be WCW. I was always a much bigger WCW fan than a WWF/WWE one. I was a kid when it ended and I'll never forget tuning in that night and being crushed when I realized Vince had bought it. Also, like someone else has already mentioned, it killed off any legit competition to Vince. As melodramatic as it sounds, March 26, 2001 (to me) will always be the day wrestling died.

[Mozenrath]

WCW is a mixed bag for me. It deserved to die for so many reasons, but that doesn't mean it's not sad that the guys working there thought they honestly had a chance of mounting a comeback, and so many people were f***ed over. On a Turner front, though? Good riddance.

AWA... well, I don't have pity for Verne, dude was a jerk in his own right, but it's sad that a once proud company died such a terribly pathetic death.

[OVO 40 hunched over like he 80]

ECW because of all the scummy shit Heyman pulled.

Lying about negotiating with tv stations in Los Angeles, in reality he was shooting that awful movie Rollerball. Heyman tried to save his ass and said that he shot his scenes in July of 2001, after ecw died, the problem is that the movie was shot in 2000. Also keep in mind that Heyman lies a lot.

Appearing on raw without telling anyone that ecw was dead. Joey Styles claimed that Heyman never told anyone so that the bankruptcy court wouldn’t withhold the wrestler’s paycheck, the problem was that nobody received those final checks so Joey’s excuse doesn’t add up.

Heyman didn’t showed up the last months of tapings. The bastard actually bragged about Tommy Dreamer going down with the ship and literally turning down the lights.

Sabotaging Dreamer’s attempts to sell the company. Tommy claims that Heyman refused to produce the paperwork to prospective buyers. Something shady was definitely there.

Actually saying with a straight face that he couldn’t give the wrestlers their checks, because the checks took the wrong flight.

The Dudleys did a show while under wwe contract. They told Paul not to pay them and give their share to the locker room. Paul didn’t follow through and kept the money.

And this one tops it all. Right when ecw was dying, Heyman was in creative and allegedly he went out of his way to bury Dreamer, Taz, the Dudley Boyz and Sandman.

If Paul Heyman was in another country he would either be dead or in prison.

[Tea & Crumpets]

Jan 1, 2019 3:20:34 GMT -5 brown bricks said:

For me it will always be WCW. I was always a much bigger WCW fan than a WWF/WWE one. I was a kid when it ended and I'll never forget tuning in that night and being crushed when I realized Vince had bought it. Also, like someone else has already mentioned, it killed off any legit competition to Vince. As melodramatic as it sounds, March 26, 2001 (to me) will always be the day wrestling died.

I agree entirely with this sentiment, except for the fact I actually missed it dying. I tuned in every week to what little WCW we got here, and managed to miss the last week of programming. It just wasn't there the next week and I had no idea why, I had no internet at the time, nobody I knew was into wrestling, and I didn't watch WWE, so it wasn't until late 2002 when I got Sky and started watching WWE only to see a bunch of WCW guys on the show that I realised WCW must have gone under. I spent over a year thinking it was just off TV or on a different channel I didn't have.

[EvenBaldobombHasAJob]

the collapse of World Class seems ultra depressing in retrospect.

[The Dark Order Inferno]

WCW. We were teased with a new beginning, an emphasis on rising stars, cruisers and signs the there were good things to cone after the Russo years... Then poof. Here's Vince!

[cjh]

Dec 31, 2018 21:24:48 GMT -5 Joe Neglia said:

Dec 31, 2018 20:40:51 GMT -5 hulksmash87 said:

Which promotions end was the saddest to you? For me it was the uswa I loved watching the studio show and as it slowly died and went to the checkered floor studio and then the pink studio with almost nobody there was heartbreaking to me

Speaking of pink studios, my answer:

This isn't actually on WWE Network right now, which is just wrong.

[burdette25159]

Jan 1, 2019 9:18:13 GMT -5 EvenBaldobombHasAJob said:

the collapse of World Class seems ultra depressing in retrospect.

The end came for WCCW when Jerry Jarrett acquired WCCW and merged it with CWA to form the United States Wrestling Association, speaking of the USWA, when the Monday Night Wars began in 1995, the allure of PPV quality wrestling on Monday night's meant business in Memphis fell way down to the point that they went from the Mid South Coliseum to the big one expo center, the WMC program moving to 12:00 central time in the fall of 1997 all but finished off a once great territory

[I'm Team Bayley and Indi]

If we are talking literal last moments JR plugging Wrestlemania in WCW last few seconds is quite the kick in the teeth