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Post by Cry Me a Wiggle on Jan 4, 2019 8:08:40 GMT -5
Today's the big anniversary of one of the most talked-about moments in the Monday Night Wars. For all of us who were watching then, what are your recollections?
For me, I think WWE's revisionist history oversells this event as a critical blow to WCW due to how poetic the comparison is with what was happening on Raw that night and Tony Schiavone's "butts in the seat" comment. But ratings actually held steady for WCW for a few months after this. Certainly the Fingerpoke of Doom was a turn off, but I argue it didn't actually get boom-era fans to literally turn off WCW. Not right away. While it was stupid sacrificing the still-hot Wolfpack face/tweener faction to more Hogan nonsense, the story it laid out for 1999 wasn't a bad one: Ric Flair becomes WCW president, Hogan and Nash panic and decide to bury the hatchet, and so they combine forces to end the threat of Goldberg and put the nWo back on top. This would lead to Goldberg going through the ranks of the nWo member-by-member throughout '99 and finally toppling Hogan at, ideally, Starrcade, perhaps finally ending the nWo in the process.
That's obviously not what happened. Hall's troubles put him on the shelf in February. Hogan, Luger, and Steiner all went down with injuries in the spring. Goldberg himself went off in the spring to film a Universal Soldier sequel. Worst of all, Flair got it in his head that he wanted to turn heel, shifting alignments in March of that year and chucking any semblance of logical booking and storytelling out the window. Combined with Nash's lazy booking and Bischoff more concerned with making deals with acts like Master P and KISS, WCW in the summer of 1999 reached a point-of-no-return. Boring, miserable television that bore no resemblance to the ultra-hot version of WCW that existed on January 4, 1999.
So yes, the Fingerpoke was bad, but it didn't kill WCW. Lack of follow through did.
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Spider2024
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Post by Spider2024 on Jan 4, 2019 8:18:27 GMT -5
Yeah, I'm gonna say it: How many butts left WCW seats after that fingerpoke? EDIT: OK, actually I was disappointed in that fingerpoke for a slightly different reason: That was supposed to be one of my dream matches finally fulfilled (technically Hulk Hogan vs Diesel was the long time dream match, since I've always been more of a "Diesel" mark instead of a "Kevin Nash" mark) so when that match went the way that it did, I was like "aw dangit, there goes that match I had wanted to see for like 4 years now."
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Post by OVO 40 hunched over like he 80 on Jan 4, 2019 13:44:48 GMT -5
Apparently Kevin Sullivan blew a gasket backstage after the butts in seats bullshit. He couldn’t believe that they just gave free publicity to one of the most popular wrestlers of the competition.
I think the fans never returned to nitro and stayed on raw after that because they realized that they were stuck with the nWo bullshit Angle forever.
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Post by blissified on Jan 4, 2019 13:58:56 GMT -5
On this day 20yrs ago 40% of our current viewing audience clicked over to see Foley win.
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Post by DZ: WF Legacy on Jan 4, 2019 14:33:19 GMT -5
I was barely using the PiP feature or channel flipping between USA and TNT by this point. I know I definitely still did here and there, but I tapped out to WCW not long after this. Only thing I remember about this when it happened was thinking it was ripping off the HHH/HBK European title change from the Christmas episode of Raw in '97.
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cjh
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Post by cjh on Jan 4, 2019 14:37:00 GMT -5
Yeah, it was absolutely the bad follow up over the next few months that really hurt. Hogan/Flair at SuperBrawl did better on PPV than Austin/McMahon the previous week, and Nitro on Feb. 8, with Raw not airing that night, did something like 7 million viewers. People were still willing to give WCW chances in the immediate aftermath.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 4, 2019 15:19:20 GMT -5
Yeah, I agree that it’s sort of revisionist history to pinpoint this as THE moment WCW sealed its fate. After completely blowing Starrcade ‘97, WCW bumbled its way into ANOTHER business-defining angle with Goldberg’s streak and that didn’t end immediately just because the streak did. I just think that, as it slowly became clear that Goldberg’s streak had been sacrificed to the same old NWO bs, any goodwill that WCW had built up was gone. People had already given it so many chances, you know? And then Russo showed up and had insider terms being used in the show, Buff Bagwell asking if he did a “good job”, Hogan being called out for not jobbing, jokes that “smarks” found stupid and “marks” didn’t get, etc...and there was just no coming back.
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Post by Natural Born Farmer on Jan 4, 2019 18:26:15 GMT -5
Yeah, I agree that it’s sort of revisionist history to pinpoint this as THE moment WCW sealed its fate. After completely blowing Starrcade ‘97, WCW bumbled its way into ANOTHER business-defining angle with Goldberg’s streak and that didn’t end immediately just because the streak did. I just think that, as it slowly became clear that Goldberg’s streak had been sacrificed to the same old NWO bs, any goodwill that WCW had built up was gone. People had already given it so many chances, you know? And then Russo showed up and had insider terms being used in the show, Buff Bagwell asking if he did a “good job”, Hogan being called out for not jobbing, jokes that “smarks” found stupid and “marks” didn’t get, etc...and there was just no coming back. Those were certainly the death gasps. Long term, how was that ever going to work? Russo booking a whole promotion around the idea that none of it was real and the fans were supposed to meticulously follow the behind the scenes to figure out what was going on?
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Post by GuyOfOwnage on Jan 5, 2019 12:20:47 GMT -5
Apparently Kevin Sullivan blew a gasket backstage after the butts in seats bullshit. He couldn’t believe that they just gave free publicity to one of the most popular wrestlers of the competition. I think the fans never returned to nitro and stayed on raw after that because they realized that they were stuck with the nWo bullshit Angle forever. Bingo. The Fingerpoke was literally the last piece of WCW programming I ever watched.
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Post by RowdyRobbyPiper on Jan 5, 2019 18:26:33 GMT -5
If Bischoff hadn’t told Schiavone to spoil WWE’s title change on live TV, I think the Fingerpoke would be more fondly remembered.
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Shark
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Post by Shark on Jan 5, 2019 21:17:52 GMT -5
I don't think it's necessarily revisionist history, but this was undoubtedly the start of the plunge for WCW. 1999 was a bad bad year for the company and the Fingerpoke was just the tipping point.
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thecrusherwi
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Post by thecrusherwi on Jan 5, 2019 23:56:23 GMT -5
Yeah, it was absolutely the bad follow up over the next few months that really hurt. Hogan/Flair at SuperBrawl did better on PPV than Austin/McMahon the previous week, and Nitro on Feb. 8, with Raw not airing that night, did something like 7 million viewers. People were still willing to give WCW chances in the immediate aftermath. A couple of years ago I did a WCW 1998-99 binge and TV from the Fingerpoke to SuperBrawl is fantastic. It really goes off the rails when they have all the heels win at SuperBrawl and then turn Flair heel at Uncensored. The Fingerpoke would’ve been WCW’s version of Vince McMahon winning the Royal Rumble had they followed it up right.
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Post by OVO 40 hunched over like he 80 on Jan 6, 2019 12:59:44 GMT -5
In storytelling, the villain needs to get its comeuppance.
The nWo never did. Then why should I waste my time waiting for the hero to rise up and get his revenge when it will never happen?
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sfvega
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Post by sfvega on Jan 6, 2019 14:48:21 GMT -5
I feel like people are coming around to the contrarian opinion of the Fingerpoke not being that bad. At the time, I was pissed because there had been friction between Nash and Hogan for almost a year. Nash had been maybe the most over guy in the company in the 6 months leading up to the match (Goldberg had cooled, DDP was up there) and the Wolfpac was just plain cool. It was their biggest match at that point, after you had just done Goldberg/Nash unless you were gonna do a face/face with Nash and DDP. And after months of build-up between the NWOs, with Nash getting the better of Hogan on the mic repeatedly, with him just winning the title the week prior. Not only do we get a bait and switch of essentially no match, but we also get a slap in the face to suspension of disbelief. Nash doesn't have a problem with Hogan, Nash doesn't care about the world title, hahaha you stupid idiot I can't believe you fell for that! It would be like if at the end of Scream, Wes Craven just walks out into the camera shot and says "It doesn't matter who the killer is, these are all just actors and we already got your money!" Don't make your audience feel dumb for buying in. That was a gigantic audience, and you could hear a pin drop (no pun intended) after whatever the hell that was.
You have your hottest entity lay down to lose the world title. You put over Hogan who had been diminishing returns and the biggest bore on the mic all of 1998. You make Konnan and Sting look foolish to buy into Nash as the leader of an over face faction that was cool but now didn't exist anymore. And it didn't lead to anyone getting directly put over, so the heat didn't pay off. And 3 months later, they turn Hogan face again anyway, so there was no reason to sacrifice the Wolfpac to begin with. It just sucked and no one is going to convince me it didn't suck. And yes, it directly led to me watching WCW less and I was a diehard WCW fan up until that point.
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Futureraven: Beelzebruv
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Post by Futureraven: Beelzebruv on Jan 6, 2019 15:39:00 GMT -5
I feel like people are coming around to the contrarian opinion of the Fingerpoke not being that bad. At the time, I was pissed because there had been friction between Nash and Hogan for almost a year. Nash had been maybe the most over guy in the company in the 6 months leading up to the match (Goldberg had cooled, DDP was up there) and the Wolfpac was just plain cool. It was their biggest match at that point, after you had just done Goldberg/Nash unless you were gonna do a face/face with Nash and DDP. And after months of build-up between the NWOs, with Nash getting the better of Hogan on the mic repeatedly, with him just winning the title the week prior. Not only do we get a bait and switch of essentially no match, but we also get a slap in the face to suspension of disbelief. Nash doesn't have a problem with Hogan, Nash doesn't care about the world title, hahaha you stupid idiot I can't believe you fell for that! It would be like if at the end of Scream, Wes Craven just walks out into the camera shot and says "It doesn't matter who the killer is, these are all just actors and we already got your money!" Don't make your audience feel dumb for buying in. That was a gigantic audience, and you could hear a pin drop (no pun intended) after whatever the hell that was. You have your hottest entity lay down to lose the world title. You put over Hogan who had been diminishing returns and the biggest bore on the mic all of 1998. You make Konnan and Sting look foolish to buy into Nash as the leader of an over face faction that was cool but now didn't exist anymore. And it didn't lead to anyone getting directly put over, so the heat didn't pay off. And 3 months later, they turn Hogan face again anyway, so there was no reason to sacrifice the Wolfpac to begin with. It just sucked and no one is going to convince me it didn't suck. And yes, it directly led to me watching WCW less and I was a diehard WCW fan up until that point. I wouldn't say that people are saying "it wasn't that bad". Just that with followup, it would have been salvageable, looked at more like "Vince is the Higher Power" levels of nonsense that ultimately didn't hurt anything. If the next week, the nWo "elite" arrive to the arena and walk into a destroyed locker room with the entire B-Team broken on the floor and "Who's Next?" Written on the wall, and Goldberg spends the next few months going through the nWo on a rampage of vengeance, teaming up with Sting and DDP to take out the top guys with someone say, Benoit or Booker T to have a final Wargames to banish the nWo forever. Then it would have lead to something. Instead, Goldberg is in some weird feud with Scott Hall, who by this point was deep into his issues and a clear second banana, and Bam Bam Bigelow of all people. Sting's not seen or heard from for months, even with an injury he should have been a presence. DDP is in the midcard, we have Hogan v Flair fr the umpteenth time. The finger poke was bad, but there have been a lot of bad angles in wrestling, especially in the Attitude era, it was the follow up that killed it all.
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Post by HMARK Center on Jan 6, 2019 15:58:37 GMT -5
I won't lie: I marked out when it happened.
Context is I was kind of getting tired of WWF at the time and I had only started watching the Monday Night War era stuff starting in early 1998, so I wasn't burned out on the nWo yet...plus the fact that I HATED the Wolfpac. Just couldn't stand Luger and Sting joining it out of nowhere.
But yeah, if the follow up had done anything right and if injuries and other issues hadn't plagued WCW so badly in '99, perhaps things would've gone much better and it'd be seen as a decent jumping off point.
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Post by evilone on Jan 6, 2019 16:08:51 GMT -5
I would rather take finger poke of doom than Hogan going over Nash clean for the title. Whom ever came up with the FoD is either a genius or a complete idiot because we will never know what was destined if there was no finger poke. My strong belief is that Hogan would have never ever laid down for Nash.
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Post by The Dark Order Inferno on Jan 6, 2019 19:21:51 GMT -5
It was the moment fans realised that WCW had more interest in sending Hulk Hogan home happy than the paying fans, so they said 'nope' en masse and tuned out.
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segaz
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Post by segaz on Jan 7, 2019 16:44:52 GMT -5
I feel like people are coming around to the contrarian opinion of the Fingerpoke not being that bad. At the time, I was pissed because there had been friction between Nash and Hogan for almost a year. Nash had been maybe the most over guy in the company in the 6 months leading up to the match (Goldberg had cooled, DDP was up there) and the Wolfpac was just plain cool. It was their biggest match at that point, after you had just done Goldberg/Nash unless you were gonna do a face/face with Nash and DDP. And after months of build-up between the NWOs, with Nash getting the better of Hogan on the mic repeatedly, with him just winning the title the week prior. Not only do we get a bait and switch of essentially no match, but we also get a slap in the face to suspension of disbelief. Nash doesn't have a problem with Hogan, Nash doesn't care about the world title, hahaha you stupid idiot I can't believe you fell for that! It would be like if at the end of Scream, Wes Craven just walks out into the camera shot and says "It doesn't matter who the killer is, these are all just actors and we already got your money!" Don't make your audience feel dumb for buying in. That was a gigantic audience, and you could hear a pin drop (no pun intended) after whatever the hell that was. You have your hottest entity lay down to lose the world title. You put over Hogan who had been diminishing returns and the biggest bore on the mic all of 1998. You make Konnan and Sting look foolish to buy into Nash as the leader of an over face faction that was cool but now didn't exist anymore. And it didn't lead to anyone getting directly put over, so the heat didn't pay off. And 3 months later, they turn Hogan face again anyway, so there was no reason to sacrifice the Wolfpac to begin with. It just sucked and no one is going to convince me it didn't suck. And yes, it directly led to me watching WCW less and I was a diehard WCW fan up until that point. I wouldn't say that people are saying "it wasn't that bad". Just that with followup, it would have been salvageable, looked at more like "Vince is the Higher Power" levels of nonsense that ultimately didn't hurt anything. If the next week, the nWo "elite" arrive to the arena and walk into a destroyed locker room with the entire B-Team broken on the floor and "Who's Next?" Written on the wall, and Goldberg spends the next few months going through the nWo on a rampage of vengeance, teaming up with Sting and DDP to take out the top guys with someone say, Benoit or Booker T to have a final Wargames to banish the nWo forever. Then it would have lead to something. Instead, Goldberg is in some weird feud with Scott Hall, who by this point was deep into his issues and a clear second banana, and Bam Bam Bigelow of all people. Sting's not seen or heard from for months, even with an injury he should have been a presence. DDP is in the midcard, we have Hogan v Flair fr the umpteenth time. The finger poke was bad, but there have been a lot of bad angles in wrestling, especially in the Attitude era, it was the follow up that killed it all. What can't be denied is that at first this actually lead to higher ratings for WCW. People WANTED to see what would happen now. Not to mention the NWO still had a ton of fans. The cheer when Luger turns on Goldberg is huge. Storyline has a lot of potential here with Savage and Sting from the wolfpac disgusted abd turning against the NWO Elite, as well as an incensed Goldberg ready to run through them all piece by piece. Naysayers like to pretend that everyone turned off WCW after this, just like they pretend nobody was happy to see Hogan win the belt again at WMX. As always, it is the poor follow-up and abandonment of the whole thing that drags WCW down.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 7, 2019 18:14:55 GMT -5
I wouldn't say that people are saying "it wasn't that bad". Just that with followup, it would have been salvageable, looked at more like "Vince is the Higher Power" levels of nonsense that ultimately didn't hurt anything. If the next week, the nWo "elite" arrive to the arena and walk into a destroyed locker room with the entire B-Team broken on the floor and "Who's Next?" Written on the wall, and Goldberg spends the next few months going through the nWo on a rampage of vengeance, teaming up with Sting and DDP to take out the top guys with someone say, Benoit or Booker T to have a final Wargames to banish the nWo forever. Then it would have lead to something. Instead, Goldberg is in some weird feud with Scott Hall, who by this point was deep into his issues and a clear second banana, and Bam Bam Bigelow of all people. Sting's not seen or heard from for months, even with an injury he should have been a presence. DDP is in the midcard, we have Hogan v Flair fr the umpteenth time. The finger poke was bad, but there have been a lot of bad angles in wrestling, especially in the Attitude era, it was the follow up that killed it all. What can't be denied is that at first this actually lead to higher ratings for WCW. People WANTED to see what would happen now. Not to mention the NWO still had a ton of fans. The cheer when Luger turns on Goldberg is huge. Storyline has a lot of potential here with Savage and Sting from the wolfpac disgusted abd turning against the NWO Elite, as well as an incensed Goldberg ready to run through them all piece by piece. Naysayers like to pretend that everyone turned off WCW after this, just like they pretend nobody was happy to see Hogan win the belt again at WMX. As always, it is the poor follow-up and abandonment of the whole thing that drags WCW down.I put a hole in the wall. What should I do from here? a) Cover it up with something so I can... b) Create a plan to fix it, whether it's hire a professional or formulate a plan to repair it myself. c) Ignore it and pretend it isn't there, despite my family's pleas at how ugly it looks. ("Hey! They're talking about it! I'm a genius!") d) Shine a frickin' light on my neighbor's house.
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