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Post by Captain Stud Muffin (BLM) on Aug 21, 2019 17:56:47 GMT -5
The main event more specifically
Obviously Hogan was going to politic his ass off to get out of that and he did by having that screwy finish that did not put Sting over clean. Bischoff confirming the Sting not tanning story still is the weird one for me. Dude is in a full body suit and wearing make up, why would he have a tan?
In the end, it just didn't make a ton of sense to build someone up like that to take down Hogan and not put them over as strong as possible. Even if you felt something was wrong with Sting and he wasn't in it, you have the ability to pivot but the payoff to that angle is just trash
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Post by BrodietheSlayer on Aug 21, 2019 18:02:05 GMT -5
After listening to Bischoff's podcast, I think there was more to Eric's trepidation about Sting than just his not being tanned/buff....I think Sting came in strung out on drugs, and Bischoff just liked Sting too much to admit that. He kept dancing around saying that, but basically saying that.
I think Sting came back with a major monkey on his back, so, while Bischoff gave im the win, it was muddied up enough to leave a creative an out in case the Stinger went full Jeff Hardy after getting the belt.
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Dang!
Dennis Stamp
Posts: 4,279
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Post by Dang! on Aug 21, 2019 18:11:21 GMT -5
Bischoff confirming the Sting not tanning story still is the weird one for me. Dude is in a full body suit and wearing make up, why would he have a tan? What's the "Sting not tanning" story? Sting was always tanned and his character was based on a goth character. If anything Sting was too tanned to play this character.
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Cranjis McBasketball
Crow T. Robot
Knew what the hell that thing was supposed to be
Peace Love and Nothing But
Posts: 41,975
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Post by Cranjis McBasketball on Aug 21, 2019 18:13:14 GMT -5
Bischoff confirming the Sting not tanning story still is the weird one for me. Dude is in a full body suit and wearing make up, why would he have a tan? What's the "Sting not tanning" story? Sting was always tanned and his character was based on a goth character. If anything Sting was too tanned to play this character. Bischoff said one reason they did the finish that way was because Sting didn’t have a tan that night. Conrad near had a stroke.
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Dang!
Dennis Stamp
Posts: 4,279
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Post by Dang! on Aug 21, 2019 18:13:29 GMT -5
After listening to Bischoff's podcast, I think there was more to Eric's trepidation about Sting than just his not being tanned/buff....I think Sting came in strung out on drugs, and Bischoff just liked Sting too much to admit that. He kept dancing around saying that, but basically saying that. I think Sting came back with a major monkey on his back, so, while Bischoff gave im the win, it was muddied up enough to leave a creative an out in case the Stinger went full Jeff Hardy after getting the belt. Sting does not strike me as someone who goes "full Jeff Hardy". He always seemed like a down-to-earth guy who does HGH and steroids, but not any party drugs - pretty much like John Cena.
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Post by Captain Stud Muffin (BLM) on Aug 21, 2019 18:15:15 GMT -5
Bischoff confirming the Sting not tanning story still is the weird one for me. Dude is in a full body suit and wearing make up, why would he have a tan? What's the "Sting not tanning" story? Sting was always tanned and his character was based on a goth character. If anything Sting was too tanned to play this character. www.wrestlinginc.com/news/2018/12/eric-bischoff-says-sting-condition-caused-wcw-starrcade-649059/One of his reasons of not going full in with Sting was the fact he had not worked out and he did not tan. It wasn't the only reason but something he put an emphasis on
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Post by Captain Stud Muffin (BLM) on Aug 21, 2019 18:19:15 GMT -5
After listening to Bischoff's podcast, I think there was more to Eric's trepidation about Sting than just his not being tanned/buff....I think Sting came in strung out on drugs, and Bischoff just liked Sting too much to admit that. He kept dancing around saying that, but basically saying that. I think Sting came back with a major monkey on his back, so, while Bischoff gave im the win, it was muddied up enough to leave a creative an out in case the Stinger went full Jeff Hardy after getting the belt. Sting does not strike me as someone who goes "full Jeff Hardy". He always seemed like a down-to-earth guy who does HGH and steroids, but not any party drugs - pretty much like John Cena. If i'm not mistaken he was taking pills
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Post by CeilingFan on Aug 21, 2019 18:23:40 GMT -5
Hogan, because there was no way Bischoff could force Hogan to lose cleanly.
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Post by chronocross on Aug 21, 2019 18:25:28 GMT -5
What I didn't get was how come they didn't have him do a match or two on the house show circuit leading back to Starrcade? So poeple can see where he's at and get an assessment of the ring rust, etc.
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Post by Captain Stud Muffin (BLM) on Aug 21, 2019 18:29:21 GMT -5
What I didn't get was how come they didn't have him do a match or two on the house show circuit leading back to Starrcade? So poeple can see where he's at and get an assessment of the ring rust, etc. I think he did run ins on house shows but didn't wrestle
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Cranjis McBasketball
Crow T. Robot
Knew what the hell that thing was supposed to be
Peace Love and Nothing But
Posts: 41,975
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Post by Cranjis McBasketball on Aug 21, 2019 18:29:44 GMT -5
What I didn't get was how come they didn't have him do a match or two on the house show circuit leading back to Starrcade? So poeple can see where he's at and get an assessment of the ring rust, etc. WCW was a TV show featuring wrestling. It wasn’t a wrestling company.
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Post by Super Duper Dragunov on Aug 21, 2019 19:47:31 GMT -5
Hogan, because there was no way Bischoff could force Hogan to lose cleanly. yyyyyyyyyyyup. This.
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Post by kingoftheindies on Aug 21, 2019 20:01:33 GMT -5
On Sting, he had a huge coke problem at the time to go along with pills and marriage issues. I've also heard people say he had issues with heroine. But I'm pretty sure this was around the time that Sting had gone to get detoxed so he looked a lot smaller.
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Post by Natural Born Farmer on Aug 21, 2019 20:41:34 GMT -5
Bischoff. While Hogan would undoubtedly have tried this with Vince, it simply would not have happened on his watch. If you can’t control your team, you aren’t supposed to be in charge.
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petef3
Don Corleone
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Post by petef3 on Aug 21, 2019 20:50:36 GMT -5
I'm not sure I buy that Sting was strung out on drugs that night a la Victory Road Jeff Hardy, but I do think the "tan" stuff is kind of a red herring. He wasn't in wrestling shape, period.
I don't get why they didn't send him to work a week or two in New Japan that fall. New Japan probably would have been happy to have him, it would fit his "free agent" persona, and it would have helped shake off the ring rust without giving anything away to American audiences, even house show ones.
This is more hindsight than anything, but I also think they made a mistake in giving him a normal entrance instead of having him come down from the rafters or something else spectacular. The heat of the match was hurt greatly because talk started circulating in the building that it was another fake Sting. I think another rapel entrance would have eliminated that.
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Post by Natural Born Farmer on Aug 21, 2019 20:54:58 GMT -5
Sting definitely didn’t look like he did before his hiatus, but that’s completely irrelevant. WCW spent months building this guy as a saviour and the audience expected a payoff in this match. It wasn’t like he was off TV and the producers didn’t know what shape he was in. If his appearance was the concern there were literally months where something could have been said. If it wasn’t, you stick to the plan, which 1000% was not “make Hogan look like the victim”.
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Post by DiBiase is Good on Aug 21, 2019 20:58:42 GMT -5
My understanding was that Bischoff was the one who signed Hogan and gave him creative control in the first place? So Bischoff is to blame.
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Post by Captain Stud Muffin (BLM) on Aug 21, 2019 21:46:52 GMT -5
Sting definitely didn’t look like he did before his hiatus, but that’s completely irrelevant. WCW spent months building this guy as a saviour and the audience expected a payoff in this match. It wasn’t like he was off TV and the producers didn’t know what shape he was in. If his appearance was the concern there were literally months where something could have been said. If it wasn’t, you stick to the plan, which 1000% was not “make Hogan look like the victim”. Yeah, in that link I posted above Eric said they never saw Sting without his gimmick. My man, you are in control of everything why are you not dotting every I and crossing every T in the buildup of this match. You didn’t build this up over a week, this was a damn year so the excuse falls out the window of he wasn’t ready. If Drugs was the problem you pivot, you had Lex hot and you can make an argument him beating Hogan hurt Sting to an extent to
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Post by Captain Stud Muffin (BLM) on Aug 21, 2019 22:07:41 GMT -5
Speaking on the last thing I just said
Did Luger defeating Hogan hurt Sting? Luger was so hot they had no choice but to do it tho
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Post by cabbageboy on Aug 21, 2019 22:20:04 GMT -5
Gotta be Bischoff. Look, the whole Bret aspect was already booked beforehand so you can't tell me they thought of doing the screwy finish literally the day of the show. I think Montreal caused WCW to overthink the situation in general and tried to play off it, but they didn't even execute a screwjob finish properly. Whether that was Hogan or not I dunno. If Hogan did in fact tell Nick Patrick to do a standard count then both men should have been fired. With Hogan that would be problematic due to his creative control clause but I don't know if even that means he can act unilaterally.
As far as WCW being a TV company that did wrestling as opposed to a wrestling company I think that was a reason for their demise. Having looked at live attendance it's quite interesting how WCW never especially established itself as a live gate attraction even during the 83 week ratings streak. It's odd because just winning in the ratings didn't especially bring in insane revenue commiserate with those ratings since advertisers looked down on wrestling fans. The Nitro book makes note of this. They ended up paying talent based on 4.0 ratings without bringing in 4.0 level revenue and once those ratings fell and PPV numbers fell they were left with overpaid talent and no real revenue streams. It may surprise many to know that in the 22 months that WCW beat the WWF in the ratings the WWF actually had higher gate attendance in 15 of those 22 months. WCW never really became THE promotion as a result of this.
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