Post by MrElijah on Aug 5, 2020 9:13:23 GMT -5
Aug 2, 2020 14:01:33 GMT -5 @oldbaby said:
Even though I grew up more of a WWF fan, NWA/WCW always had a more of a big sporting event feel to me. The wrestlers seemed more legitimate and the way they presented it felt more 'big' and important to me. For me there's several reasons for this. 1. TBS regularly advertised WCW programming throughout the day. You could be watching an old western or Three's Company reruns and there was likely to be a 20 second spot during the commercial break for Clash of the Champions or Saturday Night, and it wasn't just a "there's going to be wrestling at this time" spot it was "this epic match is going to happen omg you can't miss it". I don't recall WWF getting that type of promotion on USA.
2. Tony Schiavone and Jim Ross were like sports announcers. WWF announcers were personalities. Much different vibe.
3. It wasn't always obvious who WCW was pushing or who they were going to push. Sometimes it seemed like they didn't know either, but it made things more unpredictable. With WWF you knew who they were building up to be the next big thing and who was on their way down. WCW would bring in guys who you never expected to see again like Chris Adams or Rick Martel and give them respectable winning streaks and leave you wondering what they were planning.
4. WCW worked openly with other organizations. They had NWA champions defending their belts on WCW television. They had wrestlers from New Japan beating WCW wrestlers for WCW belts. They had joint cards with New Japan that they actually talked about on the air rather than it only being something we learned about on Youtube.
5. WCW acknowledged wrestler's histories to some degree instead of trying to repackage it and pretend you never saw them before. Rick Rude talked about being the WWF I-C champion on WCW programming. They acknowledged Flair's WWF title wins as legit World title reigns on par with his WCW/NWA title reigns. International talent's histories and accomplishments were brought to light. WWF was like its own universe where nothing outside it was real.
Yeah WCW was very 'wtf is this' a lot but dammit, I really miss that in my rasslin. We didn't realize how good we had it.
WCW was the gateway to NJPW, CMLL & AAA due to their use of International talent.