Lowest Drawing WCW House Shows During Monday Night Wars?

[KAMALARAMBO: BOOMSHAKALAKA!!!]

I was just listening to the Jeff Jarrett podcast on New Blood Rising and I’m not sure if I ever heard they failed to break 1,000 fans some night.

The only show I could find a match line up for that fit that criteria was this: www.cagematch.net/?id=1&nr=313843

Also, this one that ran in a venue where the capacity was only 800: www.cagematch.net/?id=1&nr=36503

That may not seem too bad, but let’s not forget how white hot wrestling was in this time. A certain tennis wielding manager mentioned on his podcast around this time he would even do indie bookings in Connecticut. Even they would draw 1,500-2,000 fans.

Anyone ever go to one of these poorly attended events? Or can you find more examples/pics from them?

Jarrett had a great line about it on his podcast. It goes like this…

Wrestler #1: How’s the crowd look out there tonight?
Wrestler #2: Go ahead and bring out your shotgun and fire a couple of shots. Don’t worry you won’t hit anybody.

[Feyrhausen]

WCW had no incentive for stars to do house shows. An Indy show at the time could swing at least one bigger name to sell some tickets. Half the time it would be a bigger name than anyone doing house shows for WCW.

[Deleted]

Yeah WcW was never known for their house shows, it wasn’t like WWF house shows at the time where you would see most the big stars. WCW couldn’t get their big names to work Thunder.

[KAMALARAMBO: BOOMSHAKALAKA!!!]

Sept 22, 2021 17:41:17 GMT -5 Feyrhausen said:

WCW had no incentive for stars to do house shows. An Indy show at the time could swing at least one bigger name to sell some tickets. Half the time it would be a bigger name than anyone doing house shows for WCW.

The first show I linked to had Sting on it and was main evented by a WCW title match featuring Jeff Jarrett/Booker T. Jarrett mentioned that one of these shows also had Goldberg on it, but he could be mixing shows up. But yeah no way Hogan, Nash, etc were appearing on stuff like this.

I’m trying to find info about indies that outdrew them around the same time. However, the wrestling databases are pretty incomplete when it comes to indies from around this time and especially their attendance figures. So all we have is anecdotal examples from the performers.

I can completely believe some indies were drawing some huge houses compared to today’s indie standards though. There was a pretty good AMA on Reddit years ago with an anonymous indie booker. It talked all about how wrestling had ruined his life and the late 90’s/early 00’s boom is the only time he made any money.

[Squirrel Master]

Sept 22, 2021 18:24:55 GMT -5 @uppitynerd said:

Yeah WcW was never known for their house shows, it wasn’t like WWF house shows at the time where you would see most the big stars. WCW couldn’t get their big names to work Thunder.

I saw Randy Savage vs. Ric Flair with special guest referee Bruno Sammartino at the smaller venue inside Madison Square Garden. That show was one of the first appearances of Konnan for the company.

[David-Arquette was in WCW 2000]

Not gonna lie, that Evansville, Indiana house show looks great. About on par to a typical WCW PPV from that time. I mean, make of that what you want.

[ToyfareMark]

Sept 22, 2021 19:04:55 GMT -5 David-Arquette was in WCW 2000 said:

Not gonna lie, that Evansville, Indiana house show looks great. About on par to a typical WCW PPV from that time. I mean, make of that what you want.

Keep in mind that the arena that show in Evansville was held seated around 13000. I love my city lol. What's funny though that WWE held a house show here in fall of 2001 that only drew around 900. But normally WWE has always drawn well here, and we were never a WCW town.

[noobeast]

Sept 23, 2021 7:01:57 GMT -5 ToyfareMark said:

Sept 22, 2021 19:04:55 GMT -5 David-Arquette was in WCW 2000 said:

Not gonna lie, that Evansville, Indiana house show looks great. About on par to a typical WCW PPV from that time. I mean, make of that what you want.

Keep in mind that the arena that show in Evansville was held seated around 13000. I love my city lol. What's funny though that WWE held a house show here in fall of 2001 that only drew around 900. But normally WWE has always drawn well here, and we were never a WCW town.

Good ol' Roberts Stadium.

Went to my first big concert there when I was 7. Saw Trixter and Slaughter open for Poison on February 12th, 1991. The next year (November 20th, 1992), I saw KISS for the first time there. Weirdly, the opening bands were the same.

The last concert I went to there was a couple years later, I think. Brother Phelps and Confederate Railroad opening for George Jones. I was not happy to be there. George Jones didn't know where he was. He played his first song and then yelled "HELLO, INDIANAPOLIS!" Someone corrected him, he fixed it, and then proceeded to call it Indianapolis for the rest of the night anyway.

[Mozenrath]

Stars didn't have much incentive to do shows, and faced no real punishment for not bothering to show up to shows they were advertised for, assuming they agreed to do it in the first place. This was a problem for most of WCW's lifespan, even, and not just the Monday Night War era. It pretty much fostered a lot of distrust in fans towards the house shows having any reliable quality, and so the shows did poorly, and the wrestlers who did bother going to them were then burned with bad payoffs.

[Triangle Lancer]

Sept 25, 2021 8:09:53 GMT -5 Mozenrath said:

Stars didn't have much incentive to do shows, and faced no real punishment for not bothering to show up to shows they were advertised for, assuming they agreed to do it in the first place. This was a problem for most of WCW's lifespan, even, and not just the Monday Night War era. It pretty much fostered a lot of distrust in fans towards the house shows having any reliable quality, and so the shows did poorly, and the wrestlers who did bother going to them were then burned with bad payoffs.

This. It was a frickin' highlight if you went to a WCW event and there were less than 3 no-shows, at least in a city like mine. We're not as important as Chicago, but we're also stupidly loyal to wrestling-given that our Civic Center was usually half-full for even the shittiest of shows.

Heck, I've told a story about a match where Rick Rude was a no-show (Gary Michael Cappetta's words) against Dustin Rhodes, then during the Dustin match, we could see Rick peeking through the curtain watching it.

[johnnyk9]

I never went to a WCW house show wish I had

[jason1980s]

I feel like early 1990s WCW business was built around house shows, even up to mid 1990s at least in certain areas. Growing up in Baltimore County, I went to a few WCW house shows in the early 1990s, I think they always had a good business in Baltimore. And what was really cool was mid to late 1990s they would have autograph signings on the first days of ticket sales.

[KAMALARAMBO: BOOMSHAKALAKA!!!]

Sept 25, 2021 12:57:00 GMT -5 Triangle Lancer said:

Sept 25, 2021 8:09:53 GMT -5 Mozenrath said:

Stars didn't have much incentive to do shows, and faced no real punishment for not bothering to show up to shows they were advertised for, assuming they agreed to do it in the first place. This was a problem for most of WCW's lifespan, even, and not just the Monday Night War era. It pretty much fostered a lot of distrust in fans towards the house shows having any reliable quality, and so the shows did poorly, and the wrestlers who did bother going to them were then burned with bad payoffs.

This. It was a frickin' highlight if you went to a WCW event and there were less than 3 no-shows, at least in a city like mine. We're not as important as Chicago, but we're also stupidly loyal to wrestling-given that our Civic Center was usually half-full for even the shittiest of shows.

Heck, I've told a story about a match where Rick Rude was a no-show (Gary Michael Cappetta's words) against Dustin Rhodes, then during the Dustin match, we could see Rick peeking through the curtain watching it.

Eric Bischoff: We’ll honor your guaranteed contract for the dates, but a bump in pay for working more matches just isn’t going to happen.

Rick Rude: I’ll make your house show…but I’m not wrestling on it.

[Deleted]

I too went to WCW house shows in Terre Haute and Evansville Indiana that were extremely small. Man that was a different world. Nice to see alot of us have represented the Lloyd haha

[Feyrhausen]

Sept 25, 2021 13:03:52 GMT -5 jason1980s said:

I feel like early 1990s WCW business was built around house shows, even up to mid 1990s at least in certain areas. Growing up in Baltimore County, I went to a few WCW house shows in the early 1990s, I think they always had a good business in Baltimore. And what was really cool was mid to late 1990s they would have autograph signings on the first days of ticket sales.

That was a relic of the old business where live shows were the moneymaker and TV was just advertising. When Bischoff took over is when TV ratings became the primary concern, even at the expense of profit.

[jason1980s]

Sept 25, 2021 17:23:45 GMT -5 Feyrhausen said:

That was a relic of the old business where live shows were the moneymaker and TV was just advertising. When Bischoff took over is when TV ratings became the primary concern, even at the expense of profit.

I think you're right. I went to a WCW show in 1991 and in 1992 and it wasn't until late 1997 when I went to another one and then another one a few months later. But I had been to three WWF shows from 1993-1996 all at the same arena.

["Playboy" Don Douglas]

I went to a WCW house show at a small town elementary school around '92 or so. Cactus Jack and Paul Orndorff no showed.

We got Ron Simmons, Bobby Eaton, Erik Watts, the Colossal Kongs,the Shockmaster, some more I can't remember, and...

The Gambler.

[thegame415]

Tank Abbot vs Mike Jones (Who?)

[Ultimo Gallos]

Never went to any WCW House shows. Hit up 2 ppvs,Beach Blast 92 and 93,a few Nitros and 1 Thunder.

[hulksmash87]

I went to a wcw house show in 99-00 in Toledo and I swear only like 500 people were there