wcw - was it really that bad?

[tnafan17: The Total Package]

I'd say most of the stuff past the beginning of 1999 was horrendous. I mean I was a 10-11 year old kid and I realized they had a terrible product. It just wasn't what it had been years before that. I'd never dog Russo because I know I couldn't book a multi-million dollar wrestling company. However, I think without anyone to help him go over ideas, he kinda drove the company wrestling wise into the ground with horrible storylines.

[rvd_mr_ppv]

There were quite a few things I enjoyed from the 2000 - 2001 era though even though there was a lot of bad booking & silly, nonsensical things going on.


Millionaires Club vs. New Blood I enjoyed.

The Natural Born Thrillers was an enjoyable stable.

Chuck Palumbo & Sean O'Haire were an awesome Tag Team (So wrongly & badly used when they came to WWE) & I think both of these guys would have been Main Eventers in WCW had the company survived.

Mike Sanders was terrific, the charisma he had was great & I always wondered how or why WWE never hired him as he was a relatively solid worker & had charisma galore.


Turning Goldberg Heel was stupid.

Nash ending Goldbergs streak was stupid.

Restarting the streak from scratch was just plain awful, hello, it ended, you can't restart it, LOL & then, they go & have Goldberg lose to Buff & Luger which "ends his career", WTF?! Just silly, silly, silly!




Should have done everything in their power to keep Benoit, Guerrero, Malenko & Saturn.

Benoit, Guerrero, Jericho, Vampiro & Shane Douglas should have been Pushed to & used as regular Main Eventers & all contenders to or having World Title runs.

Letting Wrestlers have creative control & over spending on certain people's salaries, i.e. Hogan, Nash, Hall, Sting etc was a bad idea. No wrestler should have creative control as it just creates havoc & gives them an ego thinking they can do as they please. Surely a compromise could have been made with all the big name talent & their salaries to help the company save money & could have helped in the long run.

AJ Styles & Christopher Daniels could have been making their names in WCW had it survived & TNA would have never existed.

Mike Modest should have had more matches on TV before WCW's demise, I liked him.


What really bugs me though, is out of all the people AOL could have sold WCW to (Considering it was going supposedly cheap) they went & sold it to Vince McMahon, I'm sure they did that on purpose just to have a laugh at Ted Turner or something I swear.

Although some may not agree due to the whole booking problems & what not, I still say I would have loved it had Bischoff managed to buy WCW & keep it running, he still had a better mind than Russo for the business even if not all of his ideas were good.

It also Pi*ses me off AOL felt Wrestling didn't fit in with their TV line up / was too Trashy for the audience they were trying to cater to even though WCW would have probably been their highest rated watched programme anyways, the cheek of it!

*Sighs*

[slappy]

I disagree with a lot of what you said.

I loved that Nash ended the streak. Someone had to and to end it in that way was brilliant.

[rvd_mr_ppv]

Also I think they could have done more with & made a bigger star out of Buff Bagwell too.

[fallbrawl]

I read "The Death of WCW" a while back and it was a good read. i was always a wwf/e fan but there where a few times when i would watch wcw like during the buildup to starrcade 1997. I diden't really pay attention to wcw in 2000 but in 2001 i started watching again.I still remember getting free tickets to wcw sin back in 2001 (my fifth grade teacher got tickets for me and my parents after i raised my grades)

[rvd_mr_ppv]

Mar 20, 2010 3:00:26 GMT -5 slappy said:

I disagree with a lot of what you said.

I loved that Nash ended the streak. Someone had to and to end it in that way was brilliant.

Care to shed more light rather than just "I disagree with a lot of what you said"


Fair play to you if you enjoyed it, but, why should it have been Nash?

It didn't make any sense for anybody like Nash, Hogan, Sting etc to end Goldberg's streak, as it really couldn't do anymore for them than what they had already achieved in WCW already.

They could have built a new name or a new star with somebody else ending the streak or could have catapulted somebody to new heights in doing this.


I would have much prefered if it had have been Scott Hall beating Goldberg (had it been built up that way), but keeping the same finish only it would have been Nash using the Tazer, but, I guess that's just a bias part of me as I always felt Scott Hall (whilst having personal problems & troubles outside the Ring) deserved a World Title run somewhere & this would have been the perfect oppertunity to do it, plus, a lot of people wouldn't have seen Scott Hall ending Goldbergs streak coming.

As much as I love Nash, I just think he'll have politiced like mad to be the one that ended the streak rather than being chosen by the company.

[chaz]

I agree with both of you. Goldberg's streak should have ended, and Starrcade was the perfect time for it to occur. However, it shouldn't have been Nash. The only reason it was Nash was because he was the booker at the time. If anyone was to have beat Goldberg, it should have been someone who could have made a career off of it.

[slappy]

It shouldn't have been any lower card guy, because he demolished them all the time.

I disliked the Millionaires Club vs. New Blood storyline.

I don't think any of the NBT's had talent.

Benoit, Guerrero, Jericho, Vampiro & Douglas main eventing? Not with the likes of Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair, Kevin Nash and Sting. They certainly couldn't have done it and it certainly wouldn't have looked credible. I know they didn't have credibility with Russo or Arquette as champ, but those 5 would have been just as bad. I love Jericho, but he shouldn't have main evented WCW.

Creative control makes sure the wrestlers aren't used in a shitty manner. You don't want to completely job out Hulk Hogan and make him loose to every single guy on the roster just because you can do it. That stops someone like a Vampiro from getting a win of Hogan, which wouldn't have been deserved.

AJ was already in WCW when it was dying and with the gimmick he had, he wasn't going to go anywhere fast.

Daniels may have had a job, but he wouldn't have gone far. And he did have a job or atleast he made appearances for WCW when they were in their dying days.

Mike Modest was boring.

Bischoff tried, but one day it was just over. He said so in his book that he tried and had the funds and thought the deal had gone through, but it was over, Vince had bought WCW.

[rvd_mr_ppv]

Mar 20, 2010 22:14:30 GMT -5 slappy said:

It shouldn't have been any lower card guy, because he demolished them all the time.

I disliked the Millionaires Club vs. New Blood storyline.

I don't think any of the NBT's had talent.

Benoit, Guerrero, Jericho, Vampiro & Douglas main eventing? Not with the likes of Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair, Kevin Nash and Sting. They certainly couldn't have done it and it certainly wouldn't have looked credible. I know they didn't have credibility with Russo or Arquette as champ, but those 5 would have been just as bad. I love Jericho, but he shouldn't have main evented WCW.

Creative control makes sure the wrestlers aren't used in a poopty manner. You don't want to completely job out Hulk Hogan and make him loose to every single guy on the roster just because you can do it. That stops someone like a Vampiro from getting a win of Hogan, which wouldn't have been deserved.

AJ was already in WCW when it was dying and with the gimmick he had, he wasn't going to go anywhere fast.

Daniels may have had a job, but he wouldn't have gone far. And he did have a job or atleast he made appearances for WCW when they were in their dying days.

Mike Modest was boring.

Bischoff tried, but one day it was just over. He said so in his book that he tried and had the funds and thought the deal had gone through, but it was over, Vince had bought WCW.

Who said it had to be or would be a lower card guy. Obviously you wouldn't give it to a guy like Hugh Morrus, Horace Hogan, Lash Lareux or somebody like that of that calibre, but, they could have / should have built somebody up well enough with a nice little push into somebody that would look good / credible in ending Goldbergs streak.


Well, that's fair enough if you didn't like that story, each to their own.


That is merely an opinion & you're entitled to it, however, I think it's wrong & IMO, not all, but some of the NBT's had talent, that being Sean O'haire, Chuck Palumbo & Mike Sanders & whilst maybes not the best wrestler, but, he had a stocky / mean looking build on him, Reno had "the look" IMO to get used a bit more.


See, that's the problem though, as much as I love the all the guys you listed there, they were 50% a detriment to the company & 50% draws. Hogan & Flair who were like past it back then should have been made / wanted to job every once in a while to give somebody the rub / get them over, they should have been taking pages out of Terry Funk's playbook round about this time & looking for people to put over / make stars out of / pass the torch to so to speak.

The guys I listed would have been far more credible than Russo or Arquette.

I have to disagree with Jericho not Main Eventing in WCW, he had done all he could in the Cruiser Division & 1999 should have been the breakout year for him in WCW, but, they were wasting him so that inevitable jump to WWE just had to happen & whilst obviously he had to be built back up by WWE's standards, they debued him by interupting The Rock of all people (just shows how much faith WWE had in Jericho instantly compared to WCW) & he was getting Main Event matches by 2000, even if he wasn't winning them, he was getting them, more than what WCW were doing with him & treat / used him the way WCW could or should have had the chance to in 1999.


No, of course not, but then you wouldn't put somebody in charge who is stupid enough to do that in the first place.

But with wrestlers who have creative control, they can just politic all they want & get out of whatever rather than doing what you're toild by your Boss, which in some cases, can be bad business or can hinder creatively & from storyline purposes.

Using Vampiro as your example there, you say a win over Hogan wouldn't have been deserved, but, what if say whoever was in charge (and this is say without Wrestlers having Creative Control) says, right, we're building up Vampiro, he starts racking up all these wins & then they eventually want it to come down to a Feud between Vampiro & Hogan & they want Vampiro going over, it's what the company wants at the time, but because Hogan has Creative Control, he can just pretty much vito any idea or chance Vampiro was getting given & therefore killing his chance to actually end up "deserving" of the win.

I understand you're point of view in having it to stop certain guys looking sh*tty, but, when you look at the guys you give Creative Control to (Hogan, Nash, etc, etc) just look at the havoc & chaos it causes, you don't give people with huge egos power or more power, it just makes mayhem for everyone else.

At least if you have one guy in control (who knows the business / knows what he's doing) he can keep everything in order & keep the roster in check, meaning it's fair game for anybody on the roster who gets pushed or depushed.


How can you really judge the gimmick wasn't going anywhere, it never really ahd time to take off or have a run & had the company survived, I'm sure if it didn't work, there would have been a gimmick change along the way.


Again, how can you say Daniels wouldn't have gone far, there wasn't enough time to see anything develop. If WCW hadn't have gone under, Daniels could have been one of those "pioneers" for the WCW Cruiser Division instead of TNA's X Division.


Depends what you mean by boring. Whilst Modest might not have had much character / gimmick wise (and again, not really much time to tell with WCW dying) he was very compotent in the Ring & had an Indy like work rate, he pulled off moves flawlessly & I think would have made a decent Mid Card guy if he had have got the chance for more character development.


Yes, I do know this, I have also read the book, still doesn't mean I wish Bischoff had have got his hands on WCW though as I think he could have taken it out of the sometimes horrible / weird 2000 - 2001 slump it was in under his sole vision / ownership.

[bane]

I never watched WCW...Been a WWF fan since 87 and was always loyal. I WOULD read the dirtsheets and internet though..I only watched it one time. The final Nitro. Loved Ric Flair's promo. And Shane at the end.

[crw]

Even though people say 2000 & 2001 were bad years for WCW, there were still some good matches produced throughout all the crap storylines & booking they did.


The last few Nitro episodes from 2001 had some pretty cool Cruiser bouts with the likes of 3 Count, Jung Dragons, Jamie Noble, Chavo, Rey, Kidman, Shane Helms, Elix Skipper & Kid Romeo.


The Tag Team matches between Lance Storm & Mike Awesome against Chuck Palumbo & Sean O'Haire on the last few Nitro episodes were rather good bouts too.


It's a shame that everything storyline wise up until the point of the last Nitro episode was just thrown out the window & forgotten about, although, it probably made sense seeing as it was the last show, but, had Vince kept WCW around as a seperate product / promotion just being owned by him, I would have liked to have seen what stories & storylines would have been created by new writers or even the WWE's writing team for Nitro the following week, would they have created new scenarios from scratch or would they have finished up certain things like Flair running the place in his magnificent 7 stable & Cat having his commissionership.

Who would have been hired & who would have been released because we all know there were guys there that Vince had grudges with.

A lot of "what ifs" that unfortunately will always remain unanswered.

[Patrick Bateman]

Mar 20, 2010 19:47:03 GMT -5 chaz said:

I agree with both of you.

I disagree with all three of you. When Goldberg's streak ended, he fizzled out. The character of Goldberg -- the big unstoppable, unbeaten machine -- needed that streak. He was the best thing going for WCW post-nWo. And considering the ridiculousness of how he lost, with the tazer and all, it just benefited a selfish Kevin Nash more than anything, and pissed on Goldberg.