What went wrong?

>>1207651
Vince Russo and too much wanking it to ex-WWF guys instead of pushing their own guys

>>1207651
It was the house that NWO built and then destroyed

>>1207651
AOL/Time Warner buying it before Bischoff, and Bischoff couldn't get a TV deal.

They took anything that made them even remotely unique and just became a shittier WWF by hiring old fucks who were past their prime from the Hulkamania era on shitty contracts (pre NWO) and then they managed to make something great with the NWO but they over saturated it and drove it into the ground.

Not letting go of the NWO angle was a big part of it

WCW would still be dead anyway. The Time Warner/AOL merger would've killed WCW anyway since no one higher up wanted wrestling anymore. The Big Bang PPV and a proper Monday Nitro reboot could've happened if it wasn't for the merger. They only had to do some restructuration and they could've been profitable again. They used to fly their whole 200+ men roster on every show. That's a whole ton of wasted money right there.

>over booking
>giving people like hogan and nash far more creative control than they should have
>the aol/time warner merger that put wcw in the control of businessmen who neither understood or even cared for professional wrestling
>dwindling ratings and growing debt
>the NWO getting way to fucking huge for the company

take a pick and it's probably why

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>>1207688
Good snap. Flat back.

>>1207657
Russo certainly didn't help things but he isn't even on the top ten list of things that went wrong with WCW.

>>1207651
Kevin Nash

>>1207651
A lot, and really too much to mention in one singular post.

The highlights though are as follows
>Creative control to a lot of the ex A-List WWF guys they poached (most famously Hogan). This essentially made the wrestlers their own bookers
>Giving Vince Russo so much power
>Really stupid angles and match gimmicks that people didn't give a single shit about, or even worse made WCW look like a fucking joke.
>Having a gigantic roster that was severly overpaid, leading to huge debt (there were even wrestlers being paid, who never actually wrestled in WCW. They were essentially bought off, just so they couldn't show up on WWF)
>Refusing to push new talent, many of which later joined WWF and became top stars (they even let Steve Austin leave for fuck sake).
>Often misusing the expensive talent they did manage to capture (Bret Hart and Ultimate Warrior come to mind)
>Focusing on their rivalry with WWE too much

And really this is just from the top of my head. WCW was a total fucking mess from top to bottom.

Did Hogan and Nash deliberately sabotage the WCW from within, or were they just incompetent narcissists who played up to that image of hatchet-men, once it became obvious they had wrecked the business with their self-interest?

>>1207789
Considering Hogan did the same thing on the WWF, WCW and TNA, I'd say it's the second.

I've been rewatching all Nitro episodes of 1998 lately, and the NWO was way too big. Especially when it split into red/black and white/black was such a mess. Bald ass hogan playing the role as a super tough biker brah, Nash booking all his cronies like kdawg (konnan) oil of olay arrival LA plaza! We boddy boddy an rowdy rowdy I think it was just way overplayed and the entire angle was a joke at this point. Their entrance music was constantly going off as wrasslers flooded to the ring through the night and stomped out any non cliq guys. Sting and Luger shouldn't of joined up with them and made is somewhat competitive.

Only good things I can think of is DDP, minus the gimmicks when him and Karl Malone fought hogan and Dennis rodman or ddp jay Leno vs hogan and bischoff

>>1207790
Imagine being DDP here

>>1207792
Same, tbqh

>>1207789
Nash is at least someway honest. He's said numerous times in shoot interviews that all he wanted was his paycheck, and to get over. Yeah, that's a pretty fucked attitude, but i at least appreciate him not sugar coating it.

Basically they were the sort of guys who couldn't give a shit about the industry or what they did to it.

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>>1207793
wolfpac was over as fuck at the time, konan was over because he was keeping it real. They were more in touch with the times and the audience noticed and they had big sexy cutting promos and him owning the crowd.

>>1207651
Business wise
the AOL- Time Warner merger.Ted Turner was the only thing protecting the company for a long while. Nitro was still pulling 2's in the ratings at its shittiest points before they shitcanned it.

Creatively
nWo got too big and went on too long. and they hardly ever made new stars. DDP, Booker T, Scott Steiner, Goldberg, and Jarrett were pretty much the only talent elevated to main event status during the MNW.

>>1207651
Honestly if Turner took at least a little more control about how his money was being spent I think WCW would have won the war. He put way too much trust in a bunch of hawks that were looking for an easy pay day.
>>1207657
I hate when people say this shit. It simply isn't true. They did push new guys in the later years. People just didn't want many of those guys. I love how when people talk about how the invasion angle failed because they didn't get guys like Hall, Nash, Hogan, Sting, etc, but then these same fags like to say things like this guy.

They pushed tons of new guys. WWE just shit all over every WCW guys legacy is all. The New Blood angle was stupid as fuck and most of those guys never deserved shit because they couldn't draw. Name me some of these guys WCW should have pushed that weren't Jericho and The Radicals. Go ahead I'll wait.

>>1207688
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axNAFo_tsg8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cdmeWjv2C4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcOf4vaaELM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMvTAqg5KrQ

Nice meme friend.

>>1207658
>>1207673
>>1207688
>>1207754
>>1207739
>>1207769
>>1207778
>>1207780
>>1207792
>>1207793
>>1208162

>implying Hogan, Hall, and Nash weren't sent to destroy WCW from the inside

Starrcade 97 with WCW doing their usual "durr the title is vacated none of this matters lol" bullshit. Too much nWo, it became boring. Letting Hogan, Nash, Hall, etc. have too much power. Paying guys that never even showed up top dollar. Bischoff not being smart with money in general. Russo incorporating too many swerves into a product that desperately needed to make logical sense for people to care. Mismanaging talent (worst example being Bret Hart, who was the hottest wrestler when he signed and they did fuck all with him).

It was a miracle they were successful in the first place with how things were run.

>>1208226
>that guy

He goes on every single video that ever says a bad thing about WCW and defends the company. He's a worthless mark.

>>1208263
Is he wrong though? He may be the markiest mark that ever marked but, is he really wrong?

>>1208327
Yes

>>1208226
>nWoWolfcuckTV
You will never be able to find a bigger mark

>>1208329
Why?

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>>1208226
Given that the thing that really matters there is the description:

Video #1 1/3

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>>1208344
2/3

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>>1208347
3/3

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>>1208344
>In my opinion the FPOD was a creative swerve that planted the seeds for months of television.

>>1208197
This guy pretty much nailed it. I disagree on the New Blood angle being bad, it was just mismanaged. Making all the younger guys the heels (except for guys like Booker T who were actually over but not involved in the main storyline) was dumb as fuck, but I feel like it could have worked if it weren't for ridiculous bullshit like booking a Kidman vs Hogan feud to start things off. I liked Kidman, could have been pushed as a workhorse US champ and even main evented a Nitro working at that level against someone with mic skills or using Konnan as his mouthpiece but putting him in the ring with Hogan wrestling was bad and expecting him to also work the mic at that level was insane.

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Video #2 1/5

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>>1208388
2/5

>>1208197
Kanyon deserved a push, Bryan Clark as Wrath was over as fuck until he got fed to Goldberg, and WCW never used Raven to his potential (not that anyone but Heyman knew how to, apparently). Rey wasn't pushed right and Mike Awesome wad squandered.

They did alright by Lance Storm, I give them that.

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>>1208394
3/5

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>>1208400
4/5

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>>1208402
5/5

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I'm getting tired

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>>1208414
2/4

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>>1208418
3/4

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>>1208419
4/4

>>1207651
Overpaying talent, and having guaranteed contacts.

>>1208397
I loved Awesome but he wasn't treated fairly in WWE either. In fact so much so that he wasn't even wrestling much of the time. At least he got to wrestle in WCW even if the gimmicks were shit.

Kanyon and Wrath were cool but I can't be biased here. Sure maybe they were pretty over but just because someone is over doesn't mean you strap the rocket on their backs and give them your top title the very next night. Rey I'll definitely give you that. They probably should have never unmasked the guy. That was stupid. Lance Storm got treated very fairly.

In regards to Awesome (one of my favorite wrestlers) he was arguably treated worst in WWE. I even remember a segment where stephanie basically mocked him and a couple others saying something very similar to vince stupid brass ring shit.

As much as people love shitting on WCW, WWE has shit on many wrestlers just as bad at times as WCW.

>>1208247
>i-it was all part of vinces master plan
or maybe just own up to the fact that Hogan HAll and Nash were literally just hat big when it came to being egotistical assholes

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Finally
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i'm pretty sure hogan getting his ass whooped by jay leno was the beginning of the end

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>>1208455
2/3

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>>1208461
3/3

>>1208435
I wasn't saying make any of those guys champ right away or that WWE did better, those were just the guys I couls think of offhand who had the potential to be at the top after a hot angle or feud got them over.

I think that if WCW had continued Booker T would have beaten a few "legends" in his reign while Storm (with Awesome as his enforcer) was built up to be his long term rival and future WHC.

They were going in a good direction with a lot of othwr guys at the end, honestly. O'Haire/Palumbo and Helms were being groomed as big stars.

>>1208226
>He's a WCW mark

OK, saying that the FPOD is the singular reason WCW died is dead wrong, i agree. But it absolutely is a symptom of what went wrong, and it most certainly had an effect.

Kevin Nash beat Goldberg ending his streak just 8 days earlier, and now he's literally just handing the belt away. Of course that had an effect. The fact is that night was the first night in 83 weeks that WWF beat WCW in the ratings, and WCW would never beat WWF ever again. You can champion all the numbers, but WWF's were higher from that point on, which is why it is (rightly) seen as a turning point.

The Fingerpoke basically killed interest in WCW trying anything new. It didn't kill ratings immediately because it was Hogan returning after worked-shoot retiring on Leno a couple months earlier and, as shit as he can be, Hogan=Ratings. At least short-term.

>>1208468
Look honestly, Kanyon as cool as he was I don't think should have ever been a world champion. Even if someone gets really over does not mean they should necessarily be given things. HHH said it pretty well to Daniel actually even if it was stupid in regards to comparing the two when he said doink the clown was very popular. I remember Santino was popular and was even in an elimination chamber match where he was the last guy against Bryan. Should Santino win just because he is over? Nah

You can't forget that as great as some guys were back then, wrestling as a whole was so over saturated with quality wrestlers that it would be impossible for everyone to be able to reach the mountain top for better or worst. We can't completely fault the companies all the time for some guys not getting their fair chances. I don't think Storm would have deserved a WHC run either honestly. He was great but US championship was and should have been as good as he got. Again he was someone who got treated (at least imo) much better on tv in WCW than he did in WWE. Of course in ECW he was even better. WWE took guys like DDP, Booker, Goldberg and Sting and somehow treated all of them poorly or not as good as WCW. All four of them deserved much better. I don't blame Goldberg for being salty as fuck at WWE. HHH is good but at the time of his rise I actually got sick of his bullshit so much that he made me stop watching at one point. Just like Cena at a few points made me stop watching. Just like Reigns will likely make me stop watching for awhile soon enough. And guess what? All guys that were pushed in WWE.

My bad for the tldr but fuck man wrestling was just way better back when those three companies were still around. The talent pool back then is by far better than the current crop today. It's not even close. You can just take one company from any of those three back then and they beat the guys today by a long shot.

>>1208500
I get what you're saying, those guys weren't WHC material at that time but they could have been groomed for it. You don't pluck a guy out of the midcard and make him champ, you put them in a hot angle/feud (preferably with a veteran on the other side or coaching them backstage) and see if they fare well enough to deserve it. This is all my opinion, but Storm could have done it as a transitional heel champ with the right storyline and Awesome could have done it with a decent push and a good heel manager. I am a bit of a mark for Kanyon but I will admit that it would have taken some retooling and a very susuccessful story for him to get there but I think it could be pulled off. This is all with 00-01 WCW trying really hard, though, not the talent pool beinf combined with WWF's off the same time and no one having enough time to get over as a result.

I stand beside O'Haire and Helms as, jn WCW, hitting the main event after they did their midcard work and assuming they didn't falter when they got their chance to shine.

>>1208689
>>1208500
Oh, keep in mind the time period we are talking about isn't far removed from WWF trying to get guys like Test and Rikishi ready for main event runs.

>>1208689
>You don't pluck a guy out of the midcard and make him champ

WWE does this a lot. You know how? With the money in the bank briefcase. Sometimes it works well. Other times it is a disaster.

>edge
success
>swagger
fail
>cm punk
success
>miz
fail

I also feel that in general, WWE has too many guys that would have been lower mid card at best back in those days. So many guys they got now are have sorry as fuck mic work and they would have been eaten alive even by many of the mid carders from that era. Plenty of great workers back then to so they wouldn't even be strong in this regard. Funny enough I actually feel the Wyatt's would have done a lot better had they been around during those times compared to now. I liked Kanyon to though. Just didn't see him at that level is all. WCW definitely had at one point the most talented roster for sure. They had it all. They just made so many poor decisions that all what Vince really had to do is not fuck up. In fact he probably played it real smart by concentrating so much on Austin and Rock. He kept it simple and made sure not to make the dumb mistakes WCW did.

NWO was dope but then got stale and they didn't successfully understand that it was stale and kept doing it.

Failed to build up new stars are the old ones started breaking down/failing to draw. No new threats = boring product in the long run.

Paying too much for guys they did little with(bret hart). Paying too much for guys who weren't worth it.

Letting good talent leave for greener pastures instead of holding on to them(Austin, HHH, Guerrero, Benoit, Jericho).

Ending good storylines/moments end on a fart(goldberg's streak among others).

>>1208736
> money in the bank

Different times, different company. But a Money in the Bank bit in WCW would have great because that's how the guys who left for WWF or someone like Rey could have gotten the belt.

Hell, Booker won his first World title after that shit Jarrett/Hogan angle at Bash at the Beach which would have made more sense with a MitB type thing.

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This is the ONLY correct answer.

Don't matter if dubya see dubya was producing drizzling shit. If Big Mogul Ted still had control over it it would still be on today.

>>1209009
Those esoteric logos blatant as fuck

>>1207651
Hogan

Everything after Bischoff was made Executive Vice President in 1994. Not only did this give him full control of the company, it also turned WCW from a respectable promotion with no stupid gimmicks and great characters/wrestling/feuds, into one full of stupid gimmicks all over the place. Even Bischoff's "good" ideas like the nWo were just stupid gimmicks that ultimately helped in destroying the company. Not to mention giving Bischoff full control by becoming Executive VP is also the move that made JR switch from WCW to WWE.

>>1207651
scott stiener and DDP were the only interesting guys to watch over there.

everything the WWF was doing at the time was gold, almost the whole night would be great matches.


plus with no TV deal, what was the point anymore? they were giving ring seats out for free advertising was the only way to make money.


their talent got old and they were stubborn about it because they had guaranteed contracts and had to pay those big names anyway meaning you saw the same exact match like a thousand times.

compared to WWF where they had so many guys that could be top carders they were able to use them to build legitimacy of their younger guys.

you could have bob holly beat up on lesnar and lesnar didn't lose much credibility.

i mean, i've went back and watched WCW now as an adult, but at the time i watched WWF strictly and it was almost surreal to find out those ancient guys i thought had long retired actually had long careers at WCW THE WHOLE TIME.
hulk hogan and randy savage were still main attractions, guys i would normally think about as late 80's guys.

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None of yall know how this here puroresu company died, it was because of white male's opressing females, fuck white men.

In the year 2000, early 2001 no one cares about the nwo anymore, no one cares about goldberg anymore, no one at any point in their lives has or will ever care for jeff jarret, no one cares about steiner, and no one gives a fuck about kronik. These were all people main eventing ppv's at that time. The company was already downhill years before though. Not putting over sting against hogan in starrcade 97 is the biggest mistake wcw ever made. Cause if fucking STING can't take down the nwo, then no one can, and whoever does, by that point it won't matter anymore because
everyone has switched the channel by now. But hey, atleast the hulkster can't be beat, brother dude jack.

>David Arquette recieved $20,000 from WCW from WCW to perform a suprise run-in on the Buff Bagwell vs. Kanyon match at the New Blood Rising pay-per-view on August 13, 2000. No one cared....

>WCW paid then- Chicago Bull's superstar Dennis Rodman $1.5 million in 1997 to make several appearances and wrestle in one tag team match (with Hollywood Hulk Hogan vs. The Giant and Lex Luger) at the year's Bash At The Beach PPV.

>Kevin Nash earned an incredible $1.625 million per year as a WCW wrestler in 2000-2001. When he returned to the WWF/WWE in 2002, Nash was paid a yearly $700,000 downside by the company.

>>1208226
>nWoWolfpacTV
he's the biggest anti-smark nWo mark ever and posts on fucking wrestlingforum

>>1208226

Go away nWoWolfcuck and stop posting your shitty essays here

>>1207651
misusing talent to the point where they leave
>Triple H
Was given a shitty gimmick to work with
>Chris Jericho
Wasn't pushed to the main event when he was getting great reactions
>Eddie Guerrero
Same
>Chris Benoit
Was pushed but hated Kevin Sullivan which lead to him leaving

>>1211567
HHH was an absolute nothing during his WCW tenure.

>>1211386
watch out, he might post on his twitter about how he worked you

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>>1207651

>>1207651
AOL/Time Warner merger

>>1208226
thanks for posting this, this is real interesting stuff

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>>1213663
>stopped ratings freefall and stabilised ratings at the same level as the build to WrestleMania 14 in three months and started pushing younger talent before getting the axe from the 'tards at Turner Broadcasting

Yeah bro he sure killed WCW.

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>>1213849

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>>1213849

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>>1213849

'Death of the WCW' is a fun book and goes into a lot of reasons. One of the funniest anecdotes in it I still remember is that Hulk Hogan used to take vacations from the company at the same time that basketball season started and WWE viewing went down, come back to work when basketball ended, and claim that the ratings went back up because he had returned. Dude is a weird piece of shit but god damn that's a slick racket.

>>1211171
Love to have seen the backstage fight between DDP and Steiner. D could have done a Popeye angle.

>>1213921
Sam Muchnick closed down St. Louis wrestling during the summer to catch the Cardinals games. The Duseks shut down Omaha wrestling at duck hunting season.

>>1213849
Russo caused the PPV buyrates to go into fucking freefall mode
>losing 50k buyers by giving arqutte the belt when you're only just above 100k buys

As soon a she left, PPV buys increased

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>>1214820
forgot image