The 'I dont get WCW' thread

[Izzy]

So I'm watching Hammy's WCW vids

WCW is....hmmmm.....over rated at best

My 10 reasons WCW leaves me wanting....WWE

1. Total absence of moves fromn key players - heavyweight matches seem to have less wrestling than a Cena v Batista match!

2. Terrible commentary

'man do i dislike those NWO guys'
'me too, i also dislike those NWO guys'

Great

3. Hogan - wtf? Guy just rambles on the mike, doesnt seem to go anywhere and keeps stuttering as if he's forgotten his script. Do we really need the word 'Hollywood' used every 8 seconds?

4. No idea how to spring a surprise - Piper returns and its a giant 'who cares' from the commentators. WWE would have had the audience on their feet after weeks of superb build up

5. PG! Yey gods WCW is 10x as kiddy as current WWE - I can barely watch the stuff, I'm expecting Dean Malenko vs Mickey Mouse any second.

6. Where's the Russo swerve? Nick Patrick should be this 'will he/wont he' character - and the commentators play that angle as if their lives depend on it. The whole thing is totally botched and loyalties are never in any doubt - makes the commentary guys look deranged

7. NWO 4 life....6 months, top. The Nitro's are barely 6 months into the angle and already the whole idea looks really boring. Cant help but wonder why in 6 months they have achieved so little in a takeover? Apparently fans turned on WCW because they kept this angle going for too long - your telling me! The fact the crowd cheer for the NWO is the biggest joke of all! It has a very 'WWE' feel to it - a key angle seems oddly subdued, why is life carrying on as normal if people are raising hell in the isles??

8. Pace - for gods sake speed things up, matches are too long, a 30 min title match needs something special to work....

9. Set design - do they just throw some mats down and go at it? WWF managed to make its awful set look 'RAW' and dangerous, WCW looks cheap and tacky - blue mats?! Careful guys, local high school needs those back later!

10. Cant think of 10...just yet

I've always thought that 'you cant go back' with wrestling - I'm sure WCW was fresh and new at the time, but WWE and TNA have since raided every idea it had and done them better - making the original seem pretty watered down

I'd take MEM over NWO (though not for music...)

[Hammy]

1. The Main Events do stink, its a shame but most of the guys involved are sub par in the ring by this point in their career, the best matches are the Cruiserweight matches which have mainly been left off since they are relevant to the nWo story.

2. The commentary I love, Heenan, Bischoff, Schivane > Anyone today, I haven't even heard "This is the greatest night in the history of our sport"....yet    I have heard "This is the greatest battle royal ever" though, overhyping does happen a fair bit.

3. Hogan is superb!  This period of WCW has an ensemble cast of most of the best talkers ever, while they were still pretty damn good, Hogan, Piper, Savage, Flair

4.  The Hogan heel turn surprised the fans    We skipped that bit though...

5.  A program doesn't HAVE to be beyond PG to be entertaining, products that suck today like RAW suck because of poor writing, not the PG label

6.  Russo swerve, no Russo to see here, well except for that 60 man battle royal, your inner Russo should adore that  

7.  Its still fresh, the story is slow burning rather than rushed like most angles these days, they haven't outlived their welcome....yet

8.  That World Title match was an exception, most are short and stink.  Like I said, Cruiserweights!  For the most part the greatness in the nWo is the storytelling, definately not the matches, Nash may have been 13 years younger but he wasn't a good wrestler in 1996 either!

9.  And I get heat for knocking promotions set designs, its minimilist

10. .....

Edit: Its also possible you may just of not even liked it at the time anyway, heck many die hard wrestling fans don't like much of the Attitude Era and view it as trash tv

[D]

WCW had an episodic touch to it just like your favorite TV show

their idea was to give u a great main event but leave u hanging as to what happened thus building anticipation.

They wanted u to talk about it all week wondering what happened and dying to tune in the next week to find out.

WWE use to do this a lot also. They'd leave stuff open where u were forced to keep tuning in each week to see how things would play out.

now WWE is more like a sitcom where everything is resolved by the end of the show so each week's show feels brand new and u aren't sitting for a week thinking "HOLY ****" I can't wait till Monday to find out how this will go down etc.

Maybe the internet has helped destroy that kind of writing

[AtariLegend]

Maybe the internet has helped destroy that kind of writing

The internet didn't wreck the writing in '99/00. I read a column on a site from '99, where the writer complained about the official WCW website giving away the Stephanie McMahon heel turn at Armageddon a week in advance, I'm sure they still enjoyed the early 2000s.

[More Cowbell]

Every week wcw had a cliff hanger that made u turn in like D said. Wcw had it all, they had cruiserweights who had good wrestling events and the nwo main eventers was one of the best soap operas for men ever. They had lots of good ideas BUT they didn't execute them well.

Ex.....
Goldberg vs Hogan on nitro.  Goldberg was not that great in the ring mostly a squasher.  He was the US champion and undefeated when he met hogan.  Hogan was WCW champion. This should of been booked as a good 30 min ppv main event. Pull out all the stops and had hogan become the dirty heel and have goldberg rize up against them all and win the title.

What happened was they threw them in a nitro main event that lasted 5 mins.  Biggest rizing star against the biggest star in the business. 5 minute nitromatch?

[D]

Agree Cowbell

they got so wrapped up in TV ratings, they blew a HUGE PPV buyrate giving that away on Nitro.

If they have Goldberg vs Hogan at Starrcade for the Title, that thing does 1 million PPV's.

[More Cowbell]

I don't know how many of besides me and D remember that era when it was live like we do but for those who don't it would be the equivilant of ufc putting lesnarsfight on regular tv.Sure it was huge for ratings but not for the company.

[D]

I point to it as being one of the downfalls of WCW. U think of the revenue they lost on that.

It would have easily did 700,000 buys.

So they cost themselves big time millions.

[scotta75]

Izzy,Izzy, Izzy, my friend can I call you my friend? Anyway you are watching WCW when it was on it downside when it was all about the proven talent.

Myself, as well as D and Hammy can remember a time when WCW was king the King of wrestling and was kicking WWF at the time rear end every time you turn around.

WCW is a prime example of what happens when you DO NOT develop the younger talent on the roster, and let your proven talent have everything. I can remember when Hogan turn heel and form the NWO with Hall and Nash that was big stuff because a lot of us grew up with Hogan being the Good Guy of pro wrestling! I am not going to waste my time with that crap because I feel like NWO angle was ran to death and was one the main reason why WCW died the way it died.

I remember back in the earlier years of WCW when it was just only on TBS and it was a hour program and man did it rock! Ric Flair was still on top of his game with the Horsemen backing as he tried to fight off a young up and coming superstar called Sting, the battles those two had on the first ever Clash of Champions is what made Sting a household legend.  I can still remember watching the Road Warriors do battle with Tully Blanchard and Arn Anderson of the Four Horseman for the Tag Titles once again a match that went down in history.

You know what the problem with this younger generation of wrestling fans is that you all have been brainwash by Vince and the WWE into believing that only WWE matches are the ones that count! I wish I could go back in time and bring back some of those classic WCW years when it was all about the wrestling great storylines and even better characters! You see what Vince does not want this younger generation of wrestling fans to know that before the downfall of WCW, it almost put Vince out of business, and that is something that Vince will never forgive the WCW for, that is why we don't see a Best of WCW DVD because Vince wants that remove from people's mind.