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The "stupid" side of WCW?

3K views 18 replies 16 participants last post by  AlternateDemise 
#1 · (Edited)
I wasn't around during the monday night war, so i couldn't witness Raw and Nitro at their best (and worst).
I could only watch something years later, and the thing that hit me the most was the sheer "stupidity" in WCW.
Let's put aside strange stipulations, recycled storyline, hot-potatoed titles and backstage politics... those are things even the wwe was guily of.

But what about the actual matches, and expecially their ending?

- count out in a fall count anywhere match
- 3 counts when the actual wrestler isn't pinned at all
- Dq in no dq's, (or the opposite, a clear interference not called a DQ)
- pinfall in strap matches (or winning by dragging the wrong guy)
- 3-count when your own partner pins you in a tag match

This what came to my mind, but i'm sure i read some other strange finish.

Now the first impression is "wcw was run by morons", but i know history is written by the winners, and it will be too easy to label wcw as a stupid show.

So i'd like to know (and to discuss):

- there are many example of bad finishes in wcw matches, or it's just a general exageration made in the years by wwe revisiinist and/or general consensus?
- how it's possible to produce such idiocy (when it happened)? Wcw and the wrestlers did honest mistakes, or just didn't care?
- and, the most important thing, the crowd DID or did not care? Because i don't knkw the crowd "attitude" back then, so maybe they were mostly interested in the story behind the match, rather than a coherent ending. I don't know.

Ps: feel free to discuss wcw's "idiocy" if you want, don't just stick to my questions
 
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#14 ·
Well in fairness that was the Wolfpac nWo who was in war with the original Hogan/Bishoff led nWo who Sting was in a feud with. It was a case of "the enemy of my enemy is my ally".
 
#6 ·
http://www.wrestlingforum.com/other-wrestling/495409-dave-meltzer-lulz.html

Boom. Pretty much every lol moment. Plz don't bump because the thread is six years old. I think that thread even mentions the time WCW did a great show attendance in like Australia, but they signed this stupid agreement where they volunteered to pay for empty seats so they ended up paying a lot of money they could have earned & kept. Something like that.
 
#7 ·
I'll try to explain a bit of how it happened and why it got expanded upon. This is of course strictly my opinion. Pretty much with the arrival of the NWO, the whole heel angle was kind of changed up. Previously there would be squads of heels, such as the 4 horsemen and the Dungeon of Doom and they would gang up on baby faces like Hogan or the Macho Man but ultimately the baby faces would prevail. There was even a 2v10 type of match, no joke lol, where Hogan and Macho pretty much beat the 4 horsemen, the dungeon of doom, and a few other heels all combined. So the heels would do run ins, they would usually get early wins in their feuds, but eventually end up losing at the big PPV's, even while once again using interference.

Anyways with the NWO having Hogan at the helm, that meant that they were going over A LOT. To justify heels winning the majority of their matches they would do A LOT of interference and typically get away with it. Not only that but we'd see surprise guests on the show, like wrestlers that would pop up fresh on the show, whom were just with the WWF a few days ago, joining the NWO and helping them to win, or baby face tag teams turning on each other and one joining the NWO, etc. It was a pretty hot angle back then, partly because of Hogan joining the NWO being such a huge surprise, but also the NWO was becoming so popular that wrestlers with no momentum could simply join it and suddenly be over with the fans.

Long story short, people didn't mind interference in the matches and in most cases it was very over lol. Not only that but it helped keep the NWO looking like heels which was very important. This stuff snowballed and lead to a lot of bad things though, like the finish for the Hogan vs Warrior match for example, and while the interference thing ran it's course, the whole screw job finish thing in many ways still stuck. It was a way to get around the old run of a mill match, not only that but it could often be used to keep wrestlers looking strong instead of having one wrestler lose to another.

I think Vince Russo is credited a lot with going over board with the screw job endings to matches but IMO that stuff was going on even before his arrival. WCW definitely was not run by morons but a few reasons why this bad booking happened were because:

- Hogan had creative control in his contract, he not only would decide his own storylines but he would often screw around with story lines of wrestlers that had little to do with him. Like if 2 guys were wrestling at a time slot he wanted to appear on, they then suddenly had to switch the show up.
- WCW messed around and put a lot of different bookers in the top spot, one week one guy would be in the driver seat and the next week it would be someone else. This would lead to booker's trying to intentionally sabotage storylines, knowing the top booker would usually be the one taking the blame.
- A lot of wrestlers were frustrated with the product, whether it was younger guys feeling they weren't getting pushed, or top level talent not wanting to have their stock value drop, and deciding to go with screw job finishes instead.

While I did mention the interference and screw job endings at first were well received by the fans (they weren't used to seeing the heels dominate so much) eventually it back fired and big surprises lost any meaning. It got to the point where people would predict heel turns and they meant very little. Long story short while WCW was extremely successful for a point in time, it eventually got so bad that they couldn't even give all their tickets away. The attendance record for shows plummeted massively, buy rates for PPV's suffered just as badly, big match ups carried little weight since top guys were getting injured and weren't in any sort of rush to get back to the show. The big thing was though that WCW had too much trouble following up on the NWO angle, because every show they tried to shock the fans, it eventually got to a point where they sort of made the fans "unshockable".
 
#11 ·
I literally just got done watching Uncensored 96 with the Doomsday cage match, first the stipulation was that Hogan and Savage just had to escape the three levels to win and every level they escaped eliminated the opponents on that level but on the second level Hogan and Kevin Sullivan opened the door and walked down the scaffold to the regular ring which was blacked out and wasn't supposed to be used, Savage and Luger followed. Then Ultimate Solution and Z Gangster came out and took them back to the ring in the cage on the first level. Something something frying pan... Lex Luger puts on a weighted glove and the already eliminated Ric Flair holds Savage for Luger to hit him, Savage ducks but Luger doesn't swing but then remembers he's supposed to hit Flair for the finish, so he hits Flair even though even though it's so badly botched on the timing that it looks like Luger took Flair out on purpose. Meanwhile Hogan decides to try to escape the cage as per the original rule which they had long ignored but Savage realizing that finish makes no sense dives on the knocked out and previously eliminated Flair for the 3 count and then they escape as Hogan closes the door behind them on the ref. I have never seen a clusterfuck like that and this was in 96 long before everything went to shit.
 
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