Death From Above

How is a necklace or a bracelet more gimmicky than a cowboy hat? I mean I think shooting pieces of metal through your face is stupid, but that's not more gimmicky than a cowboy hat either.

"If anything, all this attention solidifies his employment." Man is that Vince Russo logic if I ever heard it. ALL ATTENTION IS POSITIVE

Spinning off something that came up in the Dixie Carter thread, how much money did RoH make when things were going good anyway? I really never followed RoH very closely at all so you could tell me it lost or made $2 million and I'd probably believe either.

I think it's much worse in wrestling than in most real sports due to the lack of there being any successful "minor leagues" to even poach at this point. Even if you in theory want to hire "somebody new" who "knows wrestling" and has "some track record of success as a promoter, just on a smaller stage", where would you even look for that person these days? Not that wrestling has a history of this actually happening very often. But even if you wanted to hire "The Bill Watts of the last 15 years" (not that this worked in WCW but that's not the point)... well, there isn't one to hire, really.

The title of the thread really has more words than TNA deserves to have written about it at this point, to be honest. Still pretty funny.

I'm not one to get my panties in a knot over being PC, but Jesus. Those are really something.

The Paul Bearer being buried in oatmeal show was literally the first WWE PPV I'd watched since they blew the Invasion. Needless to say, it was also the last.

Just to expand on that referee/announcer thing slightly. I once went to a then-WWF house show on which Earl Hebner got the third or fourth loudest pop of the night. No entrance music, no "ladies and gentlemen WWF refereeing legend Earl Hebner", no spotlight. Just Hebner getting into the ring to do what he does, and out of the blue he got this giant pop. Point is nobody actually paid to see Earl Hebner, but the fans giving him a big pop was their way of saying "you have become part of the 'experience' of seeing a WWF show, and we appreciate that". Little details like that weren't going to save the Invasion thing by itself, but if the Invasion was being done better adding the little details is good icing on the cake. Still would have required the Invasion to actually be an invasion.

This all touches close to what I've always said that once you own both names, there was no reason not to have a WCW "takeover" of Smackdown. Even if it's short term, if Charles Robinson and Nick Patrick are suddenly refereeing "WCW Nitro" on Thursdays, called by Tony Shivonne and Mike Tenay (or whatever), fans would buy into it. Make "WCW" look like WCW. WCW vs. WWF was an actual brand vs. brand contest that mattered and I think they dropped the ball on that as much as on any piece of talent, simply because WCW was a four letter word and they didn't want to say it too many times. Problem with the invasion was as much that WCW became "just another stable" instead of being "WCW" as it was that there was no Sting, Goldberg, Hogan. You can't really build a major angle around the fact Tony Shivonne or Mike Tenay is on the show, but if it makes WCW's "invasion" more believable it would have been worthwhile in the short term. Then someday when you've gone as far with it as it's worth going WCW drop a Survivor Series or a War Games match, or whatever, and WWF "wins back" it's show. Tom is right that quality of writing was a big issue. When you are running company vs. company and aren't smart enough to run "Nick Patrick, WCW referee, DQ's WWF wrestler for soft reason in interpromotional match", when everyone knows it's going to draw heat, you're either sinking the angle on purpose or the people writing it just don't understand what's going on when you book WWF vs. WCW as a wrestling feud. Tenay yells about how WCW is about rules and tradition and all that bullshit that they'd already been doing for years anyway. This shit isn't hard to write as a feud within one company instead of two actually separate ones, and considering how hot even casual fans were for the idea there's no reason to say even adding in little stuff like that wouldn't have been really successful, if they just wanted to go there. I figure they never went that far with it for the same reason everyone else does, the ego thing (I don't think Vince could stand the idea of promoting WCW and having it succeed, even once he'd won), but even done pretty short term it probably would have got the fans attention and kept it long enough. All those little secondary guys most likely come cheaper put together than Hogan who wasn't going to do it unless it was his way anyway, with no creative control issues, less baggage (I won't say none with Tony), are easier to get rid of when you want to without hurting the show, etc. Since you can't really get around the reasons a lot of top guys were not brought in, I think it would have been a more judicious use of money than trying to deal with Hogan's stuff, really. Still probably would have needed some sort of WCW non-McMahon mouthpiece. Bischoff, Flair, hell could have been Dusty I guess. Not a perfect idea without bugs granted, but I still like it in theory.

Loss: And even then, somehow the Monday Night Wars have been blown really out of proportion in how fans remember them, in terms of both companies *actually making money*, which is the only way any sort of "promotional war" actually lasts. Otherwise one company loses money until it dies, which is just what happened. A lot of fans confuse the TV ratings with the overall sign of "success" even though both companies had national TV while they managed to blow millions, each in their own period. In business terms, WCW was kicking WWF's ass for a while there. Didn't it actually get so bad that at one point in 96 or 97 (I think 97) that Vince actually bounced some paychecks? The company was in serious trouble. The only reason they still existed as a meaningful entity at all was that all the glory years of Hogan making money for Vince like nothing ever before gave them (apparently) just enough of a safety net to make a last stand at the Alamo. They stumbled into Austin and The Rock (whether by design or accident), and it was the Magic Bullet. Things turned around, and a lot of people just forgot how close they all came to either losing the company, or the company being something very different than what it is today. There was a period of genuine dual success for both companies when everything was gravy, everyone made money, wrestling drew fans everywhere, and they were kings of the mountain. But it didn't really last that long. WCW was obviously bulging by probably mid-98, and by 1999 the ship was leaking pretty bad. Vince was kicking their ass for ratings by then but the real issue was about bleeding money, and a lot of it. If you offered any new company now what WCW's TV ratings were then they'd build you a fucking statue and elect you emperor for life, but the Monday Night Wars were, in business terms, pretty much over as it turned out. WCW never saw another dime of profit and the rest is history. It wasn't that big a window of dual success. What, 2 years? That's probably slightly generous. These days people talk about it like it was some glorious 5-year window when everyone made money, and that really isn't the case. The idea of two long term healthy national wrestling companies is a myth. Or at the very least, to this point it has been a myth, that isn't to say that someday it can't happen. There's absolutely no company in the game now that is even close to being halfway to making that happen. And it sure as hell will never be TNA. Bob Morris: I couldn't agree with this more. The company has almost constantly appeared to be very schizophrenic in terms of settling on any sort of meaningful identity you can build around. There's lots of examples but I'm afraid if I start dissecting TNA it could get to a few hundred million words and I don't even want to give them the attention. If I was to try and shorten it up to a few examples: - They run shows out of the same studio all the time yet present the show in such a manner that this studio manages to have less identifiable life and character than almost any legitimate sporting arena you can name, who don't have the advantage of as intricate "backstage skits" or constantly looking for "cool signs" in the crowd to use. - They alternate bizarrely between wanting to make themselves look edgy in a meaningful way (X-Division, ULTIMATE GEOMETRY WARS ring, Knockouts Division), while still regularly managing to make their show more of the same (Jeff Jarrett, Dusty Rhodes, Sting, Hogan, nWo Version 1000). - They constantly build up to things being VERY SHOCKING and would love to be shock TV, then expect the audience to be somehow outraged over said shocks. Mild example would be Abyss being revealed to have killed his father as a SHOCKING THING after all we've ever been told about him is that he was in an asylum, he's nuts, he's a sociopath. How is this shocking? More Russoriffic in later years, things like The Milk Incident where it's supposed to be so shocking that it gets people talking (I guess... I got no other rationale here), but this is a day and age when even almost the biggest marks watching TV wrestling realize someone has to be writing this shit. So you put in on my TV then scream it's shocking, and I'm supposed to bite. Blah blah blah. They want to go every direction at once instead of picking something and doing it. Company isn't even run by marks, because marks would never book anything this schizophrenic, because marks like things that MAKE FUCKING SENSE. Even that is way too many words on TNA. And yes, the name is retarded. And don't even get me started on the entire philosophy the company has been built around for ages "If we only had TV and/or if that TV was only longer than it is now, we could become a big company, even though we have absolutely no fanbase at all". This has never worked, and there's no reason to think that it ever will.

Obviously WCW blew Sting/Hogan as the most obvious giant example for them which was a pretty remarkable build, but even after they fucked up Starrcade (which has been discussed to death) the build to the Superbrawl rematch in early 1998 was really weird and it didn't seem to really get built up the way it should somehow. They were already trying to cycle Hogan off into an inside nWo feud with Savage during the buildup and that almost overshadowed the rematch for the weeks leading into Superbrawl, which was crazy. Then the Superbrawl match itself was another clusterfuck with, of course, a Savage run-in for the finish, which killed the impact. Obviously botching Starrcade hurt like hell but they might have salvaged it better if they hadn't also botched the rematch too. And of course Sting, after being built as Sad Jesus for over a whole year, dropped the belt like a month later to Savage at Spring Stampede. And the very next Nitro... Hogan wins it back from Savage. Angle more dead than zombies in a Romero movie. Well done. All the Sting/Hogan buildup was something really special but Goddamn did they ever botch the home stretch.

There was a ton of potential for Starrcade 98 to be a pretty key event... well I guess it did turn out to be key, just not in a good way. Okay, complete fantasy booking sidetrack. Obviously there's a boatload of politics why this shit probably wouldn't work, but since WCW was saddled with a lot of politicing older guys, might as well run with it. The n.W.o. black and white gimmick was pretty much dead by the end of 1998, which is why they'd spun off Nash and friends into n.W.o. Wolfpac to separate them (or Nash trying to separate himself?) from Hogan's group which was dieing. Starrcade 98 really should have been the death of black and white. It was a good gimmick but it was time to move on and killing it off in a big send off would have still done good business and given you natural outs for where to go from there. Could still build to Nash vs. Goldberg for the big shiny belt. Nash is now de-facto leader of the "real" n.W.o. in the eyes of the fans anyway, so it's a good match to build to. Should also be building up to a Flair vs. Hogan match with a stip that if Flair wins, n.W.o. is no more, if Hogan wins no more Four Horsemen and/or Flair must retire and/or be Eric Bischoff's lackey and/or blah blah blah, it's wrestling, attach as many goofy stips to the side that isn't going to lose as it takes to get the point over. Point is it's the face of the n.W.o. vs. the face of WCW in the book of Revelations chapter of the story where the shit hits the fan. You run Godlberg vs. Nash as the semi-main for the belt, Goldberg goes over. No reason for him to drop the belt because the crowd hadn't said "we want a new champ" and he was still doing good business. No reason to shoot the golden goose before it's time. Nash losing isn't going to break his character. You put Flair vs. Hogan in the main event, as a no-DQ lumberjack match. This puts over the "final us vs. them" thing, strokes the correct egos, blah blah blah. Hogan brings out whatever is left of team Black and White: Scott Steiner did his heel switch around here (I think it was actually after but if they'd pulled it a couple months earlier he could have been hot shit by now even if all he'd did is debut the look and yell a lot), so you bring out Steiner, Hennig, Norton, The Giant (who hadn't left yet), and a couple of the Wolfpac guys as "solidarity", say Savege and Luger, but no Nash. Flair brings out Benoit, Malenko, McMichael, his fellow horsemen, along with DDP, Sting (who should have never been in the Wolfpac to begin with), Rick Steiner representing WCW, but no Goldberg. Hell you can even throw Bischoff and Arn Anderson into that mix for a couple big pops. This gives you again the "us vs. them" vibe plus gives you plenty of cover for out of the ring nonsense to cover up that nobody really wants to see Hogan wrestle Flair for the 100th time but it's the natural conclusion to the WCW vs. n.W.o. feud. Match goes along, shit hits the fan, everyone hits the ring. n.W.o. guys get big advantage, beat the shit out of people, maybe you have Bagwell/Hall/Konnan run-ins, giant clusterfuck, fans probably throw garbage because it's WCW, blah blah blah. DDP and Sting run off to the back. Heenan's calling them cowards on commentary, like 30 seconds later they hit the ring with Sting Approved Baseball Bats © but bring Goldberg with them, crowd goes fucking bananas, Godlberg and friends beat the snot out of the n.W.o. ring is cleared out, Goldberg SPEARS Hogan's leg, Flair kicks the shit out of it for a minute, locks on figure four, Hogan taps, Team WCW stands as One People United Against Tyranny in the ring, crowd goes home happy. Only WCW couldn't figure out that in the end in pro wrestling the good guys have to, you know... win. People don't even remember the same show had no undercard if you give them The Big Send Off. Hogan cuts later Nitro promo on Nash for not helping him, leads to Hogan vs. Nash feud over whatever is left of the Wolfpac/n.W.o. label, and allows you to start breaking guys off from that as apropriate. Gonna suck ass in the ring but you can worry about that when you get there, at least it makes sense and you can sort of carry it on for a while without dragging down other shit because Hogan (and friends) occupies Nash (and friends). Goldberg goes on killing people until the crowd says stop. Obviously couldn't have happened. Too many politicians and what not. It still can't possibly turn out worse than what they actually did.

I find it funny that the Fingerpoke of Doom actually has its own entire Wikipedia page. The legacy of WCW will be preserved in the sum of all human knowledge forever.

Yeah I think you're right. Thinking back the opening match was Kidman vs. Juvi vs. Mysterio, Kidman wins, Eddie comes out and yells at the other two for failing (I think this was during the last gasp of the idea of a unified Latino World Order), then Eddie wrestled Kidman and lost. Off topic but man, the downward spiral of Billy Kidman was really something considering how much they did to put him over at one point. Hennig was on the show but only did a run in. He was the guy that cost Flair the match over Bischoff if I remember right.

Well yeah, pretty much. I mean, the US Government still hasn't moved on whether or not it's going to follow through on that asshat bill Bush's friends passed through in the last days trying to regulate/ban online poker yet, because the bill is so badly worded it's unenforceable. On one hand they can (and frankly should) be legalizing it and taxing it to hell the way they do live casinos, because they are literally costing themselves hundreds of millions of dollars (if not in the low billions) in revenue. And on the other hand you have the people that want it to stay banned with powerful lobby friends, many of whom (by sheer coincidence to be sure) are live casino owners who are losing business to the online people and lo and behold think that spinning one form of gambling as immoral over another is going to fly. That's not even bringing in the issue of organized crime (on both sides of the fence), or things like the Kentucky horse racing people that are taking such a rake out of their "legal" live gambling that you almost have to be like the guy in A Beautiful Mind levels of smart to make money playing, who are of course also on some level involved in lobbying. Or touching on the entire ethics of legalized gambling in general and where everyone stands on it. Or on the need that if one wants to enforce a ban, that the original bill needs reworking to be feasible. That's the really short condensed version anyway. Nobody cares about this issue in terms of powerful politicians or the media. I doubt much of the general public really does either. Even though we're talking directly about hundreds of millions in potential tax (and licensing) revenue vs. semi-ethics (which is as far as the ethics around gambling can go in a discussion involving politicians). Small fries, etc etc The point I'm making there is if that isn't really on the radar even when we're talking about really a pretty good amount of money, wrestling is about a million miles away. Governments deal with issues that effect the pocketbook, or are creating enough social talk that they are forced into action. Wrestling doesn't land in either camp and probably never will, which is why the business is what it is in many ways. I'm still trying to figure out since Youtube did a little redesign if there's still a way to just permanently close the comments section like there used to be, but there doesn't seem to be. Which is retarded, really.

Even if there was another motivation how big would it have to be to justify faking your own death? That would be a pretty bizarre reaction to most any situation that isn't... I dunno, the mafia putting a price on your head, or something in that class of incident. Otherwise there's not really a way I could see spinning that one.

I think that was always what intrigued me about Goldberg at the time. Yes a lot of his matches were old WWF Superstars material, but when actually asked to do more during the initial run to the moon... it's not like any of that stuff would come within a county of landing in the "let's talk about bad matches in WCW" stuff.

Gay marriage being legal in Canada doesn't change that Alberta is full of God-fearing conservatives. For example. Legal and social acceptance are pretty different things.

And even with the undercard they missed some really obvious stuff. I mean, I don't think Stevie Ray can wrestle really. But you have nWo Black and White Scott Steiner/Stevie Ray vs. WCW Rick Steiner/Booker T right there as a serviceable undercard matchup. I don't remember them doing anything with that, ever. It seems like such an obvious match to throw into the mix at some point, before you try and blow up Scott into a singles star (which was pretty much the only thing they had working at one point). It sure would have been more interesting than the whole "Stevie Ray feuds with Vincent and Horace over leadership of a group of jobbers" thing.

That guy's picture even looks grade-A carny.

Just to clean that up and make it a little clearer: Not on Starrcade 98: Hogan, Hart, Hall, Savage, Luger, Sting, Rick Steiner, Scott Steiner, Raven, Benoit, Malenko, Mysterio, Booker T. On Starrcade 98: Ernest Miller, Prince Iukea, Norman Smiley (pre-big comedy gimmick), Jerry Flynn, Bryan Adams, Eric Bischoff wrestling (and being put over Flair). Try and make sense out of that.

That Starrcade headlined by Godlberg/Nash was truly bizarre. Giant/DDP was on it. But no Hogan, Hall, Savage, Hart, Luger, or Sting, and Flair was in a throwaway with Bischoff (and they didn't even put Flair over). I'm not really a huge fan of most of those guys in the ring, but that show had next to no star power at all. I'm pretty sure Hart was hurt, but most of them just didn't seem to have a program if I recall right. That in itself probably tells you plenty about where the company was at the end of 1998, I suppose. For that matter no Raven, Benoit, Malenko, or Mysterio either if you can believe that list when you put it altogether. Eddie was in the opener in an actually really fun if I remember right three way with Juvi and Kidman, at least. Saturn was on the show saddled with Ernest Miller, because of course he was on Starrcade but Sting and Benoit aren't. EDIT: Neither of the Steiners, or Booker T was on the card either. Think about that list of guys they aren't even using and/or were out (though I think the big majority fall into the first category there). It's about 90% of the guys that were, to one section of the audience or another, the reasons you are coming to a WCW show. It's an unbelievably weak card for something that's supposed to be their Wrestlemania.

The wrestler contract thing never made sense to me because wasn't their roster already pretty much ballooned to it's limit by 1998, when they are supposedly still making all this money? They had Hogan, Nash, Hall, Hart, Warrior (who had to be ultra expensive), Sting, Savage, Luger, Piper, and God knows who else all under contract then and it's a fair bet all those guys are making huge money + % of PPV to some of them (Hogan for sure), plus probably literally 300 other guys. And they were paying guys just to stay home and not work, some of them good money. And they still supposedly made $55 million. There was dumb shit like Booker T getting more per year than Flair, but eveyone knows that part by now. It's not like they started paying Lash Leroux and Jim Duggan a million dollars a shot to do WCW Saturday Night, which is about the kind of absurdity you'd have to be talking about to put the blame for that kind of swing onto wrestler contracts. The contract situation was already nuts way before things fell apart. Not saying it wasn't a factor but there's no way that kind of money can be passed off on that.

From early on in the Meltzer thread: I've never really been clear on how exactly this happens. We're talking about over a $100 million swing inside of 2 years from the end of 1998 to 2000. Everyone knows the company had certain problems but I've never been clear on how any of it translates to that level of bleeding.