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HOF nonsense thread


JerryvonKramer

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Sting was so hamstrung by booking it's not even funny. The Black Scorpion angle killed him deader than dead and then who better to put him up against at Halloween Havoc but fucking Sid Vicious then Starrcade with fucking Flair under the Black Scorpion hood jesus. Ole Anderson was so goddamn awful as a booker in that year. Windham should've gotten the first shot at Sting.

 

Sting before his injury was heading for big things, he was taking the strap from Flair at Wrestle War then advancing on to the megafeud with Luger who was the hottest heel in the business before being turned because of Sting. Sting & Luger at that time with their momentum could've done some big business I thought.

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To be honest, I don't actually think they weren't a national promotion, but I was really shocked to figure out just where they didn't run, especially since just assumed they did shows here and there and I never heard anyone talk about it before.

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If WCW were much more focused on their TV and PPVs than running successful live shows around the country, I'm now interested in their ratings and buyrates.

 

TV ratings before the Monday Night Wars are difficult to find.

 

For buyrates, I've found this ancient 90s-looking Angelfire site:

 

http://www.angelfire.com/pa2/RAWisWAR/WCWBuyRates.html

 

This one is more nicely laid out, but it's the same figures.:

 

http://www.2xzone.com/wcw/buyrates.shtml

 

The most striking thing to me is that there is no significant increase in 96-98, and how high they are in the period 87-91, there's a gradual decline during that time but they are still mostly 1.0+ in 91 when Sting was on top.

 

92 has mixed results.

 

Some surprisingly "high" (relatively speaking) figures for key shows. Superbrawl II (Luger vs. Sting) did a 0.96, Halloween Havoc (Jake vs. Sting) did a 0.90. Other events crashed and burned - Starrcade (Battlebowl) did 0.50, Great American Bash (Tag tournament) did 0.40. I had to look it up elsewhere but Beach Blast apparantly did only a 0.40 too.

 

This actually helps the Sting case quite a lot. The two big shows that year headlined by Sting drew in nearly DOUBLE the amount of people than those that were not. About 200,000 more people in both cases.

 

The most SURPRISING thing for me is how many times even DURING the Monday Night Wars WCW failed to break 1.0. I guess this can easily be explained by the fact that Bischoff and co were going for TV ratings not PPV buys, but still, it's pretty shocking that Superbrawl II and Halloween Havoc '92 both got more buys than Superbrawl in 96 or 97.

 

I'm going to see if I can find Neilsen ratings for WCW shows too, but there is an intense focus online on Nitro vs. Raw. Ideally I want to find figures for Saturday Night. http://www.cagematch.net/?id=1&view=tvppv&year=1992 This place looks promising.

 

I think these findings boost Sting's case, albeit ever so slightly.

 

EDIT: Unfortunately, cagematch doesn't have the data on TV ratings. It only has ONE: http://www.cagematch.net/?id=1&nr=17934

 

That's a WCW Saturday Night from 02.08.1993, which apparently got a 3.4 rating, which -- if true -- is about an average-good WWE RAW show in 2012. Incidentally, that show had a 40-minute Sting vs. Flair match on it.

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I've found figures for Clash of the Champions: http://www.twnpnews.com/information/WCW/clashrat.html

 

Just for reference, I've pulled out the figures for 91-93 and inserted the main event below:

 

January 30, 1991 Clash of the Champions 14 3.90 (Flair vs. Scott Steiner)

 

June 14, 1991 Clash of the Champions 15 3.90 (Flair vs. Bobby Eaton)

 

September 5, 1991 Clash of the Champions 16 3.70 (Arn Anderson and Larry Zbyszko vs. Rick Steiner and Bill Kazmaier)

 

November 19, 1991 Clash of the Champions 17 4.30 (Lex Luger vs. Rick Steiner)

 

January 21, 1992 Clash of the Champions 18 3.70 (Sting and Steamboat vs. Austin and Rude)

 

June 16, 1992 Clash of the Champions 19 2.80 (Terry Gordy and Steve Williams vs. The Steiner Brothers)

 

September 2, 1992 Clash of the Champions 20 3.70 (Rick Rude, Jake Roberts, Super Invader and Big Van Vader vs. Sting, Nikita Koloff and The Steiner) Brothers

 

November 18, 1992 Clash of the Champions 21 3.20 (Steamboat and Douglas vs. Windham and Rhodes)

 

January 13, 1993 Clash of the Champions 22 2.90 (Dustin Rhodes, Sting and Cactus Jack vs. Big Van Vader, Paul Orndorff and Barry Windham)

 

June 16, 1993 Clash of the Champions 23 2.60 (Ric Flair and Arn Anderson vs. Brian Pillman and Steve Austin)

 

August 18, 1993 Clash of the Champions 24 3.80 (Big Van Vader vs. Davey Boy Smith)

 

November 10, 1993 Clash of the Champions 25 3.30 (Flair vs. Vader)

 

Very difficult to extract anything meaningful from these figures to be honest.

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The way PPV buyrate's were calibrated changed at the beginning of 92.

 

Those 1.0+'s from 87- 91. Are not the same as 1.0's today. although JCP big draw some big numbers in that era.

 

Superbrawl 2 and Havoc 92 are good numbers, and Sting does deserve some credit for them. But so do Luger and Jake.

 

Sting/Luger was a WCW dream match and Jake still had alot of heat from the Savage feud. He big some big business down in AAA after his WCW stint.

 

The Saturday Night match in August 93 did draw a good rating. Although word of The Disney Tapings had started to get out, not everyone was in the loop yet as to future plans.

 

Their was always interest in Flair/Sting from the WCW faithful and by this point it was well established in WCW lore that Sting shouldn't trust Flair. A Horsemen doublecross and beatdown seemed inevitable. Which is also something that interested the WCW faithful.

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Luger/Steiner Clash did a 4.30?!

Sting/Rude was the featured match.

 

Ahh, that would explain it - still 4.30 is a TV rating that WWE would be VERY happy about at this point in time. I might have to do some research, because it seems like WCW was doing pretty decent TV ratings prior to the Monday Night Wars, which means that WWF must have been doing very good ratings for Monday Night Raw, unless these kinds of WCW ratings are strictly confined to COTC specials and none of the other events.

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Luger/Steiner Clash did a 4.30?!

Sting/Rude was the featured match.

 

Ahh, that would explain it - still 4.30 is a TV rating that WWE would be VERY happy about at this point in time. I might have to do some research, because it seems like WCW was doing pretty decent TV ratings prior to the Monday Night Wars, which means that WWF must have been doing very good ratings for Monday Night Raw, unless these kinds of WCW ratings are strictly confined to COTC specials and none of the other events.

 

A match between Flair and Pillman in April 91 drew a 4.0 on the saturday night show.

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Ahh, that would explain it - still 4.30 is a TV rating that WWE would be VERY happy about at this point in time. I might have to do some research, because it seems like WCW was doing pretty decent TV ratings prior to the Monday Night Wars, which means that WWF must have been doing very good ratings for Monday Night Raw, unless these kinds of WCW ratings are strictly confined to COTC specials and none of the other events.

The ratings numbers back then aren't a good comparison to ratings numbers today. The number of potential viewers in this country keeps growing by leaps and bounds every year, so a 3.0 now is a hell of a lot more people watching than a 3.0 during the Monday night wars. And with the advent of digital/satellite cable with literally hundreds and hundreds of channels and the rise in popularity of internet media, it's infinitely harder nowadays to get a profitable portion of the audience to ignore all the competition and watch your show.
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Here's an example from looking at an old Observer. On 12/14/98, Nitro did a 3.97 against RAW. That was worth 4.4 million viewers. Last year when Rock came back, the go-home Mania show did a 3.84 and that was worth 5.89 million viewers. I believe it fluctuates depending on how many people in each home are watching, but you can see the trend over 14 years.

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Cable ratings, as we usually see them, are coverage area ratings, meaning they're a percentage among people who actually get that network. Broadcast network ratings are household ratings, meaning they're taken from every household with a TV. See above for how this affects cable.

 

There are household ratings released for cable shows, but they're rarely used. Also, the structure of household ratings is part of why Smackdown did such lousy ratings on MNTV: Markets without the network are still counted.

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The best way to figure out WCW ratings would be to go back through all the old Observers. I do know that ratings were not considered strong in 92-93 and they lost some syndication and/or were forced to weaker channels in some areas

 

I'm most curious about #'s on Sting merchandise, but I doubt that exists in any sort of tangible form

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