What WAS the biggest WCW PPV each year in the Bischoff reign?

[thebrainfollower]

Bischoff contradicts himself a lot these days but one thing he says is that he didn't see Starrcade as his main PPV. I have heard Halloween Havoc and occasionally Bash at the Beach and Superbrawl as his choices. I figured I'd take a lot at 93-98 and determine what WAS the biggest show each year. Not so much my results but promoted matches and how it was booked going into it.

 

Gonna use just those 4 big ones.

 

1993

 

Superbrawl - Under Watts, doesn't count.

 

Beach Blast - Tag match with Sting/Bulldog vs. Sid and Vader was heavily promoted. A solid mid card as well but hardly booked as the must see show of the year.

 

Halloween Havoc - Nope. Vader-Cactus wasn't treated as a huge deal.

 

Starrcade - eh midcard but the main that year was definitely booked as the match of the year to see. Give it to Starrcade this year.

 

1994

 

Superbrawl - Not by a long shot.

 

Bash at the Beach - Yup this was the big show. There was no bigger WCW show in history in EB and the higher ubs that year.

 

Halloween Havoc - Close second. Main blow off was celeb filled and treated as a big deal. Close.

 

Starrcade - Nope not treated as a big a deal as the cage or Hogan's debut.

 

1995

 

Superbrawl - Hogan-Vader 1 was a big deal. It was promoted heavily IIRC but didn't really seem THAT Special

 

Bash at the Beach - Not really as big a deal that year. Old feuds being wrapped up and a 0 dollar live gate.

 

Halloween Havoc - Marked a major change in the booking and had the hot new feud of the year. Give it to this one I guess by default

 

Starrcade - No Hogan and the WCW-NJPW series tell you what WCW thought of this one.

 

1996

 

Superbrawl - The double main was a big deal and a blow off. But not as big as what came

Bash at the Beach - The formation of the NWO> Historic but I'd argue it was not promoted as much as Starrcade

 

Halloween Havoc - Hogan-Savage was an afterthought. Nope.

 

Starrcade - Booked as the ultimate battle of the legends. Even I bought it as a huge deal and ordered it.

 

1997

 

This one is clearly Starrcade. Not even worth debating

 

 

1998

 

I'd give this one to Bash at the Beach for the celebs.

 

So whatever he says HH was never WCW's main PPV IMO. Thoughts?

[Loss]

How was Hogan-Savage an afterthought in 1996? That got tons of TV hype and was supposedly in the books to headline that show for months, even before Hogan turned or they thought of turning Hogan.

[flyonthewall2983]

It probably seems like it was an afterthought because as soon as the match was over Savage was forgotten, as it went right into the Piper feud.

[flyonthewall2983]

It's pretty clear that from at least '96 until the end there was one big show in WCW and it wasn't on PPV. I'd like to do a comparison of the PPVs from the first two years that Raw was on the air, to the first year of PPV's when Nitro was on the air, and I bet you the WCW announce crews would name-drop Nitro a lot more.

[BlueGuy]

Beginning around the time Hogan showed up, it seemed to me that they took the focus off of Starrcade and put it on Halloween Havoc. Even in his first year, 1994, the Havoc match against Flair had the cage and retirement stipulation upping the prestige and importance on anything that came before it. From there on, Starrcade still received a lot of promotion as the big event, but that always seemed to be based more on history than current. The only year that seemed to stray from this philosophy of pushing Havoc as the real big event was 1997, and that was primarily because of the culmination of the Sting angle. If you swap out the main events, I'd say Halloween Havoc was the more loaded show of the two even in 1997.

[Loss]

Ok I do get on the back end how it comes across that way, and working so much comedy into the match went against the personal nature of the feud and makes it seem like less of a big deal in hindsight. But it was their first meeting in WCW and had been hyped for months, with Hogan getting a ridiculous amount of heat on poor Macho Man.

[flyonthewall2983]

Bash At the Beach that year was very loaded too from what I remember. Flair/Piper, the end of the Benoit/Sullivan angle, and of course Dennis Rodman's wrestling debut, which probably got the company it's most legitimate press coverage that year.

[thebrainfollower]

I feel like Starrcade wins in 92 due to the year long hype

Savage-Hogan in 96 was really odd. They booked Savage as a total loser for months beforehand with him getting beat by the Giant and getting beat down by the NWO week after week and never getting his revenge. Even then as a kid into the angle I was this as a such a foregone conclusion that I could have cared less.

[dexstar]

Is the oft-repeated nugget that Slim Jim demanded Halloween Havoc feature Savage-Hogan true?

[C.S.]

Was this thread inspired by my comment here or is that just a coincidence?

 

Anyway, I don't think Halloween Havoc should be so heavily discounted by the OP.

 

At the time, in the build itself, it was always a huge fucking deal.

 

Hogan-Warrior, DDP-Goldberg, Piper's surprise debut, etc.

 

Whether those matches/scenarios worked out is another story entirely, but they felt massive in that four-week period used to hype the show up.

[jcmmnx]

I don't think there was a match I wanted to see less than Hogan vs Piper in 1996. Digging up a 10 year old feud from another company in the middle of your best and biggest angle of all time is such a WCW move.

[thebrainfollower]

It totally was CS

[flyonthewall2983]

I don't think there was a match I wanted to see less than Hogan vs Piper in 1996. Digging up a 10 year old feud from another company in the middle of your best and biggest angle of all time is such a WCW move.

 

I would counter that it worked (for the short time it did) because the dynamics were reversed, where Piper was the face and Hogan the heel.

[SomethingSavage]

 

I don't think there was a match I wanted to see less than Hogan vs Piper in 1996. Digging up a 10 year old feud from another company in the middle of your best and biggest angle of all time is such a WCW move.

 

I would counter that it worked (for the short time it did) because the dynamics were reversed, where Piper was the face and Hogan the heel.

 

 

Definitely. It doesn't feel as dynamic out of context, but it worked for a lot of people in that place & time.

 

There was something very cool and appealing about seeing your childhood hero - now the number one villain - being called out by his former nemesis... the once most hated man in the sport - now the redeemed good guy.

 

You can call it a "WCW move" or whatever, but really - they built the bulk of that (majorly successful) run on the back of everything the Federation did in the 80's. Hell, practically the entire WCW 90's boom was like this fan fiction Bizarro World Booking of the WWF. They took the same stories, characters, and acts... and either updated them to better fit the times, outright flipped their allegiances, or whatever. But a lot of the running themes and narratives were kept in place or expanded upon.

 

I realize WCW gets a lot of criticism for doing just that - signing up all the former WWF stars and whatnot. But for awhile, it certainly worked and proved to be a sensible business strategy, at least in the beginning, for them.

[Petey]

It's funny, I didn't start watching wrestling until the early 90's, so I didn't understand Piper being billed as Hogan's equal in 96 because I knew him mostly as announcer who occasionally wrestled. I was completely unaware they were rivals in the 80's. I didn't even think of Piper as a main eventer. I know I'm mostly in the minority on that one but I was always underwhelmed by the feud in WCW.

[BAMptb]

I wouldn't say no one wanted to see Hogan-Piper in 1996. Starrcade did a pretty big number, didn't it? I enjoyed that feud a good bit. In typical WCW fashion, they went back to that well a couple more times with underwhelming results. I think what really rubbed people the wrong way about Starrcade was it was only until after Piper wins clean that they tell us it was a non title match. But, that's WCW.

[Ricky Jackson]

I recall there being a pretty big buzz around Hogan and Piper at Starrcade, at a time when wrestling was still generally dead prior to it taking off in 97

[Death From Above]

I can understand somone being confused by Piper's push if they only saw him as more of the announcer role. WWF really did the same with Jerry Lawler. He had that one push against Bret Hart and was otherwise treated as "a commentator who used to be a wrestler" 99% of the time otherwise. In hindsight I think they did a bad job of making Lawler feel important, at the time. Piper had more national exposure but I can still understand the confusion for someone newer at the time.

 

Piper/Hogan by coincidence was right around when I discovered Nitro, it was like "oh, so THIS is where everyone went while I was watching Mabel and Henry Godwin, I see".

[Jingus]

I wouldn't say no one wanted to see Hogan-Piper in 1996. Starrcade did a pretty big number, didn't it?

Yep. They pulled a 0.9 number, by far the largest buyrate of the year. For the sake of comparison, the second-biggest was Bash At The Beach with a 0.7; and the lowest was Slamboree with a 0.4. It's estimated to be the first-ever WCW PPV which drew over 300,000 buys.

 

I recall there being a pretty big buzz around Hogan and Piper at Starrcade, at a time when wrestling was still generally dead prior to it taking off in 97

"Dead" is overstating it, WCW had already gotten over their '95 slump. But business did indeed continue to improve. Starrcade '97 did their all-time best number; estimates vary slightly, but it was somewhere around a 1.8 or 1.9 share, doing a grand total of six or seven hundred thousand buys. At the time, it was the second-highest bought wrestling PPV of all time, only behind Wrestlemania 5.

[Ricky Jackson]

I meant in the wider sense of its relevance in pop culture at the time, not really business wise

[flyonthewall2983]

I'm pretty sure it got no mainstream coverage like we're seeing today with ESPN covering WWE occasionally. I remember when WCW made a big deal out of having ad space in USA Today, so any coverage of that magnitude would have been well-trodden ground by the time the bell rang between those two.

[Matt D]

I think Piper worked as an opponent because he felt like an outsider, someone beyond the typical WCW dynamic. It was apparent that nothing WCW could throw at the NWO would work and Piper was a wild card, someone from outside the system, someone who didn't care about the rules or the establishment. He shook up the board and that's always exciting in some ways.

[flyonthewall2983]

And he had cache with the old JCP fans who remember him feuding with Ric Flair, announcing with Gordon Solie, and the chain match with Greg Valentine.

[jdw]

1993: Starcade

 

Was going to be Vader-Sid to give Sid the big push. That feel through due to his stabbing Arn, so Flair got the spot. Big build.

 

1994: Bash at the Beach

 

All in with Hogan.

 

1995: Halloween Havoc

 

They were trying to create a new star.

 

They did push the hell out of Bash at the Beach. That it didn't draw a live gate wasn't relevant to Eric.

 

1996: Starcade

 

Kind of built the nWo to that point, with it running rough over WCW until Piper won.

 

1997: Starcade

 

The whole year built to it.

 

1998: Road Wild

 

Pushed even harder than Bash at the Beach. The Celeb stuff in 1998 built to and climxed there.

[artDDP]

Clearly SuperBrawl was the premier WCW PPV card. It's the only one they assigned Roman numerals to.