Was there money in the Warrior in 1998?

[Judy Bagwell]

The WCW One warrior nation run was brutal, some of the worst booking Ive ever sat through. Im not sure Warrior was done as a wrestler at that point, he was in good shape and deserved a decent program

How would you have booked him in WCW at that point in time?

[abrasiveobelisksa]

He was a ratings draw, so clearly someone usable. I would go the same general route they did, but have Goldberg beat him before Hogan.

[Loss]

Yes, but not as a weekly character. He should have been on Nitro two or three times maximum going into the Hogan match, which other than maybe Goldberg and Sting were the only money matches he had in him. I do think potential was there to pop one huge buyrate, but not with him on TV every single week as he was. It just made clear doing it as they did how much he sucked.

[Jingus]

He promptly injured himself in one of his first matches back. The guy's body was a wreck, he wasn't even capable of the same level of physicality that he was doing just a few years earlier.

[Gregor]

It was always going to be a tough fit. Warrior kind of had to be a main-eventer, and the natural feud was with Hogan. By 1998 Hogan was less cartoonish, so how do you make Warrior fit? If you take away the Moon, the stars, destrucity, and foke, what's his character? I assume that those things were the appeal to people who liked him. Regardless, it probably wasn't a good idea to have him to do the standard long live promos.

 

Maybe he could have finally had that elusive match with Bret, although that seems like an even odder pairing of personalities than Warrior and Hollywood Hogan.

[kaufman316]

WCW left a lot of money on the table in 1998, mostly due to sloppy booking. They would have been well-served to use him in a series of one-off dream matches for PPV or at least Nitro (Goldberg, Luger, Piper, a retread with Savage...), which may have been trainwrecks but would carry marquee value.

 

And even a part-time run with Sting - The Blade Runners Vs. The Outsiders could have been an upper-tier PPV match, if nothing else. Instead, he was fed to Hogan and paid to sit at home (or show up and not be used, as the case may be).

[Infinit]

Well...they did do Warrior/Sting vs Hogan/Hart on Nitro.

[Ricky Jackson]

Yeah, with no build or anything, just an average run of mill match slapped together on Nitro. Pretty sure it was the first time Sting and Warrior had teamed since their Mid South days. It may have been the first teaming of Hart and Hogan as well.

[iamthedoctor]

The WCW One warrior nation run was brutal, some of the worst booking Ive ever sat through. Im not sure Warrior was done as a wrestler at that point, he was in good shape and deserved a decent program

How would you have booked him in WCW at that point in time?

 

Well I wouldnt have put him against Hogan in his first match back. I think in a way that was the problem with Piper using it as a shock tactic to the fans to say look who just turned up.

 

Id probably have used him in a way like Goldberg have squashes on Nitro and save the big matches on PPV.

 

I would have saved Hogan/Warrior for a Starrcade PPV possibly the 1999 edition as then he would have been there a good year.

 

But yeah id of had him wrestling Flair, Bret and others.

[C.S.]

Yes, there was absolutely money in Warrior. I remember several of my friends wanting to watch Nitro that week instead of Raw because they heard about Warrior's impending debut. Now, whether the ratings reflected that, I have no idea. But WCW had an asset and squandered it so Egomania could run wild, brother. Of course, if all of that "One Warrior Nation" and trapdoor shit were Warrior's ideas, he sabotaged himself well enough too. But that wouldn't have ever happened in the WWE, where someone was actually in charge.

[goc]

I could be wrong but I think the story of Warrior's initial debut on Nitro was that it popped a huge quarter hour but the numbers were actually dropping throughout the segment as he just kept going on and on.

[Loss]

The big story was that after people saw him once, the novelty wore off. They had him on every Nitro, which just ran it all into the ground.

[El-P]

The Warrior crap was easily some of the worst wrestling-TV ever this side of Russo. Everything sucked, the promos, the angles, the matches. Godawful stuff. The idea that they would have run him against a bunch of other people in WCW is horrendous. His 96 comeback was already totally useless. Warrior was done after SummerSlam 92.

[flyonthewall2983]

My memory is that the IWC was going nuts for his coming to WCW. It petered out so quickly it was kind of amazing. I remember seeing him chase Hulk's nephew who of course had a job WCW by then, and thinking "we're not going to see him again".

 

I remember hearing that Russo wanted to bring him back, turn him heel and have him feud with Goldberg.