Dave Meltzer stuff

[goc]

The beginning of the end for me and my friends liking WCW was when Flair started turning heel after winning the title from Hogan an Uncensored '99.

Incredible. This was it for me too. At this point in time, everything was comparative for me. And when they turned Hogan face and Flair heel, all i could think of was that the WWF would never do that with Austin and McMahon. That along with stuff like WCW referencing WWF (Juvy, Russo, Dustin Rhodes, "Old Age Outlaws") and wrestlers using WWF finishers (Disco, Booker, Rey) really turned me off.

 

I think that Flair/Hogan double turn turned off a lot of people. Uncensored 99 is the last really good PPV number they ever did. It's a match people clearly wanted to see comparing it to other buyrates at the time, but I don't think it had a finish that left too many people happy.

[Dylan Waco]

What killed WCW for me is when Luger won the title, only for Hogan to win it back days later.

Man that really was some shit. Luger winning got a huge reaction and it was less than nothing in the scheme of things thanks to the booking.

[Guest Nell Santucci]

Talking about the end of the streak either seems to devolve into fantasy booking, or a blanket statement that they shouldn't have tried the streak in the first place. As usual, Heenan takes the populist view on the subject which makes the most dollars and sense.

 

Here's a question: exactly how over was Goldberg in late '98, the last couple months before his title loss? Is there any truth at all to Nash & Co.'s claims that Goldberg's merchandise was selling poorly or that TV viewers changed the channel when Goldberg appeared?

The following isn't the strongest argument, but Meltzer has never buried Goldberg as not being a draw even though Meltzer has never given me the impression that he didn't think Goldberg was a mere flash in the pan type gimmick anyway. Meltzer notes that Goldberg always moved the quarter hours significantly in ways that, say, Ryback hasn't done so on a consistent basis - for whatever that's worth. Of course, Nash & Co. have every reason to troll the IWC by making such blanket statements about Goldberg's drawing power, which knowing how fast WCW fell partly due to Nash and general managerial incompetence, it only seems to reinforce just how much of a sociopath Nash really is.

 

I remember that kid on MTV's Scared Straight sporting a Goldberg shirt. lol

[WingedEagle]

What killed WCW for me is when Luger won the title, only for Hogan to win it back days later.

Man that really was some shit. Luger winning got a huge reaction and it was less than nothing in the scheme of things thanks to the booking.

 

Its really incredibly when you look at that, Goldberg winning the belt and countless other hotshot moves they did solely to move a rating for one night. Just pissing away an unfathomable amount of money.

[Strummer]

I hadn't been on the net that long at that point (maybe 4 months or so) but I remember it being reported that Luger was going to win the title on Nitro and lose it back to Hogan the following Saturday at Road Wild. And that's exactly what happened. Luger was so over and that hurt him.

 

Fall 97 was a strange period for WCW as all of a sudden Hogan was all over TV after being used as a feature side attraction (once in awhile on TV) for the past year. All those terrible Hogan and Bischoff promos from this time period did a lot to kill the product. Turner execs wanted more Hogan on TV though

 

but then around this time they decided to give the midcard workers tons of time for their matches. Plus all the midcard titles started being defended on TV all the time after most were forgotten about the previous year. I believe this was at the request of Terry Taylor

[ohtani's jacket]

Man, remember when Terry Taylor had that super rep for his booking or whatever it was he was supposed to do. People were all giddy when he jumped to the WWF.

[Matt D]

I don't want to talk about how I felt when Russo/Ferrara jumped.

[Loss]

I don't understand the focus on the right way to end the streak. Why not just run it indefinitely? The gate would tell them when people were losing interest, and at that point, they could do whatever. But it's awfully defeatist to start thinking about the best way to end something when it was working very well. The focus instead should have been on the best way to prolong ending it as much as possible.

 

Do you think Vince was thinking about the best way they could have Hogan drop the title in 1984? He ran with it until he thought he had the right scenario where he could drop the title. We never made it far enough into Goldberg's run where ending the streak should have been any type of concern. As it stands, it ended in December 1998, which was the most successful month in the history of the company.

[WingedEagle]

I don't understand the focus on the right way to end the streak. Why not just run it indefinitely? The gate would tell them when people were losing interest, and at that point, they could do whatever. But it's awfully defeatist to start thinking about the best way to end something when it was working very well. The focus instead should have been on the best way to prolong ending it as much as possible.

 

Do you think Vince was thinking about the best way they could have Hogan drop the title in 1984? He ran with it until he thought he had the right scenario where he could drop the title. We never made it far enough into Goldberg's run where ending the streak should have been any type of concern. As it stands, it ended in December 1998, which was the most successful month in the history of the company.

Exactly right. Goldberg was hardly losing steam due the streak at the end of '98, and in a pretty great place as a draw considering that they pushed him and the title beneath Hogan all fall until Starrcade. But it was Nash's turn so there you have it. I wonder if the Goldberg of a couple years later would've handled things differently and been as quick to take the loss at that point.

[El-P]

I don't understand the focus on the right way to end the streak. Why not just run it indefinitely? The gate would tell them when people were losing interest, and at that point, they could do whatever. But it's awfully defeatist to start thinking about the best way to end something when it was working very well. The focus instead should have been on the best way to prolong ending it as much as possible.

 

Do you think Vince was thinking about the best way they could have Hogan drop the title in 1984? He ran with it until he thought he had the right scenario where he could drop the title. We never made it far enough into Goldberg's run where ending the streak should have been any type of concern. As it stands, it ended in December 1998, which was the most successful month in the history of the company.

Exactly right. Goldberg was hardly losing steam due the streak at the end of '98, and in a pretty great place as a draw considering that they pushed him and the title beneath Hogan all fall until Starrcade. But it was Nash's turn so there you have it. I wonder if the Goldberg of a couple years later would've handled things differently and been as quick to take the loss at that point.

 

Agreed. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Goldberg would have done big business for a while, and signs of decline would have been the trigger to change the way to book him. Goldberg was never the same after the loss, because a big part of the appeal was the streak and the fact no one could beat Goldberg. What they should have done is use him a lot less on TV to make each of his matches special. And still have him win at the end. They had found a golden goose. They killed it. Along with the promotion.

[Boondocks Kernoodle]

I posted this a while back but it's worth repeating. Meltzer from December '98:

 

Everyone is noticing just how rapidly Bill Goldberg is cooling off. A few months back his merchandise was huge, and now it's actually nicknamed "Coldberg."...

I swear sometimes that WWF books to get everyone they can over and WCW has performers booking to make sure nobody but them and their friends get over. I mentioned to one prominent WCW performer about how Goldberg is flattening out, and the response was, "What do you expect when you have bookers in charge whose primary goal is to take his spot?" .

[WingedEagle]

Right, no question he was cooling off, but that can happen when you put the world champion in an undercard battle royal in August, the Gillberg mess in September, and vs. DDP in a heatless face/face title match in October that followed 2 months of Hogan & Warrior crashing ratings and leaving a stink on the entire promotion.

[shoe]

What killed WCW for me is when Luger won the title, only for Hogan to win it back days later. That combined with the ongoing gimmick where a team would beat the Outsiders for the tag titles only for Eric to find some loophole/threaten to fire the other team to get the belts back just made it obvious everything was just one big circle jerk and nothing would change.

 

I never understood why the belt went to Luger there. They gave Luger the temporary moment that they were supposed to give Sting at Starcade. It's like they were trying to chop themselves off at the knees.

[Ditch]

The extent to which they botched Goldberg's reign is remarkable.

 

1. The title win was a massive hot-shot, done in order to give Hogan more ability to do his precious dream/celebrity tags. If they did it on PPV it would have drawn a massive buyrate, maybe even bigger than Starrcade '97. If you're going to do it at Georgia Dome in Nitro, then... space it out! Announce Goldberg vs Hall for the week before with a title shot on the line, to give them two more shows to hype the Georgia Dome title switch. Hennig was fine as a first opponent.

 

2. As already mentioned, the stupid battle royal at Road Wild. Just do Goldberg vs Giant.

 

3. Goldberg doesn't even wrestle at Fall Brawl. He should have faced Jericho. IIRC Goldberg himself was the problem here. I do think the DDP match at Havoc was good, especially with how much they built the cutter.

 

4. No Goldberg at WW3. Plenty of other matches they could have done here; streak vs streak against Wrath (who lost to Nash in a hot-shot a couple weeks later), vs Bret, vs Scott Steiner.

 

By Starrcade, you had just one interesting Goldberg PPV title defense. The way he was booked was so dull that it's no wonder he lost steam.

[artDDP]

What killed WCW for me is when Luger won the title, only for Hogan to win it back days later. That combined with the ongoing gimmick where a team would beat the Outsiders for the tag titles only for Eric to find some loophole/threaten to fire the other team to get the belts back just made it obvious everything was just one big circle jerk and nothing would change.

 

I never understood why the belt went to Luger there. They gave Luger the temporary moment that they were supposed to give Sting at Starcade. It's like they were trying to chop themselves off at the knees.

 

It was the night after SummerSlam 1997 and they didn't want the WWF to pop a good rating.

[jdw]

What killed WCW for me is when Luger won the title, only for Hogan to win it back days later.

Man that really was some shit. Luger winning got a huge reaction and it was less than nothing in the scheme of things thanks to the booking.

 

I had zero problem with Lex winning then Hogan getting it right back. Hogan-Sting was the money for the end of the year. Lex's win made people happy on TV, then Hogan getting it back put the heat right back on Hogan.

 

We kind of forget how Hogan turned into a Ric Flair-ish "bitch champion" down the stretch of 1997:

 

* clean job to Lex on Nitro in August

* clean job to Piper at Havoc in October

* clean job to Sting at Starcade

 

The first two did nothing to kill his heat going into Starcade - it still set WCW records. For a whole year, people wanted to see Hogan get beat. The company delivered in the second half of 1997. The fans ate it up as WCW was hotter than it had even been, or ever would be.

 

John

[Troy]

Clean job to Sting at Starrcade my ass

[jdw]

Looked clean to the Scorpion to me.

 

John

[ohtani's jacket]

Even if they hadn't botched the screwy finish, I'd have a hard time considering that a clean job. I thought the whole reason for the finish was that Hogan didn't want to job clean, or is that just folklore?

[MikeCampbell]

Looked clean to the Scorpion to me.

If you only watched the last few minutes after Bret interjects himself and makes himself the ref.

[MikeCampbell]

Even if they hadn't botched the screwy finish, I'd have a hard time considering that a clean job. I thought the whole reason for the finish was that Hogan didn't want to job clean, or is that just folklore?

The story making the rounds at the time was that Patrick was supposed to fast-count Sting to let Hogan win, leading to Bret's interjection and the real finish. But Hogan approached Patrick and told him to make a regular count.

[jdw]

It looked clean to me. The crowd sure treated it as clean.

 

Seriously... after Hogan and Eric and the nWo has screwed over everyone in sight in WCW for more than a year, it was perfectly "clean". It only got "screwy" the next night on Nitro when they tinkered around with holding the title up.

[KrisZ]

I don't understand the focus on the right way to end the streak. Why not just run it indefinitely? The gate would tell them when people were losing interest, and at that point, they could do whatever. But it's awfully defeatist to start thinking about the best way to end something when it was working very well. The focus instead should have been on the best way to prolong ending it as much as possible.

 

Do you think Vince was thinking about the best way they could have Hogan drop the title in 1984? He ran with it until he thought he had the right scenario where he could drop the title. We never made it far enough into Goldberg's run where ending the streak should have been any type of concern. As it stands, it ended in December 1998, which was the most successful month in the history of the company.

Well look at how they have handled Taker's WM streak that is the big deal every year now at WM not any other match. If WCW booked Goldberg's streak like Taker's WM streak the sky would've been the limit.

[Ditch]

I don't see how that works. Taker's streak, especially in recent years where it's a draw, is only possible because he rarely wrestles and isn't used as a house show draw. Goldberg was needed at every possible event.

[KrisZ]

Yeah but Goldberg didn't have to wrestle at every event. Make his matches special attractions and only for PPV's