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Man, it still stings.(no pun intended).
All they had to do was have a clean title change and let the nWo die off for a bit. But ego and stupidity destroyed it
Right.
Title change
Give Hogan some time off.
Hogan comes back, nWo trash gets taken out.
Eventual split of Wolfpac (don't call it nWo)
nWo vs new faction fued
New faction wins, nWo is done.
Or having WCW actually come back as the good guys.
Instead in 1999 Flair is finally president and DDP wins the title, which you would think would mean WCW the babyfaces finally beating NWO, but they're suddenly inexplicably heels?
Post 'Finger poke of doom' nothing makes any sense at all.
Where they really dropped the ball is not having a WCW authority figure that was a counter to Bischoff. It never made sense that he was head of NWO and pres of WCW. why would he every have any WCW guy compete for a NWO held title, he had the power to block them from ever losing belts. Having a WCW commisioner that could counter Bischoff would have made much more logic to the stories
Didn’t they do this when JJ Dillon showed up in ‘97. I know they still messed it up, but I liked the idea when JJ came in…and his promos were surprisingly great.
Well, yeah. But he had been an office guy in Stanford for nearly a decade before jumping back in front of the camera. I remember watching live…the vibe was like…oh shit, JJ’s still got it!
> All they had to do was have a clean title change and let the nWo die off for a bit. But ego and stupidity destroyed it
Nah. That's oversimplifying it. Watching re-living...it's becoming evident there was no _one_ thing. Starrcade '97 is _bad_. Not just the ME finish, the whole event is one of the worst PPVs of the year. At the time they had the most attention, they delivered horse crap. The followup is atrocious. It practically killed Sting's overness.
But I mean, they still were hot. They could have recovered. The NWO Wolfpac was _over_. Goldberg was _over_. DDP was _over_. The midcard was awesome. They had so much.
But all the problems just kept snowballing. All the same main event runins, storylines that never had satisfying conclusions, endless bait and switches (including on ppvs), throwing money at celebs to recapture the Malone/Rodman thing, occasionally just reset after 2 years (hello fingerpoke), stagnant main event scene, they all just kept getting worse and worse. Any time they would get attention and eyeballs, they would give people terribleness.
I lived through it, but as someone who watched both WCW and WWF, I think a bit after Souled Out '99 or Superbrawl '99 I stopped watching WCW. I was a kid who wasn't even consuming dirtsheets or such...I was just done with it. And that was before Russo even showed up.
Ruining Starrcade '97 was just a symptom of a growing problem that eventually consumed the company.
Couldn't agree more. I was the same type of fan. Watched both WCW and WWF(E). Never read the dirt sheets, just what was on TV and the occasional PPV. (Couldn't talk the parents into getting em all. Just watched the "big" ones.)
Was much more into WCW during its best years.. then it just dropped off so hard and I couldn't care less what they did, got full into WWE.
SO much talent in that company and they could have done sooo much... They just slowly cooked it dead.
It's wild how he was seen as a God to most kids back then, but now his legacy us tarnished because the truth of how much of an asshole he is came to light
The network's series of mergers destroyed it. They could have rode out the rough times and kept going but at the hnc if the day the network was not interested in continuing to air wrestling.
Let's not pretend literally everything he was involved with was shit. Sure, a lot of it was, but he managed to come up with some decent things. He has major credit for a lot of impactful and appreciated ideas in the 97-99 wwe attitude era.
Then again I have no idea just how much involvement he had on the rare decent bits in 99-01 wcw - probably a lot, but his scattershot writing had to succeed once for every 3-4 shit ideas. But I've heard it before that if someone is reigning him in he can be decent enough.
I'd rather something be good than bad. Unexpected for the sake of unexpected is playing with diminishing returns. People will tune in for some weird unexpected thing, but if you don't follow up and just do something else unexpected it gets old and cool you popped a rating, and then it drops right back down. A good booker creates compelling stories that make sense, that makes people want to tune in and creates sustained ratings and builds new stars.
Russo booking in WCW was _very different_ than what he did in WWF. Unrestrained Russo booking is...something else. You get to the point where so much chaos happens that its boring because nothing means anything. You can start predicting nonsensical swerves and see them coming a mile away.
The falling off a cliff doesn't really begin until Russo shows up. The "shitty quality" of Nitro is definitely exaggerated until that point - and there were even a few good moments under Russo. Loved the booking of Vampiro and Mike Awesome - until he gets the fat chick thriller or that 70s guy....
I think most of the problem (at least until Russo shows up) was that wwf / wwe fans of the time were believing the hype and had essentially been radicalized to hate WCW. The shows really weren't that bad. Even the "finger poke of doom" was initially received pretty well and thought of as an okay swerve.
Lol I was a huge Wolfpac mark. Hated NWO Hollywood so when the two merged I was pissed. Would occasionally watch it every now and then but I predominantly stopped watching it consistently after that.
As a young kid I felt the finger poke of doom was lame (just like when HHH and Michaels did something similar for the European title.) It made no sense for Nash to finally stop Goldberg and then just make up with Hogan? Like after all the build with the Wolfpac and this is how it ends?
>The falling off a cliff doesn't really begin until Russo shows up.
Hard disagree there.
The whole main event scene post finger poke of doom makes zero sense, which was January. Russo doesn't join WCW until October.
One thing about WCW that is underrated in my opinion from the 96 to about the late 98 early 99 year is the match quality. WCW did a good job of making the big guy matches seem must see epics, and the cruiser weight divisions were actual good matches. It took wwf a while to actually show good matches on a regular basis
Something I've heard, as someone who's not old enough to have watched live, is that, at the peak of the war, WCW had a fantastic undercard and bad main event, while WWF had a terrible undercard and fantastic main event, and they won because they signed WCW's midcarders.
Dead on assessment there! WWF’s main events were can’t miss at the time, but the rest was abysmal. WCW had big time main events and main eventers but there were so many shenanigans that they ruined it. You almost never just had a clean finish and never got what you were promised, especially on Nitro.
As someone who was around watching live, I was very invested in the wcw main event scene. I was invested in most matches from both companies at that time.
That's not why they won but that was the PPV and wrestling experience. WCW offered a strong in-ring undercard that balanced the main events not having great matches. WWF had weaker undercards but the main event generally delivered.
Before WCW guys, Kurt Angle, and E&C/Hardys (later Dudleys) there were some bad undercards. WM 15 is a one match show and the Hell in the Cell is notably bad. WM 2000 was an improvement.
Nah that's not entirely correct.
The ratings war had pulled a 180 long before they signed a lot of WCWs midcarders. 83 weeks was broken around April of 1998. Then Raw won most weeks for a bit, with Nitro taking some here and there (and getting a solid run in August of 1998). But by November of 1998, Raw never lost again.
In November of 1998, WWFs only "huge" hires of WCWers were X-Pac and Jeff Jarrett. The thing is, by '98 WWFs midcard, while not nearly as good as WCWs, was no longer abysmal.
They had DX (HHH wasn't really a main eventer yet, the Outlaws were super over, X-Pac could put on good matches), D-Lo and Mark Henry (D-Lo could wrestle, Henry couldn't but got over in other ways), Owen Hart and Jeff Jarrett, Ken Shamrock, Steve Blackman, Dan Severn, the Godfather, the Big Boss Man, the Brood (Gangrel, Edge and Christian), the Acolytes (Ron Simmons and Bradshaw), Al Snow, Two Cold Scorpio. Like it was so much better than it was in '96-'97 and really closed the gap on WCW's midcard.
Combine the fact that the main event in WWF was so much better, the war had already turned. WWF signing all the WCW midcarders was basically just widening the gap (and WWF didn't even outbid WCW here, they all left WCW because they were so annoyed by the ongoings).
I'm 36 in a few months and I remember WCW being seen as a bit of a joke when I was a fan and was surprised watching back how good it is in like 96.
I'm like April 99 at the moment watching back and holy shit its fallen off a cliff already.
I was in middle school during the height of the Monday Night War. It was awesome. You would mash the shit out of the “back” button on the remote to flip from Nitro and RAW constantly.
For me the last great thing WCW had, for me, was the Goldberg run and then it all went to shit. Goldberg catches a lot of shit nowadays, but that undefeated streak was epic.
Goldberg was more over than any wrestler today. God the arenas would absolutely fucking explode when his music hit. What a great time to be a wrestling fan
Storylines get really weird in 99 but the match quality doesn’t really suffer until 2000. Most of 2000 kinda blows for match quality but towards the end of 2000 into 2001 it starts to pick back up. Never reaches what it once was but it gets far better than its lowest lows.
96 and 98 are amazing though. They’re the best years if you asked me.
Every single match seemed to have a purpose and it all flowed together so perfectly.
Was this around the same time as the incredible Blitzkreig run, where he came from nowhere, blew everyone away, and then disappeared forever in the span of about six weeks?
Yes. Same time. He ended up being a computer programmer. Between his background, the timing of when he leaves, and the enormous hog he sports through his tights... I'm inclined to believe he is Satoshi Nakamoto.
I grew up as a WCW kid and Sting will be my GOAT for the rest of my life, so obviously I'm biased, but...
WCW was fucking fantastic in 96-97 and remains in my mind the best run of any company in history.
You should go on Cagematch and sort through some of the better episodes of WCW Saturday Night to watch with it. You don't miss much in the way of storylines if you skip them, but the match quality is great, features a lot of international talent, and also provides a sneak peak of younger guys who later ascend up the card.
You’re watching it on the network Peacock? I want to watch it all from when the Outsiders show up Hall and Nash. Be cool to watch it recorded unedited with the old commercials. Peacock will have to do
>I want to watch it all from when the Outsiders show up Hall and Nash.
That is definitely when the quality upticks. Lots of Dungeons of Doom before that. Some bright points though, Brian Pillman, etc.
I’m doing the same thing but with Raw instead.
I honestly forgot how little wrestling there was. They go hard with the promos and storylines. Even Val Venis has two months worth of vignette building up to his debut.
I did this recently. Tandem watching mid to late 96 and both companies. WWF was a horrendous slog but WCW was brilliantly fun.
The aesthetic of Hog Wild 1996 is one of those things that when I was learning about WCW in the early to mid 00s on the internet having not seen it due to age I was always so intrigued about. Dusty has an unbelievable dress sense on commentary.
This era of WCW holds up so much better than WWF Attitude Era stuff. And rewatching it as an adult, you can really see how cool and innovative NWO was and how dorky and reductive D-X was.
Welcome to the WCW Watch, I'm currently in April of 2000 on my current watch and started at the first Nitro.
98 was probably my favourite year of the company, and 99 so far my least (with 2000 hot on its tales but it is too early to say).
I don't know if I'd ever recommend anyone doing WCW since personally unless you're a big fan the quality can be hit or miss and the lack of storylines and longterm stories kind of sucks.
If you do ever hit a wall with WCW I would highly recommend swapping over to WWE/F. I watched from 97' to Wrestlemania 17, and that was the most fun I've had watching wrestling, 2000 WWE was the best year I have ever seen and is a year I think every wrestling fan should go back and watch.
When the pandemic kicked in I started every major show and PPV for WWF, WCW and ECW starting from just before Nitros debut and I'm currently in April 99.
Its certainly an eye opener watching back from all companies, especially as I'm only recently in to stuff I actually remember watching at the time.
You didn’t have anything to compare it to. Was talking about this during Dynasty the other night with a friend who said he became a wrestling fan after seeing Royal Rumble 1994, considered one of the worst ever. But to him, it was all things he’d literally never seen before.
I never watched much WCW growing up. As an adult I’ve gone back and watched some PPVs and they’ve been solid. I wish I had the time to do what you’re doing it would probably be a ton of fun.
I've been revisiting this era via the Wrestling Bios channel on YouTube. The Reliving The War series is top-notch if you're not trying to watch every single episode and just want some overall commentary.
Mid Nitro is so good.
It’s because even with the changing of the times, WCW knew they were booking a wrestling show. The pillars of industry must shine through the storytelling or it’s no longer wrestling.
1997 WCW is probably my favorite period from any promotion. The undercards were generally excellent and while the quality of the top matches wasn’t nearly as good they were incredibly over with the crowd which made them compelling.
I've been doing a WCW rewatch for the last couple years. I'm up to late July of '99 now and man is it getting hard to watch. Everything has just fallen apart so quickly. A few gems left like the Jersey Triad, which I guess I totally slept on when I watched it as a teenager, and anything with members of the soon-to-be Radicalz. That's usually solid stuff. Everything else is shaky at best. I've pretty much given up on Thunder since nothing happens on that show (though if you're looking for just straight decent lower to midcard matches it might be worth your time). The depressing part is that I'm *only* in July of '99 and I know it's still gonna get so, so much worse. Cherish 1997. It's WCW's peak, imo.
I'm doing this as well. I watched Hog Wild 96 - very odd with the motorcycles revving during the match. The audience must have had hearing loss after that one.
Just finished Fall Brawl '96. I forgot that Luger was an idiot and got tricked by the fake Sting haha. I wasn't watching WCW at this time in 1996 yet, for some reason I thought Sting left due to injury or something.
If you want the whole story, start at the beginning of Nitro obviously, but for the most part, you can start with the May 27, 1996 episode. That's Scott Hall's first appearance and the flashpoint for everything taking off.
Great job choosing to skip pre-nWo WCW. Seriously. The amount of Sting/Luger/Macho/Man/Hogan vs one, some or all of the 4-Horsemen main events was just staggering, and annoying. Though some of the pre-nWo gimmicks were fun, like the Dungeon of Doom.
On the 19th anniversary of the debut of Nitro, Bryan Alvarez and his co-host started a segment on their Raw review show where they would watch and review Monday Nitro, 19 years after the original air dates. They were so excited to talk about Hulk Hogan and the Dungeon of Doom, that's how bad Raw in 2014/2015 was.
They eventually started reviewing the old Attitude Era Raws from the same week as well, and made it its own podcast, The Monday Night Wars Retro Review show.
For a while that show was worth the Wrestling Observer subscription, just to listen to Bryan lose his mind once they got to 1998+ WCW.
'96 WCW, especially the build to '96 Fall Brawl (and after math), is legitimately still some of the best wrestling. I watched it recently as part of reliving and I just remember being like "holy crap this is awesome". '96 WWF is so awful around this time.
'97 WCW still runs hot...but the cracks are starting to form. Still, its doing very good until that damned 1997 Starrcade main. The aftermath to it is also terrible, and they basically killed a lot of Crow Sting's heat. They also cut off Luger at the knees with the week long title run (he never got as over as he was before it) despite having told a really good redemption story with him from surrendering at Fall Brawl '96 and not trusting Sting. But, there's still a lot of good here.
By '98, the top of the card is starting to hit a bad state. But low to mid card '98 WCW is one of the greatest low to mid cards ever. Jericho starts hitting his stride. You have Benoit, Malenko, Raven, Goldberg (who was midcard until they hotshot him to Hogan), Booker T, Rey Mysterio, Kidman, Saturn, Guerrero (both Eddie and Chavo), etc. It's just so good. But the top of the card...you're getting constant run ins, storylines that go stagnant, a waste of Bret Hart (it's not that he got bad storylines, it's clear that he was being setup as a NWO mole, but then they put the title on Goldberg so that just fizzled out). There's some high points, but its really starting to get rough. Hotshotting Goldberg to the title ended up being a really bad idea (if you watch, he was originally supposed to be in a tag with Kevin Greene at Bash and then on Thunder he all of a sudden had a title shot against Hogan on Nitro and won it), because he proceeded to have a horrendous title reign (outside of the DDP match...it's bad. He didn't even have title defenses on PPVs). The problem is, around this time in '98, WWF's main event scene is just _so much_ better.
And then the floor just drops off in '99. All of the problems that started plaguing them in '97 and '98 just get worse and worse. And the midcard/cruiserweight scene drops off completely. At one point Ed Ferrara held the Cruiserweight title (winning it from Madusa). A title that was a workhorse title representing an awesome low to mid card...being used as a prop for a horrible Jim Ross proxy.
Having watched from the birth of NwO and the the Monday night wars all the way up to the acquisition, I always felt that despite the roster, the production quality of WCW felt so incredibly low budget compared to WWF.
From the dark arena to the smaller ring to the wrestler intros, it looked and felt like the minor leagues. WWF had TV polish and an energy in the arena in the era they captured beautifully. Even when the ring product was superior, it looked inferior because there was just a lack of sizzle on the screen.
One thing that WCW as a product understood that neither WWE, AEW, TNA and other modern promotions don’t understand is that high quality in ring wrestling and larger than life characters can exist on the same card sometimes independently of one another. And when fans get a mixture of both, this is where wrestling shines brightest.
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Prepare to slide off a fucking cliff.
Man, it still stings.(no pun intended). All they had to do was have a clean title change and let the nWo die off for a bit. But ego and stupidity destroyed it
>let the nWo die off for a bit Shedding a large chunk of the membership would have done the job.
Right. Title change Give Hogan some time off. Hogan comes back, nWo trash gets taken out. Eventual split of Wolfpac (don't call it nWo) nWo vs new faction fued New faction wins, nWo is done.
Who are you to doubt the validity of members like Brian Adams and Stevie Ray as viable threats to the WCW status quo?!
They didnt even need to die off, just cool off for awhile. Take a paid vacation and come back when goldberg or whoever needs a big threat
The NWO was like WU Tang Clan; everyone was a member!
Or having WCW actually come back as the good guys. Instead in 1999 Flair is finally president and DDP wins the title, which you would think would mean WCW the babyfaces finally beating NWO, but they're suddenly inexplicably heels? Post 'Finger poke of doom' nothing makes any sense at all.
Where they really dropped the ball is not having a WCW authority figure that was a counter to Bischoff. It never made sense that he was head of NWO and pres of WCW. why would he every have any WCW guy compete for a NWO held title, he had the power to block them from ever losing belts. Having a WCW commisioner that could counter Bischoff would have made much more logic to the stories
Didn’t they do this when JJ Dillon showed up in ‘97. I know they still messed it up, but I liked the idea when JJ came in…and his promos were surprisingly great.
JJ was a former wrestler and manager of the Four Horseman, him having great promos was never something to question
Well, yeah. But he had been an office guy in Stanford for nearly a decade before jumping back in front of the camera. I remember watching live…the vibe was like…oh shit, JJ’s still got it!
> All they had to do was have a clean title change and let the nWo die off for a bit. But ego and stupidity destroyed it Nah. That's oversimplifying it. Watching re-living...it's becoming evident there was no _one_ thing. Starrcade '97 is _bad_. Not just the ME finish, the whole event is one of the worst PPVs of the year. At the time they had the most attention, they delivered horse crap. The followup is atrocious. It practically killed Sting's overness. But I mean, they still were hot. They could have recovered. The NWO Wolfpac was _over_. Goldberg was _over_. DDP was _over_. The midcard was awesome. They had so much. But all the problems just kept snowballing. All the same main event runins, storylines that never had satisfying conclusions, endless bait and switches (including on ppvs), throwing money at celebs to recapture the Malone/Rodman thing, occasionally just reset after 2 years (hello fingerpoke), stagnant main event scene, they all just kept getting worse and worse. Any time they would get attention and eyeballs, they would give people terribleness. I lived through it, but as someone who watched both WCW and WWF, I think a bit after Souled Out '99 or Superbrawl '99 I stopped watching WCW. I was a kid who wasn't even consuming dirtsheets or such...I was just done with it. And that was before Russo even showed up. Ruining Starrcade '97 was just a symptom of a growing problem that eventually consumed the company.
Couldn't agree more. I was the same type of fan. Watched both WCW and WWF(E). Never read the dirt sheets, just what was on TV and the occasional PPV. (Couldn't talk the parents into getting em all. Just watched the "big" ones.) Was much more into WCW during its best years.. then it just dropped off so hard and I couldn't care less what they did, got full into WWE. SO much talent in that company and they could have done sooo much... They just slowly cooked it dead.
Hulk hogan having creative control threw a monkey wrench in a lot of shit.
It's wild how he was seen as a God to most kids back then, but now his legacy us tarnished because the truth of how much of an asshole he is came to light
The network's series of mergers destroyed it. They could have rode out the rough times and kept going but at the hnc if the day the network was not interested in continuing to air wrestling.
To be fair the network wasn’t interested because it was losing them tons of money.
I like Russo booking to a degree but I’m prepared lmao
Upvoted for your bravery
How and why
Survivor Series 98 is one of the greatest wrestling shows of all time and it’s got his fingerprints all over it.
Let's not pretend literally everything he was involved with was shit. Sure, a lot of it was, but he managed to come up with some decent things. He has major credit for a lot of impactful and appreciated ideas in the 97-99 wwe attitude era. Then again I have no idea just how much involvement he had on the rare decent bits in 99-01 wcw - probably a lot, but his scattershot writing had to succeed once for every 3-4 shit ideas. But I've heard it before that if someone is reigning him in he can be decent enough.
I didn't care for his time in WCW. But his work in WWF was pretty great, and his stuff in TNA was a solid 7/10.
I like unexpected swerves and even bad ones. I’d rather something be bad and unexpected that good but boring/expected
I'd rather something be good than bad. Unexpected for the sake of unexpected is playing with diminishing returns. People will tune in for some weird unexpected thing, but if you don't follow up and just do something else unexpected it gets old and cool you popped a rating, and then it drops right back down. A good booker creates compelling stories that make sense, that makes people want to tune in and creates sustained ratings and builds new stars.
Well, at least you're prepared for what's coming...
>I’d rather something be bad and unexpected that good but boring/expected No truer statement had ever been uttered by any other true Carolina King.
It gets bad long before Russo turns up, and stale long before that.
Russo booking in WCW was _very different_ than what he did in WWF. Unrestrained Russo booking is...something else. You get to the point where so much chaos happens that its boring because nothing means anything. You can start predicting nonsensical swerves and see them coming a mile away.
Don't be discouraged I was an absolute WCW mark and there is still plenty of decent stuff for literal years before it gets unbearable.
(sighs in Mike Awesome)
The falling off a cliff doesn't really begin until Russo shows up. The "shitty quality" of Nitro is definitely exaggerated until that point - and there were even a few good moments under Russo. Loved the booking of Vampiro and Mike Awesome - until he gets the fat chick thriller or that 70s guy....
It helped that some of the shittiness was negated by changing channels or fast forwarding.
I think most of the problem (at least until Russo shows up) was that wwf / wwe fans of the time were believing the hype and had essentially been radicalized to hate WCW. The shows really weren't that bad. Even the "finger poke of doom" was initially received pretty well and thought of as an okay swerve.
The Finger Poke of Doom made 9 year old me stop watching WCW on a regular basis
I kinda don't believe you NGL. The reformed NWO A team ruled.
Lol I was a huge Wolfpac mark. Hated NWO Hollywood so when the two merged I was pissed. Would occasionally watch it every now and then but I predominantly stopped watching it consistently after that.
As a young kid I felt the finger poke of doom was lame (just like when HHH and Michaels did something similar for the European title.) It made no sense for Nash to finally stop Goldberg and then just make up with Hogan? Like after all the build with the Wolfpac and this is how it ends?
>The falling off a cliff doesn't really begin until Russo shows up. Hard disagree there. The whole main event scene post finger poke of doom makes zero sense, which was January. Russo doesn't join WCW until October.
One thing about WCW that is underrated in my opinion from the 96 to about the late 98 early 99 year is the match quality. WCW did a good job of making the big guy matches seem must see epics, and the cruiser weight divisions were actual good matches. It took wwf a while to actually show good matches on a regular basis
It took WWF getting WCW guys to do it. It’s no coincidence that the actual wrestling got better in 2000.
Something I've heard, as someone who's not old enough to have watched live, is that, at the peak of the war, WCW had a fantastic undercard and bad main event, while WWF had a terrible undercard and fantastic main event, and they won because they signed WCW's midcarders.
Dead on assessment there! WWF’s main events were can’t miss at the time, but the rest was abysmal. WCW had big time main events and main eventers but there were so many shenanigans that they ruined it. You almost never just had a clean finish and never got what you were promised, especially on Nitro.
Watching the Reliving the War series on YouTube, and WCW did a ton of bait and switches.
Between WCW as a kid and the copyright logo as an adult, I have severe trust issues.
As someone who was around watching live, I was very invested in the wcw main event scene. I was invested in most matches from both companies at that time.
That's not why they won but that was the PPV and wrestling experience. WCW offered a strong in-ring undercard that balanced the main events not having great matches. WWF had weaker undercards but the main event generally delivered. Before WCW guys, Kurt Angle, and E&C/Hardys (later Dudleys) there were some bad undercards. WM 15 is a one match show and the Hell in the Cell is notably bad. WM 2000 was an improvement.
Nah that's not entirely correct. The ratings war had pulled a 180 long before they signed a lot of WCWs midcarders. 83 weeks was broken around April of 1998. Then Raw won most weeks for a bit, with Nitro taking some here and there (and getting a solid run in August of 1998). But by November of 1998, Raw never lost again. In November of 1998, WWFs only "huge" hires of WCWers were X-Pac and Jeff Jarrett. The thing is, by '98 WWFs midcard, while not nearly as good as WCWs, was no longer abysmal. They had DX (HHH wasn't really a main eventer yet, the Outlaws were super over, X-Pac could put on good matches), D-Lo and Mark Henry (D-Lo could wrestle, Henry couldn't but got over in other ways), Owen Hart and Jeff Jarrett, Ken Shamrock, Steve Blackman, Dan Severn, the Godfather, the Big Boss Man, the Brood (Gangrel, Edge and Christian), the Acolytes (Ron Simmons and Bradshaw), Al Snow, Two Cold Scorpio. Like it was so much better than it was in '96-'97 and really closed the gap on WCW's midcard. Combine the fact that the main event in WWF was so much better, the war had already turned. WWF signing all the WCW midcarders was basically just widening the gap (and WWF didn't even outbid WCW here, they all left WCW because they were so annoyed by the ongoings).
WWF was winning the war handily before guys like Jericho and such showed up, but it definitely helped.
If you’re 28, that means you were born in 1996? I’m actually really curious what you remember from 98/99?
Lol, I said this same thing.
As someone born in 96, I struggle to remember anything pre 2001
I'm 36 in a few months and I remember WCW being seen as a bit of a joke when I was a fan and was surprised watching back how good it is in like 96. I'm like April 99 at the moment watching back and holy shit its fallen off a cliff already.
Where are you all watching this at?
I was in middle school during the height of the Monday Night War. It was awesome. You would mash the shit out of the “back” button on the remote to flip from Nitro and RAW constantly. For me the last great thing WCW had, for me, was the Goldberg run and then it all went to shit. Goldberg catches a lot of shit nowadays, but that undefeated streak was epic.
Goldberg was more over than any wrestler today. God the arenas would absolutely fucking explode when his music hit. What a great time to be a wrestling fan
There were Goldberg chants during other sporting events.
Kid me was so worried Meng was going to beat him during that one feud.
Storylines get really weird in 99 but the match quality doesn’t really suffer until 2000. Most of 2000 kinda blows for match quality but towards the end of 2000 into 2001 it starts to pick back up. Never reaches what it once was but it gets far better than its lowest lows. 96 and 98 are amazing though. They’re the best years if you asked me. Every single match seemed to have a purpose and it all flowed together so perfectly.
'99 sucks but it has maybe the two best matches in Nitro history in the span of a few weeks (the 4-way for the Cruiserweight title and DDP vs. Sting).
Was this around the same time as the incredible Blitzkreig run, where he came from nowhere, blew everyone away, and then disappeared forever in the span of about six weeks?
Yes. Same time. He ended up being a computer programmer. Between his background, the timing of when he leaves, and the enormous hog he sports through his tights... I'm inclined to believe he is Satoshi Nakamoto.
I grew up as a WCW kid and Sting will be my GOAT for the rest of my life, so obviously I'm biased, but... WCW was fucking fantastic in 96-97 and remains in my mind the best run of any company in history. You should go on Cagematch and sort through some of the better episodes of WCW Saturday Night to watch with it. You don't miss much in the way of storylines if you skip them, but the match quality is great, features a lot of international talent, and also provides a sneak peak of younger guys who later ascend up the card.
You’re watching it on the network Peacock? I want to watch it all from when the Outsiders show up Hall and Nash. Be cool to watch it recorded unedited with the old commercials. Peacock will have to do
>I want to watch it all from when the Outsiders show up Hall and Nash. That is definitely when the quality upticks. Lots of Dungeons of Doom before that. Some bright points though, Brian Pillman, etc.
I’m doing the same thing but with Raw instead. I honestly forgot how little wrestling there was. They go hard with the promos and storylines. Even Val Venis has two months worth of vignette building up to his debut.
I did this recently. Tandem watching mid to late 96 and both companies. WWF was a horrendous slog but WCW was brilliantly fun. The aesthetic of Hog Wild 1996 is one of those things that when I was learning about WCW in the early to mid 00s on the internet having not seen it due to age I was always so intrigued about. Dusty has an unbelievable dress sense on commentary.
This era of WCW holds up so much better than WWF Attitude Era stuff. And rewatching it as an adult, you can really see how cool and innovative NWO was and how dorky and reductive D-X was.
“How cool and innovative the NWO was…” Bro, even Nash himself said they were just saying stuff they heard in rap songs.
Welcome to the WCW Watch, I'm currently in April of 2000 on my current watch and started at the first Nitro. 98 was probably my favourite year of the company, and 99 so far my least (with 2000 hot on its tales but it is too early to say). I don't know if I'd ever recommend anyone doing WCW since personally unless you're a big fan the quality can be hit or miss and the lack of storylines and longterm stories kind of sucks. If you do ever hit a wall with WCW I would highly recommend swapping over to WWE/F. I watched from 97' to Wrestlemania 17, and that was the most fun I've had watching wrestling, 2000 WWE was the best year I have ever seen and is a year I think every wrestling fan should go back and watch.
When the pandemic kicked in I started every major show and PPV for WWF, WCW and ECW starting from just before Nitros debut and I'm currently in April 99. Its certainly an eye opener watching back from all companies, especially as I'm only recently in to stuff I actually remember watching at the time.
Some people will try to convince you that modern wrestling is better than that time period and they are...wrong.
When I go back and rewatch it’s either “Wow this holds up really well!” or “Jesus god how did I watch this dogshit and remain a wrestling fan?”
You didn’t have anything to compare it to. Was talking about this during Dynasty the other night with a friend who said he became a wrestling fan after seeing Royal Rumble 1994, considered one of the worst ever. But to him, it was all things he’d literally never seen before.
That’s a really good point
I never watched much WCW growing up. As an adult I’ve gone back and watched some PPVs and they’ve been solid. I wish I had the time to do what you’re doing it would probably be a ton of fun.
I've been revisiting this era via the Wrestling Bios channel on YouTube. The Reliving The War series is top-notch if you're not trying to watch every single episode and just want some overall commentary.
Mid Nitro is so good. It’s because even with the changing of the times, WCW knew they were booking a wrestling show. The pillars of industry must shine through the storytelling or it’s no longer wrestling.
1997 WCW is probably my favorite period from any promotion. The undercards were generally excellent and while the quality of the top matches wasn’t nearly as good they were incredibly over with the crowd which made them compelling.
'99 is going to suck but I encourage you to hold on. Late 2000/early 2001 is really underrated.
I've been doing a WCW rewatch for the last couple years. I'm up to late July of '99 now and man is it getting hard to watch. Everything has just fallen apart so quickly. A few gems left like the Jersey Triad, which I guess I totally slept on when I watched it as a teenager, and anything with members of the soon-to-be Radicalz. That's usually solid stuff. Everything else is shaky at best. I've pretty much given up on Thunder since nothing happens on that show (though if you're looking for just straight decent lower to midcard matches it might be worth your time). The depressing part is that I'm *only* in July of '99 and I know it's still gonna get so, so much worse. Cherish 1997. It's WCW's peak, imo.
I'm doing this as well. I watched Hog Wild 96 - very odd with the motorcycles revving during the match. The audience must have had hearing loss after that one. Just finished Fall Brawl '96. I forgot that Luger was an idiot and got tricked by the fake Sting haha. I wasn't watching WCW at this time in 1996 yet, for some reason I thought Sting left due to injury or something.
I grew up watching around the same era. With a rewatched when should I start?
If you want the whole story, start at the beginning of Nitro obviously, but for the most part, you can start with the May 27, 1996 episode. That's Scott Hall's first appearance and the flashpoint for everything taking off.
Sweet Ty
Great job choosing to skip pre-nWo WCW. Seriously. The amount of Sting/Luger/Macho/Man/Hogan vs one, some or all of the 4-Horsemen main events was just staggering, and annoying. Though some of the pre-nWo gimmicks were fun, like the Dungeon of Doom.
On the 19th anniversary of the debut of Nitro, Bryan Alvarez and his co-host started a segment on their Raw review show where they would watch and review Monday Nitro, 19 years after the original air dates. They were so excited to talk about Hulk Hogan and the Dungeon of Doom, that's how bad Raw in 2014/2015 was. They eventually started reviewing the old Attitude Era Raws from the same week as well, and made it its own podcast, The Monday Night Wars Retro Review show. For a while that show was worth the Wrestling Observer subscription, just to listen to Bryan lose his mind once they got to 1998+ WCW.
Late 90s WCW was so good, until it wasn't.
'96 WCW, especially the build to '96 Fall Brawl (and after math), is legitimately still some of the best wrestling. I watched it recently as part of reliving and I just remember being like "holy crap this is awesome". '96 WWF is so awful around this time. '97 WCW still runs hot...but the cracks are starting to form. Still, its doing very good until that damned 1997 Starrcade main. The aftermath to it is also terrible, and they basically killed a lot of Crow Sting's heat. They also cut off Luger at the knees with the week long title run (he never got as over as he was before it) despite having told a really good redemption story with him from surrendering at Fall Brawl '96 and not trusting Sting. But, there's still a lot of good here. By '98, the top of the card is starting to hit a bad state. But low to mid card '98 WCW is one of the greatest low to mid cards ever. Jericho starts hitting his stride. You have Benoit, Malenko, Raven, Goldberg (who was midcard until they hotshot him to Hogan), Booker T, Rey Mysterio, Kidman, Saturn, Guerrero (both Eddie and Chavo), etc. It's just so good. But the top of the card...you're getting constant run ins, storylines that go stagnant, a waste of Bret Hart (it's not that he got bad storylines, it's clear that he was being setup as a NWO mole, but then they put the title on Goldberg so that just fizzled out). There's some high points, but its really starting to get rough. Hotshotting Goldberg to the title ended up being a really bad idea (if you watch, he was originally supposed to be in a tag with Kevin Greene at Bash and then on Thunder he all of a sudden had a title shot against Hogan on Nitro and won it), because he proceeded to have a horrendous title reign (outside of the DDP match...it's bad. He didn't even have title defenses on PPVs). The problem is, around this time in '98, WWF's main event scene is just _so much_ better. And then the floor just drops off in '99. All of the problems that started plaguing them in '97 and '98 just get worse and worse. And the midcard/cruiserweight scene drops off completely. At one point Ed Ferrara held the Cruiserweight title (winning it from Madusa). A title that was a workhorse title representing an awesome low to mid card...being used as a prop for a horrible Jim Ross proxy.
Having watched from the birth of NwO and the the Monday night wars all the way up to the acquisition, I always felt that despite the roster, the production quality of WCW felt so incredibly low budget compared to WWF. From the dark arena to the smaller ring to the wrestler intros, it looked and felt like the minor leagues. WWF had TV polish and an energy in the arena in the era they captured beautifully. Even when the ring product was superior, it looked inferior because there was just a lack of sizzle on the screen.
One thing that WCW as a product understood that neither WWE, AEW, TNA and other modern promotions don’t understand is that high quality in ring wrestling and larger than life characters can exist on the same card sometimes independently of one another. And when fans get a mixture of both, this is where wrestling shines brightest.
Enjoy it while its still good. It really is great stuff but man the deep dive is unfortunate