4842 on 6-27-11

[Big Nick Dudley]

I voted for Hogan at Bast at the Beach '96, but I'm not 100%. I think Montreal would have been about equal.


EDIT: I didn't see the option for Owen Hart dying. Would easily take the #1 spot. Do you have any idea how many morons would wonder if it had been a work? They would question it, I have no doubt about it.

 

[klunderbunker]

Why would it be Vince on Nitro? No one was watching the show.

 

[Big Nick Dudley]

Why would it be Vince on Nitro? No one was watching the show.

If people were using the internet then like they are now, I think it would be a big deal. The IWC being the way it is? I agree with Shattered that it would be a big deal, but it's not number one on this list.

 

[Blue Chipper]

I voted for Hogan at Bast at the Beach '96, but I'm not 100%. I think Montreal would have been about equal.


EDIT: I didn't see the option for Owen Hart dying. Would easily take the #1 spot. Do you have any idea how many morons would wonder if it had been a work? They would question it, I have no doubt about it.

It was a work. Also, Earth is flat.

 

[Pay Per Ghost]

I'm leaning with the Montreal Screwjob. The hogan thin was big, but everyone knew something big was going to happen. The Screwjob just came out of nowhere. I was around on the net back then and it was pretty damn nasty.

You were?

Explain the aftermath and stuff.

 

[Davi323]

I am going to go with Vince purchasing Nitro, for a couple of reasons:

First, the overall wrestling audience was larger then, which means more people watching, which means more people that not only watch, but also are members of Wrestlezone. It stands to reason. Larger audience means a larger pool of potential Wrestlezone members willing to hop online and talk about it...

Secondly, in addition to the logical Wrestlezone membership size increase, while Nitro was getting poorer ratings at that time then they had been, overall, the final Nitro scored a 3.0, which means that even with it's poor ratings, it was still getting almost as many viewers as RAW does now. Now, combine that with the 4.7 Raw received, and that's a combined 7.7 Nielsen rating. A LOT of people were watching wrestling on March 26, 2001.

http://www.twnpnews.com/information/WCW/wcwnitro.shtml
http://www.2xzone.com/ratings/rawhistory.shtml

Thirdly, and this is the most important part, I think: Once we have figured out that the wrestling audience was much larger, which would have meant a much larger Wrestlezone membership, you also have to consider that Vince buying WCW (didn't he appear on the Nitro-tron or whatever it was called, so technically he did appear???) it affected TWO wrestling companies. It would have been something that would want to be talked about by both WWF and WCW fans. Most WWE fans today don't care about what TNA does, and a lot of TNA fans don't care what the WWE does. But, Vince buying WCW was very relevant to both fanbases, and would have gotten both fanbases talking about it. That would have increased the Wrestlezone traffic even more than just wrestling being overall more popular. Vince buying WCW was important to the entire wrestling world, not just the fans of one of the organizations.

And finally, there is a significant amount of discussion that would have been generated because of the wide variety of potential topics involved with one wrestling company taking over it's main rival. What happens to the WCW wrestlers? While Nitro be on the next week? Is Vince going to run them both? Is Shane really going to be in charge, and so on and so forth. There are hundreds of threads that could have been spawned.

 

[Hulk Hogan's Brother]

Owen's death, most definately. The idiots would have creamed all over the place claiming that Vince did this to get back at Bret. Also, someone dying in the ring is a HUGE thing, much bigger than any twists in a storyline, no matter how major they are.

I'd also add the day Foley won the title and the fingerpoke of doom happened.

The screwjob, I don't quite know. I do not think most people would have been able to get it on the night itself. It became a bigger deal in the succeeding weeks when more facts became known to us. I think that it would have drawn a ton of people on the forums the next week with Rick Rude appearing on both Raw and Nitro and HBK's promo about beating Hart with his own move.

 

[Stormtrooper]

I think it's the Montreal Screwjob.

The way I see it is that a lot of members would be on already for the Survivor Series LD. Plus the draw of the whole issue with Bret leaving would draw in more new people. Then the second the screwjob happened, people would run on here.

With Hogan turning, there's a good chance that it would have been leaked or rumored, lowering the shock value. The whole Bret leaving would have been known, but nobody on earth knew how it would go down. Hence why they'd watch to see it happen, LD to talk about it, then talk about what happened after the fact.

 

[Shocky]

You were?

Explain the aftermath and stuff.

It was just complete fucking chaos. Survivor Series was one of 3 WWF pay per views I missed that year. I got online the next day and read the results and went to the forum I usually went to at the time. No one knew what the hell was going on.

I was more of a Michaels fan then a Hart fan, but as details came out, most people began to side with Hart. You had so much shit going on. You had the whole Bret leaving. You had Michaels winning the championship. You had the screwjob. Then you had all of these reports coming out of wrestlers legit pissed with the company. I seem to remember reading Foley and Vader quitting the WWF (obviously didn't happen). Everyone was wondering if Hart would show up on WCW the next night. Then you had Rick Rude show up on Nitro while also being on Raw at the same time and dropping one of the better semi-shoots in history (honestly, Rick Rude doesn't get enough credit for being a stand up guy). Then you have Neidhart and the Bulldog defecting. You also had the WWF and WCW teasing Bret Hart appearances.

As a WWF guy (I loved WCW during that time) it really felt like doom and gloom. During that next month the WWF hit it's lowest point. Shawn Michaels and Triple H began to take over Raw, Degeneration X was probably the worst pay per view the WWF put on during that time. All of this was happening while WCW was white hot. As a WWF fan, a lot of us thought the company was going to die at that point. Then we all know what happened with Tyson and Austin.

But yes, the Screwjob was a huge fucking deal, especially with all of the seismic shift surrounding it. Tons of fallout that would have kept this board buzzing like crazy.

[YOUTUBE]j249kqOsWTM[/YOUTUBE]

 

[Pay Per Ghost]

Riveting. Did the majority know Bret was leaving?


Did noone sympathize with VKM's position? How big was IWC then?

 

[Shocky]

The news broke out between Bad Blood and Survivor Series that something was going on with Bret Hart. Most of us thought him going to WCW was legit. As I said before, I was more of an HBK fan and was pissed Hart would do that to WCW (we didn't know that Vince was pushing for it). The Screwjob though caught everyone by surprise and VKM didn't get too much love.

And it was there, just not as big. You didn't have these massive sites with their forums at the time. It was mostly just chance encounters with people and getting invited to their private message boards.

 

[Pay Per Ghost]

Oh I'm not done with you. I find all this very interesting. I have always wondered what the IWC must've been like then.



One thing I always wanted to know is, what kinda impact did net fans play then. How much inside news was blurted on air to pander to the smarkies? I heard Shawn would do that often. Did smarks have words like spot-monkies then?

 

[Steve0904]

I went with the Montreal Screwjob.

Hogan turning heel jumped out at me, and I know it was a huge thing (that may even be an understatement) but characters do turn heel. Big or small it has happened once and it will happen again. However the screwjob was just that. And nobody really thought that would happen. I think people would've been outraged.