April 10 2010: The 10 yr Anniv. of WCW's last great angle.

[KillBill]

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Unfortunately, I wont be around tomm, thats why I posted today. April 4, 2000. Boy do I wish I could go back to then, but who doesn't lol. Anyways, I remember watching this my last semester in highschool, And it got me really excited again for WCW on top of all the obvious exciting things obviously going on for me at this time.

The New Blood angle. Where do we start? This had the potential to be really good. You had Vince Russo showing his mug on TV for the 1st time, and does a "shoot", by mentioning how the young guys have been held down. Then Bischoff returns, and shockingly, they join together. So starts the New Blood vs Millionares Club. Basically, almost the entire roster vs. Sting, Luger, Hogan, DDP, Flair, Sid etc.

This monday I remember because all the young stars took on the older guys. Like guys you would never expect to be huge stars went after the big stars. The big fued was Kidman vs Hogan. Yes, let me say that again. BILLY F'IN KIDMAN vs Hulk Hogan. People can say all they want about Hogan not putting people over, but this is one of those times he tried. Another fued was "Franchise" Shane Douglas vs Ric Flair, and Jarrett vs DDP. These all started out really good, but just fizzled out after a short time. All the titles were declared vacant, and the young and old guys were given there fair shots on the titles. This angle went on for a few months, with some insane moments like the return of Savage, Hart, and a heel Goldberg, which was a failure. However, this Angle made some big stars, like Scoot Stiener, Jarrett, and Booker T finally reaching WCW ME status and winning world titles. However, eventually the Angle just fizzled out.

I don't want to go into details, there was so much going on, it was crazy. This Nitro also had the debuts of Shawn Stasiak, attacking Henning, Lance Storm, and Mike Awesome, who was the current ECW Champion at the time attacking Nash, which was absolutely shocking. This show had so many twists and turns, it was complete Chaos.

I wanted to get your thoughts on this angle, and that Monday Night Nitro in general. It may have been one of the most exciting and crazy shows in a long time, i was constantly marking out and having holy shit moments, I loved it. As far as the NB vs MC, it was good for a short period of time, but I think the problem was that there was too many guys trying to take out the old guys, so some younger guys, Like the MIA jumped to the Millionaire side. There also weren't a ton of guys who were ready for that spotlight. Notice how most of the Millionares are still around today. Look at the New Blood, how many of them are relevant? I think it was too much too fast, coupled with the things i mentioned that led to the downfall of this angle.

Thoughts?

PS> If anybody hasn't seen this episode, I suggest you check it out youtube. Its crazy!

 

[The Scarred One]

Long before Batman Begins and Casino Royale, WCW attempted a reboot with this angle.

I remember the weeks leading up to this "reboot" in which people were talking about how Eric Bischoff, with his business savvy, and Vince Russo, with his alleged creative genius, by working together could help revive WCW in wake of the WWE juggernaut.

It worked...for a while. But after the shock appeal wore off, it pretty muched sealed WCW's doom.

The angle tried to place emphasis on the New Blood as faces to get them over for younger fans by pitting them against the Millionaire's Club. The emphasis on the New Blood in the beginning was due to WWE's knack of creating new and younger stars rather than relying heavily on already established veterans as WCW had always done.

But the fans got behind the Millionaire's Club instead of the New Blood due to the likes of Hogan, Flair and Sting being involved as well as more heels than faces making up the New Blood.

In addition, there was so much chaos going on that I think the fans got confused as to what was going on. At the same time, the differing viewpoints of Bischoff and Russo also contributed to the angle's failure because Bischoff supported the veterans more than the younger guys while Russo did the opposite.

It did work out somewhat by allowing guys like Jarrett, Booker, Mysterio and Steiner the chance to break through and become major players, but the angle overall failed because other members of the New Blood tried and failed to break through hoping to achieve similar success.

It was a desperate attempt to attack the WWE that was done too little too late. Once the angle fizzled out, the end was near for WCW.

 

[matt_hud]

Gret Post and I agree that this angle had it been properly executed could have saved wCw...

The Natural Born Thrillers were key shortly after this time also and that group had so much potential, now with the occaisional Chuck Pulumbo sighting none of them are around anymore... Why Not???

 

[Ezekyo]

I remember I'd missed this particular episode, when a friend of mine told me how WCW was completely different now. So that was intriguing enough for me to tune in, and I gotta say, it really did feel like a whole other show, and I actually believed for a moment that they were on the verge of upstaging the WWF.

But before I know it, WCW is blatantly ripping off the WWF's gimmicks, doing too many worked shoots, and had so much going on that Wrestlecrap would have endless amounts of material to work with. It was clear that WCW was desperate. The thing I particularly hated were the worked shoots; although the cat's long been out of the bag that "wrestling is fake", not everyone knew the inside of the business, the insider terms or any of that stuff. I feel it confused a lot of casual fans, and kind of killed the mystique of pro wrestling being larger than life, with them continuously exposing things, throwing matches, referring to each other by their real names, etc.

It kind of became what WCW was known for after a while, and just like The Scarred One said, as soon as the shock value wore off, they were screwed. They started becoming a one trick pony, and they made themselves easy pickings for Vince. Not to mention, TNT was allegedly looking for any and every excuse for WCW Nitro to fail, but that's another story...

 

[Maikeru_1979]

i was in school(college) when this episode first aired. after watching it. you can see that they were serious about making it more about the new guys; think this started just after Eric started looking for financial backers to buy WCW but after AOLTW pulled the time slots for Nitro and Thunder they just gave up and tried to show how good everyone was so that at the end everyone could go and find work with other companies.

 

[koolaidx]

Rewatching this I can barely remember who half of the guys in the New Blood are. But one stands out for me other than for the face paint. I marked out to Vampiro everytime I saw him. I thought his feud with Sting was amazing and wish he would have gotten a huge push with this.

 

[WCW_Sting]

"Whatsa matter, Sid? Can't find your scissors?!" Hahaha! I can't believe he said that! I was always a huge WCW fan, and I remember this period of time very well...although, during this time, I missed a lot of wrestling. I was in 7th grade, it was spring/summer time, and I had baseball games on Mondays, so I missed a great deal of this angle. Back then I wouldn't have even known what "can't find your scissors" meant (and if you don't know what it means, I suggest you look it up).

You call it "WCW's last great angle," and I probably missed too much of it to even have an opinion one way or the other. I vaguely remember Kidman vs. Hogan. But I do remember thinking it was really odd that Scott Steiner, Jeff Jarrett, and Marcus Bagwell were apart of the New Blood when they had all been wrestling for nearly 10-15 years!

When I think of WCW, I think of the early 90s when I first started watching wrestling...so many great singles stars and great tag teams (my favorite era of tag team wrestling...screw the Attitude Era tag teams!...only partially kidding, as I thoroughly enjoyed it). When I think of WCW, I think of 1996-1998. I think of the New World Order, I think of Sting, I think of the up and coming Booker T., I think of the luchadores, I think of Diamond Dallas Page, I think of the undefeated Bill Goldberg!

To me, this just isn't WCW. Don't get me wrong, I strongly believe if AOL Time Warner had let Bischoff run the company the way he wanted to, WCW would still be here today, and this New Blood angle could very well have been the beginning of something great. Sadly, it wasn't, as WCW is gone, and unfortunately, looked down upon and insulted by many. Sure, there were many problems behind the scenes other than AOL Time Warner, but those problems could have been corrected. Too little too late, I guess.

At least we have DVDs and YouTube to remember!

 

[KillBill]

But I do remember thinking it was really odd that Scott Steiner, Jeff Jarrett, and Marcus Bagwell were apart of the New Blood when they had all been wrestling for nearly 10-15 years!

That was the point. They had been wrestling forever, yet, they never got their "shot". Steiner was only a singles wrestler for about 2 yrs at that point, Buff Daddy was actually only like 28 at the time, but was in mostly tag teams til he joined NWO, and Jarrett was in his early 30's.

At least we have DVDs and YouTube to remember!

I actually watched the Raw when Vince bought WCW last night. He said that he'd " love watching those old videos, clicking back and forth, watching Hogan do that Rediculous, whatever he does" while hulking up. It was pretty funny.

 

[Steamboat Ricky]

I don't understand the appeal of the "new guys v. old guys" angle. I mean, in essence...all that it really does is elevate the guys who are already on top and further etch the "new guys" as second-class people.

I mean, who are the guys that were established through this angle?

-Steiner. He's won one world championship. It was a good reign, but he's been upper-midcard ever since.

-Booker T. He was a success. The only and only, in my opinion.

-Jeff Jarrett. He wouldn't have won another single world title in his career if he would have gone to WWF after WCW collapsed.

-I could be forgetting people.


Bottom line: WCW went out of business soon after this angle, and a similar angle occurred in TNA recently. And TNA isn't anything to write home about.

 

[PsychoBlack]

alot of the feuds just made no sense

why have hogan feud with billy kidman and put on shit matches for about a mmonth or so when you could have had him feud with steiner or jarret and they could carry him

they didnt have the top guys going against other top guys (although sting vs vampiro was great) and like so many other guys in this thread alot of these dudes never became anything(chris candido crowbar the wall mark jindrak thats only a few)

another thing was that alot of the new blood was fuckin old(jarret the steiner brothers brett hartbam bam bigelow booker T Juventud Mysterio) it made the sides seem uneven the new blood had to outnumber the millionaires club at least 2 to 1

this angle could have been great if the sides were divided up somewhat more equally and the right talent was pushed during this

 

[MrHashasheen]

I never understood the point of this storyline or why it went on for so long. Between Bischoff and Russo's arguing, the various heel face and face heel turns and all the ridiculous match-ups, I just went to WWF for Attitude.