Could ECW talent have given WCW a needed boost just before it folded?

[Vader]

The WCW roster in it's last years looked still seemed very top heavy. They were making poor attempts to recreate the Attitude era, but weren't doing any of note story line wise. WCW had a great deal of seasoned established talent, but the malingering of these top guys for so long in the late 90s had led most of the viable younger wrestlers like Jericho, Benoit, and Guerrero to jump ship to the WWF.

Could the WCW had won over more viable ECW talent (not Mike Awesome) and energized the upper mid card level young talent?

I could have easily seen the Sandman working against the Powers that Be angle they were running and feuding with Jarrett and the establishment. Instead WCW put him in the hardcore division and never gave him much of a push. Sandman and Flair would have worked as well.

RVD could have worked with Sting and put on some great matches.

Sabu always put on great matches.

 

[Just Do It]

RVD and Sabu (and alleged to some Joey Styles) were all due to enter WCW towards the very end...

 

[FromGlasgow]

I think it would of worked really well combining WCW and ECW as both ended around a similar time with Paul Heyman booking and RVD seemed one of the most over wrestlers during that time would loved to have seen sort of a WCW vs ECW type feud instead of everyone ending up in the WWE plus the addition of a lot of newer talent from the independants that was coming up during that time like AJ Styles, Chris Daniels, Bobby Roode, James Storm, Samoa Joe, Daniel Bryan, CM Punk etc would have made an excellent company and at least an alternative to compete with the WWE on a more equal level.

 

[MINISTRYrising]

I think it could have working quite well and injected some much needed youth to the aging roster. RVD and Rhino could have helped rejuvenate the main event scene. while guys such as jerry Lynn and steve corino could have added some depth to the midcard. the hardcore division would have flourished with guys like Sabu, Tommy Dreamer and the Sandman joining the roster and with teams like Danny Doring/Roadkill and the FBI coming in the Tag team Division could have become relevant again. Then theres the Cruiserweight division, Which had gone down hill fast. guys such as Tajiri could have helped turn things around and helped rebuild the division from the ground up.

 

[vampxx24]

wcw already took about half of the ecw roster. the remaining few stayed to the end to be loyal. by the time ecw died, it was already too late for wcw.

as said, sabu and rvd were supposed to be wcw bound. Bishoff was shopping wcw around before the demise. if you watch the final ppv and the nitro before, they call what was to be the final nitro a season finale. a few weeks later it was changed to series finale. FOX was in the lead to pick up wcw but as bishoff says by the time he could of got everything together it was too late. rvd sabu and a few other names were supposed to debut on the re debut of wcw under fox or another network

 

[Jack-Hammer]

Even if they had managed to come to WCW before it folded, I doubt that RVD, Sabu, Dreamer, or really anyone else would've made much of a difference.

To me, the problem generally wasn't so much that WCW was going about trying to copy WWE's Attitude Era, it's just that the guy they had running things the past 1.5 years killed the quality of the product. All the best wrestling talent in the world doesn't mean a damn thing if they're handed one pile of garbage after another guy creative and management.

Besides that, you also had the mentality of guys like Hogan, Nash, Bischoff, etc. to contend with. WCW didn't really build new stars; they provided a showcase for us as fans to be introduced to guys like Mysterio, Benoit, Jericho, Guerrero and a few others but those guys were all genuinely held back. I think Kevin Nash's favorite term to describe them was "vanilla midgets." I see no reason to think that RVD, Sabu or most others from ECW would have been treated any better. In terms of personality, ECW's biggest asset was Raven and he had limited success. He had a 1 day run as WCW United States Heavyweight Champion back in April '97 before dropping it to Goldberg and a 22 day run as tag team champions with Perry Saturn in May '99.

In my opinion, WCW made a variety of wrong choices that ultimately came back to haunt them. Chief among them was not really building any young talent, so couple that with the terrible quality of the product it had the last few years of its existence and I think you have a sinking ship that nothing could save.

 

[boozinjedi]

Does the phrase..Re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic...ring a bell??
Bischoff made so many bad decisions that even an infusion of ECW talent wouldn't have helped much.

 

[CobraStarship]

i kinda wish Bischoff/Heyman worked together and got an ECW/WCW merger going

imagine the talent on that roster.....

 

[rmp0012002]

No. The problem wasn't the talent but the poor booking and the egos of the people doing the booking. Example, RVD comes over but has to job to David Arquette. That doesn't really make your promotion stronger does it.

 

[Vader]

Even if they had managed to come to WCW before it folded, I doubt that RVD, Sabu, Dreamer, or really anyone else would've made much of a difference.

To me, the problem generally wasn't so much that WCW was going about trying to copy WWE's Attitude Era, it's just that the guy they had running things the past 1.5 years killed the quality of the product. All the best wrestling talent in the world doesn't mean a damn thing if they're handed one pile of garbage after another guy creative and management.

Besides that, you also had the mentality of guys like Hogan, Nash, Bischoff, etc. to contend with. WCW didn't really build new stars; they provided a showcase for us as fans to be introduced to guys like Mysterio, Benoit, Jericho, Guerrero and a few others but those guys were all genuinely held back. I think Kevin Nash's favorite term to describe them was "vanilla midgets." I see no reason to think that RVD, Sabu or most others from ECW would have been treated any better. In terms of personality, ECW's biggest asset was Raven and he had limited success. He had a 1 day run as WCW United States Heavyweight Champion back in April '97 before dropping it to Goldberg and a 22 day run as tag team champions with Perry Saturn in May '99.

In my opinion, WCW made a variety of wrong choices that ultimately came back to haunt them. Chief among them was not really building any young talent, so couple that with the terrible quality of the product it had the last few years of its existence and I think you have a sinking ship that nothing could save.

They had the younger talent in guys like Benoit, Jericho, and Guerrero they just kept them in the midcard spot far too long. Unfortunately, from 1999 until they folded they needed another resurgence of younger guys. By that time, all the good wrestlers had left for green pastures.