WCW Hotline

[J.J.]

Anybody remember the old WCW Hotline with Mean Gene? This is the closes thing you got to social media during that time. I used to remember seeing the 1900-909-9900 number. I'm sure it's advertised on some of the old WCW PPVs on the Network. Basically it was supposed to be a 'insiders' hotline in which Mean Gene would give backstage rumors.

I remember the old WCW website used to have archives of this but who knows where that is now. Was a good way for Mean Gene to get extra money because he got 75% of the revenue.

 

[aaronmb]

Never actually called, but yeah, they were very teasey. Before I had a computer/internet, Id go to the library and check out some sites, though most of it was just BS. I went on youtube and some of the things are obvious, like the two wwf guys that were coming over, aka, hall and nash.

 

[James]

The best part about the wCw hotline was when MG said that a former wCe champion died and everyone called in thinking it was Flair. They racked up tons of money because people were legit worried and with it being such a hoot, they apologized

And of course J. R. made fun of them for it.

 

[Azane]

when WCW Was in it's try hard stage, it had the hotline, and they used to book the night after PPVs to not showcase anyone from the PPV and intentionally "WE CANT TELL YOU WHAT HAPPENED, YOU WOULDNT BELIEVE IT!", CALL THE HOTLINE TO FIND OUT!.

I rewatched the first few months of Nitro and stuff like that is so cheesy that it's painful to watch nowadays.

They switched to mostly doing WWF Dirt Sheets and trying to kill their product, funny story, it made people watch WWF instead, once they found out that dirt sheets could make some of the product more entertaining.

I feel like the angry parents pissed off about their kids calling 900 numbers probably got more backlash than the money they made off it was worth.

 

[TEIWCSCSAATBHPHASP]

There was once a rumor in which Randy Savage was set to go back to the WWF in late 1996 once his initial WCW contract signed from the end of 1994 was set to expire. That's why the bookers had Savage (a Team WCW face) constantly get beaten down by the nWo, whether it'd be Hollywood Hogan, Scott Hall, Kevin Nash and The Giant up until Halloween Havoc '96.

That's when WCW had Roddy Piper as their backup plan in case Randy Savage decided to rejoin the WWF, given that Vince McMahon's New Generation Era had failed with Bret Hart, Kevin Nash and Shawn Michaels as their top draws, plus Savage would've developed a proven track record as the WWF's top draw on his resume.

Also, Bret was supposed to be going to WCW because they were gonna give the Hogan role in the nWo to Bret if he joined them. But once Bret eventually reupped with the WWF by Survivor Series '96, he had an epic feud with Steve Austin, Shawn Michaels and The Undertaker,...until his 20 year contract became an issue, when Vince realized that the WWF was losing money because he was spending more money on Bret than Bret was drawing butts in the seats, largely because Bret's a total boring hack and he's not a megastar on the level of Hogan, Savage, Austin and Rock.

WWF was legitimately in near financial peril at the time, because then Vince would've had Austin, Undertaker and Michaels demanding the exact same contract as Bret, so the easy way for the WWF would be to deliberately breach Bret's 20 year contract and convince the guy to revisit talks with WCW as 1997 was almost coming to a close, plus Bret just turned 40 years old, while Shawn (even though he's only 32) still had plenty of good years left in the tank with the proper booking, so it was easier for Vince to go with the younger model than the aging veteran who is to be put out to pasture by Survivor Series '97 in Montreal.

Face it, 1996 was also the year when Bret was physically past his prime and his body was starting to break down as being active non-stop for virtually his whole wrestling career took its toll on especially his knees. He would eventually miss only three weeks for knee surgery in 1997 after IYH:Revenge of the Taker, but how long can Bret physically hold up if he can't be at the same physical peak level he was from 1984-1995?

 

[ServantofTwilight]

Ah the 80s/early90s where everything and everyone had a 1-900 number. We had Kiss, Freddy Kruger, Dion Warwick, insults, jokes and of course MTV( who I once called ). And of course the WCW Hotline. The commercials were way over the top as stars like Lex Lugar and Sting would act surprised with what they were hearing. Good times.

I remember the Ric Flair scare. If memory serves the Hotline kept claimimg that a former world champ had recently died. This was right around the time that Flair had been gone after losing the retirement match to Hogan at Halloween Havoc. People thought Flair had died, but in reality they were reffering to the passing of Jerry Blackwell, a former AWA World Tag Team Champion. They caught a lot of heat for that.

 

[GhettoV1]

Forgot about the party chat and porn 900 numbers and even ECW had a 900 number as well.