WCW mid to late 2000 wasn't that bad actually

[relentless1]

Re watching all Nitros and I will be the first to admit that up until Bash at the Beach WCW in the year 2000 was HORRIBLE; uninspired angles and nonsensical ones not to mention the hot shotting of the World Title; 8 different guys in a month is terrible by any standards.

On the other hand, after bash when you've replaced Hogan and Luger and DDP and Flair in the top spots with Steiner, Goldberg and Booker T the promise really starts to show, I dont know why they didn't push these guys sooner, perhaps if they had WCW would've been in a better position and could've staved off cancellation; who knows. Now theres still a lot of shit to get through like Russo coming back and getting the WCW title and the nonsensical nWo rehash but underneath all of that they had madman Steiner, fighting champ Booker and unstoppable Goldberg along with Nash and his cool factor and workers like Lance Storm, Mike Awesome, Jarrett, Douglas along with good acts like Kronik I think WCW had a real shot at becoming viable again, does anybody else agree with me here??

 

[therockiswwf]

Oh don't you dare.

Let's start with something simple. Picked a random Nitro review from KB after Bash at the Beach. July 31, 2000 Nitro. KB put this as his overall review of the show:

If Sting being burned alive not closing the show isn’t enough to sum this show up, I don’t think anything is going to. You couple that with the Viagra on a pole match and a food fight between the women and it’s clear that Russo is back at his Russoiest. There’s just too much stuff going on here and little of it is worth seeing. One of the few things that was worth seeing was Lance Storm but Nash literally threw him out of the way so we could set up a straitjacket match as part of the reality angle that the world is clamoring for. There’s your latest reason why WCW has less than eight months to go.

Kronik was not a good act. Mike Awesome was booked bizarrely. Russo won the world title BECAUSE HE IS A SUPER MANLY MAN, they still rely on old guys, Harris Twins, matches making no sense, rules not mattering, try to sit through the booking for Starrcade (you can't), the four corners box match, and I could go on.

Nash clearly gave no fucks during this time. He even did a promo once where he pretty much said I have better things to do but I guess I have to be on Nitro. Piper said it best. They kept saying we need to put over young guys and move out of the way. However, we never did because there was no one to put over. They didn't build anyone up. They didn't try. WCW was doing what TNA did. Kept using old guys, replacing them with old, less over guys as they left and never bothered to try and replenish their midcard.

Russo sucked in TNA. Russo sucked in WCW. Russo sucked in WWE but he had Austin, Rock, HHH and others that helped make his shit look good.

One of the worst things about WCW towards the end was that they were spectacularly boring. The storylines were either confusing or boring. Matches were largely boring. Very few redeeming qualities.

WCW needed everyone in the back to be gone. Completely retool their management. That was the only way they had any shot.

 

[relentless1]

I agree with all that, they needed to get rid of Russo permanently in January. But you cant deny they had great talent in Booker, Goldberg, Steiner, Awesome, Storm, Jarrett, Sting, Mysterio, Douglas, DDP, Kanyon, Bigelow. Hell; most of the Natural Born Thrillers just needed time to grow personalities and they couldve been viable also. Problem was Russos booking throughout it all, had they just let it grow naturally all of those guys would've shone much brighter that year, they wouldn't have been able to overtake WWF but they couldve been viewed in a much better light than they were.

This is what I mean when I say the year wasn't as bad as remembered; there was moments of greatness; Lance Storms rise, Bookers World title run, Steiners insanity, Golbergs ruthless streak couldve flourished if Russo hadnt been around to ruin the execution of the storylines these fellas were involved in that latter half of the year.

 

[stingray11214]

Re watching all Nitros and I will be the first to admit that up until Bash at the Beach WCW in the year 2000 was HORRIBLE; uninspired angles and nonsensical ones not to mention the hot shotting of the World Title; 8 different guys in a month is terrible by any standards.

On the other hand, after bash when you've replaced Hogan and Luger and DDP and Flair in the top spots with Steiner, Goldberg and Booker T the promise really starts to show, I dont know why they didn't push these guys sooner, perhaps if they had WCW would've been in a better position and could've staved off cancellation; who knows. Now theres still a lot of shit to get through like Russo coming back and getting the WCW title and the nonsensical nWo rehash but underneath all of that they had madman Steiner, fighting champ Booker and unstoppable Goldberg along with Nash and his cool factor and workers like Lance Storm, Mike Awesome, Jarrett, Douglas along with good acts like Kronik I think WCW had a real shot at becoming viable again, does anybody else agree with me here??

No. Just no. The reason they couldn't is that the back was so toxic with politicking that you could not get ANY fresh face over. The other reason is that they had all these "safe harbor" contracts that made people that did not deserve it the highest rates in the company. You could not cut the paycheck of a Kevin Nash or a Hulk Hogan if you tried. WCW was almost as bad as ECW when it came to payroll. They actually paid the Iron Sheik $100,000 to stay home. Guess what? The brass were so feckless, they RE-SIGNED Sheik to a one-year deal to basically stay home. He wrestled a handful of matches, then waited by the phone. Add Kevin Nash's 'Book my friends and fuck all else' mentality, and WCW did not have a chance. 2000 was basically the elevator losing its' cables and falling down into the bottomless pit.

 

[therockiswwf]

I agree with all that, they needed to get rid of Russo permanently in January. But you cant deny they had great talent in Booker, Goldberg, Steiner, Awesome, Storm, Jarrett, Sting, Mysterio, Douglas, DDP, Kanyon, Bigelow. Hell; most of the Natural Born Thrillers just needed time to grow personalities and they couldve been viable also. Problem was Russos booking throughout it all, had they just let it grow naturally all of those guys would've shone much brighter that year, they wouldn't have been able to overtake WWF but they couldve been viewed in a much better light than they were.

I actually don't agree. Steiner was breaking down. Jarrett was not a main event level guy. DDP was old. Sting was old. Mysterio was not WWE Mysterio. I don't think Douglas was that good. Kanyon wasn't great either. Bigelow wasn't special and old. Goldberg wasn't long for the business. I'm not sure Awesome had the promo skills to be a top guy (or he was never really given an opportunity to grow).

That leaves you with Booker and a bunch of young prospects. That would have been a multi-year challenge. So I don't think they had a viable product with that base of talent.

This is what I mean when I say the year wasn't as bad as remembered; there was moments of greatness; Lance Storms rise, Bookers World title run, Steiners insanity, Golbergs ruthless streak couldve flourished if Russo hadnt been around to ruin the execution of the storylines these fellas were involved in that latter half of the year.

The year only had very tiny glimpses of entertainment. I think you're giving this year way too much credit.

 

[relentless1]

I actually don't agree. Steiner was breaking down. Jarrett was not a main event level guy. DDP was old. Sting was old. Mysterio was not WWE Mysterio. I don't think Douglas was that good. Kanyon wasn't great either. Bigelow wasn't special and old. Goldberg wasn't long for the business. I'm not sure Awesome had the promo skills to be a top guy (or he was never really given an opportunity to grow).

That leaves you with Booker and a bunch of young prospects. That would have been a multi-year challenge. So I don't think they had a viable product with that base of talent.



The year only had very tiny glimpses of entertainment. I think you're giving this year way too much credit.

different flavours for different folks I guess, I avoided 2000 WCW in my Nitro marathon for awhile and was ready to shit all over it and I mostly am because it is mostly shit but there is a lot there that they COULD have capitalized on to make WCW a much much better product.

 

[Jack-Hammer]

Yeah...gonna have to disagree there. If you're into it, more power to you but, to me, WCW became pretty much unwatchable once Vince Russo arrived.

Aside from the atrociously bad booking decisions, something else that hurt WCW was the fact that the company hadn't produced younger stars, weren't pushing younger stars on the roster or gave spots to wrestlers who didn't have the goods. The company was centered around guys like Championships were treated like pure garbage and became something that wrestlers simply traded carrying for a while.

The WCW World Television Championship, for instance, was literally tossed into a trash can by Scott Hall, Jim Duggan carried it around afterward for about 50 days or so before WCW abandoned it completely.

During 2000, the US Championship was vacated 3 times and spent the 2nd half of 2000 being passed around between Lance Storm and General Rection.

The WCW World Heavyweight Championship was vacated 6 times in 2000 was, again, passed around for different guys to carry around for a little while and this time period also included the infamous runs of David Arquette and Vince Russo himself.

The WCW World Tag Team Championship may have been worse off than any other title in the company because aside from just being passed around to teams of nobodies, for the most part, nothing remotely memorable was happening with the titles. The other straps were being misused but some things were going down with them that at least had people talking about them.

There were so many problems in WCW during this time period that the product was unwatchable, I'd all but stopped watching altogether.

 

[LibSuperstar]

No. Just no. The reason they couldn't is that the back was so toxic with politicking that you could not get ANY fresh face over. The other reason is that they had all these "safe harbor" contracts that made people that did not deserve it the highest rates in the company. You could not cut the paycheck of a Kevin Nash or a Hulk Hogan if you tried. WCW was almost as bad as ECW when it came to payroll. They actually paid the Iron Sheik $100,000 to stay home. Guess what? The brass were so feckless, they RE-SIGNED Sheik to a one-year deal to basically stay home. He wrestled a handful of matches, then waited by the phone. Add Kevin Nash's 'Book my friends and fuck all else' mentality, and WCW did not have a chance. 2000 was basically the elevator losing its' cables and falling down into the bottomless pit.

Say what? What use was Sheiky Baby to them at that point?

 

[relentless1]

Ok so had Russo been fired when Hogan left, do you guys think WCW could have salvaged some fans with the roster they had?

 

[Jonyboyuk2]

The only thing I can consider to agree on is that the roster wasn't too bad at all. But, the booking was what was so wrong. When the fingerpoke of Doom came, it started the huge decline. The mess with Jeff Jarett and Hogan was ridiculous and then David Arquette winning the World title - it was shocking. The problem is WCW had a different audience to WWF. When the NWO came along in 1997, you'd never had thought 3 years later the business would be almost bankrupt. This was purely because of Vince Russo and his whacky booking.

Not only that, if you compare it to TNA over the past 11/12 years - the talent depth they had on their roster and now they lost many of them to WWE, and look how well WWE does with the top stars from TNA!
I would say that TNA has always been booked very averagely and often poorly. But never as insultingly bad as WCW was in 2000.

 

[Psykohurricane55]

The main thing was that by that time Russo wasn't booking the show anymore which made a huge difference in the product. When you look at the year 2000 for WCW you had a couple of era's aas far as booking was concern. You had the kevin sullivan era which lasted until a think end of march first week of april, Then Russo and bischoff up until bash at the beach, which is we're Bischoff quit after the whole russo double crossing Hogan thing, then for a few months after that Russo was in charge by himself, i think he left or quit around october and then you had whoever was in charge after Russo which right now i could tell you who it was. That's kinda that period we're it felt like they finally had a long term plan for creative and we're able execute it better without russo trying to do his bullshit crash tv stuff every week.

The problem was that by that time, WCW future was already determine because the executive at turner never saw the company as something valuable for them and only saw them as a tv show so they wanted to cancel WCW and close it down. So everything they we'Re doing lead to nothing because of it.

We can blame who we want for WCW demise but in the end, we all know that the turner executive are the real reason WCW died and even if they would have had the greatest product on TV back in 2000 and into 2001, They would still have close it down because they didn't need it anymore.

 

[therockiswwf]

The problem was that by that time, WCW future was already determine because the executive at turner never saw the company as something valuable for them and only saw them as a tv show so they wanted to cancel WCW and close it down. So everything they we'Re doing lead to nothing because of it.

We can blame who we want for WCW demise but in the end, we all know that the turner executive are the real reason WCW died and even if they would have had the greatest product on TV back in 2000 and into 2001, They would still have close it down because they didn't need it anymore.

Oh yes, this had nothing to do at all with the company losing millions and millions of dollars (including $60 million or so in ONE YEAR). With the company being in a sustained downward spiral. With the company unable to pull in max ad revenue. Take off the blinders, WCW deserved to die. No company is supposed to operate while losing that much money.

By the way, it still sucked at the end of 2000 and into 01. Try watching the build for Starrcade. It is awful.

 

[Psykohurricane55]

Oh yes, this had nothing to do at all with the company losing millions and millions of dollars (including $60 million or so in ONE YEAR). With the company being in a sustained downward spiral. With the company unable to pull in max ad revenue. Take off the blinders, WCW deserved to die. No company is supposed to operate while losing that much money.

By the way, it still sucked at the end of 2000 and into 01. Try watching the build for Starrcade. It is awful.

If you listen to Eric bischoff's podcast, he went in great detail as to why they lost $60 millions in one year. It had nothing to do with the product. WCW was categorize as other within the Turner broadcasting listing and for the last few year of the company, they would put some of the deficit from other company on the other budget which lead directly into WCW budget which meant that most of that deficit wasn't from WCW itself but from other company and was past on as WCW deficit.

Turner broadcasting never saw WCW as a wrestling company, for them it was just another tv show they use to try and get ratings for they're network. When they started to see that they didn't want to keep the company and That's was around 1998 if I'm not mistaken, they did everything in they're power to killed it.

And on a side note, everything that was reported about WCW by Meltzer, Alvarez or any other dirt sheet writers was proven to be false and their wasn't a shred of truth in anything that was reported by them.

 

[Garak]

If you listen to Eric bischoff's podcast, he went in great detail as to why they lost $60 millions in one year.

While your point about being very cautious about what any dirt sheet writers say about the demise of WCW is well taken, the same level of caution should be exhibited about anything said by Bischoff (or Russo, for that matter) on the topic.

 

[therockiswwf]

If you listen to Eric bischoff's podcast, he went in great detail as to why they lost $60 millions in one year. It had nothing to do with the product. WCW was categorize as other within the Turner broadcasting listing and for the last few year of the company, they would put some of the deficit from other company on the other budget which lead directly into WCW budget which meant that most of that deficit wasn't from WCW itself but from other company and was past on as WCW deficit.

Turner broadcasting never saw WCW as a wrestling company, for them it was just another tv show they use to try and get ratings for they're network. When they started to see that they didn't want to keep the company and That's was around 1998 if I'm not mistaken, they did everything in they're power to killed it.

And on a side note, everything that was reported about WCW by Meltzer, Alvarez or any other dirt sheet writers was proven to be false and their wasn't a shred of truth in anything that was reported by them.

I'm pretty sure Bischoff said it was like that the entire time. So that means if that is true, they never actually made or lost the amount of money reported. But you can look at it this way:
When they were popular, the reported profit was high.
When they weren't, the reported profit went down.

Let's look at WCW figures to see if the company was in a downward spiral:

Total PPV Buys:
1998 (12) - 4,290,000
2000-2001 (15) - 1,145,000
WWE - Last time they had under 2 million PPV buys was in 97 (site may not have counted IYH, so it may have been even further back).

TV Ratings:
1998 - 4.37
2000-2001 - 2.63
This happened to WWE too. Except instead of it occurring in two years during a boom period, it took 14 years (01-15). Also add in the internet, large amount of channels/entertainment options, WWE's ratings fall isn't nearly as bad.

Average House Show Attendance:
1998 - 8,029
2000-2001 - 2,677
As of 2016, WWE has not dipped below 3000 (not 100% on this).

WCW also cut back to two hours in 2000. Meaning loss of 3rd hour ad revenue (millions). Meltzer reported it wasn't a growth in expenses that hurt WCW but a collapse in revenue. That seems accurate as WCW obviously cut back on production and had attendance collapse. Ad revenue collapsed. TV ratings collapsed. PPV buys collapsed.

WCW's collapse was truly astounding. It was gushing blood and it was only getting worse. With 3 years of bleeding and no end in sight, it only made sense for WCW to die.

 

[relentless1]

WCW some of the highest ratings on TNT or TBS at that time though, I can see wanting to sell the company to stop the bleeding but I cant see wanting to boot it off of the network unless there was another agenda going on

 

[therockiswwf]

WCW some of the highest ratings on TNT or TBS at that time though, I can see wanting to sell the company to stop the bleeding but I cant see wanting to boot it off of the network unless there was another agenda going on

Misleading. They were getting high ratings but they were not pulling in full ad revenue. Wrestling has a problem with ads. The stigma of wrestling added with the low income of average wrestling fans makes advertisers shy away from them (I can go into a lot more detail here). Basically they could replace WCW with a lower rated show but make more money off of ads.

There was a reason no other network wanted to take on a TV show with high ratings.

 

[Psykohurricane55]

I'm pretty sure Bischoff said it was like that the entire time. So that means if that is true, they never actually made or lost the amount of money reported. But you can look at it this way:
When they were popular, the reported profit was high.
When they weren't, the reported profit went down.

Let's look at WCW figures to see if the company was in a downward spiral:

Total PPV Buys:
1998 (12) - 4,290,000
2000-2001 (15) - 1,145,000
WWE - Last time they had under 2 million PPV buys was in 97 (site may not have counted IYH, so it may have been even further back).

TV Ratings:
1998 - 4.37
2000-2001 - 2.63
This happened to WWE too. Except instead of it occurring in two years during a boom period, it took 14 years (01-15). Also add in the internet, large amount of channels/entertainment options, WWE's ratings fall isn't nearly as bad.

Average House Show Attendance:
1998 - 8,029
2000-2001 - 2,677
As of 2016, WWE has not dipped below 3000 (not 100% on this).

WCW also cut back to two hours in 2000. Meaning loss of 3rd hour ad revenue (millions). Meltzer reported it wasn't a growth in expenses that hurt WCW but a collapse in revenue. That seems accurate as WCW obviously cut back on production and had attendance collapse. Ad revenue collapsed. TV ratings collapsed. PPV buys collapsed.

WCW's collapse was truly astounding. It was gushing blood and it was only getting worse. With 3 years of bleeding and no end in sight, it only made sense for WCW to die.

I get your point but my problem with this is that you're using Meltzer as a source for all of this and we all know how reliable a Meltzer report is as far as financial is concern. It worth almost nothing because Meltzer base is report on third hand source and doesn't know what's really going on within the company.

He did that for years with wcw and He's still doing it to this day with WWE. The rest I can believe since this was release when WCW went out of business and they we're force to release some of this info. But again, the only person that really knows what really happen with wcw is those that worked in wcw at the time. WCW was always treated as a afterthought by Turner executive even when they turned a profit. That's sad but It's true, they never cared about wrestling and the only reason it lasted as long as it did was because of Ted Turner. When Turner got ousted, wcw died.

 

[Kris Benwa]

I was never a WCW fan when they were on but just watched Spring Stampede 2000 last week for the first time and I really enjoyed it. Now I pretty much watched that show in a vacuum, so I'm sure in the context of more Russo booking it might have been much worse. That being said, the only thing I didn't like was that the finish to almost every match was the same but by the end I honestly was still very entertained with the end result.

It honestly made me want to watch the rest of 2000 to see what happens with the New Blood

 

[Goldie]

The $63M loss suffered in 2000 by WCW would have been much higher had the company not made cut backs in the 2nd half of the year. The company were at least trying to put things right albeit to no avail.
After BATB Hogan was gone, by the autumn Scot Hall was (finally) fired, the incapacitated Bret Harts contract expired… other high earners such as Savage, Piper, Curt Hening were gone.
So it did finally give WCW some fresh blood to push into the main event- though Booker and even Steiner may have been considered midcard material up to that point, it was step in the right direction for WCW…. Booker being the hero, and Steiner cutting the best promos of his career had a real menacing aura about him (probably as he had the same conduct backstage!).

But it came too late…. The ship was almost sunk. WCW had kept the old guys on top for so long to justify paying them such high contracts…. Had they not been tied down to such long term/guaranteed money deals, and had WCW been able to get rid of most of them in 1999- pushing the younger guys a year earlier, then maybe…. maybe there would have been a life line.
Removing some of the big names may have hurt revenue to an extent… but saved massively on costs.

Vince Russo accelerated the decline with his nonsense booking (that was alien to the loyal NWA/WCW die hard fans who watched WCW because it was an alternative to the WWE). Russo was ousted not long after BATB so he would have been out of the picture too by the autumn/winter and allow a new booker to focus on wrestling over OTT storylines.

Building the company around Booker, Steiner, Goldberg (upon him returning) you still having marquee WCW names like Sting, Flair, Nash, Luger, DDP and an able supporting cast of Jarrett, Lance Storm, Bigelow, Douglas and young upcomers- Kidman, Mysterio, Chavo, Helms, Palumbo, O’Haire.
It clearly lacks the name power of the mid-late 90s when Bischoff brought in the big WWF stars…. But really no worse (in terms of name value) than it has been in 1991 or 1992 when WCW was a clear 2nd to the WWE.

Had the costs not been so great- and WCW had the opportunity to rebuild on its late 2000 roster, it was certainly improving in terms of match quality and the potential to find a new identity. They shouldn’t have tried to compete with WWE- Just offer an alternative and focus on wrestling as an in-ring product (as the NWA had) as opposed to the soap storylines of the WWE. That would have at least catered for the die hard WCW fans who loved the product before it became a poor mans WWE.

The problem being that by the time WCW was trying to put things right most people had already switched off after the ridiculous 18 months that preceded it.

The TV execs had wanted to get rid of WCW for a while and the huge financial losses was all they needed to pull the plug

 

[Hollywood Naitch]

Say what? What use was Sheiky Baby to them at that point?

The Iron Sheik being paid to stay at home wasn’t in 2000, it was years before I think. Still, a good example of WCW being fucking clueless when it came to contracts. Didn’t they pay Lanny Poffo for years and never once used him in any kind of match and forgot he was even on their payroll? Madness. No wonder they lost so much money over the years, it was a terribly run company.

 

[mjg1987]

Hey at least I watched wcw in 2000, unlike wwe now

While I do agree with a lot of people who say wcw sucked at the end for the bad booking, the DNA match, the graveyard match, at least they put effort in and I don't think it was anywhere near as bad as people make it out to be