What do you miss the most about WCW?

[HBKperfect23]

Competition obviously. Agree with all the reasons above for why competition brings out the best in both companys.
Also, WCW Saturday Night, The Hollywood Blondes, Sting vs Vader, Battle Bowl, The Horsemen, Benoit/Eddie/Jericho,The Horsemen, and of course The Monday Night Wars.

 

[AnthonyM4]

What I miss about wcw is the fact that they were good competition to wwe and made them work harder. Since wwe bought them they have gotten lazy creatively imo. Before Russo came in 1999 wcw was great. Well from 95-98 it was. That's when Nitro was hot. Speaking of hot I miss the nitro girls! Thank goodness for wwe classics on demand showing old Nitros.

 

[jbartlett7]

Strangley i really the miss the complete mess it was in its final couple of years, with Jarrett lying down for Hogan and Hogan calling Russo on, it Russo coming out and firing him etc. all unscripted, was great entertainment IMO.

 

[DirtyD79]

I always liked the Luchadore matches especially when they would do stuff like 8 man tag teams. Another thing about them is they were allowed to show their stuff and look impressive in their own division instead of only existing to be fed to the Hosses. I'm supposed to be impressed because Big Show squashed a guy 3 times smaller than him? Well whoopee fuckin' doo! Pin a medal on that sonofabitch because he can beat up someone smaller than him. Yes sir put his face on a can of stew.

I also liked how you had an alternative back then. If you didn't care for what was going on on Monday Night RAW or it was starting to get too stupid you could always go over to WCW Monday Nitro and vice versa. Monopolies don't benefit anyone. Competition is what drives companies to be creative. Monopolies breed stagnation. Sure it sometimes led to things like hotshotting titles or rewriting storylines and even individual matches on the fly but it also forced both companies to think outside the box and come up with something the other company doesn't have.

 

[sollecks]

What i miss is the feeling..The style of wcw..The shock the shoots the turns the egos the obvious chaos..Whats not to miss?
guys like Dean Malenko ,Eddie Guerrero ,benoit, Regal, jericho..ectect..
guys like Ultimo dragon coming in and unifying 9 cruiserweight titles that made it feel really "world" championship wrestling,,,Guys like chono,muta coming over nj,the luchadores the list goes on.. thats just the opening match..
NITRO was better by far for a long time and i loved it..l still youtube it..lt's still better then everything current i see..
WCW before hogan was when i was very young watching catus jack and sting vader horsemen..i loved that era as much as well..
i can count on one hand how many times i missed a monday nitro...

 

[MondayNight90s]

Like everyone has already said, The Competition is the main thing i miss. WCW was great, I didn't really start watching wrestling fully until late 1996, the nWo had just started. I miss the wrestlers, i miss the cruiserweights. I loved watching the cruiserweights fly around the ring. Juventud and Psicosis were two of my favorites back then, along with Eddie Guerrero. I miss those days when your friends would call you up during Nitro and we'd talk about the show during and after the show went off the air. I miss the days of getting with buddies, a cooler of beer and hanging out during Nitro. I always watched Nitro and taped Raw, so we usually watched Raw after Nitro ended. Good times. After WWF bought WCW, it all went downhill. Sure WWE had a decent show for a couple years but then it just started losing steam. That's when my friends kind of lost interest and quit watching. I can't say this enough, I miss those days of WCW vs WWF.

But we now have TNA. Yes, I know their ratings suck, so everyone acts like they don't exist, but truthfully, they're still competition. Just not as tough as WCW was back in the day. Boy do I wish TNA could get their stuff together and start putting out a better product, so WWE could get their stuff together and start putting out something more entertaining.

I totally agree with this. I miss the competition. It made both the WCW and WWF products better. I honestly can't remember the last time I made it a point to watch WWE every week. Maybe 2005 or 2006. It just isn't must see tv anymore for me. It just seems like almost every guy in WWE these days is the same and come off of an assembly line.

I've been watching old Nitro episodes on YouTube and Kevin Sullivan and the Dungeon of Doom are all over Hogan right now where I'm watching. The Shark (John Tenta aka Earthquake) has been on there in some matches and taking part in beating down Hogan. Now those are 2 guys that wouldn't even get a shot in WWE these days because they don't have "the look" that Vince loves. I miss when we would have these huge fat guys that don't look like they have an athletic bone in their body would come out as monster heels and all the wrestlers had different body types. They also didn't have a script or writers telling them what to say. They were allowed to cut their own promos and get themselves over by being individuals.

Also from watching old Nitros I realized that I miss the way those WCW shows were structured when they were really good and not stale with the 5000th nWo reunion and no new stars (other than Goldberg and DDP) being made. They would start the shows with awesome cruiserweight matches with Eddie, Malenko, Rey, Benoit, Jericho, Psicosis, etc and then they had the Horsemen and nWo and the big names. WCW Nitro was a great wrestling show from its debut up until "The Fingerpoke of Doom" and then Raw really started to take over as the must see show even though it had been the better show for a while. For me that was the turning point. Before that, I would tape Raw and watch Nitro live. After that I would either tape Nitro or catch the replay and watch Raw live.

 

[JTS32]

I'm with the majority on here. I miss the Monday Night Wars. Going back and forth between the two shows deciding where to stop. I miss match variety. The cruiserweights and luchadores. I miss good wrestling.

 

[The Brain]

I miss having another place where wrestlers can gain experience and exposure competing in front of a national audience. Sure there is TNA now but after ten years they are still looked at as vastly inferior to WWE. WCW was looked at as an equal, or at times even better than the WWF. It was always exciting to see someone come from WCW to the WWF. Even if they got a gimmick makeover I was familiar with who they were and they already brought credibility and experience with them. The same could be said for the other way around. Now everyone that comes to WWE comes from the same place. Everyone learns the same things from the same people in FCW so they all come off as being very similar. Even if someone does make somewhat of a name for himself in an indy promotion they are sent to FCW for reprogramming before appearing on WWE television. When WCW was around that was not necessary because the wrestler already had experience performing on television.

 

[FlairFan2003]

Competition is important, its also important for the wrestlers. When WCW existed the talent had a place to go where they were on national TV, monthly pay per views, and got comparable pay, touring all over the country, etc. Now that doesnt exist.

Me personally as far as the product I miss the pre Ted Turner NWA, Jim Crockett Jr era, 81-87. They were a direct alternative to WWE, countering the big man heavy, short matches, family friendly Disney like programming Vince gave us with more adult, edgy, stories, matches with more athletic performers, far more violent. It was a terrific counter balance and the NWA paid good money to wrestlers, putting them on National TV every week, touring all over the country.

When WWE was giving us cartoon characters and mild 10 min bouts the NWA Gave us War Games, Chain Matches, and when WWE gave us Bobby Heenan dognapping Matilda the NWA gave us Ricky Morton getting his face smashed and skin rubbed off on a concrete locker room floor, blood gushing everywhere. It was not only competition, it was a direct contrast to the other company, not two entities trying to copy each other giving fans similair products. The wrestling scene as a whole was better then.

 

[SinCityBlitz]

Competition is important, its also important for the wrestlers. When WCW existed the talent had a place to go where they were on national TV, monthly pay per views, and got comparable pay, touring all over the country, etc. Now that doesnt exist.

Me personally as far as the product I miss the pre Ted Turner NWA, Jim Crockett Jr era, 81-87. They were a direct alternative to WWE, countering the big man heavy, short matches, family friendly Disney like programming Vince gave us with more adult, edgy, stories, matches with more athletic performers, far more violent. It was a terrific counter balance and the NWA paid good money to wrestlers, putting them on National TV every week, touring all over the country.

When WWE was giving us cartoon characters and mild 10 min bouts the NWA Gave us War Games, Chain Matches, and when WWE gave us Bobby Heenan dognapping Matilda the NWA gave us Ricky Morton getting his face smashed and skin rubbed off on a concrete locker room floor, blood gushing everywhere. It was not only competition, it was a direct contrast to the other company, not two entities trying to copy each other giving fans similair products. The wrestling scene as a whole was better then.

I got through this whole thread and was about to post what you just did. I don't miss WCW much at all but miss the NWA dearly. The NWA shit all over everything WCW did. People talk about the things the nWo did well the Horsemen did things that made the nWo look like girl scouts.

Dusty getting a spike in the eye.

I grew up on both Georgia Championship Wrestling and the WWF. My first favorite wrestler was Ronnie Garvin. I used to order all the PPV's when PPV started up. IMO those were the best times not the Monday Night Wars.

Great post!

 

[chammer99]

i miss the monday nite wars but also the how the shows were being written differently raw was a specticle always over the top but wcw was more like old school wrestling there was more wrestling than promos as i rememeber and the skits were always on point one of my faves was the norton vs cat promos where miller would challenge any body in the back one of the nwo members would tell scott that the cat was talking about his mama norton angered would go to the ring and destroy the cat half shaving and all with the shaving cream still on his face everybody in the backroon area laughing at this as this went on for weeks nowadays they need a huge buildup to even have a match by the time they have it everybodys lost interest bring back wcw style wrestling for those of us who want to watch wrestling and not sports entertainment soap opera crap

 

[KNPKH2ster]

I wasn't a big WCW fan, but I do miss the legit competition. WCW led WWF to become better.

 

[Self High 5]

Though I was too young to follow it at the time (except for watching WCW Worldwide through 2000) I've developed a real fondness for WCW through what WWE have released from the tape library (wish they'd release more WCW specific sets). What was aparent from watching the Best of Nitro was the willingness to think outside the box and take risks in an attempt to put on the best television possible (triple tier steel cage match - on free TV anyone?) Having recently read Controversy Creates Cash, it's interesting to see that there was some degree of method to much of Bischoff's madness. I suppose the death of WCW also marked the end of the 'real' careers of Sting, DDP, Goldberg and others.

I often wonder how the wrestling landscape would look today if Bischoff had been able to purchase WCW and liberate it from the death clutch of AOL Time Warner Standards and Practices. It's clear Bischoff knew how to put out a good product when free from crippling restrictions. I think it could have risen from the ashes and we'd still have 2 major companies.

 

[Dagger Dias]

I know I won't be alone in this opinion, but what I miss the most about WCW was the fact that it provided WWE with legit competition. As much as I like TNA, they still have a ways to go before they can reach the level WCW was at during the ratings war. I also miss having twice as much wrestling to watch on monday nights. We got a short sequel to that in early 2010 when TNA tried to ignite a second monday ratings war. We all know how that ended up going in the end, but it was nice to get a small taste of the good old days again.

I really do hope that another federation can provide WWE with legit competition again. I doubt it will happen anytime soon though because they would have to compete with Raw AND Smackdown, plus build up a brand name strong enough to attract people away from WWE. WCW did it, so it CAN be done again, but I wouldn't count on it. TNA could merge with ROH and that still wouldn't bring either organization close enough to Raw or Smackdown's levels. We can all hope that there will be true competition again someday.