What made you stop watching WCW?

[brighamosity]

I apologize if this has already been covered. I didn't see anything in the archives about it. Anyway, we all know WCW sucked and made lots of dumb decisions. The list of mistakes goes on and on. But what I'm asking is, at what point when watching Nitro did you think, "This sucks. I'm not going to watch anymore."?

For me it was mid-99. We all remember the fingerpoke-of doom, when the two nWo factions combined. I even stuck around for that. But a few months later, they slowly and quietly disbanded the nWo with all the wrestlers going their separate ways. Looking back, I think the thing that turned me off was Master P feuding with the West Texas rednecks. If I remember correctly, this was getting a lot of TV time and quite frankly, I couldn't stand either of the groups. By this time, most of my friends were switching over to WWE anyway, so I didn't really have anyone to chat with about "what happened on Nitro last night" so I just took a break from wrestling all together.

A few months later I was flipping through the channels and saw a heel Sting attack a red and yellow Hulk Hogan. This reassured me about how lame WCW was and I never watched again.

 

[harrythem]

Honestly, I stuck it out over here in England as long as I could but, then it moved onto Channel 5 and was complete with 60s style Batman captions (such as WHAM) over chair shots and the like and, to me, that was too much to deal with after the years of piss poor product.

Still went to a house show after that mind, and will never forgive them for thinking that The Harris Brothers or The Marmalukes should be anywhere near a main event!

 

[Big Sexy]

Nothing made me stop watching it. I stayed with it until the very end. The quality had really started going down in 1999 but I stayed with it. Then in 2000 Booker T won the world title so that helped having my favorite wrestler being a main eventer. I was always a guy who just switched back and forth between WWF and WCW throughout the entire Monday Night War.

 

[Big Nick Dudley]

Nothing. I watched until the end. WCW was pretty shitty from early-to-mid 1999, but I still watched. The nWo got too big, bad writing, horrible characters, etc. But I still watched. I remember the last episode of Nitro, and it made me sick. I knew Vince would shit all over WCW's memory, and basically throw it away (but, of course, while still making money off of it).

WCW was pretty bad toward the end, but I was able to remember how good it once was, and that gave me hope that it had a chance of regaining some credibility.

 

[It's Damn Real!]

Nothing made me stop – I watched it right down to it's bitter end. It was the WWE/F I stopped watching – numerous times, for that matter – because the wrestling and the feuds they were developing with the characters they had left was never enough to hold my attention span beyond a few minutes at any given moment.

The general "anything goes" feeling I got with Nitro made me stick around through everything with them, as I marked hard every time Hart, the nWo or Steiner among countless others' music hit.

 

[boozinjedi]

What made me stop watching WCW..
the nWo is part of it..

the pattern happened so many times..it became too predictable,

A new wrestler would appear,stand with a big name face,then turn on him
Call me old school,but I like a little back-and-forth between the good guys and bad guys,when the NWO was in control....it was all bad guys..ALL THE TIME...I JUST GOT SICK OF IT!!!
At least Vince knew when to take the piverbial "egg in the face"...
God forbid that should've ever happened to Bischoff!!
IT RARELY DID!!


BUT there was one moment it truly got tastless and classless...
There was some sort of mock funeral for Goldberg's streak OR something like that,but the timing was absolutely horrible..
they did it the Nitro right after Dale Earnhardt Sr.'s fatal crash(or the week after)
THAT TRULY REPULSED ME!!

 

[mikeyboy]

the only reason i stopped watching is the buyout, i would have rather watched wcw at its worst than wwe at any point and i feel the same about that now with tna,dont get me wrong i watch wwe but still prefer wcw or tna, always have and probably always will.

 

[brochester8]

It stopped coming on. just kidding. I watched it until the very end and my grandpa read the paper that morning and told me Vince bought WCW. So I wasn't as shocked as most when it happened on tv. I was diehard WCW for years but when they started the powers that be and new breed it got stupid and I was starting to get into WWF more.

 

[naimliss]

around the time they introduced the cruiserweight tag titles. That along with the majority of things goin on around that time were real dull. It seemed that the wrestlers weren't working that hard and they were pushing stupid characters. I still tuned in a lil bit from then til the end. WCW was the best organization ever when they were on point!!!

 

[Kenny Powers]

I was never a hardcore WCW fan, but I would tune in from time to time. Nitro was always able to grab my interest until 1999 early 2000. Once I saw 3 Count, Mike Awesome as that 70's guy, and David Arquette as the world champion I just gave up.

I was really excited to see Bischoff and Russo in charge of WCW in the 2000. I thought they would be able to pull it off. Unfortunately the luster and Nitro sailed way before Russo got thee.

 

[m1k3b14z3]

3 letters that out lived its life N-W-O

 

[Splinter48708]

Well, I stayed with WCW to the bitter end, but, by the time WWF bought "Uncle Ted" out, the storylines were predictable, especially at the end of the telecast. You'd have a couple of guys wrestling the main event only to see the nWo or Hogan's stable come down, open a can of whoop-ass on one of the wrestlers or both and then, Sting would come down from the rafters with his black bat and chase away the attackers...or sometimes Goldberg would make the save and chase them away. Regardless, it got predictable, so, I'd switch over to see what Attitude was bringing.

 

[mreastbay]

I really stopped watching when the main reasons to watch left to go WWF. I was always a Jericholic, so that was a big step. The Radicalz....well, what more needs to be said.

Seeing how WWF was using these guys I liked in Wcw 'properly', ended up making me LOVE them when i saw what the WWF was doing with them. So when Monday came, it was easier for me to keep the channel on USA or TNN than to turn it to TnT and watch Prince Iaukeu v. Super Calo. HUGE talent gap there. There never was really just one moment (Arquette champ excluded) where I thought WcW was total crap. Right up to the end there were guys I'd wanna watch wrestling for WcW (Lance Storm, Booker T, Rey Mysterio, Sean O'Haire, DDP are examples). Hell, they even had A.J. Styles and Daniels on the up swing.

The WWE was just better at not letting us see to much of what goes on behind the curtain. The "politics b.s." become too much of what the shows were about. Made the shows less fun to watch. I mean, Russo tryin to live out a dream by winning the belt in N.J.? Who really wants to watch that. Let alone it be the main event.

"If a magician shows you how to do his trick, they arent going to watch you more than one.., maybe once.".---Sabu.

 

[KoC417]

1 word... NOTHING..

WCW had the greatest product a wrestling organization could offer. It was counter culture to the traditional WWE/F style. I stuck it out til the very end! I almost stopped when Master P came around but I realized that the storyline wasn't all that bad! It was representing musical preferences and lifestyle choices. Plus it was pretty sweet listening to the "Perfect" one and company singing "IIIIIII hate Rap! There's only 1 thing that I hate cuz it's a bunch of crap! I I I Hate Rap!"

I kinda wish the WWE would pick up on the Cruiserweight tag team championship again. That would be pretty fun to watch again! I still remember 3 Count vs the Dragons absolutely incredible high fliers. Can you imagine..... a triangle tag team elimination cruiserweight tag team championship match... 3 count vs the dragons vs. mysterio/kidman/juvi. Oops sorry got off topic there for a minute... Tends to happen when high fliers are brought up. But yeah to sum it up the only thing that made me stop watching WCW was the WWE. But thanks to Youtube and this incredible uploader who has managed to upload the majority of the Nitro's and quite a few high quality Thunder episodes WCW lives on heavily!

 

[alistahr]

i never stopped watching, you saying WCW sucked in general is quite innacurate and not how i remember things. Yes WCW wasn't as good by the end but it was still somewhat entertaining, definitely take it over the crap wwe offers these days, but you saying it sucked generally just pretty much tells me you are a wwe mark, so your opinion doesnt even matter

 

[Wolfdemon]

Everybody 3 count 1-2-3 as stated before. The childish gimmicks and the clusterfuck of bad guys to little good guys just made it dull. I never really "stopped" watching it because I never watched it back in the day because I was too young and only watched WWF but going back and watching it back when 3 count debuted just made it stupid.

 

[theonepeter]

I never stopped watching WCW, but I agree with the people who said NWO got too big. I mean in the beginning NWO was beating up people with smaller numbers and then in the end they had huge numbers and were getting beat by only 2 or 3 people like Sting, Goldberg, and DDP. Also if anyone noticed there would be people in the NWO who dissappeared completely from WCW and were never written off which kinda upset me.

 

[Free Birds in my Basement]

I never stopped watching WCW. I thought it had redeemable qualities but it appears as if almost everyone has a boner for the WWF. But anyway many aspects of it got ridiculous especially, the Finger Poke of Doom, as it has been called as well as the misused and misguided New Blood VS. the Millionaire Club storyline. I am loyal to a fault as I loved the NWA compared to the Rock N' Wrasslin Cartoons which was the WWF of the 80s. My loyalty is costing me now as I don't know what the hell the WWE is putting on half the time.

 

[American Steamboat]

I was and always will be a nWo fan. Once the faction sort of just dissolved I started to lose interest in WCW. Then when Bret Hart started the group back up I got back into it, and then when the Vince Russo era began I was done. One thing that stands out to me is Juvi doing the people's elbow, and the whole Oklahoma/Medusa crap.

 

[Derrtown]

Watching Nitro one night, during a commercial break i flipped a few channels, wanting to stay in the 30s close to TNT. Just 4 channels down was USA and Monday night RAW. I saw Stone Cold Steve Austin walking down the ramp to the ring and i was hooked.

Stone Cold Steve Austin made me stop watching Nitro.

 

[assault]

as a true fan i stayed to the end i stopped watchn thunder now but i would use thunder as my personal sleepin pill.but the dyin days were ok but i just loved how steiner was killin off all the top faces n have the funerals classic steiner lol

 

[Vash21]

I watched WCW until the even though it was a painful product to watch. Watching Shane on Nitro was surreal. Its too bad they blew the invasion angle. They should have bought Flair an used him in Shane's place, or at the very least have Flair an Shane in the Ring at the same time at the end.

That angle had so much potential.

 

[jonboi24]

The two big reasons I stopped watching WCW are: the NWOs and they cared too much about WWF. I loved the NWO and the Wolf Pack at the beginning but there was just too much of them and they became old. And come on I know they WWF rivals but how many shot did they take at them on-air. I kinda found it unprofessional and I would always change the channel. When they spoiled Mankind's title win it me start watching WWF more than WCW.

 

[Vash21]

The NWO had run its course long before they actually ended it. What really turned by stomach in WCW was when Jarrett came in and started all his crap up. Thats why I am never been a fan of TNA, I can't stand Jeff Jarrett.

 

[ilapierre]

I never ever stopped watching WCW. I had every Nitro and Thunder taped from 1996 on so, after the show went off the air in March 2001, I just watched a three year period of classic WCW television over and over again three times over for the rest of the decade. It is all uploaded on youtube now so now i watch it there. It was much better than watching the lame ass WWE version of the WCW entitled the 'Invasion.' The Invasion angle was even more pathetic than the West Texas Redneck vs Master P angle. That's how pathetic it was. WWE ruined a shitty WCW product by taking it over and repackaging the talent into different brands to make two shitty WWE brands. There should still be a WWE and a WCW within WWE if WWE wanted to be just a little less crappy. Just so you all know, WCW was really just the age old NWA but now it was Ted Turner financed and called World Championship Wrestling. The NWA, for all you young wrestling kiddies out there who think WWE is the end all and be all of wrestling, had been in existence since the turn of the 20th century. That's 100 years of wrestling history down the tube. NWA/WCW was around 60 some years before the WWF and some of the greatest wrestlers of generations past wore the same belt that David Arquette (gulp) would eventually wear.

Anyway, WWE fans like to blame the New World Order for WCW's demise but that's really just a spin Vince McMahon puts on history and distributes through Coliseum Video to brainwash present and future generations. It drives me nuts to here such utter bull from some of the posters on here who are about 20 and their take of what happened back when they watched when they were 10 and totally impressionable. If anything, disbanding the NWO made it so that WCW fans (mostly NWO fans) stopped watching or went back to watching the WWE. Nothing in WCW in 99/00/01 was really worth watching because there was no NWO and no real strong heels and nothing else was really built up to maintain fan interest minus a few great matches and shows here and there. Without the pure dominance of the NWO and the ultimately hated heel Hollywood Hogan as champ, WCW stood no chance competing with the now much more interesting WWE. I still watched WCW right till the end, the three years of classic wrestling entertainment they put out is the best three years any wrestling organization ever created. I encourage all of you WWE marks to dedicate the next three years of your lives to watching WCW from May 96 till March 99 so you can actually have something to compare the crap you watch now to. And if you still like your WWE product now better, then you just didn't really get or see how amazing the WWE was from 1984-1996, cause if you saw all the wrestling history of those years you'd realize the WCW was just a natural (and much better) progression of the direction the WWF should have gone (but didn't) after 1994-1995. A place full of mostly WWE wrestling legends like Hogan, Savage, Piper, Hall, Nash, Hitman, Flair, Luger, Sting, Warrior, Henning, Rude, Steiner, Goldberg, etc etc.. WWE of 1996/97, on the other thand, turned into what WCW was before Hulk Hogan arrived in 1994. It turned into a place full of second string wrestlers like Jean Paul Leveque, Cactus Jack, Stunning Steve Austin, The Big Show, Chris Jericho, Chris Benoit, etc etc. And through spin, Vince, like the genius he is, has made future wrestling fans think those second string bums were better than the true legends that made and sustained wrestling but were chewed up and spit out like circus animals.