What made you stop watching WCW?

[LFC20]

I never stopped watching. I watched until the very last episode. I felt like even though some of the storylines towards the end were dumb, I wanted to be loyal. I wanted to be loyal to the company that have given me so many great memories from my childhood...I loved WCW. I was so heartbroken to see it go because I knew that Vince was going to make a mockery of WCW talent.

 

[Poop Master Flex]

For myself, I stopped watching WCW right after the "fingerpoke of doom" incident, when they decided it was a good idea to reform the nWo and bury Goldberg (so I guess you can say when Kevin Nash took over the booking). The show was just a travesty after that in every way possible, the storylines were terrible, almost every match had a bs finish, and then they just started copying WWE it seemed like because it was the more successful at the time. I always felt that WCW really lost their identity in '99 which caused alot of people to stop watching (because the last episode that Nitro ALMOST beat RAW in the ratings was the fingerpoke of doom episode, after that they never came close).

 

[JP317]

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.

I remember that Channel 5 stuff, I did stick through that though and stopped watching when they were brought out, I remember watching the last Nitro on Bravo and Raw on Sky Sports and thinking that some of the stuff didn't match up, maybe my mind was playing tricks on me at the time or there were times when it seemed like some parts that Vince was watching didn't take place at the time I saw them on Nitro like one of the shows was edited and moved around, but that couldn't be the case, right?

 

[wrestling fan 666]

I stuck through it like I do most wrestling because I'm a fan of wrestling; not just 'sports entertainment". But I slowed down watching because of 2 things. The first, like most have already said; NWO growing bigger than the locker room. It seemed that it started with Hogan, Nash, Hall, and 6 Pack; but there was a time there were only a handful of wrestlers who weren't NWO. it got too big. The second, celebrities. Sorry, I understand Wrestlemania, but Dennis Rodman and Jay Leno...and who can forget David Arquette? It became a gigantic joke (former multi-time world champion Hulk Hogan PINNED by Jay Leno)!!! It became too much.

 

[WJDwjdWJDwjd]

Oh man... that David Arquette title win was the last few moments I watched. I immediately flipped the channel and never went back. That was quite possibly the biggest joke in wrestling history. I can't believe they actually tried to make us think Arquette was a legit champion. Absolutely ridiculous. At least when they gave the title to Ric Flair near the end it was somewhat believable still. WCW just plummeted after that crappy actor got the title. WWF/E was my secondary programming and it became my primary after that night.

 

[Tattooed Jesus]

I think I stopped watching when the Ultimate Warrior debuted in WCW. I watched that episode and never came back until the final episode. I was so disappointed in what WCW had become at that point. Being from the south I grew up with the Jim Crockett World Championship Wrestling show on Saturday nights, on TBS. The NWA, that is what it was all about for me, it was very sad to see WCW go out like it did.

 

[mreastbay]

Whoa partner.........Benoit, and Jericho came after "The Drought of 95/96". They certainly werent 2nd string wrestlers. Those 2 in particular were that guys that made people believe guys like Hogan and Goldberg knew what they were doing in the ring. just saying.

 

[Chopper]

hmm... It had to be when Vince Russo won the WCW title and stupid stables like the MIA and 3 Count (okay. before I begin a war, I hated 3 Counts gimmick. Boy band... sure it was the big thing in 2000 with BSB and NSync but as a teenage dude back then... I had to hate it).

I had the final straw when David Arquette won the belt.... stupid move.

When WcW went under, I was not at all shocked. I knew Russo and Hogan would ruin the company from the start, now they are killing TNA... It`s only a matter of time before they go under

 

[Vash21]

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.

I hate to quote such a long ass post, but I feel that I have to in regards to your NWO comments. By the demise of the NWO fans could have cared less about the group. How many times can you watch them beat up everyone, everytime Hogan won the title I wanted to puke. They carried it way further than they should have and don't get me started on the finger poke of doom.

As far as the second stringers go, I can only that by saying Jean Paul Leveque you mean Paul Levesque or HHH. He became a star through DX would you also call HBK a second stringer? He became huge through DX. he was already over but DX helped keep the momentum going.

An then there is Stunning Steve Austin or the Ringmaster or whatever you wanna call him. Steve Austin made Steve Austin, Stone Cold was his concept. His slamming of Jake Roberts and when he said these words,

You sit there and you thump your Bible, and you say your prayers, and it didn't get you anywhere! Talk about your psalms, talk about John 3:16... Austin 3:16 says I just whooped your ass!

That was his idea, not some lousy creative writing team.

Thats the difference between then an now, Guys used to make themselves. Now the writers and Vince McMahon make them

 

[Travaje]

RAW was just a better show. If there were a Youtube back then, I probably would have watched Nitro on that like I watch some shows today (have it on in the corner while surfing the internet), but there wasn't. I loved WCW like everyone else when it was hot, but I would still take WWF at it's best over WCW at it's best. WCW being it at it's worst made the choice too easy.

WCW should have died 12-24 months before it did.

 

[Simmo]

I stopped watching when Jarret joined NWO as never liked him and didn't believe anything about him leading a group...

On a side note, I know Arquette winning the title was BS but do people forget it was a promotional thing given they had just released "Ready To Rumble"???

I mean it's not like WWE hasn't ever had non wrestlers win titles before - Vince McMahon anyone (or need I say Ultimate Warrior, Arquette at least had some moves)...

 

[dionlyone18]

ohh this is an easy one..when they reuinted the NWO and the Wolfpac to do the NWO 2000....that and when Jarrett laid down for hogan to take the title and hogan did that shoot interview with Russo and Hogan.....that was the end for me

 

[BillAlfonso]

To quote Good Ol' JR, "Stone Cold! Stone Cold! Stone Cold!" When he and Brian Pillman had the "Pillman's Got A Gun" vignette, I was like "what?" No pun intended but I didn't know what to think.

 

[cwill18]

Her name was Jennifer and she was fantastic.

But it was all downhill for me after Hogan came in and killed off Flair and then killed off Sting. I still flipped back and forth for a while and would watch when Benoit or Malenko were on but that was about it.

 

[ilapierre]

bullcrap you tuned in to just watch Benoit and Malenko and not Hogan or any other legend..no one absolutely no one in 1994 gave a rats ass about Benoit and Malenko..only a WWE crazed fan with a grudge against Hulk Hogan and TNA would say in hindsight such a completely ridiculous thing..it's funny how people look back and change the reality of their lives and what they did to suit what's popular and not popular now..Benoit and Malenko were nobodies and absolutely no one tuned in to see them no matter how great they wrestled..it would be like in 20 years if Michaels and Undertaker wouldn't retire and a Michaels/Undertaker loving douchebag reflects back to change his perception to suit what's popular at the moment..it would be like them saying they couldn't stand all their matches at Wrestlemania and only tuned in to see guys like Sheamus and Evan Bourne go at it...it's just random bull

 

[Dre Guevara]

where do I begin?
aside from the inconclusive & redundant storylines, there were a number of factors....
the Fingerpoke of doom, not once but TWICE.
Kevin Nash ending Goldberg's streak 2 cater 2 his ego.
Vince Russo & David Arquette winning the World Title.
proving VKM right by not knowing what 2 do with Bret Hart.

 

[ilapierre]

I was a HUGE NWO fan. Most people I knew were. I could go on and on here but the NWO was WCW and without it no one wanted to watch WCW. No one was tuning in to watch Benoit or Guerrero, sadly, unless they were gonna get pummeled and walked all over by Scott Stenier and Buff Bagwell. No one gave a rat's ass who won in the crusierweight division as long as they were eventually powerbombed by Nash and Hall. No one cared about anything else because that's all the commentators talked about for 3 hours straight. The NWO was WCW and i don't remember it ever getting old (unless you count NWO 2000 which kinda sucked without Hogan). Like Hogan being unbeatable in the 80s, the NWO and Stone Cold were almost unstoppable and that's why wrestling was so huge. No one wanted to see a face like John Cena win the title one week and then heel like Edge win the next. People wanted to see a guy like Stone Cold or Goldberg beat everybody and stay champ for long periods and that it what hyped the fans up and put their asses in seats. People tune in when they want to see the heel lose SO BAD and people were glued to their seat for a whole year and a half waiting for Hollywood Hogan, the best wrestling heel ever, to finally get his.

Unlike some, I didn't know anyone besides a few WWF diehards who didn't want to see the NWO continue. To say that would be like saying WWE fans got tired of seeing Stone Cold kick ass after his run in 1997. It's like saying Stone Cold stunning people probably made you puke every time, right. I don't think so. And, the finger poke of doom episode was perhaps one of my favourite three episodes of Nitro out of all the classic ones during that three year run. I remember thinking how pathetic it was when Bischoff told WCW fans that a second string guy like Mick Foley beat the WWE's top guy The Rock for the world title. Bischoff doing that made me love the NWO and hate the WWF more. That whole episode of Nitro was a classic, i remember walking around school and everyone was talking about it and how WCW would go back to beating WWE in the ratings now that Mankind was champ.

The fingerpoke of doom episode didn't kill WCW like WWE home video will tell you. And, if billionaire Ted Turner depended on wrestling as his major source of income and had an extreme mean streak like Vince (and if Ted didn't see the whole thing as a little game just to get under Vince's skin for a couple years), WWE would right now be ancient history and WCW would still be here no matter how terrible it would become. Just so all you Hogan/TNA haters know the real, unslanted reason why WWE won the Monday Night Wars. It had nothing to do with the NWO. It had everything to do with Ted Turner getting bored and moving on to conquer something else just to prove he can use his money to jump in and conquer anything and anybody (like Vince) when he wants to.

Only kids who grew up to like John Cena (and who were not allowed to watch wrestling in the late 90s because of the vulgarity) hated the NWO because it was the NWO that made wrestling for adults. It forced WWE to stray from it's monotonous formula in order to survive. Everyone I knew (ADULTS) loved the NWO right to the end and felt that it was never given the proper ending or phase out. Most who stayed to watch WCW by mid 99 were only there waiting for the NWO's return. At the time, no one realized it was essentially the demise. We thought it was a temporary break leading up to a big swerve. NWO fans cared then, they don't anymore and most of them aren't on this site or watching wrestling cause wrestling is PG for children and mommysboys, for ladder climbing butt kissers you see working for the man. Most fans of the NWO are not on this site since it is full of WWE hacks with WWE home video-slanted opinions driving everybody else crazzzzzy.

 

[Platypus Palsy]

I never stopped watching. I was flipping between Nitro and the WWF until the end. I was more of a Nitro mark overall but my favorite wrestler was Stone Cold. If Austin, the Rock or any of those other main guys weren't on I'd switch over. Same with WCW, if none of the main eventers or main guys were on I'd flip back. I was also only about 5 or 6 during the end of WCW so I wasn't paying too much attention to stories at the time, so the Finger Poke of Doom and other stories didn't get to me very much or at all.

 

[mister_b1LL]

I stopped around 1999. By then WWE was just putting out so much a better product that I forgot about WCW. In fact, I never knew about David Arquette winning the title until about 2007 when I was looking up random things on Wikipedia.

 

[GameOver]

I hated/bored with alot of what WCW were dishing out each week, same with TNA, but still watched it and stil watch TNA, unless ofcourse it coincided with WWE programming, also we missed alot here in Sth Australia cause the shows were repeated fairly often instead of showing the new eps of Nitro each week.

The ending for me was WWE bought them out lol

 

[shooter_mcgavin]

I actually started watching WCW only when the WWE started taking over. From a non WCW fan perspective the show was still ok from 1998 to early 1999. I mean there is no denying that the matches on Nitro were still really good, Cruiserweight Matches, Benoit/Malenko, and even the main event matches were really good (Sting vs. DDP I remember was really good and its always fun seeing Goldberg kill people ).

I think what did it for me was around the time Nash was champion, Savage was champion, then Hogan won the belt a night later. Then after that everything went haywire, stories lacked consistency, main event feuds would change abruptly, with rivalries lasting as long as a month. One example was 2000, Sid was world champion then surrenders it then all of a sudden DDP and Jarrett are the main eventers. It's this reset booking that really messed up WCW, if you miss a show for 2 weeks chances are all the storylines are new. With the lack of consistency or continuity especially when the WWE was dishing out epics Rock/Foley or the Angle/Steph/HHH storylines, following WCW was such a chore.

 

[TheOneBigWill]

So, the opening question actually can't be answered by me - since I never quit watching W.C.W., including through VHS tapes and DVD's to this day. I loved W.C.W and their wacky, sometimes stupid and corny storylines.

While I watched W.C.W as much as possible, I can't say I paid true attention until late 1995-into 1996. Right before the n.W.o. From the Giant falling to his death only to still live, to the likes of Glacier & Renegade, to the Rise of the n.W.o, to David Arquette becoming the Heavyweight Champion, to the final Nitro of the Company. I watched every bit that I could - and generally loved it.

Toward the end, while being in the minority, I was actually a fan of the New Blood and the Millionaire's Club storylines. I wasn't a fan of the sudden Pay per view name changes - like Sin, and Greedy, but I enjoyed seeing guys like Kidman and Jarrett finally get HUGE pushes that many still feel they never deserved.

Lance Storm was my favorite toward the end, and when he held every Championship, except the Heavyweight - it felt like to me the reason the Company died was because they didn't just give him the Heavyweight title. Yes, yes stupid I know.. but who wouldn't have enjoyed seeing a guy literally hold EVERY CHAMPIONSHIP?! (and not the Angle shit from TNA, where he held 3 titles. I'm talking about 4-5 fricken belts.)

Anyways, W.C.W will always hold a place in my heart. Same can be said for E.C.W. So there was nothing they did to ever make me want to stop watching. If anything, Vince McMahon buying the Company and quitting on making it a legit "2nd show" was what made me stop watching - because, simply put, I couldn't anymore.

 

[harrythem]

I was a HUGE NWO fan. Most people I knew were. I could go on and on here but the NWO was WCW and without it no one wanted to watch WCW. No one was tuning in to watch Benoit or Guerrero, sadly, unless they were gonna get pummeled and walked all over by Scott Stenier and Buff Bagwell. No one gave a rat's ass who won in the crusierweight division as long as they were eventually powerbombed by Nash and Hall. No one cared about anything else because that's all the commentators talked about for 3 hours straight.

Buzz, incorrect Fact 1. It was the nWo that drew the people into WCW, I'll agree there but it was good characters and good matches across the board that kept the fans there segment after segment. If it was just to see them get beat up by the nWo then, surely, the Cruiserweight division and, dare I say it, Ric Flair and the like wouldn't have been getting any reaction, as people were there just for the nWo.

The NWO was WCW and i don't remember it ever getting old (unless you count NWO 2000 which kinda sucked without Hogan).

I take it you don't remember the Stevie Ray led Black & White nWo then as, man, that sucked some serious ass. When a group's leader is Stevie Ray, and a premier member is Virgil, you know that group is in trouble!

Unlike some, I didn't know anyone besides a few WWF diehards who didn't want to see the NWO continue. To say that would be like saying WWE fans got tired of seeing Stone Cold kick ass after his run in 1997. It's like saying Stone Cold stunning people probably made you puke every time, right. I don't think so.

People enjoyed seeing Austin attacking people because he was beatable. The nWo was so over-powering compared to the rest of WCW that it was a one sided war (just as the WWE vs ECWCW invasion angle was). In the entire run of the nWo there was only one PPV where they looked beatable (Starrcade 97) and, sure enough, within a few weeks they were back on top. Also the ratings would seem to discredit your claim that only WWF diehards didn't want the nWo to continue.

The fingerpoke of doom episode didn't kill WCW like WWE home video will tell you. And, if billionaire Ted Turner depended on wrestling as his major source of income and had an extreme mean streak like Vince (and if Ted didn't see the whole thing as a little game just to get under Vince's skin for a couple years), WWE would right now be ancient history and WCW would still be here no matter how terrible it would become. Just so all you Hogan/TNA haters know the real, unslanted reason why WWE won the Monday Night Wars. It had nothing to do with the NWO. It had everything to do with Ted Turner getting bored and moving on to conquer something else just to prove he can use his money to jump in and conquer anything and anybody (like Vince) when he wants to.

It wasn't the finger-poke that killed WCW, but it was from that point on that WCW went into a downward spiral booking wise and it was never able to recover. That's not WWE home video telling me that, that's my view as a viewer of WCW from that time.
And, just so your completely random view is put straight, Turner didn't get bored with wreslting and move on to conquer something else, he was basically shunted out of power with the AOL/Time Warner merger (although, to be fair, I'm sure he could see the company was out of whack when Bischoff gave Kiss a cool $1 million to have that jobber DEMON character)

Everyone I knew (ADULTS) loved the NWO right to the end and felt that it was never given the proper ending or phase out. Most who stayed to watch WCW by mid 99 were only there waiting for the NWO's return. At the time, no one realized it was essentially the demise. We thought it was a temporary break leading up to a big swerve. NWO fans cared then, they don't anymore and most of them aren't on this site or watching wrestling cause wrestling is PG for children and mommysboys, for ladder climbing butt kissers you see working for the man.

Nope I'm an adult and I felt the nWo was dragged on far too long and took time away from talent (such as Goldberg) that could, if given time, been able to lead the company and turn it around. Most people who were still with WCW in mid 99 were there because they wanted the alternative to WWF, they liked the Cruiserweight wrestlers, they liked the approach as it was different from the McMahon style of wrestling. And if there were sooooooo many nWo fans by mid 99, like you say, then why the hell did they abandon WCW in their droves when WCW finally bought the nWo back for the nWo 2000 run?

Most fans of the NWO are not on this site since it is full of WWE hacks with WWE home video-slanted opinions driving everybody else crazzzzzy.

I think you'd find a lot of people on this site were nWo fans, during the nWo's height and, those of the age that remember WCW, remember that, although WWE's home-videos are slanted to WWE, the fact of the matter is that they didn't need to do much altering to portray WCW as the complete farce that it was when it ended, everyone could see that. Perhaps, seeing as you put the world adult in capitals, you should take off those black and white rose-tinted glasses and take a more objective view on a company that made many, many mistakes, or would that be too much of a stretch to see that your precious nWo, while taking WCW to the top, also had a huge hand in leading to its downfall?

 

[superkick522]

you know i was actually thinking about that....it was the WWF/E that made you stop watching WcW think about it....ive been always a WWF mark from the 80's till now whatever product they bring out PG to attitude....you see when the nWo hit what was it really it was hulkster, razor ramon, and big daddy cool deisel...all WWF guys you know and came to love...and lets face it a majority of the nWo was all WWF guys and when they disbanded and you saw the actual WCW product you flipped the channel thats just my opinion the WWF product ITSELF made me stop watching WCW. WWF created larger than life stars ppl you were interested in WCW only true claim to fame was GOLDBERG (big f'n deal) WWF production values were unbeaten by WCW. Story Lines WWF out did WCW. So Maybe what im Saying is WCW made Me stop Watchin WCW i only watched it to see my WWF guys win/Lose to the mediocre WCW guys! just like whats gunna happen when the old WWF/E guys Leave TNA You'll Leave TNA As Well!

 

[brighamosity]

A big thing that made me stop watching WCW was when Jericho left for WWE. Jericho was my favorite wrestler at the time and him leaving took a big chunk out of my motivation to watch.