Which era of WCW had the better product: The Crockett Era or The NWO era?

[Sweettre15]

I ask this because I've noticed that these are the two standout periods for World Championship Wrestling but despite the NWO era being more successful, I personally enjoy the atmosphere, roster, and angles of the Crockett Era. Both eras had their strongpoints such as:

JCP:

- Tag Teams such as the Rock N Roll Express, Midnight Express, The Steiner Brothersand The Road Warrior for example etc

- Main event scene with Flair, Sting, Funk, Dusty Rhodes, Harley Race etc

- U.S title scene with Magnum T.A, Ivan Koloff, Tully Blanchard, Arn Anderson, Ricky Steamboat, Lex Luger, Rick Rude etc

- Talented managers such as Jim Cornette, Baby Doll, Paul E Dangerously

- The Storyline with the Original 4 Horseman in general

WCW:

- Having popular acts such as Hogan, Macho Man, Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, Curt Hennig, Ric Flair, Sting, Ted Debiase, Roddy Piper, etc when they were still viable

- The undefeated streak of Goldberg...which was indeed entertaining with all things considered

- An Undercard with acts such as Chris Jericho, Chris Benoit, Juventud Guerrera, Eddie Guerrero, Chavo Guerrero Rey Mysterio, Billy Kidman, Dean Malenko, Booker T, William Regal, Raven Perry Saturn etc to slither in and out of the cruiserweight and US title pictures

- The early stages and suprises of the NWO invasion which came off as fresh when it was initially done

- The "Crow" Sting rebellion against the NWO


But those things would still only be scratching the surface of what made them good...atleast for a while. So feel free to go into detail on which was better and why

 

[relentless1]

im going to have to go with the Bischoff era, storylines were the best (nWo) and the wrestlers were also second to none (mexican/japanese wrestlers, benoit, jericho, malenko, saturn etc.)

 

[SinCityBlitz]

The Crockett era by a million light years. The wrestlers and story lines were much better. From top to bottom that era knew how to work a PPV while the nWo era was a jumbled bunch of PPV crap. You could have at least 10 different guys main event.

Anyone remember the Crockett Cup? I miss this era the most. My favorite wrestling era.

 

[Irishock]

The better product will always be the one that draws more money, so it's nWo.

 

[jameyt2003]

The way you put it down, the NWO era looks better. I classify that from '95 to '98. Unfortunately I never got a week by week look into the JCP days so im stuck with one choice. During those times I was basically just a Sting fan, but I also liked DDP, Harlem Heat, Jericho, Raven, and of course Goldberg when he jumped onto the scene. The NWO faction itself bored the hell outta me except for Hogan and Nash.

 

[Sweettre15]

The better product will always be the one that draws more money, so it's nWo.

It never hurts to use your own subjective opinion and not just go by numbers.

Which one were you ENTERTAINED by more? I'll say that instead

 

[Tattooed Jesus]

Growing up in the South the JCP Era of wrestling is hands down the best of any of them including the Attitude Era of the WWE.

Flair and the Horsemen, Sting, Nikita, Magnum, Road Warriors, Midnight Express, Rock N Roll Express, Dusty Rhodes, Lex Luger, Paul Jones and his Army, Ron Garvin, Jimmy Garvin, the Freebirds, Steiners, Kevin Sullivan, the list of legit Hall of Fame talent could go on forever.

The storylines that these guys crafted were amazing and I was so into each and every one of them, nothing seemed like filler. It's a totally different product from what we saw at any other time in wrestling and I think it is one that is greatly missed.

 

[Headman]

I'd much rather watch the crocket product. The nWo era was horrible. The shows had no continuity. It suffered from some of the most random booking I've ever seen. And the character development was awful. The nWo was a fad that sold a bunch of t-shirts, but I can't even watch the best of Nitro dvd without being bored to tears. And let's talk great ppv matches. Where were they? I can't think of many.

 

[VencomHardcore]

Crockett Era - 100%

I was raised on this era and can tell you that it represented some of the most logical and dramatic booking done right.

You had jobbers that built up the stars on regular TV and they made you go to a show in order to see the good guy vs the bad guy. This was great.

I have to add that it was the era of Hall of Famers. You had Dusty, Ric, Tully, Tiger Mask, Giant BaBa, Midnight Express, Rock and Roll Express, Andre the Giant , The Samoans, Wahoo Mc Daniel, SD Jones , Mr. Wrestling, The Masked Superstar, Ole / Arn / Lars / Gene Anderson , LOD and Magnum TA to say the least.

JCP showed how to make tag team wrestling a major draw. They could easily put tag teams in the main event and it would still fill the arena. Another thing that JCP did was they knew how to bring wrestlers to pop a territory, so you could get Abdullah the Butcher or Terry Funk that would come in and make you crazy. JCP did luchadors FIRST. Mil Mascaras and Dusty Rhodes had a title run. [ I know most don't even remember it. I have the pictures from the show and magazine articles.

Then some of the best things to come out of Crockett were: Night of the Skywalkers, The Crockett Memorial Cup , War Games and Starcade. Everyone watched the TV show and believe me that the Dorton Arena in Raleigh and the Omni in Atlanta was packed. Shout out to the Greensboro Collessium .

Crockett Gave you Pure Booking that worked.

 

[EastCoastFan]

I gotta go with the Crockett era. I always liked Ric Flair, Magnum TA, Dusty, the Road Warriors, ...

The Nitro/NWO Era was Eric Bischoff trying to copy the WWF and raiding their talent. He was successful for a while, but he spent too much money and gave too much power to certain wrestlers, ultimately running WCW into the ground.

 

[James]

What's better, your second time having sex with a girl you deflowered last week, or the first time(which is when you deflowered her)?

I can't even believe this is a thread.


Look at what you typed out;

You have Ric Flair, Sting, and Rhodes in their prime; that's good enough to carry the whole argument. The rest is just the icing for the cake.

In the nWo era, you had some of the most ridiculous booking ever known to men.


Eric wishes that he had those superstars in their prime during the nWo era.

 

[lowandmighty]

There must be a lot of old people responding to this post because I personally don't even remember the Crockett era of killing "bars" and roaming the wild frontier.

I grew up seeing only the wwf until the mid 90's when Hulk Hogan went to wcw and it started being televised where I lived. Before that I didn't even know wcw existed.

So I'm only naturally going to be biased and say the nWo era was better. I did try and watch some old tapes I found and videos on youtube of the Davey Crockett era (I know it has nothing to do with Davey Crockett I'm just being a dick) and what I've found is it was one of those era's where you had to be there for it to be bearable to watch so its not like I didn't give it a chance at all. Ric Flair, Sting and Dusty Rhodes were never exactly the shit in my opinion anyway.
nWo for me.

 

[Sweettre15]

There must be a lot of old people responding to this post because I personally don't even remember the Crockett era of killing "bars" and roaming the wild frontier.

I grew up seeing only the wwf until the mid 90's when Hulk Hogan went to wcw and it started being televised where I lived. Before that I didn't even know wcw existed.

So I'm only naturally going to be biased and say the nWo era was better. I did try and watch some old tapes I found and videos on youtube of the Davey Crockett era (I know it has nothing to do with Davey Crockett I'm just being a dick) and what I've found is it was one of those era's where you had to be there for it to be bearable to watch so its not like I didn't give it a chance at all. Ric Flair, Sting and Dusty Rhodes were never exactly the shit in my opinion anyway.
nWo for me.

I rsspectfully disagree because while arguably I'm not "age appropriate" for the full Crockett Era experience since I'm only 22, I've watched several tapes, matches etc. I personally think you should look up All of Flair and Steamboat's NWA bouts, Magnum T.A vs Tully Blanchard, and Ric Flair vs Terry Funk for good measure. Then also look up the promo work done by Flair, Dusty, Magnum, Cornette, Tully Blanchard etc before making a more concrete opinion. To me good promos and good matches are good no matter what timeframe....Guess I'm just an "old soul" like that but still

 

[VencomHardcore]

It really has nothing to do with age. I am 35 and lived the Crockett era and it was the era that produced more Hall of Famers than the WCW era.

There were so many great wrestlers and the booking was amazing. Promos were the best ever because during that time, your PROMO put butts in the seats. It wasn't about spotfests but if you could tell a story in the ring and out.

There is a reason when you watch Ric Flairs , Dusty's and other best promos, they were done in the Crockett Territory. Plus that era had the best storylines with the most logical booking.

They didn't need shock TV. It just worked.

 

[lowandmighty]

I rsspectfully disagree because while arguably I'm not "age appropriate" for the full Crockett Era experience since I'm only 22, I've watched several tapes, matches etc. I personally think you should look up All of Flair and Steamboat's NWA bouts, Magnum T.A vs Tully Blanchard, and Ric Flair vs Terry Funk for good measure. Then also look up the promo work done by Flair, Dusty, Magnum, Cornette, Tully Blanchard etc before making a more concrete opinion. To me good promos and good matches are good no matter what timeframe....Guess I'm just an "old soul" like that but still

Man you dont need to worry about age appropriate. I'm actually older than you by a good 5 years. So I take back my comment about old people hahaha! did check out that funk v flair match and it was good. I'd even go as far as to say that the Crockett era had deeper and better quality matches than the nWo era did.

You're just pitching to the wrong guy is all. You see I loved the antics of the nWo and Hulk Hogan and his funny as fuck arrogance which worked cause it was actually the truth half the time. I was for the nWo as opposed to wcw. I was one of those guys. My life in the following years reflected it even.

All through the end of the nWo era up until the death of the rated R superstar days of edge in wwe I was drunk and stoned all the time and hanging out with my boys dealing to all the rich kids from my neighborhood. I was rolling in it back then and had an awesome jeep that could take us anywhere off the beaten track if we needed to lay low for a while. the sad part is all my old boys are either brain dead from all the drugs and alcohol we binged on all the time or in jail or they think I was a bad influence and don't like me anymore.

Sorry to lay that shit on you but those were the best years of my life and you just reminded me of it all. I mean it was great, kicking back watching sports and ppv wrestling all the time. It was just tits.

Now?, well now I've had to go straight. I got to go to fucking work and pretend to my girlfriend that I actually love the bitch and fucking nod my head and pretend I give a shit about all the boring fucking stories about her and her friends.
I have to watch her stupid fucking tv shows like game of thrones and that stupid fucking cartoon about the guy who works for his mothers law firm.

I have to keep answering a million corny ass text messages about how she loves me and how handsome I am all fucking day. It makes me want to throw up man. I have to fucking pretend I want kids and shit one day just so I can keep ramming her up the ass and pulling her hair. Sorry man life is just fucked these days. Stay 22 and keep watching all the bitchin old school wrestling you can.

 

[TheHitMark-SirJoseOle]

The Crockett Era was a great time for wrestling, for those who didn't care for how much Vince McMahon and Hulk Hogan were changing things, you still had a great alternative in Jim Crockett Promotions, the strongest of the NWA affiliates, so strong that it practically became the "NWA" itself.

This is like asking what you preferred more the "Federation Era" or the "Attitude Era", both had their things that made them great, and depending on which one you grew up to witness first hand, your answers might very well vary.

I only saw glimpses of the JCP matches due to how much of a stranglehold the WWF had on the television stations in my hometown. However, I'm going to go with the nWo era, yes I get it SO MANY WWF stars came over to WCW, what a shame, that Eric Bischoff was a real pillager by acquiring talent from other organizations.

Sheesh, if that's the argument all of you people have for why the nWo era was inferior, give that nonsense a rest, Vince McMahon only happened to do the same thing when he raided the AWA and JCP rosters to build towards his vision of what the WWF should be. Guys like Jesse Ventura, Adrian Adonis and Hulk Hogan were great examples of AWA talent that went to WWF. Yes I know, Hogan was in the WWF beforehand, but his Hulkamania persona really started in Minneapolis, don't care what anyone says there. Then of course, let's discuss some of the JCP talent, you had Roddy Piper, Greg Valentine and Bob Orton to name just a few.

To be honest, we're very fortunate that the Crockett Era didn't lead to an earlier buyout of the promotion from the WWF. Thankfully, Ted Turner had enough pull within his own company at the time, to buy JCP and save it from dissolution. People give all the crap they want to about Eric Bischoff, which some is warranted because he did indeed make some mistakes along the way. But without him WCW wouldn't have seen success again. Sadly, and I believe this much due to the fact that it was such a big entity the amount of WCW's non-wrestling minded personnel wasn't a good compliment to the number of egos WCW signed over the years.

Because it wasn't just Hogan. You have to factor in the notion that Hogan was in the company of Scott Hall, Kevin Nash, the aforementioned two who leveraged themselves into very lucrative contracts, as well as guys like Ric Flair and Randy Savage. That's a powder keg of egos right there, if there ever were any.

Both eras were great, but I'm tipping my hat in favor of the nWo. Say what you will about the bad points of that era, but never forget that Jim Crockett didn't handle finances that well either.

 

[jameyt2003]

All this JCP praise makes me wish I could view this more in depth. Are there any dvds or sources where I can get a better look at what JCP was offering at the time?

 

[Sweettre15]

All this JCP praise makes me wish I could view this more in depth. Are there any dvds or sources where I can get a better look at what JCP was offering at the time?

Well right now, you can hunt youtube, possibly get PPV dvds but mostly need WWE 24/7 for that.

 

[LascoX]

I lean a little more towards the JCP era but both were good. I grew up watching JCP and loved it. They had great talent , great feuds , and great booking. I preferred the NWA over the WWE . For me the WWE tended to be more cartoonish and NWA was more based on old school wrestling. JCP was one of the top promotions of the NWA and all the biggest starts came threw the area. The WCW/ NWO era built on that and took it to the next level. I found it extremely entertaining and obviously so did many people since they beat WWE in the ratings for so long. I followed that territory from the Georgia Championship Wrestling day up until the day the WWE took it over and enjoyed the whole ride. It was sad to see it go under after all that time.

 

[TWJC: The Beginning]

Busch off era had everything. Good wrestling, good stories, brawlers, talkers, technicians, flyers, nostalgia, all of it. I think it's still underrated just how good WCW was at their peak.

 

[Matty~!]

There's really no comparison, JCP was the last vestiges of the NWA as a semi national organisation. Which produced fantastic wrestling and during JCP's final years before the Turner buyout you had brilliant singles wrestling from Flair, Race, Dusty, Piper, Steamboat, Greg Valentine... On top of that you have probably the one of the best tag team rosters of all time from Midnight Express, Rock N Roll Express, Minnesota Wrecking Crew, The Road Warriors, The Russians, Manny Fernandez & Rick Rude...

As for the nWo era of WCW they had a roster full of stars but all the best wrestling came from the under card who were unquestionably lost in the shuffle and unable to break the glass ceiling.

Essentially it comes down to JCP producing proper pro wrestling as opposed to the nWo days play at pro wrestling placating the ego of pre madonnas. It drew money, but we all know what happened in the end.

 

[Sweettre15]

Talking about this stuff makes me wish WWE would put this stuff on Hulu Plus to watch or released more "Best of" DVDs for the Crockett Era.

 

[Henry Hill]

I'll take the Crockett era, but I will admit I watched more during the nWo era. The Crockett era did have its flaws with Ric Flair sometimes seeming a bit overexposed, the incredibly unfortunate tragedy of Magnum T.A.'s motorcycle accident, and the main events ending in the proverbial "dusty" finish. What I recall during the nWo era is regular outside interferences, schmozz breakdown finishes, and forty minute long nWo promo segments that got stale to me real fast, which caused me to turn over to raw more often than not.

 

[HBsam31]

I grew up on the Crockett Era, and I just remember that time being great for wrestling. Granted I was a kid and wrestling was still magical for me, but even watching the old stuff now I have to go with the Crockett Era. I am a huge fan of the NWO era as well, but Crockett edges it out just by a little bit for me. I remember watching The Clash of the Champions or a ppv just because I wanted to see if someone could actually get the belt off of Flair. A big thing was if the Horsemen were banned from ringside because that was the only chance the face had to win. Looking back on it think Crockett Era of WCW might be my favorite time and place in wrestling ever.

 

[Jack-Hammer]

Both eras had their pros & cons just like any other time in any other wrestling company.

I was a kid during the Crockett Era of the 80s and I enjoyed watching it. Was it genuinely as great as I thought it was back when I was in grade school? Not always. It'd be easy for me to simply say how fantastic it was but nostalgia would play a huge part in it. The Four Horsemen, Dusty Rhodes, Nikita Koloff, The Road Warriors, The Rock 'n' Roll Express, The Midnight Express, Barry Windham, Magnum T.A., etc. were all a lotta fun to watch when I was a kid. There was most definitely a "wrasslin'" type of feel to the company at that time.

The era of the nWo was also a great time because my friends & I lived for Monday nights in high school. We'd watch WCW and WWF, spending the next day talking about what happened, debating on who had the better show, which matches were better, etc. Again, however, looking back on it, it wasn't as great as it seemed at the time.

As far as characters go, I thought the nWo era produced more interesting characters overall. When I look back at a lot of the top stars of the 80s who COULD have fit in well with the nWo in the 90s, guys like Ric Flair, Arn Anderson & Tully Blanchard are really some of the only true stand outs. When it came to characters, the Crockett era overall seemed pretty weak compared to wrestling later on.

When it came down to overall wrestling content, I generally enjoyed the Crockett era more because there was more emphasis placed on in-ring action. However, to be fair, what we'd see on television during that time a good deal of the time were squash matches. During the nWo era, it wasn't at all uncommon for the nWo to come out at the top of every show and cut pointlessly long 20-30 minute promo segments that didn't accomplish anything. A lot of the time, week after week, it was the "we're the baddest motherfuckers on the planet" type of thing. Much of the time, the best wrestling action in WCW during the late 90s revolved around guys who were either Cruiserweights or generally classified as Cruiserweights at times. Often times, singles matches featuring guys like Mysterio, Guerrero, Malenko, Jericho, Benoit & some others would easily steal the show even though they were often treated as unimportant "vanilla midgets" when it was all said & done.

I'd say, overall, I enjoyed both times pretty equally. Jim Crockett Promotions was really the last of an all but dead breed by the mid 80s due to the territory system being all but obliterated by the expansion of the WWF and the innovations of cable television & syndication. It was an old school pro wrestling promotion that ultimately never lost sight of its identity that never lost sight of its own identity in the grand scheme of things. The nWo era came about during the mid-late 90s and it was an exciting time in wrestling. Wrestling was portrayed in a way that people hadn't seen before and injected an excitement into audiences was new & fresh. Both eras were important and even as I look back on it, I'm sure nostalgia clouds over some things for me and makes them seem better than they were. After all, this was back before the internet came along and made it all the more difficult to be a fan.