A few years ago on Obsessedwithwrestling.com, I posted an article that covered the 25 biggest mistakes that WCW ever made during its long, turbulent period before being shut down for good. Since I heard that a new WWE DVD covering the rise and fall of WCW had just been released, this seemed like a good opportunity to repost the long article on this website since it covers pretty much the same ground and even more. The only difference, though, is that this article will reveal some of the blunders that were apparently overlooked in the new WCW DVD, such as the Bret Hart issue. To be fair, I never saw the DVD but to anyone who feels that the documentary did not cover enough of what went wrong with the organization that has been dead for 8 years, this article should hopefully put most (if not all) criticisms to rest. This should hopefully draw in new fans who want to wonder: what went wrong in WCW? How could a multi-million dollar wrestling organization wind up being sold to a company owner for a considerably less amount of money?
Also, I made a few minor edits on the article since I thought some of the spelling was wrong, certain sentences were unnecessary and lengthy and the grammar was in need of correction. But even if you have read the article, you probably will not notice as you read along.
This is also a sort of an apology for the Goldberg article I posted a couple of months ago as I was not pleased with it and I consider it a hack job that should never had been published. If OWW.com would allow it, I would delete it immediately not because it is not honest but because it was written poorly and could have been so much better. Now, ON to the article:
It is said that in order to turn a company into a national success, three items are required: strong bookers, great athletes and a common interaction with the fans. Believe or not, WCW once had all that. They had arguably some of the most consistent and impressive workers on their rosters, they had big-named athletes that drew a lot of money and sold a lot of tickets and most importantly, they had competent bookers that knew exactly how to handle things.
But just when it all seems right in the world, the greatness of the company fell apart, reducing WCW to shambles. For over the past decade, the mistakes that WCW made overshadowed the achievements that made the company refreshing and the once clean product became a cesspool of politics, corruption and incompetence. What was worse was that they did it to themselves; instead of trying to capitalize on something that could be interesting, they vanquished it. Great athletes were depushed immediately and the main events featuring the same old stale wrestlers fighting each other reduced its fan base prominently. Politics disrupted the creative team and created nonsensical storylines that left a bad taste in our mouths. Catastrophically horrendous booking decisions tore apart the morale backstage and value of fan interest. Egos and greed provided nothing but misery and depression in the locker room and to the fans. Politicians became bookers; matches became duds and the most talented wrestlers shift sides to other companies like WWF and ECW.
The downfall or death of WCW was the mistakes they refused to fix and the horrible ideas they created without thinking first. WCW could have been a contender and might still exist today if they did not have the misfortune on not looking at the state of the product. But WCW did not care and has faded into obscurity without giving itself another chance. Now WCW is no more and only exist in our memories. And it's these 25 mistakes, blunders and disasters that turned WCW from being a multi-million dollar wrestling organization to becoming a toy that was purchased by Vince McMahon for a measely $1-3 million.
1. Eric Bischoff Embarrasses Ric Flair
When you think of WCW, you think of Ric Flair. And how could you not? He was the guy that wrestled everyday and every night without taking a break (unless it was for personal reasons), he had dozens and dozens of classic matches with wrestlers, good and bad, turning them into breakout stars, he drew heavy money, sold thousands of tickets and was the most dedicated wrestler in the industry. But to Eric Bischoff, he was nothing more than an employee or a pawn to his own company. In one faithful night, Bischoff declared only Hogan, Savage and Piper put rear ends on seats and called Flair a con artist and a liar. What followed turned out to be a serious backlash to WCW when they sued Ric Flair and nearly drove him and his family to bankruptcy. There were rumors that Flair was moving back to WWF, although it did not happen. He should have because when Flair came back in September, he was never given a chance to shine as he was put in one embarrassing storyline after another and jobbed to nearly everyone in the roster including Eric Bischoff at Starrcade 1998. This was a disgusting display of ignorance and jealousy as Eric Bischoff, along with guys like Hulk Hogan, succeeded in destroying Ric Flair's fame and nearly tarnished his career until his comeback in the WWE after the "Invasion" angle. It was a disgraceful treatment to a wrestling icon and fans rightly turned against the company whom was made by him.
2. The Finger that Killed the Company...and The Voice that Helped Another.
By the end of 1998, Kevin Nash persuaded the creative team into becoming the head booker, a first of many mistakes to come. One of Nash's first moves was to end Goldberg's winning streak at Starrcade 1998, a match that totally buried WCW into oblivion. But then it got even worse...at that time, Nash's nWo Wolfpac was feuding with Hogan's nWo Hollywood and Hogan, after lying through his teeth about possible retirement, came back and challenged Nash to a Heavyweight title bout at the first week of January 1999. At the same time, it was a direct opposite of a RAW main event between Rock and Mankind for the WWF Championship. Then in a bonehead decision only WCW could make, Tony Schiavone was told to give away results to the Rock-Mankind match and even added sarcastically "that'll put butts in the seats...push". Thanks to that error, RAW was able to beat NITRO that night in the ratings fight. But anyone who was still watching NITRO were in for a rude awakening. As Nash and Hogan got in the ring, Hogan flinged Nash's chest with his finger and Nash dropped ala HBK-HHH from Dec.1997 and allowed Hogan to recapture the belt. The result ruined the World title's prestige and brought back one of the most stale storylines in wrestling history. After this mess, WCW would never beat WWF in a ratings battle again as RAW did major business with the television ratings while WCW sunk underwater without ever recovering.
3. David Arquette: WCW World Champion
Given the blunders that WCW made, how could I NOT have listed this one as a disastrous mistake to the product, a mistake even Arquette himself considers a black moment in his career? If the Fingerpoke of Doom gushed blood out of the organs of WCW, then the Arquette title win shot the organization in the face with the elephant gun. The World title was losing value anyway but when Arquette won the belt, it was over: the value and integrity of the championship blemished and the historical impact it had in the past terminated. The "genius" that was Vince Russo wanted to put the World title on Arquette by hyping the movie "Ready to Rumble" but Dave wanted no part of it so he was forced in a tag match with DDP against Jeff Jarrett and Eric Bischoff on THUNDER and won the belt by pinning Bischoff. It proved to be so effective that WCW went out of business over a year later. One of the worst promotional moves in the history of this great sport and a lesson of why wrestling should be kept to wrestlers and not Hollywood celebrities or talk show hosts, which brings me too...
4. Celebrities: Main Eventers
1998 saw the rise of Eric Bischoff's ego as Bischoff did everything he could to get an advantage of the ratings war against the WWF. One of his guerrilla tactics was paying a million dollars to non-wrestling celebrities like Karl Malone, Denis Rodman and Jay Leno. This move made a mockery of the sport and humiliated WCW, exposing the business and destroying its credibility. Denis Rodman first came to WCW in a tag match with Hogan at Bash of the Beach 1997 but the results were disastrous and would be the laughing stock of the year. Forgetting the phrase "If it doesn't work, don't continue", Bischoff insisted in bringing Leno and Malone and push them in main events...over Diamond Dallas Page, Sting, Bret Hart and Goldberg!! The results were two of the worst matches in WCW history and an insult to all the wrestling fans who paid their hard earned money to see ACTUAL wrestlers.
5. Two Future Stars Kick the Bucket
In early 1994, Ric Flair was given the book as he had great matches with Ricky Steamboat, Vader and Sting and allowed major stars like Steve Austin, Arn Anderson and Johnny B. Badd to elevate midcarders and have interesting feuds. Also, Mick Foley was allowed to book his own hardcore matches along with Terry Funk during the hot Foley-Nasty Boyz feud. When WCW signed Hulk Hogan, however, Flair and Foley lost control and the booking became as self-destructing as a crack addict. Hogan brought in his friends like Jim Duggan, Honky Tonk Man and Brutus Beefcake and had them take away the spotlights that Steve Austin and all the other major stars had earned. In one of the worst moments of the year, Jim Duggan squashed Steve Austin in 20 seconds to win the U.S. title at Fall Brawl. Afterwards, when Austin was injured, he was fired by WCW executives on the phone. At the same time, Mick Foley was kicked out the backdoor when he lost the Tag titles to Team Wonderful. From there, Foley and Austin went to ECW and made it to the WWF, where in a matter of a couple of years, they went on to become the two biggest stars in the wrestling industry. So with unintentional assistance from Hogan, Austin and Foley were buried in WCW and ended up becoming the leaders of the wrestling industry during the Monday Night Wars. Irony does not come more cosmic than this.
6. Jim Herd Fires Ric Flair
This will go down as the grave-digging moment for WCW in pre-Hogan years as their biggest draw was simply fired for not wanting to job his title to Lex Luger, all which led to WCW going through a financial rut for the next couple of years. Ric Flair was WCW Champion and people clamoured that the Great American Bash 1991 will be a huge turning point if Flair jobbed the title to Luger after Luger chased the belt for nearly three years. But Flair did not want to job and instead of being negotiated by top executives and having promises to get paid higher if he did so (according to Flair's book, he was saving the title for Sting), Flair was fired by then WCW honcho Jim Herd and he took the World title belt to WWF where he would call it the "Real World Championship" in a hot storyline. The original Bash 91 main event was scrapped, a new title was presented and Flair was replaced by Barry Windham, a move that did not go well for fans that night. In the only noteworthy moment in the Great American Bash 1991, numerous chants of "We Want Flair" flooded a substandard main event for the entire time. The show, which was supposed to dawn a new era, ended up being one of the biggest flops in wrestling history and the effects of Ric Flair's departure left WCW in a financially disastrous state, coming close to filing for bankruptcy before finally bringing back Ric Flair, which ironically saved WCW with a scoop.
7. Ratings: 4.8 Buyrates: 0.0
Goldberg was on the rise of popularity in WCW as he became more over than any wrestler on the roster. Immediately a US Champion, the bookers decided to give him a World title shot. This was, of course, during the Monday Night Wars when WWF was starting to roast WCW in the ratings and Bischoff was getting desperate at every attempt to get even with Vince McMahon. So in one of his most "brilliant" strategies in his WCW run, Bischoff decided to have Goldberg win the World title on television instead of ta PPV. Although it got exceptional ratings, it proved to be a fatal mistake as the match did not do any profitable good for WCW in its entity. Had the Goldberg title win been saved on a PPV, buyrates would have went up and WCW might've made a lot of money. Instead, it was just bantha fodder for Eric Bischoff's scheme to be better than the competition.
8. The Outsiders Destroying a Division
WCW did not have a lot of noteworthy tag teams, other than Harlem Heat, so in order to make it refreshing and more watchable to the audience, they gave the tag titles to the Outsiders (Kevin Nash and Scott Hall). Unfortunately, instead of sustaining importance to the titles, the Outsiders blemished their integrity and devalued the championships by not defending them and competing in singles matches instead. In contrast, every other tag team competed in meaningless number one contender matches that served no purpose but to lose to Nash and Hall. By the time the Outsiders lost the titles, they rendered the championships useless, ruining a prominent division that now did not have any important tag teams.
9. A Radical Departure
WCW might have been a catastrophic mess in and out of the ring but it still featured wrestlers whose loyalty and desire to work day and night for the fans are today unsurpassable. That was not the case anymore for Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, Dean Malenko and Perry Saturn as after having their promises broken, their pushes flattened and for being treated like losers, they got sick of the WCW environment and wanted out of the contracts. And they got their wishes as they were released from the WCW roster and moved to the WWF. In other words, like Ric Flair, instead of negotiating with them, which would have been a smart move, WCW just released four of the best workers in the business for the hell out of it, one who was a World Champion, and ended up shooting themselves in the foot once again before getting suffocated with a plastic bag when they brought back Vince Russo and Eric Bischoff. In other words, the release of the Radicalz pretty much signalled the end for WCW.
10 The Starrcade Fiasco
One of the biggest disappointments in PPV history, Starrcade 1997 was supposed to be the show to turn WCW around for the good of the company and its talent. Instead, it ended up being a 3-hour snorefest which saw 85% of the line-up won by heels in blow off bouts that are normally won by faces. But if there was any indication of the company falling down the cliff and breaking itself apart in the future, look no further than the notorious main event between Hogan and Sting, as after months of dogging away from Sting, Hogan was finally forced to defend the belt against the man he constantly ran away from. But the match was a dull train wreck, ruined by the infamous "fast count" angle and a screwjob ending instead of a clean finish. This not only took the credibility away from Sting but it also buried him and ended his run as a main eventer. After that, Hogan won back the title, thus ruining one of the biggest blow off angles to a hot feud in ages and foreshadowing a series of turdburgers that engulfed WCW in the sewers for the next couple of years before its sale to the WWF.
11 Blind-Siding the Blonds
Undoubtedly one of the all-time greatest tag teams in the wrestling industry would have to be the Hollywood Blonds (Brian Pillman and Steve Austin), the tag team that defined "heel heat". It was said that the WCW did not want them to win the titles but in a miraculous moment, they did mostly due to the phenomenal work rate they sustained. Although their title reign ended in two months, they brought the T back in Tag Team division. Unfortunately, being that this was WCW, the Blonds were jobbed out of their titles, with promises of being pushed to a world title main event unfulfilled. Instead of capitalizing on their potential of the Hollywood Blonds, WCW ruined it by not giving much gratitude or admiration to a tag team that might have been boosted to legendary status and help ratify the tag division if they were treated with respect.
12 Kayfabe At Its Worst
In wrestling terminology, a taping is when a non-televised live show is recorded, edited and then brought on TV in their proper time. You'll notice that pattern with SMACKDOWN (which actually airs on Tuesday but is broadcast on Thursdays) and Sunday Night Heat. Also in tapings, wrestling fans are told who to BOO and CHEER and re-edit the mouths and physical actions of fans in case they perform some inappropriate reaction. In 1993, during the beginning years of Monday Night RAW, Vince McMahon would do one live show and three tapings in one month to make it cost-efficient, even though it was a tad bit stale. But WCW went further and taped a mind-boggling THREE MONTHS of television for their programs. That decision came back to bite WCW in the butt as wrestling fans who DID attend the shows reported title changes to the Internet and gave away all the results. For example, they reported that the Blonds would lose the tag belts to Arn Anderson and Paul Roma, who would then lose them to the Nasty Boyz in October. Vader, who was WCW World Champion, would hold on to the belt through all the October-tapings according to the fans. Or that three titles would change hands at the Fall Brawl. This ended up exposing the business and the lack of suspenseful swerves or shock value that WCW would try to use to entertain fans caused buyrates and house show revenues to tank and cost themselves an overabundant 23 million dollars, a disastrous deficit that would be surpassed by the 80 million dollars loss mark in 2000!
13 From Hero to Zero
When WCW signed Hulk Hogan in 1994, it made the company more financially successful and much more mainstream to the public. At the same time, however, it also planted seeds of the political diseases that infested the product and WCW atmosphere and send it crashing down underwater. Hogan was automatically given the title "the leader of the company" and "the most exciting wrestler alive" when he went to the company. Unfortunately, the reception Hogan received ranged from mediocre to downright negative and the crowd started to boo him during interviews in front of Gene Okerlund, who had the utmost gall to call it a "phenomenal ovation". Hogan was shoved down the throat of the audience so many times that his ratings power started to decline. Although the heel turn was needed to save his career, people grew sick and tired of Hulk in general, whether he was a heel or face or just a tweener. It then became crystal clear that Hogan was using WCW to put himself over everyone and stuffing money in his pockets. In the end, Hogan ended up being a waste of money and in an ironic twist, a ratings failure. Hogan also feared for the popularities of many wrestlers, specifically Ric Flair, that could take away his spotlight. This was evident when Ric Flair returned to an enormous ovation in 1998 where Hulk's WCW 1994 debut and 1999 return were met with a mixed reaction. To put it in nice terms, Hogan was a paranoid, egotistical, self-serving and jealous worm who only cared about being better than everyone and having dollar bills stuffed in his safe. Say what you want about his impact in the industry but there is no denying the ignorance, the arrogance and the blowhard selfishness that Hogan contains in his character and for WCW to not realize or admit how much damage Hogan was doing for the company is enough to warrant this on the list.
14 Sting and Goldberg's Failed Heel Turns
The mind-boggling bizarre prediction on who to cheer and boo really broke into kayfabe big time during the late 1990's. Hulk Hogan, despite being a top babyface, was heckled by the Internet and got negative responses by the live crowd while Sting always goes out and gets one of the biggest pops of the night. Then in a shocking moment, Sting turned on Hogan by waffling him with a baseball bat to a standing ovation, even though this cemented him as a heel. Unsurprisingly, it proved to be a huge failure because it also made Sting even more popular than ever. Had they capitalized on the heel potential, Sting might have been one of the most hated men on the roster but Sting had too many years as a babyface and the fact that he did nothing that verified him as a villain made the heel turn utterly ridiculous. But that would not be all. Vince Russo, being a lover of swerves and cartoon characters, felt the need of turning the most profitable and well-over babyface WCW ever had in Goldberg into a full-fledged heel. Unfortunately, the experiment flopped big time as Goldberg was still getting cheers and was automatically turned back into a face, ruining his career and exemplify the state of the company: no matter how much feces you throw, it never sticks on the wall.
15 The Failure of Vince Russo
Speaking of Russo, WCW needed to find a way to get itself back on track and earn back many of the fans they lost when they were getting squashed by WWF. In October 1999 when Vince Russo and Ed Ferrera, main writers that contributed in the Attitude Era, left the company, WCW seized the opportunity of hiring them to clean up the mess. Russo even convinced the management that they will do whatever it takes to help the company and not place themselves on television. You cannot buy bad comedy like this. Russo broke all the promises and created some horrendous angles and storylines that made no sense: Madusa winning the Cruiserweight title; his decision to put four talented foreign wrestlers in a piñata on a pole match that enraged many fans and the worldwide audience WCW had left; ridiculing Jim Ross with Ed Ferrera as Oklahoma; booking Bret Hart like a loser; and hype Tank Abbott as a World title contender. Oh, and make himself the owner heel, a concept done to death by Vince McMahon and Eric Bischoff. That was enough to cost him his job but when Kevin Sullivan lost booking in 2000, WCW shockingly rehired Vince Russo back to the booking team and the management went down the toilet again with outrageously bad moments like the David Arquette title win, Goldberg's failed heel turn, the moronic Millionaire's Club v. New Blood feud and Vince Russo winning the WCW title, the latter being the last straw that broke the camel's back and shattered its bones, turning the organization into a lifeless zombie with no reason to exist anymore.
16 The Dangerous Alliance Terminated
The super-hot conflict between the anti-WCW faction Dangerous Alliance led by Paul E. against WCW veterans like Sting and Ricky Steamboat was the highest selling point throughout 1991-1992. The storyline was that Paul E. was fired from WCW and vowed bloody vengeance by teaming Steve Austin with Rick Rude, Larry Zybszko and Barry Windham and try to take out any WCW worker that got in their way. This was essentially the direct opposite of the ill-fated WCW Invasion angle from 2001 or even the nWo Regime during the 90's in which the heat here is incredible, egos didn't cave in and the back-story of the competitors were nothing short of intense and violent with both factions looking stronger and going over each other like they respected each other in real life. Then came Erik and Bill Watts and the whole Dangerous Alliance angle was completely scrapped, thus killing off the one chance that could bring WCW into commercial success without any problem and have everyone move on to different directions. Had the feud continue on throughout the end of 1992, WCW might have recovered its finances and might not have lost a lot of money the following year and almost file for bankruptcy but since this IS WCW, for every good moment, a pile of excrement stinks up the joint.
17 Paul Roma Inducted in the Horsemen
Another wasted opportunity combined with a retarded concept as the heatless WWF jobber is revealed to be the fourth member of the most elite stable in all of professional wrestling, a move that nearly killed the Horsemen and their heat for good in 1993. It is widely considered as the weakest Horsemen selection in the stable's history.
18 The Ultimate Bust
One of the most pathetic and embarrassing comebacks throughout the lucrative run in WCW would have to be the return of the Ultimate Warrior. Before Warrior used his extreme right-wing agenda to diss homosexuals and tell Iranians to go "get a towel", Eric Bischoff tried every desperate act to get WCW to beat the WWF again. Concepts like celebrity main events and promoting "Bride of Chucky" failed so Bischoff decided to give Jim Hellwig an overpaid sum of nearly one-two million dollars for a WCW contract. To say it backfired would be an understatement. When Warrior debut, he was automatically put in a main event feud with Hollywood Hogan, leading to a series of horrendous interviews and Vince Russo-style stunts like fireballs, taunts that deflated the crowd and a mist entrance that injured Davey Boy Smith. Oh, and who could forget the cheesy Warrior signal that ripped-off Batman? The return match between Hogan-Warrior was a catastrophe...a slow, lumbering mess which saw two senior citizens blow every basic move they could muster (or have in their move set). Warrior, having suffered a broken arm, was paid to stay home, just showing that his ironclad contract was a nothing but a huge waste of money to begin with...another million dollars down the FREAKING DRAIN!!!
19 An Ultimately Dumb Idea
Before the WCW brain trust brought in the Warrior, they once tried to create a spin-off of the nutcase himself during 1995 for Hulk Hogan to feud and go over...Seriously, I'm not making this stuff up. Known as the Renegade, Hogan chose some unknown employee named Richard Williams and donned him with ridiculous makeup and costume after hints of Ultimate Warrior making a possible WCW debut. And boy, did that ever go well with the crowd? The fans did not buy Renegade for a minute so was he depushed or removed off the roster? No, they booked the Renegade to win the TV title from Arn Anderson at the Great American Bash 1995 and push him to a main event feud with Ric Flair. If you do not understand WCW logic like this, no one does. Thankfully, the Renegade experiment ended and Williams would not be heard of again before committing suicide via shooting himself in 1999. But the damage was done as Hogan's ego and friends started to take control while the talented stars got depushed into obscurity. This was the perfect evidence of how this was happening.
20 Hey, Remember that Master P Guy?
Remember when wrestling featured just wrestlers performing in the ring? Remember the days before the McMahons hogged the WWE or the ugly sight of seeing Jay Leno doing a hammerlock on Hollywood Hogan or Jim Ross giving Jonathan Coachman a terrible stunner? Well, 1999 was not a decent year for wrestling as retarded angles, bonehead promotional moves and endless series of skits tarnished the one element that makes the sport important: authentic wrestling. And some of the wrestlers involved were not even associated with the roster; they were outdoor celebrities. Case in point with WCW, as they created a huge boner with the signing of many musicians like Master P, Kiss and Megadeth in an attempt to provide fan interest. Why is this bad? Because it dropped credibility on its neck and did nothing but create an even bigger amount of backlash to WCW in the whole. People who paid to watch wrestling were forced to watch music performances by these bands. And you thought Limp Bizkit performing at WMXIX was bad? Plus, there was the the baffling country v. rap feud with unpopular rapper Master P as a babyface leaving a bad taste in the fans' mouths since wrestlers associated with country music were the bad guys...in a south-adapted company! Another ridiculous moment, according to Wrestlecrap, was that Gene Simmons of Kiss was given a fat contract to create a wrestler based on the band and the wrestler never got a push. You cannot make this stuff up!
21 Hart Suffers a Headache
People will always debate on the annoying controversy at Montreal in 1997 but if anyone thought that was a nadir in Bret Hart's career, there was more yet to come in WCW for the Hitman. When Bret debut in WCW, it was at Starrcade 1997 where he became involved in the infamous Hogan-Sting main event that could have made Bret into a valuable player. Unfortunately, politics crippled Bret Hart's WCW run as the Hitman was put in the repetitive "Is he nWo?" storylines and did about a hundred turns in one year (he was face, then heel, then face, then heel again). Oh, and he wrestled DDP, Harlem Heat and Chris Benoit in the midcard while hanging on high water against Randy Savage and Sting. This coming from a guy that was getting paid two million dollars a year in his contract, more than most of the roster (except for Hogan and Goldberg). You had to know how Bret was feeling about this having just been rejected from the WWF and then getting mopped all over the floor in WCW. The fact is that WCW once again wasted another opportunity and turned Bret Hart into a forgotten afterthought. A five-time WWF Champion winning the US title several months after his first WCW appearance is ridiculous and even more so is the value that was wasted and not fully capitalized when he made his debut. Bret spent a total of two years in WCW where the only accomplishments were winning the first and only WCW Championship in a tournament and facing Chris Benoit in the classic Owen Hart Tribute match, before a severe concussion sent him to retirement. Bret Hart was like a golden treasure but like the mindless pirates they were, WCW buried its treasure and did not bother to dig it up again when they had the chance.
22 The Horsemen Are Buried Again
WWE can have the Evolutions, the McMahon-Helmsley Regimes and the Cabinets and TNA can have the Kings of Mountains, 3-Live Crews and Team Canadas but none will touch the the Four Horsemen, in my view the single greatest and most influential stable in this industry today, in the past and in the future. The original stable contained Ric Flair, Ole & Arn Anderson, Tully Blanchard and manager JJ Dillon and their heel tactics made them legendary, so legendary that newer versions were used, featuring wrestlers like Sting, Lex Luger, Barry Windham, Chris Benoit, Dean Malenko and Brian Pillman, among others like Sid, El Gigante (!!!) and Steve McMichael. The Horsemen stood on top of the mountain for several years, even after some valleys such as inducting Paul Roma and having a tedious feud with the Dungeon of Doom. Then came the nWo storyline and you can consider the Horsemen in the eyes of WCW employees obsolete. When the nWo helped increase ratings and buyrates, it also increased Eric Bischoff's ego. Bischoff, believing that he did not need the Horsemen for money anymore, disbanded them and put them in ridiculous one-sided feuds with Jeff Jarrett and Kevin Sullivan. The Horsemen were never given the chance to shine when they were facing the nWo, looking weak and losing in every major match each time they fought them, including the bizarre Wargames match at Fall Brawl 1997 when Curt Henning turned on them. The final nail in the coffin was in 1998 when the Horsemen returned to a deafening roar and were completely buried by the nWo and Eric Bischoff, even though they achieved one of the last great ratings victories for WCW. It was at that point that people realized that the Horsemen would never come out on top again. Bischoff's ego, along with the infesting politics, left the greatest stable of all time in a barren hole that they never got out of.
23 Tarnishing Goldberg
When Goldberg was pushed as the unstoppable monster, he squashed every single wrestler he was put in the ring with and became the #1 babyface in the company. Wresting skills and big-ass ego be damned, he made a lot of money and drew numerous crowds. Unfortunately, politics reared their ugly heads and instead of utilizing Goldberg's winning streak, WCW ended it instantly at Starrcade 1998, although the fault should go to the bookers rather than Goldberg himself (as a replier to my Goldberg article pointed out). The result deflated Goldberg's main event run and killed off the heat of one of WCW's last major draws. Since then, Goldberg's success has been less than stellar with a hoax of a title win at Halloween Havoc 1999, the ludicrous booking during his feuds with Kevin Nash and Bret Hart and a heel turn that totally wrecked his WCW career. Since then, Goldberg's career has yet to recover and his WWE run clarified that statement.
24 Coming Soon to a Titantron Near You
In 1993, WCW was in financial turmoil with buyrates going down and a series of ridiculous promotional moves (#11, 12 and 17) that nearly sent the company into bankrupt hell. At that time, Big Van Vader was the WCW World Heavyweight champion that, though marketable, was not a draw. So when he was fed with challengers like Sting and Davey Boy Smith, WCW tried a creative way to hype their title shots as something important...they aired mini-movies starring WCW wrestlers. That is right. At a cost between $100,000-to-$1 million, the mini-movies featured Vader, Sting, Davey Boy Smith and Sid Vicious in a series of embarrassing filming segments that ended up going nowhere and exposing the business just as bad as the tapings debacle from earlier on. One famous segment called "The White Castle of Fear" saw Sting fly via helicopter to the Rocky Mountains to confront Vader over the strap. So they played the tug-of-war with the belt and when lightning flashed, the title belt snaps and segment ends. Another one took place at a beach where Sting and Davey played volleyball with a bunch of orphans until Sid and Vader came out and one of their minions plant a bomb under the boat, which goes off, trapping Sting and Davey on the island forever. Seriously, this was supposed to MAKE people buy the pay-per-view. Most people, not surprisingly, did not buy the shows and this "creative concept" ended up poking WCW in the eyes, leaving them monetarily blind before regaining their vision with Ric Flair's title win at Starrcade that year.
25 Kevin Nash + Head Booker = Epic Fail
Brad Dykens said it in his best "The WCW Pattern of Failure" article when wrestlers should not under any circumstance be allowed to book themselves in feuds, matches and title wins, no less than control their own storylines. Such was the case with Kevin Nash. Nash convinced the creative team to make himself the head booker for WCW and that is what sent the company in a downward spiral. Kevin Nash's first primary move was to end Goldberg's winning streak at Starrcade 1998 and give him his own World title belt. What followed were brilliant ideas that only Nash (and his friends) would come up with: the burials of the Horsemen, the misuse of Raven, his feud with Savage, the push heatless wrestlers like Rick Steiner and Sid Vicious, repetitive nWo angles, the unsolved "Who Drove the Hummer?" angle (in which we still do not know who drove it), President Ric Flair as a mental patient and of course, the Fingerpoke of Doom that helped WWF completely flatten WCW for the next two years before WCW was sold to Vince McMahon. All in all, Kevin Nash did great wonders for WCW and helped lead it to its downfall, proving, once and for all, that he is a genius and that geniuses have nice, long hair. Congratulations, Kevin Nash. You have truly done this company proud.
I know I am still missing many ridiculous moments in WCW history such as Robocop; Cactus Jack's amnesia angle; the Shockmaster; the cancellation of house shows and Saturday programs in 2000; and the general lack of long-term booking decision that has troubled WCW for many years. But I think this will serve as a nice blueprint in showing how NOT to book an organization in a way that will turn off fans and deteriorate any locker room moral that exists. It also should hopefully help act as a companion piece to the new WWE DVD: "The Rise and Fall of WCW", which has been recently criticized by many wrestling fans for not showing enough of what went wrong in WCW.
All in all, have a good read. See you later.
Sources for this article included numerous books "The Death of WCW", "WrestleCrap" and Ric Flair's "To Be the Man", DVDs: "Monday Night Wars", "Hard Knocks - The Chris Benoit Story", "Eddie Guerrero: Cheating Death, Stealing Life", "The Rise and Fall of ECW", "Self-Destruction of the Ultimate Warrior" and "The Ultimate Ric Flair Collection" and websites including Rspw.org, Wrestlecrap.com, Rspwfaq.com, wrestlingobserver.com and obsessedwithwrestling.com. Special thanks to them for information and inspiration.
Also, I made a few minor edits on the article since I thought some of the spelling was wrong, certain sentences were unnecessary and lengthy and the grammar was in need of correction. But even if you have read the article, you probably will not notice as you read along.
This is also a sort of an apology for the Goldberg article I posted a couple of months ago as I was not pleased with it and I consider it a hack job that should never had been published. If OWW.com would allow it, I would delete it immediately not because it is not honest but because it was written poorly and could have been so much better. Now, ON to the article:
It is said that in order to turn a company into a national success, three items are required: strong bookers, great athletes and a common interaction with the fans. Believe or not, WCW once had all that. They had arguably some of the most consistent and impressive workers on their rosters, they had big-named athletes that drew a lot of money and sold a lot of tickets and most importantly, they had competent bookers that knew exactly how to handle things.
But just when it all seems right in the world, the greatness of the company fell apart, reducing WCW to shambles. For over the past decade, the mistakes that WCW made overshadowed the achievements that made the company refreshing and the once clean product became a cesspool of politics, corruption and incompetence. What was worse was that they did it to themselves; instead of trying to capitalize on something that could be interesting, they vanquished it. Great athletes were depushed immediately and the main events featuring the same old stale wrestlers fighting each other reduced its fan base prominently. Politics disrupted the creative team and created nonsensical storylines that left a bad taste in our mouths. Catastrophically horrendous booking decisions tore apart the morale backstage and value of fan interest. Egos and greed provided nothing but misery and depression in the locker room and to the fans. Politicians became bookers; matches became duds and the most talented wrestlers shift sides to other companies like WWF and ECW.
The downfall or death of WCW was the mistakes they refused to fix and the horrible ideas they created without thinking first. WCW could have been a contender and might still exist today if they did not have the misfortune on not looking at the state of the product. But WCW did not care and has faded into obscurity without giving itself another chance. Now WCW is no more and only exist in our memories. And it's these 25 mistakes, blunders and disasters that turned WCW from being a multi-million dollar wrestling organization to becoming a toy that was purchased by Vince McMahon for a measely $1-3 million.
1. Eric Bischoff Embarrasses Ric Flair
When you think of WCW, you think of Ric Flair. And how could you not? He was the guy that wrestled everyday and every night without taking a break (unless it was for personal reasons), he had dozens and dozens of classic matches with wrestlers, good and bad, turning them into breakout stars, he drew heavy money, sold thousands of tickets and was the most dedicated wrestler in the industry. But to Eric Bischoff, he was nothing more than an employee or a pawn to his own company. In one faithful night, Bischoff declared only Hogan, Savage and Piper put rear ends on seats and called Flair a con artist and a liar. What followed turned out to be a serious backlash to WCW when they sued Ric Flair and nearly drove him and his family to bankruptcy. There were rumors that Flair was moving back to WWF, although it did not happen. He should have because when Flair came back in September, he was never given a chance to shine as he was put in one embarrassing storyline after another and jobbed to nearly everyone in the roster including Eric Bischoff at Starrcade 1998. This was a disgusting display of ignorance and jealousy as Eric Bischoff, along with guys like Hulk Hogan, succeeded in destroying Ric Flair's fame and nearly tarnished his career until his comeback in the WWE after the "Invasion" angle. It was a disgraceful treatment to a wrestling icon and fans rightly turned against the company whom was made by him.
2. The Finger that Killed the Company...and The Voice that Helped Another.
By the end of 1998, Kevin Nash persuaded the creative team into becoming the head booker, a first of many mistakes to come. One of Nash's first moves was to end Goldberg's winning streak at Starrcade 1998, a match that totally buried WCW into oblivion. But then it got even worse...at that time, Nash's nWo Wolfpac was feuding with Hogan's nWo Hollywood and Hogan, after lying through his teeth about possible retirement, came back and challenged Nash to a Heavyweight title bout at the first week of January 1999. At the same time, it was a direct opposite of a RAW main event between Rock and Mankind for the WWF Championship. Then in a bonehead decision only WCW could make, Tony Schiavone was told to give away results to the Rock-Mankind match and even added sarcastically "that'll put butts in the seats...push". Thanks to that error, RAW was able to beat NITRO that night in the ratings fight. But anyone who was still watching NITRO were in for a rude awakening. As Nash and Hogan got in the ring, Hogan flinged Nash's chest with his finger and Nash dropped ala HBK-HHH from Dec.1997 and allowed Hogan to recapture the belt. The result ruined the World title's prestige and brought back one of the most stale storylines in wrestling history. After this mess, WCW would never beat WWF in a ratings battle again as RAW did major business with the television ratings while WCW sunk underwater without ever recovering.
3. David Arquette: WCW World Champion
Given the blunders that WCW made, how could I NOT have listed this one as a disastrous mistake to the product, a mistake even Arquette himself considers a black moment in his career? If the Fingerpoke of Doom gushed blood out of the organs of WCW, then the Arquette title win shot the organization in the face with the elephant gun. The World title was losing value anyway but when Arquette won the belt, it was over: the value and integrity of the championship blemished and the historical impact it had in the past terminated. The "genius" that was Vince Russo wanted to put the World title on Arquette by hyping the movie "Ready to Rumble" but Dave wanted no part of it so he was forced in a tag match with DDP against Jeff Jarrett and Eric Bischoff on THUNDER and won the belt by pinning Bischoff. It proved to be so effective that WCW went out of business over a year later. One of the worst promotional moves in the history of this great sport and a lesson of why wrestling should be kept to wrestlers and not Hollywood celebrities or talk show hosts, which brings me too...
4. Celebrities: Main Eventers
1998 saw the rise of Eric Bischoff's ego as Bischoff did everything he could to get an advantage of the ratings war against the WWF. One of his guerrilla tactics was paying a million dollars to non-wrestling celebrities like Karl Malone, Denis Rodman and Jay Leno. This move made a mockery of the sport and humiliated WCW, exposing the business and destroying its credibility. Denis Rodman first came to WCW in a tag match with Hogan at Bash of the Beach 1997 but the results were disastrous and would be the laughing stock of the year. Forgetting the phrase "If it doesn't work, don't continue", Bischoff insisted in bringing Leno and Malone and push them in main events...over Diamond Dallas Page, Sting, Bret Hart and Goldberg!! The results were two of the worst matches in WCW history and an insult to all the wrestling fans who paid their hard earned money to see ACTUAL wrestlers.
5. Two Future Stars Kick the Bucket
In early 1994, Ric Flair was given the book as he had great matches with Ricky Steamboat, Vader and Sting and allowed major stars like Steve Austin, Arn Anderson and Johnny B. Badd to elevate midcarders and have interesting feuds. Also, Mick Foley was allowed to book his own hardcore matches along with Terry Funk during the hot Foley-Nasty Boyz feud. When WCW signed Hulk Hogan, however, Flair and Foley lost control and the booking became as self-destructing as a crack addict. Hogan brought in his friends like Jim Duggan, Honky Tonk Man and Brutus Beefcake and had them take away the spotlights that Steve Austin and all the other major stars had earned. In one of the worst moments of the year, Jim Duggan squashed Steve Austin in 20 seconds to win the U.S. title at Fall Brawl. Afterwards, when Austin was injured, he was fired by WCW executives on the phone. At the same time, Mick Foley was kicked out the backdoor when he lost the Tag titles to Team Wonderful. From there, Foley and Austin went to ECW and made it to the WWF, where in a matter of a couple of years, they went on to become the two biggest stars in the wrestling industry. So with unintentional assistance from Hogan, Austin and Foley were buried in WCW and ended up becoming the leaders of the wrestling industry during the Monday Night Wars. Irony does not come more cosmic than this.
6. Jim Herd Fires Ric Flair
This will go down as the grave-digging moment for WCW in pre-Hogan years as their biggest draw was simply fired for not wanting to job his title to Lex Luger, all which led to WCW going through a financial rut for the next couple of years. Ric Flair was WCW Champion and people clamoured that the Great American Bash 1991 will be a huge turning point if Flair jobbed the title to Luger after Luger chased the belt for nearly three years. But Flair did not want to job and instead of being negotiated by top executives and having promises to get paid higher if he did so (according to Flair's book, he was saving the title for Sting), Flair was fired by then WCW honcho Jim Herd and he took the World title belt to WWF where he would call it the "Real World Championship" in a hot storyline. The original Bash 91 main event was scrapped, a new title was presented and Flair was replaced by Barry Windham, a move that did not go well for fans that night. In the only noteworthy moment in the Great American Bash 1991, numerous chants of "We Want Flair" flooded a substandard main event for the entire time. The show, which was supposed to dawn a new era, ended up being one of the biggest flops in wrestling history and the effects of Ric Flair's departure left WCW in a financially disastrous state, coming close to filing for bankruptcy before finally bringing back Ric Flair, which ironically saved WCW with a scoop.
7. Ratings: 4.8 Buyrates: 0.0
Goldberg was on the rise of popularity in WCW as he became more over than any wrestler on the roster. Immediately a US Champion, the bookers decided to give him a World title shot. This was, of course, during the Monday Night Wars when WWF was starting to roast WCW in the ratings and Bischoff was getting desperate at every attempt to get even with Vince McMahon. So in one of his most "brilliant" strategies in his WCW run, Bischoff decided to have Goldberg win the World title on television instead of ta PPV. Although it got exceptional ratings, it proved to be a fatal mistake as the match did not do any profitable good for WCW in its entity. Had the Goldberg title win been saved on a PPV, buyrates would have went up and WCW might've made a lot of money. Instead, it was just bantha fodder for Eric Bischoff's scheme to be better than the competition.
8. The Outsiders Destroying a Division
WCW did not have a lot of noteworthy tag teams, other than Harlem Heat, so in order to make it refreshing and more watchable to the audience, they gave the tag titles to the Outsiders (Kevin Nash and Scott Hall). Unfortunately, instead of sustaining importance to the titles, the Outsiders blemished their integrity and devalued the championships by not defending them and competing in singles matches instead. In contrast, every other tag team competed in meaningless number one contender matches that served no purpose but to lose to Nash and Hall. By the time the Outsiders lost the titles, they rendered the championships useless, ruining a prominent division that now did not have any important tag teams.
9. A Radical Departure
WCW might have been a catastrophic mess in and out of the ring but it still featured wrestlers whose loyalty and desire to work day and night for the fans are today unsurpassable. That was not the case anymore for Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, Dean Malenko and Perry Saturn as after having their promises broken, their pushes flattened and for being treated like losers, they got sick of the WCW environment and wanted out of the contracts. And they got their wishes as they were released from the WCW roster and moved to the WWF. In other words, like Ric Flair, instead of negotiating with them, which would have been a smart move, WCW just released four of the best workers in the business for the hell out of it, one who was a World Champion, and ended up shooting themselves in the foot once again before getting suffocated with a plastic bag when they brought back Vince Russo and Eric Bischoff. In other words, the release of the Radicalz pretty much signalled the end for WCW.
10 The Starrcade Fiasco
One of the biggest disappointments in PPV history, Starrcade 1997 was supposed to be the show to turn WCW around for the good of the company and its talent. Instead, it ended up being a 3-hour snorefest which saw 85% of the line-up won by heels in blow off bouts that are normally won by faces. But if there was any indication of the company falling down the cliff and breaking itself apart in the future, look no further than the notorious main event between Hogan and Sting, as after months of dogging away from Sting, Hogan was finally forced to defend the belt against the man he constantly ran away from. But the match was a dull train wreck, ruined by the infamous "fast count" angle and a screwjob ending instead of a clean finish. This not only took the credibility away from Sting but it also buried him and ended his run as a main eventer. After that, Hogan won back the title, thus ruining one of the biggest blow off angles to a hot feud in ages and foreshadowing a series of turdburgers that engulfed WCW in the sewers for the next couple of years before its sale to the WWF.
11 Blind-Siding the Blonds
Undoubtedly one of the all-time greatest tag teams in the wrestling industry would have to be the Hollywood Blonds (Brian Pillman and Steve Austin), the tag team that defined "heel heat". It was said that the WCW did not want them to win the titles but in a miraculous moment, they did mostly due to the phenomenal work rate they sustained. Although their title reign ended in two months, they brought the T back in Tag Team division. Unfortunately, being that this was WCW, the Blonds were jobbed out of their titles, with promises of being pushed to a world title main event unfulfilled. Instead of capitalizing on their potential of the Hollywood Blonds, WCW ruined it by not giving much gratitude or admiration to a tag team that might have been boosted to legendary status and help ratify the tag division if they were treated with respect.
12 Kayfabe At Its Worst
In wrestling terminology, a taping is when a non-televised live show is recorded, edited and then brought on TV in their proper time. You'll notice that pattern with SMACKDOWN (which actually airs on Tuesday but is broadcast on Thursdays) and Sunday Night Heat. Also in tapings, wrestling fans are told who to BOO and CHEER and re-edit the mouths and physical actions of fans in case they perform some inappropriate reaction. In 1993, during the beginning years of Monday Night RAW, Vince McMahon would do one live show and three tapings in one month to make it cost-efficient, even though it was a tad bit stale. But WCW went further and taped a mind-boggling THREE MONTHS of television for their programs. That decision came back to bite WCW in the butt as wrestling fans who DID attend the shows reported title changes to the Internet and gave away all the results. For example, they reported that the Blonds would lose the tag belts to Arn Anderson and Paul Roma, who would then lose them to the Nasty Boyz in October. Vader, who was WCW World Champion, would hold on to the belt through all the October-tapings according to the fans. Or that three titles would change hands at the Fall Brawl. This ended up exposing the business and the lack of suspenseful swerves or shock value that WCW would try to use to entertain fans caused buyrates and house show revenues to tank and cost themselves an overabundant 23 million dollars, a disastrous deficit that would be surpassed by the 80 million dollars loss mark in 2000!
13 From Hero to Zero
When WCW signed Hulk Hogan in 1994, it made the company more financially successful and much more mainstream to the public. At the same time, however, it also planted seeds of the political diseases that infested the product and WCW atmosphere and send it crashing down underwater. Hogan was automatically given the title "the leader of the company" and "the most exciting wrestler alive" when he went to the company. Unfortunately, the reception Hogan received ranged from mediocre to downright negative and the crowd started to boo him during interviews in front of Gene Okerlund, who had the utmost gall to call it a "phenomenal ovation". Hogan was shoved down the throat of the audience so many times that his ratings power started to decline. Although the heel turn was needed to save his career, people grew sick and tired of Hulk in general, whether he was a heel or face or just a tweener. It then became crystal clear that Hogan was using WCW to put himself over everyone and stuffing money in his pockets. In the end, Hogan ended up being a waste of money and in an ironic twist, a ratings failure. Hogan also feared for the popularities of many wrestlers, specifically Ric Flair, that could take away his spotlight. This was evident when Ric Flair returned to an enormous ovation in 1998 where Hulk's WCW 1994 debut and 1999 return were met with a mixed reaction. To put it in nice terms, Hogan was a paranoid, egotistical, self-serving and jealous worm who only cared about being better than everyone and having dollar bills stuffed in his safe. Say what you want about his impact in the industry but there is no denying the ignorance, the arrogance and the blowhard selfishness that Hogan contains in his character and for WCW to not realize or admit how much damage Hogan was doing for the company is enough to warrant this on the list.
14 Sting and Goldberg's Failed Heel Turns
The mind-boggling bizarre prediction on who to cheer and boo really broke into kayfabe big time during the late 1990's. Hulk Hogan, despite being a top babyface, was heckled by the Internet and got negative responses by the live crowd while Sting always goes out and gets one of the biggest pops of the night. Then in a shocking moment, Sting turned on Hogan by waffling him with a baseball bat to a standing ovation, even though this cemented him as a heel. Unsurprisingly, it proved to be a huge failure because it also made Sting even more popular than ever. Had they capitalized on the heel potential, Sting might have been one of the most hated men on the roster but Sting had too many years as a babyface and the fact that he did nothing that verified him as a villain made the heel turn utterly ridiculous. But that would not be all. Vince Russo, being a lover of swerves and cartoon characters, felt the need of turning the most profitable and well-over babyface WCW ever had in Goldberg into a full-fledged heel. Unfortunately, the experiment flopped big time as Goldberg was still getting cheers and was automatically turned back into a face, ruining his career and exemplify the state of the company: no matter how much feces you throw, it never sticks on the wall.
15 The Failure of Vince Russo
Speaking of Russo, WCW needed to find a way to get itself back on track and earn back many of the fans they lost when they were getting squashed by WWF. In October 1999 when Vince Russo and Ed Ferrera, main writers that contributed in the Attitude Era, left the company, WCW seized the opportunity of hiring them to clean up the mess. Russo even convinced the management that they will do whatever it takes to help the company and not place themselves on television. You cannot buy bad comedy like this. Russo broke all the promises and created some horrendous angles and storylines that made no sense: Madusa winning the Cruiserweight title; his decision to put four talented foreign wrestlers in a piñata on a pole match that enraged many fans and the worldwide audience WCW had left; ridiculing Jim Ross with Ed Ferrera as Oklahoma; booking Bret Hart like a loser; and hype Tank Abbott as a World title contender. Oh, and make himself the owner heel, a concept done to death by Vince McMahon and Eric Bischoff. That was enough to cost him his job but when Kevin Sullivan lost booking in 2000, WCW shockingly rehired Vince Russo back to the booking team and the management went down the toilet again with outrageously bad moments like the David Arquette title win, Goldberg's failed heel turn, the moronic Millionaire's Club v. New Blood feud and Vince Russo winning the WCW title, the latter being the last straw that broke the camel's back and shattered its bones, turning the organization into a lifeless zombie with no reason to exist anymore.
16 The Dangerous Alliance Terminated
The super-hot conflict between the anti-WCW faction Dangerous Alliance led by Paul E. against WCW veterans like Sting and Ricky Steamboat was the highest selling point throughout 1991-1992. The storyline was that Paul E. was fired from WCW and vowed bloody vengeance by teaming Steve Austin with Rick Rude, Larry Zybszko and Barry Windham and try to take out any WCW worker that got in their way. This was essentially the direct opposite of the ill-fated WCW Invasion angle from 2001 or even the nWo Regime during the 90's in which the heat here is incredible, egos didn't cave in and the back-story of the competitors were nothing short of intense and violent with both factions looking stronger and going over each other like they respected each other in real life. Then came Erik and Bill Watts and the whole Dangerous Alliance angle was completely scrapped, thus killing off the one chance that could bring WCW into commercial success without any problem and have everyone move on to different directions. Had the feud continue on throughout the end of 1992, WCW might have recovered its finances and might not have lost a lot of money the following year and almost file for bankruptcy but since this IS WCW, for every good moment, a pile of excrement stinks up the joint.
17 Paul Roma Inducted in the Horsemen
Another wasted opportunity combined with a retarded concept as the heatless WWF jobber is revealed to be the fourth member of the most elite stable in all of professional wrestling, a move that nearly killed the Horsemen and their heat for good in 1993. It is widely considered as the weakest Horsemen selection in the stable's history.
18 The Ultimate Bust
One of the most pathetic and embarrassing comebacks throughout the lucrative run in WCW would have to be the return of the Ultimate Warrior. Before Warrior used his extreme right-wing agenda to diss homosexuals and tell Iranians to go "get a towel", Eric Bischoff tried every desperate act to get WCW to beat the WWF again. Concepts like celebrity main events and promoting "Bride of Chucky" failed so Bischoff decided to give Jim Hellwig an overpaid sum of nearly one-two million dollars for a WCW contract. To say it backfired would be an understatement. When Warrior debut, he was automatically put in a main event feud with Hollywood Hogan, leading to a series of horrendous interviews and Vince Russo-style stunts like fireballs, taunts that deflated the crowd and a mist entrance that injured Davey Boy Smith. Oh, and who could forget the cheesy Warrior signal that ripped-off Batman? The return match between Hogan-Warrior was a catastrophe...a slow, lumbering mess which saw two senior citizens blow every basic move they could muster (or have in their move set). Warrior, having suffered a broken arm, was paid to stay home, just showing that his ironclad contract was a nothing but a huge waste of money to begin with...another million dollars down the FREAKING DRAIN!!!
19 An Ultimately Dumb Idea
Before the WCW brain trust brought in the Warrior, they once tried to create a spin-off of the nutcase himself during 1995 for Hulk Hogan to feud and go over...Seriously, I'm not making this stuff up. Known as the Renegade, Hogan chose some unknown employee named Richard Williams and donned him with ridiculous makeup and costume after hints of Ultimate Warrior making a possible WCW debut. And boy, did that ever go well with the crowd? The fans did not buy Renegade for a minute so was he depushed or removed off the roster? No, they booked the Renegade to win the TV title from Arn Anderson at the Great American Bash 1995 and push him to a main event feud with Ric Flair. If you do not understand WCW logic like this, no one does. Thankfully, the Renegade experiment ended and Williams would not be heard of again before committing suicide via shooting himself in 1999. But the damage was done as Hogan's ego and friends started to take control while the talented stars got depushed into obscurity. This was the perfect evidence of how this was happening.
20 Hey, Remember that Master P Guy?
Remember when wrestling featured just wrestlers performing in the ring? Remember the days before the McMahons hogged the WWE or the ugly sight of seeing Jay Leno doing a hammerlock on Hollywood Hogan or Jim Ross giving Jonathan Coachman a terrible stunner? Well, 1999 was not a decent year for wrestling as retarded angles, bonehead promotional moves and endless series of skits tarnished the one element that makes the sport important: authentic wrestling. And some of the wrestlers involved were not even associated with the roster; they were outdoor celebrities. Case in point with WCW, as they created a huge boner with the signing of many musicians like Master P, Kiss and Megadeth in an attempt to provide fan interest. Why is this bad? Because it dropped credibility on its neck and did nothing but create an even bigger amount of backlash to WCW in the whole. People who paid to watch wrestling were forced to watch music performances by these bands. And you thought Limp Bizkit performing at WMXIX was bad? Plus, there was the the baffling country v. rap feud with unpopular rapper Master P as a babyface leaving a bad taste in the fans' mouths since wrestlers associated with country music were the bad guys...in a south-adapted company! Another ridiculous moment, according to Wrestlecrap, was that Gene Simmons of Kiss was given a fat contract to create a wrestler based on the band and the wrestler never got a push. You cannot make this stuff up!
21 Hart Suffers a Headache
People will always debate on the annoying controversy at Montreal in 1997 but if anyone thought that was a nadir in Bret Hart's career, there was more yet to come in WCW for the Hitman. When Bret debut in WCW, it was at Starrcade 1997 where he became involved in the infamous Hogan-Sting main event that could have made Bret into a valuable player. Unfortunately, politics crippled Bret Hart's WCW run as the Hitman was put in the repetitive "Is he nWo?" storylines and did about a hundred turns in one year (he was face, then heel, then face, then heel again). Oh, and he wrestled DDP, Harlem Heat and Chris Benoit in the midcard while hanging on high water against Randy Savage and Sting. This coming from a guy that was getting paid two million dollars a year in his contract, more than most of the roster (except for Hogan and Goldberg). You had to know how Bret was feeling about this having just been rejected from the WWF and then getting mopped all over the floor in WCW. The fact is that WCW once again wasted another opportunity and turned Bret Hart into a forgotten afterthought. A five-time WWF Champion winning the US title several months after his first WCW appearance is ridiculous and even more so is the value that was wasted and not fully capitalized when he made his debut. Bret spent a total of two years in WCW where the only accomplishments were winning the first and only WCW Championship in a tournament and facing Chris Benoit in the classic Owen Hart Tribute match, before a severe concussion sent him to retirement. Bret Hart was like a golden treasure but like the mindless pirates they were, WCW buried its treasure and did not bother to dig it up again when they had the chance.
22 The Horsemen Are Buried Again
WWE can have the Evolutions, the McMahon-Helmsley Regimes and the Cabinets and TNA can have the Kings of Mountains, 3-Live Crews and Team Canadas but none will touch the the Four Horsemen, in my view the single greatest and most influential stable in this industry today, in the past and in the future. The original stable contained Ric Flair, Ole & Arn Anderson, Tully Blanchard and manager JJ Dillon and their heel tactics made them legendary, so legendary that newer versions were used, featuring wrestlers like Sting, Lex Luger, Barry Windham, Chris Benoit, Dean Malenko and Brian Pillman, among others like Sid, El Gigante (!!!) and Steve McMichael. The Horsemen stood on top of the mountain for several years, even after some valleys such as inducting Paul Roma and having a tedious feud with the Dungeon of Doom. Then came the nWo storyline and you can consider the Horsemen in the eyes of WCW employees obsolete. When the nWo helped increase ratings and buyrates, it also increased Eric Bischoff's ego. Bischoff, believing that he did not need the Horsemen for money anymore, disbanded them and put them in ridiculous one-sided feuds with Jeff Jarrett and Kevin Sullivan. The Horsemen were never given the chance to shine when they were facing the nWo, looking weak and losing in every major match each time they fought them, including the bizarre Wargames match at Fall Brawl 1997 when Curt Henning turned on them. The final nail in the coffin was in 1998 when the Horsemen returned to a deafening roar and were completely buried by the nWo and Eric Bischoff, even though they achieved one of the last great ratings victories for WCW. It was at that point that people realized that the Horsemen would never come out on top again. Bischoff's ego, along with the infesting politics, left the greatest stable of all time in a barren hole that they never got out of.
23 Tarnishing Goldberg
When Goldberg was pushed as the unstoppable monster, he squashed every single wrestler he was put in the ring with and became the #1 babyface in the company. Wresting skills and big-ass ego be damned, he made a lot of money and drew numerous crowds. Unfortunately, politics reared their ugly heads and instead of utilizing Goldberg's winning streak, WCW ended it instantly at Starrcade 1998, although the fault should go to the bookers rather than Goldberg himself (as a replier to my Goldberg article pointed out). The result deflated Goldberg's main event run and killed off the heat of one of WCW's last major draws. Since then, Goldberg's success has been less than stellar with a hoax of a title win at Halloween Havoc 1999, the ludicrous booking during his feuds with Kevin Nash and Bret Hart and a heel turn that totally wrecked his WCW career. Since then, Goldberg's career has yet to recover and his WWE run clarified that statement.
24 Coming Soon to a Titantron Near You
In 1993, WCW was in financial turmoil with buyrates going down and a series of ridiculous promotional moves (#11, 12 and 17) that nearly sent the company into bankrupt hell. At that time, Big Van Vader was the WCW World Heavyweight champion that, though marketable, was not a draw. So when he was fed with challengers like Sting and Davey Boy Smith, WCW tried a creative way to hype their title shots as something important...they aired mini-movies starring WCW wrestlers. That is right. At a cost between $100,000-to-$1 million, the mini-movies featured Vader, Sting, Davey Boy Smith and Sid Vicious in a series of embarrassing filming segments that ended up going nowhere and exposing the business just as bad as the tapings debacle from earlier on. One famous segment called "The White Castle of Fear" saw Sting fly via helicopter to the Rocky Mountains to confront Vader over the strap. So they played the tug-of-war with the belt and when lightning flashed, the title belt snaps and segment ends. Another one took place at a beach where Sting and Davey played volleyball with a bunch of orphans until Sid and Vader came out and one of their minions plant a bomb under the boat, which goes off, trapping Sting and Davey on the island forever. Seriously, this was supposed to MAKE people buy the pay-per-view. Most people, not surprisingly, did not buy the shows and this "creative concept" ended up poking WCW in the eyes, leaving them monetarily blind before regaining their vision with Ric Flair's title win at Starrcade that year.
25 Kevin Nash + Head Booker = Epic Fail
Brad Dykens said it in his best "The WCW Pattern of Failure" article when wrestlers should not under any circumstance be allowed to book themselves in feuds, matches and title wins, no less than control their own storylines. Such was the case with Kevin Nash. Nash convinced the creative team to make himself the head booker for WCW and that is what sent the company in a downward spiral. Kevin Nash's first primary move was to end Goldberg's winning streak at Starrcade 1998 and give him his own World title belt. What followed were brilliant ideas that only Nash (and his friends) would come up with: the burials of the Horsemen, the misuse of Raven, his feud with Savage, the push heatless wrestlers like Rick Steiner and Sid Vicious, repetitive nWo angles, the unsolved "Who Drove the Hummer?" angle (in which we still do not know who drove it), President Ric Flair as a mental patient and of course, the Fingerpoke of Doom that helped WWF completely flatten WCW for the next two years before WCW was sold to Vince McMahon. All in all, Kevin Nash did great wonders for WCW and helped lead it to its downfall, proving, once and for all, that he is a genius and that geniuses have nice, long hair. Congratulations, Kevin Nash. You have truly done this company proud.
I know I am still missing many ridiculous moments in WCW history such as Robocop; Cactus Jack's amnesia angle; the Shockmaster; the cancellation of house shows and Saturday programs in 2000; and the general lack of long-term booking decision that has troubled WCW for many years. But I think this will serve as a nice blueprint in showing how NOT to book an organization in a way that will turn off fans and deteriorate any locker room moral that exists. It also should hopefully help act as a companion piece to the new WWE DVD: "The Rise and Fall of WCW", which has been recently criticized by many wrestling fans for not showing enough of what went wrong in WCW.
All in all, have a good read. See you later.
Sources for this article included numerous books "The Death of WCW", "WrestleCrap" and Ric Flair's "To Be the Man", DVDs: "Monday Night Wars", "Hard Knocks - The Chris Benoit Story", "Eddie Guerrero: Cheating Death, Stealing Life", "The Rise and Fall of ECW", "Self-Destruction of the Ultimate Warrior" and "The Ultimate Ric Flair Collection" and websites including Rspw.org, Wrestlecrap.com, Rspwfaq.com, wrestlingobserver.com and obsessedwithwrestling.com. Special thanks to them for information and inspiration.
