Rewatching WCW

[Vamp]

He was Watt's predecessor if I remember rightly. Some Turner executive who decided that financially rewarding people for extra effort might result in better performances. 

Mad to think how much the business has changed really. Back then people were happy to phone in PPVs, now they're killing themselves on TV. Bringing it in now would make literally no difference whatsoever. 

[air_raid]

31 minutes ago, bAzTNM#1 said:

Who is this K. Allen Frey?

Kip Frey was in charge after Jim Herd (who famously lost Ric Flair). He was a good guy for business but not really a wrestling guy, so he let someone else book (I forget who) and he concentrated on business. He bought in Jesse Ventura because they needed more name value, he made Worldwide the flagship show because it had the most people watching it. The guys who put on the best match of the night got a bonus under his watch. He brought in Liger and the Miracle Violence Connection and oversaw SuperBrawl 2 with Liger vs Pillman and the push of the Dangerous Alliance leading to Wrestle War and War Games, possibly my pick for favourite match ever. Soon WCW decided a wrestling person should actually get final say and brought in Bill Watts less than four months after Frey came in. Watts of course brought in all his budget cuts and stupid rules - including making top ropes illegal, in a company trying to make a go of it’s Light Heavyweight division - and forcing talent to be in the building from the first match to the end of the last match. So WCW went from a guy that paid them more if they worked harder, to a guy that sapped their motivation to work AND paid them less.

[Chili]

He was basically so nice and good to the boys in essence of rewarding effort that even a roster of carnies didn't try and fuck him about, a strangely harmonious mix, given how miserable late 1992 WCW ends up sounding at times. 

[The King Of Swing]

Wasn't Watts basically brought in to reduce costs? 

[air_raid]

21 minutes ago, The King Of Swing said:

Wasn't Watts basically brought in to reduce costs? 

Plus they thought old school rasslin’ booking might bring back gates. It wouldn’t be Watts last I’ll fated hiring.

[wandshogun09]

Worst thing about the Watts run wasn’t even that he cut pay, caused locker room morale to plummet, banned the top rope stuff, took the ringside mats away and so on. It was this;

The push of his useless son. Horrible look, no physique to speak of, zero charisma or ring presence, very little co-ordination and Buzz Lightyear’s face. And Cowboy Bill had him out there beating Michael Hayes and Bobby Fucking Eaton! Can’t remember if he actually had him beat Arn Anderson as well but I’m sure I read that was the plan at one point. I do remember their little scuffle at some garage to write Double A off TV for a bit in 93. Maybe that was Arn’s lucky escape from having to lose to this overgrown child. 

In fairness to Erik, he was green as grass and I think he’d only had a handful of matches in school gyms or something before being brought in. He wasn’t ready but what’s he gonna do, say no to Daddy trying to give him the Goldberg push? It was woeful though. Basically set him up to fail. Then when Bill got the job in the WWF in 95, we got Erik again as part of the package, this time dressed in tin foil. 

Complete arse. 

Edited May 8, 2022 by wandshogun09

[Rossman]

I've jumping between 1989 to 1992 WCW, watching random PPV's.  It is bemusing how shit Bill Watts was in 1992. People say WrestleWar was his first PPV, but it's Beach Blast where he's got his fingers on it. Mainly he's put his boys, Gordy & Williams aka Miracle Violence Connection in the main event against The Steiners. Although it was Kip Frey who secured a deal with New Japan to bring them over. Watts put them in the main event on their first PPV. Beach Blast had the lowest PPV buyrate for WCW up til that point. They equalled that with the Great American Bash buyrate.

At their 2nd PPV, Great American Bash, they won the NWA tag titles in the main event. Bar Sting vs Vader. (in a typically awesome match between the pair) The rest of the show is tag team title tournament matches. And the matches are not short, most are 20 minutes long. When Miracle Violence win the belts, the crowd don't even react. 5000 peoples unequivocal nonchalance to it is quite funny. They just get up and start leaving.

On the next PPV, Halloween Havoc opens with a generic 6 man match. Shane Douglas, Z-Man & Johnny Gunn (Tom Brandi) vs. Bobby Eaton, Arn Anderson & Michael Hayes. But the crowd do not care for the babyfaces one bit. Whenever Arn & Bobby get some offence in, the crowd love it, cheering loudly. And when the babyfaces win, the crowd boos loudly. Also on the show is Ricky Steamboat vs. Brian Pillman. In a match where you would think awesome on paper but it's distinctly average. Pillman not being allowed to be flyin cuts off his legs. At one point he does a flying crossbody from the 2nd rope which looks so archaic. And also Steamboat does a top rope sunset flip for the win but it's somehow not a DQ, Somehow this PPV gets a buyrate of 165,000 buys. Over double that of Beach Blast. I don't really get why. Were the audience that excited to see Jake Roberts vs Sting?!

Also on the show is the first PPV defence of Ron Simmons' WCW World Title against....The Barbarian. It's cool Ron Simmons is recognised as the first African American WCW Heavyweight Champion. But his run was so piss poor. He became no.1 contender for Vader's title in a lottery.  His only other PPV title defence was against Dr Death Steve Williams (Watt's boy) at Starrcade, who replaced Rick Rude because he was injured. And they couldn't even let Simmons win that one clean. It was a double count out then got changed to a DQ. And to make it worse, Williams left WCW after the PPV.

Whenever I see promotions with no ring mats. It just makes me think they couldn't afford them. And with a show that's on TV or PPV, there's cables everywhere taped to the floor. Having mats down hides all of that from the viewer. Also for Great American Bash & Halloween Havoc the cool elevated walk way to the ring was gone. Wrestlers just come out from behind a curtain with a primary school play, lighting rig set up.

 

Kip Frey also started WCW Saturday Night. I think it was Dusty who was booking the end of Jim Herd's run and Kip Frey's. Then Bill Watts took everything over himself.

[air_raid]

I borrowed Halloween Havoc 92 from the video shop as a kid. I was very tense for Spin The Wheel Make The Deal. What a letdown that was.

[Vamp]

Didn't they legitimately leave that gimmick to chance? 

[air_raid]

2 hours ago, Vamp said:

Didn't they legitimately leave that gimmick to chance? 

OF COURSE they did. In typical WCW fashion, in an industry that’s built on being a work, an element that could have been easily worked, they legitimately executed by spinning a wheel to see what happened. A rare occasion they delivered what was advertised? LULZ.

Edited May 9, 2022 by air_raid

[bAzTNM#1]

Build up to Roberts Vs Sting could have been miles better but this was Bill Watts booking this shit now.

One of the first things Watts done was supposedly slash Jake's contract in half that he signed with Kip Frey. "Cutting costs".

Edited May 10, 2022 by bAzTNM#1

[Vamp]

I'm surprised Watts didn't have them spin the wheel multiple times so that they had gimmick upon gimmick like the tuxedo steel cage match.

AEW should bring back the computer challenge match. A computer picks a random unranked wrestler to challenge for a title every now and then. 

WWE should do the same but have it be an evil computer that's learned from YouTube comments and gets it all wrong. It books Brock Lesnar in a bra and panties match and makes a bunch of white wrestlers team up as the NOD. 

[air_raid]

One of the best things about WCW, at the time and especially in retrospect, was that because of the bloated/diverse roster, many matches happened that seemingly had no reason and because there weren't storylines happening for everyone it was often difficult for a "smart" fan even to guess who would win the matches from a booking point of view because you didn't know who was where on the totem pole, in many ways, with matches between "going nowhere" talents being far harder to predict than, say, a US title or tag title defence on PPV.

Here's Reese from Ravens Flock vs Barbar (with the Mouth of the South). Who ya got???

 

 

As an aside, I'll never understand why "Flock" is the one that stuck, when "Raven's Nest" made so much more sense.

[mim731]

I have a bit of a soft spot for non-wrestler babyface authority figures who aren't ever in danger of becoming the focus, and JJ Dillon is great in that role in WCW in 1997. While the evil authority figure has been overplayed massively, I still think there is legs in someone who actually has accountability to the "championship committee". WCW was a mess at points, but that always had an air of legitimacy about it and Dillon does really well in the role. 

[air_raid]

1 hour ago, mim731 said:

I have a bit of a soft spot for non-wrestler babyface authority figures who aren't ever in danger of becoming the focus, and JJ Dillon is great in that role in WCW in 1997. While the evil authority figure has been overplayed massively, I still think there is legs in someone who actually has accountability to the "championship committee". WCW was a mess at points, but that always had an air of legitimacy about it and Dillon does really well in the role. 

They ballsed up a little on the Nitro where Syxx and the Outsiders were brutalizing Rey Jr after the bell and Waltman got in his face and yelled "If you think you're going to the pull the same crap here that you did for McMahon, you've got another thing coming! We have had enough out of you pal!" Made him look a geek with no real power. I think the character recovered for a bit, but that "banning the powerbomb" stuff just turned Nash into even MORE of a cool rebel. I guess it wouldn't be an issue if the plan was already to split the Order and Nash to be in the babyface side, but thats probably giving them more credit for long term booking than I should. Pretty sad seeing the crowd cheer mental for babyface Boss Man getting jacknifed, but that was early 98 for you.