Rewatching WCW

[wandshogun09]

[Tommy!]

42 minutes ago, CavemanLynn said:

Fuck it, I'm owning it - I'm in my Zbysko era. If anyone wants me, I'll be over here, avoiding bumps and turning my back on the commentary desk to soak up the cheers from the crowd at Nitro.

I hope you stalled for 10 minutes before hitting post.

[Chili]

Arn only got started in like 1983/4 anyway. Done by 1997 is not a massively long run. It's mad to think had Arn never had the neck injuries, and kept in good nick given the length of careers people had, seeing Arn Anderson working in say 2003/4 would be possible, and blows my mind trying to concept it.

[wandshogun09]

Saw this on Twitter. Perfection.

[Rossman]

Started watching the Saturday Nights from when they first aired in April 92. Jim Herd has gone and Kip Frey is "in charge." It's a funny old show, Missy Hyatt opens every show introducing Jim Ross and then you never see her again.

Jim Ross is partnered with a different guest host every week, who also is on commentary with him. This ranges from the normal. Jesse Ventura to the not so normal, American footballers and Kip Frey even does one show. The worst so far is Jason Hervey, he was about 20 in 92 and looks about 12. He's half the height of Jim Ross and just doesn't shut up talking shit. Supposedly he was having it off with Missy Hyatt around this time which makes it even weirder.

Most of the wrestling is squash matches until the main event which is your WCW mainstays going at it

The odd thing is, every main event is 2/3 falls matches.

This is good when it's Austin vs. Z-Man or Austin vs. Windham. But the Jason Hervey episode had Arn Anderson vs. Big Josh in a 42 MINUTE match!

There was another match. Greg Valentine & Terry Taylor vs. The Freebirds for the US tag titles. The Hammer and the Taylor Made Man were the champs. By this point there were not enough credible tag teams for those belts to exist. And the teams who did have the belts were just thrown together. Bill Watts merged the belts with the World tag titles later on in the year. The last holders were Dick Slater & The Barbarian.

[Merzbow]

I've had a few post-Russo late 2000 shows pop up on YouTube and I'll be honest, I've really quite enjoyed having them on in the background. I think being away in Australia and The UK helped too, not quite as many dead crowds.

Now is it great TV? Not even close but it's also pretty easy to watch, Mike Sanders and The Natural Born Thrillers all had so much potential at this point and the work with and against Kevin Nash was blatantly the blueprint for Paparazzi Productions.

The return of Luger with his aunties hair, Goldberg attempting yet another streak, Boogie Knights on every show, Hugh G Rection getting the "you deserve it" title run only for Bill Goldberg to take the piss outta him. Some right shite that goes down easy, I just wish the PPVs were on YouTube too.

Edited Friday at 09:55 AM by Merzbow

[BomberPat]

I think bad wrestling is a lot more palatable when you're at a remove from it; when it's something you're following and watching week-by-week it's infuriating, but when there's no stakes and no investment you can just appreciate the daft moments as funny on their own terms, and there's usually something of merit in there. Before a show I worked once, the roster all got together for a barbecue and we somehow ended up watching WCW New Blood Rising, and we ended up rebooking the main event of our show to just rip off the Lance Storm/Mike Awesome "Canadian Rules" match because we'd had so much fun watching it.

Some 2000 WCW still tips over into unwatchable for me, though. Because there's bad wrestling and illogical booking, sure, you can find some fun out of that, but sometimes it's just plain bad TV.

Edited Friday at 09:57 AM by BomberPat

[Merzbow]

2 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

Some 2000 WCW still tips over into unwatchable for me, though.

Oh same, but I think that very late era after Russo doesn't actually have anything truly unbearable to watch on the Nitros. There's still some fingerprints on there but it's so so much toned down. It's silly bad not offensively horrible bad.

[BarryOVega]

Sticking the belt on Steiner and keeping it on him helped focus the shows a lot too, I was watching Nitro from when it started on Bravo and at least it didn't give you a headache trying to keep up with who was champion once Scotty won it

Just enjoyed reading the last few pages of this thread and I thought of a question, what if they'd hired JR to run the place when Bischoff was sent home instead of hiring Russo (and Ferrara and Banks)?

[tiger_rick]

Genuinely think the worst thing about that last year of WCW is just how often they let green guys talk. I love it in much the same way as others do but it is, objectively, horrific. The worst is the promos. They're all amateur hour. Before Russo leaves, it's all scripted stuff where there all delivering the same tough guy lines, badly, but post-Russo, it never gets any better and is either scripted by people who worshipped the talentless cunt or the guys have been given a little bit of free reign and they're all horrible.

I stuck a Nitro on that popped up on the WCW channel a week or two ago and almost the first thing that happened was a promo from Kwee-Wee. Fucking Kwee-Wee.

I dunno if Mike Sanders did actually have any potential but, he felt like it because he was 999% better on the mic than every other muppet who debuted in the previous year or so.

Edited Friday at 11:50 AM by tiger_rick

[BomberPat]

I started writing a reply to that, and realised I'd misread you - I was thinking of what if JR got the job instead of Bischoff in 1993. I think that's a really interesting potential dynamic; JR would be a bit of an extension of Bill Watts' booking, but more modernised, and the more interesting butterfly effect there is him not becoming head of talent relations in the WWF. That way, you'd expect guys like Steve Austin and Mick Foley to stick around WCW for a little while longer, Austin in particular I expect would become a headliner in a JR-helmed WCW, but as more of an extension of the Stunning character, as a robe-wearing classic Southern heel; I don't see him getting the opportunity to become Stone Cold or to have a sustained babyface run. Ron Simmons I expect would get a decent run of it under JR, and in general guys with that kind of legitimacy and sports background. Steve Williams getting a push is the obvious one. But without Bischoff, there's no Monday Nitro, there's no nWo, and it's debatable whether WCW would have made a sustained effort to bring Hulk Hogan into the fold at all. There's a lot going on there.

But JR coming in as head of creative in 1999 is a completely different proposition. At that point, I think whatever JR's personal tastes might be, I don't think he'd be that far removed from Vince Russo in terms of his approach being that what the WWF were doing was working, and that emulating the WWF was the best approach. I don't think there's many people who ended up in a senior creative position for the WWF would think any differently. Obviously WCW 1999 under JR would look a lot different and more grounded than under Russo, in terms of gimmicks and match stipulations, but I still think it would be very Attitude Era influenced, with a similar Crash TV approach.

[The Gaffer]

3 hours ago, Merzbow said:

I've had a few post-Russo late 2000 shows pop up on YouTube and I'll be honest, I've really quite enjoyed having them on in the background. I think being away in Australia and The UK helped too, not quite as many dead crowds.

Now is it great TV? Not even close but it's also pretty easy to watch, Mike Sanders and The Natural Born Thrillers all had so much potential at this point and the work with and against Kevin Nash was blatantly the blueprint for Paparazzi Productions.

The return of Luger with his aunties hair, Goldberg attempting yet another streak, Boogie Knights on every show, Hugh G Rection getting the "you deserve it" title run only for Bill Goldberg to take the piss outta him. Some right shite that goes down easy, I just wish the PPVs were on YouTube too.

I'm not going to do one of those things where I overcook the praise and try and retcon it as being great TV either, but WCW really does get steadily better from October 2000 through to its close. 

The toughest hurdle with these shows is usually the atmosphere. Or lack thereof. When I think of low energy, my mind pictures blue rope Nitro, because they started taping Thunder straight after and either didn't care or budget enough to change the ropes. 

Then there is the crowds. Most of them are just standing about swaying their arms like GTA III pedestrians. There's a few absolute die-hards who still bring signs about how Raw sucks. There's also a few people clearly three sheets to the wind, wanted a night out, and are the precise kind of fans who are so casual that they know they don't mind being seen at wrestling, but evidently don't know that this is the shit one. 

Another difficult thing with the WWE uploads is Ernest Miller and Misfits in Action's themes being overdubbed. Because you hear both - along with the Natural Born Thrillers theme - about four hundred times each episode and the dubs are absolutely brutal. 

If you can get over that - though - WCW does slowly, slowly build a sort of really sad final bit of steam that amounts to it at least developing a bit of logical consistency and swerving to avoid angles that would make you embarrassed if somebody else walked into the room. Late WCW Steiner rules and building a promotion around him is absolutely not a problem at all. Booker as the people's champ is still better than anything he did in WWE, to me. The cruiserweights start getting featured much better in 2001. Whilst Natural Born Thrillers sort of prophecy the generic hoss wave in the next few years in WWE, they are at the end of the day young studs etc so spotlighting them so prominently is hard to dislike. 

Overall, it just feels like they at least start feeling a bit like sports presentation WCW again. It's infinitely better than the Russo stuff, which seemed to go through a false renaissance as the dumb stoner action movie version of wrestling when it's actually just horrifically shit. 

Edit: Oh yeah, and when Mark Madden gets sacked in December? Nitro improves so much as background viewing. He's the worst. 

Edited Friday at 12:57 PM by The Gaffer

[BarryOVega]

Mentioning the hardcore fans bringing signs, I remember the Nitro or two they did in Australia towards the end of 2000 having loads of 'World Wankers Federation' signs in the crowd, so they might have had to go to the other side of the world but at least a few people liked them more than the WWF

[Chili]

I think Germany was always a good draw for WCW as well, even to the bitter end. They had a little deal doing Rebellion/Insurrextion type event's there (Millennium Final etc).

I've just finished watching the available 1998 Nitro's and as chaotic as its booked, it's still really over. That WCW Jan-March 2000 is the most malaise holding pattern booking ever, between those two mental Russo periods. At least with lunatics running the booking you have something to watch that's interesting even if it's dogshit. That early period has shows dominanted by Jeff Jarrett and The Harris Brothers, Prince Iaukea as Cruiserweight champ, Lex Luger breaking every babyfaces arm. At least Screamin' Norman is about.

[LaGoosh]

Who was booking those final few months? I remember Power Slam being very complimentary of the shows during this period but I've never watched any of them myself.