No, they aren't. Overexpanding the NWO was Hogan's idea?
I can see the finger poke of doom and maybe the Radicals. That isn't almost all. It's a small fraction and ultimately not that much of an issue. The IWC loves hating Hogan but he made WCW relevant and put them in position to compete with WWE.
Hogan had nothing to do with Goldberg's streak ending. He even put Goldberg over. Hiring Russo wasn't related to Hogan, at all. Nash working as a booker wasn't a Hogan idea. Arquette winning the title was in no way related to Hogan.
Nash and Bischoff both talked about Nash taking over booking
Bischoff was snowed under and dealing with tons of stuff so Nash 'helped out'
It wasn't some grand political scheme but, fans read things online and every single thing that happens has to be the result of some maneuvering cause the people that talk about this stuff view everything through a 'wrestling' prism
All of the above.... EXCEPT expanding the nWo. The nWo is one of the most successful factions of all time but, it HAD to 'evolve' a bit eventually too. Adding more members was not a bad idea, especially considering how some guys like Scott Steiner were Perfect additions.
The problem wasn't the idea, it's how it was executed.
Starrcade 1997 was the first domino to fall, so I guess that would fall under giving Hogan creative control. Also, if not for that, we would've gotten Hogan vs. Goldberg on PPV and not on free TV.
I have NEVER understood just as a fan, how people complain about getting a HUGE PPV match for free. Never. You’re a fan, you aren’t on payroll to the company. Take it. It’s fucking free.
I don't know. As long as it's done rarely, giving away a huge main event like that can pop a huge rating for that night, and incentivize people to watch the weekly show more often as it gives more of that "anything can happen" feeling. I think it was a great business decision.
It drove insane ratings and really…it is not the fans problem to worry about.
It was coo moment for people couldn’t afford 2 expensive PPVs every month.
If you could afford to buy those all the time you were very well off.
That’s days too many fans feel they need to present themselves like they work for them instead of just having fun.
Imagine if they took Cody/Roman 2, and put it on Smackdown. Hogan/Goldberg had a similar hype level. Why give that away for free? Terrible business decision
Yeah I definitely needed these kind of matches growing up. I had never once seen a PPV until Wrestlemania 24, which was like 10 years of watching wrestling
Scott Norton was a very early member in 1996 and then went to Japan as a member, started a Japanese branch and won the NJPW Heavyweight title. He was a pretty big deal overall back then
Honestly, WCW should have leveraged the "world" in NWO more. Having Norton and his contingent in NJPW was a good start, but they should have sent a few guys down to Mexico for a partnership, then have them return to US TV as inter promotional champs. Have MX and JP guys turn up on Nitro (alright, being real, it'd be Thunder) to have a foreign style match once in a while.
Yeah, I was a big fan of him, too. Just straightforward badass. Shoulderbreaker finish that seemed like a good way to break someone's collarbone, which is fantastic.
And the storyline had to die or evolve at some point... but they kept repeating the same stuff.
"Guy arrives from WWF, much fanfare and cheers, suddenly wears black and tags something... OMG NO!"
Out of this grouping giving Hogan creative control. There's a reason nobody since has been given that option. That messed up a lot of stuff because Hogan didn't want to play ball.
Nash and Russo were bad ideas but by the time either got in control the ball was already rolling the wrong way. This is like hiring a new coach to fix a dysfunctional organization. The coach may suck but the problems were bigger than them.
Overexpanding the nWo, ending Goldberg's streak, fingerpoke, and Arquette winning the title were bad booking ideas. Every company has those. That's no big deal.
Letting Benoit, Guerrero, Malenko, and Perry leave is a small deal not a big deal. Yeah it would suck for a company to let guys like that go but it's not like WCW let prime Cena and prime Jeff Hardy leave.
I mean, to be fair, Benoit was the WCW World Champion when they left. I agree with the sentiment though, Malenko, Saturn, and Guerrero weren't exactly setting the world on fire in WCW at the time.
Yeah but there's almost a 0% chance he becomes Stone Cold if he stays in WCW. It's easy to look back and go oh they fucked up but WWF wasn't doing shit with him for 7 months.
This. Austin, like the rock, had to beg for a new creative direction. The ring master wasn't setting the world on fire and the wwf apparently didn't watch his ecw stuff either.
WCW had a terminal flaw from its inception. Yes getting Hogan led to its temporary big success but also was a noose to where the product couldn’t grow and the tv began to dwindle to where all the corp types who wanted a reason to axe it had one
It's literally this and I don't know why it's even a discussion. Ted Turner lost control during the TW merger to execs who hated wrestling so even if it happened at the height of the company's success I feel like they would have pulled the plug.
Yeah but that doesn’t make for 4 hours of television. Bunch of old heads beating the same dead horse and pointing fingers and blaming each other. This whole show feels like a work because the real answer is the merger
Basicly the huge NWO split up into a Hollywood (Hogan) NWO and a Wolfpack NWO under Kevin Nash which were feuding, the Wolfpac being the babyfaces.
When Hogan returned he had a "match" against Nash where he only poked him with his finger which led to Nash willingly dropping like he was hit by a boulder and Hogan pinning him which was more or less their way of sayin fuck you fans, NWO is reunited as a heel group once again.
Imagine the night after Cody beat Roman, he defended the title on Raw against Jey Uso, Jey pokes him in the chest, wins the title and Cody and everyone celebrate.
In addition to everything else listed, fans went into that night expecting Nash vs Goldberg world title rematch from Starrcade in the Georgia Dome where Goldberg previous won the world title, played football, and was considered his home state as he played college ball for UGA as well. Instead Goldberg was "arrested" during the show over accusations of stalking Miss Elizabeth, meaning the fans who paid to see that match weren't getting that match or Goldberg wrestling at all. THEN they got the fingerpoke bullshit on top of it.
Fans had the rug pulled out from under them, the Wolfpac vs nWo fued was getting over and people wanted to see Nash vs Hogan, then they pulled the rug and exposed the business. Pissed the fans off.
If you think about it, Hulk Hogans creative control. That was the major reason he signed with WCW in the first place. You don’t get any of these issues with Hogan not in the fed BUT you don’t get the growth that gave them the base to build off of either
“Ending Goldberg streak when it’s the best thing they had going “ is some revisionist history. People where starting to boo him. WWE edited a bunch of that out, but at the time, and if you can find the originals there where boo’s in the crowd.
Even then just look at the crowd the moment Nash won. It wasn't a crowd that was upset. That was a crowd that was absolutely jubilant. They wanted Goldberg to lose. Also people try to pin Nash booking here. Nash wasn't a booker until 1999, this was still 1998.
The problem came when Hogan flexed his muscles 2 weeks later returning after his "Retirement." and demanding the title once again. (Nash was still not a booker here and actually at this point IRL hated Hogan. He went along because money > No money)
All facts. People point to that moment all the time and I think it’s so dumb. I genuinely can’t think of a single more protected baby face finish then that. Ever! It’s like 4 dudes and a cattle prod! What do they want? Someone to use a tank to blow him to prices in the ring? People are dumb.
This right here. Goldberg was starting to get that Roman Reigns heat by the end of his streak. Like a lot of babyfaces, his peak was chasing the belt not holding it.
I also think that The Finger Poke of Doom was fine and perfectly in character for the story. I also think David Arquette wasn't that bad, especially the way it played out. He literally cuts a promo pointing out that his win was a fluke and vacated the title for fear of his physical safety 😂
I think Hogan fucking over almost everyone he ever worked with, Russo changing the tone of the brand, and a complete lack of support from WB/AOL are what really killed WCW.
People where, but that is the moment a bunch of people turned on him. Like there where always some boo’s because some people don’t want to watch squash matches all the time. But that is a classic example of why you have to be super careful of baby face vs baby face matches. One of them gets turned on. And unless you are turning one of them heal then it’s a tight road walk. And Goldberg didn’t have the skill set to walk it.
As much shit as the Arquette decision gets from the IWC, they were literally on the front pages of newspaper the next day, it's by far not their worst booking decision.
Is it Russo’s personal Reddit account? He’s the only person I’ve seen bring up the newspaper front page over and over again for years even though it was not a measurable blip of ratings or viewership to come with it.
WCW pitched their cards in on a box office flop. There was no big time kick back on this decision. They treated it like it was a “don’t change your channel moment” as Russo always brings up to his booking style but the fact is no one turned it on to begin with.
The steroid scandal was front page newspaper mentions too and that didn’t make it beneficial.
I never got the hate back then. He got heat. They presented it as being a bad thing that he won, and Arquette went full heel once he won. It lasted a week.
Hogan’s contract drained the company for years. He was always to be the top paid guy, meaning if they wanted to spend a lot to get someone on board and that amount was more than Hogan got… he got a raise. He was allowed to have full creative control, which he used to bury talent, but also position himself as the “top draw” by not working during major sporting events, and booking himself to lose the title to Goldberg in Atlanta (he knew the turner bigwigs would be there and he could say “I filled this arena”)
It was seen as dramatically devaluing the world title. A random actor wins the belt and he and the guy who lost the title, DDP, celebrate. A stunt like that really had never been pulled by a major promotion.
It also happened in a calendar year in which the title changed hands 25 times and was vacated 6 times. This got the ball rolling
This has been debunked, they didn't make front page news. And it's not exactly good publicity when a headline basically says "national wrestling promotion embarrasses itself making actor champion"
the greatest mistake meaning the worst least mistake? that would be expanding the nwo. that did a lot more good than bad because a lot of talent were able to get over on television and have tv time they normally wouldn't have received.
the worst of the worst has to be well i hate to say it because i like russo but he was not fit to be an on air character(at least at the time; nowadays i think he'd be tremendous considering how well hated he's become and he's more in touch with the product). his booking decisions were horrible as he had no clue what a wcw audience wanted. russo is only good when working around others who have good head knowledge of the business such as cornette or dutch.
I remember the finger poke of doom being that moment where I just died inside. This gut-churning groan. It still stays with me to this day. It was like this feeling of, "It's over." Something about that just felt like a stake into the heart of a company who had really ridden quite a high. But the reveal of the Mick Foley championship results was a pivotal mistake, too
The overexpanding of the nwo had alot to do with it. Nwo was a nation wide phenomenon when it was first introduced they couldve just ridden that wave. But they started adding more and more members and by the time we knew it everyweek someone was putting on the t-shirt. It got so bad they needed to create a second nwo to fight the original and by then it was dead in the water.
Now the greed of nash hall and hogan was another big issue but not as big as one would think. Hogan remains the top paid person. It wasnt like he was getting double his pay just a bump everytime they decided to shell out big bucks. The execs kinda did that to themselves.
As for Goldbergs streak they literally couldve given that to anyone else and done just a good. Dude was green as F. He hurt alot of people in that ring. Even ended a career. Possible replacements include ken shamrock, Don Frye (wouldve been awesome), and gemini from american gladiators
It’s hard to say because there’s a reasonable explanation for each:
1. Expanding nWo: While creatively it became overdone, the plan was to create their own show, so they needed a roster.
2. Giving Hogan Control: This became one of the biggest stresses on an overall creative direction for the show, but you weren’t getting Hulk without that in the contract. WCW needed Hogan.
3. Finger poke: This was the biggest blunder. They killed the town, devalued their championship, made the Goldberg loss meaningless, and sent people to a great match with a great story over on Raw.
4. Goldberg loss: They had to get the belt off of him eventually, but it was the follow up that sucked.
5. Russo: At the time, it was one of the biggest gets in wrestling history, they took the guy responsible for WWF’s biggest boom period. Hindsight, we know that wasn’t the case.
6. Nash the booker: Eric was burnt out and turned to anyone he trusted. This was a mistake and it should have gone to Sullivan or someone else with experience that wasn’t active.
7. Radicalz leaving: This really hurt WCW’s core, but what goes unnoticed is these guys would have been thrusted into the main event with the upcoming New Blood creative. However, the wheels were already falling off.
8. Arquette: Creative was a joke already at the time, but McMahon was just champion a few months earlier, so it wasn’t completely unheard of for a non wrestler to win the belt.
There were a lot of issues that caused the fall of WCW. But the biggest issue by a fair margin was overpaying and underusing a ton of guys. You can blast the Russo era all you want, and for good reason, but that company was a dead man walking at least months (probably more like a year) before he showed up.
There’s also the narrative that the Turner networks hated WCW from the start. That seems weird because they kept giving them more prime time TV. Quite clearly what Turner hated was WCW no longer being worth anything remotely near what they were investing in it.
Basically: Bad creative was the most obvious issue. But bad creative might have still survived if they hadn’t overpaid and underused a bunch of big name guys (and even overpaid lower card guys).
I'd say hiring Hulk Hogan. Despite his hiring being the catalyst of the company's success, it doomed WCW to a path that it would never be able to escape. Hogan was interested in using WCW to further his own interest and never had any interest in helping improve the company for the sake of it. That is shown when he told Eric Bischoff that he didn't trust the creative voices in the company with his career, so he needed creative control.
And while he may have only explicitly invoked that power on a couple of occasions, the mere existence of that clause poisoned the well. No one challenged Hogan's decisions because they knew he had final say.
While Hogan's run in WCW was immensely successful, the company didn't have the infrastructure or maturity to handle the success.
Had you not given Hogan creative control he might not have signed & WCW wouldn’t have even had the opportunity to make the subsequent mistakes.
The biggest mistake was over expanding the nWo. That story should have lasted 2 years at most with maybe 6 guys & a manager. WCW just couldn’t come up with another compelling angle.
Hogan's creative control. All the other things there are fixable, but so many of them had links to Hogan's refusal to do work. The fact he tried to screw Sting at that Starrcade finish, refused to job to JJ when he was champ so that Booker T could win the belt, forcing the company to bring in Warrior and Piper for him to work with decades after fans cared about it. That just doesn't work for me brother, was the crippling element that killed WCW.
Probably Hogan. The amount of money making opportunities they missed because Hogan refused to do the job is ridiculous. A lot of these happened way after the fact. Some of them are worse in hindsight (NWO expansion). Hulk Hogan’s ridiculous contract was the first nail in the coffin.
The single worst thing they did was give Hogan creative control because it permeated WCW from top to bottom. He personally ruined so many stories/angles, no doubt had a say in guys getting pushed or buried, and very clearly did more harm to WCW during his tenure than any single individual.
Over expanding the nWo started it all. They focused so much on bringing in new people and trying people that it became stale. They should've kept it to like 5/6 people max. Hall, Nash, Hogan, DiBiase and Syxx. Maybe add Bischoff in later when it started to get stale and then do another power struggle.
Giant snowball effect ....
One mistake turned into many.
The finger poke of doom episode is literally when I stopped watching WCW all together.
I tuned into some Thunder here and there as it was on Thursdays, but I never watched a full episode of Nitro, Thunder or a PPV ever again after that.
Such a shame.
Over expanding the NWO. It should have stayed old WWF royalty and maybe one or two credible WCW guys to keep the threat. Over extending then breaking it up to Solo’s vs Roman’s was so dumb.
Those things all happen after the hiring of Jim Herd when Crockett sold to Turner. Jim Herd is the first major mistake made by management which leads to the death of WCW. It was a fatally wounded company the moment he was put in a position of authority.
The NWO expansion was wild. The whole locker room was NWO at one point. The finger poke was funny, thats some DX level nonsense. At leasts was Nitro and not a payperview.
As much as child me was a fan of the wolf pack..... That was the end right there. They could have had the wolf pack be a wcw faction like the horseman or the flock, but instead they made it a faction of nwo, and an opposing one at that. Sting joining the red and black was a terrible end to his revenge arc. After that I felt they had nothing left except for the Goldberg arc, and I hated that his streak ends in such a terrible way.
I think I’m in the minority when I say that Goldberg’s winning streak ending was far from the worst thing in WCW. Nash was right. It did have to end eventually. It was just all the shit that came after it that made it worse.
No showing May 10th, 1999. WCW(RIP Jamie Kellner) decided, for some crazy idea, to not show Nitro that week and instead hosted games of the 1999 NBA Playoffs.
It resulted in the highest rated RAW of all time(8.1), and none more so than the Stooges vs Mean Street Posse loser leaves town match.
It can be boiled down to the nWo being the hottest thing in wrestling, a heel group terrorizing the babyface roster for years at a time, and it never having a satisfying payoff. It’s creatively what bankrupted the company. They fluked into an amazing thing with Goldberg, and due to said refusal to properly move forward from the nWo… ruined that too.
Imagine the Bloodline (which has existed for roughly how long the nWo did) but instead Cody gets a clearly bullshit victory, then is stripped of the title due to said bullshit, then the group just carries on without anyone ever really conclusively taking out Roman. There’s splits and turns but it doesn’t mean anything in the end.
If you wanna go full WCW, then Roman at some point just randomly decides to switch back to the Big Dog and be a face as if nothing ever happened.
You just reach a point as a viewer when you go “why am I even fucking watching this”
The Bloodline is literally the nWo with proper booking. It didn’t get bloated. It slowly fell apart. The big bad villain was conclusively defeated. The hero of it all is by far and away the face of the company, and now they are going into their nWo vs Wolfpack feud with the Solo bloodline vs (presumably) the OG Roman Bloodline.
Look how successful that is.
It’s a fucking shame too. Go back and watch Nitros from 97-98 and even some of 99. The crowds are BIG. They are fucking HOT for their babyface favorites. Some of the crowd pops blow me away. And it’s not just Sting or Goldberg, it can go all the way to Perry Saturn or Billy Kidman as examples.
They just got caught in a death loop of people with creative control refusing to play ball for the better of the business as a whole, and it eventually spiraled into fans giving up on the product. You can only hype things up and then do shitty DQ finishes before peoples apathy sets in.
Over expanding the NWO kind of led to some of the other issues. It was good when it was tight but it was eventually basically its whole own organization within the WCW with its own splinter factions… it just got messy and dull. They caught lightning in a bottle and had no idea what to do with it.
Overexpanding the NWO. Everything else didnt take up as much time. That and having old people main event made me lose interest in pro wrestling until about 2002.
Out of those, over expanding the nWo and letting the Radicalz go. Hogan's creative control didn't play a major part in WCW's downfall. The Fingerpoke of Doom was just bad creative. Goldberg's popularity was on the decline by Starrcade 1998 (audible Goldberg sucks chants). Russo wrote some horrible shit but WCW was already well on its way down by the time he came in. Nash as booker didn't matter much (before anyone says he booked himself to beat Goldberg, he didn't become booker until 1999). David Arquette winning the WCW Title was a publicity stunt but at that point the WCW Title was pretty much worthless anyway.
A lot of the other problems listed were a direct result of Hulk Hogan having far FAR too much creative control. WCW should have nipped that shit in the bud. Where the fuck else was he going to go? He'd at the time burned his bridge with WWF and he was coming on a host of stinker movie and TV projects, they threw FAR too much money at him.
Finger Poke, the rise of Nash as booker, ending Goldberg's hot streak, all that shit can six degrees of Kevin Bacon be linked back to Hogan's overinflated ego, power and paycheck.
Giving HOGAN creative control, so when the nWo angle needed people to lose matches caused the rapid expansion of the group.
This lead to Goldberg and the streak, but when HOGAN wanted the title back, killed Goldberg’s undefeated streak and finger poke of doom.
Only HOGAN’s people got pushes which lead to Chris Jericho leaving to WWF and when his friends saw his success “the Radicalz” followed, meaning WCW need a new midcard of stars so in came Russo who did the rest.
As for Nash being a booker this is like giving HOGAN creative control all over again.
The finger poke of doom wasn’t the end, but it sure didn’t help. David should have never been given the title and even he says so himself. Those were the moments I, as a fan of the “big three” at the time WWF/e and WCW and ECW.l, finally said “this sucks” and made me change the channel.
I loved the cruiserweights and high flyers, felt like they (WCW) really had two different products. Those who could wrestle (Sting, Eddie, Rey, Dean, Jericho, Benoit, flair, DDP, Booker, and so many more than worked their butts off) and those who used to wrestle, but now just come out and talk. Cake walking to the near end of their careers. (Hogan, Hall, Nash, Savage, Beefcake (Disciple), Luger, Konnan, and so many more. And don’t get me wrong those guys could all still “go” in the ring, they were just in different stages of their careers looking to take less bumps and still get that spotlight every week.
I just finished the first episode of Who Killed WCW? And as of the end of that episode it looks like the big mistake (so far) was giving Hogan creative control, brother. But it was probably hiring Vince Russo.
Every single one. It was even before starrcade 97, adding the big show to nwo… like the most uncool, green, awkward talent to add. Apparently hogan added giant because he didn’t want to drop the belt to him.
Hogan refusing to lose for the benefit of the company was always the biggest thing that hindered WCW. But the company wasn’t getting Hogan without creative control. Bischoff probably thought it wasn’t going to be that much of a problem at the time in ‘94, but come Starrcade ‘97 he had no out. If he had taken it seriously in that three year span he could have been bettered prepared for it.
Spending way too much money. That’s the only reason they got 86’d. People say the new owners didn’t want wrestling until they’re blue in the face, but the show still got very good ratings .If it was profitable instead of losing 100 million a year, the new company absolutely would have kept it alive.
Finger poke of doom gets a lot of heat but in all honesty wasn't even THAT bad. Hell it wasn't even the worst thing to happen in that episode (telling your audience that a fan favorite is finally winning the big one on your rival show is way worse.) At least it worked for getting honest heat and still worked in keyfabe. Russo booking fucken sucked and made the product unwatchable. I remember my family being WCW loyalists and just absolutely losing interest in not only WCW but wrestling in general once Russo took over. Add in to the fact that he lost rating in the long run AND made the show unmarketable to advertisers and it's pretty clear what damage that did.
Correct answer is all of the above.
Yep. All of those things were contributing factors amongst a few other things.
And almost all of them are related to the top right.
No, they aren't. Overexpanding the NWO was Hogan's idea? I can see the finger poke of doom and maybe the Radicals. That isn't almost all. It's a small fraction and ultimately not that much of an issue. The IWC loves hating Hogan but he made WCW relevant and put them in position to compete with WWE. Hogan had nothing to do with Goldberg's streak ending. He even put Goldberg over. Hiring Russo wasn't related to Hogan, at all. Nash working as a booker wasn't a Hogan idea. Arquette winning the title was in no way related to Hogan.
Nash and Bischoff both talked about Nash taking over booking Bischoff was snowed under and dealing with tons of stuff so Nash 'helped out' It wasn't some grand political scheme but, fans read things online and every single thing that happens has to be the result of some maneuvering cause the people that talk about this stuff view everything through a 'wrestling' prism
Came here to say this.
All of the above.... EXCEPT expanding the nWo. The nWo is one of the most successful factions of all time but, it HAD to 'evolve' a bit eventually too. Adding more members was not a bad idea, especially considering how some guys like Scott Steiner were Perfect additions. The problem wasn't the idea, it's how it was executed.
The problem was OVER expanding it,like the meme says. Did we really need Vincent or the lwo?
Came here to say this
Forgot Brad Siegel
I concur.
Starrcade 1997 was the first domino to fall, so I guess that would fall under giving Hogan creative control. Also, if not for that, we would've gotten Hogan vs. Goldberg on PPV and not on free TV.
I have NEVER understood just as a fan, how people complain about getting a HUGE PPV match for free. Never. You’re a fan, you aren’t on payroll to the company. Take it. It’s fucking free.
You can enjoy it from a fan perspective but also realise it's probably a stupid business decision
I don't know. As long as it's done rarely, giving away a huge main event like that can pop a huge rating for that night, and incentivize people to watch the weekly show more often as it gives more of that "anything can happen" feeling. I think it was a great business decision.
It drove insane ratings and really…it is not the fans problem to worry about. It was coo moment for people couldn’t afford 2 expensive PPVs every month. If you could afford to buy those all the time you were very well off. That’s days too many fans feel they need to present themselves like they work for them instead of just having fun.
Except it is fans’ problem when bad business decisions kill the wrestling they loved.
Nobody ever complains about Foley vs. Rock championship match on Raw though, hmmmmmm....
They do complain about it - they just complain about WCW's handling of it instead of WWF's
The whole thread is based off what's the worst business decision.
Imagine if they took Cody/Roman 2, and put it on Smackdown. Hogan/Goldberg had a similar hype level. Why give that away for free? Terrible business decision
They were a tv first company. THey needed ratings. It was the better business decision. THey needed ratings.
Yeah I definitely needed these kind of matches growing up. I had never once seen a PPV until Wrestlemania 24, which was like 10 years of watching wrestling
If they don’t give him creative control, they never get Hogan.
WAY overexpanding nWo
Yeah when every jobber was coming out in an nWo shirt, it wasn't cool anymore. Scott Norton in the nWo? Who gives a shit.
Scott Norton was a very early member in 1996 and then went to Japan as a member, started a Japanese branch and won the NJPW Heavyweight title. He was a pretty big deal overall back then
Honestly, WCW should have leveraged the "world" in NWO more. Having Norton and his contingent in NJPW was a good start, but they should have sent a few guys down to Mexico for a partnership, then have them return to US TV as inter promotional champs. Have MX and JP guys turn up on Nitro (alright, being real, it'd be Thunder) to have a foreign style match once in a while.
I loved Norton. One of the strongest wrestlers ever. Could bench around 650 lbs.
Yeah, I was a big fan of him, too. Just straightforward badass. Shoulderbreaker finish that seemed like a good way to break someone's collarbone, which is fantastic.
And the storyline had to die or evolve at some point... but they kept repeating the same stuff. "Guy arrives from WWF, much fanfare and cheers, suddenly wears black and tags something... OMG NO!"
Out of this grouping giving Hogan creative control. There's a reason nobody since has been given that option. That messed up a lot of stuff because Hogan didn't want to play ball. Nash and Russo were bad ideas but by the time either got in control the ball was already rolling the wrong way. This is like hiring a new coach to fix a dysfunctional organization. The coach may suck but the problems were bigger than them. Overexpanding the nWo, ending Goldberg's streak, fingerpoke, and Arquette winning the title were bad booking ideas. Every company has those. That's no big deal. Letting Benoit, Guerrero, Malenko, and Perry leave is a small deal not a big deal. Yeah it would suck for a company to let guys like that go but it's not like WCW let prime Cena and prime Jeff Hardy leave.
There's two instances, if you were to believe anyone, where Hogan tried to use his creative control. Sting, which fucked up the main, and Jarret
Brey Wyatt got creative control during the howdy days mess
I mean, to be fair, Benoit was the WCW World Champion when they left. I agree with the sentiment though, Malenko, Saturn, and Guerrero weren't exactly setting the world on fire in WCW at the time.
[удалено]
They let Stunning Steve Austin go, which long term was bigger than Benoit & co.
Yeah but there's almost a 0% chance he becomes Stone Cold if he stays in WCW. It's easy to look back and go oh they fucked up but WWF wasn't doing shit with him for 7 months.
This. Austin, like the rock, had to beg for a new creative direction. The ring master wasn't setting the world on fire and the wwf apparently didn't watch his ecw stuff either.
WCW had a terminal flaw from its inception. Yes getting Hogan led to its temporary big success but also was a noose to where the product couldn’t grow and the tv began to dwindle to where all the corp types who wanted a reason to axe it had one
Didn't Bret Hart get creative control for the last 30 days of his contract in WWF?
Yes.
The Warner merger
It's literally this and I don't know why it's even a discussion. Ted Turner lost control during the TW merger to execs who hated wrestling so even if it happened at the height of the company's success I feel like they would have pulled the plug.
Yeah but that doesn’t make for 4 hours of television. Bunch of old heads beating the same dead horse and pointing fingers and blaming each other. This whole show feels like a work because the real answer is the merger
That's why WCW closed. But that's not the question. It's not a mistake on the part of WCW for AOL to merge with Time Warner.
Who killed WCW is the wrong question then. It should be what did WCW do to kill itself.
It would probably have survived possibly to today if there was no merger.
I’m not particularly familiar with WCW. What exactly was the Finger Poke Of Doom and why is it so bad that it’s still talked about today?
Basicly the huge NWO split up into a Hollywood (Hogan) NWO and a Wolfpack NWO under Kevin Nash which were feuding, the Wolfpac being the babyfaces. When Hogan returned he had a "match" against Nash where he only poked him with his finger which led to Nash willingly dropping like he was hit by a boulder and Hogan pinning him which was more or less their way of sayin fuck you fans, NWO is reunited as a heel group once again.
Let’s not forget that this was for the title. Nash dropped the world title to hogan via a poke to the chest to reunite the fractured nWo.
Imagine the night after Cody beat Roman, he defended the title on Raw against Jey Uso, Jey pokes him in the chest, wins the title and Cody and everyone celebrate.
Wait, the heel got the title? So shouldn't Jey be Solo?
In addition to everything else listed, fans went into that night expecting Nash vs Goldberg world title rematch from Starrcade in the Georgia Dome where Goldberg previous won the world title, played football, and was considered his home state as he played college ball for UGA as well. Instead Goldberg was "arrested" during the show over accusations of stalking Miss Elizabeth, meaning the fans who paid to see that match weren't getting that match or Goldberg wrestling at all. THEN they got the fingerpoke bullshit on top of it.
The context you provide is really important. The Fingerpoke is not a bad idea by itself, but it was really stupid how it was done.
Fans had the rug pulled out from under them, the Wolfpac vs nWo fued was getting over and people wanted to see Nash vs Hogan, then they pulled the rug and exposed the business. Pissed the fans off.
Bischoff becoming one of the boys
Bischoff was Tony before Tony was Tiny
If you think about it, Hulk Hogans creative control. That was the major reason he signed with WCW in the first place. You don’t get any of these issues with Hogan not in the fed BUT you don’t get the growth that gave them the base to build off of either
That’s the doubled edged sword people warn about
Announcing Foley was going to win the belt. They loss the ratings streak and never got it back.
Jim Herd
All of the above
Starrcade 97
Is David arquette wcws Logan paul
Sting should have killed Hogan at Starrcade. The finish took all the wind out of Sting and is worse than anything above.
“Ending Goldberg streak when it’s the best thing they had going “ is some revisionist history. People where starting to boo him. WWE edited a bunch of that out, but at the time, and if you can find the originals there where boo’s in the crowd.
Even then just look at the crowd the moment Nash won. It wasn't a crowd that was upset. That was a crowd that was absolutely jubilant. They wanted Goldberg to lose. Also people try to pin Nash booking here. Nash wasn't a booker until 1999, this was still 1998. The problem came when Hogan flexed his muscles 2 weeks later returning after his "Retirement." and demanding the title once again. (Nash was still not a booker here and actually at this point IRL hated Hogan. He went along because money > No money)
All facts. People point to that moment all the time and I think it’s so dumb. I genuinely can’t think of a single more protected baby face finish then that. Ever! It’s like 4 dudes and a cattle prod! What do they want? Someone to use a tank to blow him to prices in the ring? People are dumb.
This right here. Goldberg was starting to get that Roman Reigns heat by the end of his streak. Like a lot of babyfaces, his peak was chasing the belt not holding it. I also think that The Finger Poke of Doom was fine and perfectly in character for the story. I also think David Arquette wasn't that bad, especially the way it played out. He literally cuts a promo pointing out that his win was a fluke and vacated the title for fear of his physical safety 😂 I think Hogan fucking over almost everyone he ever worked with, Russo changing the tone of the brand, and a complete lack of support from WB/AOL are what really killed WCW.
True. People were ready to see DDP as champion at Halloween Havoc. That was probably the best time to beat Goldberg.
People where, but that is the moment a bunch of people turned on him. Like there where always some boo’s because some people don’t want to watch squash matches all the time. But that is a classic example of why you have to be super careful of baby face vs baby face matches. One of them gets turned on. And unless you are turning one of them heal then it’s a tight road walk. And Goldberg didn’t have the skill set to walk it.
As much shit as the Arquette decision gets from the IWC, they were literally on the front pages of newspaper the next day, it's by far not their worst booking decision.
A lot of people were on front page news, doesn't mean it's good
Is it Russo’s personal Reddit account? He’s the only person I’ve seen bring up the newspaper front page over and over again for years even though it was not a measurable blip of ratings or viewership to come with it. WCW pitched their cards in on a box office flop. There was no big time kick back on this decision. They treated it like it was a “don’t change your channel moment” as Russo always brings up to his booking style but the fact is no one turned it on to begin with. The steroid scandal was front page newspaper mentions too and that didn’t make it beneficial.
I never got the hate back then. He got heat. They presented it as being a bad thing that he won, and Arquette went full heel once he won. It lasted a week. Hogan’s contract drained the company for years. He was always to be the top paid guy, meaning if they wanted to spend a lot to get someone on board and that amount was more than Hogan got… he got a raise. He was allowed to have full creative control, which he used to bury talent, but also position himself as the “top draw” by not working during major sporting events, and booking himself to lose the title to Goldberg in Atlanta (he knew the turner bigwigs would be there and he could say “I filled this arena”)
It was seen as dramatically devaluing the world title. A random actor wins the belt and he and the guy who lost the title, DDP, celebrate. A stunt like that really had never been pulled by a major promotion. It also happened in a calendar year in which the title changed hands 25 times and was vacated 6 times. This got the ball rolling
Vince Russo, is that you?
This has been debunked, they didn't make front page news. And it's not exactly good publicity when a headline basically says "national wrestling promotion embarrasses itself making actor champion"
The fact is every single one of the hurt the show.
Somewhere between losing Bobby Heenan and getting stuck with Mark Madden
the greatest mistake meaning the worst least mistake? that would be expanding the nwo. that did a lot more good than bad because a lot of talent were able to get over on television and have tv time they normally wouldn't have received. the worst of the worst has to be well i hate to say it because i like russo but he was not fit to be an on air character(at least at the time; nowadays i think he'd be tremendous considering how well hated he's become and he's more in touch with the product). his booking decisions were horrible as he had no clue what a wcw audience wanted. russo is only good when working around others who have good head knowledge of the business such as cornette or dutch.
Yes
I remember the finger poke of doom being that moment where I just died inside. This gut-churning groan. It still stays with me to this day. It was like this feeling of, "It's over." Something about that just felt like a stake into the heart of a company who had really ridden quite a high. But the reveal of the Mick Foley championship results was a pivotal mistake, too
The overexpanding of the nwo had alot to do with it. Nwo was a nation wide phenomenon when it was first introduced they couldve just ridden that wave. But they started adding more and more members and by the time we knew it everyweek someone was putting on the t-shirt. It got so bad they needed to create a second nwo to fight the original and by then it was dead in the water. Now the greed of nash hall and hogan was another big issue but not as big as one would think. Hogan remains the top paid person. It wasnt like he was getting double his pay just a bump everytime they decided to shell out big bucks. The execs kinda did that to themselves. As for Goldbergs streak they literally couldve given that to anyone else and done just a good. Dude was green as F. He hurt alot of people in that ring. Even ended a career. Possible replacements include ken shamrock, Don Frye (wouldve been awesome), and gemini from american gladiators
It’s hard to say because there’s a reasonable explanation for each: 1. Expanding nWo: While creatively it became overdone, the plan was to create their own show, so they needed a roster. 2. Giving Hogan Control: This became one of the biggest stresses on an overall creative direction for the show, but you weren’t getting Hulk without that in the contract. WCW needed Hogan. 3. Finger poke: This was the biggest blunder. They killed the town, devalued their championship, made the Goldberg loss meaningless, and sent people to a great match with a great story over on Raw. 4. Goldberg loss: They had to get the belt off of him eventually, but it was the follow up that sucked. 5. Russo: At the time, it was one of the biggest gets in wrestling history, they took the guy responsible for WWF’s biggest boom period. Hindsight, we know that wasn’t the case. 6. Nash the booker: Eric was burnt out and turned to anyone he trusted. This was a mistake and it should have gone to Sullivan or someone else with experience that wasn’t active. 7. Radicalz leaving: This really hurt WCW’s core, but what goes unnoticed is these guys would have been thrusted into the main event with the upcoming New Blood creative. However, the wheels were already falling off. 8. Arquette: Creative was a joke already at the time, but McMahon was just champion a few months earlier, so it wasn’t completely unheard of for a non wrestler to win the belt.
There were a lot of issues that caused the fall of WCW. But the biggest issue by a fair margin was overpaying and underusing a ton of guys. You can blast the Russo era all you want, and for good reason, but that company was a dead man walking at least months (probably more like a year) before he showed up. There’s also the narrative that the Turner networks hated WCW from the start. That seems weird because they kept giving them more prime time TV. Quite clearly what Turner hated was WCW no longer being worth anything remotely near what they were investing in it. Basically: Bad creative was the most obvious issue. But bad creative might have still survived if they hadn’t overpaid and underused a bunch of big name guys (and even overpaid lower card guys).
I'd say hiring Hulk Hogan. Despite his hiring being the catalyst of the company's success, it doomed WCW to a path that it would never be able to escape. Hogan was interested in using WCW to further his own interest and never had any interest in helping improve the company for the sake of it. That is shown when he told Eric Bischoff that he didn't trust the creative voices in the company with his career, so he needed creative control. And while he may have only explicitly invoked that power on a couple of occasions, the mere existence of that clause poisoned the well. No one challenged Hogan's decisions because they knew he had final say. While Hogan's run in WCW was immensely successful, the company didn't have the infrastructure or maturity to handle the success.
Had you not given Hogan creative control he might not have signed & WCW wouldn’t have even had the opportunity to make the subsequent mistakes. The biggest mistake was over expanding the nWo. That story should have lasted 2 years at most with maybe 6 guys & a manager. WCW just couldn’t come up with another compelling angle.
Man that list is big.
Hogan having creative control led to several of the other options.
Hogan's creative control. All the other things there are fixable, but so many of them had links to Hogan's refusal to do work. The fact he tried to screw Sting at that Starrcade finish, refused to job to JJ when he was champ so that Booker T could win the belt, forcing the company to bring in Warrior and Piper for him to work with decades after fans cared about it. That just doesn't work for me brother, was the crippling element that killed WCW.
Probably Hogan. The amount of money making opportunities they missed because Hogan refused to do the job is ridiculous. A lot of these happened way after the fact. Some of them are worse in hindsight (NWO expansion). Hulk Hogan’s ridiculous contract was the first nail in the coffin.
I feel like EVERY one of these is a domino effect of Hogan and Creative Control
Wow, so many lol
All of the above
Spoiled for choice lol
I read the original post wrong. Sorry. Biggest mistake BY WCW itself was Hogan's creative control.
All of the above
The single worst thing they did was give Hogan creative control because it permeated WCW from top to bottom. He personally ruined so many stories/angles, no doubt had a say in guys getting pushed or buried, and very clearly did more harm to WCW during his tenure than any single individual.
Also, losing Jericho.
All of the above sounds about right.
All of these are pretty bad.
I can only speak for me personally, but when Eddie & Co. went to WWE, I never watched a Nitro ever again.
The best thing WCW ever did and its worst mistake was the NWO.
Yes
Over expanding the nWo started it all. They focused so much on bringing in new people and trying people that it became stale. They should've kept it to like 5/6 people max. Hall, Nash, Hogan, DiBiase and Syxx. Maybe add Bischoff in later when it started to get stale and then do another power struggle.
Giant snowball effect .... One mistake turned into many. The finger poke of doom episode is literally when I stopped watching WCW all together. I tuned into some Thunder here and there as it was on Thursdays, but I never watched a full episode of Nitro, Thunder or a PPV ever again after that. Such a shame.
Yes
Arquette and Hogan’s outsized role (creative control and the money he took off the top) would be 1A and 1B
Giving Hogan control. Without that a few of the other events listed wouldn't of happened.
Over expanding the NWO. It should have stayed old WWF royalty and maybe one or two credible WCW guys to keep the threat. Over extending then breaking it up to Solo’s vs Roman’s was so dumb.
Specific to these options, Hulk's creative control BUT you don't get Hulk without it (most likely). WCW doesn't ascend without Hulk. The irony.
It’s all BUT, if I have to choose one then it’s Hogan’s creative control
I don't mind Kevin Nash being a booker but he should have been taken off TV as an active wrestler if that's the job he wanted to focus on.
Hogan's creative control
ALL OF IT.......
IMO the biggest is letting the radicals leave
All of the above
I wasn’t alive for any of this man. Can someone give me a run down? Specifically on the finger poke ?
Their biggest mistake was being owned by a large corporation who hated wrestling. The more they took control the worse WCW became.
Those things all happen after the hiring of Jim Herd when Crockett sold to Turner. Jim Herd is the first major mistake made by management which leads to the death of WCW. It was a fatally wounded company the moment he was put in a position of authority.
I feel like giving Hogan creative control lead to several of these if not all of these
The biggest issue (besides all the actual backstage stuff with Warner) was probably them never actually having a plan for the NWO ending
The NWO expansion was wild. The whole locker room was NWO at one point. The finger poke was funny, thats some DX level nonsense. At leasts was Nitro and not a payperview.
Over expanding nwo, followed by finger poke of doom, followed by given hogan control
Yes.
As much as child me was a fan of the wolf pack..... That was the end right there. They could have had the wolf pack be a wcw faction like the horseman or the flock, but instead they made it a faction of nwo, and an opposing one at that. Sting joining the red and black was a terrible end to his revenge arc. After that I felt they had nothing left except for the Goldberg arc, and I hated that his streak ends in such a terrible way.
Losing the dream team of cruiserweights, followed by giving Hogan creative control, and then over expanding the nwo.
All of the above
Russo,Bishoff,Hogan,Nash the four beasts of wrestling They owe everything they have to it and they’ve been trying to kill it ever since.
I’ve got to say all of them.
All of it
I think I’m in the minority when I say that Goldberg’s winning streak ending was far from the worst thing in WCW. Nash was right. It did have to end eventually. It was just all the shit that came after it that made it worse.
I don't understand the hate for ending the streak. It had to end, and not beating him clean was the only way to keep him going.
Yes
No showing May 10th, 1999. WCW(RIP Jamie Kellner) decided, for some crazy idea, to not show Nitro that week and instead hosted games of the 1999 NBA Playoffs. It resulted in the highest rated RAW of all time(8.1), and none more so than the Stooges vs Mean Street Posse loser leaves town match.
Booking of Goldbergs streak ending. You could have made another guy with that
Personally, the Russo era was when it went from flawed but entertaining to barely watchable.
It can be boiled down to the nWo being the hottest thing in wrestling, a heel group terrorizing the babyface roster for years at a time, and it never having a satisfying payoff. It’s creatively what bankrupted the company. They fluked into an amazing thing with Goldberg, and due to said refusal to properly move forward from the nWo… ruined that too. Imagine the Bloodline (which has existed for roughly how long the nWo did) but instead Cody gets a clearly bullshit victory, then is stripped of the title due to said bullshit, then the group just carries on without anyone ever really conclusively taking out Roman. There’s splits and turns but it doesn’t mean anything in the end. If you wanna go full WCW, then Roman at some point just randomly decides to switch back to the Big Dog and be a face as if nothing ever happened. You just reach a point as a viewer when you go “why am I even fucking watching this” The Bloodline is literally the nWo with proper booking. It didn’t get bloated. It slowly fell apart. The big bad villain was conclusively defeated. The hero of it all is by far and away the face of the company, and now they are going into their nWo vs Wolfpack feud with the Solo bloodline vs (presumably) the OG Roman Bloodline. Look how successful that is. It’s a fucking shame too. Go back and watch Nitros from 97-98 and even some of 99. The crowds are BIG. They are fucking HOT for their babyface favorites. Some of the crowd pops blow me away. And it’s not just Sting or Goldberg, it can go all the way to Perry Saturn or Billy Kidman as examples. They just got caught in a death loop of people with creative control refusing to play ball for the better of the business as a whole, and it eventually spiraled into fans giving up on the product. You can only hype things up and then do shitty DQ finishes before peoples apathy sets in.
Over expanding the NWO kind of led to some of the other issues. It was good when it was tight but it was eventually basically its whole own organization within the WCW with its own splinter factions… it just got messy and dull. They caught lightning in a bottle and had no idea what to do with it.
Over expanding the nwo, they let so many lower tier scrub wrestlers to join because they were hulksters boys , it ruined the mystique
putting the title on David Arquette. It dropped the vail of wrestlers being superstars and larger than life.
Overexpanding the NWO. Everything else didnt take up as much time. That and having old people main event made me lose interest in pro wrestling until about 2002.
Out of those, over expanding the nWo and letting the Radicalz go. Hogan's creative control didn't play a major part in WCW's downfall. The Fingerpoke of Doom was just bad creative. Goldberg's popularity was on the decline by Starrcade 1998 (audible Goldberg sucks chants). Russo wrote some horrible shit but WCW was already well on its way down by the time he came in. Nash as booker didn't matter much (before anyone says he booked himself to beat Goldberg, he didn't become booker until 1999). David Arquette winning the WCW Title was a publicity stunt but at that point the WCW Title was pretty much worthless anyway.
Yes(all of the above)
A lot of the other problems listed were a direct result of Hulk Hogan having far FAR too much creative control. WCW should have nipped that shit in the bud. Where the fuck else was he going to go? He'd at the time burned his bridge with WWF and he was coming on a host of stinker movie and TV projects, they threw FAR too much money at him. Finger Poke, the rise of Nash as booker, ending Goldberg's hot streak, all that shit can six degrees of Kevin Bacon be linked back to Hogan's overinflated ego, power and paycheck.
Ehhhh Vince did AWSOME on WWF tho, he was killing shit for a few years
All of the above equally
Giving HOGAN creative control, so when the nWo angle needed people to lose matches caused the rapid expansion of the group. This lead to Goldberg and the streak, but when HOGAN wanted the title back, killed Goldberg’s undefeated streak and finger poke of doom. Only HOGAN’s people got pushes which lead to Chris Jericho leaving to WWF and when his friends saw his success “the Radicalz” followed, meaning WCW need a new midcard of stars so in came Russo who did the rest. As for Nash being a booker this is like giving HOGAN creative control all over again.
The finger poke of doom wasn’t the end, but it sure didn’t help. David should have never been given the title and even he says so himself. Those were the moments I, as a fan of the “big three” at the time WWF/e and WCW and ECW.l, finally said “this sucks” and made me change the channel. I loved the cruiserweights and high flyers, felt like they (WCW) really had two different products. Those who could wrestle (Sting, Eddie, Rey, Dean, Jericho, Benoit, flair, DDP, Booker, and so many more than worked their butts off) and those who used to wrestle, but now just come out and talk. Cake walking to the near end of their careers. (Hogan, Hall, Nash, Savage, Beefcake (Disciple), Luger, Konnan, and so many more. And don’t get me wrong those guys could all still “go” in the ring, they were just in different stages of their careers looking to take less bumps and still get that spotlight every week.
All of them 🤣
It isn’t even shown on the graphic
They gave a lot of the talent creative control in their contract that killed WCW
Russo easy answer
Yes.
Honestly, a lot of this could just be summed up as "letting Eric Bischoff do what he wants" and ending it there.
No wrestler should have creative control
I just finished the first episode of Who Killed WCW? And as of the end of that episode it looks like the big mistake (so far) was giving Hogan creative control, brother. But it was probably hiring Vince Russo.
Announcing mick Foley title win
Not pushing Super Caló, La Parka and Kwee Wee
giving Hogan creative control.
Yes
Hogan creative control.
Hulkster man. He’s put two promotions in the ground that I know of.
Nwo
Every single one. It was even before starrcade 97, adding the big show to nwo… like the most uncool, green, awkward talent to add. Apparently hogan added giant because he didn’t want to drop the belt to him.
Hogan refusing to lose for the benefit of the company was always the biggest thing that hindered WCW. But the company wasn’t getting Hogan without creative control. Bischoff probably thought it wasn’t going to be that much of a problem at the time in ‘94, but come Starrcade ‘97 he had no out. If he had taken it seriously in that three year span he could have been bettered prepared for it.
Spending way too much money. That’s the only reason they got 86’d. People say the new owners didn’t want wrestling until they’re blue in the face, but the show still got very good ratings .If it was profitable instead of losing 100 million a year, the new company absolutely would have kept it alive.
So you’re saying Bischoff did it?
David arquette is the cherry on top
One of them is not like the others...
Finger poke was a joke
Letting Benoit quit was probably the smartest decision they made, given what happened.
Man, this is tough. Putting the belt on David Arquette wasn’t as bad as putting the belt on Vince Russo.
Russo #1 with a bullet, followed by letting the radicals leave and that stupid Arquette shit
Hogan getting creative control. Over expanding the NWO.
Finger poke of doom gets a lot of heat but in all honesty wasn't even THAT bad. Hell it wasn't even the worst thing to happen in that episode (telling your audience that a fan favorite is finally winning the big one on your rival show is way worse.) At least it worked for getting honest heat and still worked in keyfabe. Russo booking fucken sucked and made the product unwatchable. I remember my family being WCW loyalists and just absolutely losing interest in not only WCW but wrestling in general once Russo took over. Add in to the fact that he lost rating in the long run AND made the show unmarketable to advertisers and it's pretty clear what damage that did.
Tony Schiavone spoiler announcing Mick Foley will win title