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 Do not vote yet, voting isn't open and will not be done in this thread! Please discuss votes in this thread A few years ago PSP Survivor was held to determine the greatest wrestler of the modern era. Now we are holding a second to determine something far greater: The stupidest thing WCW ever did. This is the greatest tournament in the history of our sport. What is it? This is an eliminator tournament pitting the 50+ most idiotic moves WCW made during its existence. Unlike traditional tournaments, you do not vote for the winner. Instead, everyone votes for the thing they think is the least dumb. The highest vote getter is then taken out of the tournament, and we go by the process of elimination until we have one winner (in this case loser.) Why do I say 50+? As I was writing this I thought of more and I'm too lazy to count. For example, if you look at the list and think that hiring Vince Russo is the least stupid thing WCW did, vote for that. If you think the White Hummer is the stupidest thing WCW ever did, DO NOT VOTE FOR THAT! We are voting things off the island, the longer something stays in the tournament, the dumber it is. The format is this: There will be a discussion period and a voting period for each round. The first round will get 48 hours of discussion followed by 48 hours of voting. The next 20 or so rounds will have 24 hours of discussion followed by 24 hours of voting. The discussion and voting periods will expand as decisions get more difficult. There will be a separate thread for voting to make things simpler. Please discuss the tournament and your votes in this thread, bury other candidates for being too stupid/not stupid enough, etc. The other thread should be for voting only. The Candidates (in roughly chronological order) 1. Sting was injured in early 1990 and couldn't wrestle, delaying his WCW title win. They wanted to still use him on major shows, and Turner Execs signed a deal to promote Robocop 2 on the Capitol Combat PPV, with a Robocop appearance. Here's what happened, courtesy of Are You Serious? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcLlxXqKCRE The case against: This wasn't really even WCW's fault, it was a decision from on high. Sting vs Black Scorpion Feud Begins with No Idea Who the Scorpion Is Sting returned from injury in 1990 to win the World title from Ric Flair. His major feud of this run was against the Black Scorpion, a mysterious masked man who claimed to have a past with Sting. Rumors circulated as to who it could be, but WCW really didn't have a clue. In the end he was unmasked as Ric Flair, which made no sense! In between we got fake Scorpions, lovely magic acts and Ole Anderson doing voice effects. The case against it: It started out as kind of mysterious and intriguing. WCW fires Ric Flair while still WCW/NWA Champion In 1991 Jim Herd wanted to cut Ric Flair pay and change his name to "Spartacus." Flair, the champion opposed these changes, and was still the biggest star in the company as Sting and Luger had not panned out as Herd hoped. Herd responded by firing Flair and stripping him of the WCW title. However, Flair was still recognized as NWA Champion and had not been paid the $25,000 bond owed to him for the title to be returned. This allowed Flair to go to the WWF as the "Real World Champion" with said title until lawsuits forced the WWF to remove the belt from TV. The case against it: Building young stars is good? WCW hires Bill Watts In 1992 WCW was deep in the red and decided to cut spending. Bill Watts was hired to be the new President with orders to cut spending. Watts had been out of wrestling since he sold Mid South wrestling half a decade earlier. He wasn't up to date on how the business had changed. He immediately wanted to cut the salary of Brian Pillman, which led to Pillman deciding he'd rather be the highest paid jobber in history than take a pay cut. He famously banned top rope moves (since in his day top rope moves were a heel act, like Stevens' knee drop) and removed the mats from ringside. Watts then got in a heap of trouble for an interview he had given where he defended the rights of business owners to discriminate against blacks and gays. The case against it: Watts did cut costs to the point where WCW would have been profitable if they were paid TV rights fees as Bischoff negotiated. In 1993 Flair returned to WCW and soon brought the Four Horsemen back together. Arn Anderson and Tully Blanchard were supposed to join him, but a failed drug test kept the latter out of WCW. They decided on Paul Roma, a former WWF jobber to replace him. The case against: They only had three Horsmen and the group quickly disbanded so did he really do much damage? To promote Beach Blast 93, WCW filmed a mini movie. Vader's White Castle of Fear might be more famous, but this footage cost WCW $80,000 to film. In the movie Sting and Davey Boy Smith are playing a charity beach volleyball game with children when Vader and Sid approach them. Meanwhile Cheatum The Evil Midget attaches a bomb to the babyface's speed boat. Luckily the plan is discovered and the babyfaces survive. The mini movie was so lovely and kayfabe exposing that Turner executives demanded repeat airings be pulled from TV. The case against: WCW wasted way more than $80,000 on other things and they learned their lesson by pulling it. WCW and Mick Foley Part Ways Mick Foley was growing more and more disillusioned about his time in WCW as 1994 wore on. He wasn't being pushed and wanted out, as he'd been able to work for ECW. During that time he spit on the WCW tag title and mocked the company, which made WCW execs want him out. He was gone in September, off to do SMW dates and become a hardcore icon in ECW and Japan. The case against: Foley clearly wanted to leave and a message had to be sent for him mocking the company. While he became a big star, did his stardom really eclipse many of the big stars WCW had during the war? Steve Austin Jobs to Jim Duggan in 10 seconds When Hulk Hogan came into WCW he got defacto booking power and had his buddies hired. One was Duggan, and at Fall Brawl 94 WCW booked a match where Austin was pinned by Duggan in 10 seconds, losing the US title. This signaled the beginning of the end of Austin's push in WCW. The case against: Austin basically slipped on a banana peel and lost, not something he couldn't recover from with proper booking. Ed Leslie Headlines Starrcade One of Hogan's buddies to get a job was Ed Leslie, AKA Brutus Beefcake. He came into WCW as The Butcher and was given the Starrcade main event against Hogan. Coming off a retirement match against Ric Flair, they decided to use a perpetual WWF midcarder against Hogan in the main event of their oldest PPV. The case against: Two friends having a feud sounds like a good storyline. When WCW hired Randy Savage he had two demands: They hire his brother and put his father in the WCW Hall of Fame. Lanny was paid six figures, but creative had no ideas for him, so he was paid to sit at home. He never once appeared for WCW. On top of this WCW purchased the rights to the Gorgeous George gimmick from The Stro for Lanny, and never used those until it was given to Savage's girlfriend in 1999. The case against: Macho Man made a lot of money for WCW, so if it took an extra six figure contract to get him, is that so bad? WCW Fires Steve Austin After losing to Duggan, Austin went into a cycle of being jobbed out and getting injured. He refused to do one job and then got injured on a Japanese tour, causing WCW to question the legitimacy of the injury. Austin sat home injured during the summer, but was then fired by Bischoff via Fedex. The case against: Austin was a high paying contract during a period of cost cutting, and was seen as a discipline problem. While his peak was the biggest star in wrestling history, at the time Bischoff and Hogan saw little in him while most saw him more as a 90s Ric Flair level star. Hogan vs Giant: Monster Truck Sumo The main event of Halloween Havoc 95 was Hogan vs The Giant, a man pushed as the son of Andre. Earlier on the show, this happened: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xdds9n_hogan-kills-the-giant-big-show_sport In the main event Giant came out and wrestled Hogan and the match ended in a really stupid clusterfuck. Jimmy Hart turned on Hogan and THE YET-TAY made his debut. The case against: While it was a stupid segment it didn't really hurt either man's star power. Live on PPV the following happened: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8q6yx_hulk-burns-copy-of-wrestling-observ_fun Savage's injury was indeed legitimate and on top of that it was used in kayfabe on the show, so Hogan killed that psychology dead in some insane ego trip against Dave Meltzer. The case against: Hogan's ego ruined much more important things during his run. After Madusa left the WWF on good terms, she came to WCW. In her first appearance this happened: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6UWUolS6Z0 The belt was thrown in the trash, a lawsuit was filed and it turned out Bischoff pressured Madusa into doing that and basically ending up blackballed from the WWF. WCW proceeded to use Madusa sparingly and often as just eye candy. The case against: The lawsuit was not the one that got the WWF right of first refusal to buy WCW, so all it did was ruin one person's post WCW career! Brian Pillman Tricks Bischoff into Releasing Him Knowing his days as a top high flier were behind him, Brian Pillman developed his Loose Cannon persona in late 95, and a worked shoot feud developed with Kevin Sullivan. At Superbrawl VI the two had a Respect match where the loser would tell the winner he respected him. Pillman grabbed the mic and said "I respect you bookerman" and lost. He was then "fired" for breaking kayfabe. Except to "make it more real" he got Bischoff to give him his actual release. His intention was to re-sign with WCW, except he wanted "Lex Luger money." He went to do some ECW dates to sell it was real and build to a return Thus when WCW wanted him to work the Doomsday Cage match he couldn't just refuse, he wanted to stay on good terms, but he didn't want to ruin his storyline either, so he got a needed but not emergency surgery on his throat to stay out of that match. He became a true free agent and started negotiating with the WWF as leverage against WCW. His theory was Bischoff would never let his creation go to the WWF... until Pillman wrecked his Hummer. The injuries suffered in this match made it so he could never wrestle again, but he lied and said he'd be back in the ring in a few months. WCW wouldn't guarantee him money, but WWF would, so he signed with the WWF. The case against: While they got worked on their own shoot angle, in the end it didn't mean anything because Pillman's career was basically over. The Uncensored 96 Doomsday Cage Match I'm not sure how to introduce this. It was a three tiered cage pitting Hogan and Savage against Ric Flair, Arn Anderson, Meng, Barbarian, Luger, Taskmaster, Z Gangsta and The Ultimate Solution. The rules were never made clear to the fans or to the wrestlers. The Ultimate Solution got WCW in hot water with Jewish groups and the match was horrible. The case against: It did a pretty good buyrate and gave us this:  Hog Wild Eric Bischoff loved motorcycles, so as a part of his and Zane Bresloff's love of new concept shows he booked Hog Wild (later Road Wild) a PPV broadcast from the Sturgis motorcycle rally. The crowd didn't pay a dime, so they made nothing off the gate, the ring was on a huge platform that made high flying moves dangerous and the bikers were racist as hell. They only cared about the WWF stars like Hogan too, so the newly formed nWo got a babyface reaction. The case against: Trying new things is a good idea and WCW's gates weren't great until closer to late 1997. nWo Souled Out The nWo was a big deal. Bischoff wanted to give them their own show at various times, but what we got was this PPV. In January of 97 the nWo put on a heel version of a PPV. It was an experiment, but one that failed. The nWo band performed an atrocious song, the Miss nWo contest was some of the worst TV you'll ever see and the matches were mostly bad. On top of this it didn't do much of a buyrate. The case against: The nWo was making WCW a ton of money, it made sense to give them a PPV. nWo Nitro 1997 was a great year for WCW so we don't have many entries, until the Starrcade 97 go home show. During the show the nWo invaded, took over the show and dismantled the set. This took about half an hour, which caused ratings to go down. All of this happened as they were trying to build Sting vs Hogan, the biggest match in company history. The show ended with Bret Hart giving Hulk Hogan the gift of Hogan's severed head in a box and Sting repelling to ringside as the show ended. The case against: Maybe it could have been bigger, but Sting/Hogan still drew the most PPV buys in WCW's history. Sting Doesn't Beat Hogan Clean at Starrcade 97 Starrcade 97's main event of Sting vs Hogan had a 15 month build from Sting's departure at Fall Brawl 96 on. Hogan held a death grip on the WCW title during that time only losing it to Luger for six days in August of 97. Everyone was waiting for Sting to return and beat Hogan. Unfortunately Hogan was Hogan and Bischoff had brilliant ideas. Bischoff decided to play off the Montreal Screwjob. He'd have Hogan pin Sting via some bullshit and get a fast count, then Hart would come out (empowered as a guest ref earlier in the show) restart the match and Hogan would lose clean. They'd set up Hogan vs Hart and maybe even Hart vs Sting. It didn't happen that way. Somehow the plan changed to Hogan hitting the leg drop and getting a quick count, something that made less sense as a controversial heel move, that's his finish after all. During the match it became worse, Hogan took too much of the match and when the fast count came, Nick Patrick counted slow. Most assume Hogan got to Patrick. Sting's big moment was ruined, Bret Hart looked like an idiot restarting the match and the title was held up a week later. The case against: Sting came to the show out of shape and 1998 ended up as WCW's biggest money year ever, it couldn't have hurt too much, right? Bischoff suspends and sues Flair Bischoff and Flair had an up and down relationship and in the winter of 1998 it led to Flair being sued. Flair was suspended for missing Thunder, a show he was not booked on until 24 hours prior on a night he was out of town to see Reid wrestle in an amateur tournament. After the suspension WCW filed a breach of contract lawsuit on top of that. Flair would be out of WCW until fall. It's believed that Bischoff was looking for any excuse to send a message to Flair. This included Flair being removed from the WCW/nWo Revenge game. The case against: The lawsuit led to one of the greatest promos of all time when Flair returned. Bret Hart Becomes Hogan's Lackey After Montreal Bret Hart was the biggest story in pro wrestling. After his botched debut things turned around with a Flair match that drew well, but a planned tag team with the two was cancelled and Hart then lost all direction. He ended up turning heel to help Hogan win the title and defacto joined the nWo, though never officially. This was planned to lead to Hart feuding with Hogan, but that was derailed by the Goldberg title win. Hart ended up as a midcarder because of it and never recovered his momentum. The case against: They had intentions of making this a bigger deal. Goldberg vs Hogan happens on free TV Goldberg was red hot in the early summer of 98, and WCW's house show business was on fire. In July WCW had a big Nitro at the Georgia Dome that was selling well. Turner execs would be there, and Hogan smelled gold. He convinced Bischoff to do a non title dark match: Hogan vs Goldberg which he would lose clean. He could thus make the Turner execs think he drew that house and appear more valuable in the company. At the same time Raw started beating Nitro in the ratings and Bischoff panicked. On the Thunder before that Nitro, it was announced it would be Goldberg vs Hogan for the title on Nitro. Hogan agreed to do the job on one condition: He got to break the streak. Thus, they could never do a rematch on PPV (and ended up with Nash and Hogan coming to an agreement where Nash got the streak but Hogan got the belt.) Goldberg's title reign got off to a lovely start too because he was scheduled for midcard matches all summer while Hogan had been planned for Hart. The case against: It did a huge rating and was a great moment. Jay Leno: Pro Wrestler Bischoff loved celebrities and his plan to follow up the massive success of Rodman and Malone at Bash at the Beach was another celebrity angle. This time it would be Hogan and Bischoff vs DDP and Jay Leno. To build it up Bischoff created his own nWo Talk Show on Nitro, nWo Night Cap. This was one of the worst talk show segments in wrestling history and led to a match with an out of shape comedian in the ring with Hogan. The show resulted in an average buyrate and was an embarrassment. The case against: They got lots of publicity on the Tonight Show. 2. For weeks a mysterious voice was harassing Rick Steiner. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WD06mg3fiw The case against: Chucky was a draw. Hogan vs Warrior Hulk Hogan hated doing jobs. He was notorious for trying to get WCW to sign wrestlers like Yokozuna or Warrior so he could get his win back. In 1998 he got one wish as he feuded with Warrior. This feud had the legendary trap door that hurt Bulldog, the invisible Warrior in the mirror and an absolutely horrible match at Havoc. Warrior was paid a ton of money and had several high paid dates left on his deal after that match as well. Only one was used, because once Hogan beat him they could just pay him to sit at home. The case against: It made sense to play off of one of Hogan's most famous matches. Scott Hall's Alcoholism Becomes an Angle Scott Hall's alcohol abuse got to the point where he was unusable on TV in 1998. Instead of doing something about it, WCW turned it into an angle. The angle culminated in Nash vs Hall where Hall walked out of their Havoc 98 match disgusted. The case against: Reality often makes the best storylines. Halloween Havoc 98 Runs Late Bischoff had a lot of new ideas. New isn't always good. He hated how PPVs always ended at 10:45, he thought it gave away when the main event finish would happen. He decided to run a new idea at Havoc 98, he'd have the show run long. This would teach fans they never knew when a show might end. The cable companies were supposed to be notified of the plan and all would be well... but they never were. In a panic they were called on the day of the show, but some couldn't accomodate the late request. As a result the show went off the air early on many systems and WCW was forced to issue refunds and show DDP vs Goldberg free on Nitro. The case against: Showing that match for free let WCW win the ratings war that night. Judy Bagwell: Tag Team Champion As a part of Rick Steiner's feud with Buff and his brother Scott, this happened: http://www.wwe.com/videos/rick-steiner-reveals-judy-bagwell-as-the-other-half-of-the-tag-team-champions-ni-26031741 The case against: It didn't last long and the tag titles were worthless by that point. Ric Flair's 1st Fake Heart Attack Angle After Flair returned he feud with Bischoff. This led to a match at Starrcade 98 for control of the company. On a December 98 Nitro during that build, Flair had an apparent heart attack. It was revealed he was "poisoned" but the tasteless implication remained. The case against: It was more tasteless than idiotic. Goldberg Loses Streak to Nash Goldberg was arguably the biggest wrestling star in the world in 1998. It sounds insane, but he actually got more mainstream attention than Austin. Austin drew more money, he drew better ratings, etc, but Goldberg was gigantic. In December of 98 WCW had an incredible run at stadiums drawing nearly a million dollars at the gate several times and breaking their gate record multiple times. At Starrcade 98, Kevin Nash beat Goldberg for the WCW title. The streak was ended by Scott Hall and a cattle prod. The idea was Nash would lose the belt to Hogan and Goldberg would feud with Hall before getting back into the title picture. The case against: There was reason to believe Goldberg would be even hotter chasing the nWo elite for his belt. The 1/4/99 WCW Nitro The Fingerpoke of Doom/One Finger Touch is legendary, but that main event was more than one move/match. The show was held in the Georgia Dome, the last leg in WCW's record breaking house show run. Goldberg was going to get his rematch, except he was arrested for stalking Liz. Hogan showed up to take his place, Tony Schiavone was instructed to tell the fans not to change the channel because Foley was winning the title and a perfect storm of poo poo happened. Goldberg looked stupid, the belt was devalued and 500,000 fans changed the channel in an instant. The nWo, long stale was once again in the main event and the fans got bait and switched. The case against: A potential Hogan vs Goldberg match could have done huge business. Don't you people bitch it was given away for free? Kevin Nash Becomes Booker Most people think Nash was booker before Starrcade 98, but he didn't become booker until February of 1999. Over the next several months WCW produced a run of unspeakably bad TV that may be worse than Russo's runs in WCW and TNA. The case against: Nash was a creative guy and already had influence so the move made sense. Unmasking Rey Mysterio Jr. Eric Bischoff didn't liked masked wrestlers. He wanted to unmask Rey at Halloween Havoc 97, but Eddy refused to win. He unmasked Juvi at Superbrawl 98 but still wanted Rey to unmask to make him more marketable (in his mind.) Instead of a classic mask vs mask match, they did the Outsiders vs Konnan and Rey in a hair vs mask tag match. Rey lost his mask and looked like a 12 year old. The case against: Rey was never going to get pushed anyway. In the spring of 99 WCW was losing badly to the WWF in the ratings war and Eric Bischoff decided WCW needed a new look. He had an expensive new set created for WCW and a new logo. He predicted the new set would cause WCW to win the night's ratings. The wrestlers bet on who would trip on the new set first. WCW also bought an ad in USA Today:  The case against: It was worth freshening up the look of the show. The Junkyard Invitational In 1999 WCW wanted to get in on the hardcore market and they did it in the worst way possible. The following happened at Bash at the Beach 99. http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xry0zu_hardcore-junkyard-invitational_sport The match cost WCW $100,000, it was so dark that it was hard to see anything and led to several injuries. The case against: Many people blame this match for Finlay's nearly career ending injury but that happened a week or two later. Signing Master P WCW wanted to cash in on rap music, so they signed Master P. He was paid a rumored $200,000 per appearance and the No Limit Soldiers stable was created in his image. Master P promised to sell out the Superdome, which the company didn't come close to. The soldiers feuded with the anti-rap West Texas Rednecks and disbanded. The case against: It was worth a shot to sign a popular rapper. The White Hummer This two minutes of footage cost WCW six figures: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkURI9m8zHo It was never resolved who was driving the hummer despite being the big mystery of the summer of 99. The case against: Nash and Savage were the main event storyline, it makes sense to spend money on it. The KISS Demon Bischoff loved celebrities. He signed a licensing deal with KISS to create the KISS Demon, a KISS wrestler portrayed by Dale Torborg. KISS was paid an additional $500,000 to perform God of Thunder on Nitro in a segment that did horrible ratings. KISS was also guaranteed the Demon would appear in several main events, however WCW got around this by calling mid card matches special main events. The case against: The special main event thing was pretty clever. Hiring Vince Russo In the fall of 1999 WCW's creative was a mess, and they were contacted by Vince Russo and Ed Ferrera that they were free agents. Russo presented himself as the architect of the Attitude era and WCW signed him to head creative. I don't think I need to recap what happened from here until he was removed in January of 2001. The case against: Hiring Russo made sense at the time, he seemed like the best guy for a needed change in creative. Juventud Guerrera wins the IWGP Jr Title Via Tequila Bottle Shot Rey Mysterio Jr. got injured cancelling a planned Rey vs Liger IWGP title match. Russo decided to go with Juvi instead, having Juvi win the title when Liger was hit by a Tequila bottle. Liger and NJPW got extremely upset and WCW's decade long relationship with NJPW fell apart. The case against: It protected Liger and let Juvi win a belt. Starrcade 99 Ends in a Montreal Screwjob Vince Russo came into WCW saying he had an overarching story for the product. His Powers That Be storyline would have a huge reveal at Starrcade 99. Goldberg vs Hart was the main event, and the match ended in a new Montreal Screwjob with Hart applying the Sharpshooter and Piper calling for the bell, at the behest of the Powers That Be. Hart was stripped of the belt, then won it back when the nWo 2000 formed the next night. Russo's big plan was to rehash Montreal and the nWo. The case against: Montreal finishes were still fresh in 1999 and it made Bret Hart the top star. Oklahoma Wins the Cruiserweight Title Russo decided it would be a great idea to have a parody of Jim Ross. Ed Ferrera debuted managing Dr. Death as "Oklahoma" who wore the same clothes, talked the same way and even faked Bells Palsy. The character was seen as tremendously offensive, but instead they doubled down and had him start a misogynistic feud with Medusa over the cruiserweight title. The obese non-wrestler won the title at Souled Out. The same title which had revolutionized WCW's television wrestling product four years earlier. The case against: The cruiserweight title was already dead and I've heard JR is a racist. Letting the Radicalz Leave With Goldberg, Bret Hart and Jeff Jarrett all injured and Russo sent home, WCW was left with no booker and no champion. They decided on a committee headed by Kevin Sullivan and decided to give the belt to Benoit. Benoit did not want Sullivan booking him, given their personal grudge. Benoit, Saturn, Eddy and Malenko all demanded their releases after Souled Out 2000. Mike Graham then threatened them forcing WCW to release them unconditionally to avoid a lawsuit. The man who just won their champion and some of their best midcarders debuted in the WWF that same month instead of never, or at worst after a no compete period. The case against: They wanted to leave, Benoit was being a baby since he was the adulterer and WCW couldn't control what Mike Graham did. Bringing Russo Back Kevin Sullivan's reign was really bad. On top of the Radicalz a few others asked for releases and sat on the sidelines, major stars were injured or on hiatus and business continued to stagnate. Russo and Bischoff were brought back to run the show together in April of 2000. They rebooted the show, stripping all the titles, turning the young guys heel and the old guys babyface in a confusing mess of a show, then hotshotted angles. Bischoff quickly tired of it and Russo got complete control. The case against: Sullivan was a mess, Russo deserved a second chance. David Arquette: WCW Champion The WCW movie Ready to Rumble was coming out and David Arquette was going to be on TV to promote it. Tony Schiavone proposed to Russo: Why not have him win the title? Russo ran with it and had Hollywood actor David Arquette win the WCW title in a tag match and then defend it in a Triple Cage main event at Slamboree 2000. Arquette then turned heel and allowed Jeff Jarrett to win his title instead of his former friend DDP. The case against: It was covered in USA Today! 4. ECW breached Mike Awesome's contract by not paying him. Awesome decided to sign with WCW, but something caused ECW to threaten a lawsuit, probably Russo wanting the ECW belt on WCW TV. So they had to send Awesome to lose the belt on ECW TV, which turned out to be against Tazz, a WWF contracted wrestler. The case against: Mike Awesome was just a midcarder in WCW so who cares. Ric Flair's Second Heart Attack Russo booked Flair to do another fake heart attack angle so his heel authority figure could strip him of the World Title as a part of their terrible feud. Yep. The case against: It was realistic that Flair would have a heart attack. Sting vs Vampiro: Human Torch Match Sting and Vampiro had a lovely feud for the ages. There was a graveyard brawl, lots of bad promos and fire. A Human Torch match was booked, a match where the winner would set the loser on fire. So what does Russo do? He books a finish neither man can physically do. It's booked so Vampiro will light Sting on fire on the top of the Turner Tron and then fall onto a crash pad below. They used a stunt double instead and then had the announcers act like Steve Borden was dead. People got mad about Kanyon taking an Awesome Bomb off the cage at the Kemper Arena, but this was even more offensive. Hearing Scott Hudson try to sell that Steve Borden may have died was just disgusting. The case against: Wrestling is fake nerds. Goldberg Turns Heel And there's nothing Vince McMahon can do about it. Russo and Bischoff promised a big surprise at the Great American Bash. They had nothing to offer. Rumors circulated they were trying to get Heyman to do something with them. They were left with the ill advised idea to turn Goldberg heel. Goldberg was pretty much their only difference maker left and that killed him dead. The case against: Goldberg needed something to freshen him up. The Russo/Hogan Worked Shoot Russo and Hogan planned to do a worked shoot based on Hogan's creative control at Bash at the Beach 2000. Jarrett would lay down for Hogan and Russo would cut a promo on Hogan. Hogan would then come back a few months later and Russo probably hadn't thought that far ahead. Russo went too far in his worked shoot promo and called Hogan bald, which caused Hogan to sue for defamation. The case against: WCW got sued alot. Vince Russo: WCW Champion Russo decided to make himself champion. He won it in a steel cage match via dumb escape bullshit. The case against: It's not worse than Arquette, is it? 3. Battle Dome was the next amazing evolution of the American Gladiators concept. It was like manna from heaven. A Battledome vs WCW feud was booked. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9yDfJfy0Do http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3l775y9WGw That's what happened. The case against: Battle Dome owned. MassRafTer fucked around with this message at 23:59 on Apr 4, 2014 |
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Mar 1, 2014 07:18
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Well I guess this isn't a vote but some advocacy: I think Halloween Havoc 98 Runs Late is the least dumb thing because (a) the reasoning was sound and meant to make wrestling seem more legit, (b) it would've worked had it been properly delegated/handled and (c) the harm wasn't really all that bad. You made some of your customers angry but remedied the problem for them the next night and got a big rating out of it anyway. Plus it served as some secondary advertising for PPVs like hey here's the quality of match you get if you pay the money.
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Mar 1, 2014 07:36
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epitasis posted:Well I guess this isn't a vote but some advocacy: I think Halloween Havoc 98 Runs Late is the least dumb thing because (a) the reasoning was sound and meant to make wrestling seem more legit, (b) it would've worked had it been properly delegated/handled and (c) the harm wasn't really all that bad. You made some of your customers angry but remedied the problem for them the next night and got a big rating out of it anyway. Plus it served as some secondary advertising for PPVs like hey here's the quality of match you get if you pay the money. I remember some people on Prodigy Wrestlechat were less than thrilled that WCW's solution was to give away for free the match they'd paid $30 for. Any of the grumbling and bad feelings vanished pretty quickly since people were kind of wrapped up in the whole Jesse Ventura campaign though. I think it was pretty dumb that WCW planned to do something that had never been done before and didn't double check before the day of the show that everything was a go, but I do feel the dumbness is mitigated by it being a mistake that had some benefit afterwards. I'm also going to add in the whole Hogan/Giant main event nonsense from Havoc 95 since I forgot I wanted to do that previously.
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Mar 1, 2014 09:14
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Paul Roma wasn't a big deal. The Beach Blast movie was dumb but only a one time waste of money. Road Wild 1998 had a good buyrate and the Leno stuff was not very dumb. Chucky was only on Nitro and did not matter at all.
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Mar 1, 2014 13:38
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Burning the Observer just became a funny Youtube clip.
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Mar 1, 2014 13:42
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quote:In 1991 Jim Herd wanted to cut Ric Flair pay and change his name to "Spartacus." Oh, wow, this one's actually new to me. I assume this was part of the same initiative from Tuner that led to Nash's Oz gimmick, but there's obviously a huge difference between giving an old movie based gimmick to a new guy and repackaging your most famous star. Thauros fucked around with this message at 14:03 on Mar 1, 2014 |
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Mar 1, 2014 13:50
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I feel like they get a pass on the Black Scorpion since WWF ended up doing the same thing with the Higher Power storyline.
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Mar 1, 2014 14:13
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getitoffgetitoff posted:I feel like they get a pass on the Black Scorpion since WWF ended up doing the same thing with the Higher Power storyline. Nah, it was dumb when WWF did it too. Are you open to suggestions MRP? I'd suggest Robocop saving Sting from the Four Horsemen. Even for 1990, it was some really blatant, stupid exposing of the business.
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Mar 1, 2014 14:16
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i feel like wacky angles and poo poo are hilarious and all but not as monumentally stupid as some of the company destroying bullshit like rehiring Vince Russo, panic booking their way out of money matches, and loving up the BattleDome invasion angle
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Mar 1, 2014 15:46
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I think the USA Today ad in and of itself is a damning thing. Like, freshening up the show's look? A-OK. An ad insulting the new look? Ehhhhhh not so much?
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Mar 1, 2014 15:50
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Vince Russo as champion was probably the worst even though WCW was dead at that point. David Arquette was one thing and at least it was a decent shot at a publicity stunt that didn't really pay off, but Vince so openly trashed the importance of belts to the fans at every possible opportunity that to have him win one even under dubious situations basically signaled the final nail in the coffin. A lot of guys worked their whole careers and never even got a shot at the world title and for Russo to casually poo poo all over it must have really been a kick in the balls.
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Mar 1, 2014 16:01
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That Bash of the Beach match with Leno was the first wrestling PPV I had ever seen. New Zealand was a year or so behind the US, so Nitros and PPVs would screen in full after midnight over the weekend on free TV. Probably the least offensive thing on that list that I can remember, so I'll go with it.
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Mar 1, 2014 17:01
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It's going to be a while before we have to argue about the truly elite tier of stupidity, but to me the worst is undoubtedly the Fingerpoke/Foley Nitro. WWE may have been ahead in the ratings war for most of '98, but WCW still had a great year and was actually still ahead in adult viewership. That was the moment that turned me from primarily a WCW fan who'd flip to Raw occasionally to a Raw watcher the vast majority of the time post 9 PM. Judging from the ratings In '99 I was hardly alone and it seemed like WCW was never truly competive after that completely avoidable disaster.
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Mar 1, 2014 17:35
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Was the post lawsuit angle/promo with Flair the one where he stripped and elbow dropped his jacket? Or is that the one where he yelled "FIRE ME CUT MY MIC" etc?
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Mar 1, 2014 17:56
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On one hand the Junkyard Invitational was setup poorly, had lovely camera work making it impossible to follow, but it at least had a defined set of rules for victory. On the other hand, Uncensored '96's ME was setup poorly, had lovely camera work making it impossible to follow, but the rules were utterly twisted and shattered beyond human comprehension.
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Mar 1, 2014 19:00
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Meat Recital posted:Nah, it was dumb when WWF did it too. I was going to leave Robocop off when the list was going to be smaller and forgot to reconsider him when I expanded it. I really hate Robocop 2, so it's on!
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Mar 1, 2014 20:41
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That One Nitro is going to be hard for me to top as well. I almost wonder if it's a fair entry because it's multiple things- the "stalking" angle, Goldberg failing to cross the street, Foley, the fingerpoke, they just did so much wrong in one night. Forget wrestling- that's a landmark miscalculation in the history of scripted TV. I await with bated breath the day it goes up on the Network.
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Mar 1, 2014 20:45
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Maxwell Lord posted:That One Nitro is going to be hard for me to top as well. I almost wonder if it's a fair entry because it's multiple things- the "stalking" angle, Goldberg failing to cross the street, Foley, the fingerpoke, they just did so much wrong in one night. Forget wrestling- that's a landmark miscalculation in the history of scripted TV. I tried to avoid nominating entire shows, but those three things were all apart of that main event angle, so it's hard to part them out.
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Mar 1, 2014 20:49
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Remind me what the failing to cross the street thing is?
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Mar 1, 2014 20:51
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epitasis posted:Remind me what the failing to cross the street thing is? Goldberg was arrested and taken to the police station, which at one point was established as being across the street. Later he was released and the question was if he could make it back to the stadium in time for the main event. Somehow he did not.
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Mar 1, 2014 20:54
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epitasis posted:Remind me what the failing to cross the street thing is?  How ever will Goldberg make it back to the Georgia Dome in time for the Main Event?
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Mar 1, 2014 21:39
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This isn't just something people realized in retrospect when someone from Atlanta mentioned the cop house was next door either. All night we got shots across the street from the station waiting for updates.
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Mar 1, 2014 21:43
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The Battle Dome thing was actually kind of neat, and if it had worked out, could have produced Terry Crews: pro wrestler.
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Mar 1, 2014 21:46
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That reminds me, which show was it where The Giant fell off the top of a building "in to the river", with the river being several hundred feet away from the arena?
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Mar 1, 2014 21:51
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Meat Recital posted:That reminds me, which show was it where The Giant fell off the top of a building "in to the river", with the river being several hundred feet away from the arena?  Not several hundred feet, but still quite a distance. Especially since the Giant did a teeter-totter-fall off the side, rather than jump.
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Mar 1, 2014 21:57
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The KISS debacle has to be a very high seed since it was one of the lowest rated segments ever. Not to mention the ridiculous financial costs.
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Mar 1, 2014 22:07
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The Kiss thing has the plus point of making everyone forget about the Mega Death thing that hyped Goldberg's return.
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Mar 1, 2014 22:24
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I love that we live in an age when we can so easily use Google maps (or whatever) to fully appreciate how dumb some of the poo poo WCW did was.
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Mar 1, 2014 23:24
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Meat Recital posted:That reminds me, which show was it where The Giant fell off the top of a building "in to the river", with the river being several hundred feet away from the arena? Havoc 95, it should be at the end of the video linked in the Giant vs Hogan Monster truck entry.
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Mar 1, 2014 23:38
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To me, Oklahoma is the dumbest thing WCW ever did and always will be. Not just because of the bad taste and offensiveness of mocking JR's Bells Palsy, but because the fat misogynist non-wrestler actually beat the female wrestler, which made it look like there was legitimacy to his horrible misogyny. Boo. BOOOOOOO! 
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Mar 1, 2014 23:44
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Jerusalem posted:To me, Oklahoma is the dumbest thing WCW ever did and always will be. Not just because of the bad taste and offensiveness of mocking JR's Bells Palsy, but because the fat misogynist non-wrestler actually beat the female wrestler, which made it look like there was legitimacy to his horrible misogyny. The dumbest thing should probably have a major impact in the downfall of the company. While bad, I don't think Oklahoma beating Madusa meant anything of importance in WCW's downfall.
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Mar 2, 2014 00:45
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ChampRamp posted:The dumbest thing should probably have a major impact in the downfall of the company. While bad, I don't think Oklahoma beating Madusa meant anything of importance in WCW's downfall. The things that get the most credit for causing the downfall of the company tend to have some thought process behind them, some way this could make money. Oklahoma got so much TV time, brought the ire of fans by mocking Ross and promoted misogyny all while serving no purpose. It could not possibly lead to anything good, yet they spent so much time on this character. That's just dumb.
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Mar 2, 2014 01:02
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ChampRamp posted:The dumbest thing should probably have a major impact in the downfall of the company. While bad, I don't think Oklahoma beating Madusa meant anything of importance in WCW's downfall. I won't claim that it was THE THING that brought them down but the late Bischoff era and entire Russo era devalued every belt in the company. Oklahoma was the one where they crapped all over the Women's division AND the Cruiserweight division.
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Mar 2, 2014 01:30
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haljordan posted:The KISS debacle has to be a very high seed since it was one of the lowest rated segments ever. Not to mention the ridiculous financial costs. I think it was only the lowest quarter of the year or of maybe a few month period. I don't know the quarters for that show, but given the kind of ratings they did in 2000 and 2001 I'd find it hard to believe it was even in the bottom 25. It was still a tremendously stupid, wasteful move and a sub basement level quarter for a period where the ratings hadn't completely tanked. Just to re-iterate: This is not a seeded tournament, voting will be done for the thing you think is least stupid to be eliminated from the tournament. One vote per round. I'm not picking on anyone in particular, Hulkamatt just suggest I hammer this home frequently.
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Mar 2, 2014 01:34
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Ah OK. That seems like the best way to handle it.
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Mar 2, 2014 02:20
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MassRafTer posted:The things that get the most credit for causing the downfall of the company tend to have some thought process behind them, some way this could make money. Oklahoma got so much TV time, brought the ire of fans by mocking Ross and promoted misogyny all while serving no purpose. It could not possibly lead to anything good, yet they spent so much time on this character. That's just dumb. Good point. I guess I forgot the criteria was dumbest thing rather than the worst thing.
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Mar 2, 2014 03:11
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ChampRamp posted:Good point. I guess I forgot the criteria was dumbest thing rather than the worst thing. The criteria is pretty broad and it's up to everyone to interpret it the way they want. Things can have thought behind them but still be incomprehensibly stupid. I'm not trying to really defend anything or tell anyone how to vote, just trying to add in more info here and there since the OP was getting too long. To some people Oklahoma would be closer to the worst thing than the dumbest thing. The real fun comes when you have to passionately defend something completely horrible as to why it shouldn't be voted off!
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Mar 2, 2014 03:13
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I know that most wrestlers get treated as independent contractors, but didn't WCW take a huge risk by letting Scott Hall work when he was clearly having issues with alcohol? They could have faced a very serious lawsuit had Hall injured himself or another wrestler.
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Mar 2, 2014 06:14
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When the voting starts, we (on an individual basis of course) need to determine if we're going to give more weight to stuff that was stupid at the time and yet proceeded because WCW wanted to spike ratings/placate Hogan/whatever or more weight to thinks that seemed like perfectly reasonable things at the time but through the lens of 2014 were obviously huge fuckups. An example of both would be, to me: Stupid at the time: Giving away Hogan vs. Goldberg on free TV - Hogan is pulling his usual "I put asses in seats brother" politicking, Bischoff desperately wants to pop ratings, etc. They could have made a ton of money if this had been at Starrcade or some other bigger PPV. They also hosed up a potential Hogan/Hart fued and didn't really have plans for Goldberg-as-champion. This is a prime example of panic booking. Stupid in retrospect: Hiring Vince Russo. Russo is a bad writer who badly needs a filter. Booked the company so far into the ground that there was some only half joking discussion at the time regarding if Russo was a McMahon plant sent to ruin WCW. However, in fairness - and why I say this is only stupid in retrospect, 1999 Russo was not viewed the same way 2014 Russo is. A thing you'll hear constantly these days is "how does this motherfucker keep getting a job?  " but in the late 90's, we didn't the precedent of all the stupid poo poo Russo would do in WCW, the awful poo poo he'd do in TNA, the shoot interviews where he tries to pass the bucks and reveals even stupider poo poo he wanted to do, etc. In the late 90's, many regarded Russo as the architect of the Attitude Era and it was initially seen as a pretty big coup that WCW were able to get him. While hiring him would eventually prove to be a way stupider move than giving away Goldberg-Hogan on free TV given what we now know about Russo, can we really fault WCW for hiring him initially? There is literally no way they could have known better. (RE-hiring him, of course, would be closer to stupid at the time; but to be as fair as possible, even then, there is an argument to be made for 2000 WCW thinking maybe Russo didn't have enough time to work his magic or whatever)I have to personally give more weight to the stuff that was stupid at the time. Trying new stuff and failing is way less bad than doing stupid poo poo on purpose and hoping you get lucky. Occupy Japan fucked around with this message at 09:34 on Mar 2, 2014 |
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Mar 2, 2014 09:31
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Good Listener posted:Was the post lawsuit angle/promo with Flair the one where he stripped and elbow dropped his jacket? Or is that the one where he yelled "FIRE ME CUT MY MIC" etc? It's the latter, although maybe he did the former too! Also, the Monster Truck match happened on top of Cobo Hall which is even farther from the water than the arena, just to make that funnier. Voting will open tonight at midnight. If I've missed any must add items please alert me.
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Mar 2, 2014 21:39
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