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WWF had to have all that poo poo to disguise their poor in-ring product. WCW didn't need fancy dressing because they were about wrestling and not showboating.
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Jan 17, 2013 22:25
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Astro7x posted:The first Souled Out was a horrible PPV, that should have taught them that an nWo show of any kind couldn't work. Wasn't the only matches WCW won were a ladder match between Eddie and Syxx where a ref wasn't involved, and the Steiners winning the tag titles when a WCW ref did the count? The concept of nWo Nitro was kind of cool as a one off, like WCW was invading the nWo on their home turf so to speak, but it had no long term staying power. It should be noted that the Steiners had to give the titles back to the nWo on the following Nitro because the wrong ref counted the pin. Good god the live nWo house band was awful. They were maybe the worst part of a PPV that featured a Mongo match and a Hogan/Giant main event
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Jan 17, 2013 22:36
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MrBling posted:WWF had to have all that poo poo to disguise their poor in-ring product. WCW didn't need fancy dressing because they were about wrestling and not showboating. Oh that's why they brought in Hogan, and Nash, and Hall.
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Jan 17, 2013 22:39
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OneThousandMonkeys posted:Oh that's why they brought in Hogan, and Nash, and Hall. Yes, those guys are also all about in-ring work ethic.
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Jan 17, 2013 22:46
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Oatgan posted:It should be noted that the Steiners had to give the titles back to the nWo on the following Nitro because the wrong ref counted the pin. You forgot the fishlens camera they used.
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Jan 17, 2013 22:48
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triplexpac posted:Ok, no fair comparing 1998 WCW to current day WWF PPV sets, and how dare you forget Halloween Havoc One just has to compare the event arenas for WCW/nWo Revenge and WWF Wrestlemania 2000/WWF No Mercy for N64. Also, WWF never did a show with a big pool around the ring. Which means their company was poo poo.
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Jan 17, 2013 22:57
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MrBling posted:WWF had to have all that poo poo to disguise their poor in-ring product. WCW didn't need fancy dressing because they were about wrestling and not showboating. WCW put on a lot of really lovely PPVs from a wrestling stand point, probably as many as the WWF. They managed to do that with the best roster ever assembled to that point in the history of wrestling. You don't even need to include 99-2000 in my last statement either.
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Jan 17, 2013 23:04
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MassRayPer posted:WCW put on a lot of really lovely PPVs from a wrestling stand point, probably as many as the WWF. They managed to do that with the best roster ever assembled to that point in the history of wrestling. You don't even need to include 99-2000 in my last statement either. Yes, but they were about wrestling, not they were successful at living up to what they were about. Their approach towards wrestling changed what they would/wouldn't do in terms of sets, characters, and so on.
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Jan 17, 2013 23:17
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spongeh posted:Yes, but they were about wrestling, not they were successful at living up to what they were about. Their approach towards wrestling changed what they would/wouldn't do in terms of sets, characters, and so on. Were they really any more about wrestling than WWE PPVs? WCW ran gimmick PPVs, did silly promo/storyline segments on PPV, had tons of bad finishes and other things that one wouldn't expect from the serious wrestling promotion.
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Jan 17, 2013 23:21
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I love that this thread is on the brink of breaking out into a pre-2000 internet war of WCW WAS BETTER, WWF SUCKS rear end! In RE: to the wrestling sets - I generally agree that WWF just looked better....except for Halloween Havoc. I always thought that looked cool as hell and WWE should've brought that into the PPV fold after the purchase. Question about Souled Out since I didn't watch WCW then - when it was meant to be a separate brand what did this actually entail? Did the NWO members just wrestle other NWO members? That's what it sounds like when they talk about wanting to split the brand and run their own shows.
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Jan 17, 2013 23:26
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The nWo stuff they aired was all just nWo guys wrestling jobbers or WCW guys in hostile environments. But I believe the theoretical plan Bischoff had was basically the brand split. He wanted to run WCW and nWo separate as unique companies that had their own shows, rosters, and PPVs but could feud with each other at big events like Starrcade. The same thing WWE apparently originally toyed with doing with WCW and the same thing they eventually did with RAW vs Smackdown for awhile. Here is what I will always remember as to why I saw WWF and WCW different and why I was a WCW fan after years of not being a WWF fan and seeing only WWF as "wrestling." I watched WWF because I was a kid and if you didn't know who the Legion of Doom was in the playground you were a social pariah. And there was some stuff like Bret/Owen and Michaels/Razor that I enjoyed but for the most part the whole thing was so silly and cartoonish. Clowns and hockey players and Mantaurs and Bastian Boogers. It was ridiculous. And every time someone new came in it always went the same. "Hi, I'm Duke Droese and I'm a garbage man who has decided to wrestle." "Hi, I'm Sparky Plugg and I'm a race car driver who has decided to wrestle." "Hi, I'm Jeff Jarrett and I'm a country singer who has decided to wrestle." Then someone introduced me to WCW and it was different. There was some silly stuff like the Dungeon of Doom but the show wasn't wall to wall cartoons like WWF felt. Then one day after watching for a few months they showed a clip of some guy I had never seen before get out of a limo wearing a suit and I waited to hear what his day job was. "Hi, I'm Chris Benoit and I'm a wrestler." To me that was the difference between the two companies. WWF had serious wrestlers and WCW had silly wrestlers, but WWF by and large seemed determined to convince me that most of its wrestlers were just people moonlighting from other walks of life. WCW actually seemed interested in convincing me its wrestlers were athletes who took their sport seriously. That went a long way for a kid who felt he was getting too old for cartoons. That all got messed up in the later years especially when Russo showed up, but that's always how I look back and see the difference to me as a kid. Aesthetics, graphics, and production mistakes might have factored into it in some ways like what people are saying about WCW being lit like sports while WWF looked like a circus, or WCW having reasons for his interviews or footage while WWF just had stuff happen. But in the end the thing that made a lasting impression on me was simply how the two companies presented its wrestlers to its audience. STAC Goat fucked around with this message at 00:30 on Jan 18, 2013 |
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Jan 18, 2013 00:26
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STAC Goat posted:The nWo stuff they aired was all just nWo guys wrestling jobbers or WCW guys in hostile environments. But I believe the theoretical plan Bischoff had was basically the brand split. He wanted to run WCW and nWo separate as unique companies that had their own shows, rosters, and PPVs but could feud with each other at big events like Starrcade. The same thing WWE apparently originally toyed with doing with WCW and the same thing they eventually did with RAW vs Smackdown for awhile. Better executed it could have worked I think. You would have had a New World Order brand that would feud with some heels that stay loyal to WCW while the World Championship Wrestling brand would be all about building up the guys who will eventually take on the nWo at the major PPVs (Bash at the Beach, Fall Brawl: War Games, World War 3, Starrcade, etc.). You could have also eventually run the Wolfpac (Nash, Hall, Konnan, etc.), the guys people wanted to cheer in the nWo against Hollywood Hogan and all of the guys people wanted to boo in the nWo. Instead of what they ended up having that made little sense. It would have also allowed the original Sting angle to have made sense. Sting and Savage would have both been vigilante revenge-dealers who don't work for any affiliation and are on neither side of the war.
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Jan 18, 2013 00:34
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The worst thing WCW ever did, to me, was put sponsor logos on the mat. It looks so bad, and so low rent. The example I remember, and I don't know if this was the only time they did it, was the Masterlock logo on the mat at some PPV.
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Jan 18, 2013 05:57
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I am a lifelong racing fan and as such have become totally desensitized to sponsorship, but I prefer similarly low-rent companies like New Japan being sponsored by underwear.
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Jan 18, 2013 06:29
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Swagger Dagger posted:The worst thing WCW ever did, to me, was put sponsor logos on the mat. It looks so bad, and so low rent. The example I remember, and I don't know if this was the only time they did it, was the Masterlock logo on the mat at some PPV. Why? Don't they do that in Japan?
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Jan 18, 2013 17:11
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I watched the first SouledOut PPV for the first time ever just a couple of months ago - found the full PPV on YouTube. And it's crap, you can see they tried to do something alternative to what was a typical PPV back then, but it looked awful. And I agree with what was posted about the major difference between the WWF and WCW was that the WWF had characters that had a day job and then decided to wrestle as well, while WCW had actual wrestlers. I remember my dream booking at the time, I thought it would be cool if the WWF and WCW traded Austin and DDP. Austin, because I thought he would have awesome matches in WCW (I didn't know about Stunning Steve back then, bare with me), and DDP, so he can face The Rock in a People's Champ VS People's Champ match. Austin would have been good against DDP as well, Stunner VS Diamond Cutter. But I thought the Undertaker couldn't be traded or jump ship, because he was the ultimate WWF cartoon character wrestler. And I thought he was awesome, and he was one of the main reasons I never quit the WWF, even when WCW was superior.
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Jan 18, 2013 17:16
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MassRayPer posted:Were they really any more about wrestling than WWE PPVs? WCW ran gimmick PPVs, did silly promo/storyline segments on PPV, had tons of bad finishes and other things that one wouldn't expect from the serious wrestling promotion. It's certainly debatable especially in the later years, but Vince's hatred of wrestling (as opposed to Sports Entertainment) certainly does not seem like the route WCW took, although they certainly strayed towards that with crap like the monster trucks and THE YET-AY. Dusty Rhodes basically perfected the art of bad finishes in the AWA and WCW, but I don't think I'd put the AWA in the same boat as 80s WWF because of it.
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Jan 18, 2013 17:46
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Swagger Dagger posted:The worst thing WCW ever did, to me, was put sponsor logos on the mat. It looks so bad, and so low rent. The example I remember, and I don't know if this was the only time they did it, was the Masterlock logo on the mat at some PPV. Why is this such a big deal? Is it low-rent when UFC has, not only sponsors on the mat, but giant banners jam-packed with sponsor logos in each fighter's corner?
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Jan 18, 2013 18:11
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If CMLL (the beermat ring canvas  ) and New Japan can do it, anyone can 
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Jan 18, 2013 18:15
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Yeah, I'm fine with logos and even think the WWE and TNA miss out on a golden opportunity by not wrapping ad logos around the barricades like it was NHL arena boards. It's just missed money.
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Jan 18, 2013 18:55
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Also wrestlers already have stupid tattoo's. Why not use them to advertise? You already have Punk and pepsi, and I am sure other ones would do it, since the tattoo they were already thinking about was stupider.
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Jan 18, 2013 18:57
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Paper Jam Dipper posted:Yeah, I'm fine with logos and even think the WWE and TNA miss out on a golden opportunity by not wrapping ad logos around the barricades like it was NHL arena boards. It's just missed money. Wasn't TNA putting them on the apron for a while a year or two back?
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Jan 18, 2013 19:10
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404GoonNotFound posted:Wasn't TNA putting them on the apron for a while a year or two back? Yes, and they were super low rent I am reading a 1998 Observer where Meltzer goes into the whole Montreal Screwjob thing, and Vince wanted Bret to tear up his WCW contract offer on TV and say he was "WWF 4 Life" haha. Fascinating. Edit: At this time, when WCW was 3 hours, they were doing a 5.9 rating before Raw started at 9. Crazy. The latest Raw did a 3.2 rating with an average of 4.55 million viewers. From that 1998 week, Raw drew 5,735,000 viewers to Nitro's 4,414,000 triplexpac fucked around with this message at 19:47 on Jan 18, 2013 |
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Jan 18, 2013 19:12
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spongeh posted:It's certainly debatable especially in the later years, but Vince's hatred of wrestling (as opposed to Sports Entertainment) certainly does not seem like the route WCW took, although they certainly strayed towards that with crap like the monster trucks and THE YET-AY. Dusty Rhodes basically perfected the art of bad finishes in the AWA and WCW, but I don't think I'd put the AWA in the same boat as 80s WWF because of it. Monster Trucks and the YET-AY were not exceptions to the rule at the time. In fact, they happened on the same show. From the time Hogan came in until the nWo formed WCW became goofier and goofier, to the point that WWF PPVs were way more serious. At times, WCW was a very serious wrestling product. At others they actively tried to be a children's TV show, more blatantly and openly than WWE is right now.
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Jan 18, 2013 20:10
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I liked RAW's pre-TNN sets as much as I liked the pre-birdshit sets WCW had. Way better than today's WWE sets. Just get some alumunium tubing, a set of stage lights, a curtain and projection screen. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wV-i-H-Vbew After the sets got more extravagant it started to feel more like a gameshow or a sitcom and less wrasslin-y
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Jan 18, 2013 20:37
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Endless Mike posted:Nothing beats having a little house for wrestling to come out of at In Your House PPVs. Plus they gave away a house at one of the first ones! I still remember the name of the guy who won it-- Matt Pompacelli. Lucky fucker.
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Jan 18, 2013 20:52
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MassRayPer posted:Monster Trucks and the YET-AY were not exceptions to the rule at the time. In fact, they happened on the same show. From the time Hogan came in until the nWo formed WCW became goofier and goofier, to the point that WWF PPVs were way more serious. At times, WCW was a very serious wrestling product. At others they actively tried to be a children's TV show, more blatantly and openly than WWE is right now. WCW was really great at importing foreign talent, and better yet, putting on shows that mixed their talent with guys from overseas. They put on a huge-rear end show in North Korea, right? I don't know who brokered that deal, but I like that kind of thinking.
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Jan 18, 2013 20:54
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flashy_mcflash posted:Why is this such a big deal? Is it low-rent when UFC has, not only sponsors on the mat, but giant banners jam-packed with sponsor logos in each fighter's corner? Yes, it looks like poo poo and like they're desperate for money. "WE CAN'T MAKE ENOUGH MONEY ON OUR OWN MERIT! WE HAVE TO ACCEPT MONEY FROM A COMPANY TO EYEBALL-RAPE YOU FOR 3 HOURS"
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Jan 18, 2013 20:57
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Red posted:WCW was really great at importing foreign talent, and better yet, putting on shows that mixed their talent with guys from overseas. They put on a huge-rear end show in North Korea, right? I don't know who brokered that deal, but I like that kind of thinking. It was a pair New Japan shows with one WCW contracted wrestler on one of the shows. WCW just had an agreement with New Japan to promote certain "co-promotions" on PPV. Right now in the back issue of the Observer we are getting a great example of WCW's "greatness" at putting on shows with foreign workers. During the build up to Starrcade 95 they had Sonny Onoo "buy" WCW Pro airtime and then do an old timey racist Japanese foreign manager gimmick as the New Japan workers in this timeslot played foreign heels. Even Liger. WCW would bring in foreign talent and put them in matches. If they were given time, we got good stuff. Sometimes they were super racist and 99% of the time the talent was buried and humiliated. I watched WCW, I really loved WCW, but even in foreign talent, something they won by default due to Vince's reluctance they were pretty embarrassing until Bischoff decreed "Sign every Mexican on earth!" Even then, they were a mixed bag. Edit: You LIKE that kind of thinking? You like the idea of doing a show in North Korea at a time when starvation was at its worst as the country recovered from its late 80s building craze? Even if you don't know any of the details of the show, how can you like the idea of working with the worst regime on the planet? Add in that the audience was compelled to go there by their government and everything else that goes in with working with North Korea and you LIKE the idea? MassRafTer fucked around with this message at 21:20 on Jan 18, 2013 |
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Jan 18, 2013 21:18
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MassRayPer posted:WCW would bring in foreign talent and put them in matches. If they were given time, we got good stuff. Sometimes they were super racist and 99% of the time the talent was buried and humiliated. Americans will never stop being racist to the Japanese in entertainment and culture. It's okay, we Canadians tossed them in internment camps too. It'll probably be a long time before we just have Japanese wrestlers where their gimmick isn't I'M A JAPANESE WRESTLER. Then again, what's Sheamus' gimmick? Oh yeah, I'M NOT AMERICAN AND I'M REALLY IRISH. What's Antonio Cesaro's gimmick? I'M NOT AMERICAN AND I'M REALLY SWISS. Murrica! 
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Jan 18, 2013 21:21
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The fact that Drew McIntyre hasn't wore a kilt through his entire tenure at WWE is legitimately shocking to me. Anyway, wasn't it Russo or Bischoff who said they'd never push a non-American?
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Jan 18, 2013 21:24
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VogeGandire posted:The fact that Drew McIntyre hasn't wore a kilt through his entire tenure at WWE is legitimately shocking to me. Russo. Bischoff always said he would push anyone if they made him money (just not necessarily to the top, they have to stay in their caste brother).
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Jan 18, 2013 21:31
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MassRayPer posted:WCW would bring in foreign talent and put them in matches. If they were given time, we got good stuff. Sometimes they were super racist and 99% of the time the talent was buried and humiliated.
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Jan 18, 2013 21:37
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VogeGandire posted:The fact that Drew McIntyre hasn't wore a kilt through his entire tenure at WWE is legitimately shocking to me. He wore a kilt when he first came to the WWE, which was strange because I don't think the MacAllister's were completely out of the company yet.
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Jan 18, 2013 21:39
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UltimoDragonQuest posted:I love Russo explaining that Juvi smashing the tequila bottle over Liger's head was not racism but in fact good writing because the bottle was introduced in Russo's office the week before. Then how does he explain the piñata on a pole match?
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Jan 18, 2013 21:40
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bobkatt013 posted:Then how does he explain the piñata on a pole match? Clearance Sale at a Georgia Party store. It's just good business savvy.
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Jan 18, 2013 21:41
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bobkatt013 posted:Then how does he explain the piñata on a pole match? OH IT IS NOW RACIST THAT I POINT OUT MEXICANS LIKE PINATAS? GREAT, BETTER SCRAP THE NAPPING JANITOR GIMMICK I HAD SET FOR SUPER CALO!
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Jan 18, 2013 21:43
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Retail Slave posted:Yes, it looks like poo poo and like they're desperate for money. I don't think the combined audiences of UFC and all the other organizations with ads on the mat or wherever else consider it eye-rape, but rather see it as a necessary 'annoyance' to get the copious pyro and gladiator costumes and other stuff we enjoy but okay I guess? They are making money off their own merit but they also like making money on top of that, and unless there are millions of Retail Slaves out there (there aren't) who see a logo on a mat as some kind of visual reaming, they're probably gonna keep doing that. And honestly, who didn't love that Karate Fighters blimp? flashy_mcflash fucked around with this message at 21:46 on Jan 18, 2013 |
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Jan 18, 2013 21:43
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bobkatt013 posted:Then how does he explain the piñata on a pole match? He pitched a Goldberg - Warrior matchup by saying "Who wouldn't want to see Goldberg and Warrior?" so that will always be the weirdest explanation he could give for anything. e: flashy_mcflash posted:And honestly, who didn't love that Karate Fighters blimp? Do you mean Kwang or Tensai?
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Jan 18, 2013 21:48
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MassRayPer posted:Edit: You LIKE that kind of thinking? You like the idea of doing a show in North Korea at a time when starvation was at its worst as the country recovered from its late 80s building craze? Even if you don't know any of the details of the show, how can you like the idea of working with the worst regime on the planet? Add in that the audience was compelled to go there by their government and everything else that goes in with working with North Korea and you LIKE the idea? Weren't the fans brought in at gunpoint? I also vaguely remember the whole thing happening because Kim Jong Il was a wrestling fan.
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Jan 18, 2013 21:52
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