@@jmferr2011 yeah I feel like Arquette has earned that reign after the fact. He'd a good guy and a fan of the industry too. It's certainly better than Vince McMahon giving himself both the WWF and ECW titles, that's for sure.
Have you noticed that most of these incidents had something to do with Vince Russo.... I agree the company was already going downhill but he completely screwed it to the wall.
You took the words right out of my….uh….KEYBOARD! 🤣🤣 Also, look up “the worst moments in WWF history” and almost half that list includes Russo-related angles. Coincidence? I think not, bro!
@@creoleDJ McMahon and Prichard have come up with angles and gimmicks that would make Russo blush. Nobody bats a hundred, but Russo isn't nearly as bad as the internet make him out to be
@@absolutez3r019 as Bruce Prichard once said: “We ALL have bad ideas.” And I’ll say here what I’ve said on other similar posts: for all their bullshit, I can at least halfway respect Bischoff, Cornette, Prichard, et al for admitting & owning their bullshit & screwups. Russo, however, blames everyone outside of God for his bullshit. He doesn’t want to take ownership of ANYTHING wrong he comes up with, and that is why he gets so much heat like he does.
@creoleDJ what idea has Russo passed the buck on? Other than the Oklahoma gimmick, what else? He has also apologized to JR and JR has accepted the apology
@@absolutez3r019 I’m not going through all of it, but he “passed the buck” on the Brawl For All, even on this clip he blamed his idea of Goldberg’s heel turn flop on Goldberg, he once blamed the fans for not understanding the Beaver Cleavage angle (NOT the fact that the angle sucked), etc.
I've always been convinced either it was intentional by everyone, or Nash got word ahead of hand, worked with the guys setting things up and set up the miss.
You could probably give an honorable mention to the ending of the 1998 Halloween Havoc PPV. Which resulted in thousands of customers to miss the ending of the Goldberg Vs. DDP match because the pay per view went over it’s time limit. Forcing customers to ask for a refund and showing the entire match for free on the next episode of Nitro. That is where I really believe the end was coming.
That is one of MANY issues I would point to for sure. I would say that one, plus WCW on several occasions starting the Main Event 5 min before the show is going off the air to lead into some TNT special with the promises of "we will keep bringing you the action during the commercial breaks!" Which they never did, constant production mistakes etc. Internet lore from clueless fucking morons like Bryan Alvarez have created a narrative that has been built into mythology but as someone who was a massive WCW fan, who was speaking with other WCW fans at the time, the consensus back then was.... As the WWF got better WCW started coming off as second rate with everything. Storylines were constantly recycled, entrance music was constantly recycled, production values were 🗑️, they would cheat you on PPV's and the above mentioned TV crap, talent nor feuds nor storylines ever progressed etc. So did several million other fans. The big problem? We never tuned back in. I didn't even bother taping Nitro going forward because of that stunt and because they reformed the nWo. I thought The Wolfpac was cool and had a ton of promise. Truth be told WCW had the talent to never lose the ratings War, and to retake the ratings War after losing it. Fix the above issues and start pushing some other talent. Instead Creative was too scared to abandon the nWo well and kept going back to it trying to recapture that magic.
It does reek of unprofessionalism. Not even being able to fit into basic time constraints is pretty low. There’s been times in the WWE where it looked like they were going to run over, but the wrestlers there always knew how to improvise to get things done in time.
That would definitely make a top 100 mistakes list, but not top 10. I watched the full PVV on Cablevision, but heard the next day some didn't get it. Which was odd cause Time Warner cable was owner Ted's company as well. Anyway, there were lots of small mistakes. This blogger had even discussed Starcade 97 as 2 of them. However, WCW still was 30 million dollars in profits in 1998. 1999 lost millions of dollars.I forgot the exact number, whether 10 or 20 million in losses. 2000 lost a ridiculous and unacceptable amount of money. Again I forget the exact number but this time it was hundreds of millions of dollars in loses. Which ultimately is why no one wanted to keep WCW, and McMahon bought it. Edit: WCW lost 9 million in 1999
The Finger Poke of Doom did have one bit of silver lining and that was it featured the absolute best bump that Kevin Nash had ever taken in his entire career that did not involve him getting injured
I have a idiot step brother who only watched wcw and never wwf and I had to watch the finger poke of doom. While mankind won the wwf champion from the rock.
@@Cobane823 and you’re absolutely right about the disrespect of the bump, much like Michaels had done to Hogan at Summerslam 05 years later. I mean, starcade 98, Nash, the baby face going up against the unbeaten top babyface, Goldberg, Nash was head booker at that time. Positions himself to dethrone Goldberg and win the world title. Now the following night on Nitro, after they remove Goldberg from the rematch and all of a sudden, here comes Hulk Hogan and using his 100% creative control clause and tells Nash pretty much “hey Nash, guess what, I’m back from not running for president, and we are going to put the title back on me in the queerest match ever right after you just won it, and we are going to do it via a finger poke and a cover, doesn’t that sound fun?” Of course Nash plays ball and does the job to Hogan, but now that you bring up the fact that he oversold, I see the disrespect, yeah I think that you are onto something.
The Fingerpoke of Doom, "That'll put butts in the seats", David Arquette, the championship reboot, it was one disastrous idea after another. That January 4th episode was, in fact, the last episode of Nitro I watched live ( I was one of those people that had immediately switch to Raw upon Tony's announcement). After that, I taped Nitro every week, until I just completely stopped watching WCW altogether by the end of 99. I did attend the 2000 SuperBrawl, as I only lived a few miles from the Cow Palace, and I figured. what the hell, I might as well.
I totally felt similar vibes. I remember living for Monday nights then not caring. I had a friend who would tell me what was happening. Sometimes I would watch what he taped.
The more I watch videos like this depicting the worst WCW moments and their eventual downfall, the more the conspiracy of Russo being sent there to destroy the company from the inside seems valid.
Naaaaah, it is more like after everyone in WWE realised how stupid Shitstain (aka Russo) is, they decided to let him go when the other stupid people (like Bischoff) wanted to get him. Shitstain being Shitstain just did what he knows thing we knows how to do...
@@lefterisatheras5918 yea ok Jim. Lol. Russo made the attitude Era happen. So I don't mind him when he was in WWE. Jim was just a jealous weirdo about wrestling and still holds a grudge to this day which is really sad.
I was at the Thunder where Arquette won the title. I called him winning as soon as he was inserted in that tag match and my friends didn't believe me. The crowd took a huge crap on it and tossed trash in the ring afterward.
Arquette has better Mic skills than Roman Reigns. If only he knew how to wrestle. And by wrestle I don't mean flip around and super kick for a half hour like a USO or Young Buck. The ratings were higher during that time over current WWE
@@themadrapper101 everything had higher ratings then because internet just got started and we don’t have phones and stuff like now. If we were like we were then. Ratings would be way higher than wcw.
@@kendall6515 Still a fact double the amount of people were watching during the Attitude era than now. If you argue or debate that then you must of not were around then cause it was the hottest thing going for a few years and Stone Cold was a big reason for that. The nWo, Goldberg, The Rock, ECW. Everyone was watching definitely not debateable. Even if WWE's in a better place now than it was a few year's ago doesn't mean it's as hot as it was in 99 lol
Nash just standing there watching the blood dropping on the ring is probably one of the funniest things I saw from WCW clips, I can just hear him sigh "oh god..."
Pretty sure Nash has even come out and said now that he stood out of the way of it on purpose as he refused to be embarrassed in that way and didn't want to get it in his hair. So he on purpose avoided sanding where the blood was going to fall.
Russo actually made WCW better. Booker T became HW champ, Hogan who was a cancer got exposed and canned. Introduced new stables that had good runs and Steiner was giving his best moments in wcw during Russo run. for every bad idea, there's a good idea. Vince McMahon had worse ideas that needed to get filtered. Before Russo, WWF was Doink the Clown, and other cartoony characters. WWF had its lowest ratings until McMahon gave Cornettes job to Russo. Also WCW ratings went up with Russo. the numbers dont lie. the only thing that was bad was the gimmick matches. Booker T, Austin, Rock and Mick Foley all credit Russo. Russo was behind pushing these guys as the #1 and it paid off well. people cry about Russo but do you realize how bad WWE was in 2001 with Stephanie taking creative control? there's worse creative than Russo and it's not even close. When you compare Russo to today's writing, anything in 2001 to 2020, it makes Russo look better than his accomplishments. If you dont remember what WWF was like before Russo took a role, then just drop out of the discussing and admit you heard a Cornette podcast and you're copying and pasting what entertained you.
Jim Cornette makes it clear this was a happy little accident for Vince, because Russo joined wcw without telling wwf. Vince started listening to him and he had a few good ideas that helped create the attitude Era, but there was just a few grains of genius in a dumpster full of trash ideas and Vince cherry picked what he liked. Maybe it was on purpose, but Vince probably knew he would do bad business if left to his own ideas without supervision.
@@xxSKAGhosTxx Apparently that's how George Lucas wrote Star Wars. It was a great idea but too off the rails so his associates reeled him in and it became a huge success. Some people are just like that.
@@AlbertoGonzalez-xn1lw - Dale Torborg was the KISS Demon. like the expensive entrance for a guy like Glacier = the "Blood Runs Cold' angle never took off, unfortunately; not Mortis (Chris "who bettah than" Kanyon) or Wrath (Adam Bomb); (the "Kona") Crush (Brian Adams, not the singer Bryan Adams)''s partner in Kronik.
No it was the fact that they didn’t have anything to follow NWO…if Bishoff doesn’t strike on that NWO idea in the mid 90s WCW would’ve been defunct by the late 90s
The worst idea was hiring that jerk in the first place. Say what you want about Vince McMahon, but firing him was one of the smartest things he ever did. Then WCW turned around and hired him?! Talk about a Dumb Decision!
From what I remember, the Goldberg window thing may have played out differently. He apparently had a little window breaker in his hand when he attacked the limo, but when he broke out the driver's window, he accidentally dropped it inside, so he had to continue with just his fists. That's why the following window took a little more mustard to break, and Goldberg ended up cutting himself.
That was the height of FRICKIN' STUPIDITY AND IRRESPONSIBILITY! Did it dawn on that mental midget Russo to put SAFETY RAILS on the platform she stood on? Some of the stuff that was done during that time was stupid and flat out dangerous! Putting Sting a wire? Did WCW forget what happened to OWEN HART?!
The one good that came out of the Arquette title run was him giving all the money he earned to the widows of Owen Hart and Brian Pillman, and the families of the deceased Bobby Duncum Jr. and quadriplegic Darren Drozdov. That makes up for the idiocy of his title run.
@@JaiBlevins1974He wasn't just a writer. He was the head of their entire creative department through the attitude era lol. But I think by the time he took over at WCW his ego had gotten the better of him and his story lines got more and more out of touch with what the fans wanted.
@@JaiBlevins1974His background is actually quite interesting tbh. Different people in the wrestling industry seem to have polar opposite opinions of him. From high praise by The Rock, Kurt Angle, AJ Styles to absolute disdain by Ric Flair and Eric Bishoff. One things for sure though, he was no small time writer. He was the head writer for WWF from 97 to 99 and he had a massive influence on the overall increase in storylines and dramatisation in the wrestling throughout the 90s.
@midnitethegreat I get that. But he still had to run everything past Vince, in the WWF. WCW gave him full control. Without someone to keep him in check, ALL of his ideas were given the green light, and we saw how that turned out.
The slow fast count on Sting was the fatal snake bite. From that point, all the power and momentum that had been built was deflated. The venom took a while but it did the job.
You can make a big mistake and recover, or a few small mistakes...but you can't make lots of small mistakes and several big mistakes. Starcade 97 alone or the finger poke of doom itself didn't end WCW. The problem is they didn't fix enough. The 2 things they had strongest inv1998, Goldberg and DDP, they bsck peddled away from in 1999.
It should come as no surprise to anyone that Vince Russo's idiocy dominated this list, because the day they hired Russo was the beginning of the end for WCW.
@@absolutez3r019 WTF is Kelner? Wait...who cares! Fact is, if WCW didn't have the financial loses they did in 1999 and worse in 2000 people probably would have wanted to keep it. So that being said, who is responsible for bad ratings and profits? Let's see... Eric Bishof, Bill Busch, Kevin Nash, and Ted Turner.
I once thought that people were being too hard on Russo. But after years of watching videos and listening to podcasts by various people, including Russo, I come to the conclusion that he has been getting off easy.
What’s worse in all of this is it tainted the first World Championship run of Booker T who, considering his struggles in life and prison, should have been celebrated better than those circumstances.
I like Booker T, but why should we like him because of "struggles with prison"? That makes me like him less, not more. I never went to prison, so I think you should celebrate me more than someone who did.
I liked Booker T, I felt he was one of the best athletes in wrestling. I was glad he got a good run in WWE and Booker T / Golddust was comedy gold.@@anonamatron
Poor Tony Schiavone having to say Tank had pulled a pair of scissors and was trying to shave Big Al’s beard was remarkably quick thinking yet one of the stupidest outright lies ever cos you could clearly hear Tank threatening to kill the guy 😂😂
It's hard to remember now just how cool and New the nWo angle was when it started. It genuinely made WWE feel ancient and out of touch. Sadly the prolonged death of that angle and the ridiculous things they did have soiled them. Nowhere near as bad, but the constant DX reunions they did after Shawn left in 98 soiled the legacy of that too, but nothing to the degree of the nWo. We'd still pop seeing a DX reunion now, as we did, but even if Hall was still alive, any pop would always have been just for him.
Your nuts, true nWo fans dont believe nWo legacy died. Its still by far the apex of stables. Done by 3 of the most influential and talented performers in wrestling. WCW only died cause the idiots replaced Bischoff in 1999 with Russo and Ferrara. The AOL merger is what really killed WCW thougj as they hates wrestling and didnt believe it was prine time worthy and cut the budget to almost nothing. Even when Bischoff was about to buy WCW here came Time Warner/AOL to say well were taking it off tnt and tbs which caused Bischoffs investors to back out. The Fingerpoke of Doom is a noobs answer to why WCW died. Its something that those who know nothing about the business and wcw internally use as a point. Do your own research people and you will see wcw didnt die. It was INTENTIONALLY wiped out.
The NWO was truly the best angle at the very beginning and had they stayed with maybe four or maybe even five members at the absolute most they could have run that thing for years and years... Problem is when you've got 20 or 30 members that you just kind of lose the uniqueness and lose what makes it so good to begin with!
Yeah, and you can actually see it then he looks down at it. His face is like "opps... but fk it I'm still strong enough to do this.....oh no ouch it hurts."
I remember being a kid and realizing in early 2000 how the WCW product had changed. And yet, despite all the corporate fallout from the AOL-Time Warner merger, it seems like WCW could have pulled the nose up from a creative standpoint.
I remember it got so bad. There was so little oversight as things fell apart that Scott Steiner got to just do whatever he wanted, and as much as I enjoyed his work he was not smart or sane. His rambling offensive rants were almost sad if not simply funny. I personally liked WCW more than WWF in the early days of the Monday Night Wars but when it got to 99 it was just getting sad. Stone Cold owned the show and there was no competing with him.
I remember a female interviewer gave a quick recap of recent Steiner events then asked "What's going down?" Steiner replied "What's going down? You, tonight, in my hotel room." The interviewer just looked at the camera with an expression that screamed "I have nobody to blame but myself."
WTF are you talking about. Steiner's promos and actions in WCW at the time were epic and hilarious. The best thing about the entire show. Steiner is smart and sane, and you're just jealous because he went to a highly educated university.
If I remember correctly, Terry Taylor, John Laurinaitis, Mike Teney, and Tony Schiavone, Kevin Sullivan and to a point Ed Farrara were running the Booking Committee from mid March 2000 till Febuary 2001. I Truly thought with the removal of Russo the product was getting better honestly. Otherwise will disagree, but I saw a change for the better.
The leather jacket on a pole at Superbrawl wasn't Russo's idea, Sullivan had already taken over the writing team by that point. Russo and Bischoff would famously return that spring, but this wasn't his. Judy on a pole, however...
In '97 I remember watching with my Dad, flipping back and forth between WCW and WWE(then WWF). By 1999 we might have checked once a Nitro. By 2000 we never changed WWE.
I know that was way earlier than 99, but NWO destroying the entire cruiserweight division in a backstage brawl was equaly as sad as this stuff. They had the best division ever in terms of in ring skills and match quality but they still made sure none of those guys (including Eddie Guerrero, Chris Benoit, Rey Mysterio and Chris Jericho who all became world champions later) would ever be seen as a star equal to Hogan, Nash or Hall.
You damn right man people forget just how damn good the cruiserweight division really was Rey mystero chris Benoit Eddie Guerrero Chris Jericho WCW had talent man just they sunk themselves with shitty management
If WCW supposedly made sure that guys like Rey would never be seen as equal to those three, then why the heck did they book Rey to beat Nash on Nitro? WCW made all of those guys into the huge stars they are, they never would have gotten a chance in WWF where bigger was seen as better. And not that it's great in hindsight as he certainly doesn't deserve it anymore, but Chris Benoit was a one time WCW World Champion before he left for the WWF. It would be better if he wasn't but you can't say that WCW didn't push him or the others. Anyway, enough about wife beating murderers, here's Rey defeating Nash: ruclips.net/video/zll8QbPIF-0/видео.html
@@namikstudios Well, Benoit did have brain damage, so you can't really totally blame him. If the man weren't sick, I highly doubt he would have done what he did.
@@danman6669 Indeed. Some may know about Gareth Thomas, former Captain of the Welsh Rugby team. Damaged an artery in his neck and the lack of blood to his brain turned him super aggressive. Fortunately he was eventually diagnosed and had surgery to correct it. It's the sort of thing that all folk in contact sports need to be aware of and watch out for.
For me the finger poke of doom was the beginning of the end. It was a giant middle finger to the fans and to the industry. It made the world title worthless and killed Goldberg's momentum. The company told the fans "You like Goldberg? Too bad we're doing 1996 again." It was no longer about growing the company; it was about the inmates using WCW as their personal playground.
Who remembers Hacksaw Jim Duggan swing a 2x4 that didn't even remotely look real? It was flopping around the whole time. I remember it being really close to the end of WcW.
In this modern generation of Pro Wrestling NXT gives me the old WCW vibes where as AEW gives me the old ECW vibes which actually feels pretty great!! 🔥😎
There was a time right before this that WCW was ahead of WWE in innovation and entertainment, and then suddenly the wheels fell right off and it went into a trash filled ditch on fire almost overnight.
I also think that luck played a part there. When i now look back at the beginning of the ratings war, i strongly believe that WCW did not necessarily have a better product. The late WWF new generation era produced great matches and the stars who thrived in the attitude era all started in the New Generation. The main event had variety and the storylines made sense
One of the best dark side of the ring episodes I watched was about the backyard wrestling and David Arquette experiencing near death. To be fair, he wasn't the only one who came close to dying.
Vince Russo did an interview once and said if he was given a second chance to change anything he did in WCW,he said no.He would do the exact same things he did in WCW.
True proof he had no idea what he was doing… he will claim, well we are still talking about it. What he fails to understand is, we keep talking about it as a “what NOT to do”
Vince Russo is the perfect example of someone promoted beyond their abilities. The guy never had the talent, foresight or restraint to be a leader. To get the best out of him, he needed to have someone above him to veto all his stupid ideas.
Let's see Goldberg has been a danger to himself on at least two occasions with what he did in Saudi Arabia bashing his head on purpose and what he's done with hitting a car window with his hand back in WCW. His negligence cause for heart's career to be prematurely ended. Goldberg's negligence almost severely hurt the Undertaker. But yet people want to continue to honor this guy
@@rolandobaluja7504 Not many honor Goldberg. His popularity was & is over exaggerated. Bret himself said he felt WCW was more responsible letting an untrained guy do those moves.
@@CurlyFromTheSwirly but he is the best example of if you hyped someone untrained enough they will definitely rice the top imagine if they would have done that with someone like Dan Severn, tears, Steve Blackman, Dean malenko or great wrestlers
I would argue that it started in Starrcade 97 with the Sting vs Hogan match ending, and ended with the fingerpoke of doom. The rest after that was just like watching a fish flop out of water until it passed.
The weird thing is, as poor as WCW was during the Russo & Ferrara era, I still preferred watching that over the Mcmahon Helmsley era. I found the latter a bit dull and got comic relief from it by watching WCW around that time. Heenan was on good comedy form around then too. They were bringing in new talent as well. It was still all too goofy to survive though.
Yeah unfortunately we live in a binary era. HHH's good work with NXT has caused people to forget how awful and boring the HHH reign of terror was. Only a tiny minority of the fans have the brain to recognize HHH's positive contribution to NXT and also recognize how boring and repetitive all those McMahon-Helmsley feuds were.
Jim Cornette has always said it best about Vince Russo. He can come up with 500 ideas at the blink of an eye, but only 1-2 of those make any logical sense if crafted in the correct way as someone with the creative mind of Vince McMahon can. So Russo succeeded in WWE because he would just spew all this nonsense at Vince McMahon but Vince had the control and creative mind to craft the idea in a way that would actually work. In WCW that element didn't exist and you saw Russo unfiltered and unmonitored. The results should surprise no one.
There's some debate on whether the best year in WWE history was 98, 99, or 2000. Most seem to go with 2000 but I go with 98 because both companies were on fire, the war was still pretty much up for grabs, and things were still just heating up. By 99 WCW was already on life support and in 2000 they were completely phoning it in.
1998 was a great year ... for fans, for WCW, for both federations as competition. For WCW it had DDP & Goldberg as rising stars, and the nWo was still cool. The company was still making money.
wait, how did the halloween havoc main event between goldberg and ddp getting cut off only minutes after it started because wcw went over the ppv time limit not get mentioned? It cost the company millions of dollars in refunds and they had to broadcast the match the following night on nitro.
That's not bad question, but let me explain. WCW stil made 30 million dollars in profit in 1998. While in 1999 they were losing money. Maybe that might 11 on the list, but it wasn't a horrible thing that they couldn't recover from.
I've wondered some over the years if Russo's hiring at dubya-c-dubya wasn't more than Vinnie Mac inserting a mole to kill his immediate competition from the inside out.
I grew up in Atlanta, home of Turner sports and WCW so I was always on the WCW side of the Monday night wars. I loved WCW and for a couple of years I genuinely thought it was better than WWF but the last couple of years were just sad. 🤦🏿♂️
Russo was obsessed with trying to swerve the fans. Thinking that bringing backstage politics into the ring was a good idea. Like he was somehow blurring the lines and fans would get a kick out of not knowing what was real and what wasn't. You know what we would have loved in the dying days - a match that made sense, had no gimmick and had a clean finish. That would have been great.
When I started watching wrestling as a wee child around 6 years old I was all about Sting and the WCW! Then ‘99 arrived and I was 10 and even then I saw the ridiculous, almost farcical and inept writing and booking that ultimately doomed a once great, innovative and creative product! The once can’t miss Nitro that help change the industry was now can’t miss like watching a terrible train wreck was!!! Combine that with the rise of DX and The Attitude Era entering its Prime I switched loyalties to WWE! Honestly it was the Halloween Havoc PPV that ran over time causing the Main Event between DDP and Goldberg to not air live that closed the coffin for me on WCW! Even as a kid I understood that a huge company like WCW botching one of the years biggest shows was an obvious sign that trouble was afoot and the WWE would ultimately end up conquering all during the glory days of the Monday Night Wars!!!
I was in Baltimore the last couple months of WCW for a nitro. They may have sold 1000 seats, everyone got upgraded instantly to camera side and around the ring to make it look better on TV. The show was terrible as well
The only guys with talent? If Hogan doesn’t show up in ‘95 WCW doesn’t make it past ‘98 and that’s cold hard facts they were having shows in warehouses in Disney’s studios before Hogan got there lol
@@NickErrrr Hogan had the Midas touch for sure. But then he had the reverse might as touch remember he's the one that played a bowl in WCW going down the toilet and TNA going down the toilet
@@NickErrrr also quit a cherishing him for a brief moment that he was in his prime when if the booking wasn't so lazy they could have pushed someone more talented to make a difference but they were too lazy to innovate and build someone up
@@rolandobaluja7504 I’m not even a Hogan mark but to say him and Russo killed that company is ludicrous…Russo was the only shot that show had at making it into the new millennium…nobody wanted to watch WCWnWo anymore it was boring
@@NickErrrr do you notice all the horrible ideas were so hard not to mention the fact that he played more stereotypes than Vince McMahon. Russo contributed to the downfall of the company in so many different levels his association with the company was so toxic that one TNA had worked with them they lost their TV deal when the TV company found out
@@LegendKingY2jthe difference is that in WCW you had way more workers doing the booking than in WWE. Too many people trying to steer the ship to their best interests.
I was watching at the time, and thought the thing with David Arquette was hilarious. And it made sense as a short-lived tie-in to promote the WCW movie, Ready to Rumble. Thematically, I don't see it as much different than WWE's current habit of having non-wrestlers like Bad Bunny or Snoop Dogg beating clean in the ring former title holders. Except no movie tie-in for those.
To be more precise, Arquette winning the title on a total fluke wasn't so bad. What made it awful is that he actually successfully defended it a couple of times.
@@hinro I didn't remember how many days, just that Arquette lost it to Jarret at the next PPV. So I looked it up, and according to Wikipedia, David had it for 12 days. Which is ridiculous considering DDP lost it 1/2 days after winning it. The Thunder aired on weds but was tapped on tues.
Bash at the Beach 2000 had to happen, Russo was 100% correct about Hogan. Hogan wouldn't play ball in any respect, Starrcade 97 is a Prime Example of this, I don't care what kind of Shape Sting was in, Physically, Mental, or otherwise, you don't through a year and a half of build up down the drain and not have Sting win Clean! Furthurmore having Bret Hart as Special Ref was STUPID in every respect!
Hah, I was at Bash at the Beach 2000. And yeah... it really was that bad. Nearly everyone in attendance absolutely hated the event and walked away very disappointed. By that time, I was already firmly in the pro-WWE camp, but still watched WCW as well. After BATB 2000, I was more or less done with WCW and it seemed obvious to most fans that the company was about to die. Sad to say, but the demise of WCW (and ECW) also led to the demise of WWE for me since it accelerated the end of the Attitude Era and a return to the softcore WWE I hated.
I maintain that the "red liquid" incidents was just Nash refusing to take it so he didn't ruin his immaculate hair. Once, yeah, that's a botch. But twice? Maybe he convinced everyone that it was a botch.
I remember watching the Halloween Havoc 98 PPV and thinking it won't get any worse. Overall, they have had a good year. Couple of months later, I watched the finger poke of doom as it transpired and knowing right, that's IT for WCW.
@@CursedLemon Nope. The whole show was just not that impressive. Major letdown all around. Yeah, the main event also pissed me off. But that's just one thing.
I don't think Havoc 98 was the worst PPV, but it was a major miss that I don't think WCW recovered from. Not having Goldberg drop the belt to DDP was major mistake. DDP was red hot and Goldberg's steak was already Stale. They could have ran with DDP easily into the new year. Of course this asusmes they wouldn't find another way to screw it up.
WCW became uninteresting once Vince Russo was hired and plus the New World order was adding way too many members hijacking every segment that I can remember I was done.
Um, that nWo was way over by this point. The finger poke of doom and reunions of the 2 factions, along with Hogan turning face again ended the original nWo.
I was done with WCW when they broke up Outsiders at the Slamboree PPV (I think it was Slamboree). I was there in attendance. As far as I was concerned the Monday Night Wars was over and WWF won.
![Seungmin "그렇게, 천천히, 우리(As we are)" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/kAzmhLHePqU/mqdefault.jpg)
To Arquette's credit, he thought his world title win was stupid as well, and donated his WCW earnings to the families of Owen Hart and Brian Pillman.
I think Arquette winning the title was Tony Schiavone's idea
He's paid his dues in the independents.
@@jmferr2011 Yup
@@jmferr2011 yeah I feel like Arquette has earned that reign after the fact. He'd a good guy and a fan of the industry too. It's certainly better than Vince McMahon giving himself both the WWF and ECW titles, that's for sure.
@@jmferr2011🤓
Have you noticed that most of these incidents had something to do with Vince Russo.... I agree the company was already going downhill but he completely screwed it to the wall.
You took the words right out of my….uh….KEYBOARD! 🤣🤣 Also, look up “the worst moments in WWF history” and almost half that list includes Russo-related angles. Coincidence? I think not, bro!
@@creoleDJ McMahon and Prichard have come up with angles and gimmicks that would make Russo blush. Nobody bats a hundred, but Russo isn't nearly as bad as the internet make him out to be
@@absolutez3r019 as Bruce Prichard once said: “We ALL have bad ideas.” And I’ll say here what I’ve said on other similar posts: for all their bullshit, I can at least halfway respect Bischoff, Cornette, Prichard, et al for admitting & owning their bullshit & screwups. Russo, however, blames everyone outside of God for his bullshit. He doesn’t want to take ownership of ANYTHING wrong he comes up with, and that is why he gets so much heat like he does.
@creoleDJ what idea has Russo passed the buck on? Other than the Oklahoma gimmick, what else? He has also apologized to JR and JR has accepted the apology
@@absolutez3r019 I’m not going through all of it, but he “passed the buck” on the Brawl For All, even on this clip he blamed his idea of Goldberg’s heel turn flop on Goldberg, he once blamed the fans for not understanding the Beaver Cleavage angle (NOT the fact that the angle sucked), etc.
The Fact that the Blood Botch happened not once, but twice is classic End of the Road WCW. Hilarious and sad.
I love how Nash just stands there and looks at it and ain’t even act surprised
@@stinkyfish8357he was right in the middle of the ring the best spot to aim so that might have actually been the plan which makes it 100x funnier
I've always been convinced either it was intentional by everyone, or Nash got word ahead of hand, worked with the guys setting things up and set up the miss.
Him walking over to the blood splash mid power bomb made it funnier 😂.
I think they should have done it another time or two, I mean after screwing it up like that just make it a running joke instead.
I like how Russo's excuses for his failures always boil down to "Yeah but if it had worked, it would've worked."
It would have!
No it wouldn’t have.
@@zacharyradford5552 NEVER
Yeah but it did work
It would have worked.@@zacharyradford5552
Don't forget the Bro
You could probably give an honorable mention to the ending of the 1998 Halloween Havoc PPV. Which resulted in thousands of customers to miss the ending of the Goldberg Vs. DDP match because the pay per view went over it’s time limit. Forcing customers to ask for a refund and showing the entire match for free on the next episode of Nitro. That is where I really believe the end was coming.
It’s ironic also because they blacked out one of the best matches I ever saw.
That is one of MANY issues I would point to for sure. I would say that one, plus WCW on several occasions starting the Main Event 5 min before the show is going off the air to lead into some TNT special with the promises of "we will keep bringing you the action during the commercial breaks!" Which they never did, constant production mistakes etc.
Internet lore from clueless fucking morons like Bryan Alvarez have created a narrative that has been built into mythology but as someone who was a massive WCW fan, who was speaking with other WCW fans at the time, the consensus back then was....
As the WWF got better WCW started coming off as second rate with everything. Storylines were constantly recycled, entrance music was constantly recycled, production values were 🗑️, they would cheat you on PPV's and the above mentioned TV crap, talent nor feuds nor storylines ever progressed etc.
So did several million other fans. The big problem? We never tuned back in. I didn't even bother taping Nitro going forward because of that stunt and because they reformed the nWo. I thought The Wolfpac was cool and had a ton of promise.
Truth be told WCW had the talent to never lose the ratings War, and to retake the ratings War after losing it. Fix the above issues and start pushing some other talent. Instead Creative was too scared to abandon the nWo well and kept going back to it trying to recapture that magic.
It does reek of unprofessionalism. Not even being able to fit into basic time constraints is pretty low. There’s been times in the WWE where it looked like they were going to run over, but the wrestlers there always knew how to improvise to get things done in time.
That would definitely make a top 100 mistakes list, but not top 10.
I watched the full PVV on Cablevision, but heard the next day some didn't get it. Which was odd cause Time Warner cable was owner Ted's company as well.
Anyway, there were lots of small mistakes. This blogger had even discussed Starcade 97 as 2 of them.
However, WCW still was 30 million dollars in profits in 1998.
1999 lost millions of dollars.I forgot the exact number, whether 10 or 20 million in losses.
2000 lost a ridiculous and unacceptable amount of money. Again I forget the exact number but this time it was hundreds of millions of dollars in loses.
Which ultimately is why no one wanted to keep WCW, and McMahon bought it.
Edit: WCW lost 9 million in 1999
They shouldn't be scheduling 3+ hour PPV's anyway
‘’Bro, it wasn’t that bad bro.’’ - Vince Russo
Every time Russo says bro, I just want to punch him right in the throat.
Lmfao
*BRO!*
Vince Russo and Matt Riddle would be a great tag team
You didn't say Bro enough for it to be convincing
The Finger Poke of Doom did have one bit of silver lining and that was it featured the absolute best bump that Kevin Nash had ever taken in his entire career that did not involve him getting injured
I was half expecting him to scream "OW! MY QUADS!" as soon as he hit the mat.
The Fingerpoke of Doom wasnt bad, its what happened in 2 months after.
I have a idiot step brother who only watched wcw and never wwf and I had to watch the finger poke of doom. While mankind won the wwf champion from the rock.
@@chryssmetzler2098 bro you didn’t have a remote control? lol I was literally flipping back n forth every 30 seconds lmao “the good ol days “
@@Cobane823 and you’re absolutely right about the disrespect of the bump, much like Michaels had done to Hogan at Summerslam 05 years later.
I mean, starcade 98, Nash, the baby face going up against the unbeaten top babyface, Goldberg, Nash was head booker at that time.
Positions himself to dethrone Goldberg and win the world title.
Now the following night on Nitro, after they remove Goldberg from the rematch and all of a sudden, here comes Hulk Hogan and using his 100% creative control clause and tells Nash pretty much “hey Nash, guess what, I’m back from not running for president, and we are going to put the title back on me in the queerest match ever right after you just won it, and we are going to do it via a finger poke and a cover, doesn’t that sound fun?”
Of course Nash plays ball and does the job to Hogan, but now that you bring up the fact that he oversold, I see the disrespect, yeah I think that you are onto something.
The Fingerpoke of Doom, "That'll put butts in the seats", David Arquette, the championship reboot, it was one disastrous idea after another. That January 4th episode was, in fact, the last episode of Nitro I watched live ( I was one of those people that had immediately switch to Raw upon Tony's announcement). After that, I taped Nitro every week, until I just completely stopped watching WCW altogether by the end of 99. I did attend the 2000 SuperBrawl, as I only lived a few miles from the Cow Palace, and I figured. what the hell, I might as well.
I totally felt similar vibes.
I remember living for Monday nights then not caring.
I had a friend who would tell me what was happening. Sometimes I would watch what he taped.
The more I watch videos like this depicting the worst WCW moments and their eventual downfall, the more the conspiracy of Russo being sent there to destroy the company from the inside seems valid.
Naaaaah, it is more like after everyone in WWE realised how stupid Shitstain (aka Russo) is, they decided to let him go when the other stupid people (like Bischoff) wanted to get him. Shitstain being Shitstain just did what he knows thing we knows how to do...
Russo killed WCW
R.i.p wcw 🙏😭😭
@@lefterisatheras5918 yea ok Jim. Lol. Russo made the attitude Era happen. So I don't mind him when he was in WWE. Jim was just a jealous weirdo about wrestling and still holds a grudge to this day which is really sad.
Simpler solution is that Russo is just a moron who got very lucky.
I was at the Thunder where Arquette won the title. I called him winning as soon as he was inserted in that tag match and my friends didn't believe me. The crowd took a huge crap on it and tossed trash in the ring afterward.
Arquette has better Mic skills than Roman Reigns. If only he knew how to wrestle. And by wrestle I don't mean flip around and super kick for a half hour like a USO or Young Buck. The ratings were higher during that time over current WWE
I had a feeling arquette would win the title shortly after seeing him on the nitro before
@@themadrapper101 everything had higher ratings then because internet just got started and we don’t have phones and stuff like now. If we were like we were then. Ratings would be way higher than wcw.
@@kendall6515 Still a fact double the amount of people were watching during the Attitude era than now. If you argue or debate that then you must of not were around then cause it was the hottest thing going for a few years and Stone Cold was a big reason for that. The nWo, Goldberg, The Rock, ECW. Everyone was watching definitely not debateable. Even if WWE's in a better place now than it was a few year's ago doesn't mean it's as hot as it was in 99 lol
@@kendall6515 wrestling was better off without the internet
Nash just standing there watching the blood dropping on the ring is probably one of the funniest things I saw from WCW clips, I can just hear him sigh "oh god..."
I bet you Russo & Nash told that guy "You have one fucking job to do, ONE JOB and you missed!!! Don't do it again". HAHAHAHA!!!
@@blachubear and then he did it again
Yeah that was hilarious, he was like "wtf?" 🤣
And yet he was part of the problem with WCWs downfall
They were poking fun at the brood
Bath from WWF.😂
Can't lie missing that Blood Spot Twice...FN Hilarious. 🤣
You just know Nash noped out and took two steps to the right haha
"Red viscous fluid"
Pretty much mocking the brood bath.
Wonder what the brood thought
About that?
Pretty sure Nash has even come out and said now that he stood out of the way of it on purpose as he refused to be embarrassed in that way and didn't want to get it in his hair. So he on purpose avoided sanding where the blood was going to fall.
the day russo was hired was the beginning of the end of wcw
It was already dying a death even before Russo got there.
Turner AOL Time Warner merger was the first ‘ nail in the coffin ‘
Vince Russo saved WWF with the attitude era & killed WCW to destroy the Monday Night Wars.
@@mlungzak5818 Jamie Kellner killed WCW and no-one else
That's a misconception & most of that was peddled by the likes of Meltzer & Alvarez
The blood missing Kevin Nash sounds like something straight out of This is Spinal Tap
Back between 99-01, I always thought that Vince McMahon sent Vince Russo to kill WCW and I do believe that is exactly what happened.
Facts he did these matches made no fucking sense 😂😂😂
Russo actually made WCW better. Booker T became HW champ, Hogan who was a cancer got exposed and canned. Introduced new stables that had good runs and Steiner was giving his best moments in wcw during Russo run. for every bad idea, there's a good idea. Vince McMahon had worse ideas that needed to get filtered. Before Russo, WWF was Doink the Clown, and other cartoony characters. WWF had its lowest ratings until McMahon gave Cornettes job to Russo. Also WCW ratings went up with Russo. the numbers dont lie. the only thing that was bad was the gimmick matches. Booker T, Austin, Rock and Mick Foley all credit Russo. Russo was behind pushing these guys as the #1 and it paid off well. people cry about Russo but do you realize how bad WWE was in 2001 with Stephanie taking creative control? there's worse creative than Russo and it's not even close. When you compare Russo to today's writing, anything in 2001 to 2020, it makes Russo look better than his accomplishments. If you dont remember what WWF was like before Russo took a role, then just drop out of the discussing and admit you heard a Cornette podcast and you're copying and pasting what entertained you.
I believe this
Jim Cornette makes it clear this was a happy little accident for Vince, because Russo joined wcw without telling wwf. Vince started listening to him and he had a few good ideas that helped create the attitude Era, but there was just a few grains of genius in a dumpster full of trash ideas and Vince cherry picked what he liked. Maybe it was on purpose, but Vince probably knew he would do bad business if left to his own ideas without supervision.
@@xxSKAGhosTxx Apparently that's how George Lucas wrote Star Wars. It was a great idea but too off the rails so his associates reeled him in and it became a huge success. Some people are just like that.
You guys nailed this list. These were the 10 worst moments from that period of time.
Suggestion for lamia 10 Times wwe ruined the mitb
Forgot the demon angle
IDK He left out the Stacy Keibler pregnancy / miscarriage angle.
You forgot about Master P!
@@AlbertoGonzalez-xn1lw - Dale Torborg was the KISS Demon. like the expensive entrance for a guy like Glacier = the "Blood Runs Cold' angle never took off, unfortunately; not Mortis (Chris "who bettah than" Kanyon) or Wrath (Adam Bomb); (the "Kona") Crush (Brian Adams, not the singer Bryan Adams)''s partner in Kronik.
The overhaul in 1999 officially ended WCW.
I loved WCW for years. But it got to the point where I preferred watching Joey Abs matches.
No it was the fact that they didn’t have anything to follow NWO…if Bishoff doesn’t strike on that NWO idea in the mid 90s WCW would’ve been defunct by the late 90s
@@TRJ2241987The overhaul could have worked if the booking wasn't way too over-exaggerated and OTT.
Isn't this really just Vince Russo's 10 worst ideas?
Bischoff was co-leader of WCW with Russo for at least a few months. He was there and went along with Russo's stupid ideas.
The worst idea was hiring that jerk in the first place. Say what you want about Vince McMahon, but firing him was one of the smartest things he ever did. Then WCW turned around and hired him?! Talk about a Dumb Decision!
@@raymondhopwood9393 McMahon didn't fire Russo though. Russo took the job with WCW without giving McMahon a heads up.
@@raymondhopwood9393 Vince was a pretty big deal when he was fires it was seem as a win for scw to pick him up
Fingerppke of doom was well before russo
Number 1 rule, never let Vince Russo book your shows
Also, never let wrestlers control bouts, plots, or finances.
From what I remember, the Goldberg window thing may have played out differently. He apparently had a little window breaker in his hand when he attacked the limo, but when he broke out the driver's window, he accidentally dropped it inside, so he had to continue with just his fists. That's why the following window took a little more mustard to break, and Goldberg ended up cutting himself.
Goldberg ain’t too smart. 😂
This is believable because it has Goldberg fudging something up.
Goldberg was a liability. He wasn’t a wrestler by trade and many of the people like hogan said he often made bad mistakes that got people hurt.
@@chadhOneAtlHe was a wrassler .
Rest In Peace Judy Bagwell ❤🙏
That was the height of FRICKIN' STUPIDITY AND IRRESPONSIBILITY! Did it dawn on that mental midget Russo to put SAFETY RAILS on the platform she stood on? Some of the stuff that was done during that time was stupid and flat out dangerous! Putting Sting a wire? Did WCW forget what happened to OWEN HART?!
On a pole
@@winzfeld1 forklift*
@@jessieisaiah6no actually rip Judy in real life
The one good that came out of the Arquette title run was him giving all the money he earned to the widows of Owen Hart and Brian Pillman, and the families of the deceased Bobby Duncum Jr. and quadriplegic Darren Drozdov. That makes up for the idiocy of his title run.
put vince russo on a pole so high no one would want to climb it and he couldnt get down by himself.
How Vince Russo, who clearly has nothing but disdain for pro wrestling, ended up calling the shots in WCW is mind boggling....
Had disdain? The dude was a big key in WWE's attitude era. HE didn't have a disdain. He had a different vision which had very mixed results.
He was a mediocre writer, with a couple of good ideas. As soon as he had full creative control, he demonstrated why he was just a writer at WWF.
@@JaiBlevins1974He wasn't just a writer. He was the head of their entire creative department through the attitude era lol. But I think by the time he took over at WCW his ego had gotten the better of him and his story lines got more and more out of touch with what the fans wanted.
@@JaiBlevins1974His background is actually quite interesting tbh. Different people in the wrestling industry seem to have polar opposite opinions of him. From high praise by The Rock, Kurt Angle, AJ Styles to absolute disdain by Ric Flair and Eric Bishoff.
One things for sure though, he was no small time writer. He was the head writer for WWF from 97 to 99 and he had a massive influence on the overall increase in storylines and dramatisation in the wrestling throughout the 90s.
@midnitethegreat I get that. But he still had to run everything past Vince, in the WWF. WCW gave him full control. Without someone to keep him in check, ALL of his ideas were given the green light, and we saw how that turned out.
The slow fast count on Sting was the fatal snake bite. From that point, all the power and momentum that had been built was deflated. The venom took a while but it did the job.
100%
You can make a big mistake and recover, or a few small mistakes...but you can't make lots of small mistakes and several big mistakes.
Starcade 97 alone or the finger poke of doom itself didn't end WCW. The problem is they didn't fix enough.
The 2 things they had strongest inv1998, Goldberg and DDP, they bsck peddled away from in 1999.
When 90% of your characters wear jeans and a T-shirt you basically have all the same character, very bland.
@@garydelong7750 Yes, exactly.
I would've also included that moment in this list. Talent had way too much creative control in WCW (looking at you NWO).
RIP WCW ❤😢
Nobody to blame but themselves
@@ChrisWolff2013Yup
@@ChrisWolff2013 why did they die?
@@NatanyahuBackstage Politics & Creativity
It should come as no surprise to anyone that Vince Russo's idiocy dominated this list, because the day they hired Russo was the beginning of the end for WCW.
The day AOL and Time-warrner merged was the beinging of the end. And Jamie Kellner was the one who killed it ,not Russo
Russo's father should have pulled out
@@absolutez3r019
WTF is Kelner? Wait...who cares!
Fact is, if WCW didn't have the financial loses they did in 1999 and worse in 2000 people probably would have wanted to keep it.
So that being said, who is responsible for bad ratings and profits?
Let's see...
Eric Bishof, Bill Busch, Kevin Nash, and Ted Turner.
I once thought that people were being too hard on Russo. But after years of watching videos and listening to podcasts by various people, including Russo, I come to the conclusion that he has been getting off easy.
Definitely mate. The guys a mark for himself. Never wrong and it’s always someone else’s fault
What’s worse in all of this is it tainted the first World Championship run of Booker T who, considering his struggles in life and prison, should have been celebrated better than those circumstances.
WCW didn't give so many their dues
Always liked Booker T, but his championship run was too little, too late by that point.
@@bd9299292
but that's WCW
I like Booker T, but why should we like him because of "struggles with prison"? That makes me like him less, not more.
I never went to prison, so I think you should celebrate me more than someone who did.
I liked Booker T, I felt he was one of the best athletes in wrestling. I was glad he got a good run in WWE and Booker T / Golddust was comedy gold.@@anonamatron
Poor Tony Schiavone having to say Tank had pulled a pair of scissors and was trying to shave Big Al’s beard was remarkably quick thinking yet one of the stupidest outright lies ever cos you could clearly hear Tank threatening to kill the guy 😂😂
Did either of them ever speak out about what the hell that was actually about?
@@Rith9789Tank Abbott being Tank Abbott
“A leather jacket on a pole match” 😂😂
They were making pole matches up
As they went.
Viagra on a pole.
Judy bagwell(buffs mom) on a pole.
Actually it was a forklift nevermind.
Buff’s mom on a forklift, Viagra on a pole…🤦🏽♂️
Pure coke these ideas
@@johnnypaella1965 there were more coke heads between the 80’s and early 2000’s
A pole on a pole match 😂
It's hard to remember now just how cool and New the nWo angle was when it started. It genuinely made WWE feel ancient and out of touch. Sadly the prolonged death of that angle and the ridiculous things they did have soiled them.
Nowhere near as bad, but the constant DX reunions they did after Shawn left in 98 soiled the legacy of that too, but nothing to the degree of the nWo. We'd still pop seeing a DX reunion now, as we did, but even if Hall was still alive, any pop would always have been just for him.
Your nuts, true nWo fans dont believe nWo legacy died. Its still by far the apex of stables. Done by 3 of the most influential and talented performers in wrestling. WCW only died cause the idiots replaced Bischoff in 1999 with Russo and Ferrara. The AOL merger is what really killed WCW thougj as they hates wrestling and didnt believe it was prine time worthy and cut the budget to almost nothing. Even when Bischoff was about to buy WCW here came Time Warner/AOL to say well were taking it off tnt and tbs which caused Bischoffs investors to back out. The Fingerpoke of Doom is a noobs answer to why WCW died. Its something that those who know nothing about the business and wcw internally use as a point. Do your own research people and you will see wcw didnt die. It was INTENTIONALLY wiped out.
The NWO was truly the best angle at the very beginning and had they stayed with maybe four or maybe even five members at the absolute most they could have run that thing for years and years...
Problem is when you've got 20 or 30 members that you just kind of lose the uniqueness and lose what makes it so good to begin with!
@@Insidious_Rage I think the Bloodline might want to speak with you.
@@tbfcrypto3595 lol ok kid, the bloodline dont have 5% of the popularity the nWo had lol. Ah little kids
@@tbfcrypto3595 who's the bloodline?
This isn't related..but Nash looked so badass when the blood missed him
Blood botch>brood bath.
At least he no sold it, the best part of that angle
@@mardy_91 nash was like why
Yawl dump this pile of horses*it
On me?😂
@@nehemiahpouncey3607 Nash was so cool and one of the reasons why WCW was successful before Russo came in the picture, I feel so bad for him
@@mardy_91 whatever you do
Don't bring up his wizard gimmick.😂
Goldberg wasn't off script. The pipe slid over and he decided to keep going for it. He's talked about this multiple times.
Yeah, and you can actually see it then he looks down at it. His face is like "opps... but fk it I'm still strong enough to do this.....oh no ouch it hurts."
Yes good sir but i dare say bleeding to death was not in the script…
@@alexmartin3143 I must have missed that part of the episode. could of sworn he was still alive and kicking.
I remember being a kid and realizing in early 2000 how the WCW product had changed. And yet, despite all the corporate fallout from the AOL-Time Warner merger, it seems like WCW could have pulled the nose up from a creative standpoint.
The Fingerpoke of Doom & every episode of WcW Thunder in 99-01
Facts
I loved the finger poke & 99 era of thunder but after that I felt that was when it got really bad.
Yup
Don’t forget about how many times the world heavyweight championship was vacated or changed hands.
@@cliffordjackson3 Yeah
I remember it got so bad. There was so little oversight as things fell apart that Scott Steiner got to just do whatever he wanted, and as much as I enjoyed his work he was not smart or sane. His rambling offensive rants were almost sad if not simply funny. I personally liked WCW more than WWF in the early days of the Monday Night Wars but when it got to 99 it was just getting sad. Stone Cold owned the show and there was no competing with him.
His promos were on the scale of The Ultimate Warrior
I remember a female interviewer gave a quick recap of recent Steiner events then asked "What's going down?" Steiner replied "What's going down? You, tonight, in my hotel room." The interviewer just looked at the camera with an expression that screamed "I have nobody to blame but myself."
Reading this comment i wish i was born earlier lol
WTF are you talking about. Steiner's promos and actions in WCW at the time were epic and hilarious. The best thing about the entire show. Steiner is smart and sane, and you're just jealous because he went to a highly educated university.
If I remember correctly, Terry Taylor, John Laurinaitis, Mike Teney, and Tony Schiavone, Kevin Sullivan and to a point Ed Farrara were running the Booking Committee from mid March 2000 till Febuary 2001. I Truly thought with the removal of Russo the product was getting better honestly. Otherwise will disagree, but I saw a change for the better.
That blood spot botch was hilarious 😂
Wonder how folk didn't know they were
Poking fun at the brood's brood bath?
Two mockery's of the brood bath?
What I remember was that 3 stacked cage match in WCW. That was crazy.
The WCW beat the WWF in ratings for quite a while there. It wasn’t just “some iconic moments” as you put it. It was king.
Arquette falling through the stage was the icing on the wcw cake. 😂
Booker t being wcw champion the first time was lit tho. I loved it
The leather jacket on a pole at Superbrawl wasn't Russo's idea, Sullivan had already taken over the writing team by that point. Russo and Bischoff would famously return that spring, but this wasn't his.
Judy on a pole, however...
In '97 I remember watching with my Dad, flipping back and forth between WCW and WWE(then WWF). By 1999 we might have checked once a Nitro. By 2000 we never changed WWE.
It went from:
Watch Nitro
watch Nitro, tape Raw
watch Raw, tape Nitro
watch Raw
@Apoll0Spade 2002 really was not bad at alllll
That blood missing the mark twice had me losing it LOL
The most worst blunder of wcw is Sighning vince Russo
I know that was way earlier than 99, but NWO destroying the entire cruiserweight division in a backstage brawl was equaly as sad as this stuff. They had the best division ever in terms of in ring skills and match quality but they still made sure none of those guys (including Eddie Guerrero, Chris Benoit, Rey Mysterio and Chris Jericho who all became world champions later) would ever be seen as a star equal to Hogan, Nash or Hall.
You damn right man people forget just how damn good the cruiserweight division really was Rey mystero chris Benoit Eddie Guerrero Chris Jericho WCW had talent man just they sunk themselves with shitty management
If WCW supposedly made sure that guys like Rey would never be seen as equal to those three, then why the heck did they book Rey to beat Nash on Nitro? WCW made all of those guys into the huge stars they are, they never would have gotten a chance in WWF where bigger was seen as better. And not that it's great in hindsight as he certainly doesn't deserve it anymore, but Chris Benoit was a one time WCW World Champion before he left for the WWF. It would be better if he wasn't but you can't say that WCW didn't push him or the others. Anyway, enough about wife beating murderers, here's Rey defeating Nash: ruclips.net/video/zll8QbPIF-0/видео.html
@@namikstudios Well, Benoit did have brain damage, so you can't really totally blame him. If the man weren't sick, I highly doubt he would have done what he did.
@@danman6669 Indeed. Some may know about Gareth Thomas, former Captain of the Welsh Rugby team. Damaged an artery in his neck and the lack of blood to his brain turned him super aggressive. Fortunately he was eventually diagnosed and had surgery to correct it. It's the sort of thing that all folk in contact sports need to be aware of and watch out for.
@@danman6669 Lots of people get brain damage and never kill anyone. Grow up.
For me the finger poke of doom was the beginning of the end. It was a giant middle finger to the fans and to the industry. It made the world title worthless and killed Goldberg's momentum. The company told the fans "You like Goldberg? Too bad we're doing 1996 again." It was no longer about growing the company; it was about the inmates using WCW as their personal playground.
Who remembers Hacksaw Jim Duggan swing a 2x4 that didn't even remotely look real? It was flopping around the whole time. I remember it being really close to the end of WcW.
LOL !!!
I enjoyed the Goldberg vs Sting matches in WCW
The fingerpoke of doom was the beginning of the end
No, its what happened in 2 months after. Was what did it
Bitchoffs permanent boner for the NWO ruined WCW
@@adamirishconundrum851 lol, shows that u know nothing about wcw lol. Or the backstory of what happeed in 99 and 2000. Typical noob
In this modern generation of Pro Wrestling NXT gives me the old WCW vibes where as AEW gives me the old ECW vibes which actually feels pretty great!! 🔥😎
There was a time right before this that WCW was ahead of WWE in innovation and entertainment, and then suddenly the wheels fell right off and it went into a trash filled ditch on fire almost overnight.
Cause WCW,was doing the same old stuff.
Hogan as champion again.
fake applause: "yay"
I also think that luck played a part there. When i now look back at the beginning of the ratings war, i strongly believe that WCW did not necessarily have a better product. The late WWF new generation era produced great matches and the stars who thrived in the attitude era all started in the New Generation. The main event had variety and the storylines made sense
One of the best dark side of the ring episodes I watched was about the backyard wrestling and David Arquette experiencing near death. To be fair, he wasn't the only one who came close to dying.
the Nick Gage match (in GCW ?)
I love this channel for wrestling content
Vince Russo did an interview once and said if he was given a second chance to change anything he did in WCW,he said no.He would do the exact same things he did in WCW.
True proof he had no idea what he was doing… he will claim, well we are still talking about it. What he fails to understand is, we keep talking about it as a “what NOT to do”
Vince Russo is the perfect example of someone promoted beyond their abilities. The guy never had the talent, foresight or restraint to be a leader. To get the best out of him, he needed to have someone above him to veto all his stupid ideas.
@@fattiger6957 At least Vince McMahon knew how stupid his ideas were.
@@CodA2501 The worst thing about Vince Russo is that TNA gave him a job.Even after seeing what he did to WCW.
@scotthiebler2414 Jamie Kellner killed WCW not Russo.
Fun fact: the Judy Bagwell on a Pole Match was the best match of that night 😆
I really miss WCW. Unfortunate that it fell apart the way it did.
Goldberg bashing his arm on the car window back then was crazy 😱
Let's see Goldberg has been a danger to himself on at least two occasions with what he did in Saudi Arabia bashing his head on purpose and what he's done with hitting a car window with his hand back in WCW. His negligence cause for heart's career to be prematurely ended. Goldberg's negligence almost severely hurt the Undertaker. But yet people want to continue to honor this guy
Roid rage is real
A window punch is like $12, the guy is a moron.
@@rolandobaluja7504
Not many honor Goldberg.
His popularity was & is over exaggerated.
Bret himself said he felt WCW was more responsible letting an untrained guy do those moves.
@@CurlyFromTheSwirly but he is the best example of if you hyped someone untrained enough they will definitely rice the top imagine if they would have done that with someone like Dan Severn, tears, Steve Blackman, Dean malenko or great wrestlers
Basically, when the fingerpoke of doom happened it was the end of WCW. And yeah, don't forget about Vince Russo, another big mistake.
WCW was already circling the drain long before the Fingerpoke. That was just the culmination of all the stupidity
I would argue that it started in Starrcade 97 with the Sting vs Hogan match ending, and ended with the fingerpoke of doom. The rest after that was just like watching a fish flop out of water until it passed.
eric bischoff was an idiot for making rey to remove his mask
He disrespects every masked luchador
He did it to juvi and psychosis too
@@danieldrayet2364 now I'm even more angry at easy e
@@leximille6801 juvi was actually the 1st one to lose the mask
@@danieldrayet2364 and easy "to get angry at" e wonders why njpw stopped working with them
The weird thing is, as poor as WCW was during the Russo & Ferrara era, I still preferred watching that over the Mcmahon Helmsley era. I found the latter a bit dull and got comic relief from it by watching WCW around that time. Heenan was on good comedy form around then too. They were bringing in new talent as well. It was still all too goofy to survive though.
Yeah unfortunately we live in a binary era. HHH's good work with NXT has caused people to forget how awful and boring the HHH reign of terror was. Only a tiny minority of the fans have the brain to recognize HHH's positive contribution to NXT and also recognize how boring and repetitive all those McMahon-Helmsley feuds were.
Jim Cornette has always said it best about Vince Russo. He can come up with 500 ideas at the blink of an eye, but only 1-2 of those make any logical sense if crafted in the correct way as someone with the creative mind of Vince McMahon can.
So Russo succeeded in WWE because he would just spew all this nonsense at Vince McMahon but Vince had the control and creative mind to craft the idea in a way that would actually work.
In WCW that element didn't exist and you saw Russo unfiltered and unmonitored. The results should surprise no one.
Great take
There's some debate on whether the best year in WWE history was 98, 99, or 2000. Most seem to go with 2000 but I go with 98 because both companies were on fire, the war was still pretty much up for grabs, and things were still just heating up. By 99 WCW was already on life support and in 2000 they were completely phoning it in.
1998 was a great year ...
for fans, for WCW, for both federations as competition.
For WCW it had DDP & Goldberg as rising stars, and the nWo was still cool. The company was still making money.
It was 1998. The Mankind and Undertaker cage match, The Rock becoming the future star.
Using Scott halls real life addictions as a story line should have been on here
Man that was terrible
Didn't WWE do that with Jeff Hardy?
wait, how did the halloween havoc main event between goldberg and ddp getting cut off only minutes after it started because wcw went over the ppv time limit not get mentioned? It cost the company millions of dollars in refunds and they had to broadcast the match the following night on nitro.
That's not bad question, but let me explain. WCW stil made 30 million dollars in profit in 1998.
While in 1999 they were losing money.
Maybe that might 11 on the list, but it wasn't a horrible thing that they couldn't recover from.
The Monday Night War and The Rise and Fall of WCW dvd/documentary are really good to watch.
Sum up WCW in one sentence- " a leather jacket on a pole match "
I've wondered some over the years if Russo's hiring at dubya-c-dubya wasn't more than Vinnie Mac inserting a mole to kill his immediate competition from the inside out.
Vince Russo loves his pole matches!
I grew up in Atlanta, home of Turner sports and WCW so I was always on the WCW side of the Monday night wars. I loved WCW and for a couple of years I genuinely thought it was better than WWF but the last couple of years were just sad. 🤦🏿♂️
Honorable mention: Rey Mysterio Jr unmasking at WCW SuperBrawl in 1999. It was a spit in the face to all Lucha wrestlers and his own name.
Russo was obsessed with trying to swerve the fans. Thinking that bringing backstage politics into the ring was a good idea. Like he was somehow blurring the lines and fans would get a kick out of not knowing what was real and what wasn't.
You know what we would have loved in the dying days - a match that made sense, had no gimmick and had a clean finish. That would have been great.
WCW was the greatest pro wrestling promotion.
Where the big boys play!
No. No it wasn't.
No it just had the most talent
Yep, WCW during the 90s was the gold standard that all promotions have tried to emulate ever since.
They were 50/50 with WWF but WWF was more cartoonish
I forgot about the 2nd botched blood spot….holy hell.
When I started watching wrestling as a wee child around 6 years old I was all about Sting and the WCW! Then ‘99 arrived and I was 10 and even then I saw the ridiculous, almost farcical and inept writing and booking that ultimately doomed a once great, innovative and creative product! The once can’t miss Nitro that help change the industry was now can’t miss like watching a terrible train wreck was!!! Combine that with the rise of DX and The Attitude Era entering its Prime I switched loyalties to WWE! Honestly it was the Halloween Havoc PPV that ran over time causing the Main Event between DDP and Goldberg to not air live that closed the coffin for me on WCW! Even as a kid I understood that a huge company like WCW botching one of the years biggest shows was an obvious sign that trouble was afoot and the WWE would ultimately end up conquering all during the glory days of the Monday Night Wars!!!
Till this day i still find it hilarious the line "that will put butts on seats"🤣🤣
the blood missing actually makes it funnier than what was originally intended
I was in Baltimore the last couple months of WCW for a nitro. They may have sold 1000 seats, everyone got upgraded instantly to camera side and around the ring to make it look better on TV. The show was terrible as well
Did you get to see Goldberg?
@@jesuscage No, he had already put his arm through the limo several shows before that
Did you notice a pattern of Kevin nash, Hogan and Vince Russo all basically screwing over the product
The only guys with talent? If Hogan doesn’t show up in ‘95 WCW doesn’t make it past ‘98 and that’s cold hard facts they were having shows in warehouses in Disney’s studios before Hogan got there lol
@@NickErrrr Hogan had the Midas touch for sure. But then he had the reverse might as touch remember he's the one that played a bowl in WCW going down the toilet and TNA going down the toilet
@@NickErrrr also quit a cherishing him for a brief moment that he was in his prime when if the booking wasn't so lazy they could have pushed someone more talented to make a difference but they were too lazy to innovate and build someone up
@@rolandobaluja7504 I’m not even a Hogan mark but to say him and Russo killed that company is ludicrous…Russo was the only shot that show had at making it into the new millennium…nobody wanted to watch WCWnWo anymore it was boring
@@NickErrrr do you notice all the horrible ideas were so hard not to mention the fact that he played more stereotypes than Vince McMahon. Russo contributed to the downfall of the company in so many different levels his association with the company was so toxic that one TNA had worked with them they lost their TV deal when the TV company found out
And that Nash blood spot, the first one was absolutely blatantly Nash deliberately not standing in the right place.
There's a great video of Paul Heyman predicting WCW's downfall in '95. Short explanation: The bookers let the workers run the company.
nah if that was always true then HHH would have destroyed WWE already
@@LegendKingY2jthe difference is that in WCW you had way more workers doing the booking than in WWE. Too many people trying to steer the ship to their best interests.
@@achromatic1 yup, that concept applied in WCW at that time specifically, letting Hogan practically keep the company hostage lol
This makes me wonder why the WWE never did a WCW One Night Stand.
I was watching at the time, and thought the thing with David Arquette was hilarious. And it made sense as a short-lived tie-in to promote the WCW movie, Ready to Rumble.
Thematically, I don't see it as much different than WWE's current habit of having non-wrestlers like Bad Bunny or Snoop Dogg beating clean in the ring former title holders. Except no movie tie-in for those.
What I hate is how guys like Brock Lesnar never work tv and show up every PPV with a title shot.
Celebs can win a match. But never a title.
To be more precise, Arquette winning the title on a total fluke wasn't so bad. What made it awful is that he actually successfully defended it a couple of times.
Did he? I recall him giving up the belt on monday. maybe I'm misremembering
@@hinro Well, I remember for sure that he defended it against Tank Abbott, but I think there were one or two others.
@@hinro
I didn't remember how many days,
just that Arquette lost it to Jarret at the next PPV. So I looked it up, and according to Wikipedia, David had it for 12 days.
Which is ridiculous considering DDP lost it 1/2 days after winning it. The Thunder aired on weds but was tapped on tues.
@@CurlyFromTheSwirly damn you aren't wrong that is ridiculous.
@@hinro
WCW totally did DDP dirty.
(I guess WWF did too.)
Bash at the Beach 2000 had to happen, Russo was 100% correct about Hogan. Hogan wouldn't play ball in any respect, Starrcade 97 is a Prime Example of this, I don't care what kind of Shape Sting was in, Physically, Mental, or otherwise, you don't through a year and a half of build up down the drain and not have Sting win Clean! Furthurmore having Bret Hart as Special Ref was STUPID in every respect!
the finger poke was absolutely BS. waste my whole night just to stay up watching that match.
the blood botches were hilarious
Vince Russo was the gravedigger of WCW. The end of WCW is still sad to this day.
I was there the first time the blood missed Nash. Got all over the first two rows, me included. To say I was mad was an understatement.
You know it was bad when David Arquette was only #4
RIP Scott Hall
Hah, I was at Bash at the Beach 2000. And yeah... it really was that bad. Nearly everyone in attendance absolutely hated the event and walked away very disappointed. By that time, I was already firmly in the pro-WWE camp, but still watched WCW as well. After BATB 2000, I was more or less done with WCW and it seemed obvious to most fans that the company was about to die. Sad to say, but the demise of WCW (and ECW) also led to the demise of WWE for me since it accelerated the end of the Attitude Era and a return to the softcore WWE I hated.
I maintain that the "red liquid" incidents was just Nash refusing to take it so he didn't ruin his immaculate hair. Once, yeah, that's a botch. But twice? Maybe he convinced everyone that it was a botch.
What was the point of the "blood" in the first place?
I remember watching the Halloween Havoc 98 PPV and thinking it won't get any worse. Overall, they have had a good year. Couple of months later, I watched the finger poke of doom as it transpired and knowing right, that's IT for WCW.
I take it you never watched Starrcade '98? Because that was an all-time worst PPV card saved by one match. The first Nitro of '99 was a superior show.
@@quentinkaasa47 Yeah, I did watch it. I almost forgot about it. Thanks, d-hole lol. Jk bro. You might actually be right there. Hard to say 😅
Only because they cut the DDP Goldberg match out of the actual PPV lol
@@CursedLemon Nope. The whole show was just not that impressive. Major letdown all around.
Yeah, the main event also pissed me off. But that's just one thing.
I don't think Havoc 98 was the worst PPV, but it was a major miss that I don't think WCW recovered from. Not having Goldberg drop the belt to DDP was major mistake. DDP was red hot and Goldberg's steak was already Stale. They could have ran with DDP easily into the new year. Of course this asusmes they wouldn't find another way to screw it up.
WCW became uninteresting once Vince Russo was hired and plus the New World order was adding way too many members hijacking every segment that I can remember I was done.
The NWO bloat was Bischoff's fault. He's the one who built the whole company around them and kept the story going long past its expiration date.
Um, that nWo was way over by this point.
The finger poke of doom and reunions of the 2 factions, along with Hogan turning face again ended the original nWo.
@@CurlyFromTheSwirly yeah pretty much
Say what you want about Russo (and there's a lot bad to say), but I LOVED IT when he cut that promo on Hogan at Bash at the Beach lol.
Ok disrespecting JR like that is crazy. JR and Jerry the king best commentator duo ever! I miss those days.
That blood falling was just hilarious
I was done with WCW when they broke up Outsiders at the Slamboree PPV (I think it was Slamboree). I was there in attendance. As far as I was concerned the Monday Night Wars was over and WWF won.