I always preferred WCW over WWF/E, but 80s WWF had iconic gimmicks and characters. I don't think early-mid 90s WCW was as bad as New Generation era WWF. It's when Hogan came on board WCW around 1994 that things quickly changed--for better and for worse. The whole Dungeon of Doom/Paul Wight as the son of Andre the Giant thing I'd rather forget. And the Yeti.
I agree. Imagine starting a company and the executives wanting it to fail from the beginning? Hogans creative control certainly didn’t do help with story telling, but to claim it was Bischoff alone who killed the promotion is completely wrong. Yes the creative sucked at the end, but that wasn’t the only factor in WCW ending.
In my opinion, the wheels started to fall off WCW when Hogan dismantled the finish to Starrcade ‘97. I pity Bischoff because to this day he’s still delusional in making excuses for Hogan’s decisions. Bret Hart said it best, “Hogan was the puppet master and Bischoff was just a prop.”
If one thing has proven true it's that a promoter will go the extra mile for Hogan, Bishoff, Vince, & Inoki all caved into Hogan. The only person who didn't was Gagne. Can't blame him Hogan can sell anything, when he more than likely told Bishoff it would keep the cash cow going changing the finish to Starrcade, I doubt he could say no to that. Initially he was right, it wasn't immediate people started turning on WCW.
I'm always baffled by the knock that sting had no tan, and he didn't seem excited about the opportunity. That's was the gimmick!!! He was supposed to be alouf, a loner that doesn't know who to trust because those he trusted didn't trust him. He was wearing a trenchcoat, the nationwide symbol of loner. He was in the ceiling where it was dark and lonely. What about that gimmick says go hang out in the sun and get a tan
Sting showed up out of shape and listless, because of his personal problems at the time, which meant the semi-squash that was obviously planned wouldn't work for Hogan since he's not getting get jobbed out to someone unimpressive. They had an awful backup plan but the original plan was legitimately screwed up by Sting.
I went into Hulk's shop in Orlando and bought some Piper stuff he was selling, and Hogan asked me, "no Hulkster stuff brother?" I responded with, I was never a fan of yours, no offense, Bret, Piper, Mick Foley, X-Pac and CM Punk are my favorites. He had a difficult time hearing that from me. I'm not a fan of Warrior but I watched that video on Warrior saying "there was no room for anyone else for the fans to enjoy and get behind, in the mind of Terry except for Hulk Hogan" Warrior was a bigot but he wasn't lying about Hogan, wasn't lying about Nash either. Two things can be true at the same time. Hogan wasn't wrong about Macho Man and the way he treated Elizabeth and she went from one toxic relationship with Randy to another one with Luger.
wow, you sound like a demented lunatic. you are NO wrestling fan. cm punk and xpac? lol good grief dude hogan is the greatest wrestler of all time. flair is 2nd. bret is 3rd. "they live" is my fav movie all time. piper was amazing in that as himself
@@keeganhurley119 TBF Bret deserves it and more. He is a wrestling legend while Hogan was a Superstar but could not Wrestle without a hype machine in either Fed. When even Bischoff said they dropped the ball with him it tells a lot more than what's presented.
He got the contract didn't he? All things considered, whoever signed off on it (and the "favored nations" clause) probably should shoulder the blame for that one. But I get your point.
I will maintain forever that the finger poke of doom killed WCW. It was the moment when the performers and writers looked straight into the audience and said "Fuck what you want to see, Hogan is ALWAYS going to go over."
they were still getting high ratings after that incident. Like you i thought the same until i started watching RTW by wrestlingbios. Not gonna lie the series made me realize that the original nwo with Hogan, Hall, and nash was hot for 3 weeks maybe even a month, until they started adding people every second
@@Highly3666yes they were still getting high ratings but I would say that unofficially the decline started at Starrcade a year earlier with the sting/hogan match
@@Highly3666 everything that came after the fingerpoke of doom was doo doo dog water, so they aren't technically wrong. We get such masterpieces as David Flair as US champion, Ric Flair in a mental institution, Sid powerbombing everyone in the lower card, roided up Randy Savage, etc...
I didn’t really understand how nash was that big of a role. But here easy e say I had no choice but to give Kevin nash booking duties then hearing nash shortly after say a lot of mistakes were mad the check stayed the same was blasphemous
Seriously. He really exudes not giving a crap about wrestling, and only about "my checks". He had zero incentive to book a good wrestling product. He was a professional partier.
People can point to Hogan, but imo Nash is the GOAT wrestling room politicker. You also really get the sense from his podcast and this show that he 100% has basically no regrets or guilt over WCW dying. And why should he? WWE kept paying him.
Ep. 1 - Eric's great and how Hogan buried Sting. Ep. 2 - How they buried Goldberg, how they ruined Bret Hart and Eric's still great.. feat. Kevin Nash.
Goldberg got buried?!? Goldberg was an untouchable who could do no wrong as he was potatoing people and ending careers all the while punching out a car window that put him on the shelf for an extended period of time.
To be fair, Bischoff admitted that he did things wrong. He takes responsibility for a lot of it. That's what occurred to me most while watching episode 4...Russo really arguing like he never did anything wrong. He has no regrets. Lol. It's because HE DIDN'T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT WRESTLING. "I'd do it all again." We know...that's why no one likes you
To be fair, Sting himself has said, at least mentally he wasn’t in a good space, because he was dealing with substance abuse issues, and his marriage was falling apart
@@JamesJohnson-tr1gu 90% of the roster had substance abuse issues at that time. Using that against a guy you don't want to job to is low, even for Hogan.
@@rdrouynrivwho used that? STING SAID IT HIMSELF, the narrative of always blaming EVERYTHING on Hogan is getting old!! You’re literally watching Vids from Jim Cornette, we all know that dude isn’t holier than thou.
As much as I like Eric, after watching his podcasts for a year or two now it’s pretty obvious when Eric conveniently “forgets” important factors when giving his part 😂
@@antoineLebrane He has told four or five contradicting versions of the "Hogan joins the nWo" story over the years alone. Sometimes it was his idea, sometimes it was Hogan's. Sometimes he had to talk Hogan into it for hours, sometimes Hogan had already made up his mind before the meeting at his house. Bischoff lies like a rug. And when he can't come up with a lie fast enough, he pretends that he can't remember - or he arrogantly claims that the question is beneath him, because he was "concerned with the bigger issues" and didn't have time to bother with the day-to-day of the promotion, etc. ATM-Eric and Bret Hart have one thing in common: Both have never made a single mistake in their entire lives - and everything that went wrong in their lives was somebody else's fault. No exceptions. Just ask them, they'll tell ya!
Only thing that shocked me was hearing how they all supported Bischoff. We really didn’t know what he was fighting behind the scenes. Til now. He really was trying to do what was best for business. Taking that hiatus and giving Nash the control was his biggest mistake.
True it’s been talked about to death. But it still is crazy a company so big in 98 was gone in 3 years. Top it off it takes us back to a time when wrestling was everywhere
@@retepoteil I think that was part of it. WWF just took the TNN deal for way more money to be on way less homes and their ratings took a hit. WCW's business metrics dropped like a rock for over two years. A corporate executive reading the tea leaves is thinking wrestling was a fad and it's on the way out.
@@jaredbellow I really haven’t watch wrestling in years but ppl to this day still talk about the Monday night war. Since then wwf has been playing catch up
@@retepoteil The fanbase they have now is so different, the business landscape, cable TV, everything. The business is hotter than ever but not the same to us. We know that the WWE made it now but it wasn't obvious in 2001. We had seen the WWF nearly go under before. 94-96 was ROUGH. They taped Raws in high school gyms. The WWF ratings plummeted in 2002 as well. There were many indicators of declining interest.
@@jaredbellow they ruined the invasion angle, rock went to Hollywood, Austin turned heel, HHH had an injury and there was a lot of die hard wcw fans. When wcw went under half the wrestling audience left and never came back
The 4 things that killed WCW all revolved around Hogan. 1. Starrcade 97- Hogan didnt want to loose clean to Sting 2. Hogan winning World Title with fingerpoke of doom 3. Bash at the Beach 2000, Hogan pinning Jarrett for the World Title 4. Eric being starstruck and wanting to be Hogans best friend. So Hogans ego was the main reason WCW died. Just my opinion.
Halloween Havoc 98 where Hogan had to get his Wrestlemania win from Warrior and the match sucked and went long and made the PPV go over the time allotment sop cable companies started dropping the feed on the main event that people PAID to see. and they had to air the match on Nitro the next night is up there on the list to
Bischoff has taken responsibility for several things that went wrong in both WCW and TnA. Including the Starcade 97 fiasco, even though people (rightly) blame that on Hogan.
@@sirtoby4939 he can’t admit that Brian pillman worked him into releasing him for some weird reason , couldn’t admit he screwed sting just for not having a tan and admitting hogan pulled strings, and couldn’t admit he fumbled bret hart, he just blames Bret.
@@masterairhart If you are going to talk about wrestler's working to get released Pillman was nothing compared to Angle getting Vince to release him. Bischoff has said multiple times Hogan was the one that changed the match, he's said he agreed with it which he takes the heat for but Hogan was the one that made the call. As far as Bret goes anyone that was watching saw that it wasn't the same Bret Hart. Montreal and then especially Owen's death changed him and he was a shell of the man he was in WWF. You want to hear someone blame everyone but themselves just listen to Bret talk about anything, he has never taken responsibility for any of the wrong turns in his career. It was always Vince or Shawn or Goldberg or Bischoff or Hogan or whomever.
Hulk Hogan has done as much to hurt the wrestling industry as he has done to help it. Maybe even more. The fact that Hogan could not do for Sting, WCW & the wrestling industry at Starrcade 1997 what Andre the Giant did for Hogan, the WWF & the wrestling industry at WrestleMania 3 just a list over 10 years earlier says all you need to know about Terry Bollea (Hulk Hogan) and who he truly is as a person. The fact that Hogan can't make that connection is mind blowing to me. To this day Hogan says that he was worried Andre wasn't going to "do the honors" at WrestleMania 3. Just goes to show how out of touch with reality that Hogan was already becoming in 87 to think that about Andre when *EVERYONE ELSE* knew Andre would do the right thing for the wrestling industry as he always had. Hogan's ego, selfishness, insecurity & delusional way of thinking was one of the biggest parts of WCW imploding.
While I don't disagree others have also said that no one was sure Andre would put Hogan over, to be fair it was because Hogan made him mad, and that Andrea himself didn't confirm that he would do the job until right before it started.
The Jump The Shark moment for WCW was definitely the Fingerpoke of Doom. If you remember the actual time Fonzie jumped the shark, anyway. It's meant to be the point where you know the show is headed down. And WCW did good numbers afterwards but was steadily trending downwards from that point.
I like to picture an alternate universe where he didn’t trip. What was the plan there? Was he going to wrestle like that? Was his face going to be bedazzled as well?
Starcade 97 finish was them hitting the iceberg, the Goldberg loss was them taking on water, and the finger poke of doom was the ship snapping in half while sinking. 🚢
In all fairness, Nash has always been open about his limitations in the ring, and was specifically talking about Goldberg knocking the shit out of everyone lol Nash may not have the best workrate, but he wasn't hurting guys and the stuff he did at least looked good and made sense for him.
The bookings at Starcade was where you knew it was going to go down the shitter. Dropping the ball on the finish for Sting and Brets debut in one night just showed Bischoff didn't have a fucking clue
No you know where it really started going downhill not knowing how to end a pay-per-view on time like Halloween havoc between diamond Dallas Page and Goldberg but yet have the audacity to show a horrible match like the ultimate warrior versus hulk Hogan rematch
The Starcade 97 finish and the subsequent wet fart that was the Scott Hall “feud” afterwards was the moment kids quit watching WCW. 8 year old me felt weirded out by the whole thing.
Learning that sting didn't come out with the title the next day is what killed it for me. Like what's the point? Hogan's best years were 20 years ago and sting can still perform with anyone... Hogan losing was not going to endanger the NWO or his popularity, so what the hell is the point?
@@shindean They "held the title in the air" at that Nitro because of the shoddy finish. Sting came out with it, and then had to hand it to Commissioner JJ Dillon. I immediately changed the channel and never looked back.
@@Bask3tChase I honestly thought until this moment that that was a fever dream🤣 I remember Kane having a title simply because they let him hold it for 2 hours
Thinking about it how do you do a match like that though. Sting for the entire year ran through the entire NWO just about every week and Hogan was scared to death to face him. Hogan even tapped out to Lex Luger several times throughout the year. If Hogan doesn't get destroyed then it makes Sting and the entire NWO roster that took bumps for Sting look really weak, but if Sting runs over Hogan with no give where does Hogan go from there? It's kind of the Glacier effect. There is no way to top the entrance. In this case, there was no way to top the angle that had been going on for a year. Hogan eventually found a way to do something without having the belt, but it seems like his gimmick whether heel or babyface needs the title to draw money. From that perspective that match was screwed no matter what.
@freebachelor5060 it was screwed because they cut their own legs off by not committing, Hogan isn't a victim of his success, that title has achieved more before he came along
Pretty much all of them killed WCW Eric Bischoff: got too big headed over beating Raw and couldn't keep the momentum. Hulk Hogan: Did what was best for himself more than for the good of WCW. nWo: Got way too bloated in members and diluted it. Vince Russo: What worked in 1998 absolutely did not work in 1999 and 2000 and even then he had McMahon and co to tweak the ideas into something better. Time Warner and AOL merger: reduced Ted Turner's influence and power over WCW.
Even if Russo had good creative for an Attitude style product (he didn't), it wasn't what WCW fans wanted. They liked it different, if they wanted Attitude it was on USA Network.
Here is what killed WCW. They had on their roster Undertaker, Steve Austin, Steven Regal, Chris Jericho, Rey Mysterio, Eddie Gurrero, Jim Cornette. And they let them all go in favor of Of Hogan and friends.
The fact that you had execs who in spite of the money WCW was making from 96-98 was actively trying to kill it tells me WCW could never have beaten WWF.
@@andrewclayterman6230 maybe. These guys were also making major money in their divisions so it’s a coin flip on who he believes. Bischoff who he’s heard about for 3-4 years or his execs he’s known for 10+ years.
@@andrewclayterman6230 Not sure if you are familiar with the corporate world but you don't just go to the owner and tell him his top level people are screwing part of the company over. Also WCW was making money but nothing compared to some of the other divisions that these executives were over and they dealt with Turner everyday vs Bischoff who saw him once in awhile. The only reason Turner backed Bischoff like he did was because he liked wrestling from growing up and had a long standing feud with Vince but it was never the bread and butter of Turner broadcasting.
Ted Turner temporarily brought back a few of his old fancies in the 90s from Our Gang Shorts and Three Stooges Full Length Movies to Southern Wrasslin but it was only temporary.
I'm particularly interested in Brad Siegel's perspective here. We've heard the rest of the talking heads and their reasons before, but never Brad until now.
He really doesn't seem like a bad boss or an obsessive hater. I can see the way he presents himself definitely comes off...heelish, but he looks about the way a guy who created TCM and classic film era AMC (cable channel) would look. He really doesn't seem so bad. His biggest gripe is how much the wrestlers lied and conned in a show where they are still lying and conning many years later.
All of this is in the Book that Guy Evans who's in the series wrote. This series seems to be based on the work he did in his book. I'd recommend the book for more details from the Turner side.
Damn, Travis did it again! That's one of the most GOAT'd depictions of the two. Regardless of the dumb suits in Turner with their anti Pro Rasslin, WCW's failure was a whole lot of cause and effect. Mickey Mouse over there signed a check that he knew he couldn't cash, got that Goofy-assed roid-head a contract with Creative Control, and that pretty much sealed the deal for WCW in the long run. Turner would've reluctantly had to keep WCW if it was good and keeping good ratings, but creatively they pretty much kneecapped themselves by having a setup where Hogan's goofy-ass ran wild, brother. Pretty much caused all the other issues that led to it's death. But imho, Eric and the deal he cut with Hogan was really the catalyst of the whole thing.
@@chrischar9428 It’s not like Sting showed up looking like Shamus. lol And this “tan looks better on tv” thing has warped peoples minds to the point they now come out orange lol. Dracula looks cooler on tv than an Oompa Loompa ever will 😂
What killed WCW was Eric Bischoff joining the NWO and becoming an on air character and being way too cocky and focused on the group, overbooking them rather than establishing talents like Eddie Guerrero and Jericho which lead them to jump to WWE . I mean look what happened when He and Hogan went to TNA.
He and Hogan never made a single hot angle or positive business impact in TNA and left that promotion in flaming ruins to get canceled and people do mental gymnastics to excuse them for that too. It was those damn dirty wrestling hating suits there too, right?
I agree with Brian the NWO has absolutely a game changer as was Nitro which changed the format of television wrestling. No more squash matches, live every week, backstage segments, etc. Jim is stuck in that carny mentality that he really can’t see the forest for the trees at times.
For the first time in awhile the NWO brought a feeling of believability to the product. The funny part for me is you still had stuff like Glacier and his MK ninja feud with Wrath and Mortis going on at the same time.
The problem was they never knew when to do the payoff. Time and time again the stage was set and every damn time they refused to let anybody else get over. That's half the reason the NWO got so stupidly bloated later on because being in on it was the only chance you had to not get walked over. Yeah, it was a big spark at the start but part of it was all the non-wwf fans thinking they were finally going to get to see Hogan as a heel finally have to lose once in a while. They had something great going and got their heads so far up their own asses they blew it in record time.
Short term, as a fan, it was amazing to get so much for free. Long term, you burned through all your attractions to sell tickets and pay per views. The jobber matches could get tedious but they were done for a reason. Getting every big match and angle free eventually becomes like a diet of nothing but cookies and ice cream.
@@jaredbellow I think that’s fair but just like the guaranteed contracts (and without the guaranteed contracts there’s no way that WCW signs Hogan, Hall, Nash, Piper, Savage, etc.) it was a necessary evil. If Bischoff didn’t find a way to hotshot Nitro and get eyeballs on the product there’s no way that WCW has 83 weeks of beating Vince. If Nitro was just a traditional wrestling show it would have flopped and Bischoff would have been fired. History would have been much different that’s for sure.
@@Narrate918 Guaranteeing the contract money is fine. Creative control for Hogan was a major problem. Wrestlers were cheap for the value proposition they offered and promoters weren't going to con them forever. The new contracts we are hearing about like Reigns, MJF, and Okada are like real pro sports money. That may actually be a problem. WCW was a great show. The nWo changed the business. And from 1999 onward you could hear a loud sucking sound emanating from Atlanta until it became a death rattle in March 2001. It fires people up because they had something special and blew it spectacularly.
Kevin Sullivan doesn’t get enough credit for how well he booked the WCW under & mid card, which made WCW worth watching, even if the main events were poor.
Hogan's outrageous contract was a Bischoff creation, and it would continue to undercut WCW. There was no mention of the terrible Piper and Warrior matches where they were clearly sucking wind after 5 minutes
WCW was doing fine in 1994. They probably were headed for a no losses year at a minimum if they didn't take Hogan on. They didn't need him and he had way less leverage than they let him take. They made a deal with the devil and it went the way I'd expect.
@JeremyKasperson I absolutely agree with you that the Hogan Piper match was pretty tough to watch but I went back and looked up the PPV buys for Piper vs Hogan and they were actually good. They were competitive with what WWF pay per view buys were at the time.
@@jaredbellow You are absolutely wrong. Ted Turner would've pulled the plug on WCW himself if it didn't make the kind of improvements he was expecting. They were losing too much money on WCW to justify keeping it around for very long. It may sound silly to say it now given how everything played out, but Bischoff did what he had to do: give the biggest name in wrestling whatever it took to sign him.
@@decepticonxhunter4850 It lost 20 million in 1993. They started a turnaround effort in earnest at Starrcade that year. Turner would not have even approved the layout for signing Hogan without the company having a half year of positive momentum. The buyrates doubled from 93 and TV ratings went way up. These are publicly available figures. Go look for yourself.
What about Vince Russo? It was Russo, the guys you mentioned along with not bringing up any new/young talent. Also, remember when they went to 3 hours live....? The first hour was just guys in the ring... talking. Boring. So boring.
TNT was great since you could get it for free here in the UK after Cartoon Network finished at 7pm and on Friday Nitro started, couldn’t afford sky sports
The finger poke was the spot that ruined everything- Goldberg’s streak was ruined, the Wolfpac was ruined, Wrath’s push was ruined, and the Radicalz exodus the WWE started happening. …and then they hired Russo 9 months later. Tan-dah.
Not putting Sting over clean as a sheet at Starrcade could not and cannot be justified. It was like the Wrestlemania feel-good that had been all but promised to the fans and then it was taken away. That one botch was so unbelievably costly. Many lost 'hope' that the good guy was going to win at any point. Hulk and Bischoff should be ashamed. They screwed Sting. They screwed Bret Hart. And they screwed the fans.
Yup, NWO had been beating down the roster for a year and a half straight, this had to be the time that WCW got a win. Plus, Sting had been single handedly handling the NWO when he'd run in on Nitro, but then he basically loses clean to Hogan? Jesus.
They had the largest pay per view audience they ever had for a show and didn't deliver to a paying crowd. Pretty costly thing to do. If it was your first time ordering a WCW ppv it was probably your last one too.
I'd call that fairly on point. Starrcade was the peak for their success. Highest buyrate for a PPV. They had picked up a major free agent in Bret and they were about to add a brand new weekly show in Thunder. It should have been the moment that brought them to the next level, instead it was the beginning of the end. From there, Vince brought in Tyson who gave the WWF the mainstream attention to give Austin enough a rub to bring WWF into their hottest business period since Hogan's prime.
What killed WCW was the fact they took a whole year to build The Sting vs Hogan match, and Hogan didn't want to put Sting over cleanly. BTW for those calling bs on it look at what that starcade went up against that year Mania 14 Arguably the begging of The Austin Attitude title run
Listening to Eric defending Hulk Hogan's decision to change the finish, is astounding. Even if they wanted to go in a different direction, doesn't excuse Hogan telling Nick Patrick to slow down the count. Just inexcusable stupidity.
"The NWO did not discover the polio vaccine." I still remember with great fondness the moment when Dr. Salk dropped the big leg on polio at Bash at the Beach.
^^^^^^^^^^ THIS. They lost the trust of the fans and didn't respect our intelligence; they could never could win it back. Most of that was due to screwjob endings to important stories because of Hogan's creative control. Any other reason is bunk.
The following people/events were responsible for the downfall of WCW (in no particular order): 1. AOL/Time Warner Merger 2. Eric Bischoff 3. Vince Russo 4. Bill Busch 5. Brad Siegel 6. Jamie Kellner 7. Hulk Hogan 8. Kevin Nash 9. Fingerpoke of Doom 10. David Arquette’s Title Win 11. Starrcade ‘97 Main Event It would be unfair and short-sighted to point the blame at any one single event or person because the fall took place over such a prolonged period of time. It’s not like it happened overnight and you could point to one person or thing that caused it.
He's probably as bored with it as some of us are. Like they've never been in the same state at the same time but Brian acts like The Rock sabotages the bus his kids go to school on every day. It's fuckin weird at this point.
Because Jim is smart, if Rock lawyers serves Brian Last for defamation, it non of Jim business since Brian was doing it on show. Not even Stephen P New can save him.. Plus Jim doesn't want to ruined his friendship with Dwayne and lowering himself and joining a childish spat with Brian over Rock
@@jaredbellow you couldn't even recreate the vibe today if you wanted to. Most people would just watch one show live and then watch a recording of the other show afterward.
@@JimmyNotes It's not even written to be watched that way. They basically live off those TV rights and hope a lot of people watch the RUclips clips and talk about them. Way different businesses, spot on. You can watch a 3 hr Raw in about 45 minutes to an hour if you fast forward the uninteresting junk. The pacing was way different back then, something was happening on Raw every second.
@@JimmyNotes Yeah I feel sorry for fans who had to start watching after the Attitude boom because they were born too late. Even the "dark days" of 92-96 when I started watching was so much fun to grow up with. 95 was maybe a little rough, but it was still something to get invested in.
If these guys still lie and backstab over this decades after it matters imagine what the environment was like when it was going on. I think a lot of the WWE's problems Invasion onwards was WCW staff and talent came in, in significant numbers, and brought the dysfunctional company culture with them.
You know why the finger poke destroyed WCW? Half the WCW crowd hated Goldberg and Hogan alike. My dad and my brother and I all loved Nash but after the finger poke there was no one to root for. We watched about a month after the finger poke only to see if the old white NWO would get built back up. Once we saw it was going nowhere we turned to WWF and never turned back.
Another one of the big problems was it didn't go anywhere. The idea that Nash would win the title on the biggest PPV for the company and just lay down for Hogan so they could reform the N.W.O. is one of those things that just doesn't really add up in terms of logic and just makes the belt seem rather pointless. There might have been a way to build this into a long term deal for Goldberg but it was just kind of not there. I don't even remember what the follow-up was other than at some point, Hulk randomly became a babyface anyway and ended up fighting Nash at Road Wild.
When TNT started making their own movies in the early 90’s, it definitely felt like they were trying to come off more snobby than they were. Whenever a cable station starts making their own movies like that, they get that attitude, and then poison their own station by over-airing their product over theatrical movies people actually want to see on the station and subsequently water down the movie market. We are seeing that today with streaming services.
I loved those 2am random World Wide shows. It was just mid carders destroying southern style jobbers and then WWF would have a random late night show featuring mid carders destroying North East style jobbers
WCW's biggest mistake is allowing the talent to book. Everybody that did book could have cared less about what the fans wanted, or worry about the story to make scense. It was all about getting themselves and friends over. Hulk and Flair, in my opinion, were highly over paid and did little to help the younger talent.
They kind of skipped over the Herd period a bit too much imho. As a lot of damage was done there. Do love we are getting more insights from the executives.
If their friends it’s understandable but as something as high profile as this is being covered in a doc it just makes him look delusional that he can’t call a spade a spade, you can be friends with someone but still call out their shit that happened in the past, if you can’t then what kind of friendship is that
Not that its surprising Jim could see it, but everyone sees the hulk-sting-eric Starrcade scenario the exact same way with Hulk looking out for Hulk. Though whether its to protect his friendship to hulk, or feels acknowledging shows he let hulk control him an makes others claims he didnt know what to do and let hulk run things true, Eric refuses to just say it. He finally hinted at in this doc, but wont say, yeah, it was a short term boost to give hulk all the control, but long term his self preservation damaged wcw. When Jericho tells his Goldberg story, he says was surprised cause hulk was in the room deciding things with eric on it.
That Starrcade '97 finish was lunacy even before the botch. Bischoff should have chosen that as a hill to die on and laid down the law to Hogan: "I'll have run-ins to protect you somewhat but at the end Sting is going over, no questions asked. If you refuse, I'll have JJ tell the audience you chickened out and award Sting the title, any heat will just have to be ridden out."
Problem is Hogan had refusal to do jobs essentially codified in his contract. They made an AWFUL deal with him when he had nowhere else to go. He was too expensive and too much baggage to go back to the WWF, the movie career didn't work, and he needs a TV platform to get advertising gigs and all the other ways he made a buck. Hulk got handled like he had leverage that he didn't. Jerry McDevitt would have laughed at those terms and tore the contract up. And Hogan sued and won over an incident like this. Deal with the devil, he handcuffed them to him.
@@freebachelor5060 Even with WCW's support it only got one season in 1994. It didn't even sell overseas. They edited footage from some episodes into a straight to video movie.
@@eamonwright7488nothing wrong with criticizing someone, especially The Rock. But Brian just comes off like a bitter IWC mark. Jim is entertaining when he attacks people, while Brian just sounds like a jealous nerd.
its one thing when you criticise someone, it's another when you keep doing it at given chance despite it NONE of Rock businesses. It clear as day Brian Last using his free time to find any dirt on Dwayne so he can use to criticise him even if Dwayne was not involved. And he has the guts to ask "why people calling him out for the Dwayne hate and kept insisting he is shitting on goody goodshoe Dwayne" that anger people Take this show for example, he can't resist himself from criticising Dwayne when the show credit Dwayne and his production company for the production when Dwayne was clearly not even the executive producer. It's the darkside guy. That Brian Last meltdown rant would be so good when Brian say something false about Dwayne and gets serve a lawsuits for defamation
I get why the title was Who killed WCW but there was no single who. It was death by a thousand cuts. So much bad management and poor decisions over the course of a decade and a half, it only posted a profit 2 of the years Turner owned it, and forget the fingerpoke of death the real sign it was headed down the chute was when the company gave away Hogan v Goldberg. The biggest match they could possibly have, arguably the biggest match pro-wrestling in general could have had that year, was put on free TV with only four days build. I still can't believe they did that.
couldn’t even give it to bret hogan living off 80s fame should have been putting certain people over and also winning this mf is a mark for himself the weakest move set i’ve ever seen should not have beat all them people
![Twenty One Pilots - The Line (from Arcane Season 2) [Official Audio]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/XCz7WUotXs8/mqdefault.jpg)
Asking who killed WCW is like asking who killed Julius Caesar. Everybody had a role in its downfall.
but they try to put it all on eric
And just like politicians from then to now they all blame each other 🤷🏿♂️‼️
@@antoineLebrane Eric was gone when it really started goin south,correct? Or at least gone as far as booking was going.
@@antonlifer4449he actually came back during the Russo era.
@@antonlifer4449 yes he was
90's WCW was not a wrestling promotion. It was a 401K plan for Hulk Hogan.
Didn't Linda get most of that in the divorce necessitating the begging for Gawker money?
@@AAAA-lt9hqWCW became Linda Hogan
I always preferred WCW over WWF/E, but 80s WWF had iconic gimmicks and characters.
I don't think early-mid 90s WCW was as bad as New Generation era WWF.
It's when Hogan came on board WCW around 1994 that things quickly changed--for better and for worse.
The whole Dungeon of Doom/Paul Wight as the son of Andre the Giant thing I'd rather forget. And the Yeti.
You nailed it.
I agree. Imagine starting a company and the executives wanting it to fail from the beginning? Hogans creative control certainly didn’t do help with story telling, but to claim it was Bischoff alone who killed the promotion is completely wrong. Yes the creative sucked at the end, but that wasn’t the only factor in WCW ending.
In my opinion, the wheels started to fall off WCW when Hogan dismantled the finish to Starrcade ‘97. I pity Bischoff because to this day he’s still delusional in making excuses for Hogan’s decisions. Bret Hart said it best, “Hogan was the puppet master and Bischoff was just a prop.”
I misread that as "and Bischoff was just a poop", and still don't think you were wrong :D
If one thing has proven true it's that a promoter will go the extra mile for Hogan, Bishoff, Vince, & Inoki all caved into Hogan. The only person who didn't was Gagne. Can't blame him Hogan can sell anything, when he more than likely told Bishoff it would keep the cash cow going changing the finish to Starrcade, I doubt he could say no to that. Initially he was right, it wasn't immediate people started turning on WCW.
You can't trust what Bret says. The problem with Bret Hart is that he 100% believes what he says even when shown evidence to the contrary.
@@socipathicgaming5914yeah but then see what Hogan and Bischoff did on TNA too...
Imagine if Hulk Hogan was in a Puppet Master movie
I'm always baffled by the knock that sting had no tan, and he didn't seem excited about the opportunity. That's was the gimmick!!! He was supposed to be alouf, a loner that doesn't know who to trust because those he trusted didn't trust him. He was wearing a trenchcoat, the nationwide symbol of loner. He was in the ceiling where it was dark and lonely. What about that gimmick says go hang out in the sun and get a tan
I know! It's so absurd. That made me flip out that they still justify it that way.
Makes him look pale and sickly. Not like a guy going for revenge
I dont think he was excited cuz he knew Hogan would pull something and it ended up happening
I'm not the biggest Conrad Thompson fan but my favorite wrestling podcast ever is the one where he tears into Bischoff over the Sting tan crap
Sting showed up out of shape and listless, because of his personal problems at the time, which meant the semi-squash that was obviously planned wouldn't work for Hogan since he's not getting get jobbed out to someone unimpressive. They had an awful backup plan but the original plan was legitimately screwed up by Sting.
Letting the show become "The nWo and friends show" by 1998.
Kind of sad that the Clique ruined WWF then transferred over to WCW so they infected two promotions.
Definitely played a part in it.
And let it absolutely bury their babyfaces
@@LunsJail Completely, it just took all the energy out of the company. They buried the Horseman like damn...
It was absolutely ridiculous. 90% of the roster was a member of an NWO faction. This certainly killed my interest.
Correction Corny: Hogan turned to everyone and said "That don't work for me brother....."
😂😂😂😂 i said that too
I went into Hulk's shop in Orlando and bought some Piper stuff he was selling, and Hogan asked me, "no Hulkster stuff brother?" I responded with, I was never a fan of yours, no offense, Bret, Piper, Mick Foley, X-Pac and CM Punk are my favorites. He had a difficult time hearing that from me. I'm not a fan of Warrior but I watched that video on Warrior saying "there was no room for anyone else for the fans to enjoy and get behind, in the mind of Terry except for Hulk Hogan" Warrior was a bigot but he wasn't lying about Hogan, wasn't lying about Nash either. Two things can be true at the same time. Hogan wasn't wrong about Macho Man and the way he treated Elizabeth and she went from one toxic relationship with Randy to another one with Luger.
NWO and Hogan should’ve ended in 97.
wow, you sound like a demented lunatic.
you are NO wrestling fan. cm punk and xpac? lol good grief dude
hogan is the greatest wrestler of all time. flair is 2nd. bret is 3rd.
"they live" is my fav movie all time. piper was amazing in that as himself
@@Derek-j4ycorrect. Should’ve ended when Sting was supposed to beat Hogan CLEANLY. But Terry being Terry…
Who killed WCW?
That Doesn't work for me brother....
Who Killed WCW is a collection of men and women saying it's everyone else's fault but mine and then Bret Hart saying "You're all a bunch of idiots."
Yeah cause Bret Hart is never at fault even though he demanded a contract higher then Hulk Hogan
@@keeganhurley119 TBF Bret deserves it and more. He is a wrestling legend while Hogan was a Superstar but could not Wrestle without a hype machine in either Fed. When even Bischoff said they dropped the ball with him it tells a lot more than what's presented.
He got the contract didn't he? All things considered, whoever signed off on it (and the "favored nations" clause) probably should shoulder the blame for that one. But I get your point.
@@Andres0082 he still played a hand in wiping WCW financially. Idc what he deserves.
Who'd you steal that from?
Not pushing La Parka to the main event scene is what caused the death of WCW.
YEAH!
That and their continual doubting of El Dandy
@@RagnarokB
El Dandy was a real jam up guy
Not pushing Alex Wright or Berlyn to the main event scene caused the steep decline of WCW.
@@roccojamison89gooker51 Not putting those two in a match against each other was a huge missed opportunity…
Who Killed WCW?
"It's me, Austin! I was me all along, Austin!"
😂👌🏻
So Russo's writing then?
It was Rikishi - "I did it for The Rock!"
I will maintain forever that the finger poke of doom killed WCW. It was the moment when the performers and writers looked straight into the audience and said "Fuck what you want to see, Hogan is ALWAYS going to go over."
they were still getting high ratings after that incident. Like you i thought the same until i started watching RTW by wrestlingbios. Not gonna lie the series made me realize that the original nwo with Hogan, Hall, and nash was hot for 3 weeks maybe even a month, until they started adding people every second
@@Highly3666yes they were still getting high ratings but I would say that unofficially the decline started at Starrcade a year earlier with the sting/hogan match
I agree, also Starrcade 97
"This will work for me brother."
@@Highly3666 everything that came after the fingerpoke of doom was doo doo dog water, so they aren't technically wrong. We get such masterpieces as David Flair as US champion, Ric Flair in a mental institution, Sid powerbombing everyone in the lower card, roided up Randy Savage, etc...
I don't think Kevin Nash gets enough credit for his efforts to kill WCW.
I didn’t really understand how nash was that big of a role. But here easy e say I had no choice but to give Kevin nash booking duties then hearing nash shortly after say a lot of mistakes were mad the check stayed the same was blasphemous
Seriously. He really exudes not giving a crap about wrestling, and only about "my checks". He had zero incentive to book a good wrestling product. He was a professional partier.
People can point to Hogan, but imo Nash is the GOAT wrestling room politicker. You also really get the sense from his podcast and this show that he 100% has basically no regrets or guilt over WCW dying. And why should he? WWE kept paying him.
@@johnnykarate_SweepLeg I mean, he's said numerous times he was only in the business for the money
@@jamesroot4958 Earn the most by doing the least work
Ep. 1 - Eric's great and how Hogan buried Sting.
Ep. 2 - How they buried Goldberg, how they ruined Bret Hart and Eric's still great.. feat. Kevin Nash.
Nash has already admitted he was high as a kite on a windy day at this point I think they were telling him what to say
@@fullweezy3553crazy how many wrestlers get fucked up before doing interviews.
Bury ? It was a cremation of a Championship match it made Bill looked like a Jobber..Bad booking bad finish
Goldberg got buried?!? Goldberg was an untouchable who could do no wrong as he was potatoing people and ending careers all the while punching out a car window that put him on the shelf for an extended period of time.
To be fair, Bischoff admitted that he did things wrong. He takes responsibility for a lot of it. That's what occurred to me most while watching episode 4...Russo really arguing like he never did anything wrong. He has no regrets. Lol. It's because HE DIDN'T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT WRESTLING. "I'd do it all again." We know...that's why no one likes you
I’m waiting for episode three with Russo for cornette to review, that will be the funny one
Ok bro
Parental control was at fault BRO
I can't wait for Russo to add syllables to every word
@@smarkslowplay3512 can’t say that because it was that way since August 1998, a whole year before Russo came
@@Dezert_Fox WR-EST - LING, EVE-RY- THING!!!
It’s hilarious that they still try and say Sting was out of shape and pale and such. You can watch the match. He looked great. 😂
To be fair, Sting himself has said, at least mentally he wasn’t in a good space, because he was dealing with substance abuse issues, and his marriage was falling apart
I think pale and out of shape is code for alcoholic and drug addict.
I think pale and out of shape is code for alcoholic and drug addict.
@@JamesJohnson-tr1gu 90% of the roster had substance abuse issues at that time. Using that against a guy you don't want to job to is low, even for Hogan.
@@rdrouynrivwho used that? STING SAID IT HIMSELF, the narrative of always blaming EVERYTHING on Hogan is getting old!! You’re literally watching Vids from Jim Cornette, we all know that dude isn’t holier than thou.
Bret Hart really summed up this show immediately, watching all these old liars talk is aggravating especially Bischoff
Bischoff is a liar? How?
@@mrnicemam8523nothing was his fault or Hogan's. In Eric's eyes.
@@mrnicemam8523 He's best friends with Hogan. There's a saying "birds of a feather flock together".
@@JohnKobaRuddyit wasn’t his fault bischoff is right
bro first of all dont get in the comments trying to paint a narrative bischoff has never lied about anything pertaining to how stuff at wcw went down
Will always remember fondly switching between Raw & Nitro.
Oh yea definitely 👍🏻 good times!
I went down with the sinking ship till the last nitro. Never watched wwf until the horrible invasion angle
It was a fun time!
Same. Also, Monday Night Football Sept.-Dec.
Will always fondly remember never watching the first hour of Nitro and then tuning into RAW is WAR.
As much as I like Eric, after watching his podcasts for a year or two now it’s pretty obvious when Eric conveniently “forgets” important factors when giving his part 😂
um sir thats a lie bischoff has spoke openly for yearsssss about everything thats in that documentary i dont know what youre talking about
@antoineLebrane pay attention. Watch Eric's podcasts some time when you get some free time
@@antoineLebrane He has told four or five contradicting versions of the "Hogan joins the nWo" story over the years alone. Sometimes it was his idea, sometimes it was Hogan's. Sometimes he had to talk Hogan into it for hours, sometimes Hogan had already made up his mind before the meeting at his house.
Bischoff lies like a rug. And when he can't come up with a lie fast enough, he pretends that he can't remember - or he arrogantly claims that the question is beneath him, because he was "concerned with the bigger issues" and didn't have time to bother with the day-to-day of the promotion, etc.
ATM-Eric and Bret Hart have one thing in common: Both have never made a single mistake in their entire lives - and everything that went wrong in their lives was somebody else's fault. No exceptions. Just ask them, they'll tell ya!
@@henrygvidonas9573 thank you🙏
He's fallen on every sword imaginable with WCW. Y'all just don't want to change
Jericho is the Modern Day Hogan , the Bucks are the Nasty Boys , Kenny is Missy Beefcake and Nakazawa is Brutus.
Does that mean Tony Khan is Jimmy Hart?
Everyone on that show just kept saying, "It's everyone else's fault but mine "
thats classic wrestler shit, no one takes credit for the flops but everyone takes credit for the successes
Only thing that shocked me was hearing how they all supported Bischoff. We really didn’t know what he was fighting behind the scenes. Til now. He really was trying to do what was best for business. Taking that hiatus and giving Nash the control was his biggest mistake.
@@JohnWicksmagazine Nash probably had the pencil in his hand about 3 seconds before he booked himself to end bill goldberg's streak
Goldberg was the only one who was right
@@slackererThanks to interference....and then he laid down for Hogan the next night.
This story has been told to death. However I do appreciate seeing turner execs and their perspective.
True it’s been talked about to death. But it still is crazy a company so big in 98 was gone in 3 years. Top it off it takes us back to a time when wrestling was everywhere
@@retepoteil I think that was part of it. WWF just took the TNN deal for way more money to be on way less homes and their ratings took a hit. WCW's business metrics dropped like a rock for over two years. A corporate executive reading the tea leaves is thinking wrestling was a fad and it's on the way out.
@@jaredbellow I really haven’t watch wrestling in years but ppl to this day still talk about the Monday night war. Since then wwf has been playing catch up
@@retepoteil The fanbase they have now is so different, the business landscape, cable TV, everything. The business is hotter than ever but not the same to us.
We know that the WWE made it now but it wasn't obvious in 2001. We had seen the WWF nearly go under before. 94-96 was ROUGH. They taped Raws in high school gyms.
The WWF ratings plummeted in 2002 as well. There were many indicators of declining interest.
@@jaredbellow they ruined the invasion angle, rock went to Hollywood, Austin turned heel, HHH had an injury and there was a lot of die hard wcw fans. When wcw went under half the wrestling audience left and never came back
The 4 things that killed WCW all revolved around Hogan.
1. Starrcade 97- Hogan didnt want to loose clean to Sting
2. Hogan winning World Title with fingerpoke of doom
3. Bash at the Beach 2000, Hogan pinning Jarrett for the World Title
4. Eric being starstruck and wanting to be Hogans best friend.
So Hogans ego was the main reason WCW died. Just my opinion.
Halloween Havoc 98 where Hogan had to get his Wrestlemania win from Warrior and the match sucked and went long and made the PPV go over the time allotment sop cable companies started dropping the feed on the main event that people PAID to see. and they had to air the match on Nitro the next night is up there on the list to
The Yet Tay
What about when David Arquette won the title?
@@americanbadass88That was the last ppv we bought for WCW. It was horrible and we were pissed.
Thank you! Everything revolves around Hogan
It’s ironic that bischoff is shitting on Tony for being exactly as clueless & as unable at accepting accountability as Eric’s been his whole career
Bischoff has taken responsibility for several things that went wrong in both WCW and TnA.
Including the Starcade 97 fiasco, even though people (rightly) blame that on Hogan.
@@sirtoby4939 he can’t admit that Brian pillman worked him into releasing him for some weird reason , couldn’t admit he screwed sting just for not having a tan and admitting hogan pulled strings, and couldn’t admit he fumbled bret hart, he just blames Bret.
@@masterairhart If you are going to talk about wrestler's working to get released Pillman was nothing compared to Angle getting Vince to release him. Bischoff has said multiple times Hogan was the one that changed the match, he's said he agreed with it which he takes the heat for but Hogan was the one that made the call. As far as Bret goes anyone that was watching saw that it wasn't the same Bret Hart. Montreal and then especially Owen's death changed him and he was a shell of the man he was in WWF. You want to hear someone blame everyone but themselves just listen to Bret talk about anything, he has never taken responsibility for any of the wrong turns in his career. It was always Vince or Shawn or Goldberg or Bischoff or Hogan or whomever.
Hindsight is 20/20
Z@@Maverick512000 Eric bischoff fanboys making excuses for him are pathetic
I was 100% wcw. That starcade confused the world out of me. I wasn't a "smart" fan. I just was like...what huh..and just lost intrest
It’s really just as simple as that
Hulk Hogan has done as much to hurt the wrestling industry as he has done to help it. Maybe even more.
The fact that Hogan could not do for Sting, WCW & the wrestling industry at Starrcade 1997 what Andre the Giant did for Hogan, the WWF & the wrestling industry at WrestleMania 3 just a list over 10 years earlier says all you need to know about Terry Bollea (Hulk Hogan) and who he truly is as a person.
The fact that Hogan can't make that connection is mind blowing to me.
To this day Hogan says that he was worried Andre wasn't going to "do the honors" at WrestleMania 3. Just goes to show how out of touch with reality that Hogan was already becoming in 87 to think that about Andre when *EVERYONE ELSE* knew Andre would do the right thing for the wrestling industry as he always had.
Hogan's ego, selfishness, insecurity & delusional way of thinking was one of the biggest parts of WCW imploding.
While I don't disagree others have also said that no one was sure Andre would put Hogan over, to be fair it was because Hogan made him mad, and that Andrea himself didn't confirm that he would do the job until right before it started.
Hogan only ever cared about Hogan, brother!
The Jump The Shark moment for WCW was definitely the Fingerpoke of Doom. If you remember the actual time Fonzie jumped the shark, anyway. It's meant to be the point where you know the show is headed down. And WCW did good numbers afterwards but was steadily trending downwards from that point.
Their jump the shark moment was actually the debut of The Shark.
Arquette?
Fonzie still wearing his leather jacket while jumping the shark.
Sharquette
Kevin Nash had the best line of this… “THANKS FOR THE CASH! 🎬”
The Shockmaster killed WCW! Sent by old Grinch McMahon himself.
No way; Shockmaster was WCWs biggest draw
😂 nowadays maybe but not then
Leave Uncle Fred out of this.
We never got the match between Shockmaster and Steve Blackman
I like to picture an alternate universe where he didn’t trip.
What was the plan there? Was he going to wrestle like that? Was his face going to be bedazzled as well?
Starcade 97 finish was them hitting the iceberg, the Goldberg loss was them taking on water, and the finger poke of doom was the ship snapping in half while sinking. 🚢
I almost fell out of my chair when Kevin Nash said that Goldberg didn't have any skill in pt 2. Talk about the pot calling the kettle
In all fairness, Nash has always been open about his limitations in the ring, and was specifically talking about Goldberg knocking the shit out of everyone lol Nash may not have the best workrate, but he wasn't hurting guys and the stuff he did at least looked good and made sense for him.
"Big Men" were never there for skill but rather to be a monster for the babyfaces to try to dragonslay.
@@MCastleberry1980This.
@@MCastleberry1980 Nash did have average carpentry skills.
I see what you did there...😅@@roccojamison89gooker51
Tony Schiavone spoiling Mick Foley's title win is what began the death of WCW.
I say it was adding 87 members to the nwo.
that entire nitro killed WCW cuz that was the same one that had the fingerpoke of doom lmao
did yall even watch the show?!🤦🏾♂️
Yep, its what started turning the ratings ultimately. Wasn't poor Schiavone's fault though, he was just saying what he was told to say.
it's was already going downhill before that
Starrcade 1997:
Arguably the best build ever.
Arguably the worst execution ever.
"It was me bischoff! It was me, all along ......
Brother..."
- Anonymous confession letter signed H.H.
AKA the original HHH
The bookings at Starcade was where you knew it was going to go down the shitter. Dropping the ball on the finish for Sting and Brets debut in one night just showed Bischoff didn't have a fucking clue
No you know where it really started going downhill not knowing how to end a pay-per-view on time like Halloween havoc between diamond Dallas Page and Goldberg but yet have the audacity to show a horrible match like the ultimate warrior versus hulk Hogan rematch
@GamerLegend.97 the fact that Hogan only got Warrior in, just to get his own back, speaks volumes about his ridiculous ego.
The curse of El Dandy killed it. Bret tried to tell em.
Who am I to doubt this hypothesis
Starcade '97 killed WCW for me. It was the first and only WCW PPV I had ever purchased and I stood there asking myself "wtf".
The Starcade 97 finish and the subsequent wet fart that was the Scott Hall “feud” afterwards was the moment kids quit watching WCW. 8 year old me felt weirded out by the whole thing.
Learning that sting didn't come out with the title the next day is what killed it for me. Like what's the point? Hogan's best years were 20 years ago and sting can still perform with anyone... Hogan losing was not going to endanger the NWO or his popularity, so what the hell is the point?
@@shindean They "held the title in the air" at that Nitro because of the shoddy finish. Sting came out with it, and then had to hand it to Commissioner JJ Dillon. I immediately changed the channel and never looked back.
@@Bask3tChase I honestly thought until this moment that that was a fever dream🤣 I remember Kane having a title simply because they let him hold it for 2 hours
Thinking about it how do you do a match like that though. Sting for the entire year ran through the entire NWO just about every week and Hogan was scared to death to face him. Hogan even tapped out to Lex Luger several times throughout the year. If Hogan doesn't get destroyed then it makes Sting and the entire NWO roster that took bumps for Sting look really weak, but if Sting runs over Hogan with no give where does Hogan go from there?
It's kind of the Glacier effect. There is no way to top the entrance. In this case, there was no way to top the angle that had been going on for a year. Hogan eventually found a way to do something without having the belt, but it seems like his gimmick whether heel or babyface needs the title to draw money. From that perspective that match was screwed no matter what.
@freebachelor5060 it was screwed because they cut their own legs off by not committing, Hogan isn't a victim of his success, that title has achieved more before he came along
Pretty much all of them killed WCW
Eric Bischoff: got too big headed over beating Raw and couldn't keep the momentum.
Hulk Hogan: Did what was best for himself more than for the good of WCW.
nWo: Got way too bloated in members and diluted it.
Vince Russo: What worked in 1998 absolutely did not work in 1999 and 2000 and even then he had McMahon and co to tweak the ideas into something better.
Time Warner and AOL merger: reduced Ted Turner's influence and power over WCW.
Even if Russo had good creative for an Attitude style product (he didn't), it wasn't what WCW fans wanted. They liked it different, if they wanted Attitude it was on USA Network.
Hogan built and destroyed WCW on the day he signed that ridiculous deal
1st Nail in The Coffin,when The Radicalz appeared on WWE TV🤣
Here is what killed WCW. They had on their roster Undertaker, Steve Austin, Steven Regal, Chris Jericho, Rey Mysterio, Eddie Gurrero, Jim Cornette. And they let them all go in favor of Of Hogan and friends.
The fact that you had execs who in spite of the money WCW was making from 96-98 was actively trying to kill it tells me WCW could never have beaten WWF.
Eric should've went to Ted about all his execs trying to sabotage WCW once it got hot.. he wouldve had a lot more leverage at that point.
@@andrewclayterman6230 maybe. These guys were also making major money in their divisions so it’s a coin flip on who he believes. Bischoff who he’s heard about for 3-4 years or his execs he’s known for 10+ years.
This is why I hate political and religious corruption in business. At least greedy corporate executives care about the bottom line
@@andrewclayterman6230 Not sure if you are familiar with the corporate world but you don't just go to the owner and tell him his top level people are screwing part of the company over. Also WCW was making money but nothing compared to some of the other divisions that these executives were over and they dealt with Turner everyday vs Bischoff who saw him once in awhile. The only reason Turner backed Bischoff like he did was because he liked wrestling from growing up and had a long standing feud with Vince but it was never the bread and butter of Turner broadcasting.
Ted Turner temporarily brought back a few of his old fancies in the 90s from Our Gang Shorts and Three Stooges Full Length Movies to Southern Wrasslin but it was only temporary.
I'm particularly interested in Brad Siegel's perspective here. We've heard the rest of the talking heads and their reasons before, but never Brad until now.
yeah I like hearing from the turner executive side - Dick Cheatham has been interesting too.
he confirmed everything bischoff said basically
He really doesn't seem like a bad boss or an obsessive hater. I can see the way he presents himself definitely comes off...heelish, but he looks about the way a guy who created TCM and classic film era AMC (cable channel) would look. He really doesn't seem so bad.
His biggest gripe is how much the wrestlers lied and conned in a show where they are still lying and conning many years later.
All of this is in the Book that Guy Evans who's in the series wrote. This series seems to be based on the work he did in his book. I'd recommend the book for more details from the Turner side.
Damn, Travis did it again! That's one of the most GOAT'd depictions of the two. Regardless of the dumb suits in Turner with their anti Pro Rasslin, WCW's failure was a whole lot of cause and effect. Mickey Mouse over there signed a check that he knew he couldn't cash, got that Goofy-assed roid-head a contract with Creative Control, and that pretty much sealed the deal for WCW in the long run. Turner would've reluctantly had to keep WCW if it was good and keeping good ratings, but creatively they pretty much kneecapped themselves by having a setup where Hogan's goofy-ass ran wild, brother. Pretty much caused all the other issues that led to it's death. But imho, Eric and the deal he cut with Hogan was really the catalyst of the whole thing.
Jim Herd destroyed the wrestling I loved to watch every Saturday and Sunday!!!
At least WCW got better in 92 when he left and will say it was a pretty good year for them.
Why would Captain Goth who’s been living in the shadows for a year have a tan?
Looks better on tv
@@chrischar9428 It’s not like Sting showed up looking like Shamus. lol And this “tan looks better on tv” thing has warped peoples minds to the point they now come out orange lol. Dracula looks cooler on tv than an Oompa Loompa ever will 😂
nWo bigger than DX, that's for sure.
But DX run the biggest wrestling company today and the NWO is all but history...
Not by January 1999.
Don’t tell WWE that.
Now everyone understands why Conrad Thomson blows a fuse anytime they talk about Starrcade or the politics of Hogan..
What killed WCW was Eric Bischoff joining the NWO and becoming an on air character and being way too cocky and focused on the group, overbooking them rather than establishing talents like Eddie Guerrero and Jericho which lead them to jump to WWE . I mean look what happened when He and Hogan went to TNA.
I believe this is true, too.
Nah it worked great
WCW Eddie was never gonna get anywhere. Latino Heat/Lie, Cheat, Steal Eddie was the guy to put front and center.
He and Hogan never made a single hot angle or positive business impact in TNA and left that promotion in flaming ruins to get canceled and people do mental gymnastics to excuse them for that too.
It was those damn dirty wrestling hating suits there too, right?
I agree with Brian the NWO has absolutely a game changer as was Nitro which changed the format of television wrestling. No more squash matches, live every week, backstage segments, etc. Jim is stuck in that carny mentality that he really can’t see the forest for the trees at times.
For the first time in awhile the NWO brought a feeling of believability to the product. The funny part for me is you still had stuff like Glacier and his MK ninja feud with Wrath and Mortis going on at the same time.
The problem was they never knew when to do the payoff. Time and time again the stage was set and every damn time they refused to let anybody else get over. That's half the reason the NWO got so stupidly bloated later on because being in on it was the only chance you had to not get walked over. Yeah, it was a big spark at the start but part of it was all the non-wwf fans thinking they were finally going to get to see Hogan as a heel finally have to lose once in a while. They had something great going and got their heads so far up their own asses they blew it in record time.
Short term, as a fan, it was amazing to get so much for free. Long term, you burned through all your attractions to sell tickets and pay per views.
The jobber matches could get tedious but they were done for a reason. Getting every big match and angle free eventually becomes like a diet of nothing but cookies and ice cream.
@@jaredbellow I think that’s fair but just like the guaranteed contracts (and without the guaranteed contracts there’s no way that WCW signs Hogan, Hall, Nash, Piper, Savage, etc.) it was a necessary evil. If Bischoff didn’t find a way to hotshot Nitro and get eyeballs on the product there’s no way that WCW has 83 weeks of beating Vince. If Nitro was just a traditional wrestling show it would have flopped and Bischoff would have been fired. History would have been much different that’s for sure.
@@Narrate918 Guaranteeing the contract money is fine. Creative control for Hogan was a major problem. Wrestlers were cheap for the value proposition they offered and promoters weren't going to con them forever.
The new contracts we are hearing about like Reigns, MJF, and Okada are like real pro sports money. That may actually be a problem.
WCW was a great show. The nWo changed the business. And from 1999 onward you could hear a loud sucking sound emanating from Atlanta until it became a death rattle in March 2001. It fires people up because they had something special and blew it spectacularly.
Kevin Sullivan doesn’t get enough credit for how well he booked the WCW under & mid card, which made WCW worth watching, even if the main events were poor.
Bischoff and Hogan blow each other more than my brother and his husband.
Bobby Heenam blamed killing Goldberg's streak as the beginning of the end. RF Video shoot interview
Hogan's outrageous contract was a Bischoff creation, and it would continue to undercut WCW. There was no mention of the terrible Piper and Warrior matches where they were clearly sucking wind after 5 minutes
WCW was doing fine in 1994. They probably were headed for a no losses year at a minimum if they didn't take Hogan on. They didn't need him and he had way less leverage than they let him take. They made a deal with the devil and it went the way I'd expect.
@JeremyKasperson I absolutely agree with you that the Hogan Piper match was pretty tough to watch but I went back and looked up the PPV buys for Piper vs Hogan and they were actually good. They were competitive with what WWF pay per view buys were at the time.
@@jaredbellow You are absolutely wrong. Ted Turner would've pulled the plug on WCW himself if it didn't make the kind of improvements he was expecting. They were losing too much money on WCW to justify keeping it around for very long. It may sound silly to say it now given how everything played out, but Bischoff did what he had to do: give the biggest name in wrestling whatever it took to sign him.
@@decepticonxhunter4850 It lost 20 million in 1993. They started a turnaround effort in earnest at Starrcade that year. Turner would not have even approved the layout for signing Hogan without the company having a half year of positive momentum. The buyrates doubled from 93 and TV ratings went way up. These are publicly available figures. Go look for yourself.
I will forever believe it was Hogan, Nash, & Bischoff. The main 3 anyway. They did the biggest damage.
What about Vince Russo? It was Russo, the guys you mentioned along with not bringing up any new/young talent. Also, remember when they went to 3 hours live....? The first hour was just guys in the ring... talking. Boring. So boring.
TNT was great since you could get it for free here in the UK after Cartoon Network finished at 7pm and on Friday Nitro started, couldn’t afford sky sports
The finger poke was the spot that ruined everything- Goldberg’s streak was ruined, the Wolfpac was ruined, Wrath’s push was ruined, and the Radicalz exodus the WWE started happening.
…and then they hired Russo 9 months later. Tan-dah.
No fingerpoke then no Russo, no Arquette, no cancellation. Absolutely. Trying to downplay how monumental and iconic of a screwup that was is crazy.
So basically Hogan.
Glad Rock found ways to weasel into this thing and make it about himself. What a guy!
He's Executive Producer!
The Rock is in this? Hell yeah!
He's producing the show, lol that's why.
I dont mind his ego getting out of control as long as he does the job for Cody eventually
Brian Gerwitz learned everything he knows about piss from Jake Roberts
Its in the contract Hogan signed, Bischoff will forever protect Hogans character
Not putting Sting over clean as a sheet at Starrcade could not and cannot be justified.
It was like the Wrestlemania feel-good that had been all but promised to the fans and then it was taken away.
That one botch was so unbelievably costly. Many lost 'hope' that the good guy was going to win at any point.
Hulk and Bischoff should be ashamed. They screwed Sting. They screwed Bret Hart. And they screwed the fans.
Yup, NWO had been beating down the roster for a year and a half straight, this had to be the time that WCW got a win. Plus, Sting had been single handedly handling the NWO when he'd run in on Nitro, but then he basically loses clean to Hogan? Jesus.
They had the largest pay per view audience they ever had for a show and didn't deliver to a paying crowd. Pretty costly thing to do. If it was your first time ordering a WCW ppv it was probably your last one too.
I'd call that fairly on point. Starrcade was the peak for their success. Highest buyrate for a PPV. They had picked up a major free agent in Bret and they were about to add a brand new weekly show in Thunder. It should have been the moment that brought them to the next level, instead it was the beginning of the end. From there, Vince brought in Tyson who gave the WWF the mainstream attention to give Austin enough a rub to bring WWF into their hottest business period since Hogan's prime.
Corporate killed WCW. Jim said it before: "Just add suits."
Dani Garcia is entitled to a career from the divorce settlement.
What killed WCW was the fact they took a whole year to build The Sting vs Hogan match, and Hogan didn't want to put Sting over cleanly. BTW for those calling bs on it look at what that starcade went up against that year Mania 14 Arguably the begging of The Austin Attitude title run
Listening to Eric defending Hulk Hogan's decision to change the finish, is astounding. Even if they wanted to go in a different direction, doesn't excuse Hogan telling Nick Patrick to slow down the count. Just inexcusable stupidity.
"The NWO did not discover the polio vaccine."
I still remember with great fondness the moment when Dr. Salk dropped the big leg on polio at Bash at the Beach.
Creative control, and not respecting the actual FANS killed the WCW .😢😢
^^^^^^^^^^
THIS. They lost the trust of the fans and didn't respect our intelligence; they could never could win it back. Most of that was due to screwjob endings to important stories because of Hogan's creative control.
Any other reason is bunk.
The following people/events were responsible for the downfall of WCW (in no particular order):
1. AOL/Time Warner Merger
2. Eric Bischoff
3. Vince Russo
4. Bill Busch
5. Brad Siegel
6. Jamie Kellner
7. Hulk Hogan
8. Kevin Nash
9. Fingerpoke of Doom
10. David Arquette’s Title Win
11. Starrcade ‘97 Main Event
It would be unfair and short-sighted to point the blame at any one single event or person because the fall took place over such a prolonged period of time. It’s not like it happened overnight and you could point to one person or thing that caused it.
True. Death by a thousand cuts.
Brian HATES The Rock... 😆 Obviously.
I love how Jim ducks it.
I don't get why he hate him, the rock is one of the greats.
He's probably as bored with it as some of us are. Like they've never been in the same state at the same time but Brian acts like The Rock sabotages the bus his kids go to school on every day. It's fuckin weird at this point.
The Rock smashes Brian's mum aye
@@IBelieveinJoehendryTNA he hates Hogan Flair Rock Vince......... basically the all time greats
Because Jim is smart, if Rock lawyers serves Brian Last for defamation, it non of Jim business since Brian was doing it on show. Not even Stephen P New can save him.. Plus Jim doesn't want to ruined his friendship with Dwayne and lowering himself and joining a childish spat with Brian over Rock
When you give these guys creative control, who comes in second?
BROTHER!😳
Where I live USA was channel 32 and TNT was channel 33. It was so much fun switching back and forth between both shows back in 1998-1999.
My channel return button was loose from overusing it. I knew the location by feel.
@@jaredbellow you couldn't even recreate the vibe today if you wanted to. Most people would just watch one show live and then watch a recording of the other show afterward.
@@JimmyNotes It's not even written to be watched that way. They basically live off those TV rights and hope a lot of people watch the RUclips clips and talk about them. Way different businesses, spot on.
You can watch a 3 hr Raw in about 45 minutes to an hour if you fast forward the uninteresting junk. The pacing was way different back then, something was happening on Raw every second.
@@jaredbellow It was such a great era to be a kid.
@@JimmyNotes Yeah I feel sorry for fans who had to start watching after the Attitude boom because they were born too late. Even the "dark days" of 92-96 when I started watching was so much fun to grow up with. 95 was maybe a little rough, but it was still something to get invested in.
That episode was a literal clucking henhouse
If these guys still lie and backstab over this decades after it matters imagine what the environment was like when it was going on. I think a lot of the WWE's problems Invasion onwards was WCW staff and talent came in, in significant numbers, and brought the dysfunctional company culture with them.
You know why the finger poke destroyed WCW? Half the WCW crowd hated Goldberg and Hogan alike. My dad and my brother and I all loved Nash but after the finger poke there was no one to root for. We watched about a month after the finger poke only to see if the old white NWO would get built back up. Once we saw it was going nowhere we turned to WWF and never turned back.
Another one of the big problems was it didn't go anywhere. The idea that Nash would win the title on the biggest PPV for the company and just lay down for Hogan so they could reform the N.W.O. is one of those things that just doesn't really add up in terms of logic and just makes the belt seem rather pointless. There might have been a way to build this into a long term deal for Goldberg but it was just kind of not there. I don't even remember what the follow-up was other than at some point, Hulk randomly became a babyface anyway and ended up fighting Nash at Road Wild.
Even Thanos didn't want to use his infinity stones to change WCW
15:54 Dany Garcia is co producer for EVERYTHING the rock does. It’s rock’s ex wife.
When TNT started making their own movies in the early 90’s, it definitely felt like they were trying to come off more snobby than they were. Whenever a cable station starts making their own movies like that, they get that attitude, and then poison their own station by over-airing their product over theatrical movies people actually want to see on the station and subsequently water down the movie market. We are seeing that today with streaming services.
Less than 60 seconds in and referring Brad Seagal as the illegitimate son of Truman Capote has me in tears
Now I'm picturing The Rock as Zero Mostel and Brian Gerwitz is Gene Wilder in The Producers.
Max Bialystock name drop popped me in the middle of my afternoon run.
I’m calling out to you…HEEEEEEELP!!!
WCW had more "Montreal screwjobs" it's a miracle it even last till 2001.
The reality of the situation is Hogan was gonna run whatever company he was in to the ground and Vince knew that.
1:33 Don't forget Silk Stalkings
I loved those 2am random World Wide shows. It was just mid carders destroying southern style jobbers and then WWF would have a random late night show featuring mid carders destroying North East style jobbers
The Gambler with his 5 aces
WCW's biggest mistake is allowing the talent to book.
Everybody that did book could have cared less about what the fans wanted, or worry about the story to make scense. It was all about getting themselves and friends over.
Hulk and Flair, in my opinion, were highly over paid and did little to help the younger talent.
If the Garcia they're talking about is Dany, it's the Rock's ex-wife who he is still in business with
They kind of skipped over the Herd period a bit too much imho. As a lot of damage was done there. Do love we are getting more insights from the executives.
But it was profitable well after him. So. F that
In a few months Chris Jericho will come out and say him leaving WCW was what killed it
I don't think he's not saying it because he's trying to get something out of Hogan, it's because he is friends with him and doesn't want to bury him.
If their friends it’s understandable but as something as high profile as this is being covered in a doc it just makes him look delusional that he can’t call a spade a spade, you can be friends with someone but still call out their shit that happened in the past, if you can’t then what kind of friendship is that
The final nail was that dork from scream winning the world title. After that I never watched again
Not that its surprising Jim could see it, but everyone sees the hulk-sting-eric Starrcade scenario the exact same way with Hulk looking out for Hulk. Though whether its to protect his friendship to hulk, or feels acknowledging shows he let hulk control him an makes others claims he didnt know what to do and let hulk run things true, Eric refuses to just say it. He finally hinted at in this doc, but wont say, yeah, it was a short term boost to give hulk all the control, but long term his self preservation damaged wcw. When Jericho tells his Goldberg story, he says was surprised cause hulk was in the room deciding things with eric on it.
“The finish got convoluted” = “That’s not gonna work for me, brother.” [Strokes Fu Man Chu]
That Starrcade '97 finish was lunacy even before the botch. Bischoff should have chosen that as a hill to die on and laid down the law to Hogan: "I'll have run-ins to protect you somewhat but at the end Sting is going over, no questions asked. If you refuse, I'll have JJ tell the audience you chickened out and award Sting the title, any heat will just have to be ridden out."
Problem is Hogan had refusal to do jobs essentially codified in his contract. They made an AWFUL deal with him when he had nowhere else to go. He was too expensive and too much baggage to go back to the WWF, the movie career didn't work, and he needs a TV platform to get advertising gigs and all the other ways he made a buck. Hulk got handled like he had leverage that he didn't. Jerry McDevitt would have laughed at those terms and tore the contract up.
And Hogan sued and won over an incident like this. Deal with the devil, he handcuffed them to him.
@@jaredbellow He was literally filming Thunder in Paradise when they signed him. He had a tv platform.
@@freebachelor5060 Even with WCW's support it only got one season in 1994. It didn't even sell overseas. They edited footage from some episodes into a straight to video movie.
It's easy for me to forget that hogan (despite his age) still went back to WWF/E AND won more more titles.
I have a feeling that all the shit Brian talks about the Rock now, if he were to see him face to face, he’d be the first person trying to kiss his ass
yep
Brian doesn’t even show his face on the Internet yet feels entitled to criticize Dwayne for literally everything. It’s ridiculous.
@@L3ghair I know! How dare he criticize wrestlers on his wrestling podcast. The humanity!!
@@eamonwright7488nothing wrong with criticizing someone, especially The Rock. But Brian just comes off like a bitter IWC mark. Jim is entertaining when he attacks people, while Brian just sounds like a jealous nerd.
its one thing when you criticise someone, it's another when you keep doing it at given chance despite it NONE of Rock businesses. It clear as day Brian Last using his free time to find any dirt on Dwayne so he can use to criticise him even if Dwayne was not involved. And he has the guts to ask "why people calling him out for the Dwayne hate and kept insisting he is shitting on goody goodshoe Dwayne" that anger people
Take this show for example, he can't resist himself from criticising Dwayne when the show credit Dwayne and his production company for the production when Dwayne was clearly not even the executive producer. It's the darkside guy.
That Brian Last meltdown rant would be so good when Brian say something false about Dwayne and gets serve a lawsuits for defamation
Man, that Sunday morning cartoon express was a fucking great time as a kid. Went right from that into wrestling!
I get why the title was Who killed WCW but there was no single who. It was death by a thousand cuts. So much bad management and poor decisions over the course of a decade and a half, it only posted a profit 2 of the years Turner owned it, and forget the fingerpoke of death the real sign it was headed down the chute was when the company gave away Hogan v Goldberg. The biggest match they could possibly have, arguably the biggest match pro-wrestling in general could have had that year, was put on free TV with only four days build. I still can't believe they did that.
Dani Garcia is the Rock's ex-wife and business partner.
WCW died when they made Alex Wright stop dancing.
Starrcade 97. That’s where it truly went wrong.
you never give a wrestler creative control
couldn’t even give it to bret hogan living off 80s fame should have been putting certain people over and also winning this mf is a mark for himself the weakest move set i’ve ever seen should not have beat all them people
Sting wasn't "right in the head" because he knew Hogan was going to fuck up the match.
Dennis Stamp not being booked killed WCW.