I actually did this during lockdown! I watched from Oct 1999 when Russo came in up until the company folded. It is...Morbidly fascinating, especially when you consider what was happening over on the other show at the same time!
Coffin on roller skates, Tony Schiavone's brilliant summation of WCW in 2000/01, forgot Lance Storm as commissioner as well 😂 Astonishing storyline, could've used the Goldberg's heel turn, bash at the beach with Hogan, the flair Hancock wedding with ric flair being the father of Stacy keibler and Stacy's baby as well 😂😂 wcw 2000 is hilarious to watch and definitely hard to turn away from due to the sheer absurdity of it
As a kid, I always thought it was weird when I only watched the first 30-45 minutes of Nitro or Thunder (some build to matches later, but mostly the cruiserweights and some decent Jericho/Benoit level lower-midcard matches) because the rest just seemed too weird or out of sorts for me. Only now can I look back and realize 14-15 year old me was ahead of the curve...
The thing about the cage match alternate titles still exists somewhat today. When you think about how a no DQ, no holds barred, unsanctioned, hardcore, street fight, extreme rules and probably about 20 other ones I'm forgetting are all essentially just matches where anything goes. (Yes I know in AEW unsanctioned means it won't count towards a wrestlers record but I'm talking in terms of in match rules)
I can see why Vince Russo likes the name G.I. Bro. I would love to hear him tell his bro about it. "I love this GI Bro, Bro. GI Bro has a real Bro who wrestles Bro.". 😂😅
Vince Russo seems like he once heard that saying "make content that you wanna see" and misunderstood it as "make content only you and no one else wants to see"
Regarding Goldberg/Duggan, I'm surprised you didn't mention the fact that this came not long after Duggan had come back after battling kidney cancer, and they had Goldberg beat up his one good kidney, making him cough up blood in doing so. Goldberg himself didn't even like doing it it came out later, for obvious reasons. Just really bad all around.
GI Bro was honestly the worst thing that was ever handed to booker. The main problem with wcw was the fact that everybody had to have a gimmick instead of just being wrestlers.
My guess is that he was supposed to be part of Misfits in Action, joining Corporal Cajun, Lieutenant Loco, Major Gunns, Major Stash, Sergeant AWOL, and of course their fearless leader, General Hugh G. Rection.
That whole stable was garbage. They wanted to push new talent. But they pushed the wrong ones. Kidman, natural born thrillers, lash leroux, David flair, I could go on and on. That’s what killed it more than anything.
One other thing to take into consideration was how bloated the roster was by early 2000--according to "The Death Of WCW", the company had about 234 wrestlers on payroll when the year started, but seriously downsized to mid-two digits ("less than fifty wrestlers") by the time of the New Blood Rising PPV. EDITED with the actual figure (I was off by only nine) after consulting the book. Also adding: by mid-1998 the talent pool was even more bloated with *260* wrestlers, with some of them (like Lanny Poffo) not even wrestling a single match with the company...
That book is an essential read. Some of it is written like a smartass, and other parts are like they were written by a real wrestling historian. And both were equally true.
@@elc1960 I bought my (10th Anniversary) copy alongside Guy Evans's book just prior to the pandemic kicking in (no promo or two-pack); I'm a WWF/E person but my fanboy days ended when I was a teen (i.e. following the end of the Invasion angle) and whatever information I could find about WCW (back then) was more than welcome. IMO, while both books touch on different parts of the Wars on the WCW side, they complement each other perfectly.
You mentioned about January to April of that year, but Russo walked out before Souled Out and sat home until it was announced he was coming back with Uncle Eric. Those 2/3 months were guys like Kevin Sullivan and Mike Graham. On a side note can we agree that 2001 there was a feeling of course correction going on? It wasn't perfect but the overarching story featuring all the top heels in one group taking out the top faces had a degree of promise that improvements were coming.
The only actual match I remember watching and enjoying from that period was Elix Skipper vs. Alan Funk on Sunday Morning. The rest of the roster was in such disarray that the undercard was pretty much able to do whatever they wanted. They had some good matches on TV.
On the Commissioner part. By the end Mike Sanders was still the commissioner after beating Ernest Miller at Halloween Havoc. Than at Sin in January 2001 Miller won it back than lost it afterwards to Lance Storm than beat him at SuperBrawl: Revenge and than stepped down and that left Flair as the sole authority figure
You can learn that if you were a mid-carder you can still get lots of TV time since the high paid main eventers were so often "Injured" and no-showed A Lot.
Russo was gone between January and April 2000. They hit the red button and brought him back after four months when Kevin Sullivan, Kevin Nash and Bill Busch had driven the nail even further. Russo then hammered them in completely until October when he quit. No one from then to March 2001 could/would save it...
I soiled myself yesterday by mistake in our local dollar general. I thought it was just going to be a fart and it spewed out of me. It stunk up our car so bad on the way home it made my uncle greg pull over and puke lol... when we got home uncle greg had me pull my pants down and he took a picture of my stool all over me and my underwear and he took it over to bethanys and clawdeens and showed them. They laughed and had a blast. Now we're all eating cheeseburgers
Not in the year 2000, Simon at the end of the video asked about any other WCW things you can learn from binge watching. WCW invasion of the outsiders was done well, people believed that they were invading. Most WWE invasion stories they bring in guys and add them to the roaster page or cut them down immediately, examples the core, retribution come to mind. That is what I meant.
What made it even worse was WWF was having one of their best years in 2000. Just like WWF deserved to get beaten by WCW in 1996, by 2000 the gap in quality was even bigger in WWF's favour.
2000 is actually 1 of the best WCW years to go back and watch, thats whats funny. We have a twitch group that rewatches everything in order, and 2000 is always way more fun than 97-99 with Hogan Hogan DQ DQ DQ DQ
Russo *loved* screwy finishes. I remember Jim Cornette talking about an episode of RAW where Russo booked 7 of 9 matches to end in DQ ... then wanted to change an eighth one to a DQ. Predictably, Corny flipped his shit.
He was the only thing good from the natural born thrillers. Tho I did low key like stasiak, Jindrak, and Johnny. None of those guys had a chance to be anything. They looked good, but they were absolutely mid or had no persona.
@@kendall6515 Had no chance to be anything, 🤣🤣; Jindrak was going to be in Evolution before they settled on Batista, and was on TV as Kurt Angle's protégé...
Here's one... Don't hype the upcoming PPV that can do massive bank for the company, hype the upcoming Atlanta Omni house show (on nationally syndicated and broadcasted programs, no less) instead, because reasons...
Living through it once was bad enough...wouldn't wanna do it a second time. Missed the last 3 months of the company cause I just couldn't watch it anymore
Look there's a lot of things I'd like to say about this video, but the main thing is: please stop perpetuating the myth that WCW was killed by bad booking, story lines or the chaos behind the scenes. WCW died because of the AOL Time Warner merger. WCW died because it wasn't a company, it was a TV show on a network. And that Network didn't want that TV show anymore. And when Bischoff tried to buy the rights he couldn't get a network to put it on, so WWF bought the IP and the tape library in a fire sale for pennies on the dollar because nobody else wanted it.
Vince can do his worst and it will never come close to touching what garbage wcw did in 2000. It was truly the worst year ever in wrestling, if you even wanted to call it that then. Bad matches, feuds, gimmicks, rip offs, run ins. It was literally a dollar store version of Jerry springer.
I mean what’s wrong with WCW having 3 different names for cage matches AEW comes up with a new name for a street fight every week 🤷🏾♂️. No DQ, Texas Street Fight, Regular Street Fight, Falls Count Anywhere, Texas Death Match. Meanwhile they all be the same shit 😭😂
It's true. WWE does the same thing, too. No DQ, No holds barred, extreme rules, falls count anywhere, street fight, music city street fight and whatever tf a Donnybrook match is.
Good performance on Saturday at arsenal simon. If this keeps up I will have to start kissing your head pre game like Blanc and Bartez. Your a wrestler so you know you got to go with what works!!!!
This is why I laugh when younger fans trash the booking of today's product. Either WWE or AEW. "Listen, man. You weren't there! You don't know! You'll never know!!" WCW at its worst was so incoherent and nonsensical that it was beyond parody. Bruce Mitchell from PW Torch once wrote a column entitled "The Drug Pace and Logic of WCW Nitro", and the name alone tells you everything you need to know.
I love Simon, but his contrarian views are just getting a little silly. Just because they're a bunch of shitty Champions doesn't mean that I can't wasn't the worst one LOL And no, crazy does not mean entertaining. Again I get with Simon's going for but so much of it is so dumb it's not even entertaining
I prefer WCW 2000 over what the WWE has produced in the last decade. At least WCW 2000 was entertaining and watchable and plus they had stars unlike the WWE in the last decade.
Vince hasn’t ever made it this bad. And his shows have sucked. But it wasn’t as bad as this. This wasn’t even wrestling. It was literally springer 2.0. Just a very terrible take of it.
"It takes more than one person to take out a multi-million dollar company." Ahh, Elon Musk and Twitter would like to have a conversation with, literally thousands of times worse based on company valuation.
I actually did this during lockdown! I watched from Oct 1999 when Russo came in up until the company folded. It is...Morbidly fascinating, especially when you consider what was happening over on the other show at the same time!
I watched 06-close during lockdown. Ppvs too.
Coffin on roller skates, Tony Schiavone's brilliant summation of WCW in 2000/01, forgot Lance Storm as commissioner as well 😂 Astonishing storyline, could've used the Goldberg's heel turn, bash at the beach with Hogan, the flair Hancock wedding with ric flair being the father of Stacy keibler and Stacy's baby as well 😂😂 wcw 2000 is hilarious to watch and definitely hard to turn away from due to the sheer absurdity of it
I was never a WCW fan, but in retrospect, it was great competition for WWE, and I miss that entire ERA
Check out Wrestling Bios on RUclips Reliving the War series, week by week recap, just got to July of 1998
I still watch Vince Russo’s rant at Bash at the Beach 2000 from time to time. Car crash tv can be entertaining.
He was actually *right* about Hogan, though. I'll never say that about him again...
I’ve learned from watching Reliving the War on Wrestling Bios, that in 1998 Tony Schiavone didn’t know what a Sidewalk Slam was
As a kid, I always thought it was weird when I only watched the first 30-45 minutes of Nitro or Thunder (some build to matches later, but mostly the cruiserweights and some decent Jericho/Benoit level lower-midcard matches) because the rest just seemed too weird or out of sorts for me. Only now can I look back and realize 14-15 year old me was ahead of the curve...
The thing about the cage match alternate titles still exists somewhat today. When you think about how a no DQ, no holds barred, unsanctioned, hardcore, street fight, extreme rules and probably about 20 other ones I'm forgetting are all essentially just matches where anything goes. (Yes I know in AEW unsanctioned means it won't count towards a wrestlers record but I'm talking in terms of in match rules)
*** 11.) When Booker T dressed and wrestled as Crow Sting (September 20, 2000)
I can see why Vince Russo likes the name G.I. Bro. I would love to hear him tell his bro about it. "I love this GI Bro, Bro. GI Bro has a real Bro who wrestles Bro.". 😂😅
Vince Russo seems like he once heard that saying "make content that you wanna see" and misunderstood it as "make content only you and no one else wants to see"
Him and McMahon had the same philosophy.
I'd still watch WCW from the end, over anything from WWE now....
I watch it but not because it was good. I do it to see awful it truly was. Vince couldn’t ever make it this bad if he tried.
Regarding Goldberg/Duggan, I'm surprised you didn't mention the fact that this came not long after Duggan had come back after battling kidney cancer, and they had Goldberg beat up his one good kidney, making him cough up blood in doing so. Goldberg himself didn't even like doing it it came out later, for obvious reasons. Just really bad all around.
GI Bro was honestly the worst thing that was ever handed to booker. The main problem with wcw was the fact that everybody had to have a gimmick instead of just being wrestlers.
G I bro was is frist gimmick and he wanted to go back to it .
Nah, that was WWF. WCW broke way from that. Vince Russo is just cancer.
My guess is that he was supposed to be part of Misfits in Action, joining Corporal Cajun, Lieutenant Loco, Major Gunns, Major Stash, Sergeant AWOL, and of course their fearless leader, General Hugh G. Rection.
That whole stable was garbage. They wanted to push new talent. But they pushed the wrong ones. Kidman, natural born thrillers, lash leroux, David flair, I could go on and on. That’s what killed it more than anything.
One other thing to take into consideration was how bloated the roster was by early 2000--according to "The Death Of WCW", the company had about 234 wrestlers on payroll when the year started, but seriously downsized to mid-two digits ("less than fifty wrestlers") by the time of the New Blood Rising PPV.
EDITED with the actual figure (I was off by only nine) after consulting the book. Also adding: by mid-1998 the talent pool was even more bloated with *260* wrestlers, with some of them (like Lanny Poffo) not even wrestling a single match with the company...
That book is an essential read. Some of it is written like a smartass, and other parts are like they were written by a real wrestling historian. And both were equally true.
@@elc1960 I bought my (10th Anniversary) copy alongside Guy Evans's book just prior to the pandemic kicking in (no promo or two-pack); I'm a WWF/E person but my fanboy days ended when I was a teen (i.e. following the end of the Invasion angle) and whatever information I could find about WCW (back then) was more than welcome. IMO, while both books touch on different parts of the Wars on the WCW side, they complement each other perfectly.
You mentioned about January to April of that year, but Russo walked out before Souled Out and sat home until it was announced he was coming back with Uncle Eric. Those 2/3 months were guys like Kevin Sullivan and Mike Graham.
On a side note can we agree that 2001 there was a feeling of course correction going on? It wasn't perfect but the overarching story featuring all the top heels in one group taking out the top faces had a degree of promise that improvements were coming.
Russo is a Damn Joke
That’s the only time it was decent that year too was when he wasn’t involved lol
People forget the context of why Scott said WCW sucks
He was being an in character nWo member
The only actual match I remember watching and enjoying from that period was Elix Skipper vs. Alan Funk on Sunday Morning. The rest of the roster was in such disarray that the undercard was pretty much able to do whatever they wanted. They had some good matches on TV.
Nah if Lenny crowmega was the first thing on my screen I would absolutely loose it🤣😭🤣😭
In that final year, how many times did Russo say "Bro"
354578 times
A bronormous amount Bro
On the Commissioner part. By the end Mike Sanders was still the commissioner after beating Ernest Miller at Halloween Havoc. Than at Sin in January 2001 Miller won it back than lost it afterwards to Lance Storm than beat him at SuperBrawl: Revenge and than stepped down and that left Flair as the sole authority figure
You can learn that if you were a mid-carder you can still get lots of TV time since the high paid main eventers were so often "Injured" and no-showed A Lot.
They threw everything at the wall during that time to see what would stick, and nothing did.
Russo was gone between January and April 2000. They hit the red button and brought him back after four months when Kevin Sullivan, Kevin Nash and Bill Busch had driven the nail even further. Russo then hammered them in completely until October when he quit. No one from then to March 2001 could/would save it...
Surprisingly enough, the best WCW Booker post 1998 was fucking John Laurinitis. No kidding, his era was actually respectable and not total shite.
@@Thor-Orion it was Johnny Ace and Fit Finlay (among others?) running things when Russo left for good, wasn't it?
I just got into wrestling and literally just started nitro from episode one lol
Caged Heat was also the name of the fictional tv show that Trevor Slattery starred in The MCU
And about a million prison-set gay/lesbian pornos...
And a "chicks in prison" movie from the '80s with Linda Blair and Sybil Danning.
Nash wasnt the champ during that match. it was a no 1 contenders match. Booker defended against Jeff Jarrett
Dear Simon. Please bring back Retro ups and downs.
Can't wait for Wrestling Bios to get there
Since you asked Simon something you can learn from binge watching WCW is how to book a good invasion angle.
I soiled myself yesterday by mistake in our local dollar general. I thought it was just going to be a fart and it spewed out of me. It stunk up our car so bad on the way home it made my uncle greg pull over and puke lol... when we got home uncle greg had me pull my pants down and he took a picture of my stool all over me and my underwear and he took it over to bethanys and clawdeens and showed them. They laughed and had a blast. Now we're all eating cheeseburgers
Which invasions happened in the year 2000 that were any good? Explain please
Not in the year 2000, Simon at the end of the video asked about any other WCW things you can learn from binge watching.
WCW invasion of the outsiders was done well, people believed that they were invading.
Most WWE invasion stories they bring in guys and add them to the roaster page or cut them down immediately, examples the core, retribution come to mind.
That is what I meant.
@earlleroybonaviewthe3rd112 here it is, guys! The least funny thing I've ever read in my fucking life!
@@KevinLuper99 Well, the idiot did it to get noticed, and guess what? He succeeded. But to be fair, you're right.
All of those celebrity cameos and matches
Hello Simon my old friend, I've come to watch your vids again
Listen to the sound of Miller
I HOPE so badly that WWE signs Lenny Crowmega.
What made it even worse was WWF was having one of their best years in 2000. Just like WWF deserved to get beaten by WCW in 1996, by 2000 the gap in quality was even bigger in WWF's favour.
He’s right. WCW was good when it wanted to be but it was real bad too. RIP
Hating on the hacksaw goldberg match makes no sense, the crowd was into it and was the only time goldberg looked like a credible heel
It wasn't boring. It wasn't good. It's one of those things you wonder how it exists
Lance Storm was commissioner in 2001 actually
2000 is actually 1 of the best WCW years to go back and watch, thats whats funny. We have a twitch group that rewatches everything in order, and 2000 is always way more fun than 97-99 with Hogan Hogan DQ DQ DQ DQ
Russo *loved* screwy finishes. I remember Jim Cornette talking about an episode of RAW where Russo booked 7 of 9 matches to end in DQ ... then wanted to change an eighth one to a DQ. Predictably, Corny flipped his shit.
Mike Sandars was gold though.
Shame that in his career, he was S...O...L!!
He was the only thing good from the natural born thrillers. Tho I did low key like stasiak, Jindrak, and Johnny. None of those guys had a chance to be anything. They looked good, but they were absolutely mid or had no persona.
@@kendall6515 Had no chance to be anything, 🤣🤣; Jindrak was going to be in Evolution before they settled on Batista, and was on TV as Kurt Angle's protégé...
During the NWO recruiting era of the WCW vs NWO era of WCW you need to watch or else you'd be out the loop of who's on what side
Simon is my FAV Wrestling facts RUclipsr!!! Would love to see you in the squared circle sometime
Imagine if Neil Breen was in charge of creative.....
Here's one... Don't hype the upcoming PPV that can do massive bank for the company, hype the upcoming Atlanta Omni house show (on nationally syndicated and broadcasted programs, no less) instead, because reasons...
Living through it once was bad enough...wouldn't wanna do it a second time. Missed the last 3 months of the company cause I just couldn't watch it anymore
Then you shouldn't be wwe of the last 10 years maybe 20
"that's really the only relationship we have" nice. I have a relationship.
WWE would be more subtle than #10. It would probably more like Kyle Beta.
Look there's a lot of things I'd like to say about this video, but the main thing is: please stop perpetuating the myth that WCW was killed by bad booking, story lines or the chaos behind the scenes.
WCW died because of the AOL Time Warner merger. WCW died because it wasn't a company, it was a TV show on a network. And that Network didn't want that TV show anymore. And when Bischoff tried to buy the rights he couldn't get a network to put it on, so WWF bought the IP and the tape library in a fire sale for pennies on the dollar because nobody else wanted it.
Vince can do his worst and it will never come close to touching what garbage wcw did in 2000. It was truly the worst year ever in wrestling, if you even wanted to call it that then. Bad matches, feuds, gimmicks, rip offs, run ins. It was literally a dollar store version of Jerry springer.
Wasn't Lance Storm commissioner for like half a second or something too?
I think so. Maybe during his reign we he had like 5 titles.
Lenny Komega
Hey bro like bro there’s a body slam bro then bro a surprise roll up bro, bro great idea bro 🧐
He didn't even know or care what those moves were. He only knew terrible reality/soap opera TV writing...
Thank you I agree Russo was a way worst champion than arquette atleast arquette defended it once Russo won it in a stupid way and just vacated it
I mean what’s wrong with WCW having 3 different names for cage matches AEW comes up with a new name for a street fight every week 🤷🏾♂️. No DQ, Texas Street Fight, Regular Street Fight, Falls Count Anywhere, Texas Death Match. Meanwhile they all be the same shit 😭😂
It's true. WWE does the same thing, too. No DQ, No holds barred, extreme rules, falls count anywhere, street fight, music city street fight and whatever tf a Donnybrook match is.
Get a DQ win 😂 in a No DQ Match 🤦♂️
Why does Simon sound like bane these days super off-putting 👌
People learn even the worse of WCW is better wwe today.
No it wasn’t lol
As much as I like Simon the stretch the writer uses to get this list to 10 is daft
Interesting.
Long live the best WCW Champion, Lenny Crownega.
Sounds like some off brand Kenny Omega
Good performance on Saturday at arsenal simon. If this keeps up I will have to start kissing your head pre game like Blanc and Bartez. Your a wrestler so you know you got to go with what works!!!!
Above Average Mike Sanders
Sid and Luger should be in the Hall of Fame despite my personal opinions of them.
Nope!!
Hello Lord Simmon 😁
*Simon
Why does sting look like a soyjak in the thumbnail?
It's was bad but I was a die hard fan it suck when Russo took over but time Warner screwed them
whoever is talking here did'nt really watch the real "w.c.w"
This is why I laugh when younger fans trash the booking of today's product. Either WWE or AEW.
"Listen, man. You weren't there! You don't know! You'll never know!!"
WCW at its worst was so incoherent and nonsensical that it was beyond parody. Bruce Mitchell from PW Torch once wrote a column entitled "The Drug Pace and Logic of WCW Nitro", and the name alone tells you everything you need to know.
I lived through it I don’t wanna relive it 😅
Still better then wwe today
@@justme-ti1rh not even if Vince had dementia and fired half the roster would it be this bad
@@kendall6515 I’d have to agree with you and the other commenter ugh
But Simon, Im your Father's, Son's, Sister's, Cousin's former roommate
I love Simon, but his contrarian views are just getting a little silly. Just because they're a bunch of shitty Champions doesn't mean that I can't wasn't the worst one LOL
And no, crazy does not mean entertaining. Again I get with Simon's going for but so much of it is so dumb it's not even entertaining
I prefer WCW 2000 over what the WWE has produced in the last decade. At least WCW 2000 was entertaining and watchable and plus they had stars unlike the WWE in the last decade.
Watchable? If you consider a 15 car fatal pile up watchable then sure?
Vince hasn’t ever made it this bad. And his shows have sucked. But it wasn’t as bad as this. This wasn’t even wrestling. It was literally springer 2.0. Just a very terrible take of it.
I stopped watching WCW after the finger poke of doom
"It takes more than one person to take out a multi-million dollar company."
Ahh, Elon Musk and Twitter would like to have a conversation with, literally thousands of times worse based on company valuation.
Maybe in 2030/2031 Impact Wrestling F. K. A. TNA and AEW will suffer the same effing fate as WCW!
to be fair to wcw Terry Funk retired like 80 million times so you can't hold him retiring against them
Hey I liked Dashing Cody Rhodes lol
I know whatculture likes baiting wcw but give it a bloody rest and focus on the good things for a change. @simonmiller sort it out for god's sake.