WWE vs. WCW: Monday Night War

[Dunthreevy]

So they finally premiered this series on the Network last night. What I gather is it's going to be a weekly episodic show on the Network. I figured we could have an individual thread for discussion on this topic to avoid killing the threads made for discussing the current product.

Episode 1: The Beginning of the War aired last night immediately following Smackdown, over on the WWE Network (which you can get for just $9.99 ) This episode lays the groundwork and history of both companies and how they began airing on cable television, and how Vince McMahon and Ted Turner's rivalry began.

[skbucks1985]

Copy and paste what I wrote in the Network thread:

I finally got around to watching the Monday Night Wars episode. There were some positives and negatives to it.

A big positive was seeing Tony Schiavone and his awesome facial hair. I had never seen the guy since WCW went under, I think JR said on one of his podcasts that he was doing baseball and college football in Georgia now, but seeing him again was pretty fun. The biggest positive was that they're going so slowly with the story that while most people knew all the big stuff you might learn some of the small things. And Keith David as the narrator was a great choice.

I don't know if I'd characterize this as a negative but I constantly shift from mild annoyance to snarky laughter whenever I hear "Sports Entertainment", and let's just say that if you watched this live on Monday night and had a drinking game that you'd take a drink every time they said "Sports Entertainment" I think only now would you be sobering up. The two main complaints I had, the first being that for much of it I felt like I was watching a really good fan made video. This is a topic that they've done DVD's on and the story was part of other DVD's and there may not be a lot of new ground to cover but so much of this was interviews they'd done previously. For example, I don't think Eric Bischoff is still with TNA so why didn't they get Bischoff to film some new footage. If he can do a 7 hour podcast with Austin, they should be able to get him in a studio for a few hours. The other was how they portrayed WCW giving spoilers of Raw. Is that the most ethical thing, probably not. But I don't get, and this is specially about Vince's comments, where is the demarcation line between acceptable and unacceptable. In the 80's Vince did a lot of things to expedite the death of the territories that many said weren't the most ethical and were every bit as much about weakening and killing those territories as it was about building his company up. And I don't understand where's the line between what he did and what Bischoff did.

[Dunthreevy]

The first episode was definitely more of a recap of the main story and how it all began. The thing I liked was the story of how Vince and Ted initially worked together, before Turner owned WCW, and then had their falling out. That was all new to me.

I'm interested to see where the next episodes go and how many we'll actually get.

[TheGameChanger]

Looking forward to the next few eps.

[TheKingofSting]

Just as I thought I am hooked already.

[TheGameChanger]

Watched a few WCW ppv's from 2000 recently on the network. For some reason I enjoyed it, Now some of the storylines were silly. However it was good viewing. The Commentary was pretty good to with Tony Schiavone and Mark Madden.

[Dunthreevy]

Next episode tonight at 9PM

[tweet]https://twitter.com/TripleH/status/504383221589876737[/tweet]

[Marcus]

Next episode tonight at 9PM

[tweet]https://twitter.com/TripleH/status/504383221589876737[/tweet]

The days before the internet insider were the best the industry ever knew. I legitimally thought Hall and Nash were coming to take over WCW on behalf of Vince and co and thought The Kliq would cross-promotion rule the wrestling world at the time.

[TheKingofSting]

When I sat down to watch the first episode it was late at night and I had every intention of watching 10 to 15 minutes and then going to bed and finish it later and I honestly couldn't stop once I got into it.

[Shemy]

Solid second episode nothing new most of us didn't know, good to see present day scot hall talking and not a clip of hall from 2002, didn't know about hogans hesitation in joining the nWo and how bischoff planned for Sting to be the third guy before hogan got on board

Episode tommorow where they'll talk about the introduction of the attitude era


Hope they give the poaching of ECW talents a whole episode all we have is snippets from paul heymans documentary and the ECW rise and fall documentary, heyman trashing wcw for a hour would be gold

[TheKingofSting]

I wonder how much history would have changed had the real Sting turned heel?

[skbucks1985]

I gotta disagree with seeing extended conversation about poaching ECW talents, for a couple reasons. One, it would probably come off really one sided with Heyman trashing WCW primarily largely ignoring the fact that the lynch pin of the Attitude Era was poached from ECW (Austin), one of the 5-7 biggest stars in the company (Foley) and they poached Shane Douglas at a time when they were building the company around him. Lucky for them, Douglas didn't exactly endear himself to the WWE and was gone and back in ECW after only a few months. But secondly, and this is the more important point, ECW was always a very distant third to WWE and WCW. Yes, it engendered a ton of passion, that still continues to this day. And creatively it was fantastic. But from a business standpoint and from a wrestler's standpoint they were a distant third. Paul Heyman could bash anyone and everyone he wants but at the end of the day, no one working for WCW or WWE ever had to worry about not getting paid.

[skbucks1985]

I wonder how much history would have changed had the real Sting turned heel?

Fun hypothetical to think about. It would've changed the story line immensely. It wouldn't have been these guys coming from WWE to take over WCW, because Sting obviously never worked for WWE. What I think the story line would've been a heel version of what Sting's story eventually became, Sting is the guy that was WCW through-and-through and always was the loyal soldier. But the first moment that some guys from "New York" show up (alluding to Hogan and to a lesser degree perhaps Savage) WCW and all the fans cast him aside. And so he's now saying screw you to everyone in WCW, including the fans and he's joining up with these two to burn this place to the ground. So, the objective would've been nihilism instead of taking he company over.

What I think the interesting question would've been is who would've been the lead babyface? Because in mid-1996, I don't think Hogan would've worked as the top babyface especially if placed opposite "cool" heels like the NWO.

The rumor that has kind of lived in the ether is that the first draft original plan was that Bret Hart would be the third man, but then Vince signed him to that long-term contract he eventually had to break a few years later.

[TheGameChanger]

I Heard HBK's Name for the NWO somewhere before as the 3rd member

[Dunthreevy]

I Heard HBK's Name for the NWO somewhere before as the 3rd member

Had he left WWE at that time, they literally would have gone out of business. He and Bret kinda carried that company through a rough patch, helped later by the emergence of Austin.

[skbucks1985]

I Heard HBK's Name for the NWO somewhere before as the 3rd member

Had he left WWE at that time, they literally would have gone out of business. He and Bret kinda carried that company through a rough patch, helped later by the emergence of Austin.

I'd heard that Shawn was trying to get out of his WWE contract during the latter part of 1996 when WCW was really kicking there ass and before DX started in earnest. I'd heard the stuff about HBK being the third man, but the timeline doesn't really fit. He won the Royal Rumble in 1996, and beat Bret at WM a few months later. After Shawn got his kicked by the marines and they had to strip him of the IC Title, they may have given some thought to firing him but other than that its hard to see how the timeline would've fit.

Maybe attrition would've eventually caught up with them, but I don't think WWE would've gone out of business had Shawn left in 1996. I think even if worst case scenario played they'd become what TNA is and do 6 week's worth of TV in the same location over 3 days. Obviously if that scenario had played itself out the likelihood of USA cancelling them would go up significantly and if that had happened they very well could've gone out of business. But that's hypothetical upon hypothetical upon hypothetical.

[TheKingofSting]

The second one was as good as the first installment imo. I look forward to watch the Attitude Era later this evening.

[Stannis]

Why didn't HBK go to WCW? They probably would have gave him a bunch of cash, and he already had his friends there. I'm guessing he was on a longer term contract for the WWF?

[Stannis]

What's the difference between the modified versions of episode 1 and 2?

[skbucks1985]

Disappointed in episodes 2 and 3. What I liked about episode 1 is that they were going so slow with the story and I assumed that would be the format for the remainder. And I was looking forward to seeing 10 minutes about Jericho's debut or 20 minutes about the Montreal Screwjob and how that led to the birth of the Mr. McMahon character. But episode 2 was basically the story of how WCW became the top dog and then episode 3 was how WWE adjusted and retook there place at the top. I've seen the 60 minute version of that story, I've seen the 120 minute version of that story. I wanted to see the 1000 minute version of that story and it seemed like that was the direction they'd go after the premiere, and maybe they'll go back to that starting in episode 4 because right now unless they're not telling this story sequentially, I don't know how much further they can go after episode 3.