The rise and fall of WCW

skbucks1985 · Post #1 » by **skbucks1985** » Wed Sep 2, 2009 7:05 pm

I saw this movie yesterday and let me preface what I'm saying that the few WWE films I've seen I thought were good. I really liked the ECW movie, I thought the Mr. Perfect movie was really solid and I thought the Bret Hart movie was excellent.

But this movie was absolutely terrible, which is sad because I think it has a much more interesting story than any of the three above. The big problem was that none of the principal players in WCW agreed to do the movie. There were a couple backstage guys, Kevin Sullivan and Goldberg and Flair were really the only big wrestlers who agreed to it. There were also a couple former WCW guys who became bigger stars in WWE in Rey and Jericho.

But Bischoff wasn't there, what's funny is that half the movie is a Bischoff interview from 03. But Hogan didn't do it, Nash didn't do it, Hall didn't do it, Russo didn't do it, and Sting didn't do it

Dunthreevy · Post #2 » by **Dunthreevy** » Thu Sep 3, 2009 11:48 am

Is that surprising to you? Vince has made no bones about driving his former competition into the ground. When he brought WCW stars in, he never put them over the same way he did his homegrown talent. He basically made it look like they were a lower class of performer. I remember seeing a Sting interview on youtube where he says specifically that's why he never signed with WWE when they bought out WCW. He didn't want to sign with WWE then have Vince bring him in and make his character basically look like a 2nd class star, after he had been basically the biggest face in WCW for a decade.

skbucks1985 · Post #3 » by **skbucks1985** » Thu Sep 3, 2009 5:23 pm

Your right. Having seen the Monday Night Wars DVD, I should've seen this coming. I didn't think the problem with this was that they completely buried WCW it was that it was just so incomplete.

jeffhardyfan52 · Post #4 » by **jeffhardyfan52** » Fri Sep 4, 2009 12:09 am

I liked the DVD, Most of it seemd in favor of wcw alot less bashing of wcw then i was eexpecting,
i was suprised goldberg shot a hole new interview for them

Dunthreevy · Post #5 » by **Dunthreevy** » Fri Sep 4, 2009 2:38 am

I actually haven't seen the dvd myself. I was just saying it doesn't surprise me to hear that it didn't have any of the big names like Sting, Hall & Nash, or Bischoff. Vince isn't in the business of giving shine to his former employees (or guys that were never his employee) that he doesn't still have working relationships with.

jeffhardyfan52 · Post #6 » by **jeffhardyfan52** » Fri Sep 4, 2009 5:54 am

well nash and sting are with TNA so that would be rather hard to do and hall is to damn drunk to do anythging,

they had alot of the NWA guys on it tho from the begaining of WCW not witchi liked,

CapeCrusader · Post #7 » by **CapeCrusader** » Sat Sep 5, 2009 7:23 am

Yeah I agree that it sucked. The problem is #1 it was too short and #2 they could of went waaaay more in depth. They jumped into the nWo angle waaaaay tooooo soon. They should have talked about the 4 Horsemen....Rise of Sting as a star....Bret going over to WCW after the screw job...etc.

skbucks1985 · Post #8 » by **skbucks1985** » Sat Sep 5, 2009 5:14 pm

CapeCrusader wrote:Yeah I agree that it sucked. The problem is #1 it was too short and #2 they could of went waaaay more in depth. They jumped into the nWo angle waaaaay tooooo soon. They should have talked about the 4 Horsemen....Rise of Sting as a star....Bret going over to WCW after the screw job...etc.

That would've been ideal, but the movie was 1.5 hours as is and going into the depth that you or I would've been happy with likely would've resulted in a near 3 hour movie, which was simply not happening.

jeffhardyfan52 · Post #9 » by **jeffhardyfan52** » Mon Sep 7, 2009 1:40 am

And if it sells well they can make another one

skbucks1985 · Post #10 » by **skbucks1985** » Mon Sep 7, 2009 5:27 am

jeffhardyfan52 wrote:And if it sells well they can make another one

That's the stupidest thing I ever heard. They did the story already, perhaps not in as much depth as many would have liked but it was done fully from the beginning to that final night in Panama City. Making another one is basically just saying, our first movie was crap so let's try to get it right this time.

jeffhardyfan52 · Post #11 » by **jeffhardyfan52** » Tue Sep 8, 2009 10:41 pm

Its a way to make money, You dont give the fans everything they want in the first one,
WWEs video collction of wcw can be used for many many dvds and they will be smart about useing it

skbucks1985 · Post #12 » by **skbucks1985** » Wed Sep 9, 2009 12:50 am

Let me re-iterate what I said, the story was done from beginning to end. If this movie had just been the Jim Crockett years or the Crockett/Rhodes years or even up to the split with the NWA, then you'd have a point. But the story was done from beginning to end.

What are they gonna do, repeat the same story and just hope to do it better? That's assinine. Even if I were to suspend disbelief and buy what your selling, the idea that this would be done better a second time around is perhaps a more assinine idea than that this movie would be made in the first place. This movie was done badly not because of the lighting. It was done badly because of the lack of principal players in WCW. There's no reason to believe Hall, Nash, Hogan, Sting, Bischoff and all of the others will agree to do this movie when they didn't agree to the first. You think WWE didn't reach out to those guys? Of course they did, but they didn't want to do it then and there's no reason to believe they'd agree to a second.

Completely off-topic to this, one scene that really irked me was when they were talking about that final WCW show. Vince describing him and Shane as the final image ever seen on WCW television as "neat," I wanted to kick his teeth in.

Dunthreevy · Post #13 » by **Dunthreevy** » Sat Sep 17, 2011 11:46 pm

I just skimmed through an old WCW pay-per-view from 2001 called "SIN". It took place here in my hometown of Indianapolis, IN at Conseco Fieldhouse. If there was ever a clear indication of what went wrong with WCW, this ppv was it. This was the night that Goldberg was "retired" by Lex Luger and Buff Magwell (aka "Totally Buff"). Goldberg and "Sarge" (his mentor) vs. Totally Buff with Goldberg's career on the line. Aside the wrestling being totally garbage, the match was booked so that a fan, who Goldberg had earlier given an autograph to, sprays mace in his face during the match and then Goldberg goes on to lose. The fan is allowed to stay at ringside after spraying him, because that makes sense right?

Then in the main event, you've got Scott Steiner (WCW champ) vs. Jeff Jarrett vs. Sid Vicious vs. Mystery Man (yes that was his name). This "Mystery Man" character wore a hockey mask like Jason Vorhees and all black with some white straps on his top. This is the match is most notable for being the one where Sid came of the ropes and snapped his lower leg in 2. I'm sure we've all seen that footage so I won't bother posting the video. So as the match goes along, Mystery Man never shows up until the very end, after Sid had snapped his leg and lied motionless on the mat for a couple minutes while they tried to figure out what happened because the ring announcers were busy talking about what was happening backstage. So you never even see what happened to Sid, they just cut back to the ring and Sid is laying there with his leg all jacked up. Mystery Man comes out and acts as if he's going to go after Steiner but instead punches Sid in the top of the head one time then Steiner pins him. I'm not talking about a Big Show KO punch, I'm talking just a basic strike. Once the bell is rung, Mystery Man takes his hood and mask off and it's Road Warrior Animal. I have no idea who thought this crap up, and I wish I had never seen it because it brought back that bad taste in my mouth over what WCW became.

whysoserious · Post #14 » by **whysoserious** » Sun Sep 18, 2011 5:04 pm

WCW was a solid alternative I think in the late 80's to early 90's to WWE. They developed their own guys and really built it up. Then they got Hogan/Macho to come over and had a solid run building up to mainstream seeing them on the same level. At that time, WWE was still solid but it was going through a transition and both companies were on equal footing for a while. Then WCW struck gold with Nash/Hall coming in and the NWO angle with Hogan turning. They had the one thing WWE could never re-do, Hogan becoming a heel. At the same time, they were developing a huge score of younger guys.

What happened next was an absolute shame. They got lazy, made the NWO to big, let their older guys have too much power and didn't really let guys get past the 'glass ceiling'. They let the NWO angle go on too long. They could have kept it going past Sting win over Hogan at Starrcade but not at the same level. Sting should have moved on for a while and maybe give Nash or Hall a chance to get the title for a good run. But Hogan can't live without being the man. That would have been a great opportunity to keep the NWO heel and kick Hogan out, essentially turning him back face.

Then they got even more stagnant and couldn't come up with anything. The Goldberg run was nice but they even butchered that at the end. Then they brought in Russo and things that got even worse, a lot of they young guys already jumped over to WWE who already reclaimed number one spot with Rock, Austin, Foley, HHH and the rest.

whysoserious · Post #15 » by **whysoserious** » Fri Oct 21, 2011 12:21 pm

I was just watching an episode of Nitro from '97 and although we've talked about a lot of the mistakes WCW made with NWO, one that gets overshadowed I think was the fact that Bischoff ever joined up with them. He should have never joined the NWO. To me, they had the perfect guy to be the manager type in Ted DiBiase.

Bischoff should have stayed in support of WCW and been like I signed these guys thinking they were coming to WCW, but they turned on me, they had a plan. That and the fact that the NWO got too big of a group. It should have never got past 5 or 6 guys tops.

Coach Smiley · Post #16 » by **Coach Smiley** » Fri Oct 21, 2011 2:19 pm

the way bischoff turned was absolute gold though, and he was a hell of a heel, and it kind of explained how the nWo could be more integrated into the show, but DiBiase did become useless at that point

whysoserious · Post #17 » by **whysoserious** » Fri Oct 21, 2011 2:31 pm

You are right about Bischoff being a great heel but his Ego got the best of him with that group. DiBiase was perfect because he still had the Trilionaire Ted persona which could have explained the integration.

EB's turn was classic and perfectly executed but the follow up beyond a couple of months was not executed properly. They could have had EB turn back and say I just went over to learn about them setting himself up to go against Ted. But his Ego was so stroked that the angle put WCW in number 1 position that they got so lazy.

skbucks1985 · Post #18 » by **skbucks1985** » Fri Oct 21, 2011 6:35 pm

I think Bischoff's over sized role in this played a very small role in the overall failure of the angle and the beginning of the end for WCW. I think initially the plan was for it to just be the Outsiders and make them some super group. But once they started expanding and they made it WCW v. NWO it made sense to have Bischoff join the group because that would make them a real threat to take over WCW, which for how convoluted the angle became many forget was the real purpose of the NWO. I think one mistake was for Dibiase not to take on a bigger role when he became a face, basically they should've given him the JJ Dillon role.

But this is all small potatoes. The biggest reason all of this failed is that the angle didn't end when it should have which was with Sting beating Hogan

whysoserious · Post #19 » by **whysoserious** » Fri Oct 21, 2011 7:21 pm

Very true Safi, but Bishcoff's big role was a small part of it. Going back and watching Nitro now, you can pick out so many little failures with the angle that all were built up and led to the failure.

skbucks1985 · Post #20 » by **skbucks1985** » Fri Oct 21, 2011 8:42 pm

And old saying is that history is the propaganda of the victors and I feel like pointing to little things like that is evidence of the truth of that saying. When someone or something fails you want to look at why they failed and everything becomes scrutinized and over-scrutinized. I'm not saying that Bischoff having this role was a good or bad idea I just don't think it was much of a contributing factor one way or another.

Just to give an example of this, because they won the Monday Night Wars nothing WWE did comes under any scrutiny. After the Montreal Screwjob Owen Hart was doing this black Hart persona where he would usually come through the crowd and take out HBK and HHH. This was during Austin 3:16 and Owen was easily the most over guy in the company. This would've been the perfect time to finally make Owen a permanent main eventer. Instead he ends up jobbing out to HBK and eventually HHH as well and then for some absurd reason joins the Nation of Domination. If WWE had lost the Monday Night Wars I think something like that would be pointed to as WWE dropping the ball with a guy who was incredibly over.