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Originally Posted by Mr Sunday Night
You tell me it was a stupid move, but you don't tell me why. Why?
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Actually, he did tell you why. Because it cost the company good money and turned off a lot of fans from WCW forever. But if you want the specifics of it, I'll try to break it down a little bit.
Ever since the wake of Starrcade '97 (as in, the week after where Sting lost the title), it became painfully obvious to everyone that WCW was a lost cause, because there was no one who could counter the nWo in general, Hogan in particular. The fans were sick of it; they had seen the nWo walk all over the good guys for the last two years, and when the biggest star left on WCW's side finally took out Hogan and won the Title, he was almost immediately made out to look like a total loser afterwards. nWo beats WCW, again. Yawn. It got to the point where the only way to make people care about beating the nWo was with another nWo. And who better to lead this group against Hogan and his massive ego and politicking than Kevin Nash (who does the same things)?
But in the middle of that, Goldberg came along. The winning streak, the unintelligble screaming/growling, the doomsday-sounding theme music, just the whole persona of this monster who comes out and obliterates everyone in his way; it got over fast, and huge. This was the only guy left on the WCW roster who could even come close to the nWo's (especially once Sting joined the Wolfpac). After beating Hogan, it looked like Goldberg had finally succeeded where the Giant, Ric Flair, DDP, Sting, etc. had all failed before him: WCW had beaten the nWo.
So, of course, when it was time for his streak to end, it was only natural for him to drop it to an nWo member, whether it was black and white or black and red. And when the united nWo's humiliated him the very next night, it was clear once and for all: WCW loses. No hell-bent Goldberg demanding a rematch, no final revenge on Hogan, no nothing. Just nWo-beats-WCW again. After that, there was nobody who was over enough to provide a strong counter to the nWo, and that's just the way they wanted it. No matter what, Hogan and Nash were the stars of the show. And by that time, the people were damned tired of seeing Hogan and Nash.
Also, it didn't help that the 'finger-poke-of-doom' incident occurred the same night Mankind won the WWF Title from the Rock and Tony Schiavone pointed it out during Nitro. The combination of WCW's incompetent booking with WWF's superior title match the same night caused a lot of long-time Nitro viewers to switch over to Vince's show and never look back. I know it did for me.