What would've you done to keep the momentum going for WCW during the ratings war

[Mr. Nerfect]

I wasn't a wrestling fan at the time, but you hear about all the problems WCW had in its dying days. The top guys were gripping to their spots, and not moving out for certain other young talents. People were high on the Cruiserweight Division until the very end, and I seem to recall people expecting huge things from The Natural Born Thrillers, had Hogan been willing to put over Sean O'Haire in that era, and didn't wait until he was aligned with Roddy Piper down the track a couple of years on SmackDown! to do it.

Horrible booking decisions started as far back as the infamous Hogan/Sting match, with Hogan really out to protect himself. This carried on throughout the years, but instead of just saying what everyone already knows, I'll just go with clinging to the past as something WCW did wrong. nWo Black & Silver was not going to save WCW. David Arquette was not going to save WCW. Hulk Hogan, Kevin Nash and Ric Flair were not going to save WCW. Losing pretty much your entire awesome mid-card doesn't help, but those guys should have been bumped up when it was their time to get bumped up.

[Tom Guycott]

Originally Posted by Noid I wasn't a wrestling fan at the time, but you hear about all the problems WCW had in its dying days. The top guys were gripping to their spots, and not moving out for certain other young talents. People were high on the Cruiserweight Division until the very end, and I seem to recall people expecting huge things from The Natural Born Thrillers, had Hogan been willing to put over Sean O'Haire in that era, and didn't wait until he was aligned with Roddy Piper down the track a couple of years on SmackDown! to do it.

About this era was the Millionare's Club vs. The New Blood. Hogan was actually feuding (too little, too late) with Kidman, not O'Haire, but I get the point. The BIGGEST botch of this entire angle was booking all of the younger talent who were being held down by the old-timers AS THE HEELS! Yeah, all those paycheck drawing veterans were painted as sympathetic old-schoolers, and the young guys who could've gotten the rub of a lifetime were portrayed as disrespectful, punk-ass kids.

Other little things needed changed too, like giving the title to Benoit to try to persuade him not to jump ship, only to have him drop the belt before he got to even SMELL it. Or Lance Storm's domination angle which, suprisingly, was being done right... up until Nash comes in and squashes the guy after his "hat trick" just to do a promo for... whateverthefuck, don't even remember. Or spending a shit-ton of money for "The Demon" and his entrance and not even give the gimmick to a decent wrestler. Or what about actually having Shane Douglass and Ric Flair in the same company... so let's make Shane start his own soverign nation unto himself???

On the nWo side of things: remember Bischoff's ultimatum? How WCW had 30 days to decide who was with them or against them?? Well, apparantly, they forgot, since they kept adding people due to those guys getting sick of jobbing to the nWo all the time. Yeah, they were supposed to be trying to take over WCW, but they could have accomplished their roughshod disruptions with a Nexus-sized stable like they initially built to be. Just get a guy to replace "nWo Sting" when that reveal was over. Had they kept the 30 day stip then closed the doors, it could have been more effective in the long run.

Also, Thunder could have worked if they had a similar notion to WWE's brand split. Hell, they had the fucking roster to do it better than the 'E. And the multiple "reboots" didn't help. There's only so many "lets take the title off of everyone/have a tornament to decide" you can do before it's stupid. That also leads to one of the problems that plagues TNA currently... that is to STOP DROPPING IDEAS MID-STREAM IF IT DOESN'T WORK IMMEDIATELY!

"We have the best Luchadore division in the world!!! Oh, they haven't sold enough tickets for us in the last three weeks. Luchadores suck, Tag-Teams are the way to go! Tag Teams don't draw as much attention as the Cruiserweights. Lets focus on the Crusierweight division! No, on second thought..."