So what do you think was the FIRST sign of WCW falling?

[Johnny Vegas]

I had talked to some of my friends who i went to college with. Great wrestling fans, like myself, but not obsessed with it. We were talking about how great WCW was when it was hot, who our favorites wreslters/angles were, etc. Then one of my friends asked "so...what went wrong..how did they fuck up?" (his exact words). We all had different answers, mainly having to do with Hogan and/or Nash. here were some of the answers:

-When Hogan/Goldberg was wasted on a Nitro

-When Jay Leno/Karl Malone were headlining PPVs, instead of real wrestlers

-Finger Poke of Doom

-When Halloween Havoc '98 was cut short

-Goldberg running through the entire roster and having no one else to defend his title against **My pick**

-When Russo took over (frankly, i thought it was too late by then)

-When Malenko, Eddie, Benoit and Saturn bounced

-Younger talent not being pushed at the beginning of '98 (one of my friends, big Jerichoholic, said Chris could've easily made the US title the spotlight title on Nitro.

-David Arquette

And the list goes on. Just wanted to get your thoughts

[Kami Raki]

I'd say them putting everyone and their mother in the nWo.

[The Jayman]

ummm this

[thedamndest]

I think it's a combination of all of those things. The nWo was the hottest angle they had and after that all they really had was Goldberg and DDP. Everything else was booked so badly that none of the talent mattered.

[Johnny Vegas]

^^^^

Good point. Also think that because half of the people that were upper mid/ME status had been in wrestling since like the 80s/early 90s and had the same shit going on.

[The Jayman]

I actually think the first sign of WCW falling was the NWO splitting up. WCW got tremendous success with whole wcw/nwo angle and was beating wwe for the longest. The problem was that the nwo was the primary focus of the booking. they didn't have a back up plan so when the nwo disbanned they were left with nothing

Starcade 98. The payoff to the Sting/Hogan feud was bad.

[Theo Dious]

The real first sign was when you could turn on a WCW show and see the nWo and be bored. Which mostly had to do with Hogan's title-hogging at that point. They could have kept the group fresher a lot longer, but when Hogan was the end-all of the nWo, it got stale damn fast.

[Johnny Vegas]

Y'know, what was Nash'sHogan's on-the-record reason for doing the FPoD?

[redoneja]

Goldberg injuring himself a few weeks after the Fingerpoke of Doom is my pick. Goldberg was still hot after losing at Starrcade and him running through the reformed nWo on his way to a rematch with Hogan to reclaim the title woulda been a helluva lot better than the storylines they did go with after he injured his hand.

[Steveviscious89]

Not that this matters Gertner, but the Sting/Hogan match was Starrcade '97, in December. Late '98 would be my best estimate of the fall. The Wolfpac was very popular, but Savage got injured, then Sting either got injured or took time off. After all that was over with, there just wasn't anything left in the tank.

[Nicky Fives]

3 Words..... FINGERPOKE OF DOOM

[Gerard]

Originally Posted by nick55555 3 Words..... FINGERPOKE OF DOOM

Somhow i doubt very much that had that much to do with it at all, wcw really were just riding the nwo angle for all it was worth and not putting attention into making other stars. The first post in this thread says it all, it was more a culmination of a lot of things and not one specific thing. The fpod was just another wanky finish to add to a long list of wanky finishes.

[wwe2222]

I think it was when everyone and their mother joined the NWO. At that point you could feel they were losing steam and searching for ideas.

[Vastardikai]

WCW was unstoppable until the Sting/Hogan payoff (that wasn't.)

That made WCW mortal.

Also, nWoverkill was a big thing, too. Hall, Nash, Hogan, Giant, DiBiase, and Syxx was plenty. You add Fluff Faggswell, Big Bubba (RIP), Scott Norton (who is awesome in his own right, didn't need NWO), Stevie Ray, Vincent, etc. etc. and it was just gay.

Wolfpack vs. Black n White was utter shite. Seriously, the only guys who were booked to stand a chance against nWo up until the rise of Goldberg were Flexy Lexy, Sting, and DDP. During the creation of the Wolfpack, 2/3s of the above names put on nWo T-shirts.

Not going with a Goldberg/Jericho mini-feud (That Jericho didn't even have to go over in, just make it seem like there was a heel they wanted to take seriously that didn't go to the ring to porn music), was a major mistake as well.

[Loose Cannon]

it was a collection of like 20 things. the Time Warner merger was a major blow as well.

Actually, I would argue that Goldberg going over everyone was the best thing WCW did. Yes, he rolled over a lot of guys, but they could of easily built a new star to go against him. Instead they had him lose to Nash and then they put him in a ridiculous angle the next night and followed that with the finger poke of doom.

So they literally killed off a year of buildup in 24 hours

[Emperor Smeat]

Originally Posted by Vastardikai Also, nWoverkill was a big thing, too. Hall, Nash, Hogan, Giant, DiBiase, and Syxx was plenty. You add Fluff Faggswell, Big Bubba (RIP), Scott Norton (who is awesome in his own right, didn't need NWO), Stevie Ray, Vincent, etc. etc. and it was just gay. Wolfpack vs. Black n White was utter shite. Seriously, the only guys who were booked to stand a chance against nWo up until the rise of Goldberg were Flexy Lexy, Sting, and DDP. During the creation of the Wolfpack, 2/3s of the above names put on nWo T-shirts.

That whole feud ended in a mess. You had the popular Wolfpak vs NwO Classic but it ends once Hogan and a few of the top NwO wrestlers join the Wolfpak and leaves the original NwO full of jobbers and no namers. When Stevie Ray is your best person in a group, then you know something went wrong. Whole thing ends by them basically reforming the Wolfpak as NwO version 2.

It gets even worser when a year later, NwO gets reformed again into NwO 2000 and now Jeff Jarrett lead the group. WCW basically held onto the NwO as a stable for too long.

[Jannettyzilla]

The Hummer angle. It was the moment they conceded defeat. The Ministry/Corporation angle was coming to a head the same night, and they threw it out there with no plan. As if that wasn't enough, they kept running with it as a solution to problems for months, even with different superstars involved.

The things listed above happen a lot in WWF, too, but have been overcome by smart shifts in focus. There hasn't been anything the magnitude of the Hummer disaster, and this was by far the point where WCW began to appear desperate and without direction.

EDIT: After actually reading the thread title, I guess I wouldn't say this was the FIRST sign. But I think it was definitely the biggest indicator that they were done for.

[311]

If you want to really early, I think it was Hogan holding on to the belt and never defending it. An example of the backstage nonsense that strangled WCW.

[Steveviscious89]

One other thing that hasn't been mentioned here; the extreme misuse of Bret Hart. Yes, he was out of the scene for awhile once Owen died, but they never really did anything cool with him. Even his debut was pretty weak because it was right in the midst of the Sting/Hogan climax, and then they included him in it. They brought him in under the huge shadow of that rivalry and then proceeded to bury him.

[Johnny Vegas]

Well i will admit that Hart, being at the top of his popularity, was way misused. But if he thought that the WWF at the time of his departure had politic problems, then he went into politicing heaven.

[Emperor Smeat]

Did WCW ever do shows in Canada since they could have reformed the Hart Foundation in WCW as a new stable to face the NwO.

Yes they did, and I attended it in Toronto.

Originally Posted by Steveviscious89 Not that this matters Gertner, but the Sting/Hogan match was Starrcade '97, in December. Late '98 would be my best estimate of the fall. The Wolfpac was very popular, but Savage got injured, then Sting either got injured or took time off. After all that was over with, there just wasn't anything left in the tank.

My bad, you're right.

[TheZman]

Originally Posted by 311 If you want to really early, I think it was Hogan holding on to the belt and never defending it. An example of the backstage nonsense that strangled WCW.

Then the awesome matches he did have like with the Warrior. I forgot when it was, for good reasons.

Hogan holding on to the belt and only defending it on ppv made the ppv buyrates go up, because it made Hogan defending a "major event". It was a smart move by WCW in my opinion.

[Mogadishu]

One thing I really noticed about WCW, was how generic alot of their characters ultimately became. Unfortunately, we are seeing the same problem in the WWE right now.

As was the case in WCW during its dying days, we are simply seeing too many characters that do not captivate the interest of the typical fan.

One tremendous thing that the Attitude Era did, was that the writers invested a LOT into the character development of almost each and every character. Wrestlers were given far more backstage vignettes, debut vignettes, promos, etc, etc.

The WWE is in the Sports Entertainment business and as result, they have to realize that it's the characters that will captivate the interest. This is why during the WWE era, the whole show top to bottom was pretty damn good. You had so many unique characters such as Gangrel, Al Snow, Godfather, Val Venis, D'Lo Brown, Goldust, Undertaker, Mankind, Kane, etc., etc.

These characters allowed things to remain entertaining when guys like Stone Cold Steve Austin and Vince McMahon weren't on air.

Bottom line - WWE needs to invest more into character development in my opinion.

[Johnny Vegas]

This guy is starting to win me over

[owenbrown]

Originally Posted by Gertner Starcade 98. The payoff to the Sting/Hogan feud was bad.

It was 97 not 98 but it was still bad now that I look back on it.

[Hanso Amore]

Honestly the biggest 2 factors had nothing to do with angles or wrestlers.

The 2 biggest killers were

1) Guaranteed Contracts for every wrestler

2) The .COM Stock Crash

[Johnny Vegas]

I can see the first answer, but can you elaborate on the second, plz?

Originally Posted by owenbrown It was 97 not 98 but it was still bad now that I look back on it.

lol I said "my bad".

[Hanso Amore]

Originally Posted by Johnny Vegas I can see the first answer, but can you elaborate on the second, plz?

when the .COM crashed, AOL's stock plummeted, and AOL time Warner owned WCW. They needed to cut costs. WCW was hemorrhaging money from their 120+ roster of guaranteed contracts, and they stripped the company and sold it. Had that not happened, WCW would have been around another few years at least, even though their product sucked.

[Johnny Vegas]

Gotcha. Though it wasn't a first sign of the failing of WCW, definitely a major part of the overall demise.