WCW facts, tidbits, and stuff people forgot

[DrVenkman PhD 0]

Lex Luger is clearly staying (he's under contract for a long time) and will be working the England tour as well. Luger's quitting last week, apparently because of the decision to drop Race, lasted maybe an hour or two.

 

Looking forward to see how this develops as he obviously did quit after SuperBrawl II. IIRC, the length of his contract is why he had to work for the WBF and didn't debut as a wrestler for the Fed until 1993.

[johnson316cane 0]

I know Wayne Bloom was one of the Beverly Brothers, was Mike Enos the other?

 

Yep. They also used to be the Destruction Crew in the AWA. The AWA also loaned them out to WCW for a brief period and they worked under masks as The Minnesota Wrecking Crew II.

 

[Dobbs 3K 0]

I never understood WWF taking established AWA guys and making them work under completely different gimmicks...other than the Rockers, of course. The Beverly Brothers were incredibly generic, where at least the Destruction Crew showed some personality. You also had Badd Company brought in under a completely different gimmick (Orient Express).

[johnson316cane 0]

I never understood WWF taking established AWA guys and making them work under completely different gimmicks...other than the Rockers, of course. The Beverly Brothers were incredibly generic, where at least the Destruction Crew showed some personality. You also had Badd Company brought in under a completely different gimmick (Orient Express).

 

Well the Beverly Brothers had a pretty good gimmick in theory (for the early 90’s anyway) as rich, stuck up brothers from Shaker Heights. I just don’t recall them getting much mic time to get it over.

 

[DrVenkman PhD 0]

I believe I read in a Retro Observer they were supposed to be gay before they became brothers.

[Boner Kawanger 0]

Just like Lenny and Lodi...I mean, Idol.

[Cheech Tremendous 0]

We sort of touched on this in Graphics folder, but were the American Males supposed to be gay? Those outfits and music just screamed homo. Even if they weren't overtly gay on-screen, it had to be some kind of rib, right?

[BruteSquad_BRODY 0]

I think Chipendales was more the angle they aimed for.

 

[Dobbs 3K 0]

Yeah, I never figured the American Males were gay...just kind of the usual generic pretty boy "heart throb" types wrestling promotions always seem to be fond of.

 

And yeah, I don't remember the Beverlys getting any mic time at all. What was also weird was that their first manager was "Coach" John Tolos.

[johnson316cane 0]

I loved that they had a voice over saying, "American Male...loser" at random intervals during Scotty Riggs' entrance at the first nWo Souled Out ppv.

[Ed Wood Caulfield 0]

I just loved the nWo voiceover guy saying "Loser" at random times during that pay-per-view. And I loved how Eric Bischoff and Ted DiBiase called it the "Loser Detector" or something like that.

 

(Bischoff is talking.)

 

nWo Voiceover Guy: "Loser."

 

Bischoff: "Thank you."

 

Actually, come to think of it, the nWo voiceover guy was one of the few good things about that pay-per-view.

[johnson316cane 0]

I just loved the nWo voiceover guy saying "Loser" at random times during that pay-per-view. And I loved how Eric Bischoff and Ted DiBiase called it the "Loser Detector" or something like that.

 

(Bischoff is talking.)

 

nWo Voiceover Guy: "Loser."

 

Bischoff: "Thank you."

 

Actually, come to think of it, the nWo voiceover guy was one of the few good things about that pay-per-view.

 

It's too bad the matches on Souled Out sucked b/c I kind of enjoyed the anarchic atmosphere of the ppv. It was so different than what WCW was normally presenting at that point. I remember being pretty hyped up for the Syxx/Eddy ladder match and being very disappointed with how the match came off. It was funny to see the two whitest of white guys, Hugh Morrus and Big Bubba, fight in a MEXICAN Death Match that ended with Bubba running him over with a motorcycle. The name of that match and the finish were both so out there and goofy that I'm thinking that whole thing had to be a rib on someone.

[TMC1982 0]

Lets say hypothetically, World Championship Wrestling, like WWE does today, did a brand extension (i.e. wrestlers would be exclusive to only one TV program). "Nitro" would naturally be in place of "RAW", "Thunder" would be in place of "SmackDown", and "Saturday Night" would be in place of ECW. The World Title belt would be the top strap on "Nitro", the U.S. Title would be the top strap on "Thunder", and the TV Title would be the top strap on "Saturday Night".

[TMC1982 0]

WCW seemed to be at its cheesiest when it tried to emulate (I'm probably going to answer my own question) WWF's "sports entertainment". I suppose with Turner Broadcasting backing you, you're going to be given carte blanche to do a lot of stupid excretory matter.

 

The heart of WCW (and what set it apart from WWF) was mainly, that it focused on athleticism (i.e. subtance over style, like what Vince McMahon was for the most part, offering). The old "NWA World Championship Wrestling" show had a more grounded in reality, PG-13 (a la, Ric Flair coming on TV to talk about his many encounters with the opposite sex), "good ole boy" feel to it. Part of what killed WCW in my estimation, was it not fully embracing itself as an alternative to WWF's product.

 

I know that when Jim Herd (a.k.a. the regional Pizza Hut manager in St. Louis, who managed to piss off and scare away WCW's biggest draw, Ric Flair) was running the day-to-day operations, the cartoon-like content seemed to be seeping in. There was for instance, the Black Scorpion angle, RoboCop coming to the aid of Sting, Big Josh (a lumberjack with two dancing bears), a tag team called the Ding Dongs, etc. That was pointed out on Ric Flair's DVD from WWE, when Flair was talking about how Ted Turner had friends, who ran to him and told him that they wanted to run a wrestling company. The end result was people being put in charge despite having having no real clue about what the hell they were doing. It's no surprise then, that WCW (despite being backed by a powerful media mogul like Ted Turner) was so poorly managed from say 1988 through at least, late 1993.

 

Even after Herd was kicked to the curb, the cartoonish crap continued. Right around the time that Ric Flair came back after spending about 2 and half years in the WWF, we get the Shockmaster incident on "A Flair for the Gold" (Ric Flair's talk show at the time). There was also the "mini movies" like "Catcus Jack: Lost in Cleveland" and the Beach Blast movie involving Sting, Davey Boy Smith, Vader, Sid Vicious, and Cheetum, the evil midget.

 

By Hulk Hogan's second year in WCW (1995), the main angle was that goofy as hell fued that he had involving the Dungeon of Doom ("It's not hot!!!"). Even when the nWo angle was kicking into high gear, a lot of the main people in WCW were people who initally gained most of their notority in the WWF (i.e. Hogan, Randy Savage, Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, Roddy Piper, etc.).

 

By the time Vince Russo showed up, WCW was foolishly trying to emulate or reinact WWF's "Attitude" product.

 

WWF seemed to get even more cartoonish around 1992-1995. It seemed like virtually everybody had to have a far out there gimmick (e.g. Doink and Papa Shango) or a "non-wrestling job" as part of their gimmick (e.g. Bob Holly's race car driver persona, Issac Yankem, the dentist, etc.). It seemed like Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels for the most part, were the only guys on the roster during that era who were essentially being themselves.

[TMC1982 0]

This angle always bugged the hell out of me. Outside of Ric Flair, Sting was the virtual embodiment of WCW. It seemed like they put Sting (who was still mega over by this point) in a nWo kind of fraction (babyface or heel) in order to sell some extra t-shirts. WCW just never had a clue how to properly resolve the nWo angle. Instead, they went to the well one too often (since the nWo was their golden goose beginning in 1996 and onward), and it wound up biting them in the end. The whole nWo thing just cannibalized WCW (which is awfully ironic, since that was pretty much the main intent of the angle in the first place) and fans wound up getting burned out.

[DrVenkman PhD 0]

WCW actually did have a brand extension, just not officially. WCWSN was it's own brand of show with Jimmy Hart booking the likes of Shark Boy and angles where Jim Duggan defended America (and a TV title he found in the garbage) against foreign villains like Steven Regal and Cuban Assassin.

 

Nitro and Thunder had a lot of crossover, especially at the end when the shows were taped on the same night, but in my memory the rosters seemed to stick to one show. I know if Sting ever showed up on Thunder it was a huge deal as his contract gave him that night off.

 

You sure do have a lot of need to discuss WCW, Turner Movie Classics 1982.

[Dobbs 3K 0]

WCW seemed to alternate between wanting Nitro to follow through into Thunder, and then sometimes try to keep them as separate "brands". I remember at one point it seemed like DDP was supposed to be the main face on Thunder. It just never seemed like they could make up their minds about if they wanted to tie Nitro into Thunder or not.

 

I remember there were rumors that Jimmy Hart wanted to take WCW SN even further, and introduce more titles than the TV Title, and basically book the show as a completely separate "brand", like you said. Supposedly Nash and others nixed it because they were worried he'd actually do something with the show and make it mean something. Those guys didn't want anything taking away from Nitro's popularity, I guess.

[BruteSquad_BRODY 0]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2ze0BGU3q8...feature=related

 

 

This is such a WCW like move, a wrestler suffers a legit spine injury so guys keep wrestling, jumping over him to hit their spots. Augh.

[Slickster 0]

It was a stinger. Orndorff was fine afterward.

[BruteSquad_BRODY 0]

Still, the rookie is smart enough to go for the pin, but Rey keeps doing spots?

[BruteSquad_BRODY 0]

How did Mongo start feuding with the Horsemen?

[PILLS! PILLS! PILLS! 0]

Rick Rude Ric Flair was coming on to Cheryl Roberts Debra, who was sitting front row at every Superstars Nitro for no reason in particular, which enraged Jake Roberts Mongo McMichael.

[Dobbs 3K 0]

I'll give WCW credit, the Mongo angle was actually pretty well done, regardless of if they were ripping off past angles. Honestly, the heel hitting on the face's wife or girlfriend is probably older than the Roberts/Rude angle. Of course Mongo ended up being a crappy worker, but that's beside the point.

[PILLS! PILLS! PILLS! 0]

My favorite part was Anderson and Flair sporting Mongo and Kevin Greene's respective NFL jerseys.

[BruteSquad_BRODY 0]

Johnny B Badd skipped a US title shot in Oct 95 on WCW Sat Night.... where did the storyline go?

[DrVenkman PhD 0]

He ended up in WWE as Wildman Marc Mero.

[Burning Pirate Ship Sex 0]

He ended up in WWE as Wildman Marc Mero.

[PILLS! PILLS! PILLS! 0]

Johnny B Badd skipped a US title shot in Oct 95 on WCW Sat Night.... where did the storyline go?

 

It was a Television Title shot, and he missed out because then-champion DDP let the air out of his rental car tires. He captured the belt at Halloween Havoc, the subsequently won the Diamond Doll and Page's 3.5 million dollars, before dropping the belt to Luger and going to the WWF.

[Damaramu 0]

Couple of questions:

 

-Was the whole David Arquette silliness and Russo in the pope-mobile AFTER the restart with Bicshoff and Russo?

 

-Why was Russo still around after that, but Bischoff seemed to disappear?

 

-How long did Goldberg stay heel? That was the worst surprise ever. I especially loved how there was nothing McMahon could do about it.

[PILLS! PILLS! PILLS! 0]

1. Yes.

 

2. According to Bischoff's book, he resented the way that Russo double-crossed Hogan and buried him on the microphone at Bash at the Beach. Bischoff figured that he would give Russo "enough rope to hang himself" if he relinquished full-creative control to Vince, and he was right.

 

3. I forget. Wasn't very long, though. I don't know what you mean by your last sentence.