Better Angle: NWO or Austin/McMahan

[slabinskia 0]

This should be in poll form but I couldn't figure out how to start a poll.These were the top 2 angles of the monday night wars.Which did you think was better ?Please give some reasons for which one you liked more.

[Guest wildpegasus]

NWO was better. Austin vs McMahpn was just a feud that helped two wrestling and nonwrestling fans into the product. Yes, it was popular because of the rebel against the boss factor but I don't think it appealed to everyone and I don't think it brought in real wrestling fans. Quite frankly, I hated everything about the feud.

 

NWO meanwhile helped out a lot of people, appealed more to both wrestling fans and non wrestling fans, was cool, entertaining and had more things you could with it when in comparison to Austin vs McMahon.

[Downhome 0]

Wow, this is a total no-brainer to me.

 

nWo by leaps and bounds.

[Golgo 13 0]

I personally enjoyed nWo more, at least initially. It was more exciting. It felt big.

 

But who says nWo appealed more to both, much less one or the other type of fan? It's not fair to say without hard facts and figures even beyond the ratings. Regardless, nWo was just as sports-entertainment based as Austin/McMahon.

 

nWo was probably hotter at one time than Austin/McMahon ever was, but if only because of WCW's own incompetence, what did it do for them in the long run? Austin/McMahon, while less spectacular, epic, or whatever, is what kept WWF afloat, got people to watch and kept them watching. That's what people chose in the end and that's really all that matters.

 

Austin/McMahon at no time really sputtered like the nWo did. It thankfully ended when it did, regardless of WWE's revisits later on. nWo on the other hand was on its way down even before Goldberg defeated Hogan on Nitro (which was stupid to give away on TV, as we all know), and should've ended then or preferably at Starrcade.

 

nWo basically overstayed its welcome until it creatively had nothing left, even more than Austin/McMahon, and all the purported directions, options and things you could do with it essentially came down to which scrub will join the nWo or who turns this week, which gets old fast. And ultimately we got the completely unspectacular 1999 Wolfpac and nWo 2000, which felt like just another stable with none of what made the original so great, which ultimately stained the nWo.

 

Ultimately, who did the nWo REALLY help? Austin/McMahon made Austin a true, bonafide star, along with Rock, and also helping to elevate Foley and Triple H, for better or worse. Saying it helped no one except for Austin and McMahon is a gross understatement. For WCW, there's Goldberg, DDP, maybe Steiner. But at the end of the day, you knew who the stars were, and they were Hogan, Nash, etc. In other words, the same guys as before.

 

Yes. nWo was revolutionary, yet so was Austin/McMahon all the same. It was grand and exciting, you could almost feel as if WCW was truly being taken over, but in the end you know who the victor is and which was ultimately better.

[Naked Snake 0]

This is a good question, and it's a really hard answer.

 

First of all, it's a shame that this really didn't go head to head. Austin and McMahon were teasing a feud from late 1997 and it finally bloomed in April of 1998. By that time, the nWo was falling apart as the Wolfpac was formed and the two nWo factions were feuding with each other. You would think that the nWo rift (nWo has it's first major "loss" [starrcade 1997] and the guys can't deal with the loss so they feud] would be even more appealing than the nWo/Wcw feud, but look what happened when Austin won the title.

 

The Austin/McMahon feud had better ratings than the nWo feud, but keep in mind when Austin/McMahon feuded, the number of people watching wrestling had grown since 1996 (mostly because of the nWo).

 

When the nWo reformed in early 1999 (head to head with Mick Foley's title win), that really began the downfall of WCW. Within six months of that angle, the buyrates and ratings tanked, to the point was losing millions in a month come June.

 

I still from time to time watch skits of old nWo angles, but not so much of Austin/McMahon. Both feuds were really well done, but the hostile takeover angle barely eeks out the everyman vs boss angle for me.

[cabbageboy 0]

The NWO angle actually did have an abstract payoff, namely that the group did in fact accomplish its set mission (namely to destroy WCW).

 

I'll put it this way: I have always been a bigger WWF fan than WCW. But the early NWO 1996/97 era was really the only time I ever flat out preferred WCW.

[Hoff 0]

Austin/McMahon made so much money that Vince was able to BUY WCW three years later. That's not to say WCW was exactly a valuable commodity at that point...but still. Austin/McMahon just drew a lot more money, had more longevity, and grew and adapted as it went on. The nWo just got bigger, but the Austin/McMahon story grew into the Corporation, the Corporate Ministry, and so on, and helped the careers of Rock, Foley, and HHH a fair deal.

[Special K 0]

I agreee with atomsk. nWo was stellar, but at least Austin/Mcmahon had ONE real blow-off. They just brought it back too many times.

 

The blowoff to the nWO angle was totally fucked by Hogan and sorta ruined the storyline.

 

Both angles had fantastic starts, but after they fucked the Sting/Hogan blowoff, the nWo angle just wandered aimlessly,

[UseTheSledgehammerUh 0]

What was the "real" Vince Vs. Austin blowoff?

 

Austin Vs. Vince at the Skydome Raw?

Austin Vs. Vince at SVDM?

Austin Vs. The Rock at WM 15 (with Vince all over the scene, mind you)

Austin Vs. Undertaker "End of an Era"

Austin and McMahon become friends and play guitar songs?

Austin f's over Vince at Invasion?

Team WWF beats Austin's rebellious team at Survivor Series 01?

[Darth Vader 0]

I gotta go Austin/McMahon. The nWo were stale 7 months into their run. Sure it was great TV at first with all the chaos and stuff we'd never really seen before. The best part of it was WCW making yourself piss yourself with the anticipation of who would flip and join the group and it seemed like ANYBODY could join. The sense of paranoia in the WCW camp was electric and it really pulled you in, it was something completely fresh it was great. But Bischoff and company really just let it burn out of control and a few months into 1997 the whole thing really got redundant. Week after week nothing but run ins and total smooges EVERY SINGLE WEEK. The story really never devloped into anything after that and it seemed they were going to drag out the inevitable Hogan-Sting as long as they could and when it happend they fucked it up bighugetime. And after Sting takes the title away from Hogan what happens? The same old shit they did the whole previous year except by '98 the nWo was such a staple in WCW booking they couldn't just let it go away. They tried to recreate the magic of the first 6 months of the nWo angle when they split in half and had guys jumping ship from one side to the other week after week but no dice, by then fans had been beaten of the head with nWo this, nWo that, for almost 2 years. Fans wanted something new and fresh again so they turned to the WWF to see the latter mentioned angle in the tit of this thread. WCW was an asylum run the craziest of the inmates so politics prevailed over good taste and by the time they realized the nWo was no longer an option it was to late, WCW was already dead.

 

McMahon vs. Austin on the other hand generated the same electricity of the early goings of the nWo angle. Until that point we only knew of Vince McMahon as a dorky, overselling announcer (unlike today where he's portrayed as a P-I-M-P and made God job in a tag team match to him). Seeing him in the ring mixing it up with not only a wrester but a MEAN AND NASTY wrestler like Stone Cold who was over as hell just by being the biggest prick imaginable. It built up slowly with Vince McMahon losing control of his wrestlers and just being plain disrespected by the people he employed. Particularly out of control was one Stone Cold Steve Austin. Vince desparately tried to get the people in his company behind him but as long as he was playing the straight and narrow but after getting hit with a stunner in MSG Vince knew it was time to sink to a new depth.

 

While I don't think it was McMahon intent in real life, the Montreal incident played a pivitale role in his heel turn. By screwing and humiliating Bret Hart in front of millions, Vince McMahon showed his true colors backed up by the "Why Bret? Why?" segment he taped for Raw. A new Vince was born and it was one that wouldn't sit back and let the fans or the wrestlers bully him around. He left his role as announcer the focus on what he needed to do. Most of the wrestlers were willing to play ball with Vince, after all he was thier boss. The wrestler Vince focused on the most however was the one that made his life more of a living hell than anybody, Steve Austin. McMahon played it of as though he were neutral and not purposely trying to derail Austin but after Wrestlemania 14 Austin was the champion and to McMahon it was a total disgrace. He couldn't just fire Austin since 1) he was the champion 2) Austin popularity was McMahons meal ticket. Vince was forced to co-exist with Austin and Austin was forced to co-exist with Vince. Vince made one last attempt to get Austin to play his game, Austin chose the "Hard Way" and it was on like Donkey Kong from there.

 

Unlike the nWo angle the Austin-McMahon angle never seemed to get old. The nWo dominated WCW 90% of the time. Either WCW won the big brawl at the end of the show or nWo did. Austin/McMahon was a much more creative battle of wits and wills. It was one-upsmanship each each week, Vince would do something to Austin and you couldn't wait to see how Austin responed the next week and once Austin would retaliate you wanted to see what Vince would do to top that. Vince getting into the ears of Mick Foley, Kane, The Undertaker, and The Rock meant that the matches were kept fresh. The blowoff was perfectly written at Wrestlemania 15, after all the Vince tried to do to break Austin it all failed. Austin was once again the champion and Vince had been defeated then moved on to the issue he was having with the Undertaker. The common reneck beat the powerful billionaire through determination and refusal to be broken. They fucked it up after that with the Greater Power angle, and since Vince is still drunk with power today I guess he learned nothing from the whole expierience. The McMahon vs. Austin angle had a superior story arc and better wrestling so it wins hands down.

 

So in conclusion I pick the 2nd one.

[Wrestlefreak 0]

Definitely the NWO. Although the angle eventually got stale, during it's peak not even Austin/McMahon could match it. Alot of people think NWO went downhill way before the introduction of the Wolfpac, but I actually liked the idea of the NWO fueding within itself. IMO, it is only after WCW pushed this fued(NWO Hollywood Vs NWO Wolfpac) too long that the whole thing got stale for me.

[Hunter's Torn Quad 0]

For all the good the nWo angle did for WCW, the way it was handled played a large part in the destruction of WCW; WCW were portrayed as so out-of-touch and totally incompetent that they were killed dead as babyfaces, and when you add to that the fact that WCW never good the big blowoff win, it made the whole promotion look like a joke and the promotion was living on borrowed time. While Austin vs. McMahon went on a little too long, and wound up having a lot of it's luster taken away by the nonsensical Austin heel turn, it never played a part in the killing of a promotion.

[RavishingRickRudo 0]

Someone want to define "better"?

[Hunter's Torn Quad 0]

Someone want to define "better"?

I would assume he means "successful", in which case the winner has to be Austin vs. McMahon, as the nWo angle, for all the positive things it did for WCW, ultimately helped hurry along its demise.

[Slayer 0]

If better means which I prefered, then nWo wins hands down. I was into them for a long while.

 

Austin-McMahon never captivated me. Ever.

 

If better means influence... then I'd still go with the nWo, first since it came first, and also because Austin-McMahon made Vince believe he (and subsequently the rest of his ilk) could play a central role in storylines with shitloads of facetime over actual wrestlers

[slabinskia 0]

I meant which one everyone liked more.

[gWIL 0]

The nWo angle, at least the first year or so of it, may have been the greatest pro wrestling angle ever. nWo hands down.

[CanadianGuitarist 0]

While Austin-McMahon was a good angle, it did more to showcase the good undercard angles the WWF had at the time. NWO in a walk.

[cabbageboy 0]

For the record I will say the blowoff to Austin/McMahon was at PPV in July 1999 (I forgot the name, was it Fully Loaded?). The one where Austin beat UT in the First Blood match to send Vince packing. I don't consider the 2001 stuff the same storyline exactly.

 

The NWO would have been by far the greatest angle ever had there been a huge blowoff where if the NWO lost they had to disband. The way it turned out it got really silly to think of these guys as the outsiders or a separate entity, since they were too ingrained in the promotion.

 

Austin/McMahon was a highly enjoyable angle, but the NWO changed the very way we view wrestling. It challenged basic fundamental principles: Is it ok to root for the bad guys if they are cool enough? Is it acceptable for the heels and faces to team up to face an invading force? The NWO took us outside the arena, they invaded the production trucks, attacked people for no real reason other than "They were there." The initial angle also made us think that the WWF was trying to invade WCW, and even when this was made clear we didn't care because Hall and Nash were the fucking men.

 

I don't recall when I lost interest in the NWO exactly. Most of 1997 was a blur to me in regards to WCW. After the Piper Alcatraz angle I sorta drifted back into the WWF again, right as Austin/Bret was picking up.

[haws bah gawd 0]

Even though the Austin vs McMahon feud was basically the deciding factor in the Monday-Night Wars, I enjoyed the nWo angle more. I loved it when they were treated as though they were actually invading the company. WCW even went as far as to have security standing between the nWo and the WCW Wrestlers, guns-drawn, when the nWo tried to rush the ring one night. It made the angle seem so much more real and important. Heel, face, it didn't matter what your disposition was. The nWo would attack either just to make a point. So, if you were part of WCW, again regardless of your disposition, you were allies against a common foe in the nWo.

 

Sting's recluse angle also helped add to the nWo storyline. He was betrayed by WCW and only came back to fight for them when there was no hope left, and the nWo had won. Who could forget Uncensored 1997? The nWo had won the big 12-man, 3-team match at the end of the show, and thus basically gained control of WCW and the right to challenge for any title at any time. It was then that Sting took action and dropped from the ceiling then proceeded to destroy the nWo, letting them know their time in control was coming to an end. Sure WCW botched the dark-Sting angle a couple times with the multiple fake Stings attacking WCW wrestlers. They even went as far as to have the 7-foot-tall KEVIN NASH attack Lex Luger and the Giant(?) at Bash at the Beach while Shiavonne tried for the life of him to put-over that it was actually Sting. As much as I respect Hulk Hogan for his many contributions to wrestling, I give him a big FUCK YOU for not putting Sting over clean at Starrcade 1997. It was mainly Sting's one-man rebellion against the nWo that drew me so much into the angle, and made it more entertaining to me than the Austin-McMahon feud.

[Lil' Bitch 0]

Wow, this is a great topic. I liked both, but nWo for me as well. It was the main reason I got into WCW to begin with.

 

What was the "real" Vince Vs. Austin blowoff?

 

Austin Vs. Vince at the Skydome Raw?

Austin Vs. Vince at SVDM?

Austin Vs. The Rock at WM 15 (with Vince all over the scene, mind you)

Austin Vs. Undertaker "End of an Era"

Austin and McMahon become friends and play guitar songs?

Austin f's over Vince at Invasion?

Team WWF beats Austin's rebellious team at Survivor Series 01?

 

I think if anything, it SHOULD have ended at WM 15.

[cabbageboy 0]

I dunno. WM 15 was more of the blowoff to Austin/Rock, or at least Backlash 99 was. I'd say the real end to that angle was Vince's face turn in Sept. 99. Thus to me the actual end was the Austin/UT match. That one ended not only the Austin/Vince angle but also the Ministry angle.

 

The Invasion angle wasn't the same thing as Austin/McMahon. The Survivor Series 01 match was important though not only as the end of WCW ("The Alliance") but also signalled the begin of Austin's decline. I don't think Austin was ever the same after he turned back to being face after the Invasion.