Compliment Sandwich- WWE Magazine’s 15 Reasons Why WCW Nitro Failed

Right around time of RAW’s 15^th anniversary, WWE put out a special commemorative issue highlighting the best and worst of WWE’s signature show. This was a year and a half before The Rise and Fall of WCW (which I highly recommend you watch, regardless of how you feel about WWE’s spin of some events), but it was a good six years after RAW’s competition, WCW Monday Nitro, left the airwaves. And always willing to beat a dead horse, WWE had a list dedicated to the show that it beat down (even after Nitro had beaten RAW every week for a year and a half): 15 reasons why Nitro failed.

Now, as it is my job to put a positive spin on some of the worst of wrestling (and through the benefit of hindsight), I’ll (attempt) to put a positive spin on the reasons why Nitro failed.

(15) Tony Schiavone. Sorry, I can’t even say anything nice about the man who claimed every night “was the greatest night in the history of the sport”. He spent most of his career in NWA/JCP/WCW, but did have a cup of coffee in the WWF in 1989 and 1990. The tease of the Wrestlemania VI main event between Hulk Hogan and Ultimate Warrior that happened at the Royal Rumble was voiced by him. Apparently, he cooked a lot of bridges in WCW, allegedly hiding finishes and angles from his co-commentators and being generally lazy. Also, according to Bobby “The Brain” Heenan, he was only allowed a brief statement on his friend/co-commentator Gorilla Monsoon following his passing, though Schiavone didn’t want any mention of it at all. I could see why Schiavone didn’t like the idea: he replaced—and was replaced—by Monsoon in the WWF broadcast booth. Monsoon was beloved. Still is, for that matter. When WCW went under, the WWF didn’t come calling for Tony. When TNA was a PPV promotion, Tony was kicked after just one week. Even commentator/editor-in-chief of the Camel Clutch Blog Eric Garigulo had not nice things to say about Tony:

“Interestingly enough, I did a show back in 2007 as an announcer which was taped for pay-per-view from San Francisco. I got the booking when Tony Schiavone canceled. It amazed me that anyone would pay this man a penny to call a match on their pay-per-view. I was more than happy to take his booking.”

And with that, Tony, we’re out of time. You can go straight to hell.

(14) nWo 2000. WCW can only take partial blame for why this contributed to Nitro’s failure. Let’s make this clear: the New World Order was one of the greatest contributions to wrestling ever. Ever. That’s not debatable. How long it should have stuck around is, and while everyone has an opinion, many are of the opinion that bringing the group back in late 1999 was a bad idea. And perhaps as an act of karma, nearly everyone involved with the angle suffered. Goldberg, their main adversary, injured his arm breaking a limousine window. Chris Benoit, also feuding with the group, left for the WWF. Bret Hart, the group’s leader, was concussed into early retirement. Jeff Jarrett and Kevin Nash also had to sit out with injuries. Just as quickly as the “band got back together”, they were broken up.

(13) Anti-American Jim Duggan. No. Just… no.

(12) Chavo Guerrero and Pepe. All things considered, Pepe was far and away not the worst thing to happen to Eddie Guerrero’s nephew. For your consideration, in no particular order, here are five things worse:

a.      Chavo Guerrero once lost his ECW title match to Kane in ten seconds at WrestleMania 24.

b.     Chavo Guerrero was once karate chopped by Bob Barker.

c.      Chavo Guerrero was once Jack Swagger’s “Soaring Eagle”.

d.     Chavo Guerrero was once Kerwin White.

e.     Chavo Guerrero was the last man to lose the WWE Cruiserweight Championship. The manhe it lost to: Hornswoggle.

(11) Vince Russo in the Popemobile. Vince Russo: WCW world heavyweight champion is a much more egregious offense.

(10) Matches in the Mall of America. Those matches in the Mall of America beat Monday Night RAW that week in the ratings. Scoreboard.

(9) Fingerpoke of Doom. This moment did far more damage to WCW than any of us realize up until the whole Arquette thing. Forget the fact that Tony Schiavone on orders of Eric Bischoff foolishly underestimated the appeal of Mick Foley. Forget the fact for a moment that they were giving away yet another potential money-making main event (Kevin Nash and Hulk Hogan were leading the two nWo factions in WCW—and they were at war with one another). Forget the fact that just over a year earlier, the WWF did something similar. Forget the fact that ratings actually stayed relatively steady in the weeks following this. This moment was a big middle finger to every one in WCW not named Kevin Nash or Hulk Hogan, and a big “fuck you” to every fan of wrestling in general. This title change makes the Montreal Screwjob pretty damn defensible. And that shit’s hard to defend. Apparently, there is a conspiracy theory that Hogan and Nash were plotting this from when Goldberg won the title fromHogan six months earlier in the Georgia Dome. I kinda believe it. That’s what you get, WCW. You never deserved to catch the WWF after that. I will say one nice thing: it doesn’t belong at #9. It belongs much, much higher. Like... #2. 

(8) The Magnificent Seven. Clearly not learning from their mistakes, WCW put together yet another stable in the dying days: The Magnificent Seven. Here’s the group: world champion Scott Steiner, WCW on-screen CEO Ric Flair, Rick Steiner, Jeff Jarrett, Lex Luger, Buff Bagwell, and Road Warrior Animal. Would you take this group seriously? You put seven upper-midcarders against this group, and they’d smoke them. That’s a fact.

(7) “Crazy” Ric Flair. Forget for a moment that Ric Flair may be legitimately crazy these days. Ric Flair and mental hospital are two things that shouldn’t be in the same sentence. Ever. It made the idea of Ric Flair as Spartacus look genius.

(6) New Blood vs. Millionaires Club. This was WCW’s last serious effort to generate interest in their product. They retconned everything and started over in a major reboot. Risky, considering the reboot was on the Monday before a PPV. And for a few weeks, it worked. The roster was as energized as it was in a long time. But here’s what killed it: the booking. The Millionaire’s Club, perceived to be the ones holding the younger talent back, were the faces in the feud against the New Blood. From the April 10, 2000 reboot to Bash at the Beach that July, the WCW world title changed hands twelve times, six of them coming on Nitro. Though Billy Kidman was one of the main sparks of the feud, he actually came out worse for it in the end (thanks to Hulk Hogan). In fact, the only person to come out better for the feud was Booker T. And he spent most of the feud as GI Bro. Think about that. Oh, and Kimberly Page. She had the sense to quit.

(5) Steve “Mongo” McMichael. Steve was a member of the Super Bowl-winning Chicago Bears in 1985, one of the greatest football teams ever assembled. And that’s where the niceness ends. Mongo was a bad commentator, bad wrestler, and if it weren’t for Paul Roma, would be the worst Horseman ever. Yes, Mongo was bad, but he was far from the most offensive. Plus, Mongo once was married to this.

(4) Disco Inferno. Again, bad? Yes. But enjoyably bad. In fact, Disco was one of my personal favorites in WCW. He was a guy you’d love to hate. And he is still alive, if you’re wondering. Like Mongo, not WCW killer bad, but bad enough to not cross into the offensive line. You know, like…

(3) The One Warrior Nation. WCW, allegedly at the request of Hulk Hogan, paid a hefty sum (as much as $2 million American) to get the legit crazy Ultimate Warrior on their roster for one purpose: to get that win back from Wrestlemania VI. Forget for a moment that the match from Halloween Havoc 1998 is legitimately one of the worst in recorded history. The Warrior return nosedived from the moment he got on the microphone. He talked. And talked. And talked. And pretty much lull people to sleep. And if that didn’t do it, subsequent Nitros saw Warrior appear and disappear in a cloud of smoke and trap doors and mirrors, a la The Undertaker (in fact, one of those trap doors essentially ended Davey Boy Smith’s career). And if that didn’t turn you away, then Warrior turning nWo member Disciple (aka Hogan BFF Ed Leslie) into some sort of gay sex slave probably will. The Warrior era ended after just twelve weeks, and as he had an ironclad contract, was paid a hefty sum of money to stay home. Compared to other financial flops that would befall WCW, this was minor. But among critical flops, this is easily near the top of the list.

(2) Misfits inAction. This was the group of wrestlers that was left out in the cold from the New Blood-Millionaires Club angle. The only problem was the group (outside of Booker T) was largely a bunch of jobbers no one cared about. Except adult film star Tylene Buck, aka Major Gunns. She was hot. It’s hardly a reason why Nitro failed, much less #2.

(1) David Arquette. He appeared on just three episodes of Nitro, yet his appearances did irreparable damage. In his defense, it wasn’t his fault. Really, it wasn’t. In a production meeting, Tony Schiavone jokingly kicked around the idea that David Arquette (who was on Nitro and Thunder to promote the WCW movie Ready to Rumble) could be world champion. Leave it to Vince Russo (who once thought Tank Abbott should be world champion) to take the idea seriously. To his credit, David (himself a longtime wrestling fan) thought that this was not a good idea. It didn’t stop Vinnie Ru from doing it, and on an episode of Thunder…of THUNDER, David Arquette wins the title, killing any remaining credibility the world title, the one held by guys like Ric Flair, Sting, Vader, even Hulk fucking Hogan, once had. To quote a wrestling message board post in 2009, “if the Fingerpoke of Doom gushed blood out of the organs of WCW, then the Arquette title win shot the organization in the face with the elephant gun.” I’m pretty sure no one recovers from being shot in the face with an elephant gun (I can't speak to this as I've never been shot with an elephant gun, nor know anyone that has), and neither did WCW. Ready to Rumble flopped, WCW TV ratings flopped, Slamboree 2000, in which Arquette was defending the world title, flopped, and WCW’s checkbook flopped and faceplanted in the cement. Something good did come out of it though: Arquette sensibly donated his WCW earnings to the families of Brian Pillman and Darren Drozdov. 

The Hidden Good in WCW Halloween Havoc 1998

For about two years, WCW was on top of world: record television ratings, record revenue, record attendance. Combining the perfect storm of a once-in-a-lifetime storyline in the New World Order and smaller-sized wrestlers performing feats of athleticism rarely seen in a wrestling ring in the United States, World Championship Wrestling did what no other promotion was able to do: topple the World Wrestling Federation. In fact, for half of 1996 and all of 1997, Nitro, WCW’s Monday night offering, had beaten RAW, WWF’s Monday night show, in the ratings every week.

By the time Halloween Havoc arrived in October 1998, the 84-week streak had long ended (it ended in April when a teased Stone Cold Steve Austin-Vince McMahon world title match ended the run). The two programs spent the spring and summer jockeying for position as the go-to wrestling show on Monday. In the early summer, RAW, which had been closing the gap since the run-up to Wrestlemania XIV, gained victories, albeit narrow ones, over Nitro. The tide turned once again in August and September on the large shoulders of the Ultimate Warrior’s early appearances in WCW. It flipped to the WWF for the remainder of its head to head battle in October, save for one Monday night.

That night was the night following Halloween Havoc, when WCW forced to re-air the PPV’s main event between Bill Goldberg and Diamond Dallas Page for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship. Why so? The PPV, usually scheduled for three hours, went three and a half hours. Though WCW brass convinced some cable providers to clear the time, most did not—or could not, as many had to drop the broadcast at 11pm ET. The company was also forced to issue millions of dollars in refunds.

There were twelve matches on the supercard, though only nine were shown on the home video release (Wrath versus Meng, Alex Wright versus Fit Finlay, and Saturn versus Lodi were all cut out of the home version). The show is famous—or infamous—for the Hulk Hogan-Ultimate Warrior rematch from Wrestlemania VI. While their WWF match was meticulously worked out in detail to hide their glaring weaknesses, their WCW encounter…well… I’ll let others do the talking for me.

KB’s Wrestling Reviews: 

F. This is one of those matches that the best explanation as to why it sucks is to say “did you watch the match?” Neither guy was capable of putting on a decent match to save their lives at this point so they gave them fifteen minutes on PPV. The ending was bad, the big spot of the match was bad, the whole thing was bad. I don’t know who besides Hogan thought this was a good idea, but they need to be shot otherwise. This was an atrocious match and definitely one of the biggest bombs I’ve ever seen.

Jack Bramma of 411mania: 

…one of the worst matches of all time. This match proves a lot of things but first and foremost, Pat Patterson is a genius and never let it be doubted. Hogan is such a lazy heel during this period and this match that it's pathetic. He coasts so much on personality and promos (even if they are good) that it's sickening. Of course, Warrior had no idea what he was doing either and at several moments just openly stood around having no clue what to do next. And Nick Patrick was another in the line of sacrificial refs left to look incompetent because of unmotivated horseshit by the workers. I'm not going the negative full monty because I can imagine a worse match than this, I just hope I never see it. -****.

Jack didn’t, but Dave Meltzer of Wrestling Observer Newsletter did. It’s one of just four matches Dave gives the “minus five stars” treatment.

Mr. Socko’s Pro Wrestling Review: 

The phrase train-wreck gets banded around far too often these days, but if you were looking for a match to show wrestlers how not to do it, this would be it. To pick the worst moment is almost impossible, simply because there are so many. Was it when Hogan tried to throw a fireball in Warriors face, only to see the lit bit of cloth harmlessly fall to the ground? Was it the fact that you see about 3 moves and that most of the match was made up of Hogan and Warrior holding hands? Is it when Hogan says: "I'm killing you!" and Warrior responds: "You're killing me!"? What about when Hogan trips over the ref? Or perhaps it was the fact that this piece of shit would be Warrior's final match in WCW?

This was far from the worst show WCW put on. But in a company where virtually all its top talent skewed older (while their biggest competition the WWF skewed younger—in fact, the following month, they would put their world title on a 26-year old Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, at the time, the youngest world champion in its company’s history) and had creative control written into their contracts, two nWo factions, a slew of talent desperately looking to crack the glass ceiling, and a popular world champion booked in the undercard, this show was perhaps the most glaring sign to date that WCW had problems that money alone wasn’t going to cover up.

The good news: at least Goldberg versus Diamond Dallas Page was good.

Here’s what is and what isn’t worth your time. If the link’s in bold, watch it. If it’s not in bold, watch at your own risk.

• After the opening video package (here is where you appreciate WWF’s superior production: anyone with a little knowledge in video editing programs could put it together in a couple hours), we get the PPV debut of the Nitro Girls. Don’t get me wrong, I love me some Nitro Girls. But this is PPV. Time is money.
• The segment following is a Rick Steiner interview featuring Buff Bagwell.
• Chris Jericho versus Raven for the WCW television title is probably the second best match on the card. Chris Jericho equals buyrates and butts in seats are both true (as evidenced by his runs in the WWF/E). Chris Jericho equals rock and roll is debatable. But the match is good and the crowd is white hot and loud. Also loud, the entrance music. So loud, in fact, you can’t hear the commentators during Raven’s entrance.
• Following a Hollywood Hogan promo (are we watching Nitro or a PPV?), we get Meng vs. Wrath. (Wrath wins in about four and a half minutes. It’s Worldwide quality.) Well, if you were watching this on PPV, you would. For everyone else, Disco Inferno versus Juventud Guerrera in a #1 contender’s match for the cruiserweight title was next. It’s a pretty decent bout, though it’s also something that could have been done on Thunder or Nitro to prevent one of these guys from going twice in one night.
• Now would be a good time to point out that Dean Malenko, Chris Benoit, and Eddie Guerrero all are not on this show.
• More Nitro Girls (good, but again, PPV people), then a segment with Scott Steiner, The Giant and JJ Dillon. That combined is about six lost minutes.
• Actually, about sixteen minutes if you count the Alex Wright-Fit Finlay match and Saturn vs. Lodi match that didn’t make the home video release.
• But a third (and final) appearance by the Nitro Girls did. So I guess that’s about 18 minutes that could have been used for something else…like a better match.
• And since we’re not, it looked as if Disco had virtually no rest at all as the cruiserweight title match between Disco and Billy Kidman is up. It’s an okay match. It doesn’t exactly set the world on fire.
• Also not setting the world on fire: the 2,454^th playing of Konnan’s music video which, thankfully, is cut from the home video release.
• Not cut from the release however, is the tag title match between Scott Steiner and The Giant and Rick Steiner and the returning Buff Bagwell. Steiner claimed his partner Scott Hall was injured (he’s not; he wrestles later), so The Giant subs in. Per the pre-match stipulation, if Steiner and Bagwell win, then not only they get the belts, but Rick vs. Scott is on. Oh, and Bagwell turns on Rick. Again. My head hurts from typing all that. Worth note, The Giant does a top rope missile dropkick. Of course, Steiner wins the belts by himself. He am the tag team champions.
• And as promised, though Scott tried to bail, we get some Steiner on Steiner violence. Bret Hart versus Owen Hart this is not. Oh, and Buff Bagwell in a Clinton mask.
• Scott Hall versus Kevin Nash should have been far better than what they delivered. Scott Hall played drunk and drugged on TV (and was drunk and drugged off it—still is more than a decade later, though he’s trying to get himself cleaned up with help from Diamond Dallas Page). The ending would drive anyone into complete rage (two powerbombs by Nash followed by a countout loss).
• Whoops: here’s your last appearance by the Nitro Girls tonight. In colored wigs, no less.
• Also in the “should have been better than what they delivered” category: Bret Hart versus Sting for the WCW United States Championship. Even Bret Hart hated it. That alone should tell you how bad this match was. Oh, and there’s the stretcher job for Sting post-match that eats some time.
• I’ve given the bold to Hulk Hogan versus Warrior for one reason: this is an all-time train wreck that it’s hard to look away from. For many people watching on the original broadcast, this was the last match they saw, and they didn’t even see the whole thing. See, because of all the time wasted (four Nitro Girls performances, three matches that belonged on Worldwide or Saturday Night, two long promo segments in the first half hour, and a music video), WCW ran over on their own PPV and lost millions in revenue because of it. And the crazy thing was they didn’t have to. WCW had no one to blame but themselves.
• Shame really because Goldberg versus Diamond Dallas Page for the WCW world title was the tits, bro. The good news is we all got to see it—for free—21 hours after the fact. Easily in the top 5% of Goldberg matches ever. 

There was so much right and wrong with WCW. On this night, a whole lot of that wrong was on display to produce an event that was a critical, financial, and a public relations disaster. They had the tools to fix the problems, but they never quite put them to use efficiently.

Unsanctioned, Uncut, Unauthorized, Unbelievable, Unsuitable for Human Consumption

If you were a fan of WCW, you had to put up with a lot of hot garbage. Truthfully, in the mid-1990s, if you were a fan of any major promotion in the United States, you had to put up with a lot of hot garbage. But hey, at least it was safe for children to watch. After all, you didn’t have to worry about things such as swearing or blood or other adult-like things that television was increasingly getting filled with. Remember when everyone made a big stink (no pun intended) of Dennis Franz’s naked ass on NYPD Blue? At least in wrestling, you didn’t have to worry about such a thing.

In fact, if you watched WCW, you didn’t have to worry about such a thing…pretty much ever. Because of Turner’s standards and practices, there was no blood, swearing, man-on-woman violence, or other adult-like things to worry about on WCW programming. It was family friendly, by God. (By late 1999, WCW would change their tune pretty much entirely, but that’s a different story.) Well, except for one night a year. That one night: Uncensored.

WCW Uncensored is often said to be a precursor to the WWE PPV Extreme Rules, but a more accurate analogy would be the ECW One Night Stand PPV that WWE put on in 2005 and 2006. It would be the one night of the year that anything goes and every match on the show was deemed unsanctioned by WCW. The following disclaimer ran in the opening moments of the first edition in 1995:

"The program you are about to see is a first in World Championship Wrestling. The following pay-per-view event, Uncensored, has been established due to the many grudges and differences which have developed between wrestlers over the past few months. With this in mind, the WCW Board of Governors has the following statement: Every match at Uncensored will occur without the sanction of the WCW board. The following matches have been agreed upon by all involved and will be held solely to settle any personal disputes. Get ready for a professional wrestling event like none other….it’s now time for WCW…Unauthorized, Unsanctioned and UNCENSORED."

A few things of note: this is pre-Nitro, pre-Cruiserweight division, and just happened to occur on the same week Michael Jordan’s return to basketball after a fifteen-month “retirement” and Mike Tyson being released from jail after spending three years on rape charges. Bobby Heenan lumping this with Vader ending Hulkamania to call it the biggest week in the history of sports is classic Bobby Heenan. It would also be incorrect. I don’t know what the correct answer would be, but if you have an idea, let me know.

The 1995 edition, emanating from the wrestling hotbed that is the Tupelo Coliseum in Tupelo, Mississippi, is one of the worst PPVs of all time. So bad that Dave Meltzer’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter named it the Worst Major Wrestling Show of the Year (the 1996 sequel also took home that “honor”). The show featured just seven matches, but it had quite the variety: a Texas tornado tag match, a “King of the Road” match, a strap match, even a boxer vs. wrestler match.

But how bad can it really be?

KB’s Wrestling Reviews: 

Overall Rating: O. As in oh what do you think I’m going to give this show? This is freaking terrible. The thing is though, the idea actually isn’t that bad: a hardcore PPV. The problem is it was about as thrown together as you could ask for. None of the gimmicks made any sense and the regular matches were boring. Also the main event being non title makes it sound weak. 

Jack Bramma of 411mania in 2012: 

They have a special circle in hell for wrestling shows like this. This thing will suck your soul dry of all the humanity inside you. Please, don't watch this. But if you MUST, you have to be under the same cocktail of influences that the booking committee was at the time. 

Scott Keith: 

The show is brutally bad, but it’s brutally bad in a Vince Russoish car crash sort of way, rather than WCW’s usual brutally boring sort of bad.
 That’s probably about the nicest thing I can think of to say about this show, and as my mother always says, if you can’t say anything nice about a show, don’t say anything at all… 

Good thing I had some cocktails and an energy drink. I’ll probably need it to get through this travesty.