did...................did that just happen?!
Yeah, they had a better cruiser weight division. For a good chunk of it's history, they had a better tag division.
But I think WCW just shows that wrestling isn't a purely talent driven product. You can have good talent and still have a crappy wrestling show. Its because of the last 2 or so years of WCW that I can never look at WWE or TnA and think it's THAT bad. WCW showed me no matter how poor a wrestling show is, I know it can always be worse.
Bischoff saw what worked in Japan and pretty much worked it good. The guy took a company losing $6 million a year and executives telling him how they wanted it to be sold off etc. So he goes in , stops it losing money and then brings its revenues up. Hell at one time a company (I believe it was an oil company) offered $500+ million for WCW. Turner turned it down in 1997. The company was literally making millions of dollars and they thought it would never end.
But mistakes were made during the hot streak and as Death of WCW told us , when a company is fucking HOT ....you can do no wrong. But when business is dead , nothing you can do is right .
The ECW/WCW invasion was utter ****. Vince was given the biggest angle in history and screwed it up sideways. With his need to not make his home grown talent weak repeatedly. Its why Sting stayed away years from the company. Vince made the WWE guys look like they were vastly superior and it killed the WCW ones. Had he honestly made the guys threats , left the McMahon's outta it all...let Heyman run ECW , hired Bischoff for WCW then....dear lord imagine the money. Heyman & Bischoff are better mic workers and can generate better heel heat than another stupid McMahon family angle they did.
Funny story on what also hurt this Invasion. Heyman was going through bankruptcy court at the time and Acclaim was hot after ECW due to a percentage point given for the video game. Anyhow the Bankruptcy judge sees this on TV as Vince tries to claim its an angle for TV. But the judge was less than happy and demanded all things related to ECW not be used til AFTER the bankruptcy court case (where WWE eventually won). But so not only did the McMahon family hurt the angle so did the court as they started saying The Alliance non-stop due to court reasons.
"The story so far: As usual, Ginger and I are engaged in our quest to find out what the hell is going on and save humanity from my nemesis, some bastard who is presumably responsible." - Sir Digby Chicken Caesar.
“ Well hell just froze over. Because CM Punk is back in the WWE.” - Jcogginsa.
“You can take the boy outta the mom’s basement, but you can’t take the mom’s basement outta the boy!” - LA Knight.
"Revel in What You Are." Bray Wyatt.
That one one of the funny differences between WWE and WCW (which extends to TnA). WWE tended to protect their homegrown stars and talent, while WCW and TnA tended to put over newly acquired WWE talent at the expense of their homegrown talent.
Both philosophies taken to the extreme had their faults, but the universal message which ended up being created is that Vince creates the biggest and best stars. And that long term probably worked in Vince favor.
I watched WCW for the under card and WWF for upper card.
"Always listen to the crazy scientist with a weird van or armful of blueprints and diagrams." -- Vibranium
Nash, Hall, and Hogan were always viewed as WWF guys
even when they were in WCW
always portrayed as "invaders"
so in a sense, even in WCW, WWF was booked as the superior product
In the least, WWE created bigger stars. And both WCW and TnA knew it. That's why whenver they were able to get even a moderately well known WWE guy they'd push that wrestler often at the expense of their homegrown talent.
Even Nash in one of those Legends Round tables mentioned how it was sort of silly how when Hall and Nash debuted, 2 WWE guys were able to hold off and terrorize the entire WCW lockeroom. It was before they even had Hogan, and WCW was essentially saying just 2 top WWE guys can challenge the whole freaking company. It inadvertently almost makes WCW guys seem second rate.
WCW had a deeper roster but the programming and scripting was horribly bad.
I still wonder why people would choose to watch Hollywood Hogan vs Roddy Piper over a match like The Rock vs Ken Shamrock.
Very excellent workers in WCW were put underneath old and aging guys like Macho Man (Madness), Ric Flair and the aforementioned Roddy Piper.
Needless to say, I never, ever enjoyed watching WCW beyond the Cruiserweight guys like Rey Misterio, Eddie Gurerro and Dean Malenko.