Continued from Part 3!
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Chapter 10 - The Turning Point
1998 was not that great of a year for WCW.. After the botched ending to Sting v. Hogan at Starrcade '97, the quality of Turner's product started going down hill.
First, they established WCW Thunder, a new B-Show, which was unneeded, since they already Had a B-Show in WCW Saturday Night. Next, Nitro was expanded to 3-Hours. Then, they took a serious loss in the Pay-Per-View Wars with WCW/nWo Souled Out being crushed by WWF's Royal Rumble. A loss they never really recovered from.
Then, Bischoff Insisted on keeping the nWo alive, despite people growing tired of them, their bloated numbers, And the fact that they Rarely lost.
To address this, The nWo was split into 2 factions - The nWo Wolfpac and nWo Hollywood. This only helped a little. Another thing they did was Completely Botch Bret Hart's run. They would continue to refuse to get him right until 2000, when he left the company.
Next is they brought in the Ultimate Warrior and...nothing memorable ever came out of that run. It was a waste. The Only reason why The Warrior was brought into WCW was so that Hollywood Hogan could have his Win back. What A Waste!
And as a punch in the balls to the WCW faithful who were watching at home, the ending of the Diamond Dallas Page v. Goldberg Main Event at Halloween Havoc was cutoff due to PPV time running out. This was due to Hogan wanting a longer match with The Warrior. Selfish!
Oh, BTW, that Warrior/Hogan fight was one of the Worst WCW matches of the year, so there's that..
Then, they had a very messy War Games match at Fall Brawl. It was Also the Final War Games match to be held at Fall Brawl, as the final 2 didn't have one.
Meanwhile, The WWF was booming. It's Main Event Scene, lead by Stone Cold Steve Austin, was Untoppable and, possibly, the Best in All of Wrestling. Their Tag Division wasn't doing that bad either.
We had the incredible Austin v. McMahon, D-Generation X was gaining traction as the most popular faction of that era. Rising stars like Kane. And The Rock becoming the #2 guy in Wrestling.
Sure there were the terrible stuff, like the Awful Gimmicks and Sexualization. But everything else was good.
Also, the The Wrestling Ranking also changed. While Hulk Hogan was still #1, "Stone Cold Steve Austin" overtook "The Macho Man" Randy Savage's #2 spot. The Rock overtook Bret "Hit Man" Hart's spot at #3.
Savage was moved down to #4, Hart was also moved down to #5, The Undertaker at #6, Michaels at #7 and Sting at #8.
On an amusing note, in May of '98, D-Generation X went to War with WCW. And in April, drove a Tank to their event when Both promotions were working in Virginia. RAW at the Hampton Colosseum and Nitro at The Norfolk Scope.
There, DX shouted insults against WCW through a bullhorn, as well as accusing WCW of giving out free tickets to fill up arenas for television while sporting black armbands with the acronym "POWCW" (Prisoner of WCW), which referenced fellow Kliq members Scott Hall and Kevin Nash.
They then tried to enter the arena via a loading dock in an army jeep before being stopped by someone closing the door. They also attempted to forcibly secure meetings with Nitro's executive producer Eric Bischoff and WCW owner Ted Turner at WCW headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia.
This stint garnered great rating for the WWF, and decent ratings for WCW.
WWF's Ratings and PPV Buyouts were rising past WCW's. And...nothing was gonna change that. WWF was Winning the Monday Night War.
And things were about to go from bad to worse for WCW. In January of 1999, WCW pulled a Triple Whammy of Idiocy. First, in a stupid storyline, Miss Elizabeth falsely accused Goldberg of stalking her, so he was banned from the building, despite having a rematch with Kevin Nash for the WCW Championship.
So, Hollywood Hulk Hogan decided to take Goldberg's place and challenge Nash for the belt. This is what people Wanted to see - Battle of The Legend and Future Legend. This was what people Thought would be the beginning of WCW's Redemption Arc. But they would soon see that this wasn't the case.
Then, on the same night, Tony Schiavone, in an attempt to ruin RAW, revealed the results of the Main Event, where Mick Foley was gonna win the WWF Championship. He then mocked the thought. It backfired spectacularly. Over half Nitro's viewers tuned in to RAW to see the popular Wrestler finally win his first Major World Title. Ouch!
To make matters Worse, When those viewers returned to Nitro after a great RAW Main Event, they were expecting Nitro's Main Event to be even greater. They were sadly mistaken. Instead of an epic match, what WCW fans were treated to was the Infamous Finger Poke of Doom.
Hogan was Once Again WCW Champion and the nWo reformed. The fans were sick to their stomachs. And as a result, most permanently switched over to the WWF. Trust in WCW's product was dying. And soon the product itself.
Meanwhile in the WWF... Beloved Wrestler, Owen Hart was tragically killed while being dropped down from the rafters at the Over the Edge PPV. The night after, on RAW, a Tribute Show to Owen was held. Soon, the Over The Edge PPV was retired.
This also lead to a lengthy legal battle between Vince McMahon and Martha Hart, Owen's Widow.
I'll talk more about this Topic another time..since it deserves it's own Article.
Later, WWF would introduce a brand new B-Show as an "FU" to WCW's Thunder. They called it 'SmackDown!', after one of the Rock's catchphrases. Needless to say, SmackDown! was away more popular than Thunder.
In July of 1999, to win over ECW Fans, WCW would create a Hardcore division, complete with Championship. It was a mostly forgettable act.
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Chapter 11 - Virus Russo!
In September of 1999, after a bunch of failed and cringeworthy segments and angles, WCW fired Eric Bischoff and, in October, hired Vince Russo and Eddie Ferrara, who recently left thew WWF.
Russo was hired as the Chief Creative and in a desperate act to get their ratings back and beat the WWF, WCW gave Him Free Reign. That was a Grave Mistake.
Y'see, even though Russo's Ideas were all Hit and Miss, they were Always filtered by Vince McMahon. However,in WCW, He was free to do whatever. And that was the problem.
Russo and Ferrara said that their reasons for leaving the WWF were a dispute with Vince McMahon over the increased workload that they were facing, with the introduction of the new SmackDown! show.
During the beginning of their run, Vince Russo became known as "The Powers That Be", unseen management figure. Ferrara became an on-air parody of beloved announcer Jim Ross, named "Oklahoma", who mocked Ross's Bell's Palsy. This angle was Despised Heavily by Wrestling Fans who then fully gave up on Watching WCW.
In December 1999, Bret Hart suffered a career-ending concussion during a match with Goldberg at Starrcade, after years of being pissed upon by WCW, This pissed off Fans even more and, as a result, left WCW in droves.
Russo turned WCW into a carbon copy of the WWF, complete with sexulization. He also introduced some stupid match types, such as the {fill in blank} on a Pole Match. His booking was also crap. And WCW fans hated it
By the end of 1999, WCW lost Billions of Dollars and Millions of Fans. And things are about to get Worse.
January 2000, both Russo and Ferrara were suspended from WCW after they considered putting the WCW World title on Tank Abbott. The subsequent promotion of Kevin Sullivan to head booker caused an uproar among WCW's wrestlers. Despite winning the WCW World Heavyweight Championship at Souled Out, Chris Benoit quit in protest and dumped the WCW Championship in the trash.
Joining Benoit was Eddie Guerrero, Perry Saturn, and Dean Malenko. All four of them entered the WWF as The Radicalz, debuting on RAW on January 31st.
Also in January, Nitro returned to 2 hours (with the first hour running unopposed and the second hour competing against RAW). That didn't help at All.
In April 2000, WCW rehired Eric Bischoff (now a creative consultant) and un-suspended Vince Russo (still the master creative). The 2 attempted to reboot WCW by vacating all of the promotion's titles. Bischoff was allowed back with booking powers, but he no longer had control of the company's finances, as he had during his previous reign.
And Now, for the failed angle that Bischoff and Russo hoped would be the Next Big Thing in Wrestling- The New Blood Storyline.
The Millionaire's Club, consisting of WCW's veteran stars, were accused of holding back the younger talent. Their enemies, The New Blood, consisted of WCW's Younger Talent.
Due to the unpopularity of this storyline, The New Blood/Millionaire's Club rivalry was aborted before the start of the New Blood Rising PPV, which was supposed to showcase the rivalry.
WCW became more and more desperate, from sexualizing the women and pushing talent that shouldn't have been pushed to the crowning of David Arquette as the WCW Champion, as a cross promotion for his movie, Ready to Rumble.
The struggles of WCW since Russo's creative takeover continued though the summer, at Bash at the Beach, Russo insisted on doing another "Fingerpoke of Doom", this time for the Hulk Hogan/Jeff Jarrett match for the WCW Championship.
Hogan hated it, but was forced to go along. After the match he blasted Russo and blamed Him for all of WCW's current problems. Hogan left the arena in disgust.
The Hulkster would leave the company soon after.
In Late September on Nitro, Russo won the WCW Championship in a steel cage match. At the end of the match, Russo suffered a concussion after Goldberg speared him through a cage, resulting in a head-on collision with the ringside barriers. A week later on Nitro, Russo relinquished the Championship,
"Superstar" Billy Graham-knock-off and 'Roid King, Scott Steiner was pushed beyond pushed during this time, despite not drawing a Damn Dime.
All of this combined made 2000 the absolute Worst Year in WCW History. Russo would depart WCW late in the year.
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Chapter 12 - The Wars End
In mid 2000, Time Warner was discussing the situation with WCW. They were going to merge with AOL soon and wanted to know what to do with the failing Wrestling Company, which was costing them Billions.
The suits agreed to cancel WCW and save both face and money. Eric Bischoff, however, thought differently and convinced the suits to let him Buy WCW from them. Time Warner reluctantly agreed to Bischoff's proposal.
Bischoff went out and found himself a great group of investors - Fusient Media Ventures. I think this Topic deserves it's own Article too. So, I'll talk more about this, in detail, in the future.
Even though, Vince Russo was gone by 2001, the damage was already done and WCW continued it's downward spiral. Eric Bischoff was close to getting a deal done. On the next to last issue of WCW magazine, there was a blurb announcing the first PPV under Eric Bischoff's New WCW - The Big Bang, which was set to air in May. All was going great...until a snag happened.
An outside source convinced Jamie Kellner, CEO of Time Warner, to cancel All WCW shows. Without a Network, Eric Bischoff couldn't show off his vision of WCW. Fusient also saw this and backed out of the deal. Soon, Vince McMahon and the WWF bought the company and all of it's video library.
He also bought out most of the WCW Stars contracts. He refused to pay for the contracts of the Top Stars of the company, which were more expensive, and decided to wait until those contracts expired.
The Final Nitro was held in late March at Panama City Beach in Florida. Vince McMahon opened up Nitro with his infamous "I Own WCW" Monologue.
After the final Nitro, the Monday Night Wars came to an end....with the WWF as the victors.
Following his purchase of WCW, McMahon would purchase ECW, which was also dying.
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Stars of WCW and ECW would appear during WWF's Invasion Era. And WCW was planned to get RAW and Smackdown's 2nd Hours. But due to the unpopularity of WCW with the WWF Fans, the plan was quickly dropped.
ECW was later revived as a 3rd Brand later down the line.
Well, that's all for now. Until Next Time, Punch Nazi's, Kick Commies, Resist Modern Attitudes and Stay Gold.
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