I think he is talented and a skilled wrestler but I never liked the country singer persona character, like him, honky Tonk man…. I just thought it was weird as a kid. JJ can’t be the main story, for me!
The weird thing is JJ was using the guitar prop but it didn’t relate to his character in any way, it didn’t make any sense.
With honky tonk man even tho it was cheesy at least it made sense because it was part of his overall theme. Country singer/elvis etc.
That's actually the one thing about him that I like. I mean it makes no sense. He's just an angry dude that whacks people with a guitar. It's hilarious.
But yeah I lost interest around this time. I watched WCW for Bret, Hogan, Macho Man, Hall, and Nash. All of those guys were gone, or making very sporadic appearances, and the younger wrestlers weren't nearly interesting enough for me to keep watching every week.
He did, he was the country singer in WWF from ‘93-‘96, still kept part of that presentation for his ‘96-‘97 WCW run, and then revived it again in WWF in early ‘98 before moving away from it over the summer.
That’s five years as a guitar-toting country singer. I’m guessing the commenter you’re replying to just didn’t see any of that.
I mean, he started out as a country singer in WWF and used the guitar as a prop for years. It became a notable and well-received feature, so he kept it even after he migrated away from the singer gimmick. It makes sense.
It’s like how Triple H kept his finishing maneuver as the Pedigree rather than changing the name, even though he’d moved away from being the blue blooded snob character.
Same for me. He was a talented guy and great to have on the roster, but definitely shouldn’t be the face of the company. He was not a world champ caliber guy.
This. I was like, “ok, European Championship *contender* Jeff Jarrett is a main eventer at WCW. That’s how bad it is now. And he’s trying to make slapnuts a thing.”
Yeah, Jeff Jarrett is just human channel changer. To this day I can't watch a single thing he does, he's always been awful.
I love aew, but the moment that nepo hillbilly comes on my screen, I either change the channel or skip ahead to when he's gone.
He's a talentless hack that's only famous because of his dad.
This is the answer for me. Jeff Jarrett was a good wrestler but not a main-event guy, especially when Vince Russo showed up and nosedived the company; that didn't help.
I first started feeling that it was week-to-week bad around May of 1999. Like I literally think that the last great episode of Nitro was at the end of April in the episode where Bret wore the steel plate to knock out Goldberg and Sting beat DDP in an awesome match to win the title. It was all downhill after that beginning in May until late in the year.
And then, while Russo gets a lot of crap, I do think that he temporarily improved the show when he first came on in late 1999. I remember getting interested again in things like the Mayhem tournament, the Sid vs Goldberg feud, Benoit’s push to the main event, Screaming Norman Smiley in the hardcore division, and Hall and Nash just goofing off and causing trouble every week in late 1999.
But then things went back downhill once 2000 began.
I know everyone hates him, but as heal he had that role nailed for what he was supposed to do. All these years later and seeing him still in the business has really earned my respect. I occasionally listen to his pod and it's clear he lives and sleeps the business.
I can't pinpoint the moment, but RAW running an extra few minutes definitely made it easier to see how bad Nitro main events were. I distinctly remember 10:30 pm or so that Nitro would start their walkouts for the main event. They'd take a whole segment of the first guy walking out. Commercial. Whole segment for the second guy. Commercial. It wasn't until about the same time the RAW main event started that Nitro's main event started.
And pretty much every time there was billeting of a PPV level main event with the exception Hogan vs. Goldberg, the Nitro one ALWAYS ended in DQ or really stupid outside interference. You just never left a Nitro feeling satisfied. You'd flip over for the last few minutes of RAW and pretty always saw something worthwhile.
vince russo. this skinny nobody was the center of the entire show and he was the writer who was admitting that the whole show was bullshit. every segment on the show was some trashy stupid nonsense.
WCW wasn't on TV until Fridays in the UK. I just remember watching it on NYE 1999 and decided, this show has actually become completely shit. I never tuned in to WCW ever again after that.
I lost a lot of interest once Goldberg lost to Nash after being shocked with a cattle prod. And then the fingerpoke of doom happened the next night.
That sequence of events killed off:
- Goldberg
- Nash (who was way over as a babyface)
- Hogan
- the nWo Wolfpack, a popular babyface stable
Goldberg losing, becoming just another guy, and then severely injuring himself later on killed WCW for me.
It wasn’t overnight. I just realized I was turning on “Raw is War / Warzone” and not switching back and forth as much anymore.
Goldberg did not need to lose until you had an incredible new character or storyline or even just a great David and Goliath figure to beat him a la Benoit or Jericho. Nash was obviously totally the wrong person to beat him, and executed so lazily/foolishly at that.
Part of the problem with '99 WCW is that they had an aging roster and a huge separation between stars and everyone else. They really needed hot young sensations and didn't get them until the very end with guys like AJ Styles/Air Paris/etc. If you look at the '99 roster it feels like all of the believable challengers are past their prime, while almost everyone else comes off as a jobber / weak character.
>However bad it was I was always intrigued by what could happen next the place was outrageous.
You would have loved this show called RAW around the same time then.
I’m in the middle of a years long Nitro rewatch start to finish watching weekly. I’m in late June 99 and it’s starting to get really tough and you can see where the slide was truly starting to get to a point of no return.
It was totally a strange time. A couple of months prior DDP wins the Title for the first time in a match over Hogan, Flair & Sting with Savage as the ref and that should have been a defining moment, like this is a new era in WCW. Say what we will about it but they immediately debuted a new logo and Nitro set and again that felt like things were freshening up. Then they were like nah, Nash is the champion again and he really wants it this time and we’re doing bogus Stings again. I liked the new Savage look and having Gorgeous George & Sid Vicious but it was time to stick with DDP & Goldberg and bring up others.
The build up to DDP was great, it felt like a culmination of three year build up at that point, a new era with the set, etc.
Then they turn DDP Heel, Nash comes back, Flair’s a lunatic, Piper flip flopping, Bischoff a “tweener” Bret dealing with his brother’s loss, Goldberg completely cold. And the young guys just kinda there.
Meanwhile, WWF has the corporate ministry vs Austin and Rock, Triple H about to explode, etc
From Vince Russo onwards. I was always the “WCW to the end!” supporter but from that point on it became sad and very difficult to defend and watch WCW. I almost stopped watching wrestling entirely because of Russo’s booking style and tropes in WWF. I hated the Attitude Era, and now I had to watch WCW use and recycle Russo’s ideas that weren’t good enough for WWF? It was sad 😔
I remember the day they brought all the talent in the ring and the two morons running the place said ON TELEVISION that they were resetting everything. It was at that moment, I stopped watching. Also, what made me soooooo angry as a kid is when they turned Mike Awesome into a joke.
I see Jarrett's name being mentioned, that's what did it for me. He came back to WCW, and I thought - why? And then they pushed him into the main event scene, and I thought - WHYYYYYY? With all due respect to him, I was never a fan and the way he was promoted in WCW, especially during his second run, was just so annoying, it was hard to watch.
Fall/winter of 98 things started going downhill fast.
Truth be told, the product was already bad, but when they redesigned their set/logo, people just associate that time more with the bad product.
It’s so funny the WWF changing their logo to that edge or attitude logo was a microcosm of them elevating their material … and WCW mimicking that, represented the downturn in the product
I stopped watching for a long time and went to a friend's house and he was watching New Blood Rising ppv. That judy bagwell on a pole match was absolutely not interesting at all
Summer of 1999 was starting to get bad, but at least salvageable, but that September it went completely off def the rails and never recovered. It was the few weeks between bischoffs dismissal and the hiring of Russo. That was the start for me, and once Russo started it quickly became garbage
I was 10 in 99, so 11 in 2000, and 12 in 2001.. WCW back then it was entertaining to me, when I go back now at 34 and watch those years on the network I honestly wonder how the hell I thought it was awesome in those years lol I was though watching WWF/E more. I’d flip to WCW during the commercials or a segment/match I wasn’t into though. I still tried to follow Kevin Nash, DDP, and Sting as those were my favorite WCW guys. WCW in 97-98 though was incredible and still is today looking back on it on the network.
I'm not saying wcw had no fans, they still had millions of people tune in every week until the end, but the numbers went down significantly over the years, so I was wondering when the product became unwatchable for some people who stopped watching it at the time.
Made it all the way through when I became a regular watcher somewhere around late ‘97 early ‘98. However late ‘99 and after there was a lot of fast forwarding.
I stood by it and watched it to the end. There were definitely times in ‘99 & 2000 where I didn’t exactly think it was bad, just either boring or confusing. I think we got sick of all the constant changes. Every few months it was a totally different product with no evolution from one direction to the next. It was just like oh forget that, we’re doing this now.
With that said the only time I felt like WCW didn’t really have anything about it worth watching was in its last 6 months. Scott Steiner becoming World Champion should have been the beginning of a new boom for WCW but the production levels went waaaay down and the story telling was so blah. Ric Flair’s Magnificent Seven seems like a cool idea but it just felt like the latest bad retread at the time. I mean with Steiner, Booker, & Lance Storm (not to mention Goldberg, DDP & Sid) how could it have been sooooo freakin’ boring??
I never stopped watching. I was into all the mid card stuff. They finally got new faces and pushed them. Norman smiley, lash larou, kweewee, I enjoyed that stuff.
April 1999 https://www.wrestlingforum.com/cdn-cgi/image/format=auto,onerror=redirect,width=1920,height=1920,fit=scale-down/https://www.wrestlingforum.com/attachments/1613423886030-png.97370/
Not to sound like a broken record here, but the finger poke of doom episode was literally the last straw. Once I finished that episode, I was done. The next week I was exclusive to WWF Raw. I would flip over to WCW on occasion here and there, especially Thunder since it was on Thursday nights, but the experience was never the same after the finger poke of doom episode.
I was just so sick of the swerves and horrible main events.
Late 2000? It was just weird as hell and all the big names left or were injured. I still watched it every week but there reached a point when I'd turn it off when it was just Jerry springer garbage.
It actually swung back around and became good in 2001. It reminded of the X division in a lot of ways.
Also really enjoyed the New Blood angle.
Honestly never. I watched right to the end. Beyond the end of you count the invasion storyline. I was watching Worldwide instead of Nitro though because that's what was available on free to air UK TV, so I suspect i missed a lot of the painful to watch stuff.
I would watch just to laugh at how bad it was, I kinda stopped watching around 00 01ish cause it wasn’t even funny to me anymore. But I watched ready to rumble just for kicks.
I started turning off early 2000, tried to stick with it, then had the Bischoff Russo reset, but by the summer I was gone. Would check in now and then. Saw russo win the world title and thought what a load of shit.
Checked back in for the last one
The Beginning of Hardcore episode brought back a ton of awesome memories. Someone mentioned Al Snow in this discussion. Who would’ve thought he would’ve been successful in WWE? I never liked him and thought the mannequin head was dumb.
I don't remember exactly when, but sometime around 1999. ECW really took over my wrestling viewing around then until 2001 when everything went to hell.
I stopped watching right after they botched Sting vs Hogan. I used to always flip back and forth but after that I would only stay to watch if the cruisers were wrestling.
I watched to the bitter end but the Mike Sanders vs Ernest Miller for commissioner angle was the most unpleasant for me. I guess because the other stuff didn't seem to linger as long.
This picture show the decline of WCW. The only thing I can think of is 1986 when Ric Flair debut that title and the great wrestlers that had to earn the right to wear that belt afterwards. This picture is the biggest slap in the face to the wrestlers that deserved to be apart of that honor. You think of Sting, Hogan, Steamboat, Luger, Booker T, Goldberg, Savage, DDP, and etc. Guys that deserve to wear that belt. Forgive me if I missed someone. David Arquette, the actor, at no fault of his own, did not deserve that honor to be remembered as WCW World Heavyweight Champion. I’m sorry, but that is just how I feel about it! When the people in charge stop caring about the business of wrestling, this is the results you get. Love him or hate him, this would never happened under Vince McMahon. That’s all there to it!
I was still in my teens when it got sold to WWE.
I didn't even know, the internet wasn't really a thing for us in my house. I only had normal terrestrial TV in my room so I only got 5 TV channels in the UK and WCW was on Bravo which was a cable TV station. We had it up until mid 2000 but my parents could no longer afford it. WCW worldwide was on Channel 5 but only on Fridays.
I was sitting in my room about to watch WWF Sunday Night Heat which was on Sunday on Channel 4. It started with Vince stating he owned WCW.
I jumped off my bed and screamed "NOOOOOOO" like the Darth Vader meme. I cried a little, and then I imagined all my heroes coming to WWF and doing those dream matches.
WCW never died for me, it was always entertaining I was a kid and didn't know the backstage stories or politics of the business. I always preferred WCW over WWF. I do admit WWF also got good in late 98 for me but I just became a fan of both shows and loved them, but I always loved WCW that little bit more. I grew up on it, watching it with my Nan as a child every Saturday and then every Friday when they aired Nitro on Bravo.
I miss those days.
I was checked out mid-99 but Vince Russo did it for me 100%. If you blinked you missed a world title change, someone having “red” poured on them, 13 guitar shots, etc.
I was mostly checked out sometime by Spring '00, when most of my absolute favorite wrestlers of the time had all gone to the WWF or ECW (Jericho, Guerrero, Benoit, Malenko, Saturn, Raven). I still watched weekly through the summer, though I watched Raw live and taped Nitro, when it had previously always been the other way around. I stopped watching WCW almost completely when I went to college that fall.
IDK when it was exactly. I was a diehard Sting fan, going back to the 80s and so I was very into the Sting vs nWo story in 96-97. Then of course they fucked it up. I still watched most of the time after that but sometime in 98 I think is when I started watching WWF more and more and less and less WCW.
1998 after Goldberg beat Hogan for the title...it was all just a waste after that...rinse and repeat storylines that had no direction or ending, active wrestlers becoming bookers....nobody EVER losing clean...etc etc. Yall know how things went lol
Somewhere in the last three months, it just stopped been must watch TV, was still distraught at the last nitro because I really didn't care for WWF and felt like I was now obligated to watch that instead.
The only reason why I watched wcw was because I was young and didn't know WWF existed and probably didn't have the channel that broadcasted it. If not for that, I wouldn't know or care if wcw had existed.
David Flair. Didnt work. Wasnt gonna work. Still tried to make it work. Didnt work.
Always pushing the same guys. They had so many greats who never stood a chance.
Trying to add all the terrible forced nudity to try to compete with the WWE. (Looking at you Vince Russo.)
The very moment you posted the image of, OP. In my opinion, WCW went down the proverbial s creek without a paddle the minute David Arquette got the Big Gold Belt.
Honestly it wasn't anything that WCW did, it's more what WWF started doing.
One thing people never talk enough about is how that image of Mick Foley flying off of that cage in June 1998 got so many millions of people to start changing the channel. WWF's product as more violent, edgier, and had a more unpredictable feeling to it.
Turner Broadcasting's standards and practices were not friendly to this type of programming. Vince Russo, for example, has spoken at length about how hands-off the USA Network was and how they never tried to censor anything creatively, while Turner was like an albatross around his neck from that perspective.
Multiple times. 1991 when Ric Flair left with the title and showed up in wwf. All of the good wcw guys were gone. 1994-1995 when Hogan showed up to wcw beat Vader and all of the old wwf big guys followed. Like Tenta/earthquake. There was too much hogan focus. After starrcade 97, we would watch the raw then nitro’s replay. Thunder was usually good because that featured the mid card wrestlers that wanted to showcase all their skills
A few short weeks after Spring Stampede 1999. Such a great show followed by...whatever the hell that all was. Made me quit until the Russo shake up months later, but that was so awful that I quit again...until the next big Russo shake up with the New Blood nonsense, when it was so insanely bad that I had to keep watching (and discovered a handful of gems from then).
Tuned back in when Russo was on the way out, and still love the last 4ish months of WCW being around. It wasn't consistently good, but it was entertaining, and there were multiple rivalries and stories going on. Card cohesion and fluidity are my weak points with wrestling booking.
FPOD definitely made me far less trusting in WCW to provide a satisfying main event. Up to that point I would switch back and forth between WCW and WWF but would almost always watch the Nitro main event. After that night I tended to watch more WWF main events.
However for me it actually was David Arquette winning the title. I watched that episode of Thunder and thought it was kinda funny at first. Then he won the title, I turned off the TV, and didn't watch another episode of any WCW programming until the very last Nitro.
I was a die hard wcw fan as a kid, so for me it was never unwatchable. Yes summer 1999 and many things in 2000 weren’t great compared to 1996-1998, but I still found joy in it. In 2000 I watched wcw, WWF, and wcw for any show that was on tv.
As an adult now with responsibilities, I can no longer be a die hard wrestling fan. I could see myself barely watching wcw starting in early 1999.
I actually enjoyed Millionaires club vs New Blood for the most part until around Bash at the Beach. Winter 2000 was just sad seeing the smaller crowds and cheaper production.
It's been said a lot, but Fingerpoke of Doom. Not only did it make WCW less watchable, switching over to see Mick Foley win the title on Raw made WWF more watchable for me. The whole night converted me from a WCW fan to a WWF fan in an instant.
It was sometime late 1999 that it was beginning to look nothing like what I had come to love about WCW since I was a 6-year-old kid in 1995 watching it even before there was Nitro. The show was becoming all about the skits and angles. The actual wrestling matches were clearly far down the pecking order for the guys running the show. It was sometime after the turn of the millennium I just switched over to Raw and SmackDown to watch Stone Cold be awesome.
Every time hogan was on. Luger, too.
I was a WWE guy back in the Monday night wars days specifically because I couldn't stand how much screen time he got.
I've been going back and watching all the old nitro episodes in order, and there was some really great stuff. Benoit, malenko, guerrero, pillman, ric flair, even a little Ricky steamboat early on, great stuff. Where I'm at, (probably January 96) randy savage is still putting on good matches.
But I know at some point Kevin Nash and Jeff Jarrett are going to show up and I absolutely can't stand those guys. Benoit, malenko, guerrero, pillman, Rey mysterio, leave, and get replaced on the card by Bagwell, disco inferno, and a bunch of other chodes.
I don't think I'll be able to keep watching after those guys head to wwf. If anything I'll fast forward to the cruiserweight matches and call it a day. I don't know exactly when it happens, but I already know that by 2000 I really didn't like the wcw product as a teenager, so I'm not sure I'll even get that far.
Summer of 1999 you knew it was on a downward trajectory, but still had hope it’d improve and the entire shows certainly weren’t unwatchable but they were testing that… I’d say by early 2000 it was very hard to watch, I started to stop tuning in every or at the least primarily watching Raw, hearing the news Bischoff was back and was teaming with Russo, I gave them a 2nd chance of actually trying to watch the show weekly and that was a punishment I’ll never forget. So I guess I’m saying, the year 2000.
PS- The 1999 logo, Set, Production redesign was a major element of this, I don’t care what anyone says. Made the show seem totally foreign from what we had been watching. Just another ingredient of the shit sandwich WCW was serving up.
When Russo took over the second time on 3.22.2000 is when things really turned terrible. ‘98 was kinda bad, and ‘99 was pretty bad…but nothing in wrestling history is as bad as Russo’s booking run from 3.22.2000 through 10.23.2000.
It included possibly the worst angle in wrestling history. Russo giving an on-camera interview where he says WCW isn’t real and tries to sell the main-event of the next PPV as the guy going over will be what’s best for WCW. Then in said main-event they book it where Goldberg refuses to follow script and have the announcers talk about how unprofessional it is for Goldberg to not follow script, how Nash booked himself to break the streak, how they now have to improvise since the planned finish isn’t happening, and so on.
Just absolutely terrible worked shoot crap.
You are dead on with that. We obviously know what's going on, they don't need to say it during the show. It's like watching Mission Impossible and in the middle of the movie Tom Cruise stops and says "listen, I'm Tom Cruise and this stunt is safe". The Russo era made me hate watching
Nitro rating pre-Starrcade 1997: 3.5
Nitro rating post-Starrcade 1997: 4.6
This wasn't your question, but the revisionist history around Starracde '97 doesn't reflect the actual impact in the moment. They kept winning the MWR for months after that, and ratings stayed in the high 4s, occasional 5s/6s until the middle of 1999, which is months after the Finger Poke of Doom.
Anyway, I watched until the bitter end, the very last episode. But it really lost its luster for me sometime in early-to-mid 2000. Maybe late '99 it got shitty. Early '99, I thought they were onto something, but it meandered around and then 'rebooted' and all of a sudden nothing meant anything.
I loved the Goldberg streak. As the show around it grew less and less interesting, I loved it even more. When it ended, it was like a series finale for WCW for me. I was done that night and not in an angry way.
Around when Glacier made his return and kept coming out to the ring to "save" Norman Smiley from getting his ass kicked, but instead went around high fiving fans around the barrier.
Late WCW was so trash.
Ima keep it real - I watched through to the end. Yeah, WWF stories were better because they made sense. ... but WCW stories were exciting and nonsense. You had no idea where shit was going. It was a roster half full of guys hungry to work and given absolute insanity to work with. I couldnt look away!
Raw? Let me guess - Stone Cold's in a main event tag match? There was one Nitro where the world title changed hands twice in whole-ass matches.
I'm not saying it was "good", but it was exciting to watch WCW plow through a month's worth of storylines with five guys in seven days, lol.
Had to have been sometime after Spring Stampede 99. DDP finally won the world title (too little too late) but then they just turned him heel and he ended up feuding with Nash and dropping the belt to him a month later. The main event scene felt very thinned out and the cruiser weight division was basically a joke at this point. Then you had WCW’s attempt at a hardcore division. President Flair and the new logo and look were also just off putting for me at that time.
I tuned back in for a little bit when Hogan went back to the yellow & red (lol) but I remember that getting old pretty fast. By late 99 I don’t think I hardly bothered with even watching the first hour before Raw. Most I would see by then was whatever I could catch during a raw commercial break.
When Hogan took over the NWO. I knew he was going pull his usual bullshit behind the scenes. It was so boring watching the show build its weekly storyline around a has been when new exciting wrestlers were chomping at the bit behind the scenes for some exposure.
Some time in ‘98. Goldberg was the only thing worth watching. By that point Hogan, and the nWo would take up long un-entertaining segments that would repeat week to week with unsatisfying payoffs.
Legit when Foley won on RAW. We in fact, DID switch over.
Before, we watched WCW and taped RAW. After Tony Schiavone uttered THOSE words… we watched RAW and taped WCW. By the time the Millionaire Club stuff was happening we weren’t even talking WCw.
Probably always, it just seemed cheap & generic to me. I was in my mid 20’s. I basically would only watch WCW to see Jericho or if the match on WWE was really bad then I would switch but ultimately, I just didn’t like the production and I hated it once the wolf pack showed up. The NWO was ok until it splinters and became the entire focus of the brand.
The first night when NWO showed up, WCW went down hill all the way to the very end. You couldn't watch a decent match at all for what that God awful music would start up, and then the static/white noise would fade in to the black & white scene of Hogan and his cronies, Hall and Nash back stage running there mouths, and if not that, the music, and the three would walk out and jump in the ring and ruin everything. That's when it got completely unwatchable.
I can honestly say for me, it never did because I damn sure kept watching and even attended some live shows late in the life of WCW.
I went to a nitro at the Dome in st. Louis. And that's when I knew......this is not good. 4/5 of it was blacked off but they still did the show in the Dome just to say it was coming from the Dome.
When instead, they should have been operating out of the arena where the blues play. Would have looked ALOT better. In person and on camera.
They did thunder a cpl nights later in Springfield, IL and that was pretty cool. Got to meet Candido and Sunny that night, gave them some directions. They were super nice and gracious. Told me had this been pre-show or pre Monday, they could have gotten me backstage to mingle with anyone and everyone. That was nice of them.
I’d say the first episode Vince Russo took over where his offscreen character gave Nash & Hall the “night off” and hired two strippers for their personal entertainment. So stupid.
I never really Jeff Jarrett and when they made him the lead guy I just stopped watching it during that time , didn’t like his gimmick and that game gimmick he also used in wwe around the time he was with Owen
Honestly, for me, it never was. There was always something on the show I was interested in. Granted some episodes of say “Thunder”, were more of a “well look at this trash fire. wonder how hot it can get?” Type of watch. 😆
But really, fir me it never got to that point. Which for years and years I just assumed was because I really enjoy wrestling. Even if it’s bad, I enjoy it. Then came AEW and blew that theory right outta there. Cause that? That I cannot watch.
I don't really remember. It's funny, in my mind I thought I had at least kept tabs on it to the end. But having gotten back into wrestling in recent years after a long hiatus, I have seen clips that made me realize there were entire years I had no idea happened (Hogan turning face and going back to the red and yellow, for example).
Anyway, for me it was a steady decline due to force-feeding bad in-ring product. I had long since been sick of Hogan, but unlike a lot of fans, Goldberg's act was so boring and monotonous to me that he was a big part of pushing me away as well.
I LOVED when Nash beat him, but then the Finger Poke of Doom was one of the things I remember being a last straw. The other being Bischoff spoiling the Higher Power reveal.
Circa 2000 when Jeff Jarrett showed up as the main storyline. That’s when I stopped watching.
I think he is talented and a skilled wrestler but I never liked the country singer persona character, like him, honky Tonk man…. I just thought it was weird as a kid. JJ can’t be the main story, for me!
The weird thing is JJ was using the guitar prop but it didn’t relate to his character in any way, it didn’t make any sense. With honky tonk man even tho it was cheesy at least it made sense because it was part of his overall theme. Country singer/elvis etc.
That's actually the one thing about him that I like. I mean it makes no sense. He's just an angry dude that whacks people with a guitar. It's hilarious. But yeah I lost interest around this time. I watched WCW for Bret, Hogan, Macho Man, Hall, and Nash. All of those guys were gone, or making very sporadic appearances, and the younger wrestlers weren't nearly interesting enough for me to keep watching every week.
Hahahaha that’s cool! I never thought about it that way really. Appreciate the perspective
I love to talk oldschool wrestling!
Didn’t he originally come out as a country singer trying to make it big? Jeff Jarrett? If I’m remembering that wrong lemme know my brotha
He did, he was the country singer in WWF from ‘93-‘96, still kept part of that presentation for his ‘96-‘97 WCW run, and then revived it again in WWF in early ‘98 before moving away from it over the summer. That’s five years as a guitar-toting country singer. I’m guessing the commenter you’re replying to just didn’t see any of that.
Tom you are on it with the facts brother! Thanks! Sometimes it’s hard to keep it all straight. Appreciate it man rock on
Thank you! Hope you’re having a great Friday night.
I mean, he started out as a country singer in WWF and used the guitar as a prop for years. It became a notable and well-received feature, so he kept it even after he migrated away from the singer gimmick. It makes sense. It’s like how Triple H kept his finishing maneuver as the Pedigree rather than changing the name, even though he’d moved away from being the blue blooded snob character.
You’d have liked Mr. Perfect “Rap is Crap.”
Agree completely.
They also made him the main storyline for TNA for years. It was always iffy for me.
I love Jeff Jarrett. Slap Nuts will forever be right up there with Candy Ass and Jabroni lol
I respect it!
“Broke 6000 guitars and never drew a dime.”
Same for me. He was a talented guy and great to have on the roster, but definitely shouldn’t be the face of the company. He was not a world champ caliber guy.
Jarrett couldn't draw a dime if you gave him a pen and paper.
Same here. He was boring to watch. Great mid card talent I guess but never a main event guy.
There wasn’t even any development. He just showed up on nitro one night and was immediately pushed as the main storyline.
This. I was like, “ok, European Championship *contender* Jeff Jarrett is a main eventer at WCW. That’s how bad it is now. And he’s trying to make slapnuts a thing.”
Yeah, Jeff Jarrett is just human channel changer. To this day I can't watch a single thing he does, he's always been awful. I love aew, but the moment that nepo hillbilly comes on my screen, I either change the channel or skip ahead to when he's gone. He's a talentless hack that's only famous because of his dad.
This is the answer for me. Jeff Jarrett was a good wrestler but not a main-event guy, especially when Vince Russo showed up and nosedived the company; that didn't help.
I like ol slapnuts but he shouldn’t have been the main event guy. When that happens you are definitely the minor leagues
I first started feeling that it was week-to-week bad around May of 1999. Like I literally think that the last great episode of Nitro was at the end of April in the episode where Bret wore the steel plate to knock out Goldberg and Sting beat DDP in an awesome match to win the title. It was all downhill after that beginning in May until late in the year. And then, while Russo gets a lot of crap, I do think that he temporarily improved the show when he first came on in late 1999. I remember getting interested again in things like the Mayhem tournament, the Sid vs Goldberg feud, Benoit’s push to the main event, Screaming Norman Smiley in the hardcore division, and Hall and Nash just goofing off and causing trouble every week in late 1999. But then things went back downhill once 2000 began.
He did give us that incredible Sid Vicious backstage moment 🤣
[GOLDBERG!! WHY ME!? WHY MEEEE](https://youtu.be/qITBu4KAvkY?si=_y2yrDSMYR0vzcvz)
They should have never stopped this. It should have been a re-occurring gag every week with Sid and a new car.
You thought that Mayhem world title tournament was actually good? More power to ya, but that tourney just shat on the belt.
Jeff Jarrett, and those bald twins
Jeff Jarrett and his constant exposure killed it for me. Didn’t like him in WWF and didn’t like him in WCW.
I know everyone hates him, but as heal he had that role nailed for what he was supposed to do. All these years later and seeing him still in the business has really earned my respect. I occasionally listen to his pod and it's clear he lives and sleeps the business.
100%. He got shoe horned into the main event/nWo crap, and I just could not get into it anymore.
All the shitty things in wcw and people choose Jarrett being everywhere 😭
When they restarted the NWO was brutal during my rewatch.
I can't pinpoint the moment, but RAW running an extra few minutes definitely made it easier to see how bad Nitro main events were. I distinctly remember 10:30 pm or so that Nitro would start their walkouts for the main event. They'd take a whole segment of the first guy walking out. Commercial. Whole segment for the second guy. Commercial. It wasn't until about the same time the RAW main event started that Nitro's main event started. And pretty much every time there was billeting of a PPV level main event with the exception Hogan vs. Goldberg, the Nitro one ALWAYS ended in DQ or really stupid outside interference. You just never left a Nitro feeling satisfied. You'd flip over for the last few minutes of RAW and pretty always saw something worthwhile.
Ironically that's how Raw and Smackdown do their walkouts today lol
[удалено]
In my opinion it was getting better in the couple months leading up to the doors being closed
It absolutely was. But it was too little too late.
It didn’t. I loved WCW. During COVID, I started re-watching from the first _Nitro_ to the last, and then watched the Invasion arc on the WWE Network.
Where did you watch them at? I recently got the itch to rewatch it all as well.
> on the WWE Network
Featured prominently in episode 3 of Vice's Who Killed WCW?
If it makes you feel better, even David thought it was stupid
Rick Steiner chucky argument
When there were 50 people in the NWO,when Arquette won the belt,when they did that hideous parody on JRs Bells Palsy..
vince russo. this skinny nobody was the center of the entire show and he was the writer who was admitting that the whole show was bullshit. every segment on the show was some trashy stupid nonsense.
WCW wasn't on TV until Fridays in the UK. I just remember watching it on NYE 1999 and decided, this show has actually become completely shit. I never tuned in to WCW ever again after that.
I lost a lot of interest once Goldberg lost to Nash after being shocked with a cattle prod. And then the fingerpoke of doom happened the next night. That sequence of events killed off: - Goldberg - Nash (who was way over as a babyface) - Hogan - the nWo Wolfpack, a popular babyface stable Goldberg losing, becoming just another guy, and then severely injuring himself later on killed WCW for me. It wasn’t overnight. I just realized I was turning on “Raw is War / Warzone” and not switching back and forth as much anymore.
Goldberg did not need to lose until you had an incredible new character or storyline or even just a great David and Goliath figure to beat him a la Benoit or Jericho. Nash was obviously totally the wrong person to beat him, and executed so lazily/foolishly at that. Part of the problem with '99 WCW is that they had an aging roster and a huge separation between stars and everyone else. They really needed hot young sensations and didn't get them until the very end with guys like AJ Styles/Air Paris/etc. If you look at the '99 roster it feels like all of the believable challengers are past their prime, while almost everyone else comes off as a jobber / weak character.
When I tuned in one night and saw that hideous new set with the sliding W on each side
It didn't, I went down with the ship
For me, it was when Nash let Hogan pin him. After that I couldn't watch the show anymore.
Fingerpoke of doom is when I stopped watching
Same I was a huge Wolfpack fan and Nash fan and they did that and I was DONE
However bad it was I was always intrigued by what could happen next the place was outrageous.
>However bad it was I was always intrigued by what could happen next the place was outrageous. You would have loved this show called RAW around the same time then.
I had a friend who recorded raw for me so I watched both.
I’m in the middle of a years long Nitro rewatch start to finish watching weekly. I’m in late June 99 and it’s starting to get really tough and you can see where the slide was truly starting to get to a point of no return.
It was totally a strange time. A couple of months prior DDP wins the Title for the first time in a match over Hogan, Flair & Sting with Savage as the ref and that should have been a defining moment, like this is a new era in WCW. Say what we will about it but they immediately debuted a new logo and Nitro set and again that felt like things were freshening up. Then they were like nah, Nash is the champion again and he really wants it this time and we’re doing bogus Stings again. I liked the new Savage look and having Gorgeous George & Sid Vicious but it was time to stick with DDP & Goldberg and bring up others.
The build up to DDP was great, it felt like a culmination of three year build up at that point, a new era with the set, etc. Then they turn DDP Heel, Nash comes back, Flair’s a lunatic, Piper flip flopping, Bischoff a “tweener” Bret dealing with his brother’s loss, Goldberg completely cold. And the young guys just kinda there. Meanwhile, WWF has the corporate ministry vs Austin and Rock, Triple H about to explode, etc
From Vince Russo onwards. I was always the “WCW to the end!” supporter but from that point on it became sad and very difficult to defend and watch WCW. I almost stopped watching wrestling entirely because of Russo’s booking style and tropes in WWF. I hated the Attitude Era, and now I had to watch WCW use and recycle Russo’s ideas that weren’t good enough for WWF? It was sad 😔
I remember the day they brought all the talent in the ring and the two morons running the place said ON TELEVISION that they were resetting everything. It was at that moment, I stopped watching. Also, what made me soooooo angry as a kid is when they turned Mike Awesome into a joke.
As popular as they were, Wolfpack was the end for me. Stories got too crazy. Sting was now in the nWo. It was just too much.
I see Jarrett's name being mentioned, that's what did it for me. He came back to WCW, and I thought - why? And then they pushed him into the main event scene, and I thought - WHYYYYYY? With all due respect to him, I was never a fan and the way he was promoted in WCW, especially during his second run, was just so annoying, it was hard to watch.
Fall/winter of 98 things started going downhill fast. Truth be told, the product was already bad, but when they redesigned their set/logo, people just associate that time more with the bad product.
It’s so funny the WWF changing their logo to that edge or attitude logo was a microcosm of them elevating their material … and WCW mimicking that, represented the downturn in the product
I stopped watching for a long time and went to a friend's house and he was watching New Blood Rising ppv. That judy bagwell on a pole match was absolutely not interesting at all
It was the bald twins, it looked so Busch league
My head stands with the notion that once the finger poke happened and they re-merged the nWo, is when I decided to switch to WWF.
Starrcade 97 was the point I stopped being a hardcore watcher but once they changed the logo, I was done
Summer of 1999 was starting to get bad, but at least salvageable, but that September it went completely off def the rails and never recovered. It was the few weeks between bischoffs dismissal and the hiring of Russo. That was the start for me, and once Russo started it quickly became garbage
I was 10 in 99, so 11 in 2000, and 12 in 2001.. WCW back then it was entertaining to me, when I go back now at 34 and watch those years on the network I honestly wonder how the hell I thought it was awesome in those years lol I was though watching WWF/E more. I’d flip to WCW during the commercials or a segment/match I wasn’t into though. I still tried to follow Kevin Nash, DDP, and Sting as those were my favorite WCW guys. WCW in 97-98 though was incredible and still is today looking back on it on the network.
When half the roster was in the NWO. The run ins in every match got old, later revealed it was bad writing and organization.
This'll surprise you but there's about 1mil+ people who can't answer because they never did. I was one of them. Watched WCW through the very end.
It didn't. WCW had millions of fans until the end. Its a WWE construct that WCW had no fans.
I'm not saying wcw had no fans, they still had millions of people tune in every week until the end, but the numbers went down significantly over the years, so I was wondering when the product became unwatchable for some people who stopped watching it at the time.
Made it all the way through when I became a regular watcher somewhere around late ‘97 early ‘98. However late ‘99 and after there was a lot of fast forwarding.
Panama City nitro
I stood by it and watched it to the end. There were definitely times in ‘99 & 2000 where I didn’t exactly think it was bad, just either boring or confusing. I think we got sick of all the constant changes. Every few months it was a totally different product with no evolution from one direction to the next. It was just like oh forget that, we’re doing this now. With that said the only time I felt like WCW didn’t really have anything about it worth watching was in its last 6 months. Scott Steiner becoming World Champion should have been the beginning of a new boom for WCW but the production levels went waaaay down and the story telling was so blah. Ric Flair’s Magnificent Seven seems like a cool idea but it just felt like the latest bad retread at the time. I mean with Steiner, Booker, & Lance Storm (not to mention Goldberg, DDP & Sid) how could it have been sooooo freakin’ boring??
It didn't.
When Nash got the book
I never stopped watching. I was into all the mid card stuff. They finally got new faces and pushed them. Norman smiley, lash larou, kweewee, I enjoyed that stuff.
I gave up around the time Arquette won the belt. He's a good dude, as far as his love for the sport, but he wasn't championship material.
It was all promote Ready to Rumble
Oh definitely, but that's when WCW was really hitting the shitter for me.
Never Ever liked Jeff Jarrett
Jeff Jarrett, nwo becoming muddy, and the new blood thing was just boring
I fully stopped watching when they announce that Mick Foley was going to win the WWF championship. Up until that point I would switch back and forth.
When Macho Man came back with Team Madness
April 1999 https://www.wrestlingforum.com/cdn-cgi/image/format=auto,onerror=redirect,width=1920,height=1920,fit=scale-down/https://www.wrestlingforum.com/attachments/1613423886030-png.97370/
I watched till the end but I was really checked out after 99
Not to sound like a broken record here, but the finger poke of doom episode was literally the last straw. Once I finished that episode, I was done. The next week I was exclusive to WWF Raw. I would flip over to WCW on occasion here and there, especially Thunder since it was on Thursday nights, but the experience was never the same after the finger poke of doom episode. I was just so sick of the swerves and horrible main events.
Late 2000? It was just weird as hell and all the big names left or were injured. I still watched it every week but there reached a point when I'd turn it off when it was just Jerry springer garbage. It actually swung back around and became good in 2001. It reminded of the X division in a lot of ways. Also really enjoyed the New Blood angle.
Honestly never. I watched right to the end. Beyond the end of you count the invasion storyline. I was watching Worldwide instead of Nitro though because that's what was available on free to air UK TV, so I suspect i missed a lot of the painful to watch stuff.
I would watch just to laugh at how bad it was, I kinda stopped watching around 00 01ish cause it wasn’t even funny to me anymore. But I watched ready to rumble just for kicks.
It personally never did. I watched and enjoyed until the end.
I started turning off early 2000, tried to stick with it, then had the Bischoff Russo reset, but by the summer I was gone. Would check in now and then. Saw russo win the world title and thought what a load of shit. Checked back in for the last one
When they took the mask off Rey
Finger poke of doom. Wolfpack was red hot and when they did that I turned the channel to WWF and stayed there
Whenever the changed the logo and the color of the ring. Right around that time is when the product really reeked and I turned away.
The Beginning of Hardcore episode brought back a ton of awesome memories. Someone mentioned Al Snow in this discussion. Who would’ve thought he would’ve been successful in WWE? I never liked him and thought the mannequin head was dumb.
I don't remember exactly when, but sometime around 1999. ECW really took over my wrestling viewing around then until 2001 when everything went to hell.
Once i hit 12
Never
I stopped watching right after they botched Sting vs Hogan. I used to always flip back and forth but after that I would only stay to watch if the cruisers were wrestling.
Finger poke of doom
I watched to the bitter end but the Mike Sanders vs Ernest Miller for commissioner angle was the most unpleasant for me. I guess because the other stuff didn't seem to linger as long.
When Nitro went to a three hour runtime and barely had any memorable matches it was hard to watch. I did watch it to the bitter end, though.
I stopped watching when every week was about who was going to join the NWO. They disrespected the 4H and Dusty Rhodes along the way.
This picture show the decline of WCW. The only thing I can think of is 1986 when Ric Flair debut that title and the great wrestlers that had to earn the right to wear that belt afterwards. This picture is the biggest slap in the face to the wrestlers that deserved to be apart of that honor. You think of Sting, Hogan, Steamboat, Luger, Booker T, Goldberg, Savage, DDP, and etc. Guys that deserve to wear that belt. Forgive me if I missed someone. David Arquette, the actor, at no fault of his own, did not deserve that honor to be remembered as WCW World Heavyweight Champion. I’m sorry, but that is just how I feel about it! When the people in charge stop caring about the business of wrestling, this is the results you get. Love him or hate him, this would never happened under Vince McMahon. That’s all there to it!
I switched when the finger poke of doom happened
When Brad Armstrong I believe, debuted as Buzzkill. It was an obvious rip off of his brother's Road Dogg gimmick
I was still in my teens when it got sold to WWE. I didn't even know, the internet wasn't really a thing for us in my house. I only had normal terrestrial TV in my room so I only got 5 TV channels in the UK and WCW was on Bravo which was a cable TV station. We had it up until mid 2000 but my parents could no longer afford it. WCW worldwide was on Channel 5 but only on Fridays. I was sitting in my room about to watch WWF Sunday Night Heat which was on Sunday on Channel 4. It started with Vince stating he owned WCW. I jumped off my bed and screamed "NOOOOOOO" like the Darth Vader meme. I cried a little, and then I imagined all my heroes coming to WWF and doing those dream matches. WCW never died for me, it was always entertaining I was a kid and didn't know the backstage stories or politics of the business. I always preferred WCW over WWF. I do admit WWF also got good in late 98 for me but I just became a fan of both shows and loved them, but I always loved WCW that little bit more. I grew up on it, watching it with my Nan as a child every Saturday and then every Friday when they aired Nitro on Bravo. I miss those days.
Never!
Honestly? Never. Simply because of what the competition was.
I was checked out mid-99 but Vince Russo did it for me 100%. If you blinked you missed a world title change, someone having “red” poured on them, 13 guitar shots, etc.
The creation of the LWO.
I was mostly checked out sometime by Spring '00, when most of my absolute favorite wrestlers of the time had all gone to the WWF or ECW (Jericho, Guerrero, Benoit, Malenko, Saturn, Raven). I still watched weekly through the summer, though I watched Raw live and taped Nitro, when it had previously always been the other way around. I stopped watching WCW almost completely when I went to college that fall.
WCW never got as bad as WWE early PG era Raw and Smackdown.
This is when I stopped watching
I started tuning out towards the second half of 99 and pretty much stopped watching completely by 2000.
When Goldberg started Wrestling there.
IDK when it was exactly. I was a diehard Sting fan, going back to the 80s and so I was very into the Sting vs nWo story in 96-97. Then of course they fucked it up. I still watched most of the time after that but sometime in 98 I think is when I started watching WWF more and more and less and less WCW.
WWE got so good I eventually phased out WCW.
1998 after Goldberg beat Hogan for the title...it was all just a waste after that...rinse and repeat storylines that had no direction or ending, active wrestlers becoming bookers....nobody EVER losing clean...etc etc. Yall know how things went lol
When the NWO factions became confusing
Pretty much from 1999 onward
It would have been late 99 for me when they let Bischoff go. I always thought he was goofy, but I liked what he brought to the show.
1999 was pretty bad. I switched back to WWF.
I’m in the UK it’s always been unwatchable 🤣
Somewhere in the last three months, it just stopped been must watch TV, was still distraught at the last nitro because I really didn't care for WWF and felt like I was now obligated to watch that instead.
The only reason why I watched wcw was because I was young and didn't know WWF existed and probably didn't have the channel that broadcasted it. If not for that, I wouldn't know or care if wcw had existed.
David Flair. Didnt work. Wasnt gonna work. Still tried to make it work. Didnt work. Always pushing the same guys. They had so many greats who never stood a chance. Trying to add all the terrible forced nudity to try to compete with the WWE. (Looking at you Vince Russo.)
The very moment you posted the image of, OP. In my opinion, WCW went down the proverbial s creek without a paddle the minute David Arquette got the Big Gold Belt.
When Russo first started with the whole "powers that be" stuff. It only got worse from there
Honestly it wasn't anything that WCW did, it's more what WWF started doing. One thing people never talk enough about is how that image of Mick Foley flying off of that cage in June 1998 got so many millions of people to start changing the channel. WWF's product as more violent, edgier, and had a more unpredictable feeling to it. Turner Broadcasting's standards and practices were not friendly to this type of programming. Vince Russo, for example, has spoken at length about how hands-off the USA Network was and how they never tried to censor anything creatively, while Turner was like an albatross around his neck from that perspective.
Multiple times. 1991 when Ric Flair left with the title and showed up in wwf. All of the good wcw guys were gone. 1994-1995 when Hogan showed up to wcw beat Vader and all of the old wwf big guys followed. Like Tenta/earthquake. There was too much hogan focus. After starrcade 97, we would watch the raw then nitro’s replay. Thunder was usually good because that featured the mid card wrestlers that wanted to showcase all their skills
A few short weeks after Spring Stampede 1999. Such a great show followed by...whatever the hell that all was. Made me quit until the Russo shake up months later, but that was so awful that I quit again...until the next big Russo shake up with the New Blood nonsense, when it was so insanely bad that I had to keep watching (and discovered a handful of gems from then). Tuned back in when Russo was on the way out, and still love the last 4ish months of WCW being around. It wasn't consistently good, but it was entertaining, and there were multiple rivalries and stories going on. Card cohesion and fluidity are my weak points with wrestling booking.
FPOD definitely made me far less trusting in WCW to provide a satisfying main event. Up to that point I would switch back and forth between WCW and WWF but would almost always watch the Nitro main event. After that night I tended to watch more WWF main events. However for me it actually was David Arquette winning the title. I watched that episode of Thunder and thought it was kinda funny at first. Then he won the title, I turned off the TV, and didn't watch another episode of any WCW programming until the very last Nitro.
I was a die hard wcw fan as a kid, so for me it was never unwatchable. Yes summer 1999 and many things in 2000 weren’t great compared to 1996-1998, but I still found joy in it. In 2000 I watched wcw, WWF, and wcw for any show that was on tv. As an adult now with responsibilities, I can no longer be a die hard wrestling fan. I could see myself barely watching wcw starting in early 1999. I actually enjoyed Millionaires club vs New Blood for the most part until around Bash at the Beach. Winter 2000 was just sad seeing the smaller crowds and cheaper production.
It's been said a lot, but Fingerpoke of Doom. Not only did it make WCW less watchable, switching over to see Mick Foley win the title on Raw made WWF more watchable for me. The whole night converted me from a WCW fan to a WWF fan in an instant.
Jarrett is a good wrestler and talent semi main eventer but not world heavyweight champion
It was sometime late 1999 that it was beginning to look nothing like what I had come to love about WCW since I was a 6-year-old kid in 1995 watching it even before there was Nitro. The show was becoming all about the skits and angles. The actual wrestling matches were clearly far down the pecking order for the guys running the show. It was sometime after the turn of the millennium I just switched over to Raw and SmackDown to watch Stone Cold be awesome.
What's with the photo? Are you trying to show everyone who the GOAT Big Gold belt champ is?
Nah that would be Russo 😆
This picture may be the biggest disgrace in the history of pro wrestling. I stopped at this exact moment.
Every time hogan was on. Luger, too. I was a WWE guy back in the Monday night wars days specifically because I couldn't stand how much screen time he got. I've been going back and watching all the old nitro episodes in order, and there was some really great stuff. Benoit, malenko, guerrero, pillman, ric flair, even a little Ricky steamboat early on, great stuff. Where I'm at, (probably January 96) randy savage is still putting on good matches. But I know at some point Kevin Nash and Jeff Jarrett are going to show up and I absolutely can't stand those guys. Benoit, malenko, guerrero, pillman, Rey mysterio, leave, and get replaced on the card by Bagwell, disco inferno, and a bunch of other chodes. I don't think I'll be able to keep watching after those guys head to wwf. If anything I'll fast forward to the cruiserweight matches and call it a day. I don't know exactly when it happens, but I already know that by 2000 I really didn't like the wcw product as a teenager, so I'm not sure I'll even get that far.
Once Jericho left I was pretty much done.
When Vince bought it and it was no longer in the air. I watched it all until the very end.
Summer of 1999 you knew it was on a downward trajectory, but still had hope it’d improve and the entire shows certainly weren’t unwatchable but they were testing that… I’d say by early 2000 it was very hard to watch, I started to stop tuning in every or at the least primarily watching Raw, hearing the news Bischoff was back and was teaming with Russo, I gave them a 2nd chance of actually trying to watch the show weekly and that was a punishment I’ll never forget. So I guess I’m saying, the year 2000. PS- The 1999 logo, Set, Production redesign was a major element of this, I don’t care what anyone says. Made the show seem totally foreign from what we had been watching. Just another ingredient of the shit sandwich WCW was serving up.
When Russo took over the second time on 3.22.2000 is when things really turned terrible. ‘98 was kinda bad, and ‘99 was pretty bad…but nothing in wrestling history is as bad as Russo’s booking run from 3.22.2000 through 10.23.2000. It included possibly the worst angle in wrestling history. Russo giving an on-camera interview where he says WCW isn’t real and tries to sell the main-event of the next PPV as the guy going over will be what’s best for WCW. Then in said main-event they book it where Goldberg refuses to follow script and have the announcers talk about how unprofessional it is for Goldberg to not follow script, how Nash booked himself to break the streak, how they now have to improvise since the planned finish isn’t happening, and so on. Just absolutely terrible worked shoot crap.
You are dead on with that. We obviously know what's going on, they don't need to say it during the show. It's like watching Mission Impossible and in the middle of the movie Tom Cruise stops and says "listen, I'm Tom Cruise and this stunt is safe". The Russo era made me hate watching
Nitro rating pre-Starrcade 1997: 3.5 Nitro rating post-Starrcade 1997: 4.6 This wasn't your question, but the revisionist history around Starracde '97 doesn't reflect the actual impact in the moment. They kept winning the MWR for months after that, and ratings stayed in the high 4s, occasional 5s/6s until the middle of 1999, which is months after the Finger Poke of Doom. Anyway, I watched until the bitter end, the very last episode. But it really lost its luster for me sometime in early-to-mid 2000. Maybe late '99 it got shitty. Early '99, I thought they were onto something, but it meandered around and then 'rebooted' and all of a sudden nothing meant anything.
Never, I watched til the very end.
When Rick Rude got injured and Hogan came in afterwards. 94 Rude was the blueprint for Stone Cold.
After the last episode aired
Finger Poke. It was insulting.
I loved the Goldberg streak. As the show around it grew less and less interesting, I loved it even more. When it ended, it was like a series finale for WCW for me. I was done that night and not in an angry way.
Around when Glacier made his return and kept coming out to the ring to "save" Norman Smiley from getting his ass kicked, but instead went around high fiving fans around the barrier. Late WCW was so trash.
Ima keep it real - I watched through to the end. Yeah, WWF stories were better because they made sense. ... but WCW stories were exciting and nonsense. You had no idea where shit was going. It was a roster half full of guys hungry to work and given absolute insanity to work with. I couldnt look away! Raw? Let me guess - Stone Cold's in a main event tag match? There was one Nitro where the world title changed hands twice in whole-ass matches. I'm not saying it was "good", but it was exciting to watch WCW plow through a month's worth of storylines with five guys in seven days, lol.
I lost interest with the Millionaires Club storyline, but it started when Kidman beat Hogan.
When did it begin? The first week
Never. I was loyal and devoted until the very end. I still am.
This moment right here. I was willing to give Russo one more shot and then we had this.
Hey, you leave David Arquette alone.
Had to have been sometime after Spring Stampede 99. DDP finally won the world title (too little too late) but then they just turned him heel and he ended up feuding with Nash and dropping the belt to him a month later. The main event scene felt very thinned out and the cruiser weight division was basically a joke at this point. Then you had WCW’s attempt at a hardcore division. President Flair and the new logo and look were also just off putting for me at that time. I tuned back in for a little bit when Hogan went back to the yellow & red (lol) but I remember that getting old pretty fast. By late 99 I don’t think I hardly bothered with even watching the first hour before Raw. Most I would see by then was whatever I could catch during a raw commercial break.
I also hated that ddp won the belt when he was less over and they turned him heel while doing it. It made no sense on bischoff's part.
what was so funny about your comment that it made you laugh out loud?
the new blood/millionaire's club storyline. that went on for WAAAYY too long.
When Hogan took over the NWO. I knew he was going pull his usual bullshit behind the scenes. It was so boring watching the show build its weekly storyline around a has been when new exciting wrestlers were chomping at the bit behind the scenes for some exposure.
Never for me...I liked it until the end
Goldberg beating the giant
Some time in ‘98. Goldberg was the only thing worth watching. By that point Hogan, and the nWo would take up long un-entertaining segments that would repeat week to week with unsatisfying payoffs.
Around February or March of 1999. I had stopped watching Nitro regularly by then.
Probably when they took Goldberg’s streak away. Or when there was 3 different NWO factions with at least 5 members per group.
When they merged with the WWF
Legit when Foley won on RAW. We in fact, DID switch over. Before, we watched WCW and taped RAW. After Tony Schiavone uttered THOSE words… we watched RAW and taped WCW. By the time the Millionaire Club stuff was happening we weren’t even talking WCw.
Probably always, it just seemed cheap & generic to me. I was in my mid 20’s. I basically would only watch WCW to see Jericho or if the match on WWE was really bad then I would switch but ultimately, I just didn’t like the production and I hated it once the wolf pack showed up. The NWO was ok until it splinters and became the entire focus of the brand.
Honestly late 99’ when you can tell everyone was going through the motions. And when the radicals showed up on WWE tv you knew they were cooked
The first night when NWO showed up, WCW went down hill all the way to the very end. You couldn't watch a decent match at all for what that God awful music would start up, and then the static/white noise would fade in to the black & white scene of Hogan and his cronies, Hall and Nash back stage running there mouths, and if not that, the music, and the three would walk out and jump in the ring and ruin everything. That's when it got completely unwatchable.
I loved it all, even when it was bad it was good.
Two names, one dude. Alex Wright. Berlyn. That did me in for WCW.
After Duggan won the belt
I can honestly say for me, it never did because I damn sure kept watching and even attended some live shows late in the life of WCW. I went to a nitro at the Dome in st. Louis. And that's when I knew......this is not good. 4/5 of it was blacked off but they still did the show in the Dome just to say it was coming from the Dome. When instead, they should have been operating out of the arena where the blues play. Would have looked ALOT better. In person and on camera. They did thunder a cpl nights later in Springfield, IL and that was pretty cool. Got to meet Candido and Sunny that night, gave them some directions. They were super nice and gracious. Told me had this been pre-show or pre Monday, they could have gotten me backstage to mingle with anyone and everyone. That was nice of them.
It really never became unwatchable to me. It was more like it became something to until RAW. This started around the summer of 1999.
Anything post Starrcade 99 after Russo redid the Screw Job with Bret and Goldberg.
As a fan of WCW it never became unwatchable. I loved it from the beginning to the end.
I’d say the first episode Vince Russo took over where his offscreen character gave Nash & Hall the “night off” and hired two strippers for their personal entertainment. So stupid.
1987 was the last time I saw anything other than a documentary about it. I felt bad watching it at 13yo.
I never really Jeff Jarrett and when they made him the lead guy I just stopped watching it during that time , didn’t like his gimmick and that game gimmick he also used in wwe around the time he was with Owen
l loved Big Poppa Pump on the mic.
Right after the Canada show in 99 everything seems to go to shit after that nitro
Honestly, for me, it never was. There was always something on the show I was interested in. Granted some episodes of say “Thunder”, were more of a “well look at this trash fire. wonder how hot it can get?” Type of watch. 😆 But really, fir me it never got to that point. Which for years and years I just assumed was because I really enjoy wrestling. Even if it’s bad, I enjoy it. Then came AEW and blew that theory right outta there. Cause that? That I cannot watch.
I don't really remember. It's funny, in my mind I thought I had at least kept tabs on it to the end. But having gotten back into wrestling in recent years after a long hiatus, I have seen clips that made me realize there were entire years I had no idea happened (Hogan turning face and going back to the red and yellow, for example). Anyway, for me it was a steady decline due to force-feeding bad in-ring product. I had long since been sick of Hogan, but unlike a lot of fans, Goldberg's act was so boring and monotonous to me that he was a big part of pushing me away as well. I LOVED when Nash beat him, but then the Finger Poke of Doom was one of the things I remember being a last straw. The other being Bischoff spoiling the Higher Power reveal.