Slobberknocker Central Monday Night Recap #225 March 6th, 2000 The Opening Word: Last week was definitely a bad one for WCW. Things started off poorly when their much hyped Monday Nitro featuring Sid Vicious versus Tank Abbott failed to draw viewers. It was among the lowest rated two hour editions of Nitro ever. Things got worse for Thunder on Wednesday when that show, for the second week in a row, drew the lowest rating ever for a wrestling show in prime time on TBS. Their fortunes didn't improve for Saturday Night, when that show drew one of its lowest ratings in history. The knockout punch, as it were, came when the company learned that the buyrate for its February pay-per-view, SuperBrawl, was the lowest ever for a WCW PPV. Coming in somewhere around a 0.15 buyrate, it drew fewer buys than every PPV the struggling ECW has put on. Meanwhile there continues to be turmoil behind the scenes. Terry Taylor has reportedly stepped down from his spot on the booking committee. Viewed as just a temporary thing, most feel Taylor is doing this so he'll be out of the blast radius if and when the booking team explodes. There are also reports that Kevin Sullivan has dumped Kevin Nash from the booking team. Nash had been given a role as a liaison between the bookers and the wrestlers, basically taking advantage of that position to introduce his own angle ideas, give his own slant to the angles of others in front of the boys, and play each side off against the other to his own benefit. Sullivan put a stop to it, not so much because of the damage Nash could do but because Nash has become a vocal opponent of Sullivan's. The two have differing ideas in terms of what direction the company should go. Nash has gotten into the ear of WCW head Bill Busch. Unable to do anything about that, Sullivan has decided to minimize Nash's power by closing him out of the booking loop. That means that now more than ever everything we see in WCW can be attributed to (or blamed on) Kevin Sullivan. Ed Ferrara is still writing angles, and J.J. Dillon and a few others have input as well, but it all goes through Sullivan, and he's the one who will either save the company, or his head should be the first to go if Busch or someone above him is forced to make a change. (Notice I wrote "should." Sullivan seems to have a way of staying in that company no matter how much his ideas stink.) On a totally different subject, is anyone else as sick of hearing about "Beyond The Mat" as I am? I wrote up a lengthy, in-depth rant tackling both sides of the issue, but ultimately decided to scrap it. No one on the Net wants to hear the WWF's side of the story. I don't see why I should get flamed for pointing out where the WWF has some valid concerns about the movie, or how they hadn't done anything wrong until the whole ad ban on USA and UPN thing came up. The problem with covering all sides of an issue is too many people ignore when you say what they want to hear, and clobber you for making those points that they don't want you to. Ain't my job to defend the WWF, especially when they handle a matter as stupidly as they've done this one. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- WCW Monday Nitro: Live/Taped: Live. Length: Two Hours+. Location: Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Hosted By: Tony Schiavone & Mark Madden. HOUR ONE: - Vampiro and Fit Finlay are brawling backstage. Who comes out on top is apparently unimportant, as they cut away to fire off some pyro and avoid showing how small the crowd is. Most seats off the floor look to be empty. Juventud Guerrera does his Rock thing, cutting a promo which is in neither Spanish nor English. Psychosis has his visa problems sorted out, and tonight faces-- PSYCHOSIS (w/ Juventud Guerrera) vs. KAZ No more Hayashi? Mark Madden gets annoying early on going into overshill mode, saying stuff like "you won't see action like this anywhere else!" Yeah, as if we've seen any of this lately in WCW. I guess it's just easier to do your job if you pretend it's 1997. The match itself is okay--what we see of it, that is. Vampiro and Finlay interrupt it by brawling from the back and through the ring. Then Prince Iaukea and Paisley come out. Iaukea whacks Psychosis with the belt, as Paisley slaps Juventud Guerrera. The referee and camera miss both. Kaz rolls Psychosis up for the win. Psychosis and Juvi beat on Iaukea to gain some revenge. If I may, let me interrupt the Recap for a moment to address fans of the Insane Clown Posse: SHUT THE F#@% UP! Nobody cares about them, or you. Their music sucks, and they can't wrestle. No matter how much they tell people they're wrestlers, THEY'RE NOT!!! They've been dumped by the WWF, WCW and ECW--a perfect trifecta. "WCW Fears ICP" alright ... because ICP helped WCW lose viewers. They're a couple of talentless fanboy wannabe goofs, and their fifteen minutes in the spotlight have long been over. Sorry, but that's really been bugging me lately. Security has split up Vampiro and Finlay. Jeff Jarrett and the Harris Boys chuckle about Vampiro, who's been teamed up with Sid for tonight's main event. The Mamalukes are interviewed. Johnny "The Bull" likes his cheese sandwiches. Vampiro is pissed, probably because "getting the rub" from Ric Flair resulted in a feud against Fit Finlay. - Have you noticed how much better Madden has made Tony Schiavone seem, basically because Madden, being the more willing shill, gets to say all the really stupid stuff now. Tony almost sounds competent again. Nitro Party. - BIG VITO (w/ Johnny & Disco Inferno) vs. BIG RON (w/ Heavy D) "Big Ron" & "Heavy D" are WCW's silly nicknames for Ron & Don Harris. After about a minute of action the Harris Boys pull the old switcheroo and get the pin. The referee decides to walk out with them, VERRRRRYYYYY SLOOOOOOOWWLLLYYY, until the replay on the big screen shows the switch. The ref throws their arms down and reverses the decision, giving the win to Big Vito. Shouldn't he have just ordered the match to continue? H-Bombs follow, until security comes out to help. Some of them go for the ride as well. A cop gets shoved off the apron, at which point Ron & Don figure it's time to leave. I think the cop got the biggest pop during all of this. Clip, from Thunder, of Crowbar getting chokeslammed off the apron and through the announce table. David Flair tells "Mean" Gene Okerlund he's going to use his crowbar to take down the Wall. - The Harris Brothers are arrested. Jeff Jarrett protests. - THE WALL vs. DAVID FLAIR (w/ Daffney) The Wall destroys Flair, finishing up with a chokeslam through two stacked tables. Paramedics come out. To play up the seriousness of the injury, Curt Hennig, Terry Funk and Arn Anderson come out. Hennig asks Anderson where Ric Flair was during all this? I can't help but think how interesting and entertaining this would all have been had it involved anyone the fans cared about. - Bam Bam Bigelow says what the Wall did wasn't cool, so the Wall slaps him. Bigelow takes a comically overexaggerated flop onto a nearby table. - EVAN KARAGIAS (W/ 3 Count) vs. THE DOG (w/ Fit Finlay & Brian Knobs) Oh lord. Kevin Sullivan's influence shines through, as this gimmick is straight out of the 80's. Scratch that--the 70's. The Dog (Al Greene?) barks and snorts and drools, as Finlay & Knobs lead him to the ring on a leash. They put a black bag over his head to calm him down, then remove it for the match, which he wins in short order. Pitiful. Doesn't this mean the Dog is now Hardcore Champion? Lex Luger badmouths Sting. "Mean" Gene asks Ric Flair about his son David. Flair shrugs it off. Jarrett rounds up the NWO Girls. - Nitro Girls. - Sid begs Vampiro to be his partner. - Jarrett and the NWO Girls are out. Slapnutz, Chosen One, stroke, Chosen One, Chosen One, slapnutz. The Wall replaces Heavy D as Jarrett's partner tonight. The crowd could care less. Idol & Lane's gimmick will now be to say "rats" ("ratz?") in every promo. They stumble across the Demon's casket. Curt Hennig ... Ric Flair ... NEXT! HOUR TWO: - RIC FLAIR vs. CURT HENNIG Flair tries to rile the crowd up by mentioning rival Duke University. A lengthy, watchable match--the first of the night. Hennig's starting to get some of his ring form back. Flair, though, is starting to really show his age. Lex Luger does a run-in which you'd miss if you blinked. It's to no avail, as Hennig scores the clean upset pin with the Hennig-Plex. Flair and Luger then lay him out, Luger "breaking" his arm, as usual. Arn Anderson comes out to stop the beating. Luger circles for a sneak shot with the baseball bat, but Flair waves him off. Wasn't this supposed to be a tag team match with Buff Bagwell? Lane & Idol leave the Demon laying backstage. - A really bad Nitro Party clip features 3 Count lip synching their song. The audio is courtesy a speaker under water at the bottom of a 50 gallon drum, or so it sounds. - Hennig's in an ambulance. Yup, the arm is broken. - Flair & Luger promise the same to Hogan & Sting at the PPV. - LANE (w/ Idol) vs. NORMAN SMILEY I hear that Lenny Lane, now that he's gone "straight," is once again recognized as a former WCW Cruiserweight Champion. Lodidol sits in on color commentary. A mess of a match here, with Lane and Smiley going through a series of moves which look like they've rehearsed a lot, but still can't get quite right. Idolodi ratches up the queer vibe by talking about how awesome Lane is. Norman (who is dressed like Michael Jordan during his North Carolina days) does the big swing. Both men then stagger around comically. Norman does the Smack My Bitch Up (fitting, somehow), just as Miss Hancock comes out. Hancock climbs up to do her dance, but someone forgets to cue her music, so she just listlessly wiggles her ass. Everyone in the ring looks lost. Smiley slaps on Norman Conquest for the win. Okerlund interviews Sid. Tank Abbott has arrived, much to the "dismay" of the announcers. - Abbott is in the ring. Cutting an awful, amateurish promo, he says the reason he tapped out to Sid last week is because WCW was going to take him off TV. Huh? He's supposed to be shooting here. This is supposed to be interesting. It fails on both counts. Tank says he won't leave the ring, no matter what WCW does. La Parka comes out and Tank clobbers him with one punch. Meng then comes out (very minor crowd pop), but he's stopped cold by security and J.J. Dillon, who tells him he'll be fined and suspended if he gets in the ring with Tank. So Abbott, who just threatened not to leave ... leaves. The announcers incessantly hype what an awesome match the two would have, and how we fans all are dying to see it. With all the impromptu matches we always see, and all the backstage brawls that break out, why would security and WCW brass stop these two from fighting? This is the same angle they've been doing for three months, only turned up a notch, and the fans have yet to show sign one that they care. I wish Sullivan would get over his fixation with Meng. - Nitro Girls. - What is this, Saturday Night's Main Event? Hulk Hogan does an interview which would look right at home on one of those shows. Standing in front of a computer generated background, he blathers on about his upcoming "Yapapai Strap Match" with Ric Flair. Hogan's living in a dream world if he doesn't recognize how awful this looked. - BOOKER/BILLY KIDMAN (w/ Torrie Wilson) vs. HARLEM HEAT (w/ J. Biggs) Cassius is being called "Big Cash" now. Big Cash ... Big T ... Big Ron ... Big Al--Sullivan sure likes 'em big! An angle where Kidman gets nailed before the bell goes nowhere. Kidman nearly scores the pin on Big T after an elbowdrop off the top, but the ref is pulled out by Cash, and Kidman and Booker get stomped to the mat. Jarrett gives the Wall a peptalk. Leather cowboy Dustin Rhodes roams the halls. - Nitro Party. Riki Rachtman conducts an embarrassingly bad and insulting interview with 3 Count. We're supposed to believe "Can't Get You Out Of My Heart" is climbing the charts, getting massive play on radio and MTV, and that 3 Count have been nominated for a Grammy (WCW should pay more attention--the Grammys were awarded weeks ago). 3 Count talk about being mobbed by groupies in their hotel rooms. What about that autograph session they showed us a few weeks ago? Oh, silly me for remembering anything that happened in WCW more than five minutes ago. It's one thing when the heel announcer talks about their song being a hit, but to play it up in a straight interview ... f#@%ing stupid. - Madden says Dustin doesn't wear silly outfits anymore, at which point Dustin comes walking out in a silly outfit. (No, he wasn't trying to be funny.) He's has with him a coiled length of barbed-wire. Dustin talks some trash about Terry Funk. Funk comes out, badmouthing Dustin and his dad Dusty. He says he has Dustin's brother in a bag ... and pulls out a chicken wearing a diaper! Classic Funk. He may not be over yet, but he does get a good reaction for that. An impromptu "match" breaks out. Dustin gets in most of the offense, but Funks ends up slamming Dustin on the barbed-wire. He rolls him up in it. Dustin rolls out of the ring and walks away. Funk struts out carrying the chicken. - Our main event competitors are on the move. - THE WALL/JEFF JARRETT (w/ the NWO Girls) vs. SID VICIOUS/VAMPIRO Jarretts sends the girls to the back, drawing some heat. That and the rest of the entrances are about as long as the match itself, as Jarrett gets the pin on Sid following a guitar shot. When was the last time WCW sent a crowd home happy? - This Wednesday: Nothing announced. - Next week: Nothing announced. Comments: I'll save my comments on WCW in general for later in this Recap. As for this show, what's there to say? The usual junk. Flair/Hennig was okay, and the Funk/Rhodes angle was somewhat amusing. The rest was pointless, painful, miserable chore to sit through to write this Recap. Have you noticed how many people on the Net lately have given up writing reviews of WCW shows? I sometimes wonder if I shouldn't follow their example. Rey Mysterio, Jr. was hyped as being on this show, but people in WCW reportedly forgot to let him know, so he never showed. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- WWF RAW is WAR: Live/Taped: Live. Length: Two Hours+. Location: Springfield, Massachussetts. Hosted By: Jim Ross & Jerry "The King" Lawler. WWF RAW: - It's a McMahon Civil War, as Shane & Stephanie McMahon vie for control of the World Wrestling Federation, via their choices of World Champion. Or something. Shane and the Big Show hit the ring. A clip is played of Triple H shoving Shane last week. It's his intention to squash the Rock, like Vince should have done with Steve Austin. The Big Show's going to win the title at WrestleMania, and as a warm-up Triple H has to face Rikishi Phatu tonight in a non-title match. Stephanie & Triple H hit the ring. She announces a match between the Big Show and Kane. (Apparently the McMahon's can book whatever matches they want, but they can't alter the booking of the other.) Stephanie doesn't take too kindly to Shane and the fans calling her a slut, so she smacks him one. Not the most eventful twenty minute opening interview. Earlier in the day, the Mean Street Posse roused a WWF referee from his hotel room and invaded the room of Crash Holly, in the guise of delivering room service. Holly, still in his Day's Inn jammies, escapes with the Hardcore Title when the Posse once again fight amongst themselves instead of pinning him. I'm really digging this angle. - THE BIG SHOW (w/ Shane McMahon) vs. KANE (w/ Paul Bearer) Nothing much going on here. The Rock runs in to attack Big Show, giving him the win by DQ. Mark Henry's concerned about Mae Young coming to ringside with him. - The Acolyte Protection Agency: "We Need Beer Money!" I was editing commercials out of RAW while taping it, and came back from another channel during the break a bit late, so I missed some of this. Some kind of take-off of the Quarter Pounder scene from "Pulp Fiction." Was Bradshaw driving in circles in the Titan Towers parking lot? - MARK HENRY (w/ Mae Young) vs. D-VON DUDLEY (w/ Buh Buh Ray Dudley) Buh Buh tries to interfere, but receives a Bronco Buster from Mae for his troubles. Henry with a powerslam on D-Von for the win. Henry is then dumped out of the ring. A table is retrieved from under the ring. Ross and Lawler don't want to contemplate what may be coming. Buh Buh goes up top, is handed Mae, and he powerbombs her through the table! MAE YOUNG IS SPORTS ENTERTAINMENT! She took more of that sucker than either Terri Runnels or B.B. Bush. Cue the EMT's and ambulance. Just an awesome bump--especially for someone her age. Now let's hope we never see her again. - ROAD DOGG/X-PAC (w/ Tori) vs. TOO COOL I sense a theme on the night, as this match doesn't reach a finish either. Kane comes out after X-Pac, drawing a DQ. My brother is disappointed that Too Cool aren't able to give Kane and Paul Bearer the sunglasses. I thought it'd be funny if Bearer danced with them, while Kane stood unmoving in the background. - KURT ANGLE vs. CHRIS JERICHO The announcement that Jericho was getting a shot at the Intercontinental Title tonight set off some warning bells. I went into this match sure Jericho had more than a good chance of regaining the strap. Things start off evenly between the two. No Chyna with Jericho this week. Little of note happens, until Angle ducks a flying forearm from Jericho, which winds up taking out the ref. Angle goes for a swing with the title belt. Jericho ducks,then slaps on the Walls of Jericho. The ref makes a fast recovery and comes over to check Angle. Angle won't submit, and begins crawling for the ropes. He almost makes it, but Jericho drags him back to the center of the ring. Angle's got to submit! He's going ... going ... go--hey, what happened to the cameraman?! Someone's entered the ring. IT'S MR. BOB BACKLUND! That crazy fool, he's slapped the Crossface Chickenwing on Jericho. Disappointing finish, but a pretty good angle. There's something about Angle and Backlund's characters that fit together so well. Yeaugh!--Rikishi's ass! WWF WAR ZONE: - TRIPLE H (w/ Stephanie) vs. RIKISHI PHATU Rikishi dominates, so Triple H gets himself DQ'ed for using a chair. Not nearly as good as their match on SmackDown! several weeks ago. The Rock makes another charge to the ring, taking out Triple H. Too Cool show up as well, and they and Rikishi give the fans what they came to see. The Rock hosts "Saturday Night Live" on March 18th. - Shane tells the Big Show they should go console Triple H. "Console?" asks the Show. "Convince," says Shane. Huh? - Al Snow wants Steve Blackman to be accompanied to the ring by midgets carrying cheese trays. A production assistant says it'll be done. Snow exits, and enter Blackman, who threatens to come back for *him* if he sees so much as one cheese-bearing midget. - STEVE BLACKMAN (w/ Al Snow) vs. MATT HARDY (w/ Jeff Hardy) The crowd's really dead here, and I have to admit I am too. The show's been alright, but it hasn't had that smooth flow we've seen on SmackDown! lately. (Maybe I should just recap that show.) Blackman pulls something of an upset, getting the pin following a scissors kick off the top. Looks like the Rock has earned himself a match tonight ... against Chris Benoit ... in a Steel Cage! - EDGE/CHRISTIAN vs. PERRY SATURN/DEAN MALENKO (w/ Eddie Guerrero) Terri Runnels comes out to get the King all horny. Possibly the Match of the Night here folks, but I've got my eye on the finish line, so let's cut to the finish. Edge and Malenko are down on the floor. Edge is shoved into Terri, who goes down to the floor, holding her ankle. With him out of the picture, and the ref tied up by Eddie, Saturn & Malenko take out Christian and score the pin. Terri, obviously faking the bad ankle, gets up and scampers up the rampway. Edge & Christian exchange words. - CRASH HOLLY vs. VISCERA This being for the Hardcore Title the two quickly brawl out of the ring, through the crowd, and into the back. They fight into the room where the Acolytes have set up their door and are playing poker. Viscera upsets their table, so they upset him. Holly covers for the pin. Bradshaw then clobbers Holly, to show the APA play no favorites. - Michael Cole gets comments from the Rock. You know the drill. - Mark Henry plows into the lockerroom of the Dudley Boyz, but doesn't accomplish much of anything. - THE ROCK vs. CHRIS BENOIT For years the WWF used a big blue (later black) cage with big square holes, made easy to climb over and out of. In recent years they've switched to the more traditional chain link type of cage. The cage used most recently has been noticeably shorter than past cages, presumably so guys can do moves off the top without having to climb so high. This time, for whatever reason, the cage has been constructed so poorly that it's probably unsafe to use. Chris Benoit enters first, and is visibly worried when he shakes the walls of the cage and the darn thing nearly falls appart! Anyone thrown against the cage wall is likely to slide down all the way out of the cage to the floor, the sides bow out so badly. Scratch Benoit doing his headbutt off the top, as there's simply no way he could safely stand on top of the cage. I think somebody forgot to tighten something, or several somethings. Decent match, but not a whole lot happens. Benoit does the headbutt off the top turnbuckle. I wonder if that was supposed to be off the cage? Big Show, Triple H, Shane & Stephanie come out to watch. Benoit tries the rolling German Suplex, but the Rock breaks free before he can do the third in the series. Benoit makes a run for the top of the cage, but the Rock grabs his legs and powerbombs him off the top turnbuckle! (Methinks the boys have been playing the SmackDown! video game and getting ideas.) The Rock starts to climb out, only to be met at the top by Triple H. The Rock nails him, then simply climbs out to win the match. No job by Benoit, but the guy has all but vanished, as the heels toss the Rock back into the cage to administer a beating. Good lord, the fans are actually chanting for Rikishi to make the save! How cool is that! Triple H gets a chair. The Rock ducks, and Big Show winds up eating the chairshot. Fade out. - This Thursday: Nothing announced. - Next week: Nothing announced. Comments: A better show than last week, but still not a spectacular one, and not as good as last week's SmackDown! SmackDown! has really been the better WWF show over the last few months. Maybe it's because it's taped, and the WWF can edit out mistakes, that the shows wind up looking better than their Monday night counterparts. In a reversal of trend from the last few weeks of RAW, the second hour was actually better than the first this week. Seeing as I'm finishing this up so late, I've seen the ratings, which appear to bear that out. RAW's rating was only so-so during the first hour, but they drew big numbers once Nitro went off the air. The crowd seemed really dead this week. During the show I thought it might have been a case where the building was too big, like the show the WWF put on a few weeks ago at the Georgia Dome. The crowd there was fairly hot, but the building is just so big, a lot of that energy seems to dissipate. It doesn't come across well on TV (unless you put on a show the crowd goes totally bonkers for, like the Nitro there where Goldberg beat Hogan for the World Title). I have no idea how big the arena in Springfield is, though, so maybe it was just a case of Springfield not being the hottest town on the WWF's circuit. I can't wait until the WWF goes back to Texas. Those shows they put on in Houston and Dallas recently had amazing crowds. I figure next week's show will be like this one. Then the WWF will turn things up a notch as they enter the final stretch heading into WrestleMania. If Mick Foley, Vince McMahon or Steve Austin are going to be a part of the PPV, they should show up sometime in the last few weeks before then. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Bottom Line: Let's go back in time a few years, and review some history: In 1993 WCW hit rock bottom. TV ratings were low, house show attendance was pathetic, PPV buyrates were in the toilet, and the company was losing millions of dollars, as it tried in vain to compete with the WWF (which itself wasn't doing all that well at that time). Behind the scenes WCW was a mess, having seen a regular turnover in bookers and Turner company accountants brought in to manage the finances. Sound familiar? Creatively the company had also hit rock bottom. WCW wasn't at a loss for name stars, as they had Ric Flair, Sting, Vader and the British Bulldog. The booking and storylines, though, were terrible, and the actual quality of wrestling was low (though probably still better than we see today). It's hard for me personally to relate how bad that period was because it was so bad, I had pretty much stopped watching. All I have left on tape from that period are a couple Clash of the Champions shows and PPV's. That last bit probably bears repeating: things were so bad I stopped watching WCW. Obviously a lot of others did as well. Of course the seeds for that had been sewn in 1991 and '92. Those were really the years WCW was bad. 1993 WCW was probably a more improved promotion, but it was the awful stuff they had put out in the 12 or 18 months prior to that which killed off business. WCW's first big idea to turns things around was to bring back Ric Flair, who had just completed his run in the WWF. Flair's return to WCW did generate some excitement, but very quickly he was mired down with the rest of the messy promotion. But the truth be told, WCW might have turned things around, had they stumbled upon a few good storylines, or managed to create a new star or two who clicked with the fans. Instead they brought in Hulk Hogan. Hogan had left the WWF a few months before on bad terms. In WCW he was handed a fortune, and given total control over how the company would use him. Results were immediate, as TV ratings went up and PPV buyrates improved. But it was only a temporary fix, as quickly things began to go back to where they had been before Hogan arrived. In my opinion WCW was worse in 1995 than any of those bad years before it. That backslide might have continued, had someone not thought up the idea of running a live wrestling show on TNT. Monday Nitro was an immediate hit. Being live every week, featuring a steady stream of international stars, as well as big names coming in from the WWF and ECW, Nitro was THE wrestling show to watch. There was an air of unpredictablity and inventiveness, and by the summer of '96, when WCW turned the wrestling world upside down with the New World Order, WCW had finally achieved what it once had back in the mid to late 1980's: it was cool again. People were no longer embarrassed to admit they watched wrestling. WCW was hip, edgy, and totally unpredictable. It even had its own legit megastar on the rise, one Bill Goldberg. Too bad it couldn't last. All the good ideas seemed to dry up sometime in 1997. WCW coasted along for most of that year, living off the NWO and Hollywood Hogan and the Outsiders and the rapidly rising Goldberg. The company probably reached its peak in December of that year, when Sting beat Hogan for the World Title at Starrcade. Trouble was brewing on the horizon, but WCW didn't see it coming. Throughout 1998 it was not only clear WCW didn't have any new ideas, they also had no idea what it was that put them were they were in the first place. The company committed blunder after blunder, doing all they could to kill off fan interest and make WCW look the way it did from 1993 to 1995. I don't think there's any need to cover 1999 in any detail, is there? Suffice it to say WCW did everything wrong, and the wheels finally came completely off the cart. WCW had stopped being cool in 1998, and everything they did in 1999 took them one step further away from reigniting that impression in the eyes of the fans. One could chart a similar course for the WWF in the way the WWF surpassed WCW, and became the cooler of the two companies. The difference is the WWF hasn't had its 1997, 1998 or 1999 yet, in a manner of speaking. The lessons for both WCW and the WWF are clear. WCW doesn't really stand any chance of passing the WWF up again on its own, as long as the WWF remains strong. The WWF had massive problems in 1995 and '96, and worked long and hard before fighting back to the top in 1998. The WWF's rise has been all the more impressive, because they beat a WCW which was still relatively strong. WCW may need another miracle if it hopes to beat the WWF again. It may take a talent defection, someone like the Rock or Steve Austin, as well as something innovative, as Nitro was in its day. They'll also need the WWF to suffer its own decline at the same time. To counter that, the WWF needs to avoid the mistakes WCW made circa 1997 through 1999. Tops on that list are paying attention to the fans, and not running ideas into the ground just to keep selling a few t-shirts (NWO, anyone?) So, what does WCW need to do to turn things around? I wish I could answer that. There's simply no one thing, or a hundred things, WCW could do to cure their ills. The company had their time on top and have now lost it, maybe forever. There's so many things wrong with WCW, but I think it really boils down to three words: they're not cool. Goldberg could come back and most fans out there won't care. WCW could fire every bad, uncharismatic, elderly wrestler and it wouldn't make a bit of difference. WCW could sign the Rock and Steve Austin and the ratings wouldn't see much of an increase. The very essence of the company itself has been irreparably damaged. Things are so bad right now that anything they would or could do is tainted the moment it happens. It instantly soaks up some of the stink that permeates everything the company does. It's like a disease: everyone in the company now has it, anyone new who comes in will get it. That can't be fixed overnight, and it can't be fixed at all if massive changes aren't made both in front of and behind the cameras. We're talking about sweeping changes in the booking, production, talent roster, and even the very look of the company. Anything less will always keep alive, in part or whole, the disease which has killed WCW. It took the WWF over two years to turn things around and pass WCW. WCW itself needed a good three years to climb out of the hole they were in back in 1993 and reach the top. If getting back to where they were is WCW's goal, we're looking at years of rebuilding: a process they still haven't seriously committed to yet. For every show they've put on this year, a handful fans out there have claimed to see some kind of improvement, whether it be in production or booking or the right person supposedly being pushed the right way. Haven't we heard that every week, from Bob Ryder or on WCW Live or whatever? If there's been so much improvement then why does WCW keep getting worse, and why are their TV ratings and PPV buyrates going down and their house show attendance dwindling? Don't just take my opinion--look at the empty arenas and cold, hard figures. Look at the stars such as Goldberg and Sting and Bret Hart who refuse to come back until things get better. Just look at the company itself and ask yourself one simple question: is there any one match, involving wrestlers who are currently on WCW TV, that you'd be willing to pay money to see? Does this company have a single potential "Dream Match" on its roster? How many of you have to cheat and insert Goldberg or Bret Hart, just to come up with one WCW match you'd really be excited to see? Burn it all now, and start again fresh, or this company is going to be bad for many years to come. I'm not even talking about being competitive with the WWF--just a WCW that is worth watching on its own merits. Can you even imagine a WCW the same as it is now for the next two or three years? Scary thought. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Slobberknocker Central" and "Monday Night Recap" are copyright 2000 by John Petrie, and all opinions expressed therein are his own, and not those of "USLink". Check the "Slobberknocker Central" main page for info on how to receive the "Recap" free via E-Mail every week. Volume One, Number 225 of the "Monday Night Recap", March 6th, 2000.