The Seven Deadly Sins Of WCW
KingMottola
n. Habitual greed or excess in eating
- WCW Monday Nitro turning 3 hours, and WCW Thunder becoming part of the
regular weekly schedule
Credit to Ted Turner and Eric Bischoff. WCW Monday Nitro debuted on the 4th of
September 1995. It was Ted Turner who okayed and help fund Eric Bischoff’s
idea to create a rival weekly wrestling show to wage war of WWF’s ‘Monday
Night Raw’. Ted Turner gave booker Bischoff as much money as he needed, a
prime-time TV slot, and all the confidence in the world. Eric Bischoff is
widely credited for the ‘Nitro’ name, and the majority of the booking
thereafter. But sadly, that’s where the credit ends. Ted Turner cannot be
held responsible for what were to follow, for he was far insulated from such
minor deals in the vast Turner empire. But Bischoff is another matter
altogether, and although TNT and TBS threw so much money at WCW because they
wanted more highly rated time to sell ads on, expanding weekly television time
ultimately turned out to be self-destructive. Nitro changed from two hours to a
ridiculous pay-per-view length three hours, and later WCW Thunder debuted at
the start of 1998, and all of a sudden World Championship Wrestling was
producing five hours of wrestling per week, and that’s not even counting WCW
Saturday Night. The result?
Fans couldn’t keep up with story-lines, and a sizeable number of the ‘out
of the loop’ viewers became confused, and consequently turned over or off
entirely. And because of the galore of TV time, a lot of the angles were
repetitive, and just dolled up reiteration of something seen a million times
before. Fans just ended up caring less, because of the gluttony of Eric
Bischoff who ended up producing too much of a good thing.
Greed
n. Intense of excessive desire, especially for food or wealth
- WCW Executives signing wrestlers to multi-million guaranteed contracts
Who got greedy? Ted Turner? Eric Bischoff? The main eventers?…. WCW lost
around $15.5 million in 1999, and somewhere in the region of $62 million in
2000, after grossing an astonishing $230 million in 1998. Somewhere, sometime,
something went drastically wrong. Someone got greedy.
But lets face it, they got greedy, because they could afford to, pun intended.
The main reason why WCW began to lose so much money in 1999 and thereafter was
because they started to sign contracts and made numerous deals based on the
$230 million gross they made in 1998. Business took a turn for the worst in
2000, after making a approximate gross of $120 million they had to cut like
crazy to *just* make losses $52 million. Whether that was greed, or just a
server lack of understanding about wrestling, or business altogether is up for
debate. Simple problem was, revenues they had previously earning weren’t
going to last building a company around older wrestlers. Meltzer told me, as
long as Eric had Hogan, Eric thought he’d always come out on top eventually.
Boy was he wrong. Eric Bischoff also became so paranoid by some of the main
eventers (Kevin Nash for instance) idle threats at leaving to TitanLand, the
only language he spoke that Nash understood, was in dollar bills. Kevin Nash,
Hulk Hogan, Lex Luger, Scott Steiner to name but a few, were all paid more than
they were worth (Hogan was paid $4-5 million in 1999 for instance), and
didn’t recuperate WCW’s investment in them in a merchandise or workrate
sense. In short, they were a waste of money. Bischoff either got greedy, or
very, very naïve, as he bought everything he could no matter what the price.
Sloth
n. Laziness or indolence, reluctance to make an effort
- Creative teams consistent rehash of old story-lines, and WCW main eventers
apathetic main events, and mass injury faking
There’s a fine line between being lazy, and just being not very good. Nobody
could point their finger at someone like DDP, who was past his athletic prime
in WCW and say he was lazy. Nor could anyone say that Ric Flair, who was in his
late forties and early fifties in WCW was lazy either. But plenty of WCW main
eventer’s were, and indeed Ric Flair and DDP were probably the only two
making a substantial effort, that or all the other main eventers weren’t very
good anyway. WCW main events sucked for the most part, and seemed as if they
were almost being wrestled in some sick, twisted parallel universe where
wrestling was being shown in slow-motion.
WCW was legendary towards the end of its run for its wrestlers faking injuries
to get time off. Reportedly it happened on numerous occasions, with not only
workers at the bottom of the card, but the top as well. Add to that, though
they were well within there legal right, there have been instances of wrestlers
who had already worked the prescribed number of dates stated on their contract
who decided to just rest at home (reportedly Hogan and Luger are guilty of such
‘crimes’) and do next to nothing. In an orchestrated booking arrangement,
Sting didn’t work all year long in 1997, to help build for a huge buyrate at
Starrcade in December for his return. In one sense it worked, as Starrcade 1997
was a gigantic success, doing 640,000 buys (the biggest show in company history
and among the biggest of all time). In another sense Sting forgave an entire
year wrestling just for one single angle, that ended up flopping in its final
execution anyway, as the ending of the Sting – Hogan match was one of
wrestlings worst cop-outs ever. Most of the time however, circumstances with
wrestlers faking injury and/or not wrestling because of their contract was
lazy, slothful and in the long run, detrimental.
Envy
n. A feeling of discontented or resentful longing aroused by another’s better
fortune etc.
- Eric Bischoff’s and WCW’s continued obsession with the WWF
Call it what you will, but Eric Bischoffs obsession (and at one point, vice
versa) of Vince McMahon was pestiferous, and vastly unhealthy. Everytime
Bischoff would give out results of a pre-taped RAW, or future angles, he
wasn’t just attacking the WWF, he was publicising it. And as Vince McMahon
knows better than anybody, publicity is a bonus in any shape or form it is
received in.
Bischoff ordering commentators to tell of Austin fighting his boss Vince
McMahon or telling to Schiavone say sarcastically “Mick Foley as champion.
Ha! That will put bums on seats”, wasn’t just humdrum, or plain stupid, it
was also blatantly comments from an increasingly jealous and envious promoter.
Because of course, Mick Foley did put bums on seats, and Austin was more of a
company man than Bischoff would ever be lucky enough to fire.
Wrath
n. Extreme anger
- Disjointed Locker room, Hogan’s comments and more
No, not the wrestler. Wrath the emotion. Wrath the resentful follower. Wrath
the thing that led to so many wrong turns and dead ends. Wrath that caused
Hogan to say Kidman couldn’t “draw a flea market.” Wrath that made Vince
Russo become side-tracked, and use WCW as a way to personally attack the WWF
and all its employees (see: Oklahoma). Wrath that made the locker room so
disorderly, disorganised and disjointed. Wrath that eventually killed World
Championship Wrestling
In Eric Bischoff’s early days in WCW, he used wrath as fuel, as a reason and
motive. In fact, he even raged war on the WWF, which spawned the Monday Night
Wars (a 90 day experiment that turned into a 5 year epic). It was a good thing,
it kept WCW sharp, on the edge. But somewhere along the way it spiralled out of
control, everything became dislocated and WCW ended up fighting a war not only
with the WWF, but with themselves. The federation hit the self-destruct button,
and with inward fighting, in-between Hogan’s insults (however much he later
said they were a work), Bischoff’s treatment of lesser stars and Bagwells
behaviour to crew workers, wrath became a transcendent reason in the
company’s demise.
Pride
n. A feeling of elation or satisfaction at the achievements or qualities or
possessions. High or overbearing opinion of ones worth or importance.
- WCW’s main and older stars refusal to put over young superstars
Achievement is its own reward, pride obscures it. And as Marcellus said in Pulp
Fiction ‘fuck pride. Pride only hurts, it never helps.’ Pride overlapping
with egotism has always plagued WCW, following it and forever stalking it. From
the days where management banned top rope moves as not to ‘overshadow’
wrestlers at the top of the card, who invariably needed a map when anywhere
near the ropes, WCW always let pride interfere with the configuration of a
quality product.
Not only that, but from the very day Hulk Hogan entered WCW, pride became the
distinguished factor in the direction of the company. Hulk Hogan doesn’t do
the job lightly. In fact, in his long and established career (off the top of my
head) I can only remember him losing cleanly to the Ultimate Warrior, Jim
Duggan, Roddy Piper and Goldberg pre-WWE run of 2002. Pride. Egotism. Vanity.
These were all staples of World Championship Wrestling and its
‘superstars’. And sometimes, Starrcade 1997 for instance where the blowoff
to the Sting – Hogan feud resulted in a pure unadulterated screwjob, those
staples can ruin anything. And pride is also the reason why ultimately Chris
Benoit, Booker T, Raven, Chris Jericho and the likes were never pushed to their
full potential, and why they were never elevated, everybody above them on the
card were just too proud of themselves and their history to do it.
Lust
n. Strong or excessive desire
- Delivering Goldberg – Hogan too soon.
Perhaps us Internet folk pay too much attention to the ratings, the
attendance’s and the buyrates. Maybe we shouldn’t pay attention nor care
about any of those numbers, figures or statistics, but in this case, I think
the Internet is right when they say WCW blew a potential HUGE buyrate for the
sake of a quick ratings boost because of a large attendance at the Georgia Dome
one Monday Nitro. Hulk Hogan versus Goldberg could have been WCW’s chance to
make up for the mistakes they made with Hulk Hogan – Sting, but instead of
making the same mistakes, they made completely new ones.
The match itself, had the illusion of being one of WCW’s paramount moments.
It was electric. It was wondrous. But it was also about four months too soon,
and (as CRZ so equitably put it) there was no encore. WCW had played their
triumph card, and had no follow up and were left trying to recreate the
tension, the anticipation and the excitement this feud had once had, but never
quite got there. There is no doubt WCW could have made millions (Meltzer
guessitmates around the $7 mill mark) from just this one match, and had it main
evented Starrcade, World Championship Wrestling would have probably been the
number 1 wrestling company heading into 1999. But instead, their rating jumped
for one week and for one week only, all because of Eric Bischoff’s lust to
win the ratings war.
That wraps this baby up for today, I hope you had fun. In writing this column,
it would have helped if there was a ‘too many management changes’ sin, a
‘involvement of too many celebrities’ sin, or more specifically giving
‘David Arquette the Heavyweight title’ sin. But I think you’d all agree
there are way too many sins already, right?
___________________________
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Take it easy,
Mav. - Fight truth decay, Read Writing on the Wall today!
About the Maverick: I’ve been writing on the Internet for about four years on
and off now, and am the third longest standing Oratory member (behind John C
and DRQ). I started when my English teacher told me I’d fail his subject if I
didn’t considerably improve, also advising me to practice and ‘write about
what you know’. I got an A in English that year, and here I am today scribing
columns for the very best Internet Wrestling site around. I live in London,
England and am the youngest Oratory writer aged 17. I pretty much went through
school doing whatever the hell I wanted, hence the nickname ‘The Maverick’.
That and I like to think I’m cool, occasionally.
Posted by The Maverick on July 22, 2002 at 09:23:58 AM
I love the way you look at me
I love the way you smack my ass
I love the dirty things you do
I have control of you