Let's talk wrasslin'

[DE4life]

Thanks man, I appreciate that. I'm very sorry for your loss as well. I think it's something only a pet owner who really develops a bond with their animal or animals can really understand. It's totally different to human relationships as the animal never judges you, never has ulterior motives and is never anything other than what they are. It's an incredibly pure connection that you just don't get with another human. You develop a routine with that animal and, if you're lucky, it's something that enriches your life and brings light into even the darkest days. Even when I was feeling really ill, angry or upset, just seeing Tia would be enough to lift my spirits and keep me going. She didn't have to do anything other than be herself. Losing that is hard to accept, and having that connection severed is emotionally devastating. I can tell from the way you wrote about your dog that you'll understand exactly what I mean.

The hardest part with losing Tia was that it was really unexpected. She was 11, so whilst she wasn't young, as a miniature poodle she wasn't old for her breed either. She hadn't shown any signs of problems, she seemed fine. Then she had a few days where her stomach wasn't right, so I took her to the vet and she had lost a fairly significant amount of weight from the summer (difficult to tell with her coat, unfortunately). Blood tests showed that she had chronic kidney disease, but we were told it could be managed and she could still live for some time. We got renal food for her and everything else necessary.

I then headed to Finland for a 3 week trip to see my significant other (I shared Tia with my parents, so there was no change for her other than me not being there), but five days in I got a message from my family saying that her new blood tests weren't good and she may only have days left if her condition didn't improve. She'd gone downhill very fast, and had stopped eating or drinking, which is obviously a bad sign. She was having to be syringe fed and was being given water that way too. I booked an early flight home, got back 9pm on the Sunday, having only arrived in Finland at 10pm on the previous Monday. She was family to me, though, and I had to be there with her. She came to the door to greet me, wagging her tail, but I could see how frail and weak she'd become. It was a shock, as when I left she hadn't been anything close to that bad. A few hours later she passed away. She'd literally gone to the vet twice the day before and they hadn't indicated she would imminently die, and despite her issues they didn't even recommend euthanasia at that point. She'd been fairly bright on those visits, but by that Sunday night she started spiralling hard and she pretty much died in my arms. The whole situation was just like a prolonged nightmare, and one that I feel like I'm waking up to again and again every day. I know that by the time I was holding her she was already gone, she'd stopped responding to her name or any stimulus around her at least 20 minutes before the end came, but it's something that will never leave me.

Well, anyway, life is this way and this is part of the contract we sign up for when getting a pet. Chances are you will almost certainly outlive them, regardless of when they pass. Ironically the more you love them, the worse it is when they go. It seems cruel and unfair in a lot of ways, but I've been through this before and I know in time the pain dulls and you just keep going. The first few weeks and months are just the worst, though, especially when it comes out of nowhere like this. Four weeks ago I was taking her out for walks like nothing was wrong, and now she's gone forever. As you said, it really, really sucks.

But yeah, it hurts and it'll hurt for a while to come. My condolences right back at you, it is indeed a rough thing to ensure. Not much you can do other than remember the good times and be grateful for the time you had with them.

 

[The Grayfox]

Yeah, I know exactly what you mean by the emotional connection. I've known people who like animals and they have pets but that's really all there is to that relationship. Every animal I've ever had is a part of my family and they are treated as such. When I was a teenager, my family and I went to New York to visit my stepdad's family. It was upstate New York which has plenty of rural areas, one of which we were headed to. Not much about that trip is memorable but one of the things I do remember is pulling up to this house and seeing this dog on a very short leash tied to a tree stump in direct sunlight. It was my stepdad's son's house. I asked him about the dog and he said "that dog is chained to that stump every day of the year unless my stepfather takes him hunting." I just remember being like "well what the fuck?" Coming from a home where animals are treated like family, that just didn't compute. I don't understand why you would have a pet and then do that shit.

One unfortunate thing I've noticed with vets over the years is that sometimes they seem to be guessing. Part of me understands that it's hard to be conclusive. The other part holds this resentment like "wait a minute, you told me..." I think for me, I wanted the vet to tell us it was time to consider euthanasia but she never did. She said it was entirely up to us, which is a terrible decision to have to make. You second guess it, wondering if its too early. The entire process is fucked really. In the end, I'm sure we made the right decision but in that moment, nothing feels like the right decision. I'll tell you, I don't know if I can do it again. I know the good outweighs the bad, and maybe it's because it's still too fresh, but I can't even imagine having another dog right now.

Your situation sounds pretty brutal to be honest. I was in a more controlled environment and had vet techs explaining everything that was happening in detail, letting me know how long it was going to take and all that stuff. It sucks any way you look at it, but coming home from a trip and then immediately dealing with something that heavy is quite unfortunate. I hope things start looking up soon, man.

 

[DE4life]

@The Grayfox have you seen the new 'Who Killed WCW?' Vice series? I feel like it's been fairly good so far, and they've got a decent selection of people as talking heads, including some of the old Turner/WCW staff. The Rock is on there as a talking head as well, which seemed a bit out of place at first, but I believe he's got a hand in producing the series which may explain why.

The only thing I find somewhat amusing is the 'Who Killed WCW?' premise, as if that hasn't been done to death since 2001. By now it's pretty well established that it was a combination of poor management, poor booking and most importantly the fact AOL/TimeWarner simply didn't want WCW on their books and were happy to kill it off. I'm not sure anyone is asking 'Who Killed WCW?' so much as 'Why let it go for practically nothing when much bigger offers were on the table?'

There was an interesting reddit thread I saw a while back which suggested there was an inside job element to WCW getting sold to WWE for peanuts. It was quite convincing, although I hadn't heard about it until reading that thread.

 

[The Grayfox]

I have not watched it yet, but I do plan on it. As you said, it's been done. That question has been answered at this point. I think people keep re-asking it because they like to cause friction. I mean, it's already happening with Ric Flair. I do like the Vice documentaries though. I've been entertained by several of the Dark Side of the Ring episodes and slightly horrified by others.

There are definitely conspiracy theories surrounding it. I mean, Eric Bischoff was about to buy it. He had investors and everything and he was going to completely reboot it with Las Vegas as the new home for it. And they were going to pay much, much more than Vince and the WWE did. There had to be some fuckery there. It's one of the conspiracies in the wrestling world that I believe a lot more than some others.

 

[DE4life]

The documentary itself is the usual Vice fare - well presented, well paced, solid narrative flow. If you like DSotR then you should like this as well. So far there's been nothing groundbreaking, and nothing I haven't heard before, but that's mainly just because I've read and watched so much stuff on WCW since it died. I think they'd have to literally start fabricating total BS to reveal anything new to me.



This was the reddit thread I was thinking of.

 

[The Grayfox]

It's pretty crazy because if that is in fact an illegal deal, I'm surprised that never came up. It wouldn't be at all surprising to find out that Vince McMahon was involved in shady business deals though. In fact, I'd say its more likely than not just based on that.

 

[The Grayfox]

Man, what's going on over there on Smackdown? It's the start of the Samoan World Order or something. Every few weeks, somebody is debuting. I was really hoping that Jacob Fatu was going to come in as a babyface though and side with Roman. Obviously all of this is leading to Bloodline vs New Bloodline, with Hikuleo still yet to debut. Problem is, who's left to side with Roman? Just the Usos? Are they going to interject Sami and Cody? They're running a very serious risk of a babyface Roman Reigns outshining Cody Rhodes. The crowd is going to love Roman as a tweener. I imagine it's going to be a very Stone Cold-esque thing.

The Wyatt Sicks (6) debuted on Monday. I'm not sure what I was expecting for their debut, but it wasn't that. I actually enjoyed it and I think their look is pretty cool. It was very Devils Rejects. Then of course a picture of them out of character getting food after the show surfaces. Still, I thought it was well done and I hope they don't fumble the faction. But they probably will. The only faction that hasn't fumbled under HHH is The Bloodline for obvious reasons. The Pride? The Final Testament? LWO, even Judgment Day who they're trying to make a big deal, really isn't working. You could make the argument that Alpha Academy has been seeing some action and decent storytelling I guess.

 

[DE4life]

It's been a really long time now since I've watched any current wrestling, but I can say for sure I have no faith in WWE doing any kind of 'supernatural' story correctly. They always seem to take it too far, and it seems like they've done that from the off with this one, going to unnecessary extremes. Until they learn that less is often more, these kinds of things will never work.

I did see AEW posted a 502k viewership figure this week, which is staggeringly low. I don't even watch the PPVs anymore, so I don't really know what's going on, but it sounds like even the hardcores are beginning to lose interest in the product, which is never a good sign.

 

[DE4life]

AEW is great if you're only interested in 5* matches. WWE is the choice now for literally everything else.

It's becoming obvious that AEW's early success was heavily predicated on WWE being in a creative slump. As soon as that changed, so did people's viewing habits.

 

[The Grayfox]

Yeah, WWE is still on fire which is not good for AEW. I think Meltzer or some other writer said that "Vince McMahon being ousted from WWE was the worst possible thing that could've happened to AEW." And I believe that to be true. AEW on it's own is fine, but Tony Khan trying to compete with WWE is just not going to happen.

I saw Booker T and Jim Ross say that they will never work with Vice again after the Who Killed WCW? series. Apparently they did some clever editing.

 

[DE4life]

I can't say I've noticed anything majorly egregious with the editing or out of context quotes, honestly, but maybe I just wasn't paying attention. It's produced in part by the Rock's company though, so presumably they won't work with him again, either. Expect Booker to resign his WWE position any moment now /s

In terms of AEW, they had three critical things coincide which has, imo, sunk them. The Vince scandals forcing him out of WWE, leading to the company's creative renaissance, is definitely one factor. CM Punk and the fallout from Brawl out and Brawl In is another factor, simply because things have never gone back to the way they were since Brawl out happened, and Punk was a huge draw for AEW whether people want to admit it or not. The final major factor is, in my view, the purchase of ROH and subsequent hijacking of AEW television by the ROH product. This is personally what turned me off from AEW, and I've never really gotten back into it. The roster was already bloated pre-ROH, but got much worse afterwards, not to mention it being stranger for male competitors to not have a title of some kind due to the sheer amount of belts now in the company.

AEW needs a pretty huge intervention to return to positive momentum, from where I'm sitting, and I don't think it's going to happen any time soon. The damage done may well be terminal, insofar as AEW being considered a genuine WWE competitor as opposed to a distant, niche #2 promotion.

 

[The Grayfox]

I agree on all of those things. The AEW fanbase seems to have selective memory. They're very much all for saying AEW didn't need Punk, he was never a draw for them, etc. It's just not true. When Punk showed up, AEW was immediately on fire. Tony Khan knew this, which is why he tried so hard to keep Punk there and gave him multiple chances. I also believe it just wasn't a good fit. Where Punk is now, he seems genuinely happy and people around him are saying he is happy and people are happy to be there with him. I think Punk likes some of the old school ways pro wrestling used to be. That respect level. It seems there isn't a lot of that in AEW. Punk came up shaking the veteran's hands every week, going to them for advice, all that stuff. I think AEW is a lot more relaxed than that.

100% agree with the ROH stuff. I don't understand why when you already have a product that so over saturated with talent, why you would do that. I imagine Tony Khan's logic was to buy ROH and have partnerships with NJPW, TNA and AAA with the thought being "all the smaller promotions can team up and that'll really take down WWE." It didn't work, nor did it ever have any chance to. He's too focused on trying to compete instead of focusing his energy on making his company better.

AEW needs somebody else in charge, not a fan fantasy booking. I know that sounds harsh, but that's what this is.

 

[DE4life]

AEW was going along nicely before Punk arrived, then moved onto a higher level when he got there for a while. It fell apart, I think, because the company just isn't structured for genuine top-tier guys. It's too indy and too chaotic. Top guys need a strong leader, both to keep them in line and to give them confidence in the direction the company is going. AEW just doesn't have that with Tony Khan, and you get an inmates running the asylum vibe from AEW which is very similar to WCW in its dying days and TNA after Hogan came in. AEW has the backing of the TV Network and a billionaire's money, so they're in a better place than WCW or TNA were when it comes to absorbing the chaos, but I struggle to see how they progress without some significant changes at the top.

Speaking of WCW, I watched the last episode of 'Who Killed WCW?' just now. I thought it was a decent enough closing episode with some footage I haven't seen before. I appreciate that they went down the avenue of the conspiracy theory that I mentioned before, I didn't think they'd go there, and they actually had Snyder and Siegel as talking heads and put the question to them. They, of course, denied it - and to be fair I'm not convinced either of them would risk corporate espionage charges over the WCW sale unless they were receiving massive kickbacks somewhere... but I guess you never know.

 

[The Grayfox]

Never underestimate the lengths the American businessman will go to. Businessmen all over the world really, but we're just coming off the debates over here and I'm pretty annoyed about it, so we're going to stick with American businessman. Now that the series has concluded, I'll probably just binge it in one night. In fact, maybe I'll do that tonight and see what all the fuss is about.

 

[DE4life]

Honestly I'd say for the most part it was pretty good. It didn't go in depth on much, but then you could have entire episodes dedicated to the beginning of nitro, the formation of the nWo, the Montreal screwjob and its impact, Hogan, Bischoff, Sting, Flair, the fingerpoke... so in terms of being a general retelling of the rise and fall of WCW in about 3 hours, I thought it was fine. Also some talking heads there that I don't think have officially been on camera talking about WCW before, which was cool.

 

[The Grayfox]

I watched all four episodes. I actually enjoyed it quite a bit, even if there wasn't a ton of new information. I know The Rock's production company had something to do with this documentary and that's why he was in it, but he felt very out of place to me. A few notes:

- Kevin Sullivan's appearance was a little bit jarring. I know he's up there in age, but man he looked frail.

- The picture of a young Sonny Ono in a gi made me laugh.

- Bischoff talked about how he wanted to up the production value of WCW when he took over. I think he more than succeeded in that regard. The look of those first few years of Nitro is top notch imo.

- Plenty of Bret Hart bitterness on display here, no surprise. I get it, he's upset that his career was cut short. But Jesus Christ...

- Bischoff is right, it should be called the "Nitro Era", not the "Attitude Era."

- More Goldberg whining about his fake streak being ended too early. He comes off as such a fucking clown who still knows nothing about how professional wrestling works. Nash's points about Goldberg losing and the money being in the babyface chasing the title are correct.

- Nash is also correct that people blow the finger poke of doom way out of proportion. It didn't kill WCW.

- Brad Siegel is clearly a liar. When Russo and Bischoff claim Siegel told them two different things and then it cuts to Siegel and he feigns confusion and says something like "my thoughts from that day are pretty sketchy..." Classic response when you know damn well you told two people two completely different things.

- The last episode gave me a much bigger appreciation for all of the people who worked behind the scenes in WCW. A lot of people lost their jobs and that sucks.

- Finally, Bischoff's comments at the end just made me miss WCW more. I really do miss it.

 

[DE4life]

I agree on Rock feeling out of place. I guess he just wanted to lend some of his star power to the documentary, and in fairness he was a part of that era, so it's not like he was totally out of place telling the WWE side of the story. It was just weird to hear a WWE guy talk so glowingly about WCW, when WWE has repeatedly shit on WCW whenever possible. Sometimes it felt like Rock's praise of WCW was a bit OTT and disingenuous. It might genuinely be how he feels, but it's hard to tell considering his production company's involvement.

I've seen Sullivan in other things before now, so his appearance didn't surprise me, but yeah he does look old these days. With that said, even in the 90s he looked old, lol. I can remember as a kid Sullivan was one of my least favourite wrestlers. Looked like someone's fat, short redneck uncle. Leader of a shitty stable. Not a great promo (and that's being generous). As for his finisher... probably one of the worst ever? Jumping two-footed onto the opponent's stomach. Really. It didn't even look like it hurt. Even by 80s standards it was a terrible finisher. His feud with Benoit was a bit grittier and more realistic, but as a 9 year old I had no fucking idea what was going on and just felt like Benoit should easily be able to destroy this short, old, fat dude. The only positive thing I can say is that he retired gracefully enough. I do have respect for his work in Florida - particularly the character development - but that was before my time. When I first saw him in WCW he had become goofy af.

I think people sometimes forget how low budget Raw looked back in the mid-90s. Nitro was lightyears ahead of Raw in terms of set design and the overall 'big league' feel. They made themselves seem like a big deal from the get go, and that perception definitely helped make them an immediate threat to WWE. They didn't need time to catch up in terms of the ratings, they were pretty much neck-and-neck with WWE from day one. I don't think that would have been the case if WCW had debuted with its old Saturday Night production, or even WWE's Raw production at the time. You have to give Bischoff kudos for executing that vision, because it was far beyond what even the top company in the States (WWE) was doing at the time. In reality WWE didn't really start getting a 'big feel' to their events until 1999. WrestleMania 14, for example, looks pretty mid design-wise. It's WM and had a huge main event, so it didn't matter, but still. WCW's sets always looked like they had way more effort put into them in the first few years. For WCW that all fell apart with the redesign. In retrospect I actually think the Star-design at the entrance is quite cool, but it's impractical for it to have to keep opening for people to come out. Also you just can't help but associate WCW's decline with that redesign. Everything about the OG Nitro design was superb - the intro, the music, the set, the entranceway, the ring setup... they just absolutely nailed it on first try. Anything else was probably going to be a downgrade.

Goldberg just came across as inherently unlikeable in this documentary for some reason. He was almost smarmy and there was a real arrogance to his tone. Very strange. Bret was just Bret, haha... to be honest nothing he said was untrue, but yeah, the bitterness runs deep. Or he's just doing it as his gimmick at this point, it's hard to tell with wrestlers.

The fingerpoke was just a symptom of a much larger problem. It wasn't the catalyst for anything, it was just the latest in a long line of stupid booking decisions being made that caused the fans in attendence and at home to feel shortchanged. You can only do that so many times before people start to lose faith and spend their time and money elsewhere. As a fan you just stopped trusting the company to deliver what they promised. You can get away with it every so often, but WCW did it repeatedly during 1998 and continued doing so in 1999. Combined with repetitive booking (how many times can you run Hogan vs Flair?), the same guys on top and no strong leadership... it's hardly a surprise things went south and people tuned out. I was as loyal a WCW fan as they came, back then, and even I gave up on them by fall '99 in favour of WWE. Even to 12 year old me it was obvious the product had gotten very stale and just wasn't fun to watch anymore. I don't think i was watching by the time Russo came on board, but regardless of what he claims about ratings, he made a bad situation 100x worse. Under Russo it stopped being anything that even resembled WCW, and it never really recovered.

For me WCW has three distinct eras. The good ol' boys era from inception until late-93 when Bischoff was given control. The Bischoff era from 1994 - mid-1999, and then the AOL/TimeWarner era which went from mid-1999 to the end. For a lot of people, the Bischoff era is the one remembered most fondly. There's a decent segment of people who prefer the good ol' boys era, when WCW was just a Southern wrasslin' company, and I can understand that. There was some good stuff during that time too. Then you've got the AOL/TimeWarner era which is almost universally despised. From my POV WCW died when Bischoff left and Russo was hired. The beginning of the AOL/TimeWarner era was the end of what I recognised as WCW. It was only WCW in name after that, with some of the same wrestlers performing.

There's been no company since the original WCW died in mid-1999 that has really captured what either the good ol' boys era or the Bischoff era of the company portrayed. TNA never had the look or feel of a big league promotion, and AEW is more a mixture of ECW, NJPW and the indy scene. I don't get WCW vibes from it and never really have, even back when there were older WCW legends on the show. I enjoyed AEW until the ROH purchase, but it's never been a WCW replacement, regardless of being on TNT/TBS.

 

[The Grayfox]

Goldberg was really unlikable in this. He's the epitome of 'American meathead.' He says stupid things like "if I wanted to hurt him, I would've buried him out there", referring to the spear on Russo through the cage. But, you did hurt him Bill. Whether he wanted to or not, he did. His entire identity is that of a tough guy who can beat up anybody, which isn't true since fucking Chris Jericho kicked his ass. Begrudgingly, I tend to agree with Goldberg a little more on the Bret controversy, just because... look, accidents happen. Especially in something like pro wrestling. They both agree on the fact that Goldberg said "watch the kick." That side kick was done in almost all of Goldberg's matches. If Bret had put his hand up, it would've taken the brunt of the impact. But at the end of the day, it was a miscommunication and an accident. Goldberg has apologized profusely. What else can he realistically do? It's not like he's strutting around bragging about ending Bret Hart's career. Bret just used the documentary to call everyone idiots.

Agree on Kevin Sullivan. I've seen him in things recently too, but on this he just looked really frail to me. But I used to hate watching his matches too. I remember that awful feud with his 'brother', Dave Sullivan in 94/95. It was painful to watch. I think Sullivan will be remembered more for his mind behind the scenes than his character or work inside of the ring. I know people praise his work in the 80s in Florida, but I still don't see it. We don't even have to talk about the Dungeon of Doom, which will go down as one of the worst stables in the history of wrestling.

As corny as a lot of it was, I did really like when Bischoff first took over. You had some awful stuff in there, like the aforementioned Sullivan feud and Dungeon of Doom, Renegade, stuff like that, but you did have some cool stuff too. I really liked Sting in this era. I'm a sucker for surfer Sting. Plus I was a kid during that era, so at the time, I was really into it. I loved WCW Saturday Night and it's weird futuristic set. Bischoff has talked some on his podcast about how the crowd sometimes had drunken homeless people in it, which is amusing. Even now some of my favorite sets are 90s WCW ones. I think back to Bash at the Beach 1995, which was held on an actual fucking beach. Maybe not the best idea, but it was something different. Hog/Road Wild being at a motorcycle rally -- again, not the best idea. We've heard about the racist shit that would go on there, and all the other stuff, but it was something different. It stood out.

Russo apologizes for nothing and clearly thinks he's done no wrong. When he took over, the product was so bad that I stopped watching WCW. He should not have been put in charge of anything. He excelled when he had a filter to run his ideas through. He needed a boss that would tell him no, like Vince McMahon did. Some of the worst stuff in wrestling history is WCW run by Russo.

I really wish Bischoff had been able to buy WCW. Who knows, it could still be running today for all we know. Selling it to the competition did nothing for pro wrestling. It was exciting and mind blowing for about a week and then we all saw exactly what happened. Vince bought WCW so he could make it the loser. It's pretty clear that it was a vindictive move just to clear WCW from the table so he didn't have to compete with it. Unfortunately that just hurt the fans.

I think part of the reason I don't like AEW is because I hoped it would be a WCW replacement. And I know that's on me. It was never advertised as such. But when it first started, and they were hiring all this ex-WCW talent -- and not just TV talent, behind the scenes talent, cameramen, producers, etc. I think my hopes were up that it was going to be the resurrection of WCW. Not to mention, Tony Khan was a huge WCW fan. I just don't like what it became unfortunately. And a lot of other people don't either apparently. Those ratings aren't getting much better.

 

[DE4life]

The strange thing about Goldberg in this documentary is that I've seen him in other media and he hasn't come across like this. Typically whenever I've seen him interviewed he's come across as pretty down-to-Earth and humble. It's almost like he's purposefully playing a character this time around, and I have no idea why he'd do that.

As far as the Goldberg/Bret thing... yes, Goldberg was green and dangerous in the ring, but at the same time Bret was experienced enough that he should have been able to protect himself. I feel like Bret let his guard down as much as Goldberg was reckless, and perhaps that's part of what eats Bret up inside. The one time he let his standard slip slightly in the ring, he got seriously hurt. It's also often glossed over that Bret went on to work for weeks afterwards, including in a hardcore match against Terry Funk. Someone at WCW, or Bret himself, should have said no to that - and maybe if they had, the aftereffects wouldn't have been so bad. Solely blaming Goldberg is just petty and doesn't take the big picture into account. Also can't help but notice Bret only started taking this angle after Goldberg came back in 2016 and started making a lot of money, so, there's probably some jealousy there too. Before then Bret, by all accounts, had no real issue with Goldberg and accepted it was just a mistake.

I wasn't watching WCW until mid-1996 so I missed all of Sullivan's work before then, and in fact as a kid I missed most of the Dungeon of Doom nonsense, only having seen it when I was a lot older. I essentially caught Sullivan at the very end of his career so it's maybe not a surprise that he wasn't at his best by that point, but at the same time he continually booked himself very strong, which as a kid made no sense to me. If I was an adult then I probably would have known Sullivan had the book and was putting himself over, and I would have disliked him for a completely different, albeit just as valid reason. In a more general sense I think Sullivan was quite a smart booker and learned from intelligent people, but he wasn't what the modern product needed. WCW never found that person who could take their existing identity and evolve it beyond the Bischoff era. They just had no good answer to "what happens next?" after the nWo storyline ran its course.

I do think there's something quite charming about pre-nWo WCW. As you say, it's very corny, but it's also very much a product of its time. I don't mind watching the 95/early-96 Nitro shows at all, and it helps that they're less than an hour with commercials taken out. They move along pretty briskly. I never watched Saturday Night as it wasn't available in the UK, and I only ever saw clips of it on Nitro. The Saturday Night set was definitely unique though.

Interestingly, whilst a lot of people pinpoint Hall's arrival as the point WCW got a lot better, I'd disagree with that assessment. Hall's arrival to Nitro coincided with the show moving from one to two hours, and imo they struggled a bit with that format for a while before settling into it. There are a lot of really, really shit matches going on, especially in the first hour of the show. Some of the main events are horrible too. One of them is Joe Gomez, the Renegade and the Rock 'n' Roll Express (in 1996) against the Horsemen. Suffice to say it was a rubbish match and had a totally botched finish to boot. For some time the Nitro shows only really had the nWo stuff that stood out as being good. They really hit their stride once the cruiserweight division got going in earnest, at which point the first hour became easier to fill with exciting matches.

Honestly I'm not sure if WCW could have been revived by 2001. It was so far gone by that point, and so far away from what it had once been. There was still a loyal audience there, but I don't think it ever would have grown back to what it was. I think Bischoff's TNA run showed he isn't exactly a creative mastermind, as much as his original ideas for WCW worked out really well. He had a great vision for Nitro and executed it perfectly. He hit upon a goldmine angle with the nWo, albeit heavily influenced by NJPW. He couldn't see past the nWo, though, and didn't have anybody around him to bring a fresh perspective. He became trapped by corporate politics as well as backstage politics and burned out. I don't think he ever really recovered from that and I'm not sure he would have been able to rebirth a new, successful WCW. The wrestling boom of the late-90s was coming to an end by the time Fuscient were going to purchase WCW, anyway, and I don't think there would have been the same huge audience to draw from that once existed. I still think they would only have had the WCW loyalists, who were smaller in number than ever, and that may not have been enough. Especially when you consider those WCW die-hards were the ones Bischoff purposefully turned his back on when creating the new WCW centered around Hulk Hogan.

I was curious as to how AEW would present itself and was hopeful it might be reminiscent of WCW, but it never really has been. Some echoes here and there, but by and large it has a completely different feel. I was actually fine with that until the ROH acquisition though. I accepted AEW for what it was and generally enjoyed it. It was just nice to have an alternative, whether it was similar to WCW or not. Sadly what AEW has morphed into now is far removed from anything I find interesting, and WWE lost me as a regular viewer after 2023's WrestleMania when Cody got beaten by Roman. I checked out Smackdown this week just to see if anything was there for me, and yeah, not really. Roman ain't there but the Bloodline stuff is still dominating the show. Good work from all involved, but the Samoan dominance thing is just old for me now. I also don't really see star power in any of the others. Roman just has something that they don't.

 

[The Grayfox]

The money thing is definitely a point of contention for Bret. It may have been during the interview he did with Austin where he specifically mentioned that Goldberg was doing Saudi shows and said that Goldberg didn't even offer him part of his paycheck, which I found to be a really, really weird thing to say. He thinks that Goldberg cost him millions of dollars and he should compensated by him I guess?

I actually remember the main event you brought up. I remember it from watching over the last few years but I also remember watching it live as a kid. It stands out because of how weird it was. It was also right after Steve McMichael became a Horsemen and he was very green in this match. To be fair, Mongo was never good in the ring. He was a solid character because he could cut a decent promo but his in ring work never really improved that much. Still, early on, it was really bad.

Fair point about Bischoff, but I still would have liked to see what he did with it. He stated on his podcast that the plan was to do a hard reset: strip all championships, brand new storylines, etc. It could very well have tanked. It would've been nice to see him try instead of Vince just buying the promotion and killing it.

At this point, I think the Bloodline stuff is still going specifically to transition Roman to a babyface, which is clearly where this is going. Out of all of them, I do think Jacob Fatu has a lot of potential. He's great in the ring and although he'll never be face of the company, I do think he'll make it far in WWE. I saw somebody on Reddit say that when Roman returns, with him and Cody as the top babyfaces, it may be the closest thing we get to Austin/Rock level characters in terms of how over they are. I don't think it'll be at that level, but as close as WWE is going to get now? Probably.