I've followed wrestling for as long as I can remember. Granted being a fan of wrestling in the UK during the nineties was kinda tough. You either had to had Sky (Cable) or you had no wrestling at all. Well, on channel 5 they would show WCW WorldWide and I believe ITV shown some WCW at one point but I can't remember too much about that.
Anyway, if you had Sky and you was a fan of WCW you could find their flagship show WCW Monday Nitro on TCM or maybe it was TNT. Damn, it was so long ago. So, today being March 26th 2015, this marks 14 years since the very last WCW Monday Nitro, a day that would forever change wrestling forever.
Now, I'm a freakin' ECW fanboy at heart, you'll still hear me chanting "EC-Dub, EC-Dub" when anything "extreme" happens, but for whatever reason I have a huge soft spot for WCW. I think this falls in being that WCW was shown on TCM/TNT and then finally Bravo instead of having to fork out another amount of ludicrous money to watch WWF Monday Night War on Sky Sports, which we did get but it all began for me with WCW.
Sadly I missed some of the very early years of WCW Monday Nitro due to it either not being aired in the UK at that time or it was just hidden on some obscure channel that no-one ever heard of. Still, I began watching WCW Monday Nitro in 1997 I believe and it was filled with these over-the-top stars performing these awesome moves, a mix of old talent and new talent, albeit more old than new but to their credit there was a whole host of new talent, but sadly I guess they were just overshadowed. Perhaps it's this whole "backstage politics?" But damn, I wasn't there! Either way, it was an absolute riot.
During 1997 the nWo, Hollywood Hogan, Kevin Nash and Scott Hall, were at their highest. The show was totally overrun by these renegades and you just had to tune in to see what these guys were going to do next. I mean, Hogan turned heel! That's, that's unreal! These guys were cool, and did whatever they wanted whenever they wanted and me and my brother and my sister, even my mum would be hooked on WCW, we just had to tune in to see who they would take out next or who would join the stable which unfortunately grew way to out of hand.
Anyway, much like not knowing what the nWo would do next, we were left wondering which star would defect from the WWF next or vice versa, you just didn't know, this was before the Internet ruined everything! Of course there was rumours and such, I remember me and my brother searching through teletext (if you live in the UK you'll understand) to see who was rumoured to defect next and waiting anxiously for the next week of WCW Monday Nitro to air to see who or what would happen.
With the nWo being so dominating WCW needed something to counter this group of renegades. Someone painted in black with black and white face-paint, it was Sting. He took a dramatic transformation, drenched in black with a bat in one hand, he would ascend from the rafters. No-one knew where he would turn up next, but when you needed him he was there. He took on the group and became the saviour of WCW, until of course the nWo got the best of him.
But, there was something much more awesome happening. Better than the nWo? Well, I don't know, I know I was never much a fan of Kevin Nash or Hulk Hogan, but their stable was a cool thing. Anyway, A beast arrived. No, not Brock Lesnar, this was Goldberg. At first glance you'd think that Steve Austin had defected to WCW! But nope, this was a totally different beast. A man of few words. He'd be accompanied to the ring by his own freakin' security team to then be engulfed by a wall of pyro. This dude had pyro shooting straight at him. Not only that but he would breath in the smoke to only breath it out of his nose and mouth like some kind of half-man half-dragon!
This was only his entrance! Then he would hit the ring, and bam! Spear, Jackhammer, 1,2,3. That's it! In what, a few seconds Goldberg would win and then the streak began. He would decimate opponents every Monday night, well, I think it was Thursday or Friday in the UK and he went on to have a streak of something like 173 wins? It was insane, me and my brother believed he was unstoppable.
Sadly, the streak ended at the hands of Kevin Nash at Starrcade 1998 via Scott Hall with a stun gun. I didn't get to see this at the time since WCW Pay-Per-Views weren't shown in the UK, but we would soon find out on Nitro, and that was it, the streak ended via a stun gun. It was a bummer, not sure why it ended that way, it's not for me to say, but it was disappointing.
Still, WCW was still awesome in my books as this once again proved that you just did not know what was going to happen. Who was going to get taken out next and by what? You just did not know, and for better or worse it was entertaining TV at least which kept bringing us back. But how can I talk about WCW without mentioning Tony Schiavone, who was the play-by-play commentator that kept us in the know and called the match like an absolute magician. Him and Joey Styles, in my opinion are the two greats. I love Jim Ross, but these two, for me, are what helped raise both WCW and ECW.
Now when you hear about WCW or Nitro you just seem to hear negativity. Especially during the final years, but damn, me and my brother would religiously watch until the very end. Like I said I don't know about eh "politics" or who was to blame, it's not my place to say, all I will say is WCW in part, made me the wrestling fan that I am today. Extremely passionate. Sure they had some questionable matches, but, heck, if you were trying to stay on top or in the last years simply just trying to stay alive, wouldn't you try anything and everything to try and bring as many people in as possible?
As you know, the Internet was and still is a buzz with the blame being put on Vince Russo and Eric Bischoff for how things went down hill. If I was in their position, I would have done anything to keep WCW going. People hate that David Arquette became champion. Yes, it put a lot of people off the product but look. They had a film out at that time entitled Ready to Rumble, which I still love to this day, and they, in my opinion was just trying to capitalize on that and bring in fresh eyes, which in turn would hopefully bring in more ratings for WCW Monday Nitro. Did it work? Possibly, for a bit, but I'm sure it turned many away which was a shame.
I thought it was a bit of fun. But c'mon you didn't really think that Arquette would hold the title for long did you? That would just be too much, I think he held it for the right amount of time. I will say I hated the triple cage. It was a good idea, just poorly executed and I think they could or should implement that cage into WWE, although, who knows with their PG route at the moment.
While many people may moan about the angle, Arquette did donate all the money he made to the families of Owen Hart, Brian Pillman and Darren Drozdov (Droz). Which is an awesome thing to do, so something did come good out of an angle that has been cited as one of the main reasons why WCW failed. Me? You can't just blame one angle for the demise of a company. There are too many components, and me not actually being in the trenches, I have no right to say what failed.
So, yes, WCW Monday Nitro and WCW in general had many highs and lows, but for me it had more highs than lows. During the 90s and the 00s I just had to watch, it was so entertaining. I still, to this day hear people moan about WCW and what happened during the end, but c'mon, look at the WWE at the moment, is that really better? I struggle, I really struggle to get through three hours of Monday Night Raw, it's just too long and there really isn't much that keeps me coming back.
Even WCW's worst days are better than the product WWE is putting out today. Anyway, back to WCW and the end is near. There was talk about the company going out of business or perhaps someone was coming in to save the company, We just didn't know, but I remember one Nitro where Booker T came out and announced that Eric Bischoff had an announcement, and so, on the TurnerTron, there was a phone call from the once dominant boss in WCW. Here he announced that the next episode of WCW Monday Nitro would be a "Night of Champions" where every WCW title will be on the line.
This, would then lead to the very final WCW Monday Nitro in Panama City, and for the first and only time would WCW Monday Nitro be shown on Monday Night War and vice versa. It was an historic moment, but a moment I did not want to see as I thought this was the end. But, suddenly Shane McMahon appeared in a WCW ring to announce that he had purchased WCW and from here me and my brother thought that WCW would live, perhaps the battle would continue. but this time it would be father vs son, as Shane and Vince McMahon went toe-to-toe. Sadly, this never happened and sadly Eric Bischoff wasn't the one to save WCW as when the AOL Time Warner merger happened, they wanted nothing to do with wrestling and announced that they would no longer be willing to show WCW broadcasting on the network.
Sadly this lead Bischoff and his partner pulling out from buying WCW, as with no TV station to showcase the product it sadly made no sense and thus, WCW Monday Nitro ended fourteen years ago on March 26, 2001. But it ended so elegantly, with the two men, Ric Flair and Sting, the guys that were WCW through and through, it's a moment us fans shall cherish forever.
This in turn, along with ECW going bankrupt was the death of wrestling. WWE claims they need no competition as now there competition is with other shows, but you can't deny that during WCW's time, wrestling was at it's most awesome. You just had to tune in, whether it was WCW Monday Nitro or WWF Monday Night War, you had to watch it. Now, I practically skip through matches and the endless talking until something happens.
So, with WrestleMania happening this Sunday and the man, the icon Sting making his first appearance at WrestleMania, this year I'll be chanting WCW and remembering the good times. WCW was fun until the very end and the last Monday Nitro brought a tear to my eye, it was an end of a legacy that will never happen again, so please, keep WCW alive and remember the good times as well as the bad, as they were a lot of fun, and as you can tell I could continue for hours writing about WCW. I loved it and I hope you did too.
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