WCW Monday Nitro Live Watch-Along: From the Beginning

[Tremendez]

Honestly I think one of the biggest things is people forget that Benoit was actually really good at telling an in-ring story even if he wasn't the most charismatic guy. He understood the psychology of wrestling so much better than a lot of people credit him with.

For sure. There’s a reason why Benoit typically got elevated to the top of the card. There were often guys who could do what he could do in the ring as far as like the moves go but Benoit wasn’t just a spot monkey. He knew how to tell a good story. But his inability to cut a promo definitely hurt him.

 

[R-Troop]

I wish I could enjoy that match

 

[Barry Poppins]

"I'm EVILLLLL!

 

[Tremendez]

I think Bischoff was actually a really good wrestling mind, but he lacked business sense.

I think he was a mixed bag when it came to business. I think he made some of the best business calls WCW ever made, but he often let his own personal taste outweigh what he thought his customers wanted. If he didn’t bring in so many musical acts, especially in 1999 didn’t focus so much on skits with the today show and things like that who knows where WCW would’ve been by the time they got the 2000.

 

[Barry Poppins]

I think he was a mixed bag when it came to business. I think he made some of the best business calls WCW ever made, but he often let his own personal taste outweigh what he thought his customers wanted. If he didn’t bring in so many musical acts, especially in 1999 didn’t focus so much on skits with the today show and things like that who knows where WCW would’ve been by the time they got the 2000.

I lowkey think his ego got in his way and he started focusing on presentation rather than the actual booking.

 

[R-Troop]

YES IT'S DISCO INFERNO!

 

[Tremendez]

Bischoff‘s ultimate biggest disaster was he was unfortunately a cog in the Turner machine and they’re the ones who trained him on how to be an executive and much like Turner often got impatient too soon Bischoff never let a creative direction simmer too long.

Some of WCW‘s best creative work ever was in 1998 under Terry Taylor but because the WWF was getting hotter at that time Bischoff blamed Terry Taylor for it and that’s when we got the unfortunate Kevin Nash book run and that’s what ultimately killed WCW but if he just let Terry Taylor continue to do what he was doing in 98 WCW would’ve been fine as number two. Their ratings in early 1999 as the number two promotion were higher than at any point that WCW was the number one, but because they were seen as the number two, they panicked.

I don’t know about you, but I’d rather have a 4.5 as number two then a 3.5 as number one and their pay-per-view for Super Brawl in 1999 was the third highest pay-per-view buy rate of all time. Why are we panicking at this point?

 

[Barry Poppins]

 

[Tommy Bedlam]

I used to listen to the 83 weeks pod religiously. He's actually pretty open about his business mistakes. Giving guys total control in their contracts, investing money in the wrong places (like musical acts), and not thinking about some basic merch concepts were all huge mistakes. The guy legit unmasked Rey Mysterio because he didn't think people would get behind a guy whose face they couldn't see. Said he never even thought about selling replica masks until he saw WWE selling them.

 

[R-Troop]

yeah I feel like Bischoff gets a bit of a raw deal. He's not wrong in that the #1 reason WCW died was Turner not wanting it. Nothing to do with the creative

 

[Barry Poppins]

It wasn't even that Turner didn't want it anymore, it's that Ted Turner lost any power after the Time Warner buyout.

 

[O-Blaze]

Did my mic turn on when my laptop turned back on after dying?

 

[Tremendez]

To be fair to Eric a lot of the extra income the WCW generate wouldn’t even go on the WCW books Turner would siphon them to other places so even if he did sell the Mysterio mask WCW probably wouldn’t have seen a dime of that profit.

 

[Barry Poppins]

If Turner was in charge after the Time Warner buyout and AOL Merger, WCW would still be alive today.

 

[R-Troop]

Did my mic turn on when my laptop turned back on after dying?

yes but never heard anything