Orange Fluffy Sheep wrote:Can I have a story of how badly they screwed it up?
Well, it started with the nWo; in short, a handful of big-time WWF stars (Diesel/Kevin Nash, Razor Ramon/Scott Hall) jumped ship over to WCW when they were head-to-head on Monday nights. Hall and Nash started attacking everyone in WCW and basically being huge, unbeatable heels (bad guys), and it was subtly implied that "WWF sent them over to wreck shit".
Hulk Hogan had jumped shipped to WCW a bit earlier; he would turn heel and join up with Hall and Nash, forming the nWo.
For a really, really long time, the nWo were basically booked to be unstoppable heels and beat up just about everyone in the WCW roster that would take them on. Some WCW wrestlers stayed "loyal" to their brand; others joined the nWo, and some older WWF stars (Macho Man, for example) were brought in to keep the subtle implication of "WCW vs WWF". The nWo acted more like a gang and were allowed to be "cool heels", and developed their own following.
This resulted in a long and involved storyline where Sting was believed to have joined the nWo, but it turned out he didn't (it was a fake Sting, or something); blahblahblah the ultimate result was Sting went from a happy surfer dude into a loner outcast character, while remaining a face.
So, for an entire year, Sting stopped wrestling in normal matches and was only involved in angles. Usually, he just watched from the ceiling, occasionally dropping down to attack nWo members or doing the occasional "loyalty" test with a WCW wrestler. It sounds weird, but this worked surprisingly well, and Sting became the top face in the company (without even wrestling!).
The implication was that Sting wanted to take on Hogan, and only Hogan, for the belt; the other clear implication was Hogan was terrified of this possibility and did everything in his power to prevent it from happening. They were able to play on this for a really long time until FINALLY, Sting gets his match as the main event at Starrcade (which is like WCW's Wrestlemania). Hogan's last trick is that he gets the "nWo referee" as the official in the match. The PPV sold huge.
Keep in mind, this is literally the easiest "payoff" match to book in the world. All you need to do: Sting comes in and kicks Hogan's ass, Hogan tries a comeback with cheating and fails, then Sting beats Hogan cleanly. That's all they needed to do! Instead...
Hogan and Sting enter. Hogan quickly takes on the dominant role in the match, and starts beating Sting up. It goes back and forth for awhile...but Hogan never really falls out of control in the match. Hogan does his leg drop finisher and goes for the pin. 1...2...3.
Hogan has just pinned Sting.
THEN, WCW's newest acquisition, Bret Hart, comes out to the ring. He mumbles something into the microphone about "not letting this happen again" (referring to the
Montreal Screwjob, a whole other bag of worms), though I doubt anyone in the arena actually caught what he said. Hart restarts the match (something he would have no explained authority to do) and beats up the referee; Hogan is quickly put into Sting's finishing submission move (Scorpion Deathlock); Hogan doesn't visually tap out, but Hart (who is now the official for some reason!) calls for the bell anyway. Sting wins the title. WCW's faces celebrate with him in the ring.
What was SUPPOSED to have happened was that the nWo referee (Nick Patrick) was supposed to "fast count" Sting, recreating a "screwjob" (as in, screwing Sting out of the title).
Here's the problem: Nick Patrick completely, utterly didn't do a fast count. No one watching would've thought it was anything but a regular pin fall. Hogan was(is) a huge egomaniac and the rumor is he told Patrick to just do a regular count before the match started, therefore COMPLETELY FUCKING THE WHOLE THING UP. Then we don't even get to see Hogan tap out, as he probably didn't want to look "weak". It was controversial enough that they just stripped Sting of the title a few weeks later; I think Sting won the rematch, but the whole thing was highly disappointing and dumb as all hell.
The story of how WCW went from a multi-million company to borderline bankrupt is basically hilarious;
PSP has a good thread on it if you ever get bored (the OP in particular is good).
This was a longer post than I intended.
by BartonFink (?) » Tue Jul 12, 2011 5:04 am
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