25 Crazy WCW Facts (That Get Progressively More Ridiculous)
Where The Big Boys Play - and where it gets more ridiculous than losing a No DQ match by DQ…
It’s easy to be reductive and say that WCW as stupid. That’s because WCW, as an entity, as an idea, was stupid.
This is the promotion that installed Kevin Nash as booker, after which Kevin Nash thought it would be a great idea if Kevin Nash defeated the undefeated Bill Goldberg. So this actually wasn’t a great idea. Goldberg had to lose eventually, and it was probably too soon, but hey: heat’s good, isn’t it? All the old heads will tell you that you make money by drawing heat. What did Kevin Nash do with all that heat, which is as valuable as the Salvator Mundi?
He laid down for Hollywood Hulk Hogan within weeks, and reformed the New World Order, because WCW had one good idea and lacked the ability to do literally anything else.
Then, when that did not go well, Kevin Nash on his last day in the post decided to do commentary on Thunder and completely ridicule every single aspect of the company, treating its imminent death, in which he was instrumental, like a big joke. With the most smug grin he could muster, Nash undermined everything. Nash treated WCW as if he was your non-fan mate taking the piss out of you for enjoying it. Jim Duggan went over in one match. The idea is that you were meant to think he was as good once as he ever was. Nash literally could not stop himself from pissing himself with laughter when Mike Tenay called Duggan’s ‘Old Glory’ leg drop. What are you on about with this utter 1980s sh*t?, is what Nash was basically getting at.
Nash knew WWE was never going to let the lead slip. His response, as the man responsible for trying to catch up, was to distance himself from WCW in order to protect his beloved cool guy image.
WCW was stupid. You might not know the sheer extent of it…
25. The Referees Won’t Call For DQs!
When people say that Vince Russo booked a parody of pro wrestling, they use the term as an insult - but, genuinely, was this his actual plan?
WCW was so nonsensical that he had to have done this sort of thing on purpose. It is the only remotely possible exclamation. It is surely impossible for anybody to be that stupid.
If you can stomach it, and revisit the WCW product of 2000, the commentary team was up in arms about Russo’s BS. Tony Schiavone was as exasperated as the viewer at home. 2000 WCW is impossible to make sense of because people insist upon viewing it through the lens of a traditional wrestling product. It wasn’t. Russo deliberately wrote something else entirely, but to what end is a mystery. Was Russo simply trolling? Consider the events of the April 17, 2000 episode of Nitro.
Ahead of the much-hyped new era, Tony Schiavone insisted that in the new WCW, there’d be winners and losers. The refs, accordingly, would not be calling for disqualifications. After Schiavone said this, Mike Awesome defeated Diamond Dallas Page by disqualification. In the very next match, Shane Douglas defeated Lex Luger by disqualification. In the match after that, Scott Steiner defeated Jeff Jarrett by disqualification. Three consecutive matches ended via DQ.
Even if the method here was to knowingly troll the fans - and not brainlessly contradict everything - the idea was stupid.
Ragebait booking only works when the fans are half-certain that the payoff is coming at the biggest show of the year, and WCW’s track record of satisfying fans was comparable to a micro-penised incel.