25 Crazy WCW Facts (That Get Progressively More Ridiculous)

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.