Both Bischoff and Russo liked their swerve booking and insider storylines, but Russo took it to the extreme with his WCW version of the crash TV angles hed run during his stint in the WWF. Without a big boss to keep him on track, Russo went off the rails in a big way. Heel turns, multi-man interference, run-ins and referee bumps became the norm, and dirty (not to mention Dusty) finishes the expected outcome: the WWF would milk the controversy surrounding the Montreal Screwjob for years, but WCW was first, managing to reference it as a part of the notoriously messed-up main event of Starrcade 1997 only a month after it had taken place. Worse, the WCW booking team would throw worked shoots around like Halloween candy, with talent regularly breaking the fourth wall and exposing a semi-worked version of the backstage politicking that plagued the company. The stars at the top of the company, protecting their spot no matter what, would also regularly work the boys, lying to the rest of the roster about who was doing what. Fans couldnt follow the storylines half the time, and felt cheated and disrespected when they could. Theres the Robin Hood Nitro on January 13th 1997, which saw the main event of Hogan versus Paul The Giant Wight broadcast during the commercial breaks of the next show on the networks schedule. Theres the infamous Fingerpoke Of Doom angle on the main event of the notoriously awful January 4th 1999 Nitro. Theres the First Blood match from Uncensored 1999 that saw Flair defeat Hogan by pinfall long after both men had begun bleeding. Theres the convoluted circumstances that led to middling actor David Arquette winning the WCW world championship on Thunder in April 2000. Theres the bizarre events at the Bash At The Beach pay-per-view in July 2000 that led to Hogan quitting WCW for good and suing Russo over a worked shoot that turned into a legit shoot. There are more far, far, far more but wed need a whole other article.
Professional writer, punk werewolf and nesting place for starfish. Obsessed with squid, spirals and story. I publish short weird fiction online at desincarne.com, and tweet nonsense under the name Jack The Bodiless. You can follow me all you like, just don't touch my stuff.
