8 Reasons Why Today's WWE Raw Is WCW In Disguise
2. Older Guys Going Over Younger Guys
One criticism often levelled at WCW was that it relied too heavily on former WWF stars—Kevin Nash, Randy Savage, Bret Hart, Lex Luger, Sid Vicious (to name a few)—rather than nurturing homegrown talent. A prime example of this approach in action arrived in April 2000 when Billy Kidman entered a feud with Hulk Hogan.
The intention was to use Hogan to help establish Kidman, and though the newbie did score a win over the Hulkster, it was the hollowest of victories. After taking a beating all match, Kidman only scored the pin after Eric Bischoff had struck Hogan with a chair. Then, one week later, Hogan got revenge by seemingly killing Kidman, running a Humvee into a dumpster that he was supposedly inside of.
As R. D. Reynolds and Bryan Alvarez wrote in Death of WCW, “this angle made Hogan and Kidman progressively less over, the exact opposite of what a younger guy versus old guy feud should do.”
At the time, Hogan was 46, Kidman just 25: a gap not too dissimilar to the 18 years between Kevin Owens and Goldberg in the recent Universal title programme. We all know too well how that one ended...