Exposing The Myth: Pre-nWo WCW Was Trash
2. High Quality Main Events
There's no question that from the formation of the New World Order onwards, there were some phenomenal matches to take place in WCW. The problem is, it became a rarity for those high quality matches to be the main events of WCW's biggest shows.
Bar a few select contests, it's hard to immediately think of any show-closing bouts of genuine top level in-ring quality for the nWo years of WCW. Instead, it was often left to the cruiserweights to open the show with fantastic action.
Case in point, arguably the greatest match in WCW history is Eddie Guerrero vs. Rey Mysterio at Halloween Havoc '97. For those of you with a penchant for star ratings, this was every bit a five-star match. On the flipside, that PPV was closed out by Roddy Piper beating Hulk Hogan in a total snoozefest.
In the years before the nWo became the focal point of WCW, there were so many classic main event match-ups that were of the highest quality.
From the sh*t-kicking antics of The Steiner Brothers vs. Terry Gordy & Steve Williams, to making the absolute most of the WarGames concept, to a handful of pitch perfect Good vs. Evil battles between Sting and Big Van Vader, to wince-inducing wars involving Vader and Cactus Jack, to any variety of Ric Flair in action against Sting, Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage, Vader, or even revisiting his Ricky Steamboat rivalry - early '90s WCW so often put on something truly special when it came to the in-ring quality of the company's main events.
Of course, that's without even going further back to the latter Jim Crockett Promotions years and after Ted Turner's purchase of JCP in 1988.