One MIND-BLOWING Secret From EVERY Month Of The WWE Attitude Era
40. January 1998 | LOLWCW
WWE likes to tell you that they kicked WCW’s ass.
WWE likes to tell you this so much that, a full 14 years after the WCW buyout, a WrestleMania match between Triple H and Sting was premised on the idea. Sting lost his first WWE match because he wrestled for WCW and they’re all a bunch of idiot yahoos down there.
On the DVD market and in the Network days, WWE liked to mock and ridicule WCW, years after there was no such thing, for its failure to create new stars, inferior production, and systemic disarray. WCW was a laughing stock in many ways, yes, but A) WWE didn’t do a very good job of masking that WCW self-imploded more than anything else, and B) the WWF wasn’t exactly a finely-tuned machine itself.
On the January 5 1998 episode of Monday Night Raw, the WWF proceeded with the NWA crossover business, which was always as dumb as it was tedious. The NWA, ancient-feeling enough, looked like Ric Flair’s boiled 2023 AEW head compared to Steve Austin and DX. Jeff Jarrett successfully defended his NWA North American Heavyweight title against Blackjack Windham in a nothing-happening four minute match. According to the January 12, ‘98 issue of the Observer, Jarrett was actually meant to wrestle Doug Furnas.
The problem is that, in a WCW-tastic moment, the match didn’t appear on the whiteboard because some road agent or other failed to write it down. Furnas looked at the schedule before, under the misguided impression that he wasn’t needed, driving himself back to his hotel.