Ranking The WORST Era Of Every Major Wrestling Show
4. WCW Nitro
While WCW 2000 was so legendarily and definitively terrible that it has become hyperbolic shorthand for a woeful string of shows, the rot set in a lot earlier. WCW in 2000 was terrible in an utterly hopeless and irrevocable way. There was no sense of waste. The promotion was already brain steam dead. Most numbed, right-minded people made peace with that. Some even found the gallows humour in it.
The first quarter of 1999 was worse, in a way, because the infuriating sense that WCW was pissing it all away still felt palpable. Raw. It was all tinged with a sense of creeping despair. It was gutting.
The January 4, 1999 'Fingerpoke of Doom' was of course abysmal: a wretched admission that WCW had nothing left. The proof that they had nothing left materialised on the February 15 Nitro.
In an awful show-long storyline, Ric Flair was swerved by the nWo, removed from the limo that had been driven by his indentured butler (!) Eric Bischoff, and beaten down in the desert for ages and ages. Bischoff could not have looked more obviously, transparently suspicious here if he was criticising AEW on his podcast. Flair then returned to the arena only to get his ass kicked forever in the ring. Heat. Heat. Ironic, freezing cold heat.
The action wasn't very good, and what's worse is that it was de-emphasised and trivialised. WCW surrendered its USP - a dazzling undercard with immense range - in a bid to WWFify itself. Becoming a diet Fed was a stupid strategic choice. WCW fans didn't like it and the WWF was on fire (this will be echoed imminently).
Perry Saturn, who in a problematic precursor to Vince Russo's arrival wore a dress, did a job to the useless Jerry Flynn. There was some decent stuff, but only that, and Bret Hart suffered the 800th of his 1,000 cut death by winning a terrible comedy match over stand-up Will Sasso.
What?
A visibly uncomfortable Torrie Wilson, as part of WCW's initiative to be like the WWF, was filmed in a towel in a hotel room as fans were teased with the desperate idea that she'd take it off.
"WWF fans like Sable, so let's do that (in addition to the nWo, again)" was WCW's big pitch for a comeback.
WCW was officially dead in just over two years.