YR's Pro Wrestling of the Day

[Yakuza Rich]

I don't disagree with that, but Vince was never in danger of losing to the Crocketts. He stepped in and passed them by. He saw the future and others didn't. Now Turner had him on the ropes at one point, but the Crocketts didn't.

Vince really didn't see the future anymore than the Crockett's did. Vince likes to claim that he took wrestling to the bigger venues, but wrestling was already at big venues when Vince took over. World Class was at Texas Stadium, AWA frequently ran out of the Cow Palace and the Rosemont Horizon, the Crocketts ran out of the Omni in Atlanta and the Spectrum in Philly. Hell, even little ole Memphis was running consistently out of the Mid-South Auditorium. And Mid-South was running consistently out of the SuperDome.

And Vince wasn't the only one to start to go National. Hell, you could argue that AWA went national before Vince with their headquarters in Minneapolis, but running out of Chicago, Denver and San Francisco. Even World Class had TV that extended all the way to Israel. Watts tried to get Mid-South to go national (why he changed the name from Mid-South Wrestling to Universal Wrestling Federation), but the oil crisis in the south put a stop to that. By that time, the Crocketts had purchased Mid-South from Watts, World Class from Fritz, Florida from Eddie/Mike Graham and Georgia Championship Wrestling. They were doing shows up in Chicago and Detroit and again, outdrew the WWF in Philly on the same night.

Where Vince was really ahead of the Crockett's was in terms of marketing the product. Vince went after the kids and family and became a bigger seller of merchandise and toys than wrestling tickets. The Crocketts lost out on an ungodly amount of money by not doing the same thing with the popularity of Dusty, Magnum, the 4 Horsemen, RnR and Midnight Express, etc. There certainly was a market for it.

But as far as expansion goes, the Crocketts were doing the same thing as well because so many of the territories were dying out anyway. Verne Gagne lost his land which he used as collateral for his promotion. Eddie Graham committed suicide after getting killed on a bad land deal. The Mid-South section was hit too hard by the oil crisis. Texas was in shambles after the Von Erichs deaths, Paul Boesch dying and Joe Blanchard breaking off from Fritz and then screwing up San Antonio. The Lebelle's were getting out of LA, Roy Shire had long gotten out of San Francisco and Don Owen was nearing 80 years old in Portland.

That's in part why I don't think Vince going national was entirely underhanded or 'evil'...so many of the territories were going belly up and there was still these markets of wrestling fans. It was common sense to expand and that's why the Crockett's were doing the same thing as well






YR

 

[MichaelWinicki]

Not to the Crocketts he wasn't!

I think the window was pretty narrow for the Crocketts to take out Vince. After about the first year I agree, Vince was very comfortable... At least until Turner got involved.

 

[Stash]

I think the window was pretty narrow for the Crocketts to take out Vince. After about the first year I agree, Vince was very comfortable... At least until Turner got involved.

By that point, Vince got too comfortable. WWF reached new lows of "cartoon" wrestling, with clowns, plumbers, hockey players and baseball players dressed up as wrestlers. Everyone had to have a silly gimmick. McMahon opened the door for someone with Turner's resources and affinity for wrestling to challenge him.

I find it ironic that:

• the NWA had the best in-ring wrestling, but was losing out to Vince.
• WCW then started acquiring all the talent
• Much of that top talent (Hogan, Piper, Warrior) couldn't wrestle
• WWE had superior in-ring matches and used that and "attitude" to win back favor

Vince started out buying up all of the names he could, and morphed his company into a place where nobody "worked". He was then the victim of someone else buying up all the talent and becoming a place where " nobody worked". And once Vince shifted the focus back to wrestling, he ultimately triumphed.

 

[Yakuza Rich]

Bobby 'The Brain' Heenan was born Raymond Heenan. He grew up part of his life with a single mom in Chicago. His mother ran a ritzy hotel in Chicago until Heenan's teen years when his grandmother became sick and he and his mother moved to Indianapolis to take care of his grandmother. With little in the way of job prospects in Indianapolis for his mother, Heenan started working at a local arena and when the wrestling cards took place, Heenan would take care of the wrestlers' jackets.

What many people don't know about Bobby was that he was a wrestler for quite some time before he became a full-time manager. While I tend to prefer Jim Cornette in terms of managers, Heenan was the greatest drawing manager of all time by using his pro wrestling skills as they would book matches where if the wrestler Heenan was managing lost; the face would get 5 minutes alone with Heenan. Heenan's incredible bumping ability and in-ring skill would often allow for him to believably escape the 5 minute confrontation and then they could book the re-match...often times with the babyface now getting 5 minutes alone with Bobby...in a steel cage.

You can see an example of his insane bumping here:



My preference for Cornette as a manager is that he could sell tickets purely from running his mouth. While Heenan was incredible on the mic, he relied on his wrestling skills to get the tickets sold. It's splitting hairs and what's great about Bobby's schtick is that it makes the booker's job easier. As Kevin Sullivan says...the booker's job is to 'book the match, book the finish and book the rematch.' With Bobby's ability to convincingly 'weasel' his way out of the 5 minutes alone gimmick, it made booking the rematch a piece of cake.

I think Heenan's best attribute was not his sense of humor nor was it his in-ring ability. Heenan's best attribute was his ability to display so many emotions in his promos. I read once that the best actors basically treat things like they have a color palette of emotions and behavior at their expense and what separates them from the other actors is their ability to use different shades and hues of all of the colors on the palette. It's easy for any actor to show anger and outrage then show happiness, but the real skill it to show different levels and versions of anger, outrage, happiness, vulnerability, etc. This is what Bobby did so well. He was, in particular great at showing different shades of fear and anger.





This is something that so many of today's wrestlers and fans don't quite understand. It's one thing to be comfortable on the mic and not trip over your words, but it's another to be able to do that and show different emotions. The emotions create the drama and the drama is what sells the tickets.

The other aspect that made Bobby great was that he worked fine with wrestlers that didn't talk well, but also wrestlers that were great mic workers like Nick Bockwinkel:



Heenan once said that he considered himself the garnish to the main course. So you can have a top of the line steak, it doesn't mean that it cannot benefit with a nice garnishment added to it. These days they have only considered getting poor mic workers managers or mouth pieces, but it's a real shame when you miss out on that power duo of both the wrestler and manager both being excellent on the mic.

I always had mixed feelings on Heenan's commentary. Overall, he was very good, but he too often liked to joke around when the match at hand calls for it to be called seriously. But, his jokes were damn funny and often times downright hilarious.



In fact, a few years ago I was thinking about how growing up watching Heenan with my friends and how Bobby influenced our sense of humor. For instance, if somebody was moving we would take one of Bobby's quips of 'boy, that will really drive property values down.' Or the famous line after the '92 Rumble of 'we hate to be the guys that say we told you so...but, WE TOLD YOU SO!!!'

As I started to develop some friends in the business I was fortunate to talk to Bobby a couple of times. I was always petrified to talk to him in fear of saying something stupid to make him mad at the same time not coming off like a complete fanboy. But, I did find out that he was unafraid to offer advice to young wrestlers and more importantly he had an uncanny ability of always being right in his advice. He was 'The Brain' afterall.





YR

 

[Beatledust]

YR, this is great stuff! Thanks for the trip down memory lane, as I really enjoyed watching the likes of the Four Horsemen, and Bobby Heenan (never saw much of Idol, as a kid). I'd love to see you do a write-up on the Von Erichs and Freebirds, sometime. Keep up the great work, and thanks again!

 

[Yakuza Rich]

My personal favorite manager of all time is Gary Hart. He also wrote an excellent book My Life in Wrestling…With a Little Help From My Friends. You can find a link to the book in pdf format for free here:


http://www.mediafire.com/download/9tz7d0ooi1y29lz/GARY+HART-MY+LIFE+IN+WRESTLING.pdf


There are two parts of Hart’s greatness in wrestling…one as a manager and one as a booker. I really enjoyed his book as it reminded me of Mick Foley’s Have a Nice Day! and Nicholas Pileggi’s Casino. Hart was born Gary Williams and grew up on the south side of Chicago and after a few years in the business he found himself working for one of the top territories in the world in Jim Barnett’s Australian World Championship Wrestling and living in a high class penthouse off the shore of Australia.


As a manager, what made Gary Hart great is that he was different from the other managers. Most managers were sissies and cowards. As Hart relayed in his book, when he made it to WCW around 1990 he was asked to be involved in an angle where Madusa Miceli was to chase him. Hart refused by saying ‘Gary Hart doesn’t run from a woman.’


And he was 100% correct. Because Gary Hart was a coward, but he wasn’t a sissy. He was just flat out E-V-I-L.





Like I mentioned with JJ Dillon, Hart was knocked by some wrestlers and other managers as ‘not doing much’ while managers like Jimmy Hart and Lou Albano got praise for taking bumps. This was in large part because Hart was involved in a real life plane accident that claimed the life of Bobby Shane and severely injured Hart, Austin Idol and Buddy Colt. Hart was never a great wrestler to begin with, but after the plane accident he was pretty much done taking bumps. This did hurt some of the angles he was involved in:





But Hart learned that it’s better to make the most out of the least. A turn of the head or a tilt of the neck while at ringside could really rile up the crowd. And the fact is that as a manager, Hart was majorly over everywhere whether it was Texas, Australia, Mid Atlantic, Georgia or Florida.


He also had the ability to work with great mic workers like Bruiser Brody.





And who says Japanese wrestlers can’t get over because they can’t speak English? Hart got both the Great Kabuki and the Great Muta over:





As impressive as Hart was as a manager, he was just as great of a booker. He turned around promotion after promotion with his booking. Including one of my all time favorite promotions, World Class in the early 1980’s.





I think every great booker has their weaknesses. Pat Patterson tended to get a bit silly. George Scott was badly out of touch at times. Kevin Sullivan wasn’t great at building a babyface. Jim Cornette struggled with character development. Bill Watts liked too many rugged wrestlers and stuck with the same angles and storylines. But as far as booking goes, I think Hart probably had the least weaknesses of any great booker I’ve ever seen.


He was great at developing new talent, he always had a strong in-ring product and had cool heels and evern cooler babyfaces.


Like in Casino, when you look at Hart’s track record of success and drawing money you would expect that he wuold end up like Ace Rothstein (Lefty Rosenthal) and find himself some job with the WWE because he could always make a promotion money. He was Dusty Rhodes’ favorite manager and had he been able to stick around World Class, the Von Erich boys, Gino Hernandez and Chris Adams may all be still alive today.





YR

 

[MichaelWinicki]

My personal favorite manager of all time is Gary Hart. He also wrote an excellent book My Life in Wrestling…With a Little Help From My Friends. You can find a link to the book in pdf format for free here:


http://www.mediafire.com/download/9tz7d0ooi1y29lz/GARY+HART-MY+LIFE+IN+WRESTLING.pdf


There are two parts of Hart’s greatness in wrestling…one as a manager and one as a booker. I really enjoyed his book as it reminded me of Mick Foley’s Have a Nice Day! and Nicholas Pileggi’s Casino. Hart was born Gary Williams and grew up on the south side of Chicago and after a few years in the business he found himself working for one of the top territories in the world in Jim Barnett’s Australian World Championship Wrestling and living in a high class penthouse off the shore of Australia.


As a manager, what made Gary Hart great is that he was different from the other managers. Most managers were sissies and cowards. As Hart relayed in his book, when he made it to WCW around 1990 he was asked to be involved in an angle where Madusa Miceli was to chase him. Hart refused by saying ‘Gary Hart doesn’t run from a woman.’


And he was 100% correct. Because Gary Hart was a coward, but he wasn’t a sissy. He was just flat out E-V-I-L.





Like I mentioned with JJ Dillon, Hart was knocked by some wrestlers and other managers as ‘not doing much’ while managers like Jimmy Hart and Lou Albano got praise for taking bumps. This was in large part because Hart was involved in a real life plane accident that claimed the life of Bobby Shane and severely injured Hart, Austin Idol and Buddy Colt. Hart was never a great wrestler to begin with, but after the plane accident he was pretty much done taking bumps. This did hurt some of the angles he was involved in:





But Hart learned that it’s better to make the most out of the least. A turn of the head or a tilt of the neck while at ringside could really rile up the crowd. And the fact is that as a manager, Hart was majorly over everywhere whether it was Texas, Australia, Mid Atlantic, Georgia or Florida.


He also had the ability to work with great mic workers like Bruiser Brody.





And who says Japanese wrestlers can’t get over because they can’t speak English? Hart got both the Great Kabuki and the Great Muta over:





As impressive as Hart was as a manager, he was just as great of a booker. He turned around promotion after promotion with his booking. Including one of my all time favorite promotions, World Class in the early 1980’s.





I think every great booker has their weaknesses. Pat Patterson tended to get a bit silly. George Scott was badly out of touch at times. Kevin Sullivan wasn’t great at building a babyface. Jim Cornette struggled with character development. Bill Watts liked too many rugged wrestlers and stuck with the same angles and storylines. But as far as booking goes, I think Hart probably had the least weaknesses of any great booker I’ve ever seen.


He was great at developing new talent, he always had a strong in-ring product and had cool heels and evern cooler babyfaces.


Like in Casino, when you look at Hart’s track record of success and drawing money you would expect that he wuold end up like Ace Rothstein (Lefty Rosenthal) and find himself some job with the WWE because he could always make a promotion money. He was Dusty Rhodes’ favorite manager and had he been able to stick around World Class, the Von Erich boys, Gino Hernandez and Chris Adams may all be still alive today.





YR

I liked Gary as a manager because he wasn't as much a yeller & screamer. Kinda soft spoken.

 

[Beatledust]

I was lucky enough to acquire Gary Hart’s book, during its limited run in print. One of the best books I’ve read. I’ve actually gone back, and re-read it a few times. Gary was very insightful, and there were a few surprises, such as his dressing room altercation with The Missing Link. Unlike many of the other managers of the day, when Gary said something, I knew he meant it. He was very diabolical, and that’s what set him apart from most of the other managers.

 

[MichaelWinicki]

I was lucky enough to acquire Gary Hart’s book, during its limited run in print. One of the best books I’ve read. I’ve actually gone back, and re-read it a few times. Gary was very insightful, and there were a few surprises, such as his dressing room altercation with The Missing Link. Unlike many of the other managers of the day, when Gary said something, I knew he meant it. He was very diabolical, and that’s what set him apart from most of the other managers.

Gary getting into it with Dewey Robertson? LOL!

"Maple Leaf Wrestling" was one of my wrestling staples of the 70's and Dewey Robertson was a big part of that... As a baby-face wrestling the evil "Love Brothers". And then as one of the masked "Crusader's" with Billy Red Lyons.

His transformation into the "Missing Link" is one of those amazing 180 degree transformations that some wrestlers go through in their career.

 

[Yakuza Rich]

King Kong Bundy said in an interview that he didn't like Gary which is surprising given what Gary did for his career. But Bundy said he was a little afraid of him because of Hart's reputation and he knew that Hart wasn't afraid to use that razor blade in his front pocket.

One of the crazy parts of Hart's book is how Gary unwittingly got involved working for the Chicago mafia.



YR

 

[Beatledust]

Gary getting into it with Dewey Robertson? LOL!

"Maple Leaf Wrestling" was one of my wrestling staples of the 70's and Dewey Robertson was a big part of that... As a baby-face wrestling the evil "Love Brothers". And then as one of the masked "Crusader's" with Billy Red Lyons.

His transformation into the "Missing Link" is one of those amazing 180 degree transformations that some wrestlers go through in their career.

Oh yeah, Gary and The Missing Link got into it, one night at a spot show. Gary stated in his book that Link blindsided him with a couple of punches. Gary retaliated by pulling out a straight razor, and laying into Link. After the altercation was over, Link ran out of the dressing room, screaming. Crazy stuff!

 

[Yakuza Rich]

Oh yeah, Gary and The Missing Link got into it, one night at a spot show. Gary stated in his book that Link blindsided him with a couple of punches. Gary retaliated by pulling out a straight razor, and laying into Link. After the altercation was over, Link ran out of the dressing room, screaming. Crazy stuff!

The best was Gary's quote 'if I had to do it all over, I'd do it again. The only thing I would change is that I would have cut him deeper.'






YR

 

[Yakuza Rich]

One of the things I think about with the 1980’s was the 80’s being the decade of the fat athlete. Whether you had Fernando Valenzuela, William ‘The Refrigerator’ Perry or John ‘Hot Plate’ Williams it was not unusual to see a fat athlete that had amazing dexterity and was nimble on his feet. And nobody, in probably any sport, exemplified that like Buddy Rose.

Rose was born Paul Perschmann. There’s not a lot know about his life prior to pro wrestling other than he was known as a great baseball player and roller skater. That may be hard to believe for some, but consider this is what Rose looked like when he broke into pro wrestling.

Rose was originally trained by Verne Gagne and the AWA. Again, not much is known about his background prior to pro wrestling, but given that he was originally trained in the AWA and that the Perschmann surname is mostly prevalent in Minnesota and Illinois, my guess is that he came from Minnesota. Shortly after being trained, he started working in Texas and then spent time working for the WWWF. But, he made his name over on the West Coast as mega-heel in San Francisco and then Portland.





Scott Levy (aka Raven) said that Rose would beat the entire WWF roster in 40 yard dash competitions they would have.

It’s a tricky thing with wrestlers because the presentation of a wrestler is so important and their physique plays a large role in their presentation. But if all your wrestlers on the card look like bodybuilders then it’s difficult for anybody to distinguish themselves and the presentation becomes bland for every wrestler. This is one of the things I liked about Vader. He didn’t have a bodybuilder’s physique but he was a massive individual who could do amazingly athletic moves for a guy his size. And that’s one of the aspects I enjoyed about Portland Wrestling, you had your muscleheads like Billy Jack Haynes and Jesse Ventura, you had your small guys that could wrestle like the Dynamite Kid, you had your average physiques like Curt Hennig and Rip Oliver and then you had your Buddy Rose.

But we would be remiss if we just talked about Rose’s physique and athleticism in the ring. For 8 straight years, he was a white hot heel in the same territory. Even in the 70’s and 80’s that was pretty much unheard of to do that in the same territory unless you had some sort of **** or Russian gimmick.

Rose was so white hot that when he finally turned face, the fans in Portland went crazy for it.



Unfortunately, Rose will be likely be more known for the Blow Away Diet skit in the WWF than the years of success as a heel and his in-ring ability. In fact, in later years when Buddy was in town for a WWF event, wrestlers would clamor to be able to work with him because of his skills and amazing bumping ability in the ring:



For me, there was just something likable about Buddy and I always wanted to see him lose the weight and live up to his potential in the ring again.





YR

 

[MichaelWinicki]

One of the things I think about with the 1980’s was the 80’s being the decade of the fat athlete. Whether you had Fernando Valenzuela, William ‘The Refrigerator’ Perry or John ‘Hot Plate’ Williams it was not unusual to see a fat athlete that had amazing dexterity and was nimble on his feet. And nobody, in probably any sport, exemplified that like Buddy Rose.

Rose was born Paul Perschmann. There’s not a lot know about his life prior to pro wrestling other than he was known as a great baseball player and roller skater. That may be hard to believe for some, but consider this is what Rose looked like when he broke into pro wrestling.

Rose was originally trained by Verne Gagne and the AWA. Again, not much is known about his background prior to pro wrestling, but given that he was originally trained in the AWA and that the Perschmann surname is mostly prevalent in Minnesota and Illinois, my guess is that he came from Minnesota. Shortly after being trained, he started working in Texas and then spent time working for the WWWF. But, he made his name over on the West Coast as mega-heel in San Francisco and then Portland.





Scott Levy (aka Raven) said that Rose would beat the entire WWF roster in 40 yard dash competitions they would have.

It’s a tricky thing with wrestlers because the presentation of a wrestler is so important and their physique plays a large role in their presentation. But if all your wrestlers on the card look like bodybuilders then it’s difficult for anybody to distinguish themselves and the presentation becomes bland for every wrestler. This is one of the things I liked about Vader. He didn’t have a bodybuilder’s physique but he was a massive individual who could do amazingly athletic moves for a guy his size. And that’s one of the aspects I enjoyed about Portland Wrestling, you had your muscleheads like Billy Jack Haynes and Jesse Ventura, you had your small guys that could wrestle like the Dynamite Kid, you had your average physiques like Curt Hennig and Rip Oliver and then you had your Buddy Rose.

But we would be remiss if we just talked about Rose’s physique and athleticism in the ring. For 8 straight years, he was a white hot heel in the same territory. Even in the 70’s and 80’s that was pretty much unheard of to do that in the same territory unless you had some sort of **** or Russian gimmick.

Rose was so white hot that when he finally turned face, the fans in Portland went crazy for it.



Unfortunately, Rose will be likely be more known for the Blow Away Diet skit in the WWF than the years of success as a heel and his in-ring ability. In fact, in later years when Buddy was in town for a WWF event, wrestlers would clamor to be able to work with him because of his skills and amazing bumping ability in the ring:



For me, there was just something likable about Buddy and I always wanted to see him lose the weight and live up to his potential in the ring again.





YR

Never got to see PBR much... Not as a top of the card guy. He was typically a mid-carder at best.

 

[Yakuza Rich]

Never got to see PBR much... Not as a top of the card guy. He was typically a mid-carder at best.

His prominence was in the late 70's and early 80's. He mostly stayed over in San Francisco and Portland so it was hard to get TV over there if you're on the East Coast. He did wrestle for the WWWF, usually at cards at MSG. But by the time he was done with Portland he was grossly obese and clearly not made to be a top star at that point.

It's too bad because his heel work and in-ring held its own with anybody.




YR

 

[MichaelWinicki]

His prominence was in the late 70's and early 80's. He mostly stayed over in San Francisco and Portland so it was hard to get TV over there if you're on the East Coast. He did wrestle for the WWWF, usually at cards at MSG. But by the time he was done with Portland he was grossly obese and clearly not made to be a top star at that point.

It's too bad because his heel work and in-ring held its own with anybody.




YR

Yep. WWWF. They'd have him winning a squash match on TV and he's be in one of the early arena matches.

 

[Yakuza Rich]

The nWo angle will likely go down as the angle having the most widespread impact on pro wrestling in my lifetime. It was never my favorite angle nor do I feel it was the best angle, but its outcome has greatly played a role in the industry to this day.



The original idea for the nWo came from Japan. At the time, WCW and New Japan Pro Wrestling had come to a working agreement and Eric Bischoff was in Japan to watch some NJPW shows. While watching the shows he saw the NJPW vs. UWFi feud.



The NJPW vs. UWFi feud consisted of the UWFi promotion which was more ‘shoot’ style wrestling and many of the wrestlers like Akira Maede and Nobuhiko Takada used to wrestle for NJPW. They became the cocky outsider that thought they were superior to NJPW and thus a feud was created and it will go down as one of the best drawing feuds in the history of Japanese wrestling. More importantly, the feud created new, young stars for New Japan like Kensuke Sasaki, Shinya Hashimoto and Shinjiro Otani.

***​

At the time Eric Bischoff was doing one very smart thing with regards to the WCW product. He was trying to be the anti-Vince. If the WWE stood up, WCW sat down. If the WWE walked, WCW would run. That’s the key to having any chance against Vince or just to have a successful promotion, present a pro wrestling product that is vastly different from what Vince McMahon presents.

This worked well with the nWo angle as you had to have something different to fool the fans into believe that this may be real instead of being another work. This carried over into the nWo promos which came off as something that Hall and Nash have paid TV time for themselves and were not employed by WCW.



The brilliant part about the nWo concept is that it was so simple in setting up feuds down the line. All they needed to do was present it as former WWF wrestlers versus WCW/NWA wrestlers and play off of that. When the nWo revolved around that premise, it led to the Hulk Hogan heel turn which is where the money started to roll in.



The beauty of the Hogan heel turn is that you had so many fans that thought he would never turn heel. Then there was the actual act of turning heel which amplified the heat that the nWo and Hogan where getting.

But the problem was they had no plan for an end game for the angle. Kevin Nash has said that his plan was to get rid of WCW all together and have the promotion called ‘NWO Wrestling.’ I think that was a flawed plan as you can’t start a revolution with a heel…you can only start it with babyfaces. The NWO were heels. And the name ‘New World Order Wrestling’ likely sounds too sinister for advertisers.

This lack of vision and leadership caused the beginning of the demise of the nWo…Eric Bischoff becoming a member of the nWo.



Bischoff’s turn never made much sense. Particularly since Nash had powerbombed Bischoff thru a table when Nash first arrived on the scene. But, it also went against the easy and basic premise of the angle…former WWF wrestlers vs. the WCW/NWA contingent.

They even slipped up on Hogan heel turn by having Hogan turn on Savage. Savage should have been a member of the nWo from day one since he had no real NWA/WCW affiliation in terms of making his career.

Piper would be interesting since he did have a past with Georgia Championship Wrestling and Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling, both predecessors to WCW. But, that part of the beauty of the angle…it could create those plausible storylines of what side certain wrestlers take. Like the Steiners who both cut their teeth in WCW, but spent significant time in the WWF.

However, the bigger point in all of this is that the nWo failed to make new, young stars in the angle. Not only did their failure to do so hurt the angle overall, but the company could never quite recover.

Like the New Japan vs. UWF angle, the tried and true direction of the storyline should have been the home team (WCW) should have been the faces and the nWo should have been the heels. And in the end, WCW should win the war all the meanwhile getting over new stars from both sides.

There was a perfect chance to get over young stars like Chris Jericho, Eddy Guerrero, Booker T, Rey Mysterio, Konnan (who worked in the WWF as Max Moon), Chris Benoit, Perry Saturn, Marcus Bagwell, etc.

And they could have had ‘super groups’ on both sides with the nWo having Hogan, Savage and Piper and the WCW side having Flair, Sting and Dusty.

But there was no intention from those guys to ever help the company create new stars. And those young stars eventually went on to the WWE to make their product stronger.






YR

 

[MichaelWinicki]

The nWo angle will likely go down as the angle having the most widespread impact on pro wrestling in my lifetime. It was never my favorite angle nor do I feel it was the best angle, but its outcome has greatly played a role in the industry to this day.



The original idea for the nWo came from Japan. At the time, WCW and New Japan Pro Wrestling had come to a working agreement and Eric Bischoff was in Japan to watch some NJPW shows. While watching the shows he saw the NJPW vs. UWFi feud.



The NJPW vs. UWFi feud consisted of the UWFi promotion which was more ‘shoot’ style wrestling and many of the wrestlers like Akira Maede and Nobuhiko Takada used to wrestle for NJPW. They became the cocky outsider that thought they were superior to NJPW and thus a feud was created and it will go down as one of the best drawing feuds in the history of Japanese wrestling. More importantly, the feud created new, young stars for New Japan like Kensuke Sasaki, Shinya Hashimoto and Shinjiro Otani.

***​

At the time Eric Bischoff was doing one very smart thing with regards to the WCW product. He was trying to be the anti-Vince. If the WWE stood up, WCW sat down. If the WWE walked, WCW would run. That’s the key to having any chance against Vince or just to have a successful promotion, present a pro wrestling product that is vastly different from what Vince McMahon presents.

This worked well with the nWo angle as you had to have something different to fool the fans into believe that this may be real instead of being another work. This carried over into the nWo promos which came off as something that Hall and Nash have paid TV time for themselves and were not employed by WCW.



The brilliant part about the nWo concept is that it was so simple in setting up feuds down the line. All they needed to do was present it as former WWF wrestlers versus WCW/NWA wrestlers and play off of that. When the nWo revolved around that premise, it led to the Hulk Hogan heel turn which is where the money started to roll in.



The beauty of the Hogan heel turn is that you had so many fans that thought he would never turn heel. Then there was the actual act of turning heel which amplified the heat that the nWo and Hogan where getting.

But the problem was they had no plan for an end game for the angle. Kevin Nash has said that his plan was to get rid of WCW all together and have the promotion called ‘NWO Wrestling.’ I think that was a flawed plan as you can’t start a revolution with a heel…you can only start it with babyfaces. The NWO were heels. And the name ‘New World Order Wrestling’ likely sounds too sinister for advertisers.

This lack of vision and leadership caused the beginning of the demise of the nWo…Eric Bischoff becoming a member of the nWo.



Bischoff’s turn never made much sense. Particularly since Nash had powerbombed Bischoff thru a table when Nash first arrived on the scene. But, it also went against the easy and basic premise of the angle…former WWF wrestlers vs. the WCW/NWA contingent.

They even slipped up on Hogan heel turn by having Hogan turn on Savage. Savage should have been a member of the nWo from day one since he had no real NWA/WCW affiliation in terms of making his career.

Piper would be interesting since he did have a past with Georgia Championship Wrestling and Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling, both predecessors to WCW. But, that part of the beauty of the angle…it could create those plausible storylines of what side certain wrestlers take. Like the Steiners who both cut their teeth in WCW, but spent significant time in the WWF.

However, the bigger point in all of this is that the nWo failed to make new, young stars in the angle. Not only did their failure to do so hurt the angle overall, but the company could never quite recover.

Like the New Japan vs. UWF angle, the tried and true direction of the storyline should have been the home team (WCW) should have been the faces and the nWo should have been the heels. And in the end, WCW should win the war all the meanwhile getting over new stars from both sides.

There was a perfect chance to get over young stars like Chris Jericho, Eddy Guerrero, Booker T, Rey Mysterio, Konnan (who worked in the WWF as Max Moon), Chris Benoit, Perry Saturn, Marcus Bagwell, etc.

And they could have had ‘super groups’ on both sides with the nWo having Hogan, Savage and Piper and the WCW side having Flair, Sting and Dusty.

But there was no intention from those guys to ever help the company create new stars. And those young stars eventually went on to the WWE to make their product stronger.






YR

Great post Rich!

The whole NWO angle was brilliant. And they could have a massive hurt on Vince... Maybe even put him out of business. But yeah the "plan" was like a movie that starts out great, but after a while you say, "OK so what's next that going to continue the excitement?"

And we were given nothing... At least nothing new.

 

[Stash]

The nWo angle will likely go down as the angle having the most widespread impact on pro wrestling in my lifetime. It was never my favorite angle nor do I feel it was the best angle, but its outcome has greatly played a role in the industry to this day.



The original idea for the nWo came from Japan. At the time, WCW and New Japan Pro Wrestling had come to a working agreement and Eric Bischoff was in Japan to watch some NJPW shows. While watching the shows he saw the NJPW vs. UWFi feud.



The NJPW vs. UWFi feud consisted of the UWFi promotion which was more ‘shoot’ style wrestling and many of the wrestlers like Akira Maede and Nobuhiko Takada used to wrestle for NJPW. They became the cocky outsider that thought they were superior to NJPW and thus a feud was created and it will go down as one of the best drawing feuds in the history of Japanese wrestling. More importantly, the feud created new, young stars for New Japan like Kensuke Sasaki, Shinya Hashimoto and Shinjiro Otani.

***​

At the time Eric Bischoff was doing one very smart thing with regards to the WCW product. He was trying to be the anti-Vince. If the WWE stood up, WCW sat down. If the WWE walked, WCW would run. That’s the key to having any chance against Vince or just to have a successful promotion, present a pro wrestling product that is vastly different from what Vince McMahon presents.

This worked well with the nWo angle as you had to have something different to fool the fans into believe that this may be real instead of being another work. This carried over into the nWo promos which came off as something that Hall and Nash have paid TV time for themselves and were not employed by WCW.



The brilliant part about the nWo concept is that it was so simple in setting up feuds down the line. All they needed to do was present it as former WWF wrestlers versus WCW/NWA wrestlers and play off of that. When the nWo revolved around that premise, it led to the Hulk Hogan heel turn which is where the money started to roll in.



The beauty of the Hogan heel turn is that you had so many fans that thought he would never turn heel. Then there was the actual act of turning heel which amplified the heat that the nWo and Hogan where getting.

But the problem was they had no plan for an end game for the angle. Kevin Nash has said that his plan was to get rid of WCW all together and have the promotion called ‘NWO Wrestling.’ I think that was a flawed plan as you can’t start a revolution with a heel…you can only start it with babyfaces. The NWO were heels. And the name ‘New World Order Wrestling’ likely sounds too sinister for advertisers.

This lack of vision and leadership caused the beginning of the demise of the nWo…Eric Bischoff becoming a member of the nWo.



Bischoff’s turn never made much sense. Particularly since Nash had powerbombed Bischoff thru a table when Nash first arrived on the scene. But, it also went against the easy and basic premise of the angle…former WWF wrestlers vs. the WCW/NWA contingent.

They even slipped up on Hogan heel turn by having Hogan turn on Savage. Savage should have been a member of the nWo from day one since he had no real NWA/WCW affiliation in terms of making his career.

Piper would be interesting since he did have a past with Georgia Championship Wrestling and Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling, both predecessors to WCW. But, that part of the beauty of the angle…it could create those plausible storylines of what side certain wrestlers take. Like the Steiners who both cut their teeth in WCW, but spent significant time in the WWF.

However, the bigger point in all of this is that the nWo failed to make new, young stars in the angle. Not only did their failure to do so hurt the angle overall, but the company could never quite recover.

Like the New Japan vs. UWF angle, the tried and true direction of the storyline should have been the home team (WCW) should have been the faces and the nWo should have been the heels. And in the end, WCW should win the war all the meanwhile getting over new stars from both sides.

There was a perfect chance to get over young stars like Chris Jericho, Eddy Guerrero, Booker T, Rey Mysterio, Konnan (who worked in the WWF as Max Moon), Chris Benoit, Perry Saturn, Marcus Bagwell, etc.

And they could have had ‘super groups’ on both sides with the nWo having Hogan, Savage and Piper and the WCW side having Flair, Sting and Dusty.

But there was no intention from those guys to ever help the company create new stars. And those young stars eventually went on to the WWE to make their product stronger.






YR

Another great summary.

The nWo angle both made and broke WCW. Stealing away two of the WWF's top talents was a coup that got the whole thing off to an amazing start. They were "going to war" against Vince in real life, and starting a wrestling war on their own shows.

I look at Vince and the WWF as being asleep at the wheel at this point. For years, Vince was the predator. He saw each territory's biggest names and performers and he went and took 'em. And at this point, he was either arrogant or stupid enough to let many of his biggest stars go.

Maybe he underestimated how much Turner was willing to commit to WCW? But he sat in his hands while Hogan, Hall, and Nash started the mass exodus. Around the same time, announcers like Gene Okeelund and Bobby Heenan also left WWF too.

And then it was a mass exodus of current and former WWF names. Anyone who wasn't under contract was signing with WCW, especially if they were friends of Hogan. They threw every name they could find into the nWo, until you had a ring full of guys like Ted Dibiase and Virgil standing around with nothing at all to do. It watered down the nWo product.

Bischoff having to get in on the act to be "cool" was one of many mistakes. That guy's ego was out of control at that point. And seeing him glom onto the hottest thing going was sickening.

But even at their highest point, WCW's planning and in-ring work could never hold a candle to what WWF was putting out at the time. Their competition forced Vince to stop the cartoon characters and focus on RAW shows and wrestlers with "Attitude". That product, combined with WCW's comp,acenecy and inmates running the asylum, eventually was their undoing.

Vince ultimately bought it all for a song. Reports estimate in at about $2 million. Less than the contract of Bill Goldberg.

 

[Yakuza Rich]

Great post Rich!

The whole NWO angle was brilliant. And they could have a massive hurt on Vince... Maybe even put him out of business. But yeah the "plan" was like a movie that starts out great, but after a while you say, "OK so what's next that going to continue the excitement?"

And we were given nothing... At least nothing new.

I think the idea is that the blueprint was there...WCW should be the babyfaces and in the end...they win the war. And in the meantime they get new young stars over from the rub of the older stars like Hogan, Piper, Flair, Nash, etc.

But, Hall and Nash didn't want WCW being the faces and winning the war. And guys like Hogan weren't going to make young superstars for anybody.

In essence, the Hogan turn was basically feast then famine. Yeah, it drew a lot of money in the short term, but the refusal for Hogan to genuinely put young guys over met that they were dead in the water for the future. And it seemed like to me that many of the younger guys knew it and to appease them they just put them in the nWo because it was a better deal than being stuck with lame duck WCW. And then the entire angle failed to make any sense and it really lost its luster.

For instance, they had a great opportunity to make Bagwell a big babyface. I'm not a Bagwell fan, but he had some face heat to him and then when he injured his neck it was the perfect opportunity to turn him face and get him over big time. Instead, they had him go to the nWo.

IMO, they needed to figure out a way to get Hogan to put a young talent over. Perhaps promise him a big payday on a rematch after he jobs to somebody like a Booker T...but never give the rematch.

From there they should have probably put a few of the better workers on the nWo side to help even things out in terms of in-ring ability since Hogan and Nash were pretty lousy.

I would have probably divided the nWo into one group:

Hogan
Savage
Nash
Hall
Syxx
The Giant
Scott Steiner
Chris Benoit (he did win the WWF junior title in 1991)
Jericho

With the WCW group being:

Piper
Flair
Sting
Booker T
Rick Steiner
Bagwell
Mysterio
Guerrero
Goldberg

From there you could have the 2 big stars to take over the company for the future in Goldberg and The Giant along with new main eventers like Booker T, Jericho, Bagwell and Mysterio.



YR