You knew Vince had no intention or seriously rebooting WCW when

[The G.O.D II]

He put Buff fukking Bagwell in the inaugural debut match with Booker on Raw What the fukk was he thinking? Crowd no sold both of them like crazy. I know they inherited a bunch of midcarders and guys like Goldberg, Nash, Hogan, etc would rather wait their contracts out, but Bagwell. Over DDP? I'm surprised Booker wasn't booted alongside Bagwell, especially since he injured Austin the night before. And then SC and Angle just buried both of them afterwards. Everything else was just went downhill. We talk about what killed the business and why it is what it is today, look no further then this July night

 

[HipHopStan]

Vince should've just payed off Hogan, Nash, Hall, Flair, Goldberg, Rey Jr, etc Time Warner contracts. I think he just being cheap there. If not that, wait until their contracts were up before starting the invasion angle. I actually think HHH tearing his quad might've pushed Vince to for go the Invasion angle early.

 

[The G.O.D II]

Vince should've just payed off Hogan, Nash, Hall, Flair, Goldberg, Rey Jr, etc Time Warner contracts. I think he just being cheap there. If not that, wait until their contracts were up before starting the invasion angle. I actually think HHH tearing his quad might've pushed Vince to for go the Invasion angle early.

I guess Vince's reasoning was he didn't want to pay 7 figures to buy out those guys contracts, especially since some of them had a hand in runnning WCW into the ground

 

[HipHopStan]

I guess Vince's reasoning was he didn't want to pay 7 figures to buy out those guys contracts, especially since some of them had a hand in runnning WCW into the ground

It's more since everyone with a Time Warner contract (with the exception of Sting) eventually came in anyway. I actually think Vince did have plans for a WCW show, but at the time he couldn't find a network to put it on. Spike and UPN didn't want anymore wrestling on their network, Vince and USA still had some heat so that was a no go, and when Bischoff was trying to find a new home for WCW, he went to a number of networks (most notably FX) who passed up on the offer.

 

[Hoss]

Could be a little off with this, but I vaguely remember something about Vince mentioning Buff's name during a promo and it got a cheer from the crowd, so Vince was impressed and figured Buff was a WCW dude worth pushing. It took one match to change his mind.

Yeah, terrible start to the angle. It was kinda dead from the jump.

 

[No_bammer_weed]

yeah....buff got the spot because of Vince's prevailing mindset that he "looks like a star when he walks thru the airport".

WCW as a brand relaunch wasnt going to work logistically or otherwise. TNN said no when Vince asked to change Raw to Nitro, and/or give WCW its own time slot on a viacom channel. TNN basically said they paid for the hot WWE brand, and not for a damaged WCW one, and they didnt want any market confusion. Vince couldnt do it, so there was no point in spending millions on all their malcontent talent.

However, Vince should have broken the bank for Sting and Goldberg. Sting stalking Taker with the re-imagined crow gimmick, and a Goldberg/Austin face off would have done massive business, and been fun as hell to watch.

 

[FreshAIG]

He actually did. He was dead serious about restarting WCW, and putting it on Monday Nights, and making Smackdown the number 1 WWE brand

What happened was, it was gonna be either Booker vs. Lance Storm or Booker vs. Bagwell, and WWE decided at the last minute that Bagwell was a bigger name more associated with WCW, so at the last minute they went with him. It was a disaster

WWE spent the next week having to cancel the whole schedule of arena dates they had, because they shutdown the WCW operation that night. They had schedule to go on a whole run pushing WCW promotion but once they saw the crowd response, Vince freaked out and changed the plans

 

[Sypress]

He chose Bagwell because he was actually pretty popular back then. In that episode of Raw when he bought wcw, he mentioned Bagwell in a backstage segment and it actually got cheers from the crowd.

 

[FreshAIG]

I think WWE spent so many years telling their fans WCW was trash that they never stood a chance with a WWE audience. And WCW fans weren't about to watch the brand they love get ruined. So it was gonna be a hard sell from the gate

Wrestling 15 years ago, would have anywhere from 10-15 million people watching

Now on Mondays we have 4 million

SMH

 

[HipHopStan]

Vince asks the audience for their input of WCW stars at the very beginning of this video. I actually think Bagwell's pop might've beat Sting's.

 

[R=G]

Then they had Austin as the leader..it couldn't be trusted. If you not gonna bring in Sting or Goldberg, the angle was false from the jump. LOL.

 

[fukkyalifestyle]

What was the deal with ddp anyway why was he so badly mishandled? he seemed like he was a genious in wcw, maybe it was bischoff all along.

 

[HipHopStan]

What was the deal with ddp anyway why was he so badly mishandled? he seemed like he was a genious in wcw, maybe it was bischoff all along.

DDP had a habit of wanting to blueprint every part of his match before hand in WCW. When he got to WWF, this did not go over well with a few of the WWF wrestlers (most notably The Undertaker), who had the habit of calling a match on the fly in the ring, and thus he started to get buried.

 

[The G.O.D II]

yeah....buff got the spot because of Vince's prevailing mindset that he "looks like a star when he walks thru the airport".

WCW as a brand relaunch wasnt going to work logistically or otherwise. TNN said no when Vince asked to change Raw to Nitro, and/or give WCW its own time slot on a viacom channel. TNN basically said they paid for the hot WWE brand, and not for a damaged WCW one, and they didnt want any market confusion. Vince couldnt do it, so there was no point in spending millions on all their malcontent talent.

However, Vince should have broken the bank for Sting and Goldberg. Sting stalking Taker with the re-imagined crow gimmick, and a Goldberg/Austin face off would have done massive business, and been fun as hell to watch.

I find it that some two bit low level cable channel like TNN could reject any idea of placing WCW on their programming. WCW, as much bad stigma and reputation it had, would have still pulled in bigger ratings then man vs wild, rollerjam, and any other off brand bullshyt they had at the time. Its equally hilarious considering what they allowed TNA to draw for all these years. But I guess once they lost WWE they had no choice.

Edit: Wait, Vince actually wanted to replace Raw with Nitro? I find that If so, TNN had some claim there

 

[fukkyalifestyle]

DDP had a habit of wanting to blueprint every part of his match before hand in WCW. When he got to WWF, this did not go over well with a few of the WWF wrestlers (most notably The Undertaker), who had the habit of calling a match on the fly in the ring, and thus he started to get buried.

That can't be the only reason? Bischoff and DDP were tight maybe thats why too. Maybe some bad blood with Vince from the past, no reason why DDP shouldnt of been better star.