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Post by cwsims on May 30, 2018 1:35:19 GMT
if you were in charge of the WCW folks signing who would you have signed?
first lets look at who signed and who waited on the buyout
Accepted the buyout
Booker T
Buff Bagwell
DDP
Kanyon
(I know these four let WWF buyout their contracts so they could compete immediately)
Came with the purchase of WCW
Lance Storm
Mike Awesome
Sean O Haire
Chuck Palumbo
Hugh Morris
Stacy Keibler
Torrie Wilson
Reno
Johnny The Bull
Mark Jindrak
Mike Sanders
Kwee Wee
Jason Jett
Lash Leroux
Evan Karagias
Shannon Moore
Jamie Knoble
Chavo Guerrero Jr.
Billy Kidman
Gregory Helms
Bryan Adams
Bryan Clark
(Most of these except for maybe five of them never really made it pass mid-card status or development territory some of them were cut from their contract not too long after the invasion angle ended)
Contracts not picked up but still signed with WWF/WWE
Hulk Hogan
Goldberg
Ric Flair
Kevin Nash
Scott Hall
Rey Mysterio Jr.
Scott Steiner
Mr. Perfect
Simply let their contracts out
Randy Savage
Lex Luger
Jeff Jarett
Shane Douglas
Rick Steiner
Vampiro
Disco Inferno
The Wall
Who I would've signed during the WCW purchase
Disco Inferno
Vampiro
Bam Bam Bigelow (I could've definitely Seen him fitting in during Takers feud with DDP)
Goldberg
Nash
Hall
Hogan
Flair
Scott and Rick Steiner
Booker T
DDP
Mr. Perfect
Kanyon
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Post by PreachCaleb on May 30, 2018 16:48:48 GMT
The issue wasn't really who they signed, but how they were used. WCW was booked to be incompetent and weaker than WWE.
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Post by taylorfirst1 on May 30, 2018 21:49:38 GMT
Exactly. The talent booked from WCW and ECW (with some exceptions) were treated like dirt. They were given lousy story lines and lost most of their matches and then they disappeared. It was sad.
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Post by coldenhaulfield on May 31, 2018 18:30:38 GMT
The issue wasn't really who they signed, but how they were used. WCW was booked to be incompetent and weaker than WWE. Nah, they were booked competitively and fans loved the angle. |
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Post by PreachCaleb on May 31, 2018 18:41:36 GMT
Exactly. The talent booked from WCW and ECW (with some exceptions) were treated like dirt. They were given lousy story lines and lost most of their matches and then they disappeared. It was sad. A stark contrast from how WCW booked former WWE guys. |
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Post by dazz on Jun 1, 2018 5:28:44 GMT
Well part of the problem is they couldn't actually get some of those guys due to their contracts, WWE offered Nash a deal to come in which with a signing bonus resulted in a downside = to his WCW deal, but Nash didn't want to go on the road 250-300 days a year just to make the same maybe a little bit more money than he would if he just sat at home, a guy like Hogan may have joined IF his WCW contract was matched but that contract would cost WWE in the range of $3m for Hogan to wrestle on the Invasion PPV, and that's going by the real numbers not an inflated what they could have made figure, Hogan would have wanted his %'s and his creative control to go at that point, likes of Goldberg weren't going to go just because he never liked wrestling so why would he want to give up free money and a future payday which is what he took in the end?
WWE were fucked because almost no one was willing to take less money to move to WWF if they could get their big contracts, only ones who were are the guys who had something to prove like DDP or were looking for long term jobs like Booker, even guys like Storm had to renegotiate their contracts with WWE if they didn't want to Saturn themselves out of future contracts by sticking to their bigger deals.
And with only 2 headline acts who weren't even the big headline acts but more the in a pinch throw them out there "top" guys how was WWE meant to book a competitive Invasion angle? I mean 75% of ther Alliance was WWF talent who defected 90% if we are looking at the guys who were competitive performers during that run, because how could WWE really put that roster on par with their own?
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Post by dazz on Jun 1, 2018 5:34:38 GMT
Exactly. The talent booked from WCW and ECW (with some exceptions) were treated like dirt. They were given lousy story lines and lost most of their matches and then they disappeared. It was sad. A stark contrast from how WCW booked former WWE guys. Bret Hart may disagree with you there, for the most part seemed more like a Hogan thing, which was the thing if you came from WWF you were likely to get a run with Hulk or were going to be running with Hulk ala the Outsiders, I mean did Perfect get used all that great outside of his run with the nWo, which even then he was mostly a background character a bunch of the time, only exception was when Russo came in and he just pushed guys he was either brown nosing or were brown nosing him, at which point saw a bunch of the prior top guys getting ignored outright for large periods of time. |
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Post by hoskotafe3 on Jun 1, 2018 5:58:02 GMT
In actual wins and losses, they were booked pretty even. Problem was that WCW came in the far weaker (due to their company being perceived as second rate and their going out of business) they needed to be booked as dominant. But can you really imagine Austin, Rock, Triple H, Undertaker, Jericho and Angle laying down for DDP, Booker, T, Lance Storm and Buff Bagwell week after week? DDP's as much as said that Undertaker just wanted to squash a WCW guy and didn't care who. And ultimately that second part was the biggest reason it was never going to work. WWF guys who worked their asses off were never going to agree to give up their spots for some guys from "the enemy."
Ultimately DDP and Booker T both would have been better off debuting on the roster unburdened from the WCW name.
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Post by Jayman on Jun 4, 2018 22:05:58 GMT
I hate guaranteed contracts in wrestling. I think That was one of the worst things to happen to wrestling. But since all the other great wrestling promotions got killed off, I guess in a way it was inevitable
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Post by MooseNugget on Jun 6, 2018 0:55:29 GMT
It would have been better if they could have gotten someone like Flair but I think Vince could have made it work with the people he got.
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Post by taylorfirst1 on Jun 6, 2018 14:45:43 GMT
They should have treated their newly acquired talent exactly like their other talent, but they didn't.
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Post by hoskotafe3 on Jun 7, 2018 22:08:38 GMT
And you don't think their other talent would have a problem with that? Giving up their spots to the guys from the b-promotion that they've put out of business. Even if Vince wants to do it, the politics would have been unworkable.
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Post by PreachCaleb on Jun 7, 2018 22:51:03 GMT
I think Bret knows what happens when someone refuses Vince's desires.
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Post by taylorfirst1 on Jun 8, 2018 17:41:20 GMT
And you don't think their other talent would have a problem with that? Giving up their spots to the guys from the b-promotion that they've put out of business. Even if Vince wants to do it, the politics would have been unworkable. No I don't. They already don't have a problem with doing the most ridiculous things imaginable in front of a live audience every week. They are professionals and they are paid to do whatever story line they are given (like actors in every other TV show).
B-promotion doesn't mean B-talent. Most of the WCW guys had been in WWE before and vice versa. WWE missed an opportunity to reinvigorate the company with new blood but they squandered it.
If Disney buys Fox, should they treat the Fox employees like second class citizens? If they treat the Fox employees well, should the Disney employees have a problem with it? Of course not, it's just good business and common courtesy.
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Post by dazz on Jun 8, 2018 18:33:10 GMT
And you don't think their other talent would have a problem with that? Giving up their spots to the guys from the b-promotion that they've put out of business. Even if Vince wants to do it, the politics would have been unworkable. No I don't. They already don't have a problem with doing the most ridiculous things imaginable in front of a live audience every week. They are professionals and they are paid to do whatever story line they are given (like actors in every other TV show).
B-promotion doesn't mean B-talent. Most of the WCW guys had been in WWE before and vice versa. WWE missed an opportunity to reinvigorate the company with new blood but they squandered it.
If Disney buys Fox, should they treat the Fox employees like second class citizens? If they treat the Fox employees well, should the Disney employees have a problem with it? Of course not, it's just good business and common courtesy.
You seem to miss the part where the WWF guys were on downside deals, the more they worked, the higher their spot the more they made, and except for the inevitable invasion/war storyline no one was expecting WWF to keep 2 companies worth of wrestlers on the roster.
The WCW influx meant upper mid card guys were going to have to compete with not only the WWF main talents taking those top spots but the WCW top guys taking theirs pushing them down a peg or 2, same with the lower upper mid carders getting bumped to mid card and so on, and those on the bottom in enhancement positions were likely to feel their jobs being threatened because at the very least the WCW guys were atleast fresher to the roster and so could get more mileage out of jobbing to guys.
Then you factor in PPV spots, if a typical WWF PPV back then had 8 matches, that's only so many PPV slots and PPV bonuses were a huge part of the guys money back in the day, there were a lot of reasons for guys to be defensive about their spots, and the thing is if WWF were having say Lance Storm go over Bob Holly every show then Holly was going to be the one feeling the pressure once the Invasion came to an end and they were expecting WWF to shed talent, once the brand split came about people didn't need to worry so much, but when they thought that once the Invasion was done so would peoples jobs then yeah they had reason to be defensive and stuff.
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Post by hoskotafe3 on Jun 8, 2018 21:31:30 GMT
Disney acquiring Fox is in no way comparable to a wrestling company doubling its size. Fox was a profitable company with its own distribution rights. It can be run as a separate company under the Disney umbrella.
WCW was not profitable, had no TV and no broadcasters wanting to touch it. The only way they were getting any WCW talent on TV was on the shows they already had, which means that existing talent lose their spots to make way for the WCW guys and some would be losing their jobs. Of course the WWE guys weren't happy with it.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 11, 2018 17:12:05 GMT
If Vince were smart, he would have dropped the Raw/Smackdown! thing.
He would have pretended like Shane owned the WCW, kept the logo/brand etc...
Monday Night RAW and Thursday Night Nitro.
Have separate PPV's with ONLY WWF and ONLY WCW wrestlers. Have a WWF PPV on the first weekend of the month and a WCW PPV in the middle or 3rd week of the month.
Then, have crossovers only for WrestleMania. Could you imagine that FIRST WrestleMania where they crossed over? Have WCW World HeavyWeight Champion Bill Goldberg vs WWF World HeavyWeight Champion Stone Cold Steve Austin or The Rock...
Then you could do story lines where a WWF character wants to jump ship and go to the WCW and vice versa. Rarely. All under Vince and his money, but make it look separate. The rivalry of the two companies is what fueled the intensity. |
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Post by dazz on Jun 11, 2018 17:43:32 GMT
Vince tried doing that though, the intent was for WCW to be it's own brand but Vince couldn't get enough of the name talent to come over and no one was open to taking on a WCW show at the time, may have been in part due to their deal with Viacom at the time, they may not have been allowed to negotiate with none Viacom networks, but Viacom wasn't willing to lose the then on a high WWF brand programing for the tarnished WCW brand.
The guys were originally signed to WCW contracts not WWF ones, carrying over their old WCW deals, some like Lance Storm who had higher downsides than WWF wanted to give for their spots then had to renegotiate/resign for a more general WCW contract as everyone else, then before the Invasion happened WWF gave up and signed them all onto WWF contracts.
WCW was meant to continue as it's own brand/company under the WWF parent company, having its own shows, touring schedule and such, that's the thing the Invasion wasn't their go to move but it became all they had to worl with for the most part, Vince could hardly hold off for a year or more till most of the Turner contracts ran out, not with him having to pay 40 or more ppl to sit out that time also.
In theory the buyout of WCW should have been a goldmine but in reality the structure and placement of things at the time made it an impossible dream to realise.
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Post by cwsims on Jun 13, 2018 15:10:04 GMT
Vince tried doing that though, the intent was for WCW to be it's own brand but Vince couldn't get enough of the name talent to come over and no one was open to taking on a WCW show at the time, may have been in part due to their deal with Viacom at the time, they may not have been allowed to negotiate with none Viacom networks, but Viacom wasn't willing to lose the then on a high WWF brand programing for the tarnished WCW brand. The guys were originally signed to WCW contracts not WWF ones, carrying over their old WCW deals, some like Lance Storm who had higher downsides than WWF wanted to give for their spots then had to renegotiate/resign for a more general WCW contract as everyone else, then before the Invasion happened WWF gave up and signed them all onto WWF contracts. WCW was meant to continue as it's own brand/company under the WWF parent company, having its own shows, touring schedule and such, that's the thing the Invasion wasn't their go to move but it became all they had to worl with for the most part, Vince could hardly hold off for a year or more till most of the Turner contracts ran out, not with him having to pay 40 or more ppl to sit out that time also. In theory the buyout of WCW should have been a goldmine but in reality the structure and placement of things at the time made it an impossible dream to realise. this ^ the buff bagwell vs booker t match was an experiment to see how well wcw would be received but the entire match was booed in front of A wwf/wwe crowd |
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Post by twothousandonemark on Jul 15, 2018 12:00:14 GMT
The buyout as story angle was a joke & deservedly so.
However, WWE did fine pushing the likes of The Big Show, Jericho, Benoit, Guerrero, & Booker T. Sure they had early stumbles, & yet that gave them hills to climb & payoffs to achieve.
I think some ppl look back at the Shane at Nitro thing through rose coloured glasses, when it had been years since WCW was even half as popular as WWE.
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