Define WCW In Your Own Words

[Hoss]

So I have some friends who are new-ish to wrestling, and missed the WCW era. So a lot of the time, when I mention WCW or ECW, they're pretty much clueless about what I'm talking about and a lot of my references absolutely go right over their heads. So of course I have to explain what I'm talking about, who I'm talking about, and even what WCW is. I thought it was kind of interesting though, because I had the opportunity to kind of leave a first impression of what WCW was on my friends' minds. So with that in mind, how would you describe WCW to someone who didn't know about it?

Basically, my general description of it was: Became big during the 90's and was mostly the southern foil of the WWE, because their major cities were in the north. They were more traditional when WWE got really cartoonish, and relied on great wrestlers like Sting and Ric Flair but their head bookers were usually crappy for a long time. They got a lot bigger when guys like Hulk Hogan and Macho Man came over from WWE and really peaked when Scott Hall and Kevin Nash came over and the nWo formed in 1996, which was basically their central storyline for the next 4 years and the main reason that, at one point, WCW became bigger than WWE. One of their main problems was probably putting on great matches on Nitro and Thunder when they should have been big PPV draws, and after a while, all the money they were spending on former stars caught up with them and got them in trouble. One of the best things about WCW was the cruiserweight division they offered which helped guys like Chris Jericho and Eddie Guerrero break out and become big stars. They were also better tag team bookers than the WWE at this point and relied less on gimmicky wrestlers, but at the same time, some of their booking was goofy. They had a lot of sketchy calls like making David Arquette their world champion and having Everything-On-A-Pole matches. Like Chris Jericho mentioned one time, it eventually became a place for a lot of old folks to just screw around. Guys like Kevin Nash would be jumping into pools during the broadcasts and it got out of hand. Once they realized they needed to really push the youth talent, it was too late and eventually they were sold to WWE.


Anyways, this happened like two hours ago and I thought I'd mention it on here because I thought it would be interesting to see how others would describe WCW in their own words. So have it, folks, describe WCW..

 

[Horrorfan_1986]

WCW was a company doomed from the start. A company owned by a guy who didn't know the wrestling business meant WCW could never compare against a company ran by a guy who was a wrestling owner. Yet, while the WWE went into the direction of Sports Entertainment in 1984, JCP/WCW stayed true to pro wrestling. WCW was a company that was based around wrestlers instead of characters. With smaller production budgets and less star power, WCW instead relied on their superior wrestling.

Without a doubt, WCW was the place for quality pro wrestling in the US. It doesn't matter how good the WWE could be at times, WCW had better action. For as good as the tag team division was in the WWE at various points, WCW's was better. WCW had a better main event and virtually every other division.

While the history books may state WCW died in 2001, it truly died in 1994 when Eric Bischoff gained full control of WCW. The last surviving pro wrestling company in America became the newest sports entertainment company. Gone were the days where quality in ring wrestling was of utmost priority. Instead, the company became a character company. That at it's core was the problem. Even with Ted Turner's checkbook, WCW could not be as good of a sports entertainment company as the WWE because no one in WCW knew as much about running a pro wrestling company as Vince McMahon did. Despite the highs of the Monday Night Wars, the lows were enviable.

Looking back, WCW was a company for incredible in ring action. In the early days, it was the main event scene with Ric Flair, Terry Funk, Sting, Lex Luger and Ricky Steamboat. Later, it was about having the best damn tag team action in the States despite the fact that the entire division was made up of makeshift tag teams. Before the ship began to sink, WCW was home to the quality and revolutionary high flying action of the mid to late 90's. Sadly, WCW is also home to poor leaders, terrible decisions and a general sense of it not mattering if you're capable of 5 star matches if your creative team will ruin the matches, characters and angles with poor bookers.

WCW was a beautiful glass sculpture. As long as you don't touch it or even breathe too hard near it, it will remain a work of art. However, it's an extremely fragile object and one wrong move and it breaks in pieces.