Wrestling Roundtable #54 10/9/11 Part 3 - The nWo

[martinjamesglasgow]

when goldberg won the title that shouldve been the torch passed

[martinjamesglasgow]

i never watched too much wcw can someone explain why people go on about the wolfpac more than the nwo? confused

[luvmenow33]

great ending

[RandomMindz]

The finger poke of doom made a triumphant return on WWE '12 which saw Rey Mysterio pinning Nash after turning heel on my character Jacob Cass (NOT the name I picked btw).

[wweallday24]

the nwo should have been ended at starcade 1997 worst ppv finish of all time

[PeoplesWar]

This is probably the most intelligent discussion regarding the WCW, its rise and its downfall. It is nice to hear something that is based purely on facts and not on grudges, which is what the WWE's version of the story is based on.

[PeoplesWar]

I think these four hit it on the head. The failure to bring the nWo to a close was probably the biggest mistake made by the WCW.

[skinwalkerxxx]

About the Wolfpac, I think WCW seemed confused how to handle them. They might have wanted a babyface group to mimik DX's successes, maybe? I lost interest when I realised they were not going to be the nWo, they were just a bunch of guys wanting to be polular. If they had stayed heels yet oppose Hogan they would have been more interesting. Also why not create a nWo show and have the Wolfpac shows up as the disturbers like the nWo have been on Nitro? Have the Wolfpac only exist for that show.

[skinwalkerxxx]

..following

-I would have had Ric Flair being in that Bash at the Beach match instead of Savage. So you would have three WCW homegrown Flair, Luger and Sting vs Outsiders and Hogan. It is a stronger image. And when Savage gets involved in the war later on, there's this mystery of who's side is he on cause he's a former WWF guy but he's a face.

-sure I would have had a nWo show. Do in 1997, strike when the iron is hot. But come up with a more tight system and not like the sloppy nWo PPV

[skinwalkerxxx]

Little things I would have done differently early on:

-Never have Nash say "no we're not the WWF"

-Sting needed a beatdown. He became this lone killer like in cowboys movies to take on the bad guys. But he needed a vengeance to act on it. All we had really was him changing because his friends didn't like him? He should have had a beatdown(not from nWo but from other heels and his friends don't help him)

- Don't have the match Sting-Hogan take place right away. Let the suspence grow 2 years

[JMA2K10]

An nWo show could've had its own faces and heels. Basically, all they would've needed to do is branch off and do the Hollywood/Wolfpac split (without the different shirts). Both the faces and heels on the nWo show would be anti-WCW, but would still fight amongst themselves (i.e. the cooler nWo wrestlers like Nash, Hall, and Konnan would go against the 80s stars--Hogan, Hennig, ect.).

[abelherrera11]

Do you think NWO would have flopped if Sting was the one who turned in Bash at the Beach 1996?

[demolitapower]

Sweeeeeeerve it better be I'd miss these discussions

[TheMizark89]

Is Eric going to b a janitor one week and then back in power the next week with no explanation? I mean Bischoff did that in WCW in 2000

[JukoDDT]

You could always replace the panel w/ Koriander, Abe in Augusta, Pat from Elk Grove, and Justin from Eagle.

[fatslut86]

BTW maybe you explained it another time, but what did happen to Lawrence?

[Ratmann3684]

whos the guy with colt?

[TheJerzeyDragon]

Eric, if I see John Laurinitis take over hosting this show next week, I'm going to riot... find you... beat you... and then stop watching.

[WrestlingRoundtable]

@TheJerzeyDragon Why's that my fault? heh.

-E, Wrestling Roundtable

[gabynum1919]

Loved the discussion, like always..

The ending: ROTFL!!!

[MrPerfect2000Z]

Thanks for giving me something good to watch after being in hospital Eric!

[WrestlingRoundtable]

@MrPerfect2000Z What happened? Hope you're better!

-E, Wrestling Roundtable

[MrPerfect2000Z]

@WrestlingRoundtable appendicitis

[JukoDDT]

@MrPerfect2000Z Well that explains the lack of Smackdown recaps then. Hope you get better.

[antiembishop07]

The true downfall of the nWo and WCW was WCW Starrcade 1997 with Hogan Vs. Sting how it didn't deliver...nuff said. And the Finger Poke of Doom moment.

[darknightdetroit2006]

Love the show. Also, love the end. So will E be alone doing the show next week? Also will the rest of the crew be outside protesting for change? I am waiting for Rodney to give E the poke of doom to be the new host of the show.

[Thearmgame]

WHAT A SWERVE

[pattersongrove]

I think the nwo was killed when they tried it under Vince Russo when Jeff Jarrett became part of the NWO the only part of the wwe version I liked is when they had the Rock in the back of an ambulance and Hogan crashes the side of the ambulance with an 18 wheeler about 3 or 4 times.

[Live4Ever329]

great show! For me the nwo was the greatest angle in wrestling history and that level of storytelling has never been matched. But sadly it did go very wrong and i think that was due to the fact that they never had a clear end in sight. The 2 guys who could have finished the nWo were Sting at starrcade 97 or Goldberg in 98 but it always just led to Hogan winning the belt back. Its a shame that the best angle in wrestling history never got a proper ending.

[JohnnyMcCool3000]

well since u bring up that date then it makes perfect sense so in that case the end i wud guess was not developing goldberg to have good matches instead of those 30 second squashes

[DogmaD7]

Eric great video! I love the passion that all of you guys have I hope you guys do a special edition on this topic and really dive into the ego's and Nash blaming goldberg's injury on the failed story line

[JohnnyMcCool3000]

and the end of wcw was when they signed bret hart and waited a month 2 put him on tv instead of bringing him on the day after survivor series and having him shoot on vince

[WrestlingRoundtable]

@JohnnyMcCool3000 They legally couldn't have put Bret Hart on TV until Dec. 8th(I believe was the exact date) due to his WWF contract. That's why he wasn't on the day after Survivor Series, but they put him on as soon as legally possible.

-E, Wrestling Roundtable

[JohnnyMcCool3000]

LOVE THE ENDING NEVER LAFFED SO HARD IN MY LIFE lmaooooooo

[mrhoseasings]

erics guest are as follows for next week

1 mop

2 bucket

3 lamp

[jerzeefranky3475]

BRILLIANT ENDING,GUYS...

[sevenforcex]

What made the nWo interesting and the best story in wrestling was the other thread stories going on, like the transformation of Surfer Sting into Crow Sting, The Third Man story etc, it really was just great weekly story telling, not something you get anymore, I totally agree they never had an end game in sight, and that was the problem, it should have ended at Starcade97 imo, but when you have a hot product people are going to milk it. great show guys, funny ending.

[therock19]

The nwo at first was fun it was something different but then as the big show said . It started as 3 then all of a sudden theres 30 members of the nwo it did get very silly in the end.

[MrUndertakerHBKfan]

LOL at the ending! Great discussion guys! : )

[bigdaddywynne5995]

great show as usual

[Lightspeeds]

Well Eric are you going to debate a broom next week?

[WrestlingRoundtable]

@Lightspeeds ha! That's good :)

-E, Wrestling Roundtable

[katamari84]

YES I'LL BE TUNING IN NEXT WEEK ERIC!

[batistabomber94]

Great ending! Can we start the next show with Punk on commentary?

[JakeTheFakeReal]

Loved the ending.

[gaodene]

the swerve was amazing !

[clipsryan]

Fuck those guys. I got your back Eric. Just kidding but if it was just you, I'd be happy. I think ECW had everything that was going good for WCW and WWF. It had the violence and sex that made WWF so popular in the late 90s to early 2000s and it had the very talented luchadores and japanese wrestlers that WCW was known for. It's kinda sad that it's the company that died first but that's another story. WCW just didn't have the talent, inside and outside the ring.

[jbcillatwill]

the end was great lol

[fagbert]

The nWo was to WCW what Triple H later was to WWE -- awesome in its prime, but then just overbearing and boring.

[reh629]

the original wolfpac was a novel concept. a mini stable within a stable (hall, nash & syxx)

the latter version was a joke.

the nwo lost its luster to me when people they have been feuding with for months became members. macho, luger, sting, the worst case was the giant. he was in and out of the nwo every other month.

[nWoWolfpacTV]

@reh629 Bit of an exaggeration with you Giant comment. He was the 5th member to join aprox September 1996 & was kicked out of nWo on December 29th 1996.

He didn't join the nWo again until mid 1998 after Nash (the guy he had been fueding with for months) left to form the Wolfpac. He was then kicked out of the nWo again on 11th January 1999 which was his last WCW appearence before joining the WWF. So he was not in & out every other month.

[kingabe07]

Same goes for you too Nash.

[kingabe07]

By the way, I noticed the same thing with Goldberg's elbow accident also. WWE, if you going to bring up history, BE ACCURATE!

[kingabe07]

The vote of confidence segment is the funniest part in the show's history.

[bmtangle]

Egos did play a huge part of the downfall. I would of had nWo take over the Saturday show for like 1 or 2 weeks then WCW takes back the show and sooner or later kill the faction. They also had way too many ppl in the crew. The ending of the show was just incredible! Wrestling Roundtable 4 life!

[THEBrandonBrownson]

Just recorded a video response. Gotta edit it (Because it's also a full episode of my wrestling show), and I'll throw it up!

[Floconbob]

FULL CONFIDENCE ! :D

maybe the best talk yet, awesome show guys !

[jb0609]

Awesome ending.

[anwarandmawson]

Very good episode here guys, the discussion wasn't exactly ground-breaking but your editing and general flow of the show was better than I've seen on your shows before. I especially liked the clips (Rodney and then Nash) being cut into the show too.

Keep up the good work

[nextodie03]

Best ending ever.

[pdg90]

Lol Nice ending.

[JoshOrtiz88]

Hey Eric, Listen to "Everybody Hurts" by REM. You'll feel better.

[Gambit455]

An ending worthy of Botchamania 190!

[BrickCity4eva]

LMAO!!!! Spoofing the vote on Confidence angle in WWE!

[TheXYZcrash]

@WrestlingRoundtable BTW awesome end to the show, done better than the actual RAW segment imo, and do you think NWO Japan's existance with the WCW/NJPW relationship could've been used more in America, because i think Japan( aka NWO Typhoon) would've been a good substitute to the Wolfpac, have Mutoh/Chono vs The Outsiders and matches like that

[stunnerbahgawd]

possibly the campiest ending to WRT ever :D loved this show!

[lapdoggydogg]

very good ending that last please has me laughing big time.

[MrDko9873]

i guess rodney is still on the roundtable because he didn't hit it big?

[TheXYZcrash]

@WrestlingRoundtable The last time TNA tried an invasion angle was a bunch if fucking Juggalo's trying to interupt a x-division match, Juggalo Championshit Wrestling's JWO (featuring a rather rough looking Scott Hall).

[linesinaconversation]

At the first break, I was like, "Why are Rodney and Will joking around and Eric is hardly paying attention at all? That doesn't seem like him..." It's like I'm clairvoyant or something.

You should get Shane Douglas to take over hosting duties next week.

[mangakagrunge]

I think the nwo was a good idea until you had the whole fucken roster joining,i think it was a great idea but I think it was old and worn out after awhile,i would watch wcw back then but just like the wcw it was running on fumes from there gas tank.

[reefinit]

awesome show eric and co. at the end of it you should have gotten up and spray painted the banner behind you "E.N.W.O. 4 life"and knocked over the camera as you left that wouldve been too sweet :]

[bryanero]

best show in ages. i love the old school topics :) strange ending though :s

[UndeRTaKerFAnToNy]

@bryanero

The ending was a Joke,playing on the WWE storyline of wrestlers having no confidence in HHH thus causing the no confidence walkout on raw.

[bryanero]

@UndeRTaKerFAnToNy i know i know

[viper1871]

Would it have been to dramatic to drop the camera?

[nWoWolfpacTV]

If you have PW Torch Newsletters you can see what the quarter hour ratings are...the nWo segments when they were still around in first 4 months of 1999 were if i recall like the highest rated segments 17 out of 20 weeks for the 2 hours head to head with RAW. It was likes of Perry Saturn for which quarter hours would go down. PPV business was initially strong also with Hogan vs. Flair at Superbrawl almost drawing the same PPV buyrate as Austin vs. McMahon that same month. FPOD did not kill WCW!

[WrestlingRoundtable]

@nWoWolfpacTV Thanks for all your ratings info., but there's another key one you didn't mention : The Fingerpoke itself did a monster rating because it was an overrun and RAW(with Foley's victory, at this point which everyone had seen & ended) was over, so even if 600,000 people tuned over to RAW when Schiavone mentioned it like the legend says, they all tuned right back when the show was over!

-E, Wrestling Roundtable

[nWoWolfpacTV]

@WrestlingRoundtable Yeah great point which i should have mentioned.

The quarter hour before the Fingerpoke of Doom featuring a match between DDP vs. Brian Adams was a 4.1 & the ratings increased to a 4.6 to see the FPOD in last quarter hour.

[ICEGOD2]

If WWE did some fingerpoke of doom mess today, I truly believe these fans would riot.

[WrestlingRoundtable]

@ICEGOD2 WWE fans have never rioted over anything, so I doubt it, heh.

-E, Wrestling Roundtable

[MrDko9873]

@WrestlingRoundtable hey erich ah,,,, do you know what it's like ahh, to pick up your teeth with broken fingers ahhh?

[AJCANADAPICTURES]

@WrestlingRoundtable i heard wwe fans rioted at a house show once when dx did somthing. the fans started fighting in the ring and set a fire in the stands or something like that. this was from an hhh interview so i dont know weather to believe it

[RWright2006]

@WrestlingRoundtable

I've never seen anyone throw garbage during a WWE event either. I think it's because of the security detail.

[MrTvtech9]

@ICEGOD2 WWE fans are way too dossile nowadays. Kids would just pout, and dumb parents would want refunds.

[nWoWolfpacTV]

nWo Wolfpac Elite DOMINATED WCW television in January, February & March of 1999 & was still prominent in April of 1999. Long term injuries to Luger (biceps tear in Jan), Scott Hall (WCW employee ran over his foot with car in March + personal problems ) plus Hogan (Knee Surgery in April) brought a premature end to this version of the nWo which coincidentally just so happens to be when ratings noticeably & significantly went down.

Ratings went down when nWo was gone...coincidence?

[WrestlingRoundtable]

@nWoWolfpacTV Well, I don't know if you could really say the nWo DOMINATED TV outside of Jan., as after a few weeks things scattered in to individual feuds(Nash and some cronies Vs. Konnan & Mysterio, Hogan/Flair and the David turn...then double turn, heh, Steiner was off doing his own thing and Bagwell just hung around in the background. I mean, this is around the time they let Disco Inferno in the thing for christ's sakes, heh) but let's also remember Goldberg was out around that time too. -E

[nWoWolfpacTV]

@WrestlingRoundtable When i say nWo i mean nWo as individuals aswell as a group. So yeah the nWo dominated TV. It was nWo segment after nWo segment from skits, promos, matches, beat downs...you would hear the Wolfpac howl over & over again.

Look at 2.15.1999 Nitro with the 15 minute Flair beatdown in a field filmed by helicopter then he is beat down again at end of show not forgetting the nWo arriving back to arena, Hogan promo followed by Hogan vs. Piper.

[nWoWolfpacTV]

When comparing the first 9 weeks after the FPOD (Jan/Feb 99) & the last 9 weeks prior to the FPOD (Nov/Dec 98). The results are that ratings were better 7 weeks out of 9 weeks AFTER the FPOD angle. This also PROVES that the FPOD actually increased viewership for WCW.

Nov/Dec 98 average rating = 4.24

Jan/Feb 99 average rating = 4.75

An increase of 0.51 in ratings.

[bigjmac0816]

great ending guys, i will be here next week

[nWoWolfpacTV]

Fingerpoke of Doom edition of Nitro scored a 5.0 rating & the following episode of Thunder broadcast 3 days later scored 4.3 rating which was the joint 2nd highest rating Thunder EVER pulled (it was also the highest rating Thunder pulled for 10 months). Nitro a week after the FPOD scored a 5.0 which is the same it did for the FPOD episode meaning the angle had enough interest to draw the same amount of viewers as it did for the FPOD episode of Nitro

[nWoWolfpacTV]

This is my take from what the Fingerpoke of Doom represented - the WCW had gained strength with Goldberg as Champion & Ric Flair as President due to the two nWo factions fueding with each other instead of WCW. So the ELITE memebers of Hollywood (Hogan,Steiner,Bagwell) joined forces with ELITE of Wolfpac (Nash,Luger) to form the nWo Wolfpac ELITE. Scott Hall had no afilliation to any faction at the time.

The aforementioned is what was Nash said was reason in a nWo released video back in 1999.

[nWoWolfpacTV]

I think the Wolfpac was a great idea...it was just bad in execution. Nash/Hall should have split from nWo with Konnan (later joined by Juventud) & fued with nWo specifically old guard of Hogan/Savage for the rights to nWo & to take out Hogan. In reality the two factions never really fueded instead just dancing around each other. There was never a Hollywood vs. Wolfpac war games. Nobody can deny how over the Wolfpac was & it did freshen up the product.

[DanteHell10]

with the almosh half hour video, does this mean you have your youtube partnership back?

[WrestlingRoundtable]

@DanteHell10 I'm guessing?! I know, weird right? Maybe the amount of views our new vid.s got in the past week helped or the email I sent to YT(probably not) but when I went to upload it said we're good for over 15 min.s again, so I guess it's back to business as usual. Didn't get any sort of official response or notification or anything. Good, though :)

-E, Wrestling Roundtable

[rossomac21]

i always wonder what would have happened if shawn michaels had also jumped ship in that time period, he would have brought up the standard of machines along with savage to an extent. but more the ego of hbk vs the ego of hogan.

[tatertots00]

The nWo was whack it wasn't until the Wolfpack came about that it really caught my attention and I was hooked

[MobKnowledge]

@tatertots00 Wolfpac was wack causing mass destruction.

[tatertots00]

@MobKnowledge the Wolfpack is what made WCW great

[MobKnowledge]

@tatertots00 They were the Kevin Nash masturbationary gang, just a bunch of tools (not in the derogatory sense) used to get Nash over to beat Hogan's team and Goldberg.

[buffbeenstuffed]

best ending ever

[kiddynamo41]

I always thought the finger poke of doom could have been fixed with a promo with the initial three talking about how they lost their focus and getting back to the idea of taking WCW apart and taking over.

[MrKoopeh]

shit just got real

[Scottd86]

lol, storyline! nice.



[RezClown420]

Dun Dun Dunnnnnnnn