So Bad It's Horrible/Professional Wrestling/World Championship Wrestling: Difference between revisions

 

The sheer amount of terrible angles, [[Gimmick Matches]], backstage politics, [[Vince Russo]] booking, and horrendous business decisions led to a company worth $500,000,000 and backed by Ted Turner becoming a hollow shell of a promotion bought by [[Vince McMahon]] for just $3,000,000.

 

== Championships ==

* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5oMiqJRVqs&feature=fvwrel The Shockmaster], a wrestler whose career literally ended in seconds. For weeks, a mystery man had been built up as the difference maker in a huge WCW feud. During the mystery man's introduction on a WCW pay-per-view, The Shockmaster broke through a wall (he was big and strong, see?)...and tripped over the edge of the hole, landing on his face and losing his helmet (which exposed him as Fred Ottman, better known as Tugboat or Typhoon). The only difference he made was sinking the angle and his career. Oh, and the helmet he lost? [[WTH Costuming Department|A Stormtrooper Halloween mask covered with purple glitter.]] That's right, even his ''costume'' sucked.

** [[Ric Flair]] and Davey Boy Smith (who were part of this angle) promptly ran backstage to avoid breaking character in front of the audience, and even [[Jesse Ventura]] (on commentary) laughed himself sick. Sid "Vicious" Eudy deserves some kind of medal for being able to keep a straight face during his subsequent conversation with Shockmaster.

* The Stacy Kiebler/"Miss Hancock" pregnancy angle is fortunately a subversion, as WCW was mercifully taken behind the woodshed before the angle could come to a conclusion. If it had, the father of her child would've been revealed to be Vince Russo.

* Russo and Ed Ferrara's angle of "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=265cQznMJbI Oklahoma]", which consisted of Ferrara dressing up as a parody of [[Jim Ross]] complete with BBQ sauce and mocking JR's Bell's palsy (and calling matches just by yelling things repeatedly), was a [[Dude, Not Funny|completely tasteless gag]] that nobody thought was funny; many people within the company (including [[Ric Flair]]) were outright pissed that Russo and Ferrara would do something so utterly crass. You can even hear Tony Schiavone utter a legitimately shocked "[["No. Just... No" Reaction|Oh]], ''[["No. Just... No" Reaction|no]]''." the first time Oklahoma came out during ''Mayhem 1999'', and he seems beside himself the whole time the mockery is going on.

** As an added bonus: on that same show, Tony Schiavone launched a [[Take That]] at [[Mick Foley|Mick "Mankind" Foley]] and the WWF, revealing that he was going to win the WWF Championship and sarcastically proclaiming "that'll put some butts in seats". Hundreds of thousands of fans immediately switched over to ''[[WWE Raw|Raw]]''; throughout the next few months, signs showed up on ''Raw'' that said "[[Mick Foley]] put my ass in this seat". In Schiavone's defense, he was ordered to say it by Bischoff despite not wanting to.

* The famous attempt to play [[Booker T]] and his brother Stevie Ray as what appeared to be '''slaves''' (they were called "The Posse" and supposed to be convicts). Stevie was to be called "Kole" and Booker was to be called "Kane". This was tried at a house show and met with such vehemence that it never made it to TV, as the image of two black men in shackles led to the ring by Col. Rob Parker (a rich white Southerner) [[Unfortunate Implications|raised way too many red flags]]. Booker and Stevie did initially come out as Kane and Kole, just not with the slave gimmick.

* It seems ironic that WCW tried to regain the lead in the [[Monday Night Wars]] through one man whom WWE had reused earlier with limited success, The [[Ultimate Warrior]]. Warrior's stint in WCW did not go well, from a needlessly long and confusing introduction dashed with various motifs blatantly stolen from ''Batman'' to his lacking in-ring skills, fans were treated to a show that was goofier than ever. The climax was a notoriously bad match between Warrior and [[Hulk Hogan]] at ''Halloween Havoc 1998'', which Hogan won after a cheap run-in. Just to make things that little bit worse, Warrior had a number of perks and high pay hardly matching his lax workload in his contract. Also of note is that Davey Boy Smith badly injured himself on a trap door that Warrior used to enter the ring and was later fired via Fed Ex.