How popular was WCW at its peak in the late 90s? Did Goldberg or DDP have household name recognition like Stone Cold?
It's honestly tough to say because they got fucked over in Canada by only airing Nitro on TSN, which was a premium channel. I distinctly remember being 13 years old in 2000 and seeing a marked down pile of WCW video games at EB.
>>16747552goldberg was definitely a household name
>>16747681>they got fucked over in Canada by only airing Nitro on TSNTSN was on most entry level cable packages.Also Raw and Nitro were on the same fucking channel with WCW on tape delay.
Very popular, you had to be there to witness it. WCW didn't beat WWF 83 weeks in a row for no reason.
>>16747552Goldberg yes. DDP no. I was a huge DDP mark as a kid and no one ever knew who he was when I wore his shirt.
goldberg was arguably the most popular wrestler in the world when he was at his most over
>>16747552I remember seeing nWo shirts everywhere in high school for a year or two then Austin shirts
>>16747552Goldberg was a bigger star than Austin, and WCW was a better product than WWF. As the saying goes, history is written by the victors, so now WWE will tell you that Austin was the biggest draw of all time and the Rock was over in 2001.
>>16747726So how did they lose then?
>>16747736Because despite what Eric will tell you, his way of doing things was never going to last long term.
>>16747736that no good rotten kurt angle betrayed the alliance at survivor series
>>16747552As a kid in the 90's who knew little about wrestling, I still recognized the name Goldberg and what the dude looked like along with Sting.
>>16747806
>>16747741
>>16747724that was Triple H
>>16747869sup paul
>>16747821>>16747824okay how u know?
>>16747893
>>16747824No one asked you, Dave.
>>16747901
>>16747904I'm afraid. I'm afraid, Dave. Dave, my mind is going. I can feel it. I can feel it. My mind is going. There is no question about it.
>>16747934
feels like pure shit brothers just wish jay leno got his title shot against arquette
Stone Cold never had household name recognition, no wrestler other than Hulk Hogan did. This is a fact.Yes there was a wresting boom in the mid to late 90s but outside of young males and teens, most people did not give a shit about the wrestlers themselves but knew of the brands. A parent would know that their kid watches WCW or WWF but they would not know Bill Goldberg from Barry Horowitz.
>>16747736A couple of things. First, there was a major decline in quality around 1999. But it was still very watchable, far more watchable than any company today.The real death toll was that after Turner merged with AOL, they didn't want to deal with pro-wrestling anymore and Ted Turner was no longer in any place to save it. WCW was Billionaire Ted's project. Unlike Tony, he was smart enough to keep his hands off it directly. Once he was out, unscrupulous execs sold it to Vince at a bargain price just to be rid of it.It didn't fail on its own merits, unlike the picture that WWE portrays. Yes, there were a lot of shit storylines but WWE leaves out when telling that part of the story is that WWE did the exact same shit, often worse.
>>16748033what are ya stupid or somethin. my hillbilly elementary school with no budget or roof had this hanging up in the cafeteria
>>16748033Goldberg absolutely had name recognition, the fuck you talking about.WWE has brainwashed you kids good. Literal cult.
We had Dennis fucking Rodman.Anyone under 30 knows fuck-all about WCW.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWqCn3x1xuA
>>16747681same here in Germany...for whatever reason WCW was hard to watch
>>16747552>were Goldberg and ddp household namesNo but Hogan and Macho were, Goldberg was getting close and you couldn't go to a mall in 1998 without seeing a dozen nwo shirts, a dozen dx shirts and a dozen Austin 316 shirts. They say it's a new boom but outside of wrestling events the only place I see wrestling shirts is clearance bins at FYE
>>16747700Anybody telling you about any sort of war in Canada is lying. Raw was live and Nitro was tape delay on Tues or Wed. Both on TSN. Canada was always WWF territory which is why Vince leaned so hard into it in the down years.Only reason I or anyone watched Nitro was because Raw was on too late and was too adult.
>>16747736When everyone is in the NWO, who's gonna fight the NWO?When the guys in the NWO politick the booking to favour them in the short term, who's gonna book for the long term?After a year and a half of tremendous success, WCW fell into a trap of its own making. They ran out of challengers and weren't getting anyone over, because Bischoff and the Turner executives focused on the NWO.They were only booking one week at a time as well, with a lot of last minute changes from the politicians. You can't put people over when a guy wins one week and disappears for the next two months.
>>16748048kino
>>16747726>Goldberg was a bigger star than AustinLol no
>>16747736No real payoff to the NWO angle. Old people stinking up the main events. Bringing in Bret and making him Hogan's stooge. Shit like that.
>>16747552>goldbergyeah>ddpnah
>>16747681>>16747700>>16749009Canada is like less than half the population of California alone. Its not a major market at all, especially back then so I doubt they gave a shit
goldberg yesddp noddp was never pushed as the guy when he was hot and slowly tapered off after his loss to goldberg. he was still mega over but audiences slowly stopped caring as much iirc. also i dunno why but he lost some aura with me when he got the haircut.
>>16747736the idea that WCW was the big bad going after the underdogs of the WWF is a myth pushed by WWE to zoomers. WCW was always fighting a uphill battle against WWF because WWF was seen as pro wrestling for so long and still is. WCW definitely had a stronger overall program, but dropped off a cliff in 99.WCW dying like it did was probably one of the worst things to happen to wrestling, it being bought by WWF means you can never have any kind of recognisable brand again. doubly worse is WWE went unopposed for 20 years and has a generation or two of completely brainwashed retards.
>>16747742I'm always surprised by how few people realise the Invasion angle was a shoot.
>>16748968DDP, Sting, and Goldberg were all household names imo. But yeah it was so insanely over and culturally relevant. I remember seeing Goldberg on a Surge vending machine. Some kids dad came to my elementary Fall festival in full Crow Sting cosplay lol. I feel like it was in a bigger boom period around 2015 than now though, we aren’t approaching the 90s.>>16749250This is also true. WCW has a great, storied history. It’s almost impossible to watch WWE official documentaries mentioning WCW. I like the current product but retconning is one thing that kinda annoys me.
>>16747552>>16748048Yea Rodman ditched NBA finals practice with Jordan and the 98 Bulls to do Nitro and it was the biggest story in sports the next day.
Household means women and men of all ages. Goldberg and Stone Cold had big five year bursts among high school males and wrestling viewers. They're known at the Johnny Knoxville level, not Bruce Springsteen or Tom Cruise. Hulk Hogan had like 15 years where he became the only wrestler ever on cover of Sports Illustrated, big Rocky movie, MTV and Lauper, with Mr. T, movies and TV shows, numerous talk shows, 20+ million viewers on NBC Main Events, Saturday morning cartoon, Real American video played on MTV, etc. He and Rock are top tier for wrestler recognition. Probably Cena, Flair and Macho below and others below them.
>>16749684People act like Tyson was a bigger deal but he was washed by the late 90s.
>>16750164No shit, Tyson went directly to WWF from the Holyfield fight. He was there because he was washed.
>>16749237>Seething about America JrTheir population is a bit bigger than CA.They have way more fans per capita.They were guaranteed sellouts when the company was bleeding money and struggling domestically which is why at they ran at least 1-2 PPVs a year there.
>>16749310First guy you replied to, I said Goldberg was approaching that household name status right before 99 and then since 1/2/99 the company went down so fast that the only thing i think that hit the household ubiquitous in pop culture status was the NWO. 2000 was really the year that everybody seemed to be into wrestling and it was also WCW's worst year.
>>16750164>>16750202He was washed but he was still a draw.The 2nd Holyfield fight the year before held the PPV buy record until Floyd/Oscar. And he almost matched it with Lewis 5 years afterwards.
>>16748033worst take maybe in the history of this board
>>16750772Seconded, >anon to anondon't ever go to /vr/ anon, it's all zoomies talking with authority about shit thay happened 6+ years before they were born
>>16747552I can only speak from being a kid in Australia, it wasn't as popular as wwf, people sort of knew who sting, Goldberg, Nash, Hogan and Scott steiner were...other than that it was on during the day, the video games were good, you could watch the ppvs normally by renting videos as with WWF but that was on prime time TV on a good channel which the whole family would watch, and everyone knew Austin, rock, mankind, carder, Kane and so on..but no definitely was not popularmy parents thought they were the same thing desu and is occasionally get wcw stuff that's the only reason I knew what it was same with friends of mine, I can't speak for adult Australian marks though
>>16747552WCW was the brand for a while. They had the legends and the better video game. WWF games fucking sucked. They had NWO and Sting; kids loved that.Yeah, WWF eventually rose up and took over, but that was after WCW has it's day in the sun. Then the whole thing became a monopoly and went to shit with WWE. Stopped watching in 2000, by the way.
>>16747552It was pretty big for a couple of years. They’re the reason WWF even had the attitude era. My friends and I watched all of it and had both WWF and WCW games on N64/PSX. Nitro and RAW in the late 90’s was absolute peak
They became compliacentNeko was the canaryhttps://youtu.be/i3rluvToHiw?si=gsAAKO97uMXycvhr
ITT; retards who don't understand what the term "household name" meansexcept for these>>16749687>>16748033Just because a bunch of 12 year olds at your school knew who Stone Cold was doesn't make a household name.
Sting, Goldberg, the Four Horsemen, Randy Savage, Hollywood HoganAll of these men were household names. There was then a tier below them of Booker T, DDP, Bret Hart, Lex Luger, Kevin Nash, and maybe 1 or 2 more main event guys but not household names.
>>16750251Mayweather vs. de La Hoya was probably the only Mayweather fight I’ve enjoyed.
>>16749219>dude let's pay bret hart 3 million dollars and have his first appearance be a special guest referee>for bischoff and zbyszko!absolute fucking mental retardation on a colossal scale.
