As the Monday Night War documentary continues to air segments aggrandizing WWE Superstars of the 90's, one question lingers. If Vince McMahon won his little war, why is he so petty that he can't acknowledge the real threat that WCW posed during the now-infamous ratings battle? As I continue to watch episodes of WCW Monday Nitro, it becomes increasingly apparent that stars like Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair, Sting and Randy Savage were still relevant after Vince McMahon's so-called youth movement at WWE.
Still making my way through WCW Monday Nitro on the WWE Network. There's a ton of great archival footage in the Vault, but I've been catching up on one of the most fertile periods in wrestling history, the mid-90's.
While much has been said by fans and pundits about the shortcomings of Ted Turner's Atlanta-based promotion World Championship Wrestling (and plenty of that criticism is valid), the tendency to revise the past is often too easy to resist.
According to many wrestlers who were involved in the now-defunct WCW, there were numerous backstage problems which often included installing non-wrestling people into important positions. However, because of this, it seems that the product is often maligned unfairly.
While it's true that the arrival of the nWo was the primary reason WCW ended up overtaking Vince's operation for a time, it's unfair to criticize the booking up until then as compared to some of the lame product the WWF was pitching in the early nineties.
Much of the debate is subjective. Kevin Sullivan's Dungeon of Doom may have been cartoonish and silly, but they very much fit the aesthetic of the time. I think it's only in retrospect that we compare that time period unfavorably with the raw, more fourth-wall-breaking storylines that began to appear in the years following the Hall/Nash invasion.
And further, the retrospectives put out by WWE often concentrate on Vince's youth movement of the 90's as the gospel according to McMahon- as if that was the only possible business move available to him- as opposed to his decisions being a choice.
Subjectively, I feel that Hogan and Savage had a lot of gas left in the tank, and Sting and Ric Flair were still putting on 5-star matches in 1996.
If there was a fault in the booking at WCW at that time, it was that the time spent each Monday was disproportionately spent focusing on those established main eventers instead of shining a deserving spotlight on the talented next generation: Eddie Guerrero, Chris Benoit, Chris Jericho, Rey Mysterio, etc.
In the end, though, as I said before, the debate is largely subjective. Some people like sports entertainment, which is what Vince McMahon has always excelled at. And some people like wrestling. And I think that WCW, for a long time, had much better wrestling.
What do you think?
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