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Post by JC Motors on Apr 18, 2020 14:22:02 GMT -5
Anyone ever call the WCW hotline? I'm currently researching it and It seems as it was all a bunch of bullcrap in order to get money out of fans. Apparently this hotline gave WCW a lot of revenue.
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Post by LA Times on Apr 18, 2020 16:12:15 GMT -5
No, but I can never forget the number. 1-900-909-9900. And yes, it was full of BS bait and switch news.
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Post by JC Motors on Apr 18, 2020 17:27:17 GMT -5
No, but I can never forget the number. 1-900-909-9900. And yes, it was full of BS bait and switch news. Didn't they pull crap like saying a former champion died? People clamored to the phonelines thinking it was Ric Flair but it was some other wrestler. |
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Post by LA Times on Apr 18, 2020 17:55:23 GMT -5
No, but I can never forget the number. 1-900-909-9900. And yes, it was full of BS bait and switch news. Didn't they pull crap like saying a former champion died? People clamored to the phonelines thinking it was Ric Flair but it was some other wrestler. Yeah, it turned out to be Crusher Jerry Blackwell or somebody like that |
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Post by JC Motors on Apr 18, 2020 18:10:49 GMT -5
Didn't they pull crap like saying a former champion died? People clamored to the phonelines thinking it was Ric Flair but it was some other wrestler. Yeah, it turned out to be Crusher Jerry Blackwell or somebody like that Yeah that might be who it was. Not to mention they milked money out of people by making them wait through all of the nonsense just to find out who died. Not cool WCW. |
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Retrospect
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Post by Retrospect on Apr 18, 2020 18:33:00 GMT -5
So I never called the hotline, but before Bash at the Beach 96 there was a rumor in my neighborhood that my friends uncle called the hotline and was told that Hogan was the third man. Of course none of us believed him because who would have ever thought that Hogan would do that. I still remember when Hogan came out my brothers and I just fell silent because we knew right away that he was the third man. I still don’t know if his uncle actually called the hotline or not but it was one hell of a coincidence.
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Post by hbkbigdaddycool on Apr 18, 2020 21:38:08 GMT -5
WCW, ECW and the WWF were all guilty of this back in the day. But who could blame them, right??
A lot of fans still didn't have the internet in 1996, so they didn't read the news on Scoops Wrestling or any other news wrestling website then. However, it seemed that WCW was the worse for making fans call in to get info on nothing.
At least with WWF you got to talk to the wrestlers at the PPVs after their matches. The ECW one was probably the most shoot style hotline you could call but I am sure it was still watered down a bit.
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Post by Artie Kendall on Apr 19, 2020 12:04:38 GMT -5
I don't have the numbers in front of me but when Mean Gene went to WCW and did the hotline, he was getting I want to say 75% of the money from it. Like he made a ton of money just from the hotline. I think he also got a percentage of the Hulk Hogan hotline in WCW as well but not nearly as much.
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Post by JC Motors on Apr 19, 2020 12:47:08 GMT -5
I don't have the numbers in front of me but when Mean Gene went to WCW and did the hotline, he was getting I want to say 75% of the money from it. Like he made a ton of money just from the hotline. I think he also got a percentage of the Hulk Hogan hotline in WCW as well but not nearly as much. Interesting how he got a huge chunk of change from that Hotline. He did a hell of a job plugging it though |
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Post by Nivro™ on Apr 19, 2020 14:11:40 GMT -5
I never called the WCW line but there was a local thing you could call that gave you different options for things. You could check your horoscope, game times/lineups for sporting events, the weather etc....one of them was wrestling news which was just pulled from Meltzers new letter. It was free so I always called it every week. They (Meltzer) pounded that King Mable was the 3rd man....imagine how pissed I was when Hogan walked out.
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rateddal
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Post by rateddal on Apr 19, 2020 14:14:27 GMT -5
I never called the WCW line but there was a local thing you could call that gave you different options for things. You could check your horoscope, game times/lineups for sporting events, the weather etc....one of them was wrestling news which was just pulled from Meltzers new letter. It was free so I always called it every week. They (Meltzer) pounded that King Mable was the 3rd man....imagine how pissed I was when Hogan walked out. Oh man I totally remember that number. I also called that and definitely remember the Mabel as the 3rd man hype. |
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China Claus
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Post by China Claus on Apr 19, 2020 18:42:20 GMT -5
I remember calling it when I was around 7 years old, mid-1994 after Mean Gene said something along the lines about Sting answering questions on the Hotline. I distinctly remember them making something like a 6 minute pre-recorded announcement that Hogan had just signed with WCW, that basically just repeated itself.
I never got through to talk to Sting. And I'm pretty sure I was grounded for the next few months after my mom got the phone bill.
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Post by LA Times on Apr 19, 2020 18:45:24 GMT -5
I remember calling it when I was around 7 years old, mid-1994 after Mean Gene said Sting would be answering questions on the Hotline. I distinctly remember them making a pre-recorded announcement that Hogan had just signed with WCW. I never got through to talk to Sting. And I'm pretty sure I was grounded for the next few months after my mom got the phone bill. I was expecting plenty of stories here about how they called the hotline, ran up the phone bill and then got their ass whipped  |
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China Claus
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Post by China Claus on Apr 19, 2020 18:52:08 GMT -5
I remember calling it when I was around 7 years old, mid-1994 after Mean Gene said Sting would be answering questions on the Hotline. I distinctly remember them making a pre-recorded announcement that Hogan had just signed with WCW. I never got through to talk to Sting. And I'm pretty sure I was grounded for the next few months after my mom got the phone bill. I was expecting plenty of stories here about how they called the hotline, ran up the phone bill and then got their ass whipped That's how they made their money though. Mean Gene would plug the hotline and announce a wrestler would be taking phone calls, or they had juicy behind the scenes gossip or info, then you'd sit on the phone with some pre-recorded loop of them basically telling you to stay on the line, for more information that never came. And I most certainly got my ass whipped good over that! |
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Post by Emerald Enthusiast on Apr 20, 2020 5:19:10 GMT -5
I was expecting plenty of stories here about how they called the hotline, ran up the phone bill and then got their ass whipped That's how they made their money though. Mean Gene would plug the hotline and announce a wrestler would be taking phone calls, or they had juicy behind the scenes gossip or info, then you'd sit on the phone with some pre-recorded loop of them basically telling you to stay on the line, for more information that never came. And I most certainly got my ass whipped good over that! That is my sole memory of the Hotline. At some point in early '94 (or late 93?), just after Hogan had signed with WCW, there was a promo for the Hotline saying that callers could "hear Hulk's thoughts" on some recent WCW events. A friend of mine called, and he told me it was 7 1/2 minutes of Gene shilling WCW merch and talking about upcoming events before he finally said, "I talked to Hulk recently, and he said..." My buddy was pretty upset because the call cost him something like $35. |
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Post by Emerald Enthusiast on Apr 21, 2020 2:17:41 GMT -5
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Post by rowdy1971 on Apr 21, 2020 10:37:47 GMT -5
There use to be a local one here in Chicago. 312-976-6363 it was "Coach Kurts" wrestling hotline. He'd give results and spoilers and whatnot. That's the only one I called and for some reason we were never charged for them. He also had ticket giveaways. I won tickets to see WWF when Hogan fought Honky Tonk Man. Great times.
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Post by JC Motors on Apr 22, 2020 11:57:35 GMT -5
I don't get why people would think Ric Flair was the one who died. |
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TheXtremisT
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Post by TheXtremisT on Apr 23, 2020 6:12:01 GMT -5
I don't get why people would think Ric Flair was the one who died. Mean Gene specifically said it was a "45 year old former HEAVYWEIGHT champion", when in fact it was a former AWA Tag Team champion. So he led them to believe it was someone who fit that description, of which there aren't t hat many. Plus it was before everyone had the internet and became a smark. |
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