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Post by cordless2016 on Dec 28, 2022 11:28:55 GMT -5
Bret was always an interesting choice for me to beat the streak had he been booked correctly from the start.
Having him ref a match between Larry and Easy-E was a horrible decision for his first WCW PPV appearance. I’d have debuted him with a big win at Starrcade. Hall didn’t have a match, so I’d have put him against Bret with Bret going over clean with the Sharpshooter. To end the show, Bret prevents the nWo from helping Hogan while Sting gets him to tap and wins the world title. For the next few months, Sting is dealing with Hogan and Macho while Bret is taking on guys like Nash, Hall, and Perfect. Meanwhile the nWo is showing cracks and starting to split due to not being able to beat either Sting or Bret.
Bret gets a title match with Sting, where Hogan screws him. Hogan beats Sting the next night for the belt, and goes on to lose it to Goldberg a few months later. Bret meanwhile gets his match with Hogan, where Sting accidentally costs Bret the match while trying to repay the favor from Starrcade and fend off the nWo.
Bret gets increasingly frustrated with continuing to be screwed, and starts to show signs of becoming more cold and calculated in his matches without fully turning heel. Bret eventually beats Sting clean for a shot against Goldberg at Starrcade 1998, and you have the intrigue of whether Bret will keep to his honest ways or will his frustrations of being screwed finally boil over in the match.
IDK I always thought something along these lines made sense coming off Montreal and would play into Bret’s real life and kayfabe feelings without making it the entire story surrounding Bret.
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Post by jason88cubs on Dec 28, 2022 11:56:19 GMT -5
Bret was always an interesting choice for me to beat the streak had he been booked correctly from the start. Having him ref a match between Larry and Easy-E was a horrible decision for his first WCW PPV appearance. I’d have debuted him with a big win at Starrcade. Hall didn’t have a match, so I’d have put him against Bret with Bret going over clean with the Sharpshooter. To end the show, Bret prevents the nWo from helping Hogan while Sting gets him to tap and wins the world title. For the next few months, Sting is dealing with Hogan and Macho while Bret is taking on guys like Nash, Hall, and Perfect. Meanwhile the nWo is showing cracks and starting to split due to not being able to beat either Sting or Bret. Bret gets a title match with Sting, where Hogan screws him. Hogan beats Sting the next night for the belt, and goes on to lose it to Goldberg a few months later. Bret meanwhile gets his match with Hogan, where Sting accidentally costs Bret the match while trying to repay the favor from Starrcade and fend off the nWo. Bret gets increasingly frustrated with continuing to be screwed, and starts to show signs of becoming more cold and calculated in his matches without fully turning heel. Bret eventually beats Sting clean for a shot against Goldberg at Starrcade 1998, and you have the intrigue of whether Bret will keep to his honest ways or will his frustrations of being screwed finally boil over in the match. IDK I always thought something along these lines made sense coming off Montreal and would play into Bret’s real life and kayfabe feelings without making it the entire story surrounding Bret.
Bret couldn't wrestle at Starrcade, he had a 60 day period where he couldn't wrestle
Otherwise I like what you wrote
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Post by cordless2016 on Dec 28, 2022 12:14:34 GMT -5
Bret was always an interesting choice for me to beat the streak had he been booked correctly from the start. Having him ref a match between Larry and Easy-E was a horrible decision for his first WCW PPV appearance. I’d have debuted him with a big win at Starrcade. Hall didn’t have a match, so I’d have put him against Bret with Bret going over clean with the Sharpshooter. To end the show, Bret prevents the nWo from helping Hogan while Sting gets him to tap and wins the world title. For the next few months, Sting is dealing with Hogan and Macho while Bret is taking on guys like Nash, Hall, and Perfect. Meanwhile the nWo is showing cracks and starting to split due to not being able to beat either Sting or Bret. Bret gets a title match with Sting, where Hogan screws him. Hogan beats Sting the next night for the belt, and goes on to lose it to Goldberg a few months later. Bret meanwhile gets his match with Hogan, where Sting accidentally costs Bret the match while trying to repay the favor from Starrcade and fend off the nWo. Bret gets increasingly frustrated with continuing to be screwed, and starts to show signs of becoming more cold and calculated in his matches without fully turning heel. Bret eventually beats Sting clean for a shot against Goldberg at Starrcade 1998, and you have the intrigue of whether Bret will keep to his honest ways or will his frustrations of being screwed finally boil over in the match. IDK I always thought something along these lines made sense coming off Montreal and would play into Bret’s real life and kayfabe feelings without making it the entire story surrounding Bret. Bret couldn't wrestle at Starrcade, he had a 60 day period where he couldn't wrestle Otherwise I like what you wrote
I’ve always heard conflicting reports on the no-compete for Bret. I believe it was in Bret’s book where he mentions the no-compete, but when Bischoff has been questioned about debuting Bret in WCW I don’t believe I’ve ever heard him mention the no compete clause. Sounds weird to me that Bret would have a no-compete when Vince was the one who broke the contract, but then again I’m not a lawyer. |
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Post by hbkbigdaddycool on Dec 28, 2022 12:46:43 GMT -5
i hated it just because i knew nash was doing the booking for it at the time gee, let me be the one to end the streak. how convenient. honestly, it should have never ended.
Nash wasn't booking at the time I don't believe.
He didn't start booking WCW until spring of 1999. That's why he booked himself into retiring when losing to Hogan at a PPV so he could just not work, get paid money for being there, and write out story lines which got him more money.
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Post by The Brain on Dec 28, 2022 12:56:16 GMT -5
Its amazing looking back all the good the NWO angle did for the company in the beginning and all the bad it did in the end...
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Post by jason88cubs on Dec 28, 2022 12:56:26 GMT -5
Bret couldn't wrestle at Starrcade, he had a 60 day period where he couldn't wrestle Otherwise I like what you wrote
I’ve always heard conflicting reports on the no-compete for Bret. I believe it was in Bret’s book where he mentions the no-compete, but when Bischoff has been questioned about debuting Bret in WCW I don’t believe I’ve ever heard him mention the no compete clause. Sounds weird to me that Bret would have a no-compete when Vince was the one who broke the contract, but then again I’m not a lawyer. I also feel Bret's first feud vs Flair was a letdown. i like Flair but after Bret had been dealing with Nwo why is he facing Flair right away? |
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Post by jason88cubs on Dec 28, 2022 12:57:29 GMT -5
Its amazing looking back all the good the NWO angle did for the company in the beginning and all the bad it did in the end... Yep.
I liked the split between black and white and Wolfpack
It gave us something fresh.
People forget how OVER the Wolfpack was. It was HUGE!
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Post by MKSavage on Dec 28, 2022 19:36:19 GMT -5
Bret was always an interesting choice for me to beat the streak had he been booked correctly from the start. Having him ref a match between Larry and Easy-E was a horrible decision for his first WCW PPV appearance. I’d have debuted him with a big win at Starrcade. Hall didn’t have a match, so I’d have put him against Bret with Bret going over clean with the Sharpshooter. To end the show, Bret prevents the nWo from helping Hogan while Sting gets him to tap and wins the world title. For the next few months, Sting is dealing with Hogan and Macho while Bret is taking on guys like Nash, Hall, and Perfect. Meanwhile the nWo is showing cracks and starting to split due to not being able to beat either Sting or Bret. Bret gets a title match with Sting, where Hogan screws him. Hogan beats Sting the next night for the belt, and goes on to lose it to Goldberg a few months later. Bret meanwhile gets his match with Hogan, where Sting accidentally costs Bret the match while trying to repay the favor from Starrcade and fend off the nWo. Bret gets increasingly frustrated with continuing to be screwed, and starts to show signs of becoming more cold and calculated in his matches without fully turning heel. Bret eventually beats Sting clean for a shot against Goldberg at Starrcade 1998, and you have the intrigue of whether Bret will keep to his honest ways or will his frustrations of being screwed finally boil over in the match. IDK I always thought something along these lines made sense coming off Montreal and would play into Bret’s real life and kayfabe feelings without making it the entire story surrounding Bret. That sounds interesting. I always thought that the thing to do should have been get him into a feud with Hogan, as soon as possible. You paid him so much money, the big money match in my opinion was with Hogan. That was a match we had not seen before; they could have played up the 1993 thing where Hogan refused to work with him for the belt. I would have had Bret run the gauntlet through the NWO for months leading to a match with Hogan for the WCW title. He needed to go through all of them to look credible. Have him wrestle/beat the lesser NWO guys on Nitro or Thunder and go over the better known NWO guys on the PPVs. Start with him beating Hall, then Henning, then Nash, then Savage, to ultimately get his match with Hogan. This would give WCW a chance to get past the Sting/Hogan feud with Bret being Hogan's next opponent. Also, to help get Bret over with the WCW fans, have him helping/saving a lot of the WCW guys from NWO attacks - really cement Bret as a major threat to the NWO. Then he finally gets his match with Hogan, make it look like Bret is going to win only for the NWO to get involved and screw him out of the title. Then I would do a rematch, if the fans were really getting behind Bret, then I would have him go over Hogan. If the fans weren't really getting behind Bret, then Hogan can retain the title (not by pinning Bret, but by other means). This also would have been around the time that Hogan and Goldberg met on Nitro. If they felt Goldberg was the right guy to defeat Hogan for the title, have that happen, instead of having the second Hogan/Bret match. Then, by not having Hogan truly beat Bret, they've now made Bret look like a credible threat to Goldberg. Now they can start playing up the Bret being screwed angle; will he face Goldberg fairly for the title or turn heel because of his frustrations. I’ve always heard conflicting reports on the no-compete for Bret. I believe it was in Bret’s book where he mentions the no-compete, but when Bischoff has been questioned about debuting Bret in WCW I don’t believe I’ve ever heard him mention the no compete clause. Sounds weird to me that Bret would have a no-compete when Vince was the one who broke the contract, but then again I’m not a lawyer. I also feel Bret's first feud vs Flair was a letdown. i like Flair but after Bret had been dealing with Nwo why is he facing Flair right away? Yeah, at the time it seemed like a no-brainer to put them together, but looking back, it seems like a terrible choice. Bret was the new fresh face, he just screwed the NWO over at Starrcade, twice, and his first big feud is with Flair, that doesn't make much sense. Also, if they were trying to get Bret over as a babyface, putting him in a feud with Flair was the wrong way to go. At that time, Flair was either 2nd or 3rd in popularity for WCW (behind only Sting and maybe Luger). Having Bret say he was the best there is, the best there was, and the best there ever will be, to Flair, in Flair/Horsemen country wasn't going to go over well. People forget that Bret was not a babyface in the eyes of many fans at the time, he just spent most of 1997 trashing America and Americans, they weren't just going to be fans of his again. And you had a lot of new fans that only knew of Bret as the America-hating hell. They needed to rebuild his reputation, putting him against Flair wasn't going to do that. |
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Post by jason88cubs on Dec 28, 2022 20:13:12 GMT -5
Bret was always an interesting choice for me to beat the streak had he been booked correctly from the start. Having him ref a match between Larry and Easy-E was a horrible decision for his first WCW PPV appearance. I’d have debuted him with a big win at Starrcade. Hall didn’t have a match, so I’d have put him against Bret with Bret going over clean with the Sharpshooter. To end the show, Bret prevents the nWo from helping Hogan while Sting gets him to tap and wins the world title. For the next few months, Sting is dealing with Hogan and Macho while Bret is taking on guys like Nash, Hall, and Perfect. Meanwhile the nWo is showing cracks and starting to split due to not being able to beat either Sting or Bret. Bret gets a title match with Sting, where Hogan screws him. Hogan beats Sting the next night for the belt, and goes on to lose it to Goldberg a few months later. Bret meanwhile gets his match with Hogan, where Sting accidentally costs Bret the match while trying to repay the favor from Starrcade and fend off the nWo. Bret gets increasingly frustrated with continuing to be screwed, and starts to show signs of becoming more cold and calculated in his matches without fully turning heel. Bret eventually beats Sting clean for a shot against Goldberg at Starrcade 1998, and you have the intrigue of whether Bret will keep to his honest ways or will his frustrations of being screwed finally boil over in the match. IDK I always thought something along these lines made sense coming off Montreal and would play into Bret’s real life and kayfabe feelings without making it the entire story surrounding Bret. That sounds interesting. I always thought that the thing to do should have been get him into a feud with Hogan, as soon as possible. You paid him so much money, the big money match in my opinion was with Hogan. That was a match we had not seen before; they could have played up the 1993 thing where Hogan refused to work with him for the belt. I would have had Bret run the gauntlet through the NWO for months leading to a match with Hogan for the WCW title. He needed to go through all of them to look credible. Have him wrestle/beat the lesser NWO guys on Nitro or Thunder and go over the better known NWO guys on the PPVs. Start with him beating Hall, then Henning, then Nash, then Savage, to ultimately get his match with Hogan. This would give WCW a chance to get past the Sting/Hogan feud with Bret being Hogan's next opponent. Also, to help get Bret over with the WCW fans, have him helping/saving a lot of the WCW guys from NWO attacks - really cement Bret as a major threat to the NWO. Then he finally gets his match with Hogan, make it look like Bret is going to win only for the NWO to get involved and screw him out of the title. Then I would do a rematch, if the fans were really getting behind Bret, then I would have him go over Hogan. If the fans weren't really getting behind Bret, then Hogan can retain the title (not by pinning Bret, but by other means). This also would have been around the time that Hogan and Goldberg met on Nitro. If they felt Goldberg was the right guy to defeat Hogan for the title, have that happen, instead of having the second Hogan/Bret match. Then, by not having Hogan truly beat Bret, they've now made Bret look like a credible threat to Goldberg. Now they can start playing up the Bret being screwed angle; will he face Goldberg fairly for the title or turn heel because of his frustrations. I also feel Bret's first feud vs Flair was a letdown. i like Flair but after Bret had been dealing with Nwo why is he facing Flair right away? Yeah, at the time it seemed like a no-brainer to put them together, but looking back, it seems like a terrible choice. Bret was the new fresh face, he just screwed the NWO over at Starrcade, twice, and his first big feud is with Flair, that doesn't make much sense. Also, if they were trying to get Bret over as a babyface, putting him in a feud with Flair was the wrong way to go. At that time, Flair was either 2nd or 3rd in popularity for WCW (behind only Sting and maybe Luger). Having Bret say he was the best there is, the best there was, and the best there ever will be, to Flair, in Flair/Horsemen country wasn't going to go over well. People forget that Bret was not a babyface in the eyes of many fans at the time, he just spent most of 1997 trashing America and Americans, they weren't just going to be fans of his again. And you had a lot of new fans that only knew of Bret as the America-hating hell. They needed to rebuild his reputation, putting him against Flair wasn't going to do that. I almost would have liked Bret vs Luger to be Bret's first feud
Luger could play up 1994 and how Bret stole his title and Luger wasn't going to let it happen again
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Post by MKSavage on Dec 28, 2022 20:43:10 GMT -5
That sounds interesting. I always thought that the thing to do should have been get him into a feud with Hogan, as soon as possible. You paid him so much money, the big money match in my opinion was with Hogan. That was a match we had not seen before; they could have played up the 1993 thing where Hogan refused to work with him for the belt. I would have had Bret run the gauntlet through the NWO for months leading to a match with Hogan for the WCW title. He needed to go through all of them to look credible. Have him wrestle/beat the lesser NWO guys on Nitro or Thunder and go over the better known NWO guys on the PPVs. Start with him beating Hall, then Henning, then Nash, then Savage, to ultimately get his match with Hogan. This would give WCW a chance to get past the Sting/Hogan feud with Bret being Hogan's next opponent. Also, to help get Bret over with the WCW fans, have him helping/saving a lot of the WCW guys from NWO attacks - really cement Bret as a major threat to the NWO. Then he finally gets his match with Hogan, make it look like Bret is going to win only for the NWO to get involved and screw him out of the title. Then I would do a rematch, if the fans were really getting behind Bret, then I would have him go over Hogan. If the fans weren't really getting behind Bret, then Hogan can retain the title (not by pinning Bret, but by other means). This also would have been around the time that Hogan and Goldberg met on Nitro. If they felt Goldberg was the right guy to defeat Hogan for the title, have that happen, instead of having the second Hogan/Bret match. Then, by not having Hogan truly beat Bret, they've now made Bret look like a credible threat to Goldberg. Now they can start playing up the Bret being screwed angle; will he face Goldberg fairly for the title or turn heel because of his frustrations. Yeah, at the time it seemed like a no-brainer to put them together, but looking back, it seems like a terrible choice. Bret was the new fresh face, he just screwed the NWO over at Starrcade, twice, and his first big feud is with Flair, that doesn't make much sense. Also, if they were trying to get Bret over as a babyface, putting him in a feud with Flair was the wrong way to go. At that time, Flair was either 2nd or 3rd in popularity for WCW (behind only Sting and maybe Luger). Having Bret say he was the best there is, the best there was, and the best there ever will be, to Flair, in Flair/Horsemen country wasn't going to go over well. People forget that Bret was not a babyface in the eyes of many fans at the time, he just spent most of 1997 trashing America and Americans, they weren't just going to be fans of his again. And you had a lot of new fans that only knew of Bret as the America-hating hell. They needed to rebuild his reputation, putting him against Flair wasn't going to do that. I almost would have liked Bret vs Luger to be Bret's first feud
Luger could play up 1994 and how Bret stole his title and Luger wasn't going to let it happen again
I think that could have worked down the road, but at the time, Luger was a popular babyface, so putting him with Bret would have been pretty much the same thing as putting Bret with Flair. If they have Bret beat Goldberg, they could have put Luger as Bret's next opponent with the storyline you mentioned. Depending on if Bret turned heel or not, Luger could turn heel at this point to feud with Bret. |
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Post by hbkbigdaddycool on Dec 29, 2022 1:53:49 GMT -5
So as a Nash fan, I feel I need to say something here. Kevin Nash was extremely over in 1998. The Wolfpac was over, Nash was the man, the WCW fans knew it and they cheered him like no other. He was more over than Sting, Luger and Konnan when it came to the Wolfpac. Was Nash the right man to end the streak?? Maybe. Who knows. Should a heel ended it to get over even more?? Perhaps. But Nash was the one who beat Goldberg, he became WCW World Champion, and 18 year old me was in heaven seeing Big Kev as a World Champion once again!  |
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Post by ASR (therockisback) on Dec 29, 2022 15:45:08 GMT -5
What a moment!! The good old days.
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TheEvilDoink1987
Main Eventer
Joined on: Feb 22, 2010 21:37:52 GMT -5
Posts: 2,801
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Post by TheEvilDoink1987 on Dec 30, 2022 23:26:52 GMT -5
I still don't think Goldberg losing or winning that night would've spared WCW of their fate and the nosedive they were about to embark on.
WCW was creatively tanking, but there were so many other behind the scenes things happening on the corporate level that inevitably would have sunk the company regardless.
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Post by Mongo Bears on Dec 31, 2022 12:38:15 GMT -5
So as a Nash fan, I feel I need to say something here. Kevin Nash was extremely over in 1998. The Wolfpac was over, Nash was the man, the WCW fans knew it and they cheered him like no other. He was more over than Sting, Luger and Konnan when it came to the Wolfpac. Was Nash the right man to end the streak?? Maybe. Who knows. Should a heel ended it to get over even more?? Perhaps. But Nash was the one who beat Goldberg, he became WCW World Champion, and 18 year old me was in heaven seeing Big Kev as a World Champion once again! This was also my perspective at the time. I liked goldberg at the beginning but by the end of the streak I just wanted it over and Nash was one of the best I could think of to do it then. Wcw was  ed either way |
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Post by JokerFC on Dec 31, 2022 20:34:39 GMT -5
Nash & the Wolfpac were over f##kin huge. He was a fine choice to end it but what happened the night after?
Jesus 🤷
Then they have the chance to really book a hit Angle with Goldberg destroying the new nWo...but they also pass on that in favor of Goldberg vs Bam Bam & Flair vs Hogan....where Hogan turns face.
By the time Goldberg even gets at Nash nobody gave a sh#t.
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Post by K5 on Jan 10, 2023 0:31:12 GMT -5
I would’ve had Bryan Clark be the man to take Goldberg down, after beating Nash instead of losing to him.
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Post by cordless2016 on Jan 10, 2023 7:15:40 GMT -5
I still don't think Goldberg losing or winning that night would've spared WCW of their fate and the nosedive they were about to embark on. WCW was creatively tanking, but there were so many other behind the scenes things happening on the corporate level that inevitably would have sunk the company regardless. Eric Bischoff’s podcast is a great listen when he’s not defending Hogan, and it’s interesting when he starts discussing 1998. Considering Turner was run by a bunch of corporate execs and not a true “promoter,” he mentions noticing the behind-the-scenes issue as early as the Spring of 1998. This combined with the rise of Austin in the WWF is when he knew they were in trouble and it went far beyond things they could control. Hogan and others having creative control didn’t help, but that’s not solely what ultimately killed WCW or led to their downfall as you mentioned. |
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Post by The Brain on Jan 10, 2023 11:31:10 GMT -5
I would’ve had Bryan Clark be the man to take Goldberg down, after beating Nash instead of losing to him. Man he was over like rover for a time there in late 98.The pop he'd get for his meltdown finisher was HUGE Ton of potential there for sure. |
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Post by JokerFC on Jan 10, 2023 20:28:54 GMT -5
I still don't think Goldberg losing or winning that night would've spared WCW of their fate and the nosedive they were about to embark on. WCW was creatively tanking, but there were so many other behind the scenes things happening on the corporate level that inevitably would have sunk the company regardless. Eric Bischoff’s podcast is a great listen when he’s not defending Hogan, and it’s interesting when he starts discussing 1998. Considering Turner was run by a bunch of corporate execs and not a true “promoter,” he mentions noticing the behind-the-scenes issue as early as the Spring of 1998. This combined with the rise of Austin in the WWF is when he knew they were in trouble and it went far beyond things they could control. Hogan and others having creative control didn’t help, but that’s not solely what ultimately killed WCW or led to their downfall as you mentioned. Agreed. Bischoff had a lot of challenges that Vince didn't have & he isn't the only guy to note that they felt WCW was in peril after the merger regardless of the business it was or wasn't doing. the merger changed the dynamic in 1998 huge. I also agree that I don't think Goldberg winning would have saved anything. The creative savvy just didn't exist to follow up with another hit angle..... Instead of telling the likes of Flair who suddenly decided he wanted to turn heel in the middle of a program to f*ck off and get back on script they bent over backwards to allow all this sh$te. The way forward was Goldberg getting his revenge on the nWo for being robbed and the author of his humiliation Hollywood Hogan. Buuutttttt as I said we got everything but. Goldberg vs Bam Bam was fine as a brief sidebar but it should have been a set up by the nWo. Bret Hart is still a heel but there's ZERO explanation why he leaves the nWo (or did I miss that) Flair turns heel because? Hogan turns face because? Creative had no plan or structure whatsoever for 99. |
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