wrestling / Columns

Ask 411 Wrestling: Could WCW Have Survived?

February 10, 2016 | Posted by Mathew Sforcina

Hello and welcome to I’m Not Crying, You’re Crying, Shut Up, Leave Me Alone To Watch Wrestlemania XXX Again!

Ahem, that is, welcome to Ask 411 Wrestling. I am Mathew Sforcina, and obviously a lot of people are upset right now. So let’s talk about a whole bunch of old wrestling that has nothing to do with the guy who just retired, and thus not have to think about the guy who has just retired.

I’m sad.

I also got pranked by Bryan once when I was on the same shows as him, but don’t have a photo because I don’t get photos (unless it’s like Sean Waltman who wanted a photo with me for some reason), you just have to trust me. Thank you Bryan and all that.

Got a question for when I’m not sad? [email protected] is where you send it.

BANNER cheers me up a little…

Zeldas!

Check out my Drabble blog, 1/10 of a Picture! It has words, arranged in sentences.

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Does Lucha Underground Suck?: Oh, this is “Owen Hart has Average Strength” all over again…

I miss those.

Anyway, I apologize for the confusion, let me try and make my point slightly clearer.

If you look at Lucha Underground and decide on its quality based on traditional, old school wrestling values, if you judge the show from a standpoint where it has to be compared to other wrestling product wherein the other wrestling product is the style by which you measure, then Lucha Underground is not a good wrestling show. You compare LU to an old NWA Power Hour and use the Power Hour as your standard of what a wrestling program is supposed to look like, LU isn’t going to measure up and thus will ‘suck’. Even if you compare it to WWE, where WWE is the measuring stick, LU does not measure up.

But taken for what it is? LU is bloody awesome. It’s an awesome show that involves wrestling, which is my official opinion, since apparently that needs to be spelt out. But if you judge it as a wrestling show by comparing it to other wrestling shows and refuse to admit they are totally different products, then LU ‘sucks’.

Clear?

The Trivia Crown

I am a PPV. All of the in-ring combatants at me are still alive, with the exception on one . Two of the combatants are in a different important wrestling promotion from the one doing me. A clergy man was pinned by someone who held and holds some records at something. Three championships were at stake and all the champions retained their belts. An astonishing 13 former, current and future WWE, WCW, ROH, TNA and/or ECW World champions (not counting light heavyweights or cruiserweights) performed at me. There were two gimmick matches, four of the participants performed at the latest Royal Rumble and my main event involved a surprising “one night only” babyface turn after the match. Oh, and Emma has two big connections (don’t think of THAT!!) with me. What am I?

No-one got it, so let’s go with the answer I was given by the author.

I am PPV. All of the in-ring combatants at me are still alive, with the exception on one (Test). Two of the combatants are in a different important wrestling promotion from the one doing me (Kurt Angle and Hurricane Helms are with TNA). A clergy man (Reverend Devon) was pinned by someone who held and holds some records at something (Mark Henry, powerlifting). Three championships were at stake and all the champions retained their belts. An astonishing 13 former, current and future WWE, WCW, ROH, TNA and/or ECW World champions (not counting light heavyweights or cruiserweights) performed at me (Rock, Triple H, Brock Lesnar, Edge, Chris Jericho, Christian, Rey Mysterio, Kurt Angle, Chavo Guerrero, Jamie Noble, Mark Henry, Randy Orton and Batista). There were two gimmick matches (Kiss My Ass and Bra & Panties), four of the participants performed at the latest Royal Rumble (Jericho, Lesnar, Triple H and Mark Henry) and my main event involved a surprising “one night only” babyface turn after the match (Triple H joined The Rock to help beat Brock Lesnar and embraced to please the crowd). Oh, and Emma has two big connections (don’t think of THAT!!) with me (it was held in her hometown, Melbourne, Australia and her trainer, Lance Storm, wrestled on the PPV). What am I?

WWE GLOBAL WARNING 2002

Maraviloso had last week’s, and he has this week’s too!

I am a championship. Two future WWE Hall of Famers were the final two in the first tournament to win me and 5 other WWE HoF’s have won me as well. Someone bought me, was consequently stripped because of it, but eventually won me just a month after that. I’ve been won by masked wrestlers, killers, Japanese-born wrestlers and two times I changed hands in matches that never happened. One of the wrestlers that have won me has a loose connection with Bruce Lee, another champion of me have won two World Cups and a wrestler who won the most important title of the promotion who owns me refused to have me after he won me, just months after winning and losing that other championship. And I changed hands at a real major wrestling card just once. What am I?

Getting Down To All The Business

Jon starts us off with an odd one, an opinion one I can’t actually answer really.

As a jaded wrestling fan who is too tuned in to the interweb, when was the last time you sincerely found yourself thinking “wow- I did not see that coming!” Could be anything: move, interview, return- just has to be on an actual wrestling show.

The problem isn’t so much being jaded and online, but being in Australia and working odd hours at Boring Day Job. The practical upshot of which is that other than the last few Rumbles since they’re close enough to Australia day that I usually have that day free, and shows I’m wrestling on/hanging out at, I’ve not watched any big live wrestling in years. Thus if something awesome happens, I tend to seek the show out and watch it because of the surprise factor, at which point I already know of it. I suppose you could say AJ at the Rumble, but that was less “didn’t see that coming” as it was “Oh, right, ok then”.

The last big surprise I saw happen in real time was probably 2008 Royal Rumble, #30.

I was always pleasantly surprised by Mizdow until that went south, if that counts?

But those of you who read me and watch the TV shows regularly, what’s the last great surprise for you? Rollins turning heel? Bayley/Boss/Brooklyn? Philly cheering for Roman Reigns? Do leave your choice below.

And with that in mind, what are your all time top moments for the above?

Off the top of my head in order of what comes to mind, after the Cena Return…

Trish turning heel at WMXX
The Rock’s Entrance at No Way Out 03
The Pipebomb
Punk coming back after 2 weeks (for all the wrong reasons)
Ric Flair and Vince McMahon are partners!
The History Of WWE video package
Buff Bagwell failing to punch out ‘Sting’

And the moment that was the first cab off the ranks for me, albeit due to intense personal bias…

But what of you, dear readers? What is your all time “Wait, What?” moment?

From shocking moments to perhaps the most shocking moment that could still occur, thanks to Stuart.

As a fan of the attitude era I have life most others bemoaned the current state of the WWE and the shoddy way the company is apparently being booked.

However do you think fans would ever accept anyone else at the helm of the biggest wrestling (sorry sports entertainment) company in the world?

Assume for a moment that somebody out there is rich enough and enough of a fan to make Vince an offer he can’t refuse so he and Linda sell their controlling stake in the company. How do you think this would go down with fans? Would they be happy for a change or would be simply complain about the fact that the new man in charge is no Vince McMahon?

I don’t see any one person being in that position and being a guy Vince would sell to, but then again I don’t see Vince selling to a company either. Vince is going to hold onto the reigns until he uploads himself into the catalyst, while also holding onto the Reigns push until the catalyst is forced upon him.

I’ve said before that I think it’s a distinct possibility that once Vince does move onto protecting the galaxy by combining synthetic and organic life, and StepHunter get the controlling interest, they might sell out to a Disney, an Amazon, a Live Nation, an NBCUniversal. WWE does have positive attributes that a company might want, if they want further grip on childhood, or to boost their streaming service, or to increase their touring stats, or even just to save money on TV.

But if that happens, what will the reaction be from the fans? Not a lot, I don’t think, in that while most WWE fans respect the McMahons on some level, their running of the show is not what brings people to the show, as such. Not too many people are going to stop coming to WWE just because there is a random board at the head instead of just one old billionare. Hell, if they keep StepHunter on as on air talent/ambassadors/board members, a lot of people won’t even notice!

Of course, if someone who is well known buys it, like a Trump or a Mark Cuban or something, that will have impact. But for the most part, fans will either not care or be glad the pen has been removed from the grip of the creator (See Wars, Star and Trek, Star for similar situations).

Unless Vince has a sudden swing in his judgement, or StepHunter is seen as being a huge step forward, a non-hostile takeover would be viewed with indifference and/or cautious optimism.

Also how would you book the wwe if these events ever took place?

I always envisaged the entire roster surrounding the ring at the beginning of raw. The announcer mention there has been speculation of something huge happening earlier in the day but nobody knows what.

Out of the crowd the new owner pops, nobody knows who he is so he had to show his credentials to bypass security, he enters the ring and confirms that the rumours are true, that he now owns the wwe and that as a fan he wants things to change as the reign of crazy Vince is now over.

He then admits he knows nothing about running a wrestling company but he’s brought onboard somebody with all the expertise required to help bring the glory days back to the company and out comes Shane McMahon. He can gloat a little if needs be about going away and becoming his own man whilst things went south on Stephanies watch.

They then announce that all titles are being held up and that a tournament is going to be held to crown new champions. The tournament will obviously be elimination based where the losers them compete for the ic title then those losers form teams to compete for the tag team gold (its a little complicated but could throw up some interesting matches and potentials feuds.

They also change the announce teams with Joey Styles returning to raw alongside maybe William Regal whilst JBL and Michael Cole head to Smackdown to possibly for a the man team with Mauro Ranallo though you could drop either JBL or Cole depending on which works better.

Finally the new boss days he won’t be an onscreen authority figure but that both shows will have a gm. On raw we’d get cm punk who can have it in his contact no physicality if he’s keeping up the ufc thing (cross promotion too?) whilst on Smackdown the job goes to edge.

You can keep kid friendly acts such as the new day but move away from the entertainment side a little too incorporate more wrestling with a little harder edge to it but not necessarily a return to attitude era levels of violence.

That’s how is do it but then what do i know?

Well, congratulations, you ticked almost every box on the “Fantasy Booking WWE” Bingo Card. You just missed “Divas making out”, “Blood in every match” and “Winged Eagle Belt”.

Anyway, the problem with a lot of that is that it’s not possible, but even ignoring the whole “Punk won’t be back, Shane probably won’t be back, etcetc” issues, there’s two fundamental flaws in your thinking.

One, you’re assuming that a new owner has to be a character, that a backstage change must mean an on air one, and two, that a new owner can and will reboot everything.

Now, yes, both of those are possible, but they aren’t automatic, and in fact are pretty much the exact opposite of how acquisitions tend to go. What happens, usually, is that the new owners buy the thing, there’s a transitional period as old guard are moved out and new guard are moved in, then another period as the new owners get to grips with it, THEN, maybe, they do a reboot. It took Disney a year and a half before they chucked out the Extended Universe Canon.

New owners would probably keep the same writing/booking staff on for a few months, maybe even up to the next WM depending on when the sale took place, using the Smark Mecca that is the First Raw After WM as the new starting date, and even then there may well be no visible difference other than competent camera work because Kevin Dunn is gone please for the love of Victoria.

And even then, unless WWE chose to make this into some sort of big angle, new owners aren’t going to insult or imply WWE has sucked in the past, because why would you sign up for the network then? You might turn off all the people who actually liked the Reigns Show and thus if you say “Raw’s sucked recently, so now we change it!” you lose actual viewers to chase theoretical ones.

So no, how the transition would probably happen is WWE would put out a quiet press release saying that X Corp is their new ‘business partner’, and will take over day to day operations in April next year. There would be no mention on live TV, unless someone wants to run a “New Owner Agent” angle, and then WM would be Vince’s last hurrah, then the day after a rep of the new owners would have a short video on WWE’s youtube/Network thanking the McMahons for all their work and promising to continue entertaining the world, blahblahblah.

No mass reboot, no “fixing everything at once”, just a dull, orderly transition.

Unless it’s a private equity fund headed by Shane. Then all bets are off.

Raza has a few questions.

I don’t understand WWE Policy of making experienced wrestlers and WWE Alumnis go through NXT to main rosters. Guys like Rhyno, Samoa Joe, Austin Aries are made to went through NXT whereas Styles, Dudleys are required not to?

Because not everyone being hired by WWE is for WWE, and not everyone in NXT is there to one day be in WWE.

NXT is now this bizarre hybrid of developmental and brand, where they are both trying to get talent ready for the big leagues but also be a name brand that can draw a smaller but still impressive crowd, to basically be a WWE owned and operated Ring Of Honor. Ring Of Hunter, perhaps.

… Has anyone come up with that before? That feels like I’m ripping it off, but I can’t recall reading it…

Anyway, this hybrid thing is why NXT is getting old hands that have a bit of a name (to both boost the attendance of older fans and to be steady hands in the ring) and a bunch of the veteran indy names that WWE probably won’t be using on the big show unless half a dozen more names go down to injuries, guys like Joe and Aries are there to be a draw for NXT when they tour.

Whereas the Dudleys were brought back to be an anchor for the tag division on the big show, and AJ is being paid so much they kinda have to push him hard or else it’s sunk costs.

So yeah, NXT needs drawcards that aren’t going to be on the big show, they also need wrestling trainers, hence older names and big indy guys go there. But if WWE wants you for the main show, they can and will put you there. But now, some guys get signed to only work NXT and stay there.

And that’s fine by me…

I always heard that WCW could have thrown WWE/F out of business back in 1996-97, so lets suppose WCW could have survived post Starcade 1997 and continued to blossom even in 98 to 2000, so was it enough to completely lock WWE down back then? I think even if WCW prevailed for 5-6 years more, the worst that could happened to WWE was probably cost cutting, downsizing, low scale operations, reduction in numbers of PPVs, renting small seater arenas etc but WCW making WWE/F out of business was completely out of question?

The problem with WCW ‘killing’ WWF is that while WCW did have an incredible run and WWF an incredible in the opposite direction run, WWF’s rebirth and WCW’s fall were somewhat independent of each other. Yes, the war was a major factor in the Screwjob and in the nWo running wild and all that, but outside of the Screwjob being a flashpoint that led a decent amount of people to tune into the WWF to find out what was going on and them getting hooked by Austin, Rock etcetc, WWF’s rebirth wasn’t due to WCW failing. WCW failed independently of WWF’s rise. The two interacted, certainly, and WCW hasted the fall due to their panic and worry about the WWF’s rise, but WCW wasn’t really ever in a position to kill WWF due solely to their own actions, unless they hired a hitman to take out Austin or something.

Now had WCW not mess the bed with the Sting/Hogan angle, had the nWo angle ended properly, and had they elevated talent, and all the other stuff they should have done, if they’d managed to survive a few more years, then the current media landscape would almost certainly have led to their survival almost indefinitely. Look how hard TNA has been to kill after all.

The issue with competition for WWE is that the start up costs for a direct, equal footing competitor is so high as to impossible. But WCW has the brand name and history that, if they had stuck around just a few more years, they’d start getting smaller but still decent TV deals and been self sustaining. Unless the rot was less averted as it was just delayed.

And likewise, WWF’s rise could certainly have been cut off. Austin getting offed by a WCW Ninja Assassin hidden in a Wildcat Willie costume, Vince refusing to go back on air after the Screwjob, Russo getting fired, Russo getting more power, the WWF turnaround was by no means assured, and we could indeed be living in a world where the WCW Network is coming, any day now…

So no, WWF was losing enough money that another year or two of failure would probably have sunk them, but what WCW did probably wouldn’t have mattered much to it.

HHH wold still have won Rumble if Cena, Orton, Rollins or Sting were around?

If those four guys were still around? Well Sting is a non-factor, but at this point Cena/Taker would be a lock, and while I don’t see Orton or Rollins winning the title in the Rumble, I do see the Rumble not being for the belt and instead being the usual title shot at WM, and thus Brock would probably have won, Cena/Taker, Rollins/HHH, Reigns/Brock, Orton/Ambrose, yeah, that’d be an ok match list.

From current scrambling booking to classic scrambling booking, let’s get deep into the Black Scorpion, thanks to Joseph.

1. I think this has been answered before, but regarding Sting and the Black Scorpion can you sort of give a timeline for how it progressed and when they realized it was going to be Flair? (Is this maybe a FAQ?) I’ve heard some stuf for the original plan, but it seems like it’s all a bit nebulous Maybe it is, but can you try to sort some of it out?

It’s all nebulous because most of the info is coming from biased sources and thus the Shoot Interview rules apply. But here’s the rough layout as I understand it.

Mid 1990. Ole Anderson finds himself booking WCW after Jim Herd removes Flair from the position over a dispute about the world title (Herd wanted Flair to lose to Luger, Flair insisted on waiting for Sting’s knee to heal then drop it to Sting). Sting is now world champ, needs a big challenger.

Ole, at the suggestion from a higher up, creates the Black Scorpion gimmick.

Ole, voicing the gimmick via distortion, drops hints about how the Black Scorpion was someone from Sting’s past, he would mention various dates and times from Sting’s past. The idea is to make you think that it’s the Ultimate Warrior, Sting’s old tag partner and, at the time, WWF Champion.

However, the initial concept is to have this go on a while, with various fake Black Scorpions doing mysterious attacks and magic shows and the like, until finally the man behind the veil is revealed to be… Ole Anderson. Ole was training for a comeback, and he would eventually be revealed as the mastermind.

OK, not superb, but whatever.

And then Ole breaks his arm, and won’t be back in time, and in fact retires from wrestling for good.

Now all heck breaks loose. They don’t have a Black Scorpion, since Warrior was never going to happen, and the other guy from Powerteam USA still active, Dave Sheldon, a.k.a The Angel of Death, they aren’t sure about, despite him working as the Black Scorpion on some house shows, he apparently sucks too much or they can’t get a deal with him or some such.

Anyway, around the time of the September 5th Clash of the Champions XII, they settle on the Scorpion being Al Perez, The Latin Heartthrob who had wrestled in the Mid South/UWF territory at the same rough time as Sting had, so again, makes some sense.

Al wrestles as the Scorpion at the Clash, and is, supposedly, to be the Scorpion going forward through to the blowoff at Starrcade. At Clash he loses but is saved from unmasking due to another Scorpion showing up to distract Sting. But soon after that event, either due to money or a refusal to job or some such, Al quits.

So again, they have no Black Scorpion.

They keep just tossing the mask on whoever at shows, as they try to work out who to put under the mask at the Starrcade PPV, in the cage, with the Title V Mask stip, with local hero Dick The Bruiser as ref. The choice comes down to Flair or Barry Windham, and Flair puts his hand up, assuming that doing this wouldn’t hurt him, while Barry, still reeling from the Halloween Havoc Fake Sting angle (with Sting/Sid being the other angle they were running, Sting would never get to unmask the Scorpion at house shows due to Sid interfering), would probably be ruined if he was the Scorpion, according to Flair.

Flair takes the bullet, is the Black Scorpion, then as a thank you is given the title soon after.

That’s the rough layout.

2. Some kind of specific but connected questions here, but first off, could you re-book the Black Scorpion angle for us? Thanks.

Can I rebook it via just not have it happen at all?

OK, OK, so here’s how I’d book it, on the proviso that I’m allowed to hire one guy to be the Scorpion in the end who wasn’t in the company at the time, but wasn’t in WWF either, so it’s possible you could lure him away. And also assuming I knew ahead of time what I was doing, I wasn’t forced to make it Ole, and there’s no injuries, etcetcetc.

Anyway, you debut the character via videotape, all gloomy and such, over a few weeks, and have him drop vague hints about how he’s from Sting’s past and now that Sting is champion and on top of the world, he’s coming to take Sting down. Maybe he’ll turn up next week on Main Event. Maybe next month at a house show. But if Sting has guts and is a fighting champion, he’ll defend that title he’s so proud of against The Black Scorpion whenever one shows up. Because it may well be me… *maniacal laughter*

Sting responds with a fired up promo about how he’s all for competition, and he’ll more than happily fight any ‘Black Scorpion’ non-title, but he’s not about to hand out title shots to some wannabe playing dress up with a broken tape recorder.

Next week on Main Event, Sting wrestles Tom Zenk in a friendly match, Sting goes over somewhat strong (but Zenk isn’t squashed) when suddenly Sting is jumped by a few guys in masks, who swarm both men. Zenk is tossed aside, while Sting is beaten down, then out comes The Black Scorpion, in large robes to hide his body shape, who slaps Sting a couple times and then gives him a piledriver onto the title belt, then the group leaves.

Sting is out for a couple weeks with a stinger (heh), but comes back fired up. Now he wants his hands on the Black Scorpion, and if he has to put the belt up, fine. Come and get it, masked men!

Sting then defends the title every week on TV and at every house show against a Black Scorpion. But quickly, it becomes clear that the Scorpion is playing games, as every heel in the company and/or hired gun for a night is wrestling as ‘The Black Scorpion’. The Announcers put over that Sting’s being taken advantage of, as guys are clearly putting on the mask to get a title shot without earning it. Sting is forced to fight brawlers, technical guys, high fliers, the works.

Sid is waiting though, and at Halloween Havoc, he takes on a slightly tired Sting, and almost has the title won, when Sting gets a desperation roll up win. Sid attacks Sting afterwards, until the Scorpion appears and ‘casts a spell’ on Sid and leads him away. (Flashes a wad of cash)

Now Sid accompanies each Scorpion for Sting’s matches, now there’s only a few of them who keep repeating, but Sting can never unmask them since Sid is there to stop them. (Sid just says he has a ‘good deal going’) Finally, it leads to Starrcade, Title V Mask, inside the cage to keep Sid at bay, Dick The Bruiser as a ref they can be sure isn’t bought off.

Sting is attacked by Sid and a few masked Scorpions on the way to the ring, but the top babyfaces all make the save and run off Sid and the fake Scorpions, but in the melee Sting’s knee is hurt. The Real Scorpion comes out, and enters the ring. The Scorpion is a few inches shorter and not as fast as Sting, but he’s vicious, he’s able to brawl and, more importantly, he has the knee to go after. Sting fights valiantly, but months of constant title defences, Sid beat downs, and now this, it just slowly but surely gets too much, and after one Stinger Splash doesn’t put the Scorpion down, he goes for another, the Black Scorpion catches Sting, flapjacks him face first into the cage, and then locks on a tight figure four. After a few moments of fighting, Sting passes out. Dick the Bruiser reluctantly calls for the bell, and the Black Scorpion holds the title high as Sid comes out to celebrate.

The final image of Starrcade is the Black Scorpion, title belt around his waist, slowly, teasingly, pulling on the mask and then revealing the wide eyed manic smile of ‘Hot Stuff’ Eddie Gilbert, YOUR new NWA World Champion.

You then run with Eddie as champ, explaining how he knew Sting from their days when Sting was in the UWF Hot Stuff International Inc. Eddie knew how to manipulate Sting, how to tire him out until he could strike. And with Sid as his bodyguard, the sky’s the limit! You can then have a new Hot Stuff Inc. form, turn the Horsemen face over Sid’s leaving (they didn’t press the issue until Gilbert revealed himself), you go from there.

And if you can’t give me Eddie, replace him with Flair and the angle still stands. Just no damn magic.

(I’ll cop to seeing the ‘Black Scorpion = Eddie Gilbert’ idea from one mrjl on the old wrestlecrap forum years ago, so if you’re out there, well done you.)

3. To follow that up, basically should they have even gone through with that angle? Was it a mistake from the get-go or was there enough there that you can kind of see where they’re coming from that it wasn’t a bad attempt?

I’ll qualify this a little more and say that I think that the idea of an evil doppelganger to a strong babyface champ is kind of cool, and him being supernatural is kind of nice . . . but he wasn’t even “Papa Shango” scary. The “Evil Magic” Jim Ross mentioned was basically standard stage magic, and the cryptic references to the past didn’t make sense once the truth came out. I say the basic concept was cool, but the tools to execute it there; it should have been aborted.

There’s two main issues with the angle. One, the supernatural elements, even if they were great, were still so tonally different to the rest of the company, that they stuck out like a sore thumb. The idea of someone being an evil mirror version of a hero is interesting, and Gilbert is sort of like that above, being manipulative and dishonest while Sting is up front, and yet both are smaller than usual guys who are mostly brawlers but with some technique, Gilbert’s cheating matching Sting’s high flying. By all means you can run with the past associate, and even the mirror image, but the magic usage aspect was never going to fly.

And the second issue is the simple fact that the kept having to rejig the thing, as three or so times the goal moved. First it’s the way to bring Ole back to wrestling. No, now it’s going to bring back an old buddy of Sting. No, wait, Al Perez. Oh to hell with it, toss it to Flair, he can eat it. It’s hard enough to book a mystery angle, to try and rework it midflow is even harder.

But if you remove the supernatural, ground it a bit more in reality, and avoid having to change it midstream, it could work…

4. Regardless of your answers to 2 & 3 book a different angle and opponent for Sting at that time period. Thanks.

… I really like my Gilbert angle.

Ok, ok, let’s keep it to who was in the company at the time then.

*checks historyofwwe.com WCW section*

OK, well run a reverse Horsemen deal after winning the title, as each Horseman in turn takes a shot at getting the title back from Sting. Windham is first up, he wrestles Sting for a month or two, then Sid, Arm gets the Clash title shot, Flair his rematch at Halloween Havoc, Sting wins all of them. But on the Havoc show, after Luger and Stan Hansen went to a no contest pull apart brawl, Hansen comes back out and murders Sting with the cowbell and rope, lariats and so forth, leaving Sting in a pool of his own blood.

Hansen/Luger non-title runs throughout the time to Clash XIII, as Luger wants revenge for his friend, the title means nothing, Sting is nowhere after the beatdown. At Clash 13 (within 30 days), Sting comes back and says he wants Hansen at Starrcade in a Cowbell match, tie wrists with the rope, last man standing rules. Hansen accepts, then costs Luger the US Title to Flair, so Starrcade is Sting/Hansen and Flair/Luger.

5. At what point did the WWE vs WCW conflict become a war of survival? What was the last point where the two companies could have theoretically co existed, or was it always a “there can be only one” scenario?

No, the two companies could easily both still be running today, had they just not gone after each other so hard. Had both sides just focused on putting on the best wrestling/sports entertainment/whatever show they could, they’d both be alive today, perhaps.

But the die was cast the minute Eric Bischoff was made the boss of WCW. Bischoff was the guy who didn’t want a win, he wanted a kill, and everything he did, bring in Hogan, go on Mondays, bump up PPV, hiring sprees, ‘beats the guy with three superkicks’, all of it was directly aimed at killing the WWF and thus winning the war.

The problem is that the company wasn’t able to handle that, and those with power and influence weren’t willing to help out and step aside to ensure WCW’s survival when they should have. After Bischoff chose to send WCW into war, those who were generals were unable to either deliver the killing blow or accept the fact they should step down to do so.

Maybe after Bischoff was gone you could have reset the ship’s course, but really by that point WCW was doomed.

But prior to Bischoff? Sure, coexistence was possible.

6. Hogan sort of dabbled in retirement for 92. He comes back to the WWF and then goes to WCW. My question is unless he stayed retired was it inevitible that he would turn heel at some point in his return?

Conventional wisdom says yes, but Hogan is anything but conventional.

The logic would go that eventually, there’s only so many times you can go to the well, and when it’s all dried up, you turn the guy, which is what they did in WCW obviously. However, this isn’t an ordinary guy, this is Hulk Freaking Hogan, the biggest superstar in wrestling history, hero to millions and millions and so on and so forth. The notion of Vince turning Hogan heel is unthinkable, no matter how weak the cheers got, I don’t see Vince ever killing Hulkamania deliberately. It took WCW to do it first, and only then did Vince try it, at which point Hogan turned almost immediately face because WWF crowds won’t boo Hogan unless he’s been around for almost a decade doing the same thing.

So yeah, while I’d say a heel turn would be considered obvious, if he’d stuck around in WWF, it’s not at all a certainty.

And on that note, I will bid you goodbye, as I go watch Team Hell No videos for a few hours…