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The Monday Night War Review: Episode Sixteen- ‘Building An Army’

December 10, 2014 | Posted by Robert Leighty Jr.
Monday Night War WWE WCW Raw Nitro

The Monday Night War Review: Episode Sixteen- ‘Building An Army’

-This week the topic at hand seems to be about the depth of each roster, and will focus more on the guys on the undercard.

-I said it once and I will say it again: Awesome Opening!

-We start off at WrestleMania 3 as the WWF rose to prominence in the 1980s largely due to Hulk Hogan. They were more than a 1 man show and had just as much to do with a deep and talented roster. They back this up with discussion of Savage/Steamboat from Mania III. Steamboat talks about how Hogan and Andre drew the show, but Savage and himself stole it.

-We jump ahead a decade and the WWF had launched Monday Night RAW with a new generation of stars. Ryback talks about how you have to build to the future and not have the same guys year after year.

-WCW was building their talent roster behind the vision of Eric Bischoff. Stock footage from Bischoff talking about how he knew they needed fresh blood and that leads to Hogan jumping to WCW in June of 1994. Basically we are covering the some stuff we have done for weeks on end with this show. Next up Savage jumps ship and his brother says that Randy was loyal to the WWF and loved Vince. He just grew bored as an announcer and kept pitching to be back in the ring, but Vince shot that down as he wanted to build a younger roster.

-With the arrival of Hogan and Savage WCW had raised their profile in the eyes of the fans. They talk about how Bischoff offered guaranteed contracts to build an even greater army. Hogan thinks the guaranteed contracts were Ted’s way of getting people to WCW because he wanted to beat Vince.

-In Sept of 1995 WCW debuts Nitro on TNT and we have a real battle playing out between the 2 companies on Monday Night. Old footage of Turner discussing the idea of Nitro and how he felt you couldn’t get into a fight with anyone unless you got in the ring with them.

-The two shows traded ratings victories in the first few months. Bischoff then made the move to start positioning his undercard in stronger roles. Daniel Bryan mentions he watched WCW because of their undercard, and specifically guys like Malenko and Guerrero.

-Now they discuss DDP and Harlem Heat. They mention you knew Booker was the biggest asset of the team and was a future star. Gene puts over that Bischoff was smart enough to elevate the midcard to a more prominent role.

-Next up The Giant debuts and Jimmy Hart talks about how everyone thought they had the next big thing in wrestling. Show pops up and talks about how he was so young, but also only 400 lbs at the time and was an athlete. The Giant debuts at Halloween Havoc 1995 in a match against Hogan for the WCW Title and ended Hogan’s 15 month reign. They talk about how it was huge for him and how it provided WCW with a new superstar to battle the WWF during the Monday Night War.

-Vince’s strategy was to get behind the New Generation and push them to the Main Event. We get Taker showing up and breaking character as he talks about how hard they pushed. Cole puts over the match Shawn and Razor had at Mania and talks about Diesel being the Champion for nearly a year, and how they steered the ship through rough waters. No mention of Diesel being a rather poor drawing champion though corny way he was booked didn’t help matters. It worked as the WWF was winning the War again heading into May of 1996.

-Now while their Main Event scene was working, their undercard was polluted with gimmicks and cartoon characters. They talk about how they started giving guys occupations: dentists, garbage man, hockey player, etc. Things were still ok though as the Main Event scene was carrying things, but that evil bastard Eric Bischoff was taking notice and opened up the check book to steal poor Vince’s main event stars: Hall and Nash.

-Hall and Nash show up as Invaders and WCW is now the cool show to watch every week. Things only got crazier when Hogan turned heel and officially formed the n.W.o. Russo says he knew the WWF was toast when Hogan came out as the 3rd man because the two companies were worlds apart now.

-The n.W.o was the coolest thing in the business and they wanted to grow the group so they had their bright young star, The Giant, join. The n.W.o angle kicked off an epic ass kicking by WCW in the ratings war for weeks on end. The Undertaker says they were all aware of the ratings and admits they were getting their assed handed to them.

-More talent was added to the n.W.o to give them a rub. Tyson Kidd talks about how it instantly made any guy who joined jump up another level. Bischoff talks about how he needed a strong heel machine to help build up strong baby faces. One of the guys that got over huge for rejecting the n.W.o was DDP. Cody mentions people were really into DDP at the time and how it was right place, right time, and right character. DDP talks about the night he put on the n.W.o shirt and then dropped Hall with a Diamond Cutter to snub the group. That became a huge deal and Ambrose talks about how DDP never joined the group and it was easy to get behind him.

-We are up to Aug of 1997 and WCW is dominating the ratings for over a year now. Vince developed a similar strategy (wow almost sounds like they admitted he stole an idea from WCW) and that leads to the faction wars of 1997. The Main Event and undercard were developed into different groups with some lead guys being put with undercard guys to bring everyone up to a new level. JR talks about how the groups served their purpose in getting a few guys from each group to a new level. In this case we got HHH and The Rock being elevated to a higher level.

-These factions helped the WWF find a new Attitude and the main cog behind that were D-X and the Outlaws. HHH admits The Outlaws were supposed to be part of D-X, but they got so hot that they didn’t need D-X. They bring up Goldust and Dustin talks about how Vince played a big part in the development of the character. They show footage of Vince coaching up Dustin and explaining to him what he wants before filming in interview. Cool! Now with some of their own depth and some newer, viable stars the WWF was ready to fight back in the War.

-In WCW Bret Hart had just arrived after the Montreal fiasco, and he joined break out stars like Booker T and DDP. Booker talks about how winning the TV Title was the beginning of his push and how he knew he had a chance to rise up the card. Jericho says that Booker is basically his character turned up to eleven.

-Not only did WCW have a growing roster, but they also grew their TV programs with the addition of Thunder on TBS. Old footage of Turner shown as he talks about how Thunder was a ratings move to get more people watching TBS. They talk about how it quickly became a second rate show because the top talent had in their contracts how many dates they had to work, and they were saved for Nitro for the most part. They show the crowd chanting “boring” at a match between Horace and a jobber on Thunder to drive home the point. Bill Demott talks about how it divided the roster into an “A” squad and “B” squad. Nash calls being on Thunder the kiss of death and main guys would often fake injuries to make sure they wouldn’t be booked. Booker T says he loved being on Thunder because of the exposure and soon the younger guys were put on Thunder more to show them off to the fans.

-The WWF finally won a ratings battle in April of 1998 and Cole calls the WWF a family and that everyone rallied behind Vince. That’s so sweet! With WCW no longer being #1 they decided to put more focus on the n.W.o and it caused more problems. Heyman says WCW never had their own formula and spews the crap that WCW was built on WWF guys.

-Things came to a head at Halloween Havoc and Nash mentions that 9 guys had creative control. They had to rebook things on the fly and Nash says it was hard to time a show like that, brother. The Main Event was DDP vs. Goldberg to showcase some of the newer stars, but before that we got the Hogan/Warrior II debacle. Sullivan says someone mistimed the show by 12 minutes and thus a majority of the PPV audience missed the Main Event. The mistake cost WCW millions of dollars as they had to refund money and Ambrose mentions he was one those that wasted $40 so he did blame WCW. I got the entire show for some reason, but have no clue why. The next night on Nitro WCW showed the match in its entirety. They show Schiavone on the Nitro broadcast talking about how WWF made fans believe it was a ratings ploy and they went off the air early on purpose so they could show the Main Event on Nitro for free to get bigger ratings. Schiavone mentions it will be shown at 9:00 PM and not at the end of the show to prove it’s not a ratings grab. Considering how much money WCW lost with the refunds it really was just a matter of them screwing things up the previous night.

-DDP says in retrospect he isn’t happy with things, but personally for him and Bill it was a great match. Damn right it was and quite possibly best match of Goldberg’s career. Nitro won the ratings that night by a score of 5.1 to 4.5 and that would be the last time ever that WCW won a battle in the War.

-The Attitude Era offered more artistic freedom and because of that the undercard started to expand with fresher characters. Kane talks about the creative freedom he and everyone had gave them ownership of their character and made them want to get better.

-As we head to 1999 the WWF started to create distance from WCW, and their midcard started to grow. Russo mentions that he looked at D-Lo Brown in the same manner that he did Steve Austin because everyone had to carry their segment and that is how you get high ratings. Jericho said the opposite was happening in WCW as things only focused on the top guys.

-Back to more WCW bashing as they discuss again how they had creative control. Jimmy Hart talks about how they would write a show for a week and then Bischoff had to go to Sting, Hogan, Goldberg, etc. one by one and work things out. Bret blames Bischoff and says he is the one that killed the goose laying the golden eggs. Finally the younger talent started to have enough and the first to defect was The Giant.

-Show talks about how he was working Main Events all over the country for WCW and yet was only making 1/6 of what the guys he was working with was making. He asked Bischoff for a raise and he told him no because he still had him under contract for a year. Show says had he been dealt with fairly he may not have made the jump, but Bischoff pissed him off and can kiss his ass. Nice! The Giant debuts as Paul Wight (then eventually The Big Show) by coming through the ring and tossing Austin through a steel cage (giving Austin the win incidentally). Mick calls it a big shot in the MNW because Show was clearly going to be a big part of WCW’s future.

-Now the WWF was going on the offensive as they expanded to Thursday night with SmackDown and now they were invading Thunder’s territory. JR calls Thunder a joke and puts over how they brought the whole roster to broadcast TV. SmackDown dominated the ratings from the start and soon Thunder jumped ship to Wednesday.

-With two more hours of TV the WWF started to focus more on tag teams and that led to a golden age of tag wrestling with the company. The anchors of that division: Edge/Christian, Dudleys, and Hardys! They stole the show at Mania 2000 in the Triangle Ladder Match. Christian admits all 6 knew they had to stand out and this was their chance to show they belonged. Cole talks about what each team brought and how the Dudleys were perfect for the Hardys and E&C because they could be brutal and toss them all around the ring allowing them to bump their asses off. JBL puts over the awesomeness of the match and of course things would only get crazier with subsequent matches with each other. They talk about how they all became elevated because of those matches.

-Over in WCW, Nitro was floundering because the old guard was losing their appeal and the midcard wasn’t given a proper platform. Heyman talks about how the business isn’t built on a comfort level and is only built on something new. He talks about how fans were tired of seeing Hogan vs. Hall, Hall vs. Nash, and Hall vs. Hogan without adding someone knew (though I don’t ever recall a 1 on 1 match with Hogan and Hall). You could say the same about the crap rerun over and over again in today’s WWF (Cena vs. Show, Cena vs. Orton, Orton vs. Show).

-Russo jumped to WCW to try to save the promotion and they talk about how some younger guys were thrust into newer spots. They mention how fresh it was to see Kidman in a feud with Hogan. Yeah it may have been fresh, but it didn’t do much in the long run. The only guy to seize the momentum of the Russo regime was Booker T. DDP puts over how awesome Booker is.

-Now some of the old guard still didn’t think their time was up and that leads to Bash at the Beach 2000. They skim over briefly the Russo/Hogan drama and skip to Booker T taking advantage and getting his first ever WCW World Title reign. He says it was an emotional night for him and Cesaro says as a fan he was happy to see someone who worked that hard finally get a chance in WCW.

-By the end of 2000 WCW finally started to get behind their younger guys, but it was too late. They talk about how if they had done this a year or two earlier there still might be a WCW. Instead they went belly up in March 2001 when Vince bought the company.

-The WWF midcard guys from that era pop up and discuss the depth they had and how they could have run 3 shows against each other and still delivered.

-Things wrap up with everyone talking about how both rosters from top to bottom were stepping up during the War. Nash mentions that if you were on TV during the Monday Night war you were a star. Rollins calls it an all star cast of characters on both shows doing all they could to one up what people in the other company was doing and even what people in their own company were doing. Brodus Clay mentions that solders win a war, but with that said you need a great leader. This gives everyone a chance to put over Vince McMahon and Cole kisses up the most to end things.

Extra Comments: Good stuff this week and I enjoyed them going into detail about the Halloween Havoc screw-up. That is the kind of stuff I want from this series. The topic itself was a good one as things have gotten away from focusing just on one star and has made for better episodes. As has been mentioned in the comments section the first few minutes are usually a recap of things we have heard for 14 weeks now, but at this point it is to be expected I guess. I was glad to see they recognized WCW finally did start to figure things out near the end, but as was stated it was way too late and too many fans had been burned. Overall another good episode this week!