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Hello everyone!

1) How did Nitro compare to Raw?

2) What was Bret Hart like in WCW? I heard him say that they didn't make good use of him, but I didn't really watch WCW. After Bret left WWF my interest in wrestling began to slowly die.

I think I eventually stopped watching in early 2002. I also tried getting into the new stuff. I found a few wrestlers interesting, like Roman Reigns, but wrestling now doesn't really get me excited like it did when I was a kid.
For a long while Nitro was far better than RAW. Towards the end, the wheels fell off, but it was hard to find more compelling wrestling on TV than on Nitro. Bret was just an upper mid-card guy in WCW. They should have booked him as a master technician in the ring where he was crippling half the roster, but instead he floundered in midcard feuds with no one. Then he had his stroke and the rest is history.

The current WWE product suffers a lot from 50/50 booking and nonsensical story telling as well as simplistic story elements supposedly aimed at young children, but if anything several TV shows and movies have proven that child friendly, or even child-centric TV doesn't need to be so mindlessly stupid that no one is intellectually engaged at all. WWE misses this point and writes overly simple characters like John Cena, and the NEW John Cen-- I mean Roman Reigns.
I always preferred RAW.

Right now WWE is hurting because they are just lacking a special someone to carry the belt. There are no Rocks or Austins like the 90s to carry them. Everyone who is getting the belt is just flat out boring.

It looks to me like Ambrose is getting set up to main even Wrestle Mania and I think he is the closest thing they have to a reliable Austin clone so I'll keep my fingers crossed.
Post edited February 18, 2016 by tinyE
1. Nitro was consistently more interesting than Raw in my opinion. At the time around 1998, they had a lot of good factions (NWO, LWO, Raven's Flock, Four Horsemen) and a lot of good feuds/angles involving a lot of different names. There was always something going on that was exciting. Some of the best stuff involved Goldberg, Sting, NWO/Wolfpac and Diamond Dallas Page.

2. Bret Hart did okay in WCW. He won the United States Championship a couple of times and the WCW World Heavyweight Championship about two times. He had a lot of good matches, but he didn't have any memorable feuds or storylines (at least in my opinion). He was pretty much a top Mid-Carder that had some Main Event matches. It was definitely a lacklustre run compared to his amazing WWF career. He did wrestle the top guys in WCW, but he never had those classic matches like he did in WWF against guys like Stone Cold Steve Austin, Undertaker and Shawn Michaels. It's a shame, because WCW is where his career ended and he was only there for like three years.
Post edited February 18, 2016 by BTNLegend
nitro was good compared to raw during 1997-1998 , but once they ran out of bringing wwf talent to invade them and nwo storylines became weak , wwf turned up their storylines to the attitude era , it was game over for nitro , no one wanted to watch a 3 hr show where most matches would either be DQ or ended up with cheat win.

Bret hart on WCW was good at start he went up against goldberg right away but it ended poorly when he was injured for good in a match with goldberg , he ended his wrestling run after that
Nitro wasn't usually as complete a show as Raw in my opinion but it almost always had the better wrestling and the matches felt a little more...serious? Raw was more "entertainment that sometimes involves wrestling" but it had a more complete set of top stars and was a lot more consistent, quality wise.. Nitro had the better factions though, the NWO (both original and Wolfpac), Raven's Flock (my favorite faction of all time), the Jersey Triad, the Natural Born Thrillers, it had a better midcard too (Chris Jericho and Ralphus!).

Bret Hart was on a serious decline when he got into WCW, in my opinion. He was still talented but always seemed kinda off in some way or another.

I think that prime ECW (say 95-98) was better than both though. Raven's original ECW run might be the best run by any wrestler and he was a major creative force (Raven's Nest, the Raven vs Dreamer feud, he created The Dudleys!) too. Put it this way, in a promotion full of fans that thought they were "smart" to the business and loved the bad guys, they HATED Raven. He was probably the only heel that the ECW fans actually hated, besides Rob Van Dam at times.
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NoNewTaleToTell: I think that prime ECW (say 95-98) was better than both though. Raven's original ECW run might be the best run by any wrestler and he was a major creative force (Raven's Nest, the Raven vs Dreamer feud, he created The Dudleys!) too. Put it this way, in a promotion full of fans that thought they were "smart" to the business and loved the bad guys, they HATED Raven. He was probably the only heel that the ECW fans actually hated, besides Rob Van Dam at times.
I was a big ECW fan myself. I still own four PPVs on VHS lol. I always thought Raven wasn't used to his fullest potential in WCW and WWE. The man was just great at talking on the mic and was an interesting character. I mean, I can't even name anybody that would have made as interesting promos as he did when he was demoted to Sunday Night Heat for god's sake. He had great matches and moments in ECW and I really wish that he had a better United States Championship run in WCW. I think out of all the ECW guys that went over to WCW, Mikey Whipwreck and Sandman had the worst runs. ECW also produced my favourite wrestler in Taz. It was just a great promotion and I will miss it.
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BTNLegend: I was a big ECW fan myself. I still own four PPVs on VHS lol. I always thought Raven wasn't used to his fullest potential in WCW and WWE. The man was just great at talking on the mic and was an interesting character. I mean, I can't even name anybody that would have made as interesting promos as he did when he was demoted to Sunday Night Heat for god's sake. He had great matches and moments in ECW and I really wish that he had a better United States Championship run in WCW. I think out of all the ECW guys that went over to WCW, Mikey Whipwreck and Sandman had the worst runs. ECW also produced my favourite wrestler in Taz. It was just a great promotion and I will miss it.
I agree with pretty much everything you said! Raven is my all time favorite but Taz is in my top three too. His path of rage in ECW is what Brock Lesnar wants to be haha. Bam Bam tapped!

Raven is actually the only reason I even checked out TNA in its early days. He had freshened up his gimmick (he was always good about that), was in the best shape of his career and was still in his prime, the fans were behind him even though he was supposed to be the bad guy...and then Jarrett retained the title, of freaking course.
Many people don't seem to remember bret got taken out early before he could do anything big on wcw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2aYjyovSw4
WCW Nitro had great cruiser weights and submission experts. But Raw had the better program. Ironically, WWE these days is a much worse product than WCW. I can't even stomach it anymore. I miss the old days when people actually wrestled.

As for Bret, he was awfully misused Though he did have a classic bout with Chris Benoit. Worth looking up that match, definitely a career highlight.
This thread has a thread. Just sayin... please give my thread some love too.
http://www.gog.com/forum/general/the_wrestlingmma_thread

WCW. I was a huge mark for them. I was watching it from way back when it was still Crockett Promotions before Ted Turner bought them out. Crockett-era Ric Flair/Horsemen/Dusty Rhodes/Midnight Express vs Rock and Roll Express stuff was some of the best pro wrestling EVER. Period.

The problem with WCW was too many cooks in the kitchen. WCW needed a Vince Mcmahon and they never got one. The only one who could have possibly done the job right was Bill Watts, and the back office politics was too much for him and he split/got fired. But Nitro era WCW was still pretty good, too. The NWO angle was the just the icing on the cake. They also had the Luchadores (viva La Parka!), Benoit, Guerrero and Jericho all in their young prime. WCW had fast paced wrestling action, good stories, and a hell of a lot of chaos and intensity. Very true for the marks who knew that the whole thing was a train wreck waiting to slide off the track at any moment. Wrestling is safe now. Back then it was territories and kayfabe and wrestlers getting beat up by fans because they were heels. Just a weird crazy time for wrestling.

Bret Hart failed at WCW for mostly the above reasons. Bret is one of the best technical wrestlers of all time. But he couldn't navigate the muddy waters of the WCW brass. Plus... I think he came in too late. The NWO had already started and was riding roughshod by the time he got there. Bret just boarded the plane right before it started its slow descent. I wish he would have stuck it out in the WWF. The 'screwjob in Montreal' never really got a finish. If Bret had stuck around and gone 'all the way' with that Shawn Michaels feud it would have been huge. Lost opportunity on both sides.
Post edited February 18, 2016 by Emob78
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Emob78: This thread has a thread. Just sayin... please give my thread some love too.
http://www.gog.com/forum/general/the_wrestlingmma_thread

WCW. I was a huge mark for them. I was watching it from way back when it was still Crockett Promotions before Ted Turner bought them out. Crockett-era Ric Flair/Horsemen/Dusty Rhodes/Midnight Express vs Rock and Roll Express stuff was some of the best pro wrestling EVER. Period.

The problem with WCW was too many cooks in the kitchen. WCW needed a Vince Mcmahon and they never got one. The only one who could have possibly done the job right was Bill Watts, and the back office politics was too much for him and he split/got fired. But Nitro era WCW was still pretty good, too. The NWO angle was the just the icing on the cake. They also had the Luchadores (viva La Parka!), Benoit, Guerrero and Jericho all in their young prime. WCW had fast paced wrestling action, good stories, and a hell of a lot of chaos and intensity. Very true for the marks who knew that the whole thing was a train wreck waiting to slide off the track at any moment. Wrestling is safe now. Back then it was territories and kayfabe and wrestlers getting beat up by fans because they were heels. Just a weird crazy time for wrestling.

Bret Hart failed at WCW for mostly the above reasons. Bret is one of the best technical wrestlers of all time. But he couldn't navigate the muddy waters of the WCW brass. Plus... I think he came in too late. The NWO had already started and was riding roughshod by the time he got there. Bret just boarded the plane right before it started its slow descent. I wish he would have stuck it out in the WWF. The 'screwjob in Montreal' never really got a finish. If Bret had stuck around and gone 'all the way' with that Shawn Michaels feud it would have been huge. Lost opportunity on both sides.
The Montreal Screwjob was the end of Bret's time in WWF regardless of what happened. He was supposed to win the title and then relinquish it on the next Raw.
Bret Hart went largely underutilized throughout his entire run in WCW. One of the bright spots of his career there was a match with Chris Benoit in Owen Hart’s memory, and he claims he even had a hard time selling that idea to the guys in charge. The company’s backroom politics are legendary at this point, with many claims that the creative side was dominated by a tight-knit group of wrestlers. Meanwhile the WWF were taking unsatisfied WCW mid-carders like Steve Austin and Chris Jericho, and making them top stars. There was an interesting interview with Jericho, lemme see if I can find it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKDauMsM0SY

I’ve been thinking about getting back into wrestling myself, but in some ways the lack of competition has left the WWF/WWE in worse shape. ‘Victory has defeated you’ as a masked man once said.
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jsidhu762: Hello everyone!

1) How did Nitro compare to Raw?

2) What was Bret Hart like in WCW? I heard him say that they didn't make good use of him, but I didn't really watch WCW. After Bret left WWF my interest in wrestling began to slowly die.

I think I eventually stopped watching in early 2002. I also tried getting into the new stuff. I found a few wrestlers interesting, like Roman Reigns, but wrestling now doesn't really get me excited like it did when I was a kid.
I loved Nitro. During the NWO era, Nitro practically owned Monday nights and influenced WWE's "Attitude Era" directly. I felt that the WCW's wrestlers were more interesting and they gave more shots to younger talents like Rey Mysterio, Big Show, Kevin Nash, etc. I liked the presentation a lot more and had some of my favorites, like Hulk Hogan, Sting, Ric Flair, Rey, Eddie Guerrero, Billy Kidman, Diamond Dallas Page, Goldberg, Chris Jericho, Ultimo Dragon and all the awesome bantam and welterweight high flyers/luchadores.

As for Bret Hart, I don't think his heart was ever IN the WCW. He didn't want to come, but at the same time, Vince McMahon was not offering him the same deal that Ted Turner was, so when Vince didn't match his offer or at least offer him a guaranteed contract, Bret came. Bret has also gone on record as saying that he even told Vince he'd take less money to stay with the WWE, if he'd just guarantee his contract, and Vince didn't.
It seemed he was just a midtier heel type and frequently played up like that. It was wasted potential for sure, as Bret did have a fanbase and every time I saw him, I felt like he was just spinning his wheels.
I stopped watching WWF back in the Hulk Hogan / Andre the Giant / JYD / Rowdy Roddy days. After about age nine pro wrestling lost all its charm and just became stupid. Or maybe I became smart.