The General Wrestling Thread

[EmpireWF]

I don't think it was "thrown away" on TV. In context of what was going on with the Monday Night Wars having a match like that on prime time cable television. Having the belt change hands like that, and WHERE they had it change was a great pice of booking. Goldberg played ball for the Georgia Bulldogs, and Atlanta Falcons that entire place was hyped up for Goldberg and Hogan was the ultimate heel in that scenario. Frankly, if you had done it at a PPV at a neautral site a lot of the atmosphere of that match is lost because the crowd wouldn't have been nearly as jacked.

WCW booked it so Goldberg was playing in the National Championship game at home on national TV. Brilliant move IMO.

From Death of WCW…

-Leading up to the Georgia Dome Nitro, they were at over 20,000 tickets sold and close to a $1 million gate.

-Hogan offered to wrestle Goldberg in a dark match and lose, with the plan that since all the big Turner execs would be in the building, they'd assume Hogan drew the big house.

-Things changed because Nitro was losing the ratings war to Raw, Bischoff was obsessed with winning.

-Inside the company, they "sensed" this would be a new era with Goldberg as a megadraw, beating Hogan clean in the ring.

-The quarter-hour rating for the match was a 6.91, over 5 million homes. Nitro beat Raw that week.

-The Georgia Dome Nitro drew 41,412 people (their biggest crowd ever, one of the 4 biggest American crowds to watch a wrestling show at that time). On TV, they claimed 39,919 fans.

They threw away millions by putting it on free TV, awesome atmosphere or not. Plus, they did win the ratings battle that week but that shouldn't have mattered when they could have done amazing PPV business with the match. Ironically, modern day TNA doesn't give a shit about PPV business and their dicks are hard about meaningless TV ratings. (To WCW's credit, they actually had success on PPV)

I didn't realize WCW PPV was doing pretty damn good in 1998 on the surface (they made $7 million off the Bash at the Beach PPV {Hogan/Rodman vs. DDP/Malone}). While Goldberg was fresh, sold merchandise and was something of a draw….Kevin Nash became booker and booked himself to beat Goldberg that December. Nash still defends the decision to this day, but there is no logical way anyone can.

[FirstTimer]

From Death of WCW…

-Leading up to the Georgia Dome Nitro, they were at over 20,000 tickets sold and close to a $1 million gate.

-Hogan offered to wrestle Goldberg in a dark match and lose, with the plan that since all the big Turner execs would be in the building, they'd assume Hogan drew the big house.

-Things changed because Nitro was losing the ratings war to Raw, Bischoff was obsessed with winning.

-Inside the company, they "sensed" this would be a new era with Goldberg as a megadraw, beating Hogan clean in the ring.

-The quarter-hour rating for the match was a 6.91, over 5 million homes. Nitro beat Raw that week.

-The Georgia Dome Nitro drew 41,412 people (their biggest crowd ever, one of the 4 biggest American crowds to watch a wrestling show at that time). On TV, they claimed 39,919 fans.

They threw away millions by putting it on free TV, awesome atmosphere or not. Plus, they did win the ratings battle that week but that shouldn't have mattered when they could have done amazing PPV business with the match. Ironically, modern day TNA doesn't give a shit about PPV business and their dicks are hard about meaningless TV ratings. (To WCW's credit, they actually had success on PPV)

I didn't realize WCW PPV was doing pretty damn good in 1998 on the surface (they made $7 million off the Bash at the Beach PPV {Hogan/Rodman vs. DDP/Malone}). While Goldberg was fresh, sold merchandise and was something of a draw….Kevin Nash became booker and booked himself to beat Goldberg that December. Nash still defends the decision to this day, but there is no logical way anyone can.

Like I said I don't disgaree with where the "business" end of things is coming from. But in the end it would have been all for naught anyways.

Nash beating Goldberg=teh lamez...

[EmpireWF]

WCW was horribly managed but they did run into some classic moments...

<iframe frameborder="0" width="480" height="360" src="http://www.dailymotion.com/embed/video/xjf3j7"></iframe><br /><a href="http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xjf3j7_ric-flair-returns-to-wcw_sport" target="_blank">Ric Flair Returns to WCW</a> <i>by <a href="http://www.dailymotion.com/WWF-WCWclassics" target="_blank">WWF-WCWclassics</a></i>

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dit0sfMCYpI[/ame]

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPfF1oawTrs[/ame]

[IamMedellin]

In retrospect the war was lost but at the time it wasn't.

this was a hotshotted move, it was a right place right time type moment and while wcw put all of their eggs in that one basket, and It paid off for that one night[which didnt end up mattering anyways], there was no followup, no real plan for Goldberg as champion, typical WCW. His 1st title defense was against Curt Henning with no promotion[again] on PPV. Nitro floundered and never won another night. the next time there was actually a plan for goldberg as champion it involved Nash, and we all know how that worked out.

Like I said, if that PPV takes place in New York, Detroit, San Jose, etc etc etc that crowd isn't nearly like that and the huge emotion of the crowd is lost. IMO Goldberg couldn't have won the belt anywhere better than in Georgia and WCW set it up that way.

Sure they could have made more money hyping the PPV up and getting a ton of buys but the match would have ended up much lamer IMO.

I dont disagree with the moment, its very difficult to duplicate anywhere else since Atlanta was home to WCW and had the hometown guy in Goldberg who was at his Hottest, and Hogan who was just Loathed, it was a right time right place type deal. But from a business standpoint it was just a moronic move to give away that big of a ppv match on free tv, that match was a liscence to print money and it was thrown away on free tv, just another dumb move/missed oppertunity by WCW.

[s@ppisgod]

I don't know about that. From a 'moment' perspective, almost nothing can top Hogan/Andre. I wouldn't put Goldberg/Hogan up there with it (the fact it was thrown away on TV, despite the awesome crowd immediately takes it down IMO).

Again, the Hogan/Andre thing just doesn't hold up over time. Vince loading up on giant, monster wrestlers just makes Andre seem less "special" in retrospect. Hogan, though, is like the Babe Ruth of wrestling. Goldberg beating him, while anyone with a TV and interest in wrestling watched, in front of the hottest crowd ever. Well, thats a bigger moment to me. Lost a ton of money, yeah. But EVERYONE remembers it.
SAMSUNG-SGH-A887/A887UCIJ1 SHP/VPP/R5 NetFront/3.5 SMM-MMS/1.2.0 profile/MIDP-2.1 configuration/CLDC-1.1

[EmpireWF]

Again, the Hogan/Andre thing just doesn't hold up over time. Vince loading up on giant, monster wrestlers just makes Andre seem less "special" in retrospect. Hogan, though, is like the Babe Ruth of wrestling. Goldberg beating him, while anyone with a TV and interest in wrestling watched, in front of the hottest crowd ever. Well, thats a bigger moment to me. Lost a ton of money, yeah. But EVERYONE remembers it.
SAMSUNG-SGH-A887/A887UCIJ1 SHP/VPP/R5 NetFront/3.5 SMM-MMS/1.2.0 profile/MIDP-2.1 configuration/CLDC-1.1

Everyone remembers WM 3, too.

Of course the match doesn't hold up, it's a broken down Andre and Hogan. Still, regardless, the moment when he bodyslams him and pins him is one of the top moments in modern wrestling.

[LiquidLarry2GhostWF]

Again, the Hogan/Andre thing just doesn't hold up over time. Vince loading up on giant, monster wrestlers just makes Andre seem less "special" in retrospect. Hogan, though, is like the Babe Ruth of wrestling. Goldberg beating him, while anyone with a TV and interest in wrestling watched, in front of the hottest crowd ever. Well, thats a bigger moment to me. Lost a ton of money, yeah. But EVERYONE remembers it.
SAMSUNG-SGH-A887/A887UCIJ1 SHP/VPP/R5 NetFront/3.5 SMM-MMS/1.2.0 profile/MIDP-2.1 configuration/CLDC-1.1

Hogan and Andre is maybe the biggest and most important moments in the game in North America.

Goldberg and Hogan, while cool, really big...not even close to importance and definitely not bigger.

[s@ppisgod]

Everyone remembers WM 3, too.

Of course the match doesn't hold up, it's a broken down Andre and Hogan. Still, regardless, the moment when he bodyslams him and pins him is one of the top moments in modern wrestling.

It's still huge. It's still the WWE's biggest moment, by a pretty good margin. But the Goldberg thing just holds up so well because that crowd was INSANE! The WM 3 crowd was a little bigger, and really hot. But Atlanta was on a whole different level. It was like a rabid, college football crowd. It's saying something that the Nitro crowds always skewed older and were rowdy (how many drunks did Peewee Anderson have to take down over the years?), and this one blows them out of the water by a wide margin. The crowd ended up being as big of an attraction as Goldberg (insanely hot at the time) beating a legend who damn near never lost clean in WCW for the title.
SAMSUNG-SGH-A887/A887UCIJ1 SHP/VPP/R5 NetFront/3.5 SMM-MMS/1.2.0 profile/MIDP-2.1 configuration/CLDC-1.1

[s@ppisgod]

Hogan and Andre is maybe the biggest and most important moments in the game in North America.

Goldberg and Hogan, while cool, really big...not even close to importance and definitely not bigger.

I'm not arguing importance. Obviously the Andre match put Hogan on another level, and he went on to dominate as the most well-known wrestler ever for the biggest promotiin ever, and be one of the biggest draws ever. And Goldberg went on to become, well, irrelevant in a year and Hogan would twiddle his thumbs until the showdown with the Rock roughly.

But as a stand-alone wrestling moment and memory, I think the Goldberg Nitro is bigger. Show a non-wrestling fan both, and I guarantee the Goldberg moment sticks better. No build, no aftermath. Just intros to end bell. The Nitro match is it, IMHO.
SAMSUNG-SGH-A887/A887UCIJ1 SHP/VPP/R5 NetFront/3.5 SMM-MMS/1.2.0 profile/MIDP-2.1 configuration/CLDC-1.1

[LiquidLarry2GhostWF]

I'm not arguing importance. Obviously the Andre match put Hogan on another level, and he went on to dominate as the most well-known wrestler ever for the biggest promotiin ever, and be one of the biggest draws ever. And Goldberg went on to become, well, irrelevant in a year and Hogan would twiddle his thumbs until the showdown with the Rock roughly.

But as a stand-alone wrestling moment and memory, I think the Goldberg Nitro is bigger. Show a non-wrestling fan both, and I guarantee the Goldberg moment sticks better. No build, no aftermath. Just intros to end bell. The Nitro match is it, IMHO.
SAMSUNG-SGH-A887/A887UCIJ1 SHP/VPP/R5 NetFront/3.5 SMM-MMS/1.2.0 profile/MIDP-2.1 configuration/CLDC-1.1

Non-wrestling fans know Hogan-Andre without even having to look.

That staredown, with the camera zooming in is probably the most iconic wrestling visual of all-time. It was just epic. The closer you get, you see Hogan's head shaking, the crowd erupting, that was sports cinema.

I love the Goldberg-Hogan moment, I just don't think they compare.

:noidea:

[FedEx227]

Newest episode of my Voices of Wrestling show is now live features a VSN alum Dexter/RKO.

http://www.voicesofwrestling.com/2011/08/voices-of-wrestling-episode-2-dexter.html

The second (and long awaited) episode of the Voices of Wrestling podcast! Tonight's subject is Dexter a 22-year old wrestling fan from Illinois. Dexter and I talk a number of different wrestling topics including Kevin Nash, nWo, Wrestlemania 25, Randy Orton's music, CM Punk and much more.

Dexters's Voices of Wrestling profile
When did you become a fan? During the Monday Night Wars
Three favorite wrestlers: CM Punk, Randy Orton, A.J. Styles
Favorite match: Shawn Michaels vs. Undertaker WrestleMania 25

And again anyone from VSN who wants to be interviewed for the show please fill out the "Be on VOW" form on the top of the page, there's a lot of awesome fans on this forum and you guys need your voices heard!

[JayDizzle]

Now "Barney" is an overgrown puppet suit but the look on that purple dinosaur's face is one of pure anguish and misery.

Randall Keith Orton is high on PCP and uppers.

One isn't leaving that room alive.

[SHOGUN]

In the segment-by-segment, the open with HHH explaining his story and Alberto Del Rio doing his interview did a 3.73 rating, the high point of the show. John Morrison vs. R-Truth falls count anywhere lost 817,000 viewers, one of the worst drops of any match all year, and the worst I can recall for an opener in any kind of recent memory. The Miz doing his Subway ad with Jared Fogle gained 225,000 viewers. Kelly Kelly & Eve Torres vs. Bella Twins lost 52,000 viewers. The Kevin Nash interview with C.M. Punk out gained 556,000 viewers at the 10 p.m. hour, which is usual range. Alex Riley vs. Jack Swagger lost 619,000 viewers, also worse then usual. Michael McGillicutty & David Otunga vs. Kofi Kingston & Evan Bourne lost 412,000 viewers. And the Alberto Del Rio vs. Rey Mysterio main event gained 763,000 viewers to a 3.41 overrun.

Dreadful. My goodness @ the Truth/Morrison drop.

[JayDizzle]

Morrison's an also-ran and R-Truth should be having bigger matches instead of wrestling with Midcard bums anymore.

It's like having to wrestle Shelton Benjamin over and over again after fighting HHH.

[dave]

Morrison isn't an also-ran, he's horribly miscast. Making that guy a babyface is the stupidest thing ever. He's heel all the way. Watching him as a babyface is like watching me as a ladies' man ... just awkward.