UFC: Penn VS Fitch

[Montana]

The Monday Night Wars

How did you feel about this? Were you pro wwf or wcw. Did you have any favorite memories? Who did you think would win?

Me personally i started watching wrestling in the summer of 92. Around 93 I started watchin wcw too. I perfered wwf, but respected wcw. They had guys like flair, sting, vader, simmons, Stunning Steve Austin, Brian Pillman. I Thought it was a good program, although the wwf was clearly better.

All that changed when wcw signed Hulk Hogan. I thought that was a bitch move by hogan, but none the less i continued to watch both programs. Back then i used to read the inside info in the detroit news every friday. They had rumors and anything about wreslting in general. They first started to hype up this war, when they started printing the ratings.

So Nitro debuted, and i thought it was ok, but as soon as Hall and Nash "jumped ship" That was a real low blow to the wwf. It lost 2 of its 4 biggest stars. Now i really hated wcw. On top of that, i still thought the wwe had the better show all along. They had newer faces rather than Old fogies like Hogan, macho, Flair.

Week by Week, Month by Month, the hatred grew and grew. WCW continued to win, despite raw bein the better show.

THen Bret Hart left. I thought that might be the final blow to the wwe. I started to think the wwf would be #2, even with the new stars like the rock, stone cold, and hhh.

But it seemed when Vince screwed Bret at Survivor Series, it was actually the turning point for wwe. They came back and kept winnign while WCW was letting goldberg run through their roster. I hated goldberg back then. The only guy i liked in wcw was jericho.

The wwe had the momentum and Big Show and Jericho came to raw. I knew that was a good sign, and that wcw was in trouble. Eddie, Beniot, were not far beind. I thought WCW might try and switch days, but i never thought Vince would buy out WCW. That was a huge shocker.

After Vince won, i thought he should have kept it afloat with perhaps shane in charge. But no, WCW was gone and within a few years the wwe is stale again. The small fued with tna is nothing now. But maybe someday, some company will challenge the wwe.

 

[Soulpower]

The WWF was clearly better? Maybe. When I first got into wrestling I watched WCW all the time. I even remember the Halloween Havoc PPV when the Halloween Phantom showed up (Rick Rude) which led to Paul E's Dangerous ALliance being fomred (with Austin and a couple of other guys), I remember being a fan of Pillman and Johnny B Badd (Marc Mero) and I remember laughing at the likes of Oz and Vinnie Vegas... poor Kevin Nash.

But when a lot of those guys left (Pillman, Austin, FOley) to ECW or elsewhere, I got into the WWF. That was during the rise of HBK and Bret Hart as singles competitor, by the time Psycho Sid became Shawn's bodyguard I was hooked to the WWF and have been ever since. The only time I watched WCW was when the cruiserweights were wrestling (Jericho was on another level compared to the rest of the WCW guys) but I never cared for Goldberg, or the NWO or anything afterwards that involved Vince Russo.

Like you said the MOntreal Screwjob and Vince's promo the next night. pretty much started the Attitude era, but by that time like I said I was all about the WWF. WCW had a pretty good product in the early to mid 90's with a lot of guys on the roster capable of putting great matches any given night, but then they went to a whole different direction, and as we now know it wasn;t the right direction for WCW.

 

[Montana]

Yea, that was my opinion. I felt like WWF was the mainstream company. I liked wcw back then too. They had a great roster, but i felt they were just a smaller company. I used to really like Van Hammer too. I thought clash of the champions was awesome too. The best part about WcW.

For those who don't know, Clash of the Champions was like a Free PPV. Almost like Saturday Nights main event, but better.

 

[Username]

Never heard of that, sounds great... Wish they did something like that now.

 

[Montana]

Ehh, wrestlin was different back then, so it worked.

Like back then the card would be:

Bret hart vs no name

Headshrinkers vs no names

Macho Man vs Repo Man as the main event

Wcw was the same.

But when compeition came in they got rid of the no name jobbers and just had low carders. Thus a better weekly program making it impossible for a SNME or Clash of the Champions With PPVs, because there was no more for that middle ground anymore. I hope that makes sense.

 

[get_brunk]

Clash was the bomb when it first debuted back in March of 1988. The Clashes for the first 2 or so years were revolutionary. SNME was tailspinning out of control a few short years after Clash debuted and WCW kept the Clashes up when they took over. However, I was just never as impressed with the Clashes as I was in the beginning. It legit was a free PPV in the beginning. I never got that feeling as it went on. Anyway, Clash was the best it's first few years. And other than the late '92-'93 stretch, it was never quite as important. But, that's a point for a different thread. (Though, Clash occasionally was on a Monday.)

As far as the Monday night wars, I was a tweener for quite some time. But, even though I didn't watch wrestling quite as much during these times as I had in the past, my loyalties always lie with the World Wrestling Federation. I was (and truth be told, still am) a big Bret Hart fan. My only regret is during a portion of his run on top (particularly the '95 year), there was a dearth of viably believable competition for him. Skinner? Isaac Yankem D.D.S.? '96 was a fantastic year, in my mind. The whole reinvigoration of the new Hart Foundation. What a story! I was well aware of what was going on in WCW (and vaguely interested, but to me, the whole NWO storyline got stale as soon as they started adding every wrestler and his brother), but still, when their product was winning the Monday Night Wars, I was loyal to the WWF.

In my mind, there was never a "war". Yeah, I know there was. Yeah, I know Turner whooped on Vince for a while. But to me, WCW was stale (even when WWF was way more stale, more cartoonish, more boring) and there were very few storylines I enjoyed. This whole time period just didn't affect me the way it did most fans those days.

I'm glad the war was won by the WWF, as the whole "attitude" era was great (as sad as I was to see Bret Hart gone from the WWF and it's storylines and as sad as I was to see him wasted in WCW, though that's what I felt about MANY people in WCW) and I enjoyed watching everything the WWF did.

WCW really did become the place dinosaurs went to get put out to pasture (especially by a certain date, long before their eventual demise). WWF, particularly during '95, was pretty horrid. But, they rebounded. I think they would benefit from some new REAL competition, though. They're pretty stale in many respects right now. Then again, you can't please everyone and they're going where they think the most money can be made at this time.

 

[Ben]

Jon Fitch (23-3) vs. BJ The Prodigy Penn (16-7)

 

[PHX]

a mill on Penn