You know, if it wasn't for the sheer awfulness of the last few months of WCW TV, the news of Bishoff and Russo coming together to 'save WCW' would be massive news. As it is, the pitiful quality of the programming recently and the news of all the backstage politics and changes have instilled a sense of apathy on the 'net like nothing I have every seen in my three years online.

After a long break from wrestling while I was going through my teens, my return to watching wrestling happened back in 1997 when my friend showed me Nitro. I'd mostly watched WCW at the start of the nineties because it was on UK TV really late and I would set up the video to tape it. We didn't have satellite TV so I couldn't watch the WWF. But it would be WCW I would return to watching. Sting was still there but he looked like the Crow and he was in the rafters looking mean. Hogan was there, only he was all dressed in black and his voice had gone all horse and weird-sounding. He had some scrawny little guy with him who had about the smuggest expression on his face I had ever seen. Vinnie Vegas was there, only he had more hair, the Diamond Stud was there too only he kept losing his balance when he tried to stand still. I wasn't interested in that crap though. I started watching wrestling again for a few other reasons. Number one, this really cool grunge guy called Raven had just appeared - he had all these tattooed and mean looking guys with him and they looked pretty damn cool. Another reason was all these smaller guys, some on them had masks and some of them looked foreign and they were jumping all over the place!! They were doing all these really impressive moves and would wrestle for ten or fifteen minutes without being boring! There was this guy called Jericho too and he kept getting beat and getting upset and hitting stuff, that was kind of funny.

Anyway, I watched WCW Nitro for the next three years. During the first two, I saw some of the greatest wrestling matches I have ever seen, like when Kidman (still in the Flock) lose to Juvi in some excellent ten minute Cruiserweight matches. I saw Benoit and Raven fight for the #1 contendership for the US Title (held by DDP) in the possibly the best match I ever saw. My friend Tom and I would wind through the main events, they were boring but it didn't matter because we had two hours of top wrestling action to enjoy between the interviews and stuff. This was back when Jericho was rising to become the greatest heel ever, before his dumbed-down WWF persona surfaced last year. I watched the incredibly entertaining feud between him and Malenko, the best wrestling TV I have EVER seen. If you saw it, remember when Jericho insisted he knew four more moves than Malenko? He started reading out all 1004, they went for a break and when they came back he was still doing it? He kept listing 'arm bar'? Absolutely classic, it still makes me laugh. I mean come on, Jericho had a great feud with Goldberg and he didn't even wrestle him! WCW had wrestling, it was incredibly entertaining, and I loved it.

Unfortunately this all changed in 1999, things started to get tired. All kind of fucked up stuff was going on behind the scenes. In the biggest fuck-up of Bishoff's tenure as president, he didn't recognise the amazing potential Chris Jericho had and let him leave for the WWF where he is now the second biggest face in the company. The show was getting really tired, the fans were getting bored, having said that though, there was still a very talented undercard working their asses off, unfortunately for little reward. Other gus left, including Raven. Eventually, Bishoff was given the elbow and in came Bill Busch. Unfortunately, Bill knew absolutely nothing about wrestling. The unrealistic desire to beat the WWF took over the company. I think they were trying to work out how they could still be really boring and recycle the same garbage over and over again, but still keep the fans watching just like the WWF was doing at that time.

The WWF was sucking, hard. From the point of view of a wrestling fan (me) the whole Attitude era was a load of shit. There was hardly any wrestling to speak of, the biggest face in the company was so screwed up from injuries he couldn't do a wrestling move if his life depended on it, and all his opposition blew goats. They over-did everything that was popular, every PPV main event was no DQ (a trend that continues today), they kept putting on these putridly awful hardcore matches that spent about two minutes in the arena - someone scoring a pin in a Toys R Us about five miles down the road. The Internet world was rocked, however, by the news that Busch had lured Ed Ferrera and more importantly Vince Russo away from WWFEland, New York, to Turnerworld, Atlanta. This news was greeted with a combination of outright celebrations from some people, after all Russo was the man who 'saved the WWF' and Ed had erm, been there too. Others, myself included, were cautiously optimistic, some fresh blood might be what WCW needed, someone who would push the newer guys.

Unfortunately us WCW fans were met the next week with some of the worst crap we had ever seen. The wrestling matches were cut to three minutes at the most, the whole show was filled with boobs and dreadful skits. Whose fault was this badly written, crack-fuelled garbage, why Standards and Practices of course. They were holding Vince down and not letting his brilliance shine through by having Mona job to the Barbarian in a 'loser gets to lose all their clothes match'. Though for a couple of weeks ratings went up a little, those curious enough to see what Vinnie and Eddie would do soon turned back to the WWF, as did many dedicated WCW fans. Including me. The WWF actually got BETTER without that overrated idiot Russo. Meanwhile WCW was trimmed to two hours which did nothing but mean the fans didn't have to suffer for as long. But suddenly Russo was removed as quickly as he had arrived and Busch, in his wisdom, listened to the two Kevins who told him they could turn WCW around. They had Busch celebrating when Nitro went above a 3.0 in the ratings, which was an indication of how bad things had become. With a growing list of injured talent, the next piece of Busch genius capped it all off. He let four of the most talented men WCW have ever had walk out of the company. Look at the WWF now, three of those four men have belts, does that tell you anything? Busch screwed people around including under-utilised uber-heel Kanyon. The WCW was as far into the festering mire of stinking evil damnation as it had ever been. Who could save WCW from utter oblivion? Ted Turner? Yeah, right.

Lets bring back the man who turned WCW into a comedy clusterfuck and went on record as saying he wouldn't push foreigners (though foreigners make up a big chunk of the good wrestlers WCW had left). Wait, I have an idea! Lets partner him up with that self-satisfied bastard who pushed all the old fucks who couldn't wrestle for shit! Brilliant! Now I realise I am being slightly harsh, at least when Bishoff was in charge we got some wrestling. His 'zero planning ahead' style of booking may have been rather hit and miss and at times a little bizarre, but it sure beats the utter shit Russo was pushing on us. Yet here lies the problem. What are we going to get next week on Nitro? I have two scenarios I want to run past you:

SCENARIO #1 - GOD ALMIGHTY, WHAT IS THIS SHIT?

Its a sports entertainment show. The show starts with a forty minute Hogan interview. The WCW set has been replaced with the most hideously stupid looking thing ever witnessed. We get a bunch of bad clips of Bishoff arguing Russo (still of camera) that have lots of 'funny' appearances by a bunch of wrestlers who should consider that their push. Lots of boobies. There are about fifteen of bad bell-to-bell action which finishes the night with Hogan getting the pin on Sid after five minutes of Hogan destroying Sid before a ref bump and every single wrestler on the roster stages a series of run-ins. Hogan fights everybody off and hits the leg drop for the pin and the world strap. He then turns heel, then face, then heel again and we fade to black.

SCENARIO #2 - HEY, THIS IS WATCHABLE AND THERE'S WRESTLING!!!!!!!

It's a wrestling show. The match starts with a cruiserweight match between Psicosis and Bliztkrieg, the winner gets a title shot later in the night. Blitzkreig wins both matches. Small interviews punctuate the matches that involve all the titles being defended. About 70 minutes bell-to-bell action. Story lines are set up, only they make sense and don't insult anybody's intelligence. Main event sees Goldberg winning the world title.

Well, they were a little vague I admit, but which would you rather see? If WCW still thinks they should be trying to compete with the WWF, they are just going to alienate even more fans and Bishoff and Russo will probably be replaced in a couple of months. If WCW tries to put on a show that WCW fans want to see, as in lots of wrestling and less tits and stupid skits, sure they won't match the WWF but they will be making something worth seeing. That would increase ratings a little wouldn't it? We'll have to wait and see I suppose.

Well, thanks for bearing with me through that. If you have any opinions on what I just wrote, mail me at marvellous_martin@yahoo.com. You know you want to. Don't do anything I wouldn't do.

Cheerio

Marvellous Martin
Willing to suffer for you, even a Lex Luger promo.
[slash] wrestling