You know, maybe it's a little on the stupid side of things to feel such a strong loyalty and bond to a company that I don't work for, none of my family or friends work for, and that I have no real ties to. Maybe it is to some people, but to me, and to the other true WWF fans out there, it's not. The WWF entertained me from my childhood, through my teenage years, and now into my young adult years. The WWF has provided more stability for me and my life than my own family. What I mean is, the WWF has been there every Monday night since I started watching (except US Open nights and that dog show thing when they were on USA). Maybe my attachment to the WWF is some sort of a psychological disorder. I started watching it when my parents were in the middle of a divorce, and busier fighting than doing anything else. Maybe the WWF took the place of my mother, who left my life (at least on a regular basis) when I was eleven years old. Or maybe we should just say forget all of the stupid excuses, and stop whining, the WWF is cool dammit!
Look, I'm not old enough to remember the days when Vince Sr. ran the show. I don't remember the Sgt. Slaughter/Pat Patterson feud. I started watching the WWF close to ten years ago. I came on board as a fan right as Hulk Hogan was on his way out the door. So if you're going to say I jumped aboard some popularity bandwagon or that wrestling was the "cool" thing to watch back then, you're wrong. I was fascinated by the action in the ring, the fact that these guys performed so smoothly, seemingly never getting hurt seriously, yet it was so incredibly physical. I loved the over the top characters, I loved the whole show. It was great. I started watching Monday Night RAW regularly one summer, and gradually as summer turned to fall, I discovered that there was another wrestling company that ran it's shows on Saturday nights - WCW.
I began to watch both shows, WCW Saturday night, and WWF RAW. I liked both shows, followed both closely, but the WWF was my clear favorite. I think I might have bought one WCW action figure as a kid, but hundreds of WWF toys. And I felt dirty for buying the WCW one, but hey..it was Vader, and at the time he had just came to the WWF; so it's not really that bad, is it? WCW had it's stars, it had it's moments. It was almost entertaining. That was a different day though, when it was more wrestling than talking. I thought everything was going perfectly, I had my favorite show on Mondays, then I had a sort of backup show to watch on Saturdays. It was almost like the major league team (WWF) and then the minor league (WCW), and I followed them both.
Then, in the fall of 1995, that all changed forever. Nitro made it's Monday night debut. I remember thinking to myself at the time "who the hell would watch WCW instead of the WWF? This Nitro show won't last, nobody will watch it!" Wrong.
The WWF had gotten complacent. They had good shows, don't get me wrong, but the WCW had found a new formula. In the past, wrestling shows traditionally had featured a top star against a jobber, no brainer matches. WCW Nitro brought in the matches with stars vs. stars. They were defeating the WWF in the ratings, and the WWF had no idea what to do. Things just got worse when Scott Hall and Kevin Nash defected from their WWF personas of Razor Ramon and Diesel (respectively) to go to WCW and start the nWo angle.
The wrestling landscape and totally changed. Turner's WCW was trying to destroy McMahon's WWF, and thus far, fairly successfully. The WWF was losing stars left and right to the WCW. Guys who we all thought would never be anywhere but the WWF. McMahon was getting his WWF ass kicked in the ratings, for the longest time, and it seemed that things would never change. But along with my fellow WWF loyalists, I never doubted Vince. I knew that things would change. I had faith, but Eric B*tchoff (Bischoff.whatever) didn't. He opened his big mouth, and in a big online chat he had during the middle of WCW's reign on top, he said something to the effect of that the WWF would never beat the WCW in ratings, and that it was getting "almost boring" to read the Tuesday morning overnight ratings.
But finally, in March of 1998, the WWF turned the tables with a simple concept. The common man takes on his boss. Two weeks after Wrestlemania XIV, the main event of RIW was set to be Stone Cold Steve Austin, the WWF Champion, against the WWF owner Vince McMahon. And although the match never actually took place until the next February (Dude Love interfered and kept it from happening), the concept was there, and the ratings had finally turned in the WWF's favor.
Things went back and forth for awhile, but the WWF remained dominant for the most part. Then, it became ridiculous. The WWF was killing WCW by huge margins. It wasn't a close call at any point, the WWF was slaughtering WCW in the Monday Night ratings. Then we come to March, 2001.
But before we get to that, we've left something out haven't we? Something Extreme? I'm no ECW historian, so we won't go there. All I know is that the ECW first came to my attention through the failed invasion of the WWF they had in early 1997. It seemed interesting enough to me, and I kept up with the ECW stars as best I could through the internet reports, as ECW did not air anything but PPVs here (except the TNN show of course). ECW was billed as the alternative to the WWF and WCW, and the originator of what has become "WWF Attitude". The chairs, the barbed wire, the tables, were all ECW commonplace before they were in the WWF. The WWF had a good enough working relationship with ECW, even going as far as sending a few WWF stars to ECW to "develop" or whatever, that they acknowledged ECW inspired some of the new attitude.
I followed ECW as well as I could, I considered myself an ECW fan (I never considered myself a WCW fan after the head to head competition began), and I felt proud to know who guys like the Dudleys, Tazz, Rhyno, etc. were before their WWF careers. But ECW was still no WWF. I ordered a few ECW pay per view events, but I ordered every WWF event. I ordered no WCW events, just for the record, not one. ECW was fine with me, I was sad to see it close it's doors.
That being said, maybe the reason I was okay with the ECW was because it was in no direct competition to the WWF. Maybe it was because ECW didn't try to run the WWF to the ground. Maybe it was just because ECW was never broadcast on Monday Nights. I'm not really sure. But I hated WCW. I followed it, I had to, because I had to be educated on what was going on in the pro-wrestling world, not just the WWF. I followed it because of the different WWF stars going to the WCW, I followed it out of curiosity. I won't lie, I liked a few of the stars, but not many, and usually they had been favorites of mine in the WWF before they had gone to WCW.
Now, back to March 2001, ECW has folded, Paul Heyman is an announcer for the WWF, most of the ECW stars had been introduced already in the WWF and had or were in the process of establishing themselves as WWF stars. And then the big one, WCW had announced it's "season finale" of Nitro. WCW was going off the air permanently was the truth, unless someone saved it, bought the company from Turner. In come Vince McMahon. He buys WCW up, but that's not the way we see it on TV. Oh no, Shane "buys WCW out from under Vince's nose", and we have the beginnings of this invasion angle.
I realize it's all an angle, but the fact that Vince McMahon is trying to make a success out of a company that for so long tried to ruin him is just sickening. WCW was the company that tried to put Vince out of business, why would he save them? It doesn't make sense. Think about the way Vince did business throughout the 80s and early 90s, he would either buy a territory out and take the wrestlers he wanted for the WWF, or he would run a company out of business and the wrestlers would come to him looking for employment. Why is WCW any different? I mean, buy up the copyright and the tapes, some of the talent, integrate it into the WWF, and call it done. I hate WCW, I can't stand seeing it on WWF television.
WCW had too many problems, so it collapsed. Personally, I feel the WCW had a real lack of motivation. WCW was like the retirement land for old wrestlers to go and slack off, but still make the big bucks. It was like everyone in WCW was just going through the motions and had no real motivation or drive or care for the business. That's why guys like Triple H and Mick Foley thrived in the WWF. If you didn't care about the business, go slack in WCW and half-as* it, if you do care and you want to be the best, then come to the WWF.
WCW, at least in my mind, and many others I do believe, will always represent everything that is wrong with the wrestling business. I don't even know if I can put it into words accurately what I think of WCW. I just want the WWF to annihilate WCW on Sunday, to end this nightmare.
It might be a fictional storyline, but to me and other WWF loyalists all around the world, this WCW "invasion" is nothing but offensive.
I can only hope that the WWF will kick as* and end this whole thing, and I can go back to feeling normal about my WWF obsession.
Until Next Time.
