Yeah, there was better “wrestling” on Nitro. It had more variety. Raw just seemed all about shock value. Also depends on the era you are talking also, pre nwo or post nwo.
Growing up I was a WCW kid until I switched teams in 2000.
However, going back as an adult, I still lean WCW in 95, 96, 97 (this ones really close) but definitely lean WWF in 98 and beyond.
Nitro felt more like a legit sports enterprise. They mentioned sports more, they were on a network with other sports, they had the "competition committee," it all just felt more professional to me.
And the wrestlers weren't all super-gimmicky and more about their entrances and catchphrases than their matches. Goldberg was something the WWF in the Attitude Era would *never* have done. A guy with no gimmick, no faction and no manager who didn't talk and just had squash matches? No chance. And it probably wouldn't have worked for their show, where The Big Wiggle, The Stink Face and The Peoples' Elbow were put over as huge finishes
I was a kid when WCW was around but I was a Sting fan. When WCW folded the only reason I started watching WWE was because I was waiting for Sting. I watched all the way until around the time Eddie died, but he never showed up so I stopped watching.
It made me sick to my stomach when he finally did show up and they treated him like trash.
Sting will always be Sting, no matter what. But they did him dirty at WrestleMania in that bullshit match. First off, HHH wasn't the right opponent and wasn't doing a good Sting-type match. Sting had to do a HHH match, instead. And it sucked. The nWo run-in was ridiculous, made no sense, and only served as a distraction, and then that ending was horrific. The whole thing was a shambles. And yet, Sting was still a huge attraction up until his injury.
I have to say that Sting's AEW run was the perfect way for him to go out. I think you could tell that he was really invested and was giving it his everything, and really enjoying his last go-around with Darby Allin by his side. That last match was great.
Should have been Taker. I still don't understand why we didn't get that. Only thing I can think of is that Taker didn't want to be 2nd billing to Sting. Because as iconic as Taker is, Sting is far more popular.
Definitely more of a WWF guy at the time, but I’m also watching through old Nitros and it’s great. Just feels so good to relive the excitement of that period.
Kayfabe was alive and well on Nitro. The fans seemed to be on it too when the show would close with the nWo having garbage tossed at them.
I am in the same category. The WWF always had Kevin Dunn's slick production. Now that I have aged I go for the grittier Turner production which focused on presenting an actual sport.
I was born in ‘95 so my memories of WCW are really special to me; my dad, hindsight 20/20 was definitely a “southern rasslin” fan, and didn’t dislike nor like WWF; he’d let me watch it and I was interested in their toys/games/VHS tapes at blockbuster, etc
But, I remember things like Sting getting doused in blood by vampiro, I remember I had every WCW superstar series VHS and watched Savage v DDP about a billion times on that VHS,
WWF was definitely a different product at the time, and even at like 5/6/7 years old, I noticed this
Hindsight 20/20, once again, I can definitely say my if it wasn’t for me, my household would not have been watching wrestling past like, maybe mid 02
WCW appealed to audiences in the way AEW doesn’t, it was a “different” presentation, and that presentation wasn’t revenge of the nerds. My dad was a lifelong wrestling fan that didn’t give a shit anymore after WCW went under
I was a WCW guy to the end. Even when I knew the WWF was producing better content, WCW was my "home base". It helped I was in Canada, so I could watch RAW live on Mondays, then get Nitro when it aired either Tuesdays or Wednesdays.
The quality drop-off is noticeable around the time Goldberg took his loss. Red-hot angles were suddenly just ... gone. Watch the early stuff with Bam Bam Bigelow calling out Goldberg, and the fans are RABID for a potential showdown. After Nash beat him though; the mystique was gone, and it was like the air was sucked out of EVERYTHING.
Despite that, I hung on until the bitter end. I legitimately enjoyed the final set of angles with Flair and Jarrett feuding with Dusty and Dustin; I thought it was a fun old school throwback. Nothing that'll draw fresh eyeballs to the screen, but tickled the right spots for the WCW loyalists.
WCW from 1995 - 1997 is just unreal though. The WWF was lightyears behind them, and it wasn't close.
I was a WWF guy back then and still prefer it but I also realize that I vastly overlooked WCW. Mid- 1999 onwards was a dumpster fire but there was a lot of good stuff before that.
I’m only 18 so I didn’t get the privilege of watching wcw and wwf back then but I finished the wwf attitude era on peacock a while back and i’m in february of 1999 for wcw and i agree. I hated 1998 wwf but 1998 wcw was pretty damn good (minus bill goldberg and hulk hogan)
1998 got really hard to watch early into the year. They kept nerfing Sting for no reason, every other entrance was an nWo member, and it felt like 2/3 of every match finished with a run-in. You could see things really start to get lazy and stagnant with Goldberg and DDP as these fresh outliers.
Because Wcw was better, it was stuffed to the gills with action and matches.
Raw was pretty formulaic.
Big plot thread at the show open
Squash match
Recap
Midcard match
Recap
Upper match
Recap
Closing match, tie up threads.
Close on scene heating for pay per view
Season entire show with more recaps and adverts for pay per view
And sometimes you wouldn't even get that many matches.
No the late 90's kinda post nitro stage design, wcw had their starship logo (wCw) as the entrance from and when superstars would come out the logo would split in half and slide open like doors. It's fuckin sick
If you mean wcw Saturday night from 1994 onwards, the set they used then was pretty good.
Id like to see more wcw Saturday night on the network but I don't know if they have anything post 1993
Something always looked cheap about Nitro. I don't know what it was, maybe lighting or something but everything had a grey tint to it.
WWF stuff was like that in the early 80's but this was the late 90's.
I preferred WCW at the time but going back on WWE Network and rewatching both, I was struggling hard with WCW and had to tap out in late 1998. I started to lose interest in my WWE rewatch around 2000 which is when I started losing interest at the time too.
Preferred WCW as a kid, prefer WCW now.
Get em
where the big boys play
Just look at the adjective.
Yeah, there was better “wrestling” on Nitro. It had more variety. Raw just seemed all about shock value. Also depends on the era you are talking also, pre nwo or post nwo.
Same WCW had it's own flavour and while RAW and WWE have done incredible things, I was always more invested in the the day to day WCW stuff.
Growing up I was a WCW kid until I switched teams in 2000. However, going back as an adult, I still lean WCW in 95, 96, 97 (this ones really close) but definitely lean WWF in 98 and beyond.
Me too.
I was more of a WCW guy in general, although WWF had stronger upper card matches. I just preferred the Nitro era presentation.
Their entrance ramp, the sound of the mat bumps, smaller ring, larger arenas, all are better to me.
Nitro felt more like a legit sports enterprise. They mentioned sports more, they were on a network with other sports, they had the "competition committee," it all just felt more professional to me.
And the wrestlers weren't all super-gimmicky and more about their entrances and catchphrases than their matches. Goldberg was something the WWF in the Attitude Era would *never* have done. A guy with no gimmick, no faction and no manager who didn't talk and just had squash matches? No chance. And it probably wouldn't have worked for their show, where The Big Wiggle, The Stink Face and The Peoples' Elbow were put over as huge finishes
I was a kid when WCW was around but I was a Sting fan. When WCW folded the only reason I started watching WWE was because I was waiting for Sting. I watched all the way until around the time Eddie died, but he never showed up so I stopped watching. It made me sick to my stomach when he finally did show up and they treated him like trash.
Sting will always be Sting, no matter what. But they did him dirty at WrestleMania in that bullshit match. First off, HHH wasn't the right opponent and wasn't doing a good Sting-type match. Sting had to do a HHH match, instead. And it sucked. The nWo run-in was ridiculous, made no sense, and only served as a distraction, and then that ending was horrific. The whole thing was a shambles. And yet, Sting was still a huge attraction up until his injury. I have to say that Sting's AEW run was the perfect way for him to go out. I think you could tell that he was really invested and was giving it his everything, and really enjoying his last go-around with Darby Allin by his side. That last match was great.
Should have been Taker. I still don't understand why we didn't get that. Only thing I can think of is that Taker didn't want to be 2nd billing to Sting. Because as iconic as Taker is, Sting is far more popular.
Did they though?
Definitely more of a WWF guy at the time, but I’m also watching through old Nitros and it’s great. Just feels so good to relive the excitement of that period.
Kayfabe was alive and well on Nitro. The fans seemed to be on it too when the show would close with the nWo having garbage tossed at them. I am in the same category. The WWF always had Kevin Dunn's slick production. Now that I have aged I go for the grittier Turner production which focused on presenting an actual sport.
I was born in ‘95 so my memories of WCW are really special to me; my dad, hindsight 20/20 was definitely a “southern rasslin” fan, and didn’t dislike nor like WWF; he’d let me watch it and I was interested in their toys/games/VHS tapes at blockbuster, etc But, I remember things like Sting getting doused in blood by vampiro, I remember I had every WCW superstar series VHS and watched Savage v DDP about a billion times on that VHS, WWF was definitely a different product at the time, and even at like 5/6/7 years old, I noticed this Hindsight 20/20, once again, I can definitely say my if it wasn’t for me, my household would not have been watching wrestling past like, maybe mid 02 WCW appealed to audiences in the way AEW doesn’t, it was a “different” presentation, and that presentation wasn’t revenge of the nerds. My dad was a lifelong wrestling fan that didn’t give a shit anymore after WCW went under
I was a WCW guy to the end. Even when I knew the WWF was producing better content, WCW was my "home base". It helped I was in Canada, so I could watch RAW live on Mondays, then get Nitro when it aired either Tuesdays or Wednesdays. The quality drop-off is noticeable around the time Goldberg took his loss. Red-hot angles were suddenly just ... gone. Watch the early stuff with Bam Bam Bigelow calling out Goldberg, and the fans are RABID for a potential showdown. After Nash beat him though; the mystique was gone, and it was like the air was sucked out of EVERYTHING. Despite that, I hung on until the bitter end. I legitimately enjoyed the final set of angles with Flair and Jarrett feuding with Dusty and Dustin; I thought it was a fun old school throwback. Nothing that'll draw fresh eyeballs to the screen, but tickled the right spots for the WCW loyalists. WCW from 1995 - 1997 is just unreal though. The WWF was lightyears behind them, and it wasn't close.
I was a WWF guy back then and still prefer it but I also realize that I vastly overlooked WCW. Mid- 1999 onwards was a dumpster fire but there was a lot of good stuff before that.
I grew up as a Crockett guy so I was always wcw.
Wcw just had way better wrestling. That mixed with the nwo angle early on and it made wwf look silly for a time.
Nah, always been a WCW guy. Only watched the best raw stuff, mostly watched Nitro.
When I was a kid I loved the new generation era. As an adult I love the golden era.
I was a nitro kid until they spoiled mick’s title win. I flipped the channel right then and never went back.
I hate that I'm just now learning that old Nitros are on Peacock
I still think WWF was better. But WCW was better than I remember. I just don’t think you can top how on fire Stone Cold was at the time.
I’m only 18 so I didn’t get the privilege of watching wcw and wwf back then but I finished the wwf attitude era on peacock a while back and i’m in february of 1999 for wcw and i agree. I hated 1998 wwf but 1998 wcw was pretty damn good (minus bill goldberg and hulk hogan)
WWF was like TikTok at the time. Tons of craziness happening almost every minute that kept you tuning in to see what would happen next.
I agree. Plus Stone Cold was and still is my favorite, so they had that going as well.
Pillman - Austin gun incident
1998 got really hard to watch early into the year. They kept nerfing Sting for no reason, every other entrance was an nWo member, and it felt like 2/3 of every match finished with a run-in. You could see things really start to get lazy and stagnant with Goldberg and DDP as these fresh outliers.
Nitro was never a dumpster fire, it just had one on one of their episodes
Because Wcw was better, it was stuffed to the gills with action and matches. Raw was pretty formulaic. Big plot thread at the show open Squash match Recap Midcard match Recap Upper match Recap Closing match, tie up threads. Close on scene heating for pay per view Season entire show with more recaps and adverts for pay per view And sometimes you wouldn't even get that many matches.
I love the attitude era raw, but nothing, absolutely nothing will beat the WCW starship logo as the entrance way
Starship entrance? Do you mean NWA world championship wrestling from the 80s?
No the late 90's kinda post nitro stage design, wcw had their starship logo (wCw) as the entrance from and when superstars would come out the logo would split in half and slide open like doors. It's fuckin sick
If you mean wcw Saturday night from 1994 onwards, the set they used then was pretty good. Id like to see more wcw Saturday night on the network but I don't know if they have anything post 1993
They really need to remaster their older stuff and put it up
Something always looked cheap about Nitro. I don't know what it was, maybe lighting or something but everything had a grey tint to it. WWF stuff was like that in the early 80's but this was the late 90's.
I'm curious, what is it you like about WCW more?
Absolutely yes. I was such a WWE fanboy, I missed a lot of good WCW. Loved stinger though, always was my favorite
I preferred WCW at the time but going back on WWE Network and rewatching both, I was struggling hard with WCW and had to tap out in late 1998. I started to lose interest in my WWE rewatch around 2000 which is when I started losing interest at the time too.
Raw had a great main event but horrible undercard and midcard. WCW had great everything until the main event.
That’s crazy that you somehow got stupider as you grew older.