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Assorted May-Per-View Countdown: WCW Slamboree 1998

The Netcop Rant for WCW/nWo Slamboree 98

Live from Worcester, Massachusetts

(Oh man, just reading this one over makes me think it’s LONG overdue for a re-rant, given all the historic stuff and interesting tidbits that I wish I would have known about 14 years ago.) 

Your hosts are Veni, Viti and Vici.

Recap of Bischoff's grandstand challenge from Thunder. This becomes a recurring theme all night. (So yeah, historic thing #1:  Eric Bischoff challenges Vince McMahon to a fight, putting up a sign on the fake dressing room door that says Vince “Reason For The Ratings” McMahon.  The implication here is that the WWF’s ratings victory over WCW, which was a new thing back in 98, was somehow an aberration caused by Vince being all over TV and not by their stars.  So anyway, Bischoff issues a challenge for a fight, but in the buildup to the show WCW’s legal team makes him note that Vince would not be there to cover their bases.  However, the WWF’s legal team sues for falsely advertising Vince McMahon as appearing, because in wrestling when you say someone is NOT going to be there, you are implying that they ARE going to be there.  Thankfully they settled that one out of court without the judge having to rule on the nature of reality itself within the WWE Universe, although I don’t believe the official terms were ever disclosed.  It involved a lot of money, though.) 

Opening match, TV title: Fit Finlay v. Chris Benoit.

Cool wrestling sequence to start, but it slows down a lot. Many chinlocks from Finlay bring it down. A beautiful spot near the end, as Benoit tries a tope suicida, but Finlay simply holds up a chair, which Benoit slams into in mid-air. Cool. (Bret Hart once talked about how wrestlers get hit with chairs without it hurting or doing damage.  Short answer:  They don’t.  To expand on this, I often wondered how Benoit could slam his head into chairs repeatedly in stupid spots like that one without suffering brain damage.  Short answer:  He didn’t.)  Back in the ring, Finlay goes shoulder-first into the turnbuckle and Benoit does the triple suplex, but Fit blocks. Then a Crippler Crossface, but Fit's in the ropes. Oh, dear lord, I don't like the looks of this. Cue Booker, in a suit and tie. Benoit stands and yells at him, and Finlay baseball slides into him, knocking him out. Tombstone, and Finlay retains. **1/2, and may I be the first to say GODDAMN MOTHERFUCKING SHIT DO I HATE THE FUCKING WCW BOOKING COMMITTEE AND I HOPE KEVIN FUCKING SULLIVAN FALLS INTO THE TOILET AND DROWNS THE NEXT TIME HE'S FIGHTING SOMEONE IN THE BATHROOM!!!!  (Well that’s a bit extreme, 1998 Scott.  The finish was right out of the RAW lazy booking playbook, though.) 

Okay, I'm better now.

Bryan Adams v. Lex Luger.

Wow, demoted to second from the bottom. That's gotta be a slap in the face. A gigantic, heaping plate of suck steak with fried suck potatoes on the side and suck pudding for dessert. (Mmm, suck pudding…)  Adams swings at Lex and he ducks and catches him in the Rack out of nowhere for the submission. Whoa, that last one was almost a wrestling move! DUD (Two matches in, two dead wrestlers.) 

Cruiserweight battle royale: Chris Jericho comes out to introduce all the participants, in a bit so funny at times ("Rock rock til he drops, rock rock never stop!") that I nearly spit out my Coke. I can't even do it justice. (Chris Jericho when he was young and hungry and trying to Zack Ryder himself up the card was a thing of AWESOMENESS.)  No Malenko, though, oddly enough. A nothing battle royale which comes down to Juvy and Ciclope (!). They have a staredown, and suddenly Juvy jumps over the top and eliminates himself. Que? Ah, Ciclope is unmasking to be...drum roll...DEAN MALENKO! (The crowd came UNGLUED for that one.  One of the great swerves in WCW’s history, actually.) 

Cruiserweight title match: Chris Jericho v. Dean Malenko.

Dean looks like a tool in the Ciclope suit. He absolutely goes medieval on Jericho's ass, and the fans pop like nuts. You hear that sound, WCW, it's HEAT for this feud. (Yeah, but then it kind of died off after this, because they didn’t know where to go with it.)  Juvy cheers Dean on at ringside for the added touch. Good but not great match with terrific crowd heat, including several "Jericho sucks!" chants. Jericho tries the Liontamer a couple of times but Malenko keeps reversing it. Jericho tries the SuperFrankensteiner, but Malenko turns it into a gut-buster from the top rope, seemingly buggering up his knee in the process. Texas Cloverleaf, and Jericho has nowhere to go but Tap-Out City. The arena just explodes! **** for the whole thing, including the battle royale. (Apparently an exception to my non-rating of battle royales, although I hadn’t really established that rule back then.)  Juvy taunts Jericho a bit more as Malenko celebrates the title victory.

Unfortunately, the show pretty much descends into silliness from there.

We cut to a "Vinnie Mac Cam" outside the arena as a white limo pulls up. Nothing comes of it. (Except a giant LAWSUIT!) 

Bowery Death Match: Raven v. DDP.

It's an enclosed cage with two garbage cans full of weapons on either turnbuckle. 80 million sharp objects and DDP goes for the bullrope. He tries to hang Raven a couple of times. Absolutely zero wrestling here, just senseless foreign object shots out of the Gangsta playbook. Okay, pay attention because now the Hyper-Fighting Booking Style of WCW kicks in: Ref gets bumped and is out for like six minutes. The Flocks runs in past the riot squad and cuts open the cage to interfere. Van Hammer is under the ring, and he comes out and holds off Riggs and Sickboy and Reese. Then two of the riot squad come in themselves and reveal themselves to be Kidman and Boulder. DDP is up and takes *them* out with a pair of Diamond Cutters, but Raven DDT's DDP and then after another sequence gives DDP a Diamond Cutter of his own. But Page is up at 8 or so, delivers his own Cutter to Raven, and beats the 10 count up for the win. Yay, this feud should be over now. –** (That sounds pretty harsh to me.) 

Then *another* riot squad member comes in and handcuffs the remaining Flockers, then Raven, then unmasks to be Mortis, who then unmasks again to reveal what Mortis looks like without the mask. I hope this kills those dumb "Mortis is Chris Champion" rumors. (I’m assuming that rumor came from Chris Kanyon having a similar name and some doofus on RSPW confusing the two.  And add Kanyon to our dead wrestler count for this show.)  Mortis smokes Raven with a chair. This is what Steve Austin was referring to when he noted that ECW is a "bunch of violent crap." They didn't even bleed here, despite a VCR shot to Raven at one point. There was no flow or storyline to this mess, just a bunch of weapons and Diamond Cutters. And ECW logic kicks in again: Raven isn't put out by a friggin' VCR to the head, but a Diamond Cutter knocks him out cold? Puh-lease, I have to endure enough of this garbage when I watch ECW, I don't need Scott Levy importing it to WCW in a watered down form. I hated almost everything about this and I hope I never, EVER, have to see Raven v. DDP again. And furthermore, what about all the Jake Roberts and "childhood friends" hints and shit they dropped? Were they just making it up as they went along? Next match, please. (Yeah, I dunno if that was Raven going into business for himself and trying to come up with a storyline or what, but that went nowhere, and later there was that stuff with Raven being a rich kid that got dropped and forgotten too.) 

Ultimo Dragon v. EDDY~! Guerrero.

Crowd just dies like THAT. (Speaking of dead…here’s another one to the tally for a total of four dead people thus far.)   Whoa, that's not a good sign. The match is very lacklustre, mainly Sabu stuff (spot-rest-spot). Fast forward to the end: Eddy hits a tornado DDT (with the announcers correctly noting that Chavo uses it) but misses the Froggy Splash. Ultimo with the Dragon Sleeper, but Eddy flips out and puts Ultimo in his own. Nice. He puts both feet on the ropes, and Chavo jumps up and tries to break it up. While they argue, Dragon tries to kick Eddy but misses and nails Chavo. Eddy with the brainbuster and Froggy Splash #2 for the pin. A disappointing, Worldwide-worthy match. **1/2  (It’s gotta be better than that.  I need to watch this show again, I’m pretty sure.) 

Chavo snaps and wipes the mat with Dragon for not freeing him from Uncle Eddy. Eddy looks very proud, but Chavo is about to hit him, too. Eddy begs him on, but Chavo can't do it and gives him a kiss on the cheek instead. Is this feud EVER going to blow off? Do we get another two months of teases again?  (Nope they blew it off pretty quickly after this.) 

US Title match: Goldberg v. Saturn.

Apparently, the Gauntlet match that was announced on Thursday has already been scrapped and replaced with a Saturn-Goldberg match. That's WCW for ya, here today, gone later today. (Just to clarify here, the bookers changing their mind on an advertised match after they were already announced…that’s something that WCW did.  So to do that would be a bad sign, right?)    I guess this is a face turn for Saturn, who told off the Flock in a previous interview, but putting him against Goldberg isn't a great way to get him over a face, or a major factor in anything. Oh, well, there's always Glacier. (The Raven v. Saturn feud ended up being pretty hot, although Saturn didn’t get any farther up the card than that position either in WCW or when he jumped with the Radicalz.)  Lots of standing around with the occasional good move tossed in. Goldberg comes so close to imitating Warrior's mannerisms at times in this that it's almost eerie. Be afraid. Not as good as Spring Stampede, and it's the usual Goldberg ending. *

In what I guess is the payoff for this whole stupid Vince McMahon angle, Eric Bischoff actually has Michael Buffer introduce a "match" between them, complete with referee. Vince, of course, doesn't show up so it's a win by forfeit for Eric. Words don't do justice to how incredibly pointless this was. Why not challenge Steve Austin and then declare yourself the WWF champion when *he* doesn't show? Same thing. (Vince would of course go on to make much crazier grandstand challenges to people who would never care a bit about answering him.  Oh, and when we finally did that payoff for the Eric v. Vince feud in 2002, it was…a hug.  ON THE FIRST SHOW.  And people were surprised when Brock lost…) 

Bret Hart v. Randy Savage, Grudge Match From Hell.

Hey, do you think I make up these match titles? (Well sometimes I do.  Mostly when midgets are involved.  Oh, and Randy Savage makes five dead wrestlers.)  Bret gets screwed out of the main event again. This is bad wrestling that segues into weak brawling outside the ring when they realize that the in-ring stuff isn't working. So they go into the crowd, walk over to the hockey boards, do a shot there, and then walk back to the ring. Bret works on the knee. Move, taunt, move. In retrospect, I'm becoming more and more happy that Vince dumped Bret when he did. (In retrospect of that retrospect, I wish one of them would have swallowed their pride and made up so that Bret could go back to the WWF before Goldberg kicked a hole in Bret’s head to end his career.)  This is a 1995 Savage match, with Randy taking punishment then mounting a one-move comeback, that being the Big Elbow. Savage's knee gives out, and he can't make the pin. Sharpshooter, but Savage actually reverses it into his own. Elizabeth (what? She's still here?) bounces out and gets into a shoving match with referee Roddy Piper, which allows Bret to deck him from behind with brass knucks. Ah, nice to know he's become a total snivelling coward in the Hulk Hogan tradition. You know, this is exactly the sort of heel turn that Bret whined about Vince wanting him to do. (That’s because WWF Bret actually give a shit about his character and motivations, unlike WCW Bret.)  And speaking of Hogan, he runs in and wraps Savage's knee around the ringpost, which allows another Sharpshooter and a submission win for Bret. *1/2 Overbooked as usual and non-sensical to boot. Let me get this straight: Bret hates Hogan so he's teaming with him, Savage hates Bret for teaming with Hogan and hates Hogan because he lost the World title to him because of Bret, and Hogan hates Savage so much he's willing to help Bret. The question I have is why didn't Bret help Savage to win on Nitro so that this match would be a title match? Oh, yeah, because he wants to win the title from Hogan, who he hates so much that he's willing to help. You know, maybe it's me, but this seems like a lot of trouble on Bret's part, and furthermore who's gonna want to see two mega-heels go at it? Why would Hogan even agree to give Bret a title match? (Hmm, so WCW was also known for characters changing motivations without any internal logic at the drop of a hat?  Sometimes from show to show because the creative team couldn’t keep their own storylines straight?  Interesting…)  Anyway, next match...

Main event, WCW tag team titles: The Outsiders v. Sting & Giant.

Just Giant, he had to drop the "The" when he joined the nWo I guess. And Hall actually shows. Seems a little wobbly coming in. I called the ending to this before the show even started, it should be noted. Hall brings back the survey, even though he's endorsing nWo Hollywood while doing it. The usual crap once the match starts. Sting has deteriorated so much I'm surprised he doesn't fall to pieces once he gets in the ring. He plays Ricky Morton, and makes the hot tag to Giant. Giant tries a top-rope splash, but falls flat on his face. Nash goes for the powerbomb, but Hall comes in and turns on Nash, decking him with the belt. Giant pins Nash and we have new tag champs. Rhodes and Hall celebrate with Giant as Sting looks stunned, probably because he's trying to understand the booking just like me. DUD. (Don’t worry, once the Wolfpac threatened Hogan’s spot too much they reversed everything and turned them all heel again anyway.) 

The Bottom Line:

Why in the HELL would Scott Hall turn on Kevin Nash? I knew it was coming because that's exactly the sort of thing that WCW has resorted to lately, but there's only so many shock heel turns that can be done. (Hmm, so swerves and heel turns just for the sake of being shocking are a bad sign?  I see.)  Kevin Nash, Sting and Randy Savage are pretty much the only faces left on the upper card, and of those Sting is only one that even resembles a traditional babyface. There's just no one for the fans to cheer for anymore. And none of it interests me as a wrestling fan. nWo v. nWo? Great, let them kill each other, it's about time we got rid of them. I'm sure there's others who agree with me on that one. (They probably would have some good coin off that too, had Kevin Nash not gotten out-Nashed by Hogan.)  There's no "big money match" on the horizon -- Nash v. Hogan won't happen because of egos (didn’t happen until 99, long past anyone caring), and Hart v. Hogan won't draw because the fans hate both of them now. (Happened on Nitro, no one cared.  Probably should have headlined a Starrcade.) 

I don't even know if I liked this show or hated it. Hall's heel turn wasn't really a heel turn because he was already a heel. I guess maybe it's a Nash face turn, but he's still nWo so he's a heel, right?   (Nope, this was Nash’s face turn as it turns out.) 

There is such a thing as too much character development, never more evident than in this case.  (You could say that having too many writers overthinking the details instead of paying attention to basic storytelling ruined things for WCW.  I see.)  WCW seems so concerned with shock value that they probably don't even realize what a great reaction the whole Jericho-Malenko bit got. You know why it got a great reaction: Because Jericho's a great heel and the storyline is timeless. And the face went over. (After the heel initially won to make the fans think that the babyface couldn’t beat the heel.)  Where does the upper card go now? Hall v. Nash, I guess, but that's a dead-end feud. Hart v. Piper? Who wants to watch that? (A sharply decreasing number of PPV buyers.)  Hogan v. Savage...again?  (AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN)

I dunno. Thumbs in the middle for Slamboree, leaning towards up, but I don't know what they're going to do when they run out of heel turns and they have to depend on, you know, wrestling to carry them. (Oh wait, I’ve got it!  We’ll beat our biggest star on the biggest show of the year, then the guy who beat him will just lay down for a fingerpoke from Hulk Hogan and lose the title to him!  That’ll put butts in seats!) 

Comments

  1. Great comments on this one, Scott.

    The Hall turn on Hogan really was out of nowhere. On one of  the legends of wrestling roundtables, Nash said it was Hogan's doing. He didn't want the Wolfpac getting all the heat and said he want Nash in his stable. Nash said it wouldn't make sense, but Hogan got to call the shots and made it happen anyways. 

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  2. IIRC WCW was trying to get Jake Roberts to sign with them and they were going to interject him into the Paige/Raven feud but aborted when they realzied how fucked up Roberts was with the drugs and the booze.

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  3. This show looks potentially decent, on the under-card at least.  I can't imagine a Raven vs DDP match being that bad!

    On a side note -- I went ahead and bought the 1999 edition on eBay just for the fun of it and I have to say I'm about halfway through the show and so far it has been pretty good with only one real dud.

    The opener just rocks, the Brian Knobbs vs BBB hardcore match is one of the better ones in terms of nasty shots with plunder, and the "Little Naitch" vs Gorgeous George match I just finished has been surprisingly entertaining and way more competently booked than your average WCW 1999 clusterfuck angle.  Hopefully it bodes well for the rest of the show. 

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  4. Funny the only thing I remember from this show was the Jericho/Malenko feud. So of course Jericho was buried shortly after.

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  5. I don't know why, but I just love the whole SLAMBOREE entrance set with the door. One of my favorite WCW sets of all time.

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  6.  Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't right after that Malenko title victory match, on Nitro, we had the Jericho vignettes where he was trying to find a constitutional loophole to get the title back, and was going around "DC"?

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  7. Does anyone else imagine the judge going in favor of WCW in that law suit, then just before he slams the gavel down, Vince gives him the MacStunner from No Mercy, then slams the gavel himself in favor of WWE?

    I always love thinking about real world situations as if they were in the world of wrestling. Especially when it comes to me facing Mark Zuckerberg for control of Facebook, but at the contract signing, I knock out Zuckerberg, have a midget sign his contract, then I pin the midget 1-2-3 to become the newest, World's youngest billionaire.

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  8. First thought that comes to mind when I think of Slamboree '99 is, 'Brian Knobs pulls back the entrance curtain and exposes thousands and thousands of empty seats live on PPV.' SMRT move, Knobs!

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  9. I forget what the dirtsheets said at the time, but going by the booking, it seemed like they were building up to Nash vs Hogan at Starrcade with Nash going over in a pass the nWo torch moment, but I'm guessing Hogan wasn't happy with that arrangement, then did the job to Goldberg and then left WCW for awhile, in which case plans changed.

    But yeah, you're right, by 1999, a lot of Nash's heat had been squandered and while Nash/Hogan was the dream match in '98, that was no longer the case in '99 and I guess they were able to do the match in '99 and not '98 because WCW wanted to repush Hulkamania again so it meant Hogan going over Nash.

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  10. Speaking of WCW event attendance...it always amazes me to think that WCW appeared to be a runaway train as far as ratings went for Nitro, but their live event attendance never really reached the WWE level.  Even for their PPVs they always ran smaller arenas or just couldn't fill up the bigger ones.  I know for Starrcade '97 they had a respectable crowd as they should have, but without looking up all of the PPV attendances I seem to recall most of them being in the 9-11k range.

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  11. Thoroughly enjoyed 2012 Scott in this review.

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  12. Hall turning on Nash is one of those great WCW ''It shouldn't have happened, so we did it!'' angles like Duggan turning Canadian, Goldberg turning heel and Russo pinning Flair. Such a fascinating company. 

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  13. The music theme for this show was fucking awesome as well! The 12 year old me marked huge for this show, and holds alot of nostalgia value to me. Jericho was my fav. WCW wrestler period. I was so upset when he jumped to WWF, because like I said I was a WCW mark as a kid.

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  14. Yes lol, he was also harassing JJ Dillon to no end. Also put 1004 on his tights to symbolize the # of holds he knew (4 more than dean). God I'm sorry if anyone disagrees but 1998 Jericho was his best year period imho. Unmasking the Luchadores, refusing to take off the belt while he wrestled till someone kicked him, ripping up signs from fans even in support of him, RALPHUS! The list goes on and on.

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  15. Yes. Jericho went to the Library of Congress and found a loophole in the WCW rulebook. He took it back to "Jo-Jo" Dillon and got his title back. Very clever heelwork by Jericho.

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  16. It wasn't too long ago that it was discussed on here, but I absolutely loved the WCW PPV entrance sets during their peak.  I think this was one area where they were consistently better than WWE.  I always enjoyed the Halloween Havoc sets and particularly the Bash at the Beach sets.  I think it created a cool atmosphere.

    And speaking of cool atmosphere's was there anything better than the Spring Break Nitros where you were just waiting to see who would end up in the pool?

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  17. Can you imagine a tag team of Jake and Raven?  Might be too much of a good thing.  If these two were "on" it could be great, but I'm guessing they'd be on too much booze and drugs to make it work. 

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  18.  Yeah he still did a few things of note but in terms of the bigger picture he wasn't going anywhere. I thought they were going to do something with him when he kept calling out Goldberg but nothing came of it really.

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  19. Man, with the exception of Souled Out and Superbrawl (you could possibly make a small case for Uncensored), WCW PPVs in 1998 were some of the worst wrestling PPVs of all time. This Slamboree show is one of them.

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  20. Booking on this show was garbage and I remember it being just another brick (thanks Pink Floyd) in the wall towards my dismissal of WCW.  The summer had me disgusted but I was still watching both because I hated the UT ministry of darkness stuff and the mid card sex fascination of Russo in WWF just as much.  But then Rock/Foley took off and the fingerpoke of doom finished me off as any sort of WCW fan.  that said, I think the ratings for almost every match are too low.  DDP/raven was way better than Scott's rating and I thought the Kanyon stuff was cool.  Furthermore ECW and it's "violent crap" was fairly new to me and most WCW fans, so Scott's reaction is a bit over the top.  Saturn got the best match to date from Goldberg, probably the best until DDP at Halloween Havoc.  One star is way too low.  It's funny.  On one hand the Jericho battle royale was one of my biggest markout moments in WCW history and one of the best booking jobs in WCW history, plus I liked the Raven and Kanyon stuff.  On the other hand I reacted similar to 1998 Scott on the Benoit match.  I was not and never became a fan of Finlay.  yeah I hear he's good in the ring an all, but he bored the crap out of me from the first time I saw him until the day he was fired from WWE.  He wasn't someone I actively hated like JBL or Hogan or something, but he just did nothing for me.  The Bischoff/Vince stuff was beyond stupid and of course the main event tag match and hart/savage were also just typical WCW booking, meaning stupid, silly, and in the end utterly meaningless because they forgot what they did half the time or simply changed it the other half with no explanation.  

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  21. Someone else may have mentioned it - but shouldn't you add Elizabeth to the "dead wrestlers" tally from this show? 

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  22. Yeah, this has been the best one so far.

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  23. Vince would of course go on to make much crazier grandstand challenges to people who would never care a bit about answering him

    Like God!

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  24. Halloween Havoc '98 disagrees with you.

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  25. This show was significantly better than your ratings. Odd booking, sure, but good matches. And Jericho NEVER lost heat in WCW. At least until the Bobby Duncum Jr. feud.

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  26. The Duncum feud was so weird at the time. Jericho was definitely his own man with his own gimmicks and getting so over, seperating himself from the nWo's and to an extent, from the interchangable cruiserweights.

     And then you see him starting a feud with a total unknown like Duncum, or in a throw away match on Nitro against Van Hammer. Umm what?

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  27. Yeah that is true.  I never understood it either.  For whatever reason they just never really booked larger buildings for their PPVs with the exception of a handful, while they would do all of the big arena tours for Nitro.  If you compiled a list of their top 20 biggest attended shows, I'm guessing about 4 of them would be PPVs and the rest would be Nitro.

    Even in late 1997 and 1998 where they'd sell like 10k or 15k tickets in first day sales for a Nitro, they'd book their PPV the next night at a mid-sized arena.  Of course most of those PPVs would often sell out in the first day or two,  but it seems odd given they were up over the WWF in every category related to attendance, including average house show attendance, that they wouldn't book larger places.  It's funny because in the latter half of 1999, looking at the PPV arenas they seemed to be heading in that direction, although by then it was much too late.

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  28. Yeah that was a bad move haha.  I've seen that happen on a few shows actually.

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  29. The huge blow up Goblin with smoke bellowing from it for Halloween Havoc 98 is SO AWESOME!!

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  30. Yes exactly.  That set always comes to mind.  I think it made each of their PPV's unique. 

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  31. Yeah I'm surprised they didn't try a stadium show on PPV at the Georgia Dome.  Obviously they did the Nitro with Goldberg taking the title there, but I think at their peak they could've made a decent showing in Atlanta.

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  32.  isn't that how Zuckerberg did it (more or less anyways)

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  33. I'm not sure if you are as big of a numbers geek as I am for this kind of stuff, but here are a few interesting notes about the trajectory of ticket sales for the big Georgia Dome show, based on news I saved from the period:

    5/29/1998: WCW sold about 14,600 tickets on the first day for the Georgia Dome show for a $541,000 advance and ~600k by Monday.  FYI the dome is scaled for about 28,000 and an 800k house at this point.

    6/3/1998: Meltzer reports that due to high ticket sales, Hogan volunteers/agrees on 5/30 to face Goldberg in a non-title dark match.  This tidbit is not announced locally.

    6/8/1998: About 18,700 tickets have been sold, $650k advance

    6/12/1998: About 21,000 tickets sold, about an $680k advance

    6/12/1998:  WCW announces the Hogan/Goldberg match to the local Atlanta media, promotes it using the angle that you can only see Hogan/Goldberg if you come to the show and not on TV, WCW rescales the seating to fit close to 41,000 people and a 900k house.

    6/24/1998: About 27,000 tickets sold with an advance just below 800k

    7/2/1998: WCW announces on Thunder of Goldberg vs Hogan for Nitro the next week for the title.

    7/6/1998:  Final numbers: 41,412 (36,506 paid) $930,735 gate, merchandise sales > $300k, all company records.

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  34. Maybe it's just because I'd only watch the first hour of Nitro or the B-shows during WCW's heyday, but even as a young mark, I never gave a fuck about their main events. Their midcarders were the best thing about them, even when I was a grade schooler who still thought it was all real. Even with the nWo's first ascension, I thought they were just a bunch of old farts I'd already gotten bored of in WWF. Looking back, I was pretty right. People don't give Bischoff enough shit for his storylines being non-sensical to a degree that even Russo or early Heyman couldn't match up to. Nothing made any logical sense except to pop a rating, and when the shock value wore off, so did the fans.

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  35. Oh yeah I'm always up for looking at statistics like these.  I'm a numbers geek, which is probably why I ended up with an accounting degree.  I knew the Georgia Dome show did relatively well with not a ton of promotion
    ad these statistics prove it.  It also backs up my point that they probably could’ve managed a stadium show with the proper promotion.  I bet they could’ve down a decent paid amount for Starrcade Hogan vs. Sting and papered the rest to get the dome nearly filled.  Especially if they can sell almost 40k with little to no promotion for a Nitro.

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  36. Yeah, I think the Halloween Havoc monster one is the favorite of all of the sets, along with the BATB sets. 

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  37. I had this on my review schedule so the timing on this was perfect.  The Raven/Page match really isn't that bad.  It's not good but it's fine for what it is.  The post match stuff is an exact copy of Dreamer's Chair Shot Heard Around The World.

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  38. Yeah, I think you're right.  They did a Nitro dome right tour after Starrcade and I'm pretty sure all of those shows outdid the attendance of Starrcade, which was around 17,500 I think.  With some more time, I think a properly booked and promoted Starrcade the next year could have definitely filled a larger venue.

    One other factor / note of interest that Meltzer mentioned at the time was that it was a bit of a risky move at that point for WCW to do Nitro in  dome with a larger scaling, because they chose not to lower the ticket price tiers for the show.  That was sort of the traditional stragety in the last few years, with WCW doing it for their first Superdome Nitro and the WWF doing it with the 1997 Royal Rumble.  As you may recall, it had a legit 48,000 or so paid, but the gate was only about 480k, so the tickets they did sell were quite reduced, plus they gave away another 12,500 or so freebies.  It's always nice to have a big looking crowd on TV though.

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  39. Wow this was a really negative review. I know Scott said that most of the matches are probably better than he made them out to be, but wow Scott from 98-about 03 was insanely biased towards Chris Benoit winning or losing... I love the idea of the 2012 Scott Sez schtick though

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  40.  Honest to God, when I think of Halloween Havoc, doesn't matter the year, I think of Snickers.

    Then I think of Warrior's Log Roll Of The Gods....

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  41. The Malenko/Juventud/Jericho thing is easy. Just have Juventud act like Malenko's best friend by thwarting off Jericho, helping him out of jams, preventing him from getting a beating and making sure all of his matches are fought fairly. Eventually Juvi asks for a title match. Dean grants it and defeats Juvi, which pisses him off royally. He turns on Malenko, prompting Jericho to run out and join in on the beatdown... but Juvi attacks him! Poof... instant Triple Threat match.

    Or, be REALLY sensible and move Jericho up the card to reward his amazing promo work and incredible matches. Malenko could defend the Cruiserweight title for a few months, especially against Juventud, until their paths crossed again for a more important title... say at Starrcade.


    Then again, Hogan Hogan Hogan Hogan Nash Hogan Rodman Hogan Hogan Leno Hogan Hogan Hogan Bischoff Hogan Hogan, Hogan Hogan Hogan... Goldberg? Hogan.

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  42. In fairness, that arena was enormous. They still had a crap load of seats filled, regardless of whether they were sold or given away.


    Had it happened a year later, however.......

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