I actually did this during lockdown! I watched from Oct 1999 when Russo came in up until the company folded. It is...Morbidly fascinating, especially when you consider what was happening over on the other show at the same time!

I was never a WCW fan, but in retrospect, it was great competition for WWE, and I miss that entire ERA

I’ve learned from watching Reliving the War on Wrestling Bios, that in 1998 Tony Schiavone didn’t know what a Sidewalk Slam was

*** 11.) When Booker T dressed and wrestled as Crow Sting (September 20, 2000)

I'd still watch WCW from the end, over anything from WWE now....

I still watch Vince Russo’s rant at Bash at the Beach 2000 from time to time. Car crash tv can be entertaining.

As a kid, I always thought it was weird when I only watched the first 30-45 minutes of Nitro or Thunder (some build to matches later, but mostly the cruiserweights and some decent Jericho/Benoit level lower-midcard matches) because the rest just seemed too weird or out of sorts for me. Only now can I look back and realize 14-15 year old me was ahead of the curve...

Vince Russo seems like he once heard that saying "make content that you wanna see" and misunderstood it as "make content only you and no one else wants to see"

The thing about the cage match alternate titles still exists somewhat today. When you think about how a no DQ, no holds barred, unsanctioned, hardcore, street fight, extreme rules and probably about 20 other ones I'm forgetting are all essentially just matches where anything goes. (Yes I know in AEW unsanctioned means it won't count towards a wrestlers record but I'm talking in terms of in match rules)

Regarding Goldberg/Duggan, I'm surprised you didn't mention the fact that this came not long after Duggan had come back after battling kidney cancer, and they had Goldberg beat up his one good kidney, making him cough up blood in doing so. Goldberg himself didn't even like doing it it came out later, for obvious reasons. Just really bad all around.

GI Bro was honestly the worst thing that was ever handed to booker. The main problem with wcw was the fact that everybody had to have a gimmick instead of just being wrestlers.

One other thing to take into consideration was how bloated the roster was by early 2000--according to "The Death Of WCW", the company had about 234 wrestlers on payroll when the year started, but seriously downsized to mid-two digits ("less than fifty wrestlers") by the time of the New Blood Rising PPV. EDITED with the actual figure (I was off by only nine) after consulting the book. Also adding: by mid-1998 the talent pool was even more bloated with *260* wrestlers, with some of them (like Lanny Poffo) not even wrestling a single match with the company...

I can see why Vince Russo likes the name G.I. Bro. I would love to hear him tell his bro about it. "I love this GI Bro, Bro. GI Bro has a real Bro who wrestles Bro.". 😂😅

Nah if Lenny crowmega was the first thing on my screen I would absolutely loose it🤣😭🤣😭

In that final year, how many times did Russo say "Bro"

People forget the context of why Scott said WCW sucks He was being an in character nWo member

Nash wasnt the champ during that match. it was a no 1 contenders match. Booker defended against Jeff Jarrett

You mentioned about January to April of that year, but Russo walked out before Souled Out and sat home until it was announced he was coming back with Uncle Eric. Those 2/3 months were guys like Kevin Sullivan and Mike Graham. On a side note can we agree that 2001 there was a feeling of course correction going on? It wasn't perfect but the overarching story featuring all the top heels in one group taking out the top faces had a degree of promise that improvements were coming.

They threw everything at the wall during that time to see what would stick, and nothing did.

The only actual match I remember watching and enjoying from that period was Elix Skipper vs. Alan Funk on Sunday Morning. The rest of the roster was in such disarray that the undercard was pretty much able to do whatever they wanted. They had some good matches on TV.

On the Commissioner part. By the end Mike Sanders was still the commissioner after beating Ernest Miller at Halloween Havoc. Than at Sin in January 2001 Miller won it back than lost it afterwards to Lance Storm than beat him at SuperBrawl: Revenge and than stepped down and that left Flair as the sole authority figure

You can learn that if you were a mid-carder you can still get lots of TV time since the high paid main eventers were so often "Injured" and no-showed A Lot.

I just got into wrestling and literally just started nitro from episode one lol

Russo was gone between January and April 2000. They hit the red button and brought him back after four months when Kevin Sullivan, Kevin Nash and Bill Busch had driven the nail even further. Russo then hammered them in completely until October when he quit. No one from then to March 2001 could/would save it...

Can't wait for Wrestling Bios to get there

The different cage matches all had different rules or different cages, so it makes sense to give them different names, especially the House Of Pain Match.

I HOPE so badly that WWE signs Lenny Crowmega.

Caged Heat was also the name of the fictional tv show that Trevor Slattery starred in The MCU

All of those celebrity cameos and matches

Hello Simon my old friend, I've come to watch your vids again

Dear Simon. Please bring back Retro ups and downs.

Bruh, WWE has 3 different names for cage matches today. They have a traditional cage match, which has the dumbest rule of you can win by simply escaping the cage. They have Hell in a Cell, which is just a cage with a roof and they have the Elimination Chamber. 3 names but they are still just cage matches.

He’s right. WCW was good when it wanted to be but it was real bad too. RIP

Simon is my FAV Wrestling facts KZfaqr!!! Would love to see you in the squared circle sometime

Since you asked Simon something you can learn from binge watching WCW is how to book a good invasion angle.

Lance Storm was commissioner in 2001 actually

During the NWO recruiting era of the WCW vs NWO era of WCW you need to watch or else you'd be out the loop of who's on what side

"that's really the only relationship we have" nice. I have a relationship.

Here's one... Don't hype the upcoming PPV that can do massive bank for the company, hype the upcoming Atlanta Omni house show (on nationally syndicated and broadcasted programs, no less) instead, because reasons...

2000 is actually 1 of the best WCW years to go back and watch, thats whats funny. We have a twitch group that rewatches everything in order, and 2000 is always way more fun than 97-99 with Hogan Hogan DQ DQ DQ DQ

What made it even worse was WWF was having one of their best years in 2000. Just like WWF deserved to get beaten by WCW in 1996, by 2000 the gap in quality was even bigger in WWF's favour.

Imagine if Neil Breen was in charge of creative.....

It wasn't boring. It wasn't good. It's one of those things you wonder how it exists

Lenny Komega

Hating on the hacksaw goldberg match makes no sense, the crowd was into it and was the only time goldberg looked like a credible heel

Living through it once was bad enough...wouldn't wanna do it a second time. Missed the last 3 months of the company cause I just couldn't watch it anymore

WWE would be more subtle than #10. It would probably more like Kyle Beta.

Vince can do his worst and it will never come close to touching what garbage wcw did in 2000. It was truly the worst year ever in wrestling, if you even wanted to call it that then. Bad matches, feuds, gimmicks, rip offs, run ins. It was literally a dollar store version of Jerry springer.

Good performance on Saturday at arsenal simon. If this keeps up I will have to start kissing your head pre game like Blanc and Bartez. Your a wrestler so you know you got to go with what works!!!!

Mike Sandars was gold though.

Hey bro like bro there’s a body slam bro then bro a surprise roll up bro, bro great idea bro 🧐

Get a DQ win 😂 in a No DQ Match 🤦‍♂️

Look there's a lot of things I'd like to say about this video, but the main thing is: please stop perpetuating the myth that WCW was killed by bad booking, story lines or the chaos behind the scenes. WCW died because of the AOL Time Warner merger. WCW died because it wasn't a company, it was a TV show on a network. And that Network didn't want that TV show anymore. And when Bischoff tried to buy the rights he couldn't get a network to put it on, so WWF bought the IP and the tape library in a fire sale for pennies on the dollar because nobody else wanted it.

Interesting.

Thank you I agree Russo was a way worst champion than arquette atleast arquette defended it once Russo won it in a stupid way and just vacated it

Wasn't Lance Storm commissioner for like half a second or something too?

Sid and Luger should be in the Hall of Fame despite my personal opinions of them.

Above Average Mike Sanders

It's was bad but I was a die hard fan it suck when Russo took over but time Warner screwed them

Long live the best WCW Champion, Lenny Crownega.

As much as I like Simon the stretch the writer uses to get this list to 10 is daft

I mean what’s wrong with WCW having 3 different names for cage matches AEW comes up with a new name for a street fight every week 🤷🏾‍♂️. No DQ, Texas Street Fight, Regular Street Fight, Falls Count Anywhere, Texas Death Match. Meanwhile they all be the same shit 😭😂

WCW 2000s was just so BAD!

Why does sting look like a soyjak in the thumbnail?

Why does Simon sound like bane these days super off-putting 👌

People learn even the worse of WCW is better wwe today.

Hello Lord Simmon 😁

I lived through it I don’t wanna relive it 😅

This is why I laugh when younger fans trash the booking of today's product. Either WWE or AEW. "Listen, man. You weren't there! You don't know! You'll never know!!" WCW at its worst was so incoherent and nonsensical that it was beyond parody. Bruce Mitchell from PW Torch once wrote a column entitled "The Drug Pace and Logic of WCW Nitro", and the name alone tells you everything you need to know.

But Simon, Im your Father's, Son's, Sister's, Cousin's former roommate

whoever is talking here did'nt really watch the real "w.c.w"

I love Simon, but his contrarian views are just getting a little silly. Just because they're a bunch of shitty Champions doesn't mean that I can't wasn't the worst one LOL And no, crazy does not mean entertaining. Again I get with Simon's going for but so much of it is so dumb it's not even entertaining

I prefer WCW 2000 over what the WWE has produced in the last decade. At least WCW 2000 was entertaining and watchable and plus they had stars unlike the WWE in the last decade.

"It takes more than one person to take out a multi-million dollar company." Ahh, Elon Musk and Twitter would like to have a conversation with, literally thousands of times worse based on company valuation.

I stopped watching WCW after the finger poke of doom

Maybe in 2030/2031 Impact Wrestling F. K. A. TNA and AEW will suffer the same effing fate as WCW!

Hey I liked Dashing Cody Rhodes lol

to be fair to wcw Terry Funk retired like 80 million times so you can't hold him retiring against them

I know whatculture likes baiting wcw but give it a bloody rest and focus on the good things for a change. @simonmiller sort it out for god's sake.