| Re: Isn't The World Title Supposed To Be Important?
The Fingerpoke of Doom was ridiculous, but to say it was the catalyst for WCW going under is a bit overboard. There were a lot of reasons much of WCW's programming sucked during it's final years, but the single biggest catalyst for WCW failing was Stone Cold Steve Austin. Especially since Nitro only had one head-to-head ratings victory after September 98 when the Austin-McMahon feud was in full-swing with the "Bedpan McMahon" Incident, "Mr. Socko", "Bang 3:16", The Beer Truck, and so forth. WCW just couldn't answer that. None of WCW's writers had any idea how to construct the storyline that was badass, funny, alluring, and climactic, all at the same time.
And if there's any reason WCW lost the ratings battle the night the Fingerpoke Incident occured, it was because the same night, they gave away the results on Raw where Foley won the WWE Championship and it backfired histerically. So really, not many people even watched the Fingerpoke. And if there is still any doubt that Austin was the reason WCW started to decline, just listen to Austin's pop towards the end of that Foley match. MY.GOD. |