Good timeline. Juvie vs Jericho mask vs hair was the match that made me a pro-wrestling fan.
The Cornette Call: A Pro Wrestling Timeline
- Thread starter Megafighter3
- Start date
Very good strategy from Juvie. Trick Jericho into tiring himself out on Ultimo and take the belt from him while you're fresh. Super believable.
WCW must be in a much better shape at this point ITTL, which just makes me wonder how the WWF's going to pull through here. Who's winning the ratings war between Raw and Nitro right now?
WCW must be in a much better shape at this point ITTL, which just makes me wonder how the WWF's going to pull through here. Who's winning the ratings war between Raw and Nitro right now?
And this sets up the conspiracy victim angle quite nicely.
I am wondering, is this just a magical "WCW doesn't make the same mistakes as OTL" story, or will they screw up in new and interesting ways? Yeah Hogan's gone and a lot of the toxicity went with him, but there's still the Kliq and I don't see Eric Bischoff being able to resist trying to be friends with the cool kids.
Plus, the AOL-Time Warner merger is still coming, and when Ted gets bought out WCW's only advocate will be gone. More so than the ratings (which weren't bad for cable TV), it was that the new executives didn't like wrestling and wanted it gone from their stations. Bischoff even had backers lined up to buy WCW, but AOL-TW wouldn't let them keep the time slots so the deal fell through.
Plus, the AOL-Time Warner merger is still coming, and when Ted gets bought out WCW's only advocate will be gone. More so than the ratings (which weren't bad for cable TV), it was that the new executives didn't like wrestling and wanted it gone from their stations. Bischoff even had backers lined up to buy WCW, but AOL-TW wouldn't let them keep the time slots so the deal fell through.
One key point that helps WCW in the short-term in 1999 and 2000 is the lack of Hogan's 1998 contract. It won't solve all of WCW's money problems in the years to come, but it helps.
In 1998 Hogan signed what would be the most lucrative contract in wrestling history. Even now. Some details:
Terms of Contract:
Signing Bonus: $2M
Nitro/Thunder: 25% of all gross ticket revenue, with base of $25K per show
PPVs: 6 per year, with 15% of all revenue. Base payout of $675K
House Shows: 25% of all gross ticket revenue, with base of $25K per show
Royalties: 50%
License of Hulk Hogan name: 50%
$20K a month for each month he is a member of the nWo (for promotional work)
So to give an example, the Pro Wrestling Torch newsletter reported that the 4/11/1997 show in Montreal where Jacques Rougeau pinned Hulk Hogan drew 9,000 fans for a gate of $210,000. Hulk Hogan earned $52,500 for that show.
On July 6th, 1998 Hogan wrestled Bill Goldberg on a Atlanta, GA Monday Nitro episode. That show earned $906,338 at the gate. Hulk Hogan earned $226,000 for that one show. That's close to the annual downside guarantees that the WWF was giving out to some of its wrestlers in 1996.
On the January 4th, 1999 episode of Nitro that featured the fingerpoke of doom, WCW drew $930,000 at the gate. Hogan would have earned $232,500 for that single show.
http://oswreview.com/history/wcw-top-live-gates/
WCW's Starcade 97 earned 650,000 buys, with an estimated PPV gross of $19.49M. Hogan would have earned $4.87M for this one show under the terms of that deal.
Contract details at:
https://www.scribd.com/doc/287131780...tract-with-WCW
Every time i look at that contract, the accountant in me wants to give Eric Bischoff a backhanded fist. There is no way this would financially viable.
Jesus Christ! Please tell me he at least had to show up to get those gate bonuses! I know he missed a lot of shows from 1999-2000 for injuries and the falling out with Bischoff and then Russo.
Yeah, Goldberg's got some good players to work with. I know he and Page did some great matches around this time.
I assume ratings are slowly turning in WWF's favor, especially now that Hogan's come in.
Thankfully, a lot of the mistakes of the nWo are dealt with thanks to the Outsiders being the major focus, so you don't have the sort of bloated mess the nWo became, but I can see the same problems still happening of them ruling over anyone. Not sure if we'll be able to avoid the ending of the Streak on this. It'd be ideal to avoid WCW dying, but the reality of the TL might not give me that option. Depends on what they give me for cards.
God, I hope so because he sat out like... nine months and if he makes that much?
I believe he had to be present. If so, it made an abominable contract merely awful. It explains why WCW sat him from June 2000 onward - they simply could not afford to use him.
I've seen separately that Hogan may have made over $20M in one year under that contract.
By comparison the WWF in December 1997 was prepared to offer Hogan a $3M deal to sign with them, which would have made him the highest paid WWF wrestler under guarantee ever. He turned it down for the far more lucrative WCW deal. Now this is a Hogan who was at his peak in terms of value to WCW in the OTL...I imagine that the WWF might have gotten him for a little less in this timeline.
Another wrestler who was offered a contract in December 1997 by Vince McMahon was Warrior. He received a one page faxed offer of a contact that was for 14 dates per month and a guaranteed $750K. This would have made him the highest paid wrestler in the company, exceeding Shawn Michaels' guarantee (but below the deal that Bret Hart got out of). Warrior of course turned it down and went to WCW the following August.
In this timeline, with the Clique running sway over Eric Bischoff....I wonder where Mr Hellwig will end up?
Vince has to lose his lawsuit against WCW. I believe that the OTL win gave him the right of first refusal to purchase WCW if it was ever put up for sale.
Yeah so far so good - the Outsiders have been willing to share and cooperate. That was the other thing that killed WCW, they had a lot of great young talent that was railroaded by nWo. To an extent that had already been going on; guys like Austin and Foley were pushed out of WCW well before the nWo/Outsiders showed up. Will it continue though? Will Jericho soon be heading out the door as in OTL? I know there was a lot of movement between WWF and WCW in the late 90s, but to me it always seemed that it was new young talent that left WCW for the WWE. And that leaves out all the guys that stayed with the sinking ship only to be buried by the booking committees.
That at least gave them an out. According to the Wikipedia page a lot of the talent contracts were with Time Warner, not WCW. So when Vince bought out the company he only paid for the trademarks and tape library. Left him able to only offer contracts to the people he wanted and AOL-TW had to pay out the rest. I remember hearing at the time that the big names all decided to wait out their contracts and get paid rather than cash out and sign with WWE. There are a few 'fantasy booking' videos out there that try to do the invasion angle differently, and several of them just hand wave and say "we'll go ahead and pay for Hogan, Flair, Hall, and Nash." Yeah, sure buddy.
I mean, if WCW's in good shape by 2001, there's a chance that Vince won't actually buy out WCW. I imagine Triple H always had ambitions towards starting his own wee territory before NXT came along, so if he could at least get Michaels (assuming he's still alive in 2001), Hall, Nash, Waltman or even Savage on board, they could beat Vince's bid and reboot the company independently of the WWF. This'd stifle Jarrett's ambitions at the very least, and if they secured a TV deal quickly, they could easily threaten the Fed's dominance post X-7. Might be wishful thinking tho.
Well see, Vince didn't sue WCW. Hall and Nash sued Vince and won and with the acrimony that followed, portraying the Outsiders as being there on Vince's orders became implausible, so they were made into an outside force of invaders coming to wreck WCW. Vince has little ground to sue WCW on and is probably gun shy about the idea after the losses from the Hall/Nash lawsuit.
Ahh...you're right! In OTL, Vince sued WCW and won due to the way that Hall and Nash were portrayed on WCW, with Hall specifically adopting Razor Ramon mannerisms (although you can make a credible argument that those in turn were Diamond Studd callbacks). He also got them because WCW had foolishly listed them as "Razor" and "Diesel" on one of their Nitro internal callsheets. But that aside, in this storyline they wouldn't necessarily be acting in the same way because of the delay. Vince might still sue, but his chances of winning would be less. And without that one call sheet - which I believe was the silver bullet - he wouldn't win.
That lowers Vince's leverage in buying WCW in 2000 or 2001. The only thing you would also have to account for Jamie Kellner, who seemingly wanted to get rid of WCW as quickly as possible and did not care how low Vince bid for it.
And Megafighter, great story so far. Really looking forward to seeing how this plays out.
Uncensored 1998
10000 in the Mobile Civic Center in Mobile, Alabama. Nine matches on the card.
10000 in the Mobile Civic Center in Mobile, Alabama. Nine matches on the card.
- WCW Cruiserweight: Juventud Guerrera d. Eddie Guerrero (w/Chavo Guerrero Jr.) A good lucha opener to kick things off. Juvie keeps rolling, Chavo screwing up at a critical point and costing Eddie the title. Eddie attacks him after the match.
- Chris Jericho d. Dean Malenko. Same match as OTL, just without the Cruiswerweight belt. Jericho goes on about the conspiracy holding him back, putting Malenko away in the Liontamer.
- WCW TV: Booker T d. Triple H. Booker T keeps up his singles run with a win against Triple H. Trips was a lot more reliable to eat pins at this point and without a marriage to the boss' daughter, he could probably eat a few more. Helps that he and Booker put on a solid match. Book End to win it.
- Goldberg d. Konnan. Konnan could get a decent match out of him. Nothing blow-away amazing and we still keep it short, but a solid match.
- Scott Steiner d. Rick Steiner. The Steiner Brothers explode! Scott starts off his singles run by utterly destroying his brother. Steiner Screwdriver for the fall.
- Randy Savage d. Scott Hall. Randy Savage makes it out of winter with a good run on PPV, hitting the elbow on the Bad Guy.
- WCW Tag: The Outsiders (Shawn Michaels/Kevin Nash) d. Curt Hennig/The Giant. We get the combo of a big guy and a workhorse to face off against Big Sexy and the Showstopper. Hennig and Wight try their best, but Michaels and Nash are too good together. Superkick into the Jacknife to Hennig means the Outsiders keep.
- WCW US: Diamond Dallas Page d. Raven/Chris Benoit in a Triple Threat Match. Keep this match from OTL.
- WCW World: Sting d. Lex Luger in a Steel Cage Match. Luger turns on Sting here. He's become bitter over his friends recent success and feels that Sting abandoned him throughout last year. We get them in the cage stip to add some heat to the match, but the end is Luger getting put in the Scorpion Deathlock and tapping. Still not sure if I'm gonna keep Luger around for much longer. Just never really have a place for the guy.
I'd say feed him to the young guys. That's all they wcw was doing in otl when Luger was in the wolfpack.
WrestleMania XIV
And we have the biggest show of the WWF. The Showcase of the Immortals. 19000 pack the FleetCenter in Boston for the biggest main event on an eight match card.
And we have the biggest show of the WWF. The Showcase of the Immortals. 19000 pack the FleetCenter in Boston for the biggest main event on an eight match card.
- NWA Tag: Lance Storm/Chris Candido (w/Jim Cornette) d. The Legion of Doom (w/Paul Ellering) We start off with a continuation of the NWA angle. The Legion of Doom, veteran tag team reunited with their manager Paul Ellering, face off against the young lions managed by Cornette. The Road Warriors are tough and hard-hitting, but Storm and Candido are younger, have great talent and Cornette is as wily as ever on the outside. They eventually wear the Warriors down, hitting some variant of the Doomsday Device (maybe have Chris hold up Hawk while Lance does a Spinning Heel Kick off the top) to keep their NWA tag belts.
- WWF Light Heavyweight: Taka Michinoku d. Aguila. Same match as OTL.
- WWF European: Ken Shamrock d. Owen Hart. Shamrock wins the European Title off Owen. It's Shamrock's first title in the WWF and they put on a good match, Owen tapping out in the Ankle Lock.
- Dustin Rhodes (w/Jeff Jarrett) d. Marc Mero (w/Sable) And we end the Goldust gimmick for a time, Dustin joining up with Jarrett as a proud Southern wrassler and a member of the NWA, play on his father's heritage a bit and give Dustin a win here against Marc Mero.
- The Undertaker d. Kane. We have this match from OTL, but now it's consider a lot bigger since it's a rematch from the previous WrstleMania. Kane is back and bringing the fire, but Undertaker puts him away again. But this time Kane is here to stay.
- WWF Tag: Cactus Jack/Chainsaw Charlie d. The New Age Outlaws in a Dumpster Match. Same match as OTL. can't go wrong with Foley and Funk holding tag gold.
- WWF IC: The Rock (w/The Nation) d. Ron Simmons. The Nation sends Simmons packing, Rock taking the leadership role in the Nation of Domination. The Nation stomp Simmons out on the outside, then throw him in for the Rock Bottom. We are the Nation! Of Domination!
- WWF World: Stone Cold Steve Austin d. Bret Hart (Guest Enforcer: Hulk Hogan) This really is a perfect make-up for losing Tyson. We might lose a bit of the publicity, but in terms of iconography, it's pretty beautiful. Hulk Hogan, the man who lit the flame in the Rock 'n' Wrestling Era. Bret Hart, who carried the torch through the New Generation. And Stone Cold Steve Austin, relighting the world with a brand new Attitude. These two go for a good 30 minutes (I think we can afford them that, shave a minute or two off some matches, plus we don't have the horrible DX Band performance chewing up time) and Austin and Hart can fucking go. Bret Hart is Bret Hart and Steve Austin doesn't have the horrible neck issues (and we do get another piledriver spot because I love milking that horribly dangerous cow) so we give them a full thirty. If I'm feeling frisky, maybe throw in the Iron Man stipulation, but at that point it'd feel like something of a gimmick and we already got Hogan outside. It ends with a Stunner and Austin wins the World Title. Hulk comes in to raise Austin's arm, the crowd is hostile to him and Austin doesn't take to him any more than they do. He gives Hogan a Stunner to pop the crowd one more time as we wrap up WrestleMania.