WCW/Headscratchers

WCW

 * ITS STILL REAL TO ME, DAMMIT.
 * Just who in the hell was driving the white Hummer, anyway?
 * This is as close to an explanation as you can get.
 * Word is, the original plan was to bring in Sable as the driver. But, because her release from WWF came with a year and a half no-compete clause, she wasn't able to take the part.
 * Whose bright idea was it to let celebrities like David Arquette and Master P actually participate in full-length wrestling matches, anyway?
 * Short version: blame Eric Bischoff and Vince Russo. Especially the latter, as he is the antithesis of all that is good in wrestling.
 * In the case of Arquette, blame Russo. He overheard a joke made by one of the announcers, and decided to go with it. Arquette hated it, tried to talk him out of it, and later donated his paycheck to several families of deceased wrestlers and to Darren Drozdov.
 * For Arquette, blame Russo (although see the above for how decent a guy Arquette was about it). For Master P, blame Bischoff. Believe it or not, P was paid $200,000 per appearance i.e. in an average month of four Nitros and a PPV, he would be banking a million bucks.
 * Speaking of Arquette, how the hell could he have won the belt in the first place? He was in a tag-team match with Diamond Dallas Page at the time. Can singles titles even change hands during tag team bouts?
 * The match was under stipulation rules where the first person to score a fall become the champion. This is now known as the "David Arquette gimmick match". Note that the same type of match occurred during the Hummer angle the year before.
 * Actually, the Hummer-angle "first to score a pinfall" match was more convoluted than the easy-to-grasp (but stupid) "first to score a pinfall wins the title". In that match, it was Sting and Nash vs. Randy Savage and Sid. Whoever pinned Nash would win the title-- even if Sting was the one to do it. (How in the hell he was supposed to pin his own tag-team partner is anybody's guess).
 * Blame Vince McMahon. How absurdly successful was the "Rock 'n' Wrestling Connection"? Absurdly successful enough that nearly every big-time booker ever would try it again, to varying results. It's just that nobody was dumb enough to put wrestling's most prestigious title on David Arquette before Russo.
 * True, but at least McMahon only put athletes or people with athletic backgrounds into matches (Mr. T, Lawrence Taylor, etc.). Any non-athletes would be announcers or something.
 * Vince Russo's handling of the Hulk Hogan / Bash at the Beach 2000 debacle. He's clearly made the decision that, even if Hogan does win, he's still never appearing on WCW TV again. So why not strip him of the title and fire him in character the next night on Nitro? Heck why not do it that same night when he came out a second time? Was it really worth a complete break of kayfabe on live TV just to get Hogan's win off the record books completely?
 * This is Vince Russo we're talking about; the man loves Worked Shoots. Also, IIRC, Hogan exercised his "Creative Control" clause earlier in the day, which didn't give Russo much time to plan; apparently, this is where his brain goes under pressure.
 * What actually happened there is that Russo and Hogan had a worked shoot going, but Russo's promo at the end of BatB was so offensive to Hogan that he walked out and later sued Russo for defamation.
 * Rumor has it that the part that really got to him? Russo called him bald.
 * Interviewers in the Eighties were banned from referring to Hogan's baldness (yes, I'm serious) so that's entirely possible.
 * In his book, Eric Bischoff claims that the part with Jeff Jarrett lying down for Hogan was a work, but Russo's actual tirade was an unplanned shoot.
 * In Hogan's book, on the other hand, he claims that Russo wanted him to lose to Double J cleanly, and then just have him wait out the last three months of his contract doing nothing. Hogan reasoned that if they had no interest in re-signing him, they might as well try to get the most mileage out of him. His plan (which Russo apparently agreed to) was to have him beat Jarrett for the World title, then announce his "retirement" the next night on Nitro. Then, a huge tournament would take place to crown a new champion. Hogan would then return to challenge the legitimacy of the champion, and they would face-off at Halloween Havoc to determine the undisputed champion, which Hogan would lose gracefully.
 * The fact that this troper read "Hogan would lose gracefully" and immediately burst into hysterical laughter is not a good indicator that Hogan's the most truthful of souls.
 * Not for one minute do I believe that the winning half of the Finger-Poke of Doom would do anything that could be described as losing gracefully.
 * If it wasn't for the whole fact that we're talking about Hogan here, this would have been a good plan and a very basic way to get the winner of the tournament over.
 * Who was the father of Stacy's baby?
 * IIRC, Russo mentioned in an interview that he would be revealed as the baby's father, which would turn David Flair against him. But that wouldn't be the end of the angle, as after a few months Russo would return at David and Stacy's wedding (At that time, he would've forgiven her) to reveal that Stacy was the product of one of Ric Flair's one night stands. Making David and Stacy step-siblings.
 * .........Is every Vince in the buisness obssessed with incest??!
 * Yup. This is the man that gave the world "Beaver Cleavage", after all.
 * Apparently, "Vince" + incest = Vincest.
 * Oklahoma. Seriously, Vince Russo, fuck you.
 * JR is not often on TV, or usually wasn't on the TV at the time his Bells Palsy was at its worst Here is a probable inspiration for that character. Tasteless, indeed.
 * Ed Ferrera, the guy who played Oklahoma, doesn't even try to defend himself when he's confronted on it. He openly admits that it's the worst thing he did in his entire career and that he deserves whatever he gets.
 * "HULK HOGAN IS IN THE BUILDING! GO GET 'EM, HULKSTER!" "Yeah, but WHOSE SIDE IS HE ON?!" Seriously, way to spoil the surprise there, Bobby. Was it even mentioned, after the show, that Bobby Heenan had something of a preternatural understanding of what was about to happen? Did anyone ever go, "Hey, Brain. How the hell did you guess that Hulk Hogan, of all people, was going to turn against us?! Are you also with the New World Order?!"
 * Heenan didn't actually know Hogan was going to turn on WCW at that time, Heenan was simply playing into his character of hating Hogan, and actually thinking about things.
 * The ending of Starrcade 1997. Hell, the entire fucking match. I know that Hogan had a creative control card, but seriously! This is the one time you should tell him to fuck off if he chooses to exercise it. Having Hogan beat the hell out of Sting, pin him cleanly, Bret Hart come out as if it's the Montreal Screwjob all over again, and have Sting win with a sneak-attack Scorpion Deathlock was just about the absolute worst possible way to book that goddamn match! WCW deserved to die after that!
 * Yeah telling one of your biggest draws he can't have his way is a smart move. Even in spite of the fact that he can sue the company should they disregard the "creative control" slate in his contract (when he wants it used) but also the fact that this could galvanize him to jump ship to the competing promotion.
 * Also Hogan wasn't supposed to go over Sting cleanly, the idea was that the referee was going to be paid off by the NWO and would deliver a fast count, thus justifying Bret Hart coming out and restarting the match. I suppose the idea was that not only would this be a crippling blow to the NWO, but would also get the crowd behind Bret. However as you said, Hogan pulled his control card (or as rumors go, paid off the referee for real to give a regular count and sabotage the whole angle) and thus...