>>9307780To be fair, in the early days of the war, Nitro's production was miles better than WWF. And it remained that way until 1998 or so, maybe 1999 even? I'm watching it back now and even in early 1998, Nitro clearly spends more on production.
But otherwise you're right. Key storylines and industry buzz determined who was winning the war. Ratings, and even PPV buys, had little to do with workrate of the matches either (even though there were some bangers, of course). It was all hype and marketing and stars.
>>9307798The creative team at WCW was shit by late 1998 and only got worse. Turner's S&P is a lie Bischoff is telling on his podcast. I watched the war live and Nitro continued to air hot women in skimpy outfits, hardcore matches, and cursing well into 2001. They did this to compete with WWF, of course. They even hired Vince Russo.
The AOL-Time Warner merger killed WCW, but let's not pretend that the ratings hadn't dropped off a cliff. WCW was trending towards TNA/Impact levels of irrelevance by 2001. Maybe they could have righted the ship with time but they were not in a good position to do so and the hype had completely shifted to WWF with no signs of turning by then. 2000 was an absolute slaughter by WWF.
