10 Harsh Realities Of Rewatching Old WCW Wrestling

World Championship Wrestling was a major player in the world of professional wrestling in the 1990s, owned and funded by media mogul, Ted Turner, who wanted to be direct competition to WWE. Early in the 90's, WCW floundered trying to find its footing and a leader to match Turner's vision. Yet, by the mid 1990s, Eric Bischoff had proven to be the leader Ted Turner was looking for. WCW would famously beat WWE in the ratings for 83 consecutive weeks. This would lead us to the infamous Monday Night Wars.

RELATED: 10 Biggest Moments Of The Monday Night Wars, Ranked

During this time, a fan could see some cracks in WCW's armor. Looking back fans can observe some harsh realities involving WCW programming and their desire for long term success. In retrospect WCW was too caught up in the Monday Night Wars to accept the position of being a long term professional wrestling success.

10 Failure to Create New Stars

Bill Goldberg aside, WCW struggled with building their own stars. Their success was based on recycling stars from WWE's past. That method did result into WCW growing a loyal audience and competing with WWE for the time being, but it did not produce a positive long term business model. WWE started investing in new stars they had developed and WCW kept rehashing the same stars with the same storylines. Again, Goldberg aside, who is the next best known homegrown WCW talent? Billy Kidman? Buff Bagwell? Those talents did not compare to The Rock, Stone Cold, and Triple H on the other channel.

9 Pushed Rookies Too Soon

Watching the demise of WCW in 2000, fans see they realized the need to develop young stars. Their answer to this problem was bringing in a bunch of athletically gifted, physically jacked young stars. The Natural Born Thrillers faction was full of obvious potential. Yet, the rush to television was not the way to develop stars. The Thrillers didn't have any character development and even less personality; just inner changeable physically gifted talent. If WCW had allowed these young talents to develop organically, stars could have been born. Instead, the fans watched as their matches highlighted how green and unprepared they were. Chuck Palumbo, Sean O'Haire, Mike Sanders, Mark Jindrak, Reno, Johnny the Bull and Shawn Stasiak could have been the WCW stars of tomorrow. Legitimate contenders to Goldberg, if they weren't rushed to television.

8 High Flying Action Wasn't Impressive Until The Luchadores Arrived

On the debut episode of WCW Monday Nitro commentators build up the high-flying action of Brian Pillman and Japanese legend Jushin Liger. Fans are told they would not find this action anywhere. On our television screens Pillman and Liger perform some high spots, botch some head scissors and finish the match with not a lot of fanfare. Looking at what the luchadores would bring in just a few months later, Pillman and Liger were lacking. The action in the ring visually wasn't as exciting as the Japanese and Mexican wrestling occurring at the same time.

7 Commentary Was Lacking

When watching WCW Nitro the announcers were not always coherent. In this stage of his career Bobby Heenan's heart wasn't into it. His one-liners fall short throughout the series. Steve McMichaels humor was often time dated and culturally insensitive. On WWE RAW during this time Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler are becoming one of the greatest announcing teams to ever broadcast wresting. WCW had a plethora of announcers in and out of the booth. The lack of consistency and detail make watching vintage WCW difficult to listen to.

6 Dungeon Of Doom Was Lame

Kevin Sullivan led a rag tag group of comical super villains in the Dungeon of Doom. The faction would battle top faces like Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage. The PG version of Sullivan's supernatural evildoers does not capture the WCW viewer. The heels are too hokey to illicit fear into the good guys or the audience watching. In many ways the Dungeon of Doom was a collaboration of the nasty monster heels. Hogan would battle in the 1980s. Even when the dastardly faction held the WCW World Heavyweight title with The Giant, the surrounding members seemed unimportant.

5 Too Much Celebrity Involvement

WCW went to the well time and time again bringing in celebrities to draw fan's attention. Early on Hulk Hogan involved Mr. T and Shaquille O'Neal into WCW. Small one-off, supporting appearances served WCW in getting popular culture viewers. Yet, time after time WCW brought in celebrities and gave them equal footing with their superstars. Professional athletes liked Dennis Rodman, Karl Malone and Kevin Greene would play major roles in storylines and pay per view events. These athletes at least come from a professional sport background.

RELATED: The 5 Best Celebrities To Win A Wrestling Championship (& The 5 Worst)

Other celebrities like Jay Leno, Master P and Will Sasso hurt the integrity of the profession. WCW would even promote live rock concerts like Megadeath and KISS on their programming. The harshest celebrity involvement would be WCW putting their heavyweight title on David Arquette.

4 Obsessed With WWE

When watching WCW television you can't help but notice their obsession with WWE. WCW tried to be cutting edge by releasing recorded Raw results. WCW constantly brought attention to ratings. Eric Bischoff even famously challenged Vince McMahon to a pay per view match.

RELATED: 5 Biggest Wins For WWE During The Monday Night War (& 5 Biggest Wins For WCW)

Acknowledging the success of both companies is one thing, but WCW comes off looking like the little brother trying to get attention with their WWE obsession. From vague innuendos to outright copyright infringement WCW seemed to care more about WWE than their own product.

3 Roster Was Too Big

Eric Bischoff's nickname as president of WCW was ATM Eric. He was constantly adding talent to the roster. Any professional wrestler with WWE ties seemed to be offered a contract. In the late 1990s their roster included past their prime WWE wrestlers such as Rick Martel, Marty Jennetty, Barry Darsow and Greg Valentine. Rumors even suggest WCW kept Lanny Poffo under contract for years without ever using him on television. The roster was so bloated that many performers never got a chance to develop. A lot of younger talent even lost out on their opportunity so that old WWE guys could have one last payday.

2 Had No Clue What To Do With Cruiserweights

WCW's cruiserweight roster included Chris Jericho, Rey Mysterio, Juventud Guerrera, Dean Malenko, Ultimo Dragon, Psicosis, Billy Kidman and so many other talented performers. That cruiserweight roster alone holds enough talent to be relevant in any age of professional wrestling. Yet, the harsh truth is WCW had no clue how to market or book these stars. Regulated to Monday Nitro spot fests and very few storylines did not allow the performers to develop depth. This roster even included the phenomenal AJ Styles in the dying days of WCW.

1 Relied Too Much On The NWO

The New World Order revolutionized professional wrestling in 1996. The reality based storyline of an outsider invasion captivated the wrestling universe. The attempted takeover and addition of members became the most exciting time in professional wrestling history. Yet, all storylines run a natural course. By 1998 WCW needed to move on from the NWO, but instead they tried to redevelop the same concept over and over. The NWO would separate into two factions; Wolfpac and Hollywood. Eventually leaders Kevin Nash and Hulk Hogan went their own way, and it seemed like the NWO was over. Yet, in 2000, WCW tried to get the band back together again. NWO 2000 reformation was a complete flop. Fans watching the reunion had to accept the harsh reality that the NWO in WCW was over.