EWR Diary: 1998 WCW

[DXvsNWO]

So for those of you who listen to Wrestling Omakase, I mentioned that I was looking to share my current EWR scenario. Well, I decided to make a threat about it here on the forum!! For those who are curious, I'm playing as WCW in 1998. Right now, I don't think I'm going to make posts for every show I've done thus far (talking about all of the Nitro's, Thunder's, and Saturday Night's). For the moment, I'm going to stick to just talking about the PPV's (the cards, my mentality behind putting those matches together, the feuds, etc.), but I'll think about including posts summarizing what I've done in between the PPV's themselves. For those wondering, I did also download the Arsenic Editor, but I don't overuse it by any means.

Before I dive into my first PPV, I want to make a few notes about my roster, as I made a bunch of signings right as I started.

- I signed three Japanese Talents to full-time contracts (one year). Those were The Great Muta, Jushin "Thunder" Liger, & Hiroyoshi Tenzan. I mainly grabbed Muta and Tenzan to complete nWo Japan. I've actually used them a fair amount in my mid-card, but since I plan to downscale the nWo once 1999 rolls around, I'm not sure what I'll do with them. I might sign them to six-month open contracts until I figure out what to do with them. I definitely would like to keep using Muta and especially Liger.

- I signed a bunch of ECW guys right at the start of my scenario as well. Those names include: RVD, Saba, Jerry Lynn, and the F.B.I. (Little Guido, Tracy Smothers, Tommy Rich, and Tony Mamaluke, who I think was a freelancer). I signed RVD & Sabu with the intent to use them as a top tag team before eventually giving RVD a singles push (probably starting in 1999). The other guys were just people I thought would make good additions to my roster. I also went out and signed The Pitbulls (who were listed as free agents), as well as John Kronus (to complete The Eliminators), and Tommy Dreamer (it sounds weird, but I'll get to why in a second) later in the year. Mike Awesome was another guy I signed, and I have HUGE plans for him going into 1999.

- I did cut a fair amount of guys at the start of the year (mostly lower card guys I had no use for). I also let go of some veterans midway through 1998 that I really had no use for (Jim Duggan).

- One of the craziest things that occurred at the start of my scenario was that WWF released a BUNCH of people. Among that list were The Hardys, Adam Copeland (Edge), Christian Cage, and Andrew Martin (Test). So what I decided to do was sign all of those guys, and incorporate them into my new developmental territory. Appropriately, I decided to make OMEGA my WCW developmental territory. Here's what the OMEGA roster looks like as of September 1998:

• Head Booker: Tony Schiavone

• Roster: Andrew Martin, Amy Dumas, Christian Cage, Christian York, Daffney, David Flair, Edge, Evan Karagias, Jeff Hardy, Joey Matthews, Matt Hardy, Shane Helms, Shannon Moore, Steve Corino, & Trish Stratus

- When I brought up Tommy Dreamer, I mentioned that he seemed like a weird fit for WCW. Well, I decided to sign him because ECW closed down. I don't know exactly when that happened, but I looked one day (I think it was in June or July), and ECW was just....gone. It was replaced by a promotion called 3XW (it's basically become the ECW substitute, with most of the ECW roster). There was also another small promotion that popped up, called South Of The Border Pro Wrestling. Ironically, it's run by Bruce Hart.

- One quick note about titles. Before I started, I decided to move the NWA World Heavyweight Title and the NWA World Tag Team Titles from WWF to WCW. For what I wanted to do, I decided that I needed an extra title or two, and I thought those titles were a good fit.

The next post will my card for Souled Out 1998. I'll include the card, the mentality behind it, among other things.

[DXvsNWO]

Unfortunately, I don't have the ability to post photos on the forum right now. I was hoping to use a couple of pictures with the actual posting, but for now, I'm going to have to bypass that (hopefully I can add them at a later date).

Part I: WCW/nWo Souled Out 1998

So this was the first PPV of my scenario, taking place on January 18th (a few weeks in). From what I can recall, I'm pretty sure I just went with all of the default title holders, to reflect who was holding them in real life, at the time. Sting is the WCW World Heavyweight Champion, the Steiner Brothers were the WCW World Tag Team Champions, DDP was the WCW United States Champion, Booker T was the WCW World TV Champion, and Ultimo Dragon was the WCW Cruiserweight Champion. For the NWA World Heavyweight Title and the NWA World Tag Team Titles, I decided to go with Ric Flair and RVD/Sabu respectively.

Anyway, here's the card I put together:

Pre-Show

- Mike Awesome def. Disco Inferno

PPV

- Ten-Man Tag - Team Hot Rod ("Rowdy" Roddy Piper, DDP, Davey Boy Smith, Jim Neidhart, & Eddie Guerrero) def. nWo (Randy Savage, Konnan, Curt Hennig, Brian Adams, & Vincent)
- WCW World TV Title - Rick Martel def. Booker T (c)
- NWA World Tag Team Titles - RVD & Sabu (c) def. nWo Japan (Masahiro Chono & Hiroyoshi Tenzan)
- WCW Cruiserweight Title - Chris Jericho def. Rey Mysterio Jr. (c)
- Hardcore Match - Chris Benoit def. Raven
- WCW World Tag Team Titles - The Steiner Brothers (c) def. Vicious & Delicious (Buff Bagwell & Scott Norton)
- Six-Man Tag - Sting, Lex Luger, & The Giant def. nWo (Hollywood Hogan, Kevin Nash, & Scott Hall)
- Non-Title - Bret Hart def. NWA World Heavyweight Champion Ric Flair

I'm not totally sure what other people typically get for their PPV rating percentages on EWR, but for Souled Out 1998, I got an overall score of 77%. The highest rated matches were Jericho/Mysterio at 87%, and Benoit/Raven at 85%. The top two matches on the card just barely broke into the 80%s (the semi-main event at 80% and the main event at 81%). The lowest rated match was Booker T/Martel at 68%.

From the very beginning, I decided the best way to start off the scenario was to try to emulate what actually happened (not exactly the same - match for match - on every show, but I generally wanted to go on a similar path) for the first few months. Thus, I started off with a brief Bret Hart/Ric Flair feud, a Benoit/Raven feud, a Jericho/Mysterio program for the Cruiserweight Title (that result stayed the same as the actual PPV), and a Booker T/Rick Martel program for the World TV Title (Martel wins the title a little earlier than in OTL). I never intended for the Hart/Flair thing to be a long feud. It would just be for a couple of weeks, Hart would win the match at the PPV, and then they would sort of make amends for the "greater good" of WCW, in their fight against the nWo.

A note on the Cruiserweight Title: I did do a bunch of quickie title changes. Similar to OTL, Ultimo Dragon lost the Cruiserweight Title on the January 8th episode of Thunder, but to Psychosis instead of Juventud Guerrera. Then, Rey Mysterio Jr. won the title on the January 12th episode of Nitro instead of on the January 15th Thunder. Again, I started off by mirroring real life in some ways. I wanted things to be a bit more realistic, in that regard, just so that any changes I did in the future didn't come off as totally drastic.

Not much else to say about the card, beyond that. The semi-main event helps build to some matches that are happening at SuperBrawl. The two tag team title defenses seemed like fine choices, in my view (with the NWA World Tag Team Title bout being particularly unique), and the opener was just a WCW vs. nWo ten-man tag. The inclusion of Eddie Guerrero in that match was done for a specific reason. He picks up the winning fall in that match, and I had big plans for him going forward into 1998.

Also, yes....I do realize that I had all of the nWo members lose on (what is technically) the nWo PPV. I don't think I intended it to work out that way. It just worked out like that.

[DXvsNWO]

I wasn't intending to go this long between posts, but here we go....

Part II: WCW/nWo SuperBrawl VIII

With the second PPV in this EWR scenario (taking place on February 22nd, 1998), I continued with the plan that I would explained in the Souled Out post. I'm going along a generally similar path as 1998 WCW in OTL, at least for the first few months. Some of what I did was close to what happened in real life (or exactly the same), but there were a few things I did differently.

Here's my card:

Pre-Show

- Six-Man Tag - Rey Mysterio Jr., Jushin "Thunder" Liger, & Jerry Lynn def. The FBI (Little Guido, Tracy Smothers, & Tommy Rich)

PPV

- WCW World TV Title - Triple Threat Match - Booker T def. Perry Saturn (c) & Rick Martel
- WCW Cruiserweight Title - Chris Jericho def. Juventud Guerrera (c)
- NWA World Tag Team Titles - RVD & Sabu (c) def. Vicious and Delicious (Buff Bagwell & Scott Norton)
- NWA World Heavyweight Title - Ric Flair (c) def. The Great Muta
- Six-Man Tag - Bret Hart, Rowdy Roddy Poper, & Davey Boy Smith def. nWo (Randy Savage, Konnan, & Brian Adams)
- WCW United States Title - DDP (c) def. Chris Benoit
- WCW World Tag Team Titles - Triple Threat Match - The Outsiders def. The Steiner Brothers (c), and Lex Luger/The Giant
- WCW World Title - Sting (c) def. Hollywood Hogan

For SuperBrawl VIII, I got an overall score of 79%, which was up 2% from Souled Out 1998. The highest rated matches were all in the middle of the card. Chris Jericho/Juventud Guerrera won MOTN honors at 87%, making it the second PPV in a row that Jericho had the match with the highest rating. Right behind that bout were RVD & Sabu vs. Buff Bagwell/Scott Norton at a surprising 83% (I thought this could be good, but I didn't expect it to do as well as it did), and Ric Flair/Great Muta at 82%. The top three matches at got 78%, so it was good to see that the latter half of the card delivered. I expected DDP/Benoit to be really good, but I think the combination of guys in the final two matches led to strong crowd reactions, which boosted their overall ratings. The only match to fall under the 75% mark on this entire card was the pre-show match, which got 67%. As a whole, the PPV turned out pretty well, all things considered.

As you can see, some of the matches on this card closely mirrored what happened on SuperBrawl VIII in OTL. Sting retained the WCW World Title over Hollywood Hogan in the main event. There was no title vacancy in this scenario, as Sting has held the WCW World Title since winning it back at Starrcade 1997. The Outsiders still won the WCW World Tag Team Titles from The Steiner Brothers, but in a Three-Way Tag that also involved Lex Luger & The Giant. I couldn't do a heel turn with Scott Steiner here (because it was a Three-Way Tag), so I held it off until the following night's episode of Nitro (The Outsiders defended against The Steiner Brothers, and the Scott Steiner heel turn occurred here instead). DDP retained his WCW United States Title over Chris Benoit (just like in OTL), and I had Raven attack both men afterwards to help set up a Triple Threat Match between the three at the next PPV.

There were a couple of matches I did here that were close to what actually happened in OTL, but they were altered a little bit. With the WCW Cruiserweight Title bout, Juventud Guerrera was the one who came into the bout as the defending champion (he won the title from Jericho on the February 16th episode of Nitro). Also, in my head canon, Guerrera's mask was not on the line here.

With regards to the WCW World TV Title, it's been bouncing around a lot since Souled Out (in hindsight, I've treated the WCW World TV Title a lot like the NEVER Openweight Six-Man Tag Team Titles in New Japan, in that I've been doing a lot of title changes). I intended to keep the title on Rick Martel for a little bit longer (a few more weeks), but the crowd responded poorly to Martel as champion, so I cut his title reign short at just four days (two days shorter than his actual title reign in OTL). Booker T regained the WCW World TV Title from Martel on the January 22nd edition of Thunder. However, Booker T's second reign wasn't very long either, as Perry Saturn won the title on the February 5th edition of Thunder. So instead of doing the weird scenario that happened on the SuperBrawl VIII PPV in OTL (where they did Booker T vs. Martel with the winner then facing Saturn), I just did a Triple Threat Match with Booker T regaining the title.

Everything else on the card was pretty simple, in terms of build. Ric Flair retained the NWA World Heavyweight Title in matches against Hiroyoshi Tenzan and Masahiro Chono in the lead up to his title defense against The Great Muta. RVD & Sabu going over Buff Bagwell & Scott Norton was just another successful title defense from them (against another nWo team). The Six-Man Tag on the PPV card was a little repetitive, compared to the last PPV, but I wanted to get guys like Bret Hart and Randy Savage involved without doing a singles match that could be saved for later. Nothing much else to say about this one, beyond that.

[DXvsNWO]

Part III: WCW/nWo Uncensored 1998

The third PPV in my EWR scenario (taking place on March 15th, 1998) featured more of the same strategy that I've mentioned in my previous postings in this thread. I continue to follow along the same general path as WCW in 1998 during OTL, but with a fair amount of differences sprinkled in. For those wondering, the larger deviation is coming, but it will be more gradual (as opposed to being sudden).

Here's my card:

Pre-Show

- Four-Way Elimination Tag Team Match - Rey Mysterio Jr. & Juventud Guerrera def. Vicious & Delicious (Buff Bagwell & Scott Norton), The FBI (Little Guido & Tracy Smothers), & Public Enemy

PPV

- WCW Cruiserweight Title - Dean Malenko def. Chris Jericho (c)
- NWA World Tag Team Titles - Hardcore Match - RVD & Sabu (c) def. The Faces Of Fear (Meng & The Barbarian)
- WCW World TV Title - Fatal Four-Way Match - Eddie Guerrero (c) def. Booker T, Jushin "Thunder" Liger, & Konnan
- Bill Goldberg def. Steve "Mongo" McMichael
- WCW United States Title - Triple Threat Match - DDP (c) def. Chris Benoit & Raven
- Falls Count Anywhere - Kevin Nash def. The Giant
- WCW World Heavyweight Title - Sting (c) def. Scott Hall
- Tag Team Steel Cage Match - Bret Hart & Rowdy Roddy Piper def. nWo (Hollywood Hogan & Randy Savage)

For Uncensored 1998, I got an overall score of 75%, which was down 4% from SuperBrawl VIII. The highest rated matches were scattered throughout the card. For the third PPV in a row, Chris Jericho won MOTN, this time for his WCW Cruiserweight Title bout with Dean Malenko, which came in at 85%. Just behind Jericho/Malenko was actually the Sting/Scott Hall match for the WCW World Title, which got 84%. Other matches that were at or above 80% were the Triple Threat for the WCW United States Title at 82%, the Fatal Four-Way for the WCW United States Title at 80%, and (surprisingly) The Giant/Kevin Nash at 80%. Two matches fell below the 70% mark, but the match that (I believe) had the most negative impact on the overall rating was the RVD & Sabu/Faces Of Fear bout, which only got 57%.

As you can probably tell, there were A LOT of things on this show that were very similar to the actual PPV in OTL. There was the Sting vs. Scott Hall for the WCW World Title (which was Hall cashing in the title shot he earned in real life at World War 3 in late 1997), the Triple Threat Match for the WCW United States Title (this plays out exactly the same way it did in OTL), and Kevin Nash vs. The Giant (though this was a Falls Count Anywhere Match that Kevin Nash won). Chris Jericho vs. Dean Malenko for the WCW Cruiserweight Title was another match that happened on the real life PPV, but in my scenario, Malenko actually wins the title from Jericho (Unfortunately for Malenko, his reign was short-lived, as Jericho regained the title on Nitro the following night). Of course, those two had a big feud in 1998, so I determined to do that feud in my scenario as well.

The Fatal Four-Way Match for the WCW World TV Title had some links to what happened on the actual PPV (which was just a title bout between Booker T and Eddie Guerrero). I mentioned in my previous post that the WCW World TV Title has sort of been the "hot potato" belt in my scenario, and that continued in the build up to this PPV. Konnan won the title from Booker T on the March 9th edition of Nitro, but then he lost the title to Eddie Guerrero only a week later on the March 16th edition of Nitro. I had Liger interact with these guys for a bit. However, I never put the title on him. Honestly, I just thought this was a cool match to put together. With regards to Eddie Guerrero, this is part of a larger story that's going on between him, the nWo, and The Four Horsemen. After having some impressive showings against the nWo, Eddie Guerrero joined the The Four Horsemen after Chris Benoit suggested to Ric Flair as a potential new member. Right now, in the story, Guerrero is proving to be a valuable asset to the group, those things will certainly change in the coming months (more on that in a later post).

As far as the main event goes, it mirrors the actual Randy Savage/nWo split somewhat. Instead of things breaking down between Hogan and Savage, leading to a Steel Cage Match between the two of them, tensions between the former Mega Powers form in the buildup to the main event of this PPV, which was a Tag Team Steel Cage Match against Bret Hart & Roddy Piper. In the match, Eric Bischoff tried to interfere (at Hogan's behest), but things end up backfiring, and they lose the bout. I thought this was a more interesting way to the Randy Savage split from the nWo, as we go towards the formation of the Wolfpac (yes, that is coming).

The rest of the card was just filler. I decided to put a Goldberg squash on here, and I thought Mongo was a fine opponent for him to go over. RVD & Sabu didn't have a long feud with The Faces Of Fear. It was just a short live feud that lasted two weeks or so. I meant it to be just another solid title defense for RVD & Sabu, and I thought Meng & The Barbarian would be decent opponents (particularly in a Hardcore Match), but obviously it didn't work out that well. Finally, the pre-show bout seems like a random match, but it actually served as a continuation of a lower card feud between Public Enemy and The FBI. I have no idea why, but I wanted to do a lower card tag team feud that took place mostly on Saturday Night, and these were the two teams I went with. This was just an extension of that, with two other teams thrown in there. Rey Mysterio Jr. & Juventud Guerrera going over Buff Bagwell & Scott Norton at the end seems a bit odd, but hey, I'm actually trying to make new stars here!

[DXvsNWO]

Part 4: WCW/nWo Spring Stampede 1998

The fourth PPV in my EWR scenario (taking place on April 19th, 1998) was where I finally started to deviate, in a major way, from the path that WCW actually went down in 1998. There are still a couple of similar storyline beats from OTL that are still noticeable in my scenario (specifically on this PPV and on future PPV's), but generally speaking, this is where the separation really begins.

Before I present my PPV card, I should make a note about the pre-show/dark match. On most occasions, it's just a relatively random match that I put together in that slot. However, on a few instances (this being one of them), I would like to consider the dark match as part of the actual PPV. I'll only do this when there's a ninth match that I feel is too big to be considered a dark match. Thus, for this post, I'll list the card a little bit differently (even though the game still lists it as a dark match).

PPV

- WCW Cruiserweight Title - Chris Jericho (c) def. Ultimo Dragon
- The Four Horsemen (Ric Flair, Dean Malenko, Eddie Guerrero, & Steve "Mongo" McMichael) def. nWo Japan (Masahiro Chono, Hiroyoshi Tenzan, Buff Bagwell, & Scott Norton)
- WCW World TV Title - Booker T def. Fit Finlay (c)
- Bill Goldberg def. Perry Saturn
- Rowdy Roddy Piper, Lex Luger, & The Giant def. nWo (Hollywood Hogan, Dennis Rodman, & Curt Hennig)
- Scott Steiner def. Rick Steiner
- WCW World Tag Team Titles - RVD & Sabu def. The Outsiders (c)
- WCW United States Title - Last Man Standing - Raven (c) def. DDP
- WCW World Title - Fatal Four-Way Match - Randy Savage def. Chris Benoit, Bret Hart, & Sting (c)

For Spring Stampede 1998, I got an overall score of 77%, which was up 2% from Uncensored 1998 (not much, but still an improvement). One match in particular stood out from the rest. For the fourth PPV in a row, Chris Jericho took home the MOTN honors, as his WCW Cruiserweight Title defense against Ultimo Dragon earned an impressive 91%. I believe that's the highest rating match I've had on PPV to date. The closest contenders were the Raven/DDP Last Man Standing Match for the WCW United States Title, which got 85%, and the Fatal Four-Way Match for the WCW World Title, which got 83%. The remaining six matches fell below the 80% mark, but out of those six, only the six-man tag (which fell in the middle of the card) dipped below 70%.

As I mentioned at the top of my post, this was where the deviation really kicks into high gear, but there are still a few storyline beats that are similar to OTL. Following the events of Uncensored 1998, the divisions within the nWo continue to grow, particularly with Randy Savage (along with Kevin Nash, who sides with Savage as we get closer to the formation of the Wolfpac). Just like in OTL, Savage ends up winning the WCW World Title from Sting in the main event of Spring Stampede 1998. However, the circumstances are much different. Instead of a singles match that saw both Hogan and Nash get involved, Savage wins the title in a Fatal Four-Way (in relatively clean fashion) after pinning Chris Benoit (in my mind, Bret Hart and Sting take each other out of contention at the very end, meaning that it effectively came down to Benoit vs. Savage). There's a reason I went with that story, with regards to Hart and Sting, but I'll get to that in a later post. At this point, I believe Savage is still technically part of the nWo, but my idea here is that Savage winning the WCW World Title just solidifies the nWo (Hogan can't stand anyone in the nWo besides him being World Champion). Just like in real life, Savage's reign is a short one, but instead of losing it to Hogan on Nitro the next night (April 20th), he loses the title to Hogan on the following Thunder (April 23rd).

There were a couple of other title changes on the card. RVD & Sabu (who are still the NWA World Tag Team Champions) became double champions after defeating Kevin Nash & Scott Hall for the WCW World Tag Team Titles. Miscommunication between The Outsides ended up being their downfall, and for the moment, this would be the end of them as a team. Nash would, of course, go on to form the nWo Wolfpac shortly after this PPV, while Scott Hall (for now) stuck with Hogan and nWo Hollywood.

The other notable title change involved the WCW World TV Title. Continuing with the pattern established in previous posts, this title is still getting bounced around. On the March 23rd edition of Nitro, Booker T won the title back from Eddie Guerrero. However, that title reign would only last for a few weeks, as Fit Finlay would win the title on the April 6th edition of Nitro. This reign for Finlay is a little earlier that his run with the title in OTL, but in both instances, he won the title from, and lost it back to, Booker T.

Elsewhere on the card, you have the first appearance of "The Worm" himself, Dennis Rodman (on a pay-per-appearance deal). Yes, I am using him, but I only plan on using him sparingly (hence the kind of deal I signed him to). Curt Hennig was the obvious fall guy in that six-man tag. Meanwhile, Raven successfully retain his WCW United States Title against DDP in a Last Man Standing Match. The stipulation was slightly different that their actual match from Spring Stampede 1998 in OTL (Last Man Standing instead of Raven's Rules). The major difference in this feud is that Raven won the WCW United States Title from DDP much earlier. In my scenario, he defeated DDP in a Ladder Match on the March 19th edition of Thunder to win the title.

Everything else was pretty by the books, relatively speaking. Goldberg vs. Perry Saturn plays out the exact same way as their actual bout from this PPV, Dean Malenko takes a break from his feud to Chris Jericho (who defends the WCW Cruiserweight Title against Ultimo Dragon on this PPV) to help his Four Horsemen stablemates battle nWo Japan. Finally, I decided to put a battle of the Steiner Brothers on this card. Of course, Scott Steiner turned heel and joined the nWo a few months prior, and this was the first major meeting between the two in my scenario.

That's all for now!! I'll have a ton of stuff to break down in my next post, as in addition to Slamboree 1998, I'll be talking about the nWo split, and who ended up where.

[DXvsNWO]

A long delay between postings. Apologies for that!

Part 5: WCW/nWo Slamboree 1998

The fifth PPV in my ECW scenario (taking place on May 17th, 1998) still has slight vestiges of what occurred in OTL, but the deviation is really in full swing at this point. This will probably be the last of the glaring similarities. Once I get into the summer PPVs, the changes will become more and more pronounced. Much like the previous PPV (Spring Stampede), I'm considering the "pre-show" match as part of the actual PPV.

PPV

- 10-Man Cruiserweight Battle Royal - Rey Mysterio Jr. last eliminates Psychosis
- Lex Luger def. Brian Adams
- WCW World Tag Team Titles - RVD & Sabu (c) def. nWo Hollywood (Scott Hall & Louie Spicolli)
- WCW United States Title - Bill Goldberg (c) def. Raven
- The Hart Family (Bret Hart, Davey Boy Smith, & Jim Neidhart) def. nWo Japan (The Great Muta, Masahiro Chono, & Hiroyoshi Tenzan)
- WCW Cruiserweight Title - I Quit Match - Dean Malenko def. Chris Jericho (c)
- WCW World TV Title - Triple Threat Match - Scott Steiner def. Booker T (c) & Rick Steiner
- #1 Contender's Four-Way Elimination Match - DDP & Sting def. nWo Hollywood (Eddie Guerrero & The Giant), nWo Wolfpac (Kevin Nash & Konnan), & The Four Horsemen (Ric Flair & Chris Benoit)
- WCW World Title - Hollywood Hogan def. Randy Savage (c)

For Slamboree 1998, I got an overall score of 74%, which was down 3% from Spring Stampede 1998. I really liked the card I put together, but unfortunately, it didn't end up being one of my higher ranked PPV's. I must sound like a broken record at this point, but once again, Chris Jericho took MOTN honors. For those keeping track, he's been in my MOTN on every single PPV that I've done up to this point. This time around, it was his I Quit Match with Dean Malenko for the WCW Cruiserweight Title, which got 86%. The only other match that got into the 80's was the Triple Threat Match for the WCW World TV Title, which got 81%. The third best match came in at 77%, and that was the Four-Way Elimination Tag Team Team in the semi-main event spot. Everything else ranged from the high 60's to the low 70's, with three matches (RVD/Sabu vs. Scott Hall/Louie Spicolli, Goldberg/Raven, & Hogan/Savage) getting 72%.

At this point, the nWo split is in full swing, with nWo Hollywood and nWo Wolfpac now being established. In terms of the membership of the groups, they're close to what they were in real life. Once Kevin Nash and Randy Savage formed nWo Wolfpac, Lex Luger and Konnan were quick to join them (though I think Luger joins a bit earlier in my scenario). Also joining nWo Wolfpac a bit earlier (though they're not featured on this show) are Curt Hennig and Rick Rude. Now in OTL, those two guys ended up defecting back to nWo Hollywood. In my scenario, this never happens, as they stay with nWo Wolfpac throughout 1998. I also threw Disco Inferno in the group to essentially serve as their job guy (I believe he was in nWo Wolfpac in OTL as well).

As for nWo Hollywood, it basically consists of everyone who didn't defect to the nWo Wolfpac. This includes nWo Japan who, in this scenario, side with Hollywood Hogan in the split. There were two additions to nWo Hollywood. The Giant joins the group much like he did in OTL (though a little bit earlier), but the most important new member of the group was Eddie Guerrero. After falling into a bit of a slump in late March/most of April, Eddie Guerrero turned on The Four Horsemen to join up with nWo Hollywood (he would bring along Chavo Guerrero Jr. with him into the group). To be clear, I didn't put Eddie in there to be "just another guy". While Hogan is still the leader, Eddie pretty much becomes second in command, alongside The Giant and Scott Steiner. Those guys are the "big four" in nWo Hollywood, in terms of the actual wrestlers (of course you got people in there like Eric Bischoff and Dennis Rodman, who are big players as well).

As I mentioned earlier, the PPV card didn't exactly get the ratings that I was expecting, but I really liked what I put together. Yes, I know that Hogan vs. Savage isn't exactly that enticing in 1998. However, this was basically a short-term program that's there to fill time until the big matchup between Hogan and Goldberg. As I mentioned in my previous post, Hogan won the title from Savage on the episode of Thunder following Spring Stampede. This was Savage's rematch, so again, this was just to fill time until I got to the Goldberg title challenge. The bout ends with Hogan retaining via shenanigans.

The Four-Way Tag Team Match was basically done to set up a future challenger for the WCW World Tag Team Titles. DDP and Sting felt like a strong team of super babyfaces, so I put them together and had them win. Now even thought RVD & Sabu retained here over Scott Hall and Louie Spicolli, there were a few twists before DDP and Sting ultimately won the titles. Hall and Spicolli won the WCW World Tag Team Titles from RVD & Sabu in a rematch on the May 21st Thunder (via nefarious means). They soon lost the titles to DDP and Sting on the May 25th Nitro, and then lost the rubber match to RVD & Sabu (a Tables Match) on the June 4th Thunder.

As for the other title bouts, Goldberg won the WCW United States Title from Raven on the May 11th Nitro, and he retained on this PPV in the rematch. Dean Malenko winning the WCW Cruiserweight Title from Chris Jericho in an I Quit Match served as the PPV blowoff of their one-on-one feud, though their feud would continue a little bit further, and big blowoff on TV would take place a little bit later (more on that in a later post). The WCW World TV Title finally saw some stability, as after winning the title from Fit Finlay at Spring Stampede, Booker T would hold it for close to a month before losing it on this PPV to Scott Steiner in a Triple Threat that also included Rick Steiner (the escapades involving this title will continue in the next post).

Lastly, the Cruiserweight Battle Royal included Rey Mysterio Jr., Psychosis, Juventud Guerrera, Jerry Lynn, Kidman, Jushin “Thunder” Liger, Little Guido, Hector Garza, Ultimo Dragon, & Chavo Guerrero Jr., with the winner earning a future shot at the WCW Cruiserweight Title. Finally, the feud between The Hart Family and nWo Japan was just a fun little mid card feud that I thought would be cool to do.

That's it for now! Next up is Part 6, which will cover The Great American Bash 1998.

[DXvsNWO]

Time for a new update! It's a pretty significant one!

Part 6: WCW/nWo The Great American Bash 1998

The sixth PPV in my EWR scenario (taking place on June 14th, 1998) was The Great American Bash which, of course, was one of WCW's signature PPV events. When you compare the card that I put together with the card that we actually saw in OTL, you'll see immediately that they're totally different. Some of my previous PPV's had feature a mix of similarities and diversions, but my version of the 1998 edition of The Great American Bash is really the first PPV in my EWR scenario that was a true diversion from what happened in OTL. I thought it was one of the best PPV lineups that I've put forth thus far and, as you'll see in a moment, it performed pretty well.

Once again, I'm considering the "pre-show dark match" as part of the actual PPV card. It does air as part of the full PPV.

PPV

- The Great Muta def. Chris Benoit
- nWo Wolfpac (Kevin Nash, Konnan, Lex Luger, & Curt Hennig) def. nWo Hollywood (The Giant, Scott Steiner, Buff Bagwell, & Scott Norton)
- Randy Savage vs. "Rowdy" Roddy Piper ends in a No Contest (Double Disqualification)
- WCW Cruiserweight Title - Fatal Four-Way Match - Chris Jericho def. Dean Malenko (c), Rey Mysterio Jr., & Psychosis
- DDP def. Scott Hall
- WCW World Tag Team Titles - RVD & Sabu (c) def. Harlem Heat (WCW Television Champion Booker T & Stevie Ray)
- Sting def. Bret Hart
- NWA World Heavyweight Title - Eddie Guerrero def. Ric Flair (c)
- WCW World Title & WCW United States Title - Bill Goldberg def. Hollywood Hogan

For The Great American Bash 1998, I got an overall score of 80%, which was up 6% from Slamboree 1998. That's the highest score I had gotten for a PPV, up to this point. Chris Jericho's streak of having the MOTN on WCW PPV's came to an end on this card, as the semi-main event for the NWA World Heavyweight Title between Ric Flair and Eddie Guerrero got a whopping 94%. That might be the highest rated PPV match I've put together thus far, but I'd have to go back and check. The only other match that cracked into the 90's was Chris Benoit vs. The Great Muta, which just managed to reach the 90% mark. The next two matches continued the pattern of a four percent drop, as the Fatal Four-Way Match for the Cruiserweight Title and Bret Hart vs. Sting both got 86%. From there, there were four matches in the 70's (with Bill Goldberg vs. Hollywood Hogan being the highest rated of those at 79%) and one match in the 60's (the eight-man tag only got 64%).

With this particular PPV card, I took a pretty simple approach, and my decision ended up paying off, when it came to the ratings. A bunch of singles matches, a few tag team matches, and one multi-man match. It's not that hard to put together a compelling PPV card, even with the massive roster that WCW had at the time (and that's not even counting the additions I made to the roster very early on).

The biggest diversion from OTL can be seen on this card, as I moved the big singles match between Bill Goldberg and Hollywood Hogan onto a PPV, instead of having it on a random episode of Nitro. Obviously, I don't think anyone would have any complaints with this change. I envision the match going down the same way the match in OTL went (or relatively close). Goldberg emerges victorious with both the WCW World Title and the WCW United States Title (the latter of which would be vacated, just like in OTL).

The next two singles matches are part of two of the big feuds I have going on in this 1998 scenario. The semi-main event is the first singles meeting between Eddie Guerrero and Ric Flair since the former turned on The Four Horsemen and joined nWo Hollywood several weeks prior. As the rating indicates, these two have an instant classic, but Guerrero manages to capture the NWA World Heavyweight Title via nefarious means. This is just the first chapter in the rivalry between these two.

In this scenario, Bret Hart vs. Sting was simply presented as a major dream match between two of the biggest wrestling stars of the 1990's. Sting manages to get the win here, but afterwards, Bret Hart refused a handshake from Sting and attacked him, turning heel in the process. When I first started this scenario, I always had plans for a heel turn with Bret Hart. I envision it being very similar to his 1997 heel turn in the WWF, where his frustrations boil over, and play a big role in why he decides to turn to the "dark side". These two, much like Eddie Guerrero and Ric Flair, will have more clashes in the coming months. While this Bret Hart heel turn is mainly for his feud with Sting in the short term (Hart's not affiliated with any of the nWo groups, to be clear), it's also setting up something big I have planned for 1999.

Some of the other matches on the undercard are just minor programs, feud continuations, or a simple title defense. RVD & Sabu vs. Harlem Heat for the WCW World Tag Team Titles was just a cool match I wanted to book. I imagine it might've been a bit of a tag team dream match at the time, but who knows. DDP victory over Scott Hall was just a continuation of his feud with nWo Hollywood.

As for the Fatal Four-Way for the WCW Cruiserweight Title, Chris Jericho captures the title here for an unprecedented sixth title reign. Dean Malenko got a big measure of revenge over Jericho on the previous PPV, but his reign is cut a little short here. The main reason why I did this is that I wanted to transition to a Chris Jericho/Rey Mysterio Jr. feud over the WCW Cruiserweight Title. However, I did want to have a big conclusion to the feud between Jericho and Malenko, so I had the two face off in a Steel Cage Match, with the title on the line, in the main event of the June 22nd Nitro. Of course, Jericho would come out on top in that one to end the feud.

Elsewhere, Chris Benoit vs. The Great Muta just seemed like a cool match to book, and it obviously performed very well (and I would end up putting those two in a feud that would last into July). The eight-man tag was just a continuation of the nWo Wolfpac vs. nWo Hollywood feud (I just wanted to get those guys on the card somewhere). As for Randy Savage vs. Roddy Piper, I had those two in a brief feud as well (just like in OTL), but I wasn't really sure what to do with their match on this show. I ultimately decided to have the match end in a double disqualification, with both guys wanting to go after each other so much that it ends in a melee. They'll have another match shortly after this that settles their differences.

That's it for now! Tune in next time for Part 7 as I cover Bash At The Beach 1998.

[DXvsNWO]

We're now passed the half-way point of the year. Time to get into the second half of 1998!!

Also, if you're wondering, I did tweak the name of this thread a little bit.

Part 7: WCW/nWo Bash At The Beach 1998

The seventh PPV in my EWR scenario (taking place on July 12th, 1998) was Bash At The Beach, which is another signature PPV event for WCW. At this point, I've almost completely diverged from what actually happened in OTL. Aside from two matches (which to be honest, were completely a coincidence, as I didn't even look at the OTL version of the PPV card), this show is totally different.

PPV

- Randy Savage def. Brian Adams
- Raven's Rules Match - Raven def. Perry Saturn
- WCW World TV Title - Fatal Four-Way Match - The Great Muta def. Booker T (c), Chris Benoit, & Konnan
- WCW Cruiserweight Title - Ladder Match - Rey Mysterio Jr. def. Chris Jericho (c)
- DDP, "Rowdy" Roddy Piper, RVD, Sabu, & Rick Steiner def. nWo Hollywood (Scott Steiner, Buff Bagwell, Scott Norton, Vincent, & Dennis Rodman)
- NWA World Heavyweight Title - Eddie Guerrero (c) def. Dean Malenko
- WCW United States Title - Tournament Final - Bret Hart def. Sting
- WCW World Heavyweight Title - Triple Threat Match - Bill Goldberg (c) def. Lex Luger & The Giant
- Special Guest Referee: Scott Hall - Hollywood Hogan def. Kevin Nash

For Bash At The Beach 1998, I got an overall score of 74% which, unfortunately, was down 6% from The Great American Bash 1998 in June. It ties the record for the lowest score that I've gotten on a PPV so far (the other PPV that got 74% was Slamboree 1998). There was a big discrepancy in the match ratings on this show. While I had two matches north of 90%, I also had two matches that went below 60%. Chris Jericho regained MOTN honors on this PPV, as his Ladder Match for the WCW Cruiserweight Title against Rey Mysterio Jr. got 92%. He's now had the MOTN on six of the seven PPV's I've done thus far. Right behind that match was Bret Hart vs. Sting, which got 91%. That's up 5% from their previous match at The Great American Bash 1998. Another bout that got a relatively strong rating was Eddie Guerrero vs. Dean Malenko for the NWA World Heavyweight Title, which got 84%. From there, it's a pretty noticeable drop off. Two matches were in the 70% range, one match was in the 60% range, but three matches ended up in the high 50% range. I'm not shocked that two of those three matches (the ten-man tag and Hogan vs. Nash) got that low. However, I thought the WCW World Title match (which was actually the lowest rated match at 57%) would do a little better than it ended up doing.

Some of what I did on this PPV built off what happened at The Great American Bash. Just like in OTL, the WCW United States Title was vacated after Goldberg won the WCW World Title from Hollywood Hogan. I held a tournament to decide the new champion, and it came down to Bret Hart vs. Sting in the Finals. Of course, at The Great American Bash, Hart turned heel after a loss to Sting. Hart winning the vacant title (just like he did in OTL actually) evened up the series at 1-1, and set up a rubber match for down the line.

Chris Jericho vs. Rey Mysterio Jr. and Raven vs. Perry Saturn were the two matches on this PPV that also occurred on the PPV in OTL. Raven/Saturn was technically a hardcore match, but since (I imagine) Raven's Rules is something similar to a hardcore match, I'm listing it as that for the purposes of this post. It pretty much goes much like the match from OTL did. Interference from the rest of The Flock leads to Raven winning. This is mirroring the real life storyline of Saturn breaking away from The Flock, and since I plan on having the feud continue, Raven winning made the most sense. Rey Mysterio Jr. winning the WCW Cruiserweight Title from Chris Jericho also happened on the Bash At The Beach PPV in OTL. However, the version I did was a Ladder Match instead of a No DQ Match. The feud between these two would extend a little bit into the next PPV, but not much further beyond that point. This is mainly setting up Jericho's transition out of the Cruiserweight division and into the upper mid-card.

The other title matches on the card did involve ongoing feuds in some form or fashion. Lex Lugar vs. The Giant was a feud I've had going on since the nWo split, when both joined their respective sides. I thought it would be a good idea to have them be part of Goldberg's first PPV title defense, as a way to jumpstart the one-on-one aspect of the feud without necessarily doing a singles match. However, the rating of the match proved to be a disappointment, as I mentioned earlier. Meanwhile, Chris Benoit has been having a fun feud with The Great Muta. In the nWo split, I had the nWo Japan guys side with nWo Hollywood, so when Eddie Guerrero joined nWo Hollywood, I would often pair him with the nWo Japan guys in tag matches. So by proxy, most of the Four Horsemen were feuding with nWo Japan, while the rest of nWo Hollywood was mainly feuding with the nWo Wolfpac and the general group that I would like to call the "WCW home army". Benoit and Muta had a highly rated singles contest at The Great American Bash, and eventually, they became involved the World TV Title picture. Muta would win the title for the 2nd time of his career (his first reign was in the Fall of 1989 and briefly ran into 1990). Unfortunately for Muta, his title reign would only last four days, as Benoit would defeat him in an Iron-Man Match on the July 16th Thunder.

Elsewhere, Eddie Guerrero retained his newly won NWA World Heavyweight Title here against Dean Malenko, after interference from Chavo Guerrero Jr., who became a member of nWo Hollywood in the process. My idea is that, after winning the title at The Great American Bash, Eddie Guerrero took out Ric Flair on one of the episodes of Nitro that followed. The plan was to keep Flair out of action for a little bit while Eddie feuds with some other people before Flair returns to continue the feud.

As far as the main event goes, I thought it was really fitting to do that match at Bash Of The Beach. Two years after the nWo formed when Hulk Hogan was revealed as the "third man", the original trio that made up the nWo exploded. Hollywood Hogan and Kevin Nash are now leading two factions of the nWo, but Scott Hall eventually became caught in the middle. He was originally with nWo Hollywood, but dissension started to occur as miscommunications led to both Hogan and Hall losing some matches. Nash's attempts to persuade Hall to jump to the nWo Wolfpac deepened the divide between Hogan and Hall, but Hall wouldn't commit to jumping sides. This led to a match in the main event of this PPV, where Hall was the guest referee. Now I'm sure this wouldn't have been a great match in real life, but I'm sure people (particularly your more casual fans) at the time would've been pumped for it. Under different circumstances, I would've put Goldberg in the main event (for the most part, going forward, he his typically in the main events of PPVs), but I saw this as being a much bigger match than what I had Goldberg doing.

Now I was a little unsure how the special referee stuff worked in EWR, so when I actually put in what the finish was going to be, it didn't quite work out the way I wanted it to. However, in my head-canon, it played out like this: Scott Hall reaches a point late in the match where he has the option to help either Hollywood Hogan and Kevin Nash. He decides to attack Nash (let's say he hits him with a chair) and that allows Hogan to win. Then, shortly after he does the three count, Hall attacks Hogan and lays him out. The idea is that he's not siding with either of them. Hall wants to be out of their shadow of Hogan and Nash, and wants to be (for now) his own man. As a little bit of a teaser, he'll eventually get his own crew of guys, but that won't happen for a little bit yet.

As for the ten-man tag, this was mainly put together to help set up a brief Diamond Dallas Page/Dennis Rodman feud, which will carry over into the next PPV. It's just something to keep DDP occupied for the moment.

That's it for now! Tune in next time for Part 8, as WCW travels to the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally for Road Wild 1998.

[DXvsNWO]

Hey everyone!! It's been awhile since I updated this thread. With the spring/summer tournaments going on in New Japan (Best Of The Super Juniors & G1 Climax), my free time quickly evaporated (the new Formula 1 game coming out didn't helps matters either). Hopefully I'll be able to provide more regular updates in this. Even though we're still in 1998, in this thread, I'm actually through the first couple months of 1999 in my scenario. Believe it or not, I actually have all my PPVs planned out through the year 2000, so it's just a matter of getting through everything. With that being said, let's get to the next PPV!!

Part 8: WCW/nWo Road Wild 1998

Here's a quick summary of where we're at thus far. Goldberg's reign as the WCW World Heavyweight Champion is now in full swing after defeating Hollywood Hogan at The Great American Bash 1998. Meanwhile, we're also in the middle of the nWo split, as nWo Hollywood and nWo Wolfpac battle for factor supremacy. However, in a new twist in that overall story, Scott Hall made it clear that he wants nothing to do with either of those two groups, and their respective leaders (Hollywood Hogan and Kevin Nash).

In terms of title changes, there were a couple that occurred since Bash At The Beach 1998. As I believe I mentioned in my previous post, Chris Benoit won the WCW World TV Title from The Great Muta in an Iron Man Match on the July 16th edition of Thunder. Buff Bagwell & Scott Steiner, representing nWo Hollywood, captured the NWA World Tag Team Titles from RVD & Sabu on the July 30th edition of Thunder, ending their nearly seven month title reign. Finally, another nWo Hollywood team captured tag team gold, as Eddie Guerrero & The Giant won the WCW World Tag Team Titles from DDP & Sting on the August 3rd edition of Nitro.

Now let's take a look at the card I put together as WCW returned the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally for the third consecutive year. I should preface that, in this instance, I decided that my ninth match would be a pre-show match.

Pre-Show

- Four-Way Elimination Tag Team Match - Fit Finlay & Steven Regal def. The FBI (Little Guido & Tracy Smothers), The Flock (Kidman & Scotty Riggs), & Public Enemy

PPV

- #1 Contender's 20-Man Battle Royal - Randy Savage last eliminates Bret Hart
- NWA World Heavyweight Title - Eddie Guerrero (c) def. WCW World TV Champion Chris Benoit
- Texas Death Match - Perry Saturn def. Raven
- Chris Jericho, Gedo, Jado, Psychosis, & Rick Martel def. Rey Mysterio Jr., Jushin "Thunder" Liger, Juventud Guerrera, Jerry Lynn, & La Parka
- DDP def. Dennis Rodman
- Lex Luger def. The Giant
- NWA World Tag Team Titles - nWo Hollywood (Buff Bagwell & Scott Steiner) (c) def. RVD & Sabu
- WCW World Heavyweight Title - Bill Goldberg (c) def. Randy Savage

For Road Wild 1998, I got an overall score of 76%, which is up 2% from Bash At The Beach 1998 in July. On this occasion, MOTN honors went to Eddie Guerrero vs. Chris Benoit for the NWA World Heavyweight Title, as they got a score of 93%. I'm sure those two having a match that good doesn't come as much of a surprise. They were actually well ahead of the second best match on the card, as Bill Goldberg vs. Randy Savage ended up at 81%. The rest of the card ranged from the mid-70's to the low-60's, with Perry Saturn vs. Raven and the Ten-Man Tag both getting a 76%.

On this particular show, I decided to do something different with my main event. The PPV kicks off with a Battle Royal featured most of the top names in WCW (Hollywood Hogan, Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, Sting, Bret Hart, Randy Savage, and Rowdy Roddy Piper) mixed in with a bunch of notable guys in the mid-card (Davey Boy Smith, Booker T, Curt Hennig, Rick Steiner, etc.), with the winner getting a shot at the WCW World Title later on in the main event. Obviously this was a good opportunity to continue some ongoing feuds with the people involved, without having them take up another spot on the card that I had planned. Randy Savage wasn't doing much, so I decided to have him win. Of course, he would go on to lose in the main event, but he was a solid name for Bill Goldberg to beat.

When it comes to the NWA World Heavyweight Title bout, the idea I'm going with is that Eddie Guerrero is feuding with the rest of the Four Horsemen while Ric Flair is MIA (he disappears for a bit following his loss to Guerrero at The Great American Bash). Chris Benoit's WCW World TV Title was not on the line in this match, but they would having a rematch on an episode of TV (I forget which show) shortly thereafter, and Benoit would retain his title against Guerrero.

The rest of the card just featured the continuation of a bunch of ongoing feuds. Lex Luger vs. The Giant and Perry Saturn vs. Raven are perfect examples of this. Another one of those matches, DDP vs. Dennis Rodman, actually did a tad better than I was expecting (it got 65%, but it was far from the worst match of the night). The Ten-Man Tag served to mainly wrap up the Chris Jericho/Rey Mysterio Jr. feud (as at this point, I was transitioning Jericho out of the Cruiserweight Division), but it was also a match that I thought looked cool on paper. Rick Martel is obviously the odd ball in that situation, but he's a good guy to have on the heel side to serve as a base for the babyface team of high-flyers (plus I can see Jericho and Martel getting along since they're both Canadian heels). The pre-show four-way tag was also another match that I just threw together because it looked cool on paper.

That's pretty much it for this post. Tune in next time for Part 9, as we head towards the return of WarGames at Fall Brawl 1998!!

[DXvsNWO]

Part 9: WCW/nWo Fall Brawl 1998

Now that we're very deep into my EWR/WCW scenario, I'll be doing quick recaps before I go over the PPV, essentially detailing what's happened since the last PPV. In this case, we got a lot of ground to cover.

Since Road Wild 1998, a lot of different things have gone down. I mentioned in my previous post that Scott Hall decided to reject the offers of Hollywood Hogan and Kevin Nash to join their respective nWo factions. Well, after Road Wild, Hall (along with Louie Spicolli, who's been mainly aligned with Hall throughout 1998) joined forces with Rowdy Roddy Piper, Rob Van Dam, and Sabu (what a collection of characters, I know). Originally, I used a different name in the actual game for their group, but I think I'm retroactively going to change it. To what? I'm not really sure just yet. The point is that those five are now in a faction together.

Meanwhile, tensions between nWo Hollywood and nWo Wolfpac reached a boiling point.....just in time for WarGames!! Of course, the game doesn't give you the option to do the wacky three-team WarGames that actually happened in OTL, but I was never going to do that anyway. Instead, we've got a traditional five-on-five WarGames with Hollywood Hogan and Kevin Nash as the team captains. However, in the weeks leading up to WarGames, two of the men involved in this match entered the spotlight. On the August 31st edition of Nitro, Eddie Guerrero captured the WCW Cruiserweight Title from Rey Mysterio Jr. via heel shenanigans, which meant that he was in possession of three different championships (NWA World Heavyweight Title, WCW Cruiserweight Title, and the WCW World Tag Team Titles with The Giant). I don't recall the exact date, but around this same time, Rey Mysterio Jr. was recruited into the nWo Wolfpac (going with the idea that Konnan convinced Kevin Nash to recruit him). Those two would be major players in WarGames itself, even though Hogan and Nash were the respective team captains.

Another title that changed hands was the WCW United States Title. Scott Hall captured the title from Bret Hart on the September 3rd edition of Thunder, less than two weeks before the PPV. Since the Bret Hart/Sting feud was still ongoing at this point, I had Sting interfere to cost Hart the title. This set up a couple of matches for the PPV. Scott Hall would defend his newly won title against The Giant (Just a quick mini-feud to get a title defense on the PPV), while Bret Hart and Sting would select opponents for each other in a Pick Your Poison Challenge. Bret Hart picked Diamond Dallas Page to face Sting (pitting allies against each other), while Sting picked Dean Malenko to face Hart.

I'll go over a few more notes after the PPV stats recap, but let's finally dive into the card!

Pre-Show

- Mike Awesome def. Yuji Nagata

PPV

- Rowdy Roddy Piper, Rob Van Dam, Sabu, & Louie Spicolli def. The FBI (Little Guido, Tracy Smothers, Tommy Rich, & Tony Mamaluke)
- WCW United States Title - Scott Hall (c) def. The Giant
- Sting def. DDP
- Tommy Dreamer & The Eliminators (Perry Saturn & John Kronus) def. The Flock (Raven, Kidman, & Reese)
- Bret Hart def. Dean Malenko
- WCW World TV Title - Triple Threat Match - Chris Jericho def. Chris Benoit (c) & Booker T
- WCW World Heavyweight Title - Bill Goldberg (c) def. The Great Muta
- WarGames - nWo Wolfpac (Kevin Nash, Randy Savage, Lex Luger, Konnan, & Rey Mysterio Jr.) def. nWo Hollywood (Hollywood Hogan, Eddie Guerrero, Scott Steiner, Buff Bagwell, & Scott Norton)

For Fall Brawl 1998 (which took place on September 13th, just like OTL), I got an overall score of 74%, which is down 2% from Road Wild 1998 in August. Only two matches were into the 80% range, while the rest of the card ranged anywhere from 62% to 78%. After not winning MOTN honors at Road Wild, Chris Jericho was once again back on top of the match quality mountain. He captured the WCW World TV Title from Chris Benoit in a Triple Threat Match that also involved Booker T, and the match got a score of 87%. The only other match that reached into the 80% range was DDP vs. Sting, which got a score of 84%. The third best bout on the show was Bret Hart vs. Dean Malenko at 78%, and WarGames got 73%.

I thought WarGames would've done a tad better, but considering most of the people involved, I guess I should've seen that coming. The finish was Rey Mysterio Jr. knocking out Eddie Guerrero, which would obviously be a huge moment, considering he only joined the nWo Wolfpac a few weeks before this PPV. If this actually happened in OTL, Mysterio would've gained A TON from this win.

The only other matches I really didn't discuss were the opener, the six-man tag, and the WCW World Title match. I designed this PPV to start with a showcase for Scott Hall and his (yet to be renamed) faction. For the opener, I thought The FBI would be an fun choice to put against Piper, RVD, Sabu, and Spicolli, so that's what I went with. When it comes to the six-man, you'll see that Tommy Dreamer and John Kronus are now in WCW! So the story here was that John Kronus showed up shortly after Road Wild to reunite with Perry Saturn so he could help him fight The Flock. A six-man tag was set up for this PPV, and The Eliminations promised a mystery partner. This ended up being Raven's longtime rival Tommy Dreamer (a quick reminder that ECW quietly disappeared from my scenario in the Spring of 1998 in my scenario). The Flock isn't done just yet, but they won't be around for much longer. As for Goldberg, I just wanted to put together a cool title match, and I thought The Great Muta would be a unique challenger! Not much else to say about that lol.

That's it for this particular post. Tune in next time for Part 10, as we travel to the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas for Halloween Havoc 1998!!

[DXvsNWO]

Part 10: WCW/nWo Halloween Havoc 1998

It's October.....you know what means!! As it did (seemingly) every year during the Monday Night Wars, the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas hosts Halloween Havoc, which is typically one of the biggest shows of the year for WCW. As for where I was at this point in my EWR scenario, not much has really changed. Bill Goldberg is still proving to be a dominant WCW World Champion, while the three founding members of the nWo now have their three separate factions fully established: nWo Hollywood, nWo Wolfpac, and The Outlaws Club (It's a cheesy name, I know, but it was the best I could do). It's faction warfare in the Fall of 1998!!

The only things to make note of going into this show are title changes and a few new talents. The several week period between Fall Brawl and Halloween Havoc saw a lot of titles change hands. While Eddie Guerrero could've been referred to as "Eddie Three Belts" for a time, that didn't last long, as he quickly lost two of the three titles he was holding. By virtue of putting Guerrero away to win WarGames at Fall Brawl for the nWo Wolfpac, Rey Mysterio Jr. earned himself another shot at the WCW Cruiserweight Title. Mysterio would go on to regain the title from Guerrero on the September 17th edition of Thunder. Only a few weeks later, on the October 5th edition of Nitro, Guerrero (along with The Giant) would end up losing the WCW World Tag Team Titles to the Four Horsemen team of Chris Benoit & Dean Malenko. That title change occurred when a returning Ric Flair came out and cost Guerrero the match (more on their feud later). In addition to Rey Mysterio regaining the WCW Cruiserweight Title, the nWo Wolfpac gained more championship gold following their big WarGames victory. Randy Savage captured the WCW United States Title from Scott Hall in a Triple Threat Match (which also involved The Giant) on the September 19th edition of Saturday Night. Meanwhile, Kevin Nash & Konnan defeated Buff Bagwell & Scott Steiner to win the NWA World Tag Team Titles on the exact same episode of Saturday Night.

As for new talents, one thing I quickly learned about the developmental territory system in EWR is that the talents will start to complain if they feel like they've been left down there for too long. It a perfect world, I probably would've waited until the start of 1999 to bring people up, but I decided to call two people up to the WCW main roster in the form of David Flair & Daffney. Yes, I decided to keep those two as a pairing (like they were in 2000), and they're babyfaces as part of The Four Horsemen (which really doesn't make sense, given how many members are in the group now, but I'll go with it anyway). Naturally, David Flair & Daffney became involved in the Eddie Guerrero/Ric Flair feud, and that led to a six-person tag on this PPV, which sees those two, along with Ric Flair, taking on the nWo Hollywood trio of Los Guerreros and Madusa, who is the newest nWo Hollywood member.

Anyway, let's take a look at the card and how it turned out.

Pre-Show

- Jushin "Thunder" Liger, Juventud Guerrera, & La Parka def. Fit Finlay, Steven Regal, & Dave Taylor

PPV

- Eight-Man Tag Team Elimination Match - nWo Hollywood (The Giant, Scott Steiner, Buff Bagwell, & Scott Norton) def. nWo Wolfpac (Lex Luger, Konnan, Rey Mysterio Jr., & Curt Hennig)
- WCW World TV Title - Fatal Four-Way - Chris Jericho (c) def. Kidman, Perry Saturn, & Raven
- The Four Horsemen (Ric Flair, David Flair, & Daffney) def. nWo Hollywood (Eddie Guerrero, Chavo Guerrero Jr., & Madusa)
- WCW United States Title - Randy Savage (c) def. Bret Hart
- WCW World Tag Team Titles - The Four Horsemen (Chris Benoit & Dean Malenko) (c) def. RVD & Sabu
- Scott Hall def. Kevin Nash
- DDP & Harlem Heat def. nWo Hollywood (Hollywood Hogan, Dennis Rodman, & Eric Bischoff)
- WCW World Heavyweight Title - Bill Goldberg (c) def. Sting

For Halloween Havoc 1998 (which took place on October 25th, just like OTL), I got an overall score of 80%, which is up 6% from Fall Brawl 1998 in September. This was a bit of a surprise to me, since I wasn't too high on the card that came up with (more the bottom half of the card, as I was perfectly fine with what I put together in the top half). This scores ties with The Great American Bash as being the highest-rated PPV of 1998, up to this point. In a rare occurrence in my scenario, MOTN honors didn't go to Chris Jericho. Instead, it went to.....Randy Savage vs. Bret Hart for the WCW United States Titles, which got a score of 89%. Three other bouts also scored in the 80's. The Fatal Four-Way for the WCW World TV Title got a score of 83%, Bill Goldberg vs. Sting for the WCW World Heavyweight Title got a score of 81%, and The Four Horsemen vs. RVD & Sabu for the WCW World Tag Team Titles got a score of 80%. The other five matches actually weren't that far behind, as they all ended up somewhere between 75% and 77%, with three of those matches getting a 76% score.

Even though this wasn't my most inspired card (like I already alluded to), it obviously did very well. Sting and Bret Hart getting title shots basically came about after both won their respective Pick Your Poison bouts at Fall Brawl. Both men ultimately fell short in their respective title bids, but their feud is definitely continuing beyond this show. As for Scott Hall and Kevin Nash, they had their first singles meeting in WCW on this PPV, and in the end, Hall would emerge victorious. Since I have other plans for Nash down the line, I felt it was appropriate for Hall to get a big singles win here (I felt like he needed a bounce back as well, after losing the WCW United States Title). As a whole, it wasn't a strong night for the nWo Wolfpac, as in addition to Nash's loss, a team consisting of Lex Luger, Konnan, Rey Mysterio Jr., and Curt Hennig lost out in an elimination match to a nWo Hollywood team made up of The Giant, Scott Steiner, Buff Bagwell, & Scott Norton. The only bright spot for the Wolfpac was Randy Savage retaining his WCW United States Title.

As you can see, I filled up this card with a lot of tags, particularly on the first-half of the card. There was only multi-person tag towards the top-half of the card, as DDP & Harlem Heat picked up a win over Hollywood Hogan, Dennis Rodman, & Eric Bischoff. DDP has had a simmering undercard feud with Dennis Rodman, and this was basically the culmination of that. Even with heel team....being what it was, the match still got a decent score of 77%, which is a pleasant surprise, considering who was involved.

Finally, The Flock exploded in the Fatal Four-Way for the WCW World TV Title. Chris Jericho ultimately retained, but the main story was these former members of The Flock going at it (with Kidman following in Saturn's footsteps, The Flock fell apart shortly thereafter). I believe Raven and Saturn would have one more match on TV after this, but The Flock is pretty much done at this point.

That's it for Part 10! Tune in next time for Part 11, where the PPV slot formerly filled up with World War 3 is replaced by a brand new PPV, called Blood, Sweat, & Tears!

[DXvsNWO]

Part 11: WCW/nWo Blood, Sweat, & Tears

So obviously, EWR doesn't allow you to do a three-ring, sixty man battle royal. Even if you could do the World War 3 Battle Royal in EWR, I wouldn't even do that anyway, because honestly....it's a stupid gimmick. With that in mind, I decided to make this a more traditional PPV, and gave it the new name of Blood, Sweat, & Tears. As I progress further in my scenario, I plan to rename a couple of other WCW PPV's, so keep an eye out for that.

This PPV served as the continuation of many storylines that have been ongoing, as well as the final setup for some of the things that will be taking place at Starrcade. The main event of this show, a Fatal Four-Way Match, actually has big implications on Starrcade, as it's the conclusion of a tournament to determine who will challenge for the WCW World Heavyweight Title at WCW's biggest show of the year. It was a thirty-two person bracket, but I decided to end it in a Fatal Four-Way instead of doing two semi-finals and a final. I wanted to include Bret Hart and Sting, but neither were going to be the Starrcade challenger, so I thought this was a good spot for them to continue their feud without either guy losing. DDP was the person I ultimately had get the win, and the inclusion of Booker T was a way for me to elevate him a little bit (obviously I plan on continuing to elevate him, and others, in my scenario). Even though he gets pinned by DDP in the end, Booker T being in the main event of a PPV is a big moment for him. As for Goldberg, I needed to do a quick title program to keep him busy, so I decided to do the feud that, in OTL, just never materialized fully (we all know the reasons why it didn't happen). Chris Jericho was never going to win, but just like Booker T, he's in a big spot on a WCW PPV over the likes of Hogan, Hall, Nash, and so on.

The rest of card continued ongoing feuds, as I already mentioned. After his victory over Kevin Nash at Halloween Havoc, Scott Hall then went on to face the other founding member of the nWo in Hollywood Hogan. Meanwhile, Nash would continue his feud with nWo Hollywood by going after the likes of Scott Steiner and The Giant. Ric Flair finally got his rematch with Eddie Guerrero in the form of a Texas Death Match, so that feud is starting to heat up again. As for Randy Savage, he was targeted by Mike Awesome following Halloween Havoc, as Awesome made his intentions clear that he wants the WCW United States Title.

In terms of title changes between the PPV's, there's not much to speak of. I feel like the period between Fall Brawl and Halloween Havoc was more active, in that regard, but that's how things work out sometimes. Kidman captured the WCW Cruiserweight Title from Rey Mysterio Jr. on the November 12th edition of Thunder, while nWo Hollywood recaptured the NWA World Tag Team Titles with Vicious & Delicious (Buff Bagwell & Scott Norton) defeating Kevin Nash & Konnan one week later on the November 19th edition of Thunder.

You might notice that there's no ninth match on this particular PPV. Well, I used the pre-show spot for a segment, as Dusty Rhodes introduced the WCW Hardcore Title. So that means the WCW Hardcore Title, in my scenario, was announced/created about a year before the title was created in OTL. I had a Battle Royal on the November 23rd edition of Nitro (the night after this PPV) to determine the first champion, and surprise surprise....the first champion was Tommy Dreamer.

With all of that out of the way, let's see how this show turned out.

PPV

- WCW Cruiserweight Title - Triple Threat Match - Kidman (c) def. Juventud Guerrera, Psychosis
- Tables Match - nWo Wolfpac (Kevin Nash & Lex Luger) def. nWo Hollywood (Scott Steiner & The Giant)
- WCW United States Title - Randy Savage (c) vs. Mike Awesome - No Contest via Double Disqualification
- NWA World Heavyweight Title - Texas Death Match - Eddie Guerrero (c) def. Ric Flair
- Hollywood Hogan def. Scott Hall
- WCW World Tag Team Titles - Triple Threat Match - nWo Wolfpac (Konnan & Rey Mysterio Jr.) def. The Four Horsemen (Chris Benoit & Dean Malenko) (c) and RVD & Sabu
- WCW World Heavyweight Title - Bill Goldberg (c) def. WCW World TV Champion Chris Jericho
- #1 Contender's Fatal Four-Way Match - DDP def. Booker T, Bret Hart, & Sting

For Blood, Sweat, & Tears (which took place on November 22nd, 1998, just like the 1998 World War 3 PPV in OTL), I got an overall score of 84%, which is up 4% from Halloween Havoc 1998 in October. That means this was the best PPV I've done in the scenario, up to this point. Three of the eight matches on the card got a score in the 90's. Eddie Guerrero/Ric Flair in a Texas Death Match for the NWA World Heavyweight Title got a 92%, while the Four-Way #1 Contender's Match and Randy Savage vs. Mike Awesome for the WCW United States Title both got 90%. Three matches finished in the 80's, with the Triple Threat Match for the WCW Cruiserweight Title being the highest of those with an 85% score. Two matches were tied with the lowest score at 77% (Hollywood Hogan vs. Scott Hall and the Tag Team Tables Match), but all things considered, that's actually not too bad.

I really don't have a ton to say about the card itself. I liked the lineup I put together, and obviously it turned out well. While I wasn't shocked by what the highest rated matches ended up being, but I was a little surprised that Randy Savage vs. Mike Awesome did so well despite the Double DQ finish, which was basically done to set up the rematch for Starrcade. Even though Eddie Guerrero got the better of Ric Flair of this night, this feud was far from over, and (as you might've figured out), I'm matching those two up again at Starrcade.

Another match that served as a setup for Starrcade was the Triple Threat Match for the WCW World Tag Team Titles. There was a reason why I decided to have Rey Mysterio Jr. drop the WCW Cruiserweight Title. I wanted to have him team more with Konnan, so at this point, Mysterio isn't in the Cruiserweight Division anymore (though that doesn't mean he won't go for the WCW Cruiserweight Title again in the future). All three of these teams have held the WCW World Tag Team Titles at some point in 1998, and I have big plans for them at Starrcade.

That's all I have for this entry! Tune in next time, as we close out 1998 with WCW's biggest show of the year: Starrcade!

[DXvsNWO]

Part 12: WCW/nWo Starrcade 1998

Well, it's finally time. After a year that's seen plenty of changes and a lot of new faces making names for themselves, WCW has finally reached their biggest show of the year. Titles are on the line, scores are going to be settled, rivalries will get more intense, and new superstars will continue to make their presence felt as 1999 swiftly approaches.

One thing I found out right away when doing my EWR/WCW scenario is that I always wanted to plan out Starrcade first, and figure out everything else from there. To go a little behind the curtain, I've actually already got my Starrcade cards for 1999 and 2000 planned out already! While I do have the PPV cards for the rest of those years mostly figured out as well, Starrcade has always been the first show I set in stone, in terms of the lineup.

When it comes to my version of Starrcade 1998, it's obviously very different from Starrcade 1998 in OTL. I'm pretty sure that you would all agree that my card is a lot better. Of course, a lot of the feuds and stories I've been doing have been building throughout 1998, but they've all been buildings towards this big show....the biggest show of WCW's calendar year.

DDP's victory in the main event of Blood, Sweat, & Tears set in stone his title match with Goldberg at Starrcade, and since both are babyfaces, their hasn't been much fighting between the two on TV. They've been helping each other against the forces of nWo Hollywood, and they even managed to hold the NWA World Tag Team Titles together for a brief period, as they defeated Vicious & Delicious to win the titles on the December 7th edition of Nitro. However, that title reign was short lived, as they lost them one week later to Harlem Heat in a three-way that also involved Vicious & Delicious (who they pinned). That quick title loss build a little bit of tension between DDP and Goldberg as they headed towards their main event clash.

Speaking of titles, the only title that changed hands since the last PPV was the newly-created WCW Hardcore Title. As I mentioned in the previous post, Tommy Dreamer won a battle royal the night after Blood, Sweat, & Tears to become the first champion. Dreamer lost it to La Parka on the December 3rd edition of Thunder, and La Parka lost it a week later (on the December 10th edition of Thunder) to Perry Saturn, who still holds the title going into this PPV.

I'll explain the card a little bit more after the percentage breakdown, but first, here's the lineup for the PPV:

Pre-Show

- Non-Title - The Great Muta def. WCW Cruiserweight Champion Kidman

PPV

- WCW World Tag Team Titles - Triangle Ladder Match - RVD & Sabu def. The Four Horsemen (Chris Benoit & Dean Malenko) & nWo Wolfpac (Konnan & Rey Mysterio Jr.) (c)
- Booker T last eliminated Scott Steiner to win the Starrcade Battle Royal
- WCW World TV Title - Chris Jericho (c) def. Jushin "Thunder" Liger
- WCW United States Title - Falls Count Anywhere - Mike Awesome def. Randy Savage (c)
- Submission Match - Sting def. Bret Hart
- NWA World Heavyweight Title - Steel Cage Match - Ric Flair def. Eddie Guerrero (c)
- #1 Contender's Triple Threat Match - Kevin Nash def. Hollywood Hogan & Scott Hall
- WCW World Heavyweight Title - Bill Goldberg (c) def. DDP

For Starrcade 1998 (which took place on December 27, 1998, just like in OTL), I got an overall score of 84%, which tied my highest score to date, which was set by Blood, Sweat, & Tears. So that's two strong PPVs in a row for WCW to close out 1998. In deciding between the two shows, I would give the slight nod to Starrcade 1998, since this show had more matches with a higher rating. While Blood, Sweat, & Tears had one match at 92% and two matches at 90%, this show had two matches at 92% and one match at 90%. Both Eddie Guerrero vs. Ric Flair in a Steel Cage for the NWA World Heavyweight Title and the Triangle Ladder Match for the WCW World Tag Team Titles got a 92% score, while Chris Jericho retaining the WCW World TV Title over Jushin "Thunder" Liger got a 90% score. Outside of those top three, four matches scored in the 80% range, with the Kidman/Great Muta match getting 87%, Mike Awesome/Randy Savage in a Falls Count Anywhere Match for the WCW United States Title and Bret Hart vs. Sting in a Submission Match both getting 85%, and #1 Contender's Triple Threat Match getting 83%. Bill Goldberg vs. DDP for the WCW World Heavyweight Title only got a 77%, which was a little disappointing, considering the slot and the decent chemistry these two seemed to have in real life. Finally, the Starrcade Battle Royal (predictably) got the lowest score with a 72%.

Out of all the PPV cards I put together, I think this is the one that I'm probably the most proud of. I just felt like everything came together well, and while I was slightly disappointed with one particular score (which I mentioned already), pretty much everything turned out exactly how I thought it would. I already mentioned how DDP vs. Goldberg came together, so I'll go through some of the other matches.

The semi-main event was a match that I knew I wanted to book from the very beginning. The nWo explodes!! Even though the match probably wouldn't have been that good IRL, I really believe WCW missed the boat by never doing this match. It probably could've drawn a ton of money for them. Anyway, the winner would get a shot at the WCW World Heavyweight Title at Souled Out 1999, and I gave the nod to Kevin Nash. While he would focus on that, Hollywood Hogan and Scott Hall would feud with each other (and with their respective factions) going into 1999.

Eddie Guerrero vs. Ric Flair doesn't need much explanation. After losing a Texas Death Match to Eddie Guerrero at Blood, Sweat, & Tears, Ric Flair was given one more shot at the title, in a Steel Cage, with the stipulation that he couldn't challenge again if he lost. Obviously Ric Flair winning the NWA World Title again, in a Steel Cage, at Starrcade, would be a massive moment, and (as shown on previous shows) Eddie Guerrero is a great opponent for Flair.

Bret Hart vs. Sting in a Submission Match was the culmination of their long rivalry, and Sting would emerge victorious. However, that doesn't mean there weren't big things planned for Bret Hart going into 1999 (more on that in later posts).

After their No Contest at Blood, Sweat, & Tears, Mike Awesome and Randy Savage met once again for the WCW United States Title, but this time in a Falls Count Anywhere Match. This is a feud very much designed to elevate Mike Awesome to a higher position in WCW. He would capture the title here, and (spoiler alert) he would get a few more wins over Randy Savage in 1999.

The PPV opener was the first time I tried to do a big, multi-team Ladder Match. That was something I was thinking of doing for awhile, and I figured the three teams I went with were the best picks for that kind of match. Obviously Benoit and Malenko (more so Malenko than Benoit) weren't known as spectacular high-flyers, but I figured they'd be good bases (along with Konnan) for Mysterio, RVD, and Sabu. The Four Horsemen and nWo Wolfpac both held the titles in the lead up to this PPV, so I thought it was time for the titles to go back to the team that I signed away from ECW at the very beginning of my scenario.

Jericho vs. Liger and Muta vs. Kidman were just two matches that I put together because I thought they'd be really good matches. As for the Battle Royal, I think my plan is to make the Starrcade Battle Royal a tradition, to feature a lot of the mid-card guys who weren't featured in other matches on the card. Other participants in this particular battle royal (outside of the final two of Booker T and Scott Steiner) included Buff Bagwell, Curt Hennig, Davey Boy Smith, Fit Finlay, Jerry Lynn, Juventud Guerrera, La Parka, Lex Luger, Perry Saturn, Psychosis, Rick Steiner, Rowdy Roddy Piper, Scott Norton, Steve Corino, Steven Regal, Stevie Ray, The Giant, and Tommy Dreamer.

That's it for my Starrcade 1998 breakdown!! I don't think my next post will be Souled Out 1999 just yet. Instead, I think I'm going to do another breakdown post, where I go into PPV buys, attendances, ratings, and other things. Not quite sure yet, but we'll see what I end up doing.

[DXvsNWO]

The next couple of posts will be covering title histories through December 31st, 1998. This post will cover the two main singles titles and the two sets of tag team titles. Title reigns for singles titles will use a ( ), while tag team title reigns will utilize [ ], for the purposes of team members who might have more title reigns than their partner. The title listing will use the following format:

Name (Regin)
Date Won
Event
Days Held
Notes (will be used for denoting any stipulation or any situation other than a normal one-on-one or two-on-two match)

WCW World Heavyweight Title

Sting (3)
December 28th, 1997
Starrcade 1997
112 Days

Randy Savage (3)
April 19th, 1998
Spring Stampede 1998
4 Days
This was a Fatal Four-Way Match also involving Bret Hart & Chris Benoit.

Hollywood Hulk Hogan (4)
April 23rd, 1998
Thunder
52 Days

Bill Goldberg
June 14th, 1998
The Great American Bash 1998
200+ Days
This was also for Bill Goldberg's WCW United States Title.

NWA World Heavyweight Title

Ric Flair (10)
January 1st, 1998
Thunder
164 Days
Awarded to Ric Flair after WCW made a deal with the NWA to regain control over the NWA World Heavyweight Title.

Eddie Guerrero
June 14th, 1998
The Great American Bash 1998
197 Days

Ric Flair (11)
December 27th, 1998
Starrcade 1998
4+ Days
This was a Steel Cage Match.

WCW World Tag Team Titles

The Steiner Brothers [6]
October 13th, 1997
Nitro
132 Days

The Outsiders (Kevin Nash & Scott Hall) [4]
February 22nd, 1998
SuperBrawl VIII
56 Days
This was a Three-Way Tag Team Match also involving Lex Luger & The Giant.

Rob Van Dam & Sabu
April 19th, 1998
Spring Stampede 1998
32 Days

nWo Hollywood (Scott Hall [5] & Louis Spicolli)
May 21st, 1998
Thunder
4 Days

Sting [2] & Diamond Dallas Page
May 25th, 1998
Nitro
70 Days

nWo Hollywood (The Giant [2] & Eddie Guerrero)
August 3rd, 1998
Nitro
63 Days

The Four Horsemen (Chris Benoit & Dean Malenko)
October 5th, 1998
Nitro
48 Days

nWo Wolfpac (Konnan & Rey Mysterio Jr.)
November 22nd, 1998
Blood, Sweat, & Tears
35 Days
This was a Three-Way Tag Team Match also involving Rob Van Dam & Sabu.

Rob Van Dam [2] & Sabu [2]
December 27th, 1998
Starrcade 1998
4+ Days
This was a Triangle Ladder Match also involving Chris Benoit & Dean Malenko.

NWA World Tag Team Titles

Rob Van Dam & Sabu
January 1st, 1998
Thunder
211 Days
Defeated Ghosts & Ghouls in a title decider after WCW made a deal with the NWA to regain control over the NWA World Tag Team Titles.

nWo Hollywood (Buff Bagwell & Scott Steiner)
July 30th, 1998
Thunder
51 Days

nWo Wolfpac (Kevin Nash & Konnan)
September 19th, 1998
Saturday Night
61 Days

Vicious & Delicious (Buff Bagwell [2] & Scott Norton]
November 19th, 1998
Thunder
18 Days

Bill Goldberg & Diamond Dallas Page
December 7th, 1998
Nitro
7 Days

Harlem Heat (Booker T & Stevie Ray)
December 14th, 1998
Nitro
17+ Days
This was a Three-Way Tag Team Match also involving Vicious & Delicious.

[DXvsNWO]

Get ready folks, this is going to be a long one.

WCW United States Title

Diamond Dallas Page
December 28th, 1997
Starrcade 1997
81 Days

Raven
March 19th, 1998
Thunder
53 Days
This was a Ladder Match.

Bill Goldberg
May 11th, 1998
Nitro
35 Days

Vacated
June 15th, 1998
Nitro
Vacated after Bill Goldberg won the WCW World Heavyweight Title at The Great American Bash 1998.

Bret Hart
July 12th, 1998
Bash At The Beach 1998
53 Days
Defeated Sting in a tournament final for the vacant title.

Scott Hall
September 3rd, 1998
Thunder
16 Days

Randy Savage
September 19th, 1998
Saturday Night
99 Days
This was a Triple Threat Match also involving The Giant.

Mike Awesome
December 27th, 1998
Starrcade 1998
4+ Days
This was a Falls Count Anywhere Match.

WCW World TV Title

Booker T
December 29th, 1997
Nitro
20 Days

Rick Martel
January 18th, 1998
Souled Out 1998
4 Days

Booker T (2)
January 22nd, 1998
Thunder
14 Days

Perry Saturn (2)
February 5th, 1998
Thunder
17 Days

Booker T (3)
February 22nd, 1998
SuperBrawl VIII
15 Days
This was a Triple Threat Match also involving Rick Martel.

Konnan
March 9th, 1998
Nitro
7 Days

Eddie Guerrero
March 16th, 1998
Nitro
7 Days

Booker T (4)
March 23rd, 1998
Nitro
14 Days

Fit Finlay
April 6th, 1998
Nitro
13 Days

Booker T (5)
April 19th, 1998
Spring Stampede 1998
28 Days

Scott Steiner (2)
May 17th, 1998
Slamboree 1998
6 Days
This was a Triple Threat Match also involving Rick Steiner.

Rick Steiner (2)
May 23rd, 1998
Saturday Night
5 Days
This was a Triple Threat Match also involving Booker T.

Scott Steiner (3)
May 28th, 1998
Thunder
4 Days
This was a Falls Count Anywhere Match.

Booker T (6)
June 1st, 1998
Nitro
41 Days
This was a Triple Threat Steel Cage Match also involving Rick Steiner.

The Great Muta (2)
July 12th, 1998
Bash At The Beach 1998
4 Days
This was a Fatal Four-Way Match also involving Chris Benoit & Konnan.

Chris Benoit
July 16th, 1998
Thunder
59 Days
This was an Iron Man Match.

Chris Jericho
September 13th, 1998
Fall Brawl 1998
109+ Days
This was a Triple Threat Match also involving Booker T.

WCW Cruiserweight Title

Ultimo Dragon (2)
December 29th, 1997
Nitro
10 Days

Psychosis
January 8th, 1998
Thunder
4 Days

Rey Mysterio Jr. (3)
January 12th, 1998
Nitro
6 Days

Chris Jericho (3)
January 18th, 1998
Souled Out 1998
29 Days

Juventud Guerrera
February 16th, 1998
Nitro
6 Days

Chris Jericho (4)
February 22nd, 1998
SuperBrawl VIII
21 Days

Dean Malenko (4)
March 15th, 1998
Uncensored 1998
1 Day

Chris Jericho (5)
March 16th, 1998
Nitro
62 Days

Dean Malenko (5)
May 17th, 1998
Slamboree 1998
28 Days
This was an I Quit Match

Chris Jericho (6)
June 14th, 1998
The Great American Bash 1998
28 Days
This was a Fatal Four-Way Match also involving Rey Mysterio Jr. & Psychosis.

Rey Mysterio Jr. (4)
July 12th, 1998
Bash At The Beach 1998
50 Days
This was a Ladder Match.

Eddie Guerrero (3)
August 31st, 1998
Nitro
17 Days

Rey Mysterio Jr. (5)
September 17th, 1998
Thunder
56 Days

Kidman
November 12th, 1998
Thunder
49+ Days

WCW Hardcore Title

Tommy Dreamer
November 23rd, 1998
Nitro
10 Days
This was a Twenty Man Over-The-Top-Rope Battle Royal to determine the Inaugural WCW Hardcore Champion.

La Parka
December 3rd, 1998
Thunder
7 Days

Perry Saturn
December 10th, 1998
Thunder
21+ Days