Jul 21, 2006 02:43 PM
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(Updated Sep 19, 2006 04:29 PM)
Hi Readers.. Please read my first review before this one. Hope you like this too........
>>>>>>>From the pioneering of WCW, Ted Turner started a battle with Vince about events popularly referred to as the Monday Night wars. WCW had its Monday Night Nitro and WWF has its Monday Night Raw. Meanwhile, WCW started increasing its popularity by acquisition of some of WWF's biggest stars like Scott Hall, Kevin Nash and Hogan himself. The 1990’s saw the rise of another cult brand that became one of the biggest loyalists for the audience.
An individual named Mark Calaway used several ring names like The Deadman, The Commando,Punisher Dice Morgan.etc. He was a member of WCW but lost a famous match against Lex Luger. After this, WCW declined to renew Calaway’s contract. McMahon saw the potential in Mark and decided to sign him. Calaway debuted on November 22, 1990 as “The Undertaker” at the Survivor Series 1990. He initially got success against his ally Jake “The Snake” Roberts and became the first man to kick out of Robert’s reputed DDT.
The casket matches against the WWF champion sumo wrestler Yokozuna in 1994 were memorable accounts in the history of the Federation. It was then the supernatural character of The Undertaker was developed where he was shown to do things like turning on/off his lights by lifting his arms, speaking to his opponents when absent, etc. At the Royal Rumble 1994, thanks to various opponents, Yokozuna sealed the undertaker in the casket. It was shown to various fans glued to the screen worldwide that the spirit of the Undertaker rose from inside the casket to the screen warning that he would return. In reality, The Undertaker was suffering from a back injury that was getting worse as time went off. So he needed a time off and he got it!
Then, an Undertaker clone appeared and the real Undertaker defeated him in an epic battle at the Summer Slam 1994 where the real one was shown victorious. The Undertaker worked more and more on increasing his brand image in the 1990s defeating celebrated wrestlers like Vader, Mankind, Goldust, King Kong Bundy, Bret Hart, etc. This was when a storyline was designed where a half-brother Kane was emerged ultimately destined to confront against the Undertaker. Kane (Glen Jacobs) initially debuted in several encounters posing as Diesel (other than the original Diesel or Kevin Nash). Finally after a lot of small encounters, Kane managed to defeat The Undertaker in a casket match only to find the casket empty. Then, Undertaker was determined to get back and destroy Kane, which he did at Wrestle Mania14.
On one hand, WCW lost a big cult-brand like “The Undertaker” but it got a major deal of WCW in the form of Bret "The Hitman" Hart. This was due to tensions developed between Hart, McMahon and the number one contender to Hart's WWF title "The Heartbreak Kid" Shawn Michaels. Bret wanted to leave WWF owing to personal and family problems with the Federation. He was the reigning champion of that time and was literally adored by the audience for his poise, unique-shaped glasses, jacket and his soundtrack. Hart told McMahon that he would win against Michaels and relinquish the title. McMahon hated WCW and didn’t want Hart to leave WWF as the champ. So, he plotted against Hart to make Michaels the new WWF Champion at the 1997 infamous Canadian screw-up job in Survivor Series. This made McMahon the most hated man in professional wrestling.
McMahon saw a big opportunity in this fact and to this day he likes it when the audience hates him. To intensify it further, he allowed a rising star in the WWF, Texas "Rattlesnake" Stone Cold Steve Austin, to come to the forefront of McMahon's movement to win back ratings from Ted Turner's WCW. A new hero was born instantaneously in Austin and his middle finger gesturing, beer chugging, redneck persona representing the commoner who wanted to slug their bosses. These fans started swearing by Stone Cold. The feud between Stone Cold and McMahon helped WWF regain edge in the ratings battle.
When Stone Cold won his first WWF Championship from Shawn Michaels at Wrestle Mania 14, it was the beginning of a new era- WWF's "Attitude" Era showcasing the new talent as Degeneration X led by Triple H, the Rock, Hardcore legend Mick Foley, Razor Ramon, and the Undertaker. With all these wrestlers leading from the front, McMahon and his WWF re-established the ratings and WCW realized that they could never come back. They tried to come up using a big star in the form of Bill Goldberg, but Vince finally shot the nail in the coffin when he purchased WCW in 2001. Then, there started a trend of many WCW wrestlers entering into WWF. Some of the prominent names here are Late Eddie Guerrero; Chris Benoit, Mick Foley, Ray Mysterio, Rob Van Dam, Steve Austin, etc. There were also some instances when audience got to see fights between WCW and WWE stars. Nowadays, we see many pro-wrestlers who wear WCW attires only to promote both the McMahon brands i.e. WCW and WWF in a similar fashion.
The WWE today is split into two brands. A RAW brand which still airs its show live on Monday nights, and the SMACK DOWN brand, which comes on Friday nights. After the brand split, Vince hired ex-president of WCW Eric Bischoff as the RAW General Manager which he managed till 2005. Finally, Eric was thrown out by Vince himself finding him unfit for the job. There were even 2 champions created for the audience. We now see the WWE Championship defended on RAW and the World Championship defended on SMACK DOWN. McMahon had succumbed to competition from WCW by buying it. However, in 2002, Jerry Jarrett, father of former WWE Intercontinental Champion Jeff Jarrett, announced a weekly wrestling series i.e. Total Non-stop Action (TNA) or NWA. Slowly TNA is building its own stars and becoming famous. As of now, TNA is not posing any serious threat to the McMahon empire, but soon many fans hope to see TNA stand upto WWE just as WCW did it one day. Overall, TNA has all the marketing tools relevant to make it another cult brand in the years to come. Who knows, we might witness another TNA v/s WWE Monday Night Wars. >>> Thus, we can see the way wrestling has built into our homes and minds as a cult brand. The main idea still is that wrestling has come up only due to its marketing, promotions and unique positioning methods. I hope that these excellent marketing gimmicks will be learnt and practiced by various others to create another cult brand.
