5 huge mistakes that killed WCW

The rating war between WCW and WWE in the late '90s was famously dubbed "The Monday Night War", and it ended with WWE buying off WCW in 2001.

There was a period of 83 straight weeks during the Attitude Era when WCW's ratings trumped WWE's numbers. The character of Stone Cold Steve Austin was perhaps the biggest reason why WCW lost the war in the end. The sudden rise of future Hall of Famers like The Rock and Triple H helped too.

But there were several other reasons that led to WCW's eventual death. Let's take a look at six grave mistakes WCW made that proved fatal in the end.

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#5 Turning Superstars into mid-carders

Luger became an afterthought in WCW

Lex Luger was on the verge of becoming the next Hulk Hogan in WWE. He jumped ship to WCW and went on to do absolutely nothing of worth in the company. A long term rivalry with Hogan could have garnered major fan interest in WCW.

Randy Savage was another legend who ended up being a pretty insignificant part of WCW. Several other stars who could have been properly used were put into the ever-growing faction NWO.

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#4 Nitro goes three hours

Three hours of Nitro was too much for the fans

Similar to what WWE has been doing for a while now, WCW Nitro used to be three hours in length for a good while. As fans of the current WWE product have noticed, three hours is a long period of time when it comes to watching a wrestling show.

Not only do the fans get burned by the end, the creative team also needs to be on their toes at all times to fill the extra TV time. WCW went on to have a Kiss Concert headline the show at one point, resulting in one of the lowest ratings in the history of WCW Monday Nitro.

#3 NWO overload

NWO turned into a mess by the end

The original NWO consisted of three members: Hogan, Hall, and Nash. As time passed, more and more wrestlers began joining the notorious faction and the storyline became ridiculously convoluted.

It was getting hard to keep track of who was with the NWO and who wasn't. WCW tried to cash in on the NWO storyline by adding another faction to the fold, called "NWO Wolfpac", which was an anti-NWO group consisting of babyfaces. Eventually, fans began losing interest and the group that helped WCW in rising to the top ended up being the major reason for its demise.

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#2 David Arquette becomes World Champion

A dark moment in wrestling history

WCW crossed the limit with its over the top booking when David Arquette was made WCW World Champion on an episode of Thunder. Arquette was the main star of the movie, "Ready To Rumble" and the win was a sleazy attempt to promote the film.

This was one of the final straws before WCW's ship sank to the bottom.

#1 PPV quality bouts wasted on Nitro

This match could have earned a huge PPV buyrate

One of the most head-scratching decisions WCW took was consistently giving away PPV quality matches on free TV.

WCW did this shtick so many times that it became a norm at one point. Eric Bischoff's reasoning for this was that he wanted WCW Nitro to be must-see TV. Eventually, WCW PPVs began registering low buyrates, which hurt business in the long term.

The match that immediately comes to mind while talking about WCW's ridiculous booking, is Goldberg vs Hollywood Hogan for the WCW World Heavyweight title on an episode of Nitro inside a packed Georgia Dome. Goldberg won the match and became the new World Heavyweight Champion, but the match was capable of main eventing a major PPV like Starrcade.

Bischoff's booking decisions didn't help WCW's cause and the inclusion of Vince Russo on the creative team made matters worse going forward.