Fans watching only one company

It’s been stated in the Observers that wrestling fans usually stuck with one promotion and rarely crossed over, which would explain why wrestlers popular in one promotion would fail in another. When did this change? It had to before Nash and Hall went to WCW. It’s one thing for everyone to know who Hogan and Savage are, as they were wrestling legends by the time they went to WCW, but Nash and Hall were nothing but jobbers in their first WCW stint. While Hall was a multi-time IC champ in the WWF, Nash’s main event stint bombed. Yet, when both came back to WCW, fans clearly knew who they were and went nuts. What changed?

​Same thing that’s always worked in wrestling: Guys are stale after years in one company, so they move to the other company with a fresh coat of paint and suddenly they look like a big deal again. It doesn’t mean WWF fans were watching the show, because we know conclusively that it’s not the case during the Nitro era. That’d be like saying Steve Austin became a huge star in the WWF because all the WCW fans moved over and cheered for him. In fact, when WCW died in 2001, their entire audience vanished with them and quite specifically did NOT move over to the WWF.

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