Fingerpoke of Doom

The Fingerpoke of Doom is a nickname for an infamous incident in American professional wrestling that happened on January 4, 1999 at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, during a live broadcast of WCW Monday Nitro, the flagship show of World Championship Wrestling. At the outset of a match between Kevin Nash and Hulk Hogan-- at the time, the leaders of two onscreen rival factions-- Hogan poked Nash in the chest with his index finger, prompting Nash to fall to the mat and allow Hogan to pin him; the victory marked the unification of Nash and Hogan's groups and Nash's becoming a villain again after a brief tenure as a fan favorite. During the same broadcast, WCW announcer Tony Schiavone gave away the results of rival program WWF Raw, revealing that wrestler Mick Foley was set to win that federation's championship belt. The incident was named The Fingerpoke of Doom both for Nash's overselling the finger poke, and for the negative ramifications the incident had for the federation as a whole, with some wrestling journalists crediting it as the beginning of the WCW's ultimate downfall and loss of the Monday Night Wars.

Setup

The match was directly related to a controversial main event that occurred at Starrcade 1998, during which Kevin Nash pinned Bill Goldberg to win the WCW World Heavyweight Championship. At the time of the match, Goldberg had been undefeated in his WCW career; he was tremendously popular with fans and had enjoyed crossover success in the mainstream media, and his defeat-- which came about due to the interference of Nash's former tag-team parter Scott Hall-- came as a great disappointment to fans.

The following evening, Nash professed dissatisfaction with Hall's interference, and offered Goldberg a rematch. However, Goldberg was (kayfabe) arrested mid-show (on the night of the planned rematch) and accused of "aggravated stalking" by Miss Elizabeth (Goldberg was originally to have been accused of rape, but refused to go along with that particular storyline). Although Goldberg was later released when Elizabeth could not keep her story straight, he would not make it back to the arena in time to compete against Nash.

Meanwhile Hulk Hogan, who had "retired" one month prior, showed up for the first time since his retirement. At the time, Hogan and Nash had been onscreen nemesis since April 1998, when Nash broke away from Hogan's nWo stable in order to form his own rival faction, nWo Wolfpac; Nash became a fan favorite, and Hogan the villain. In Goldberg's absence, Nash offered the title shot to Hogan, although Hogan only professed to have street clothes in which to compete. Hogan nonetheless accepted the offer.

Hogan came out to the ring accompanied by "Big Poppa Pump" Scott Steiner. As Nash made his entrance, his former tag team partner Scott Hall entered as well in a Wolfpac T-shirt, reuniting The Outsiders in the process.

Match

The match started with the two men circling each other. Nash tried intimidating Hogan by pushing him hard into the corner. In retaliation, Hogan then faked a punch and poked Nash in the chest, causing Nash to quickly and dramatically fall to the mat on his back (in the book The Death of WCW, RD Reynolds and Bryan Alvarez compared Nash's fall to "getting hit in the chest with a cannonball"). Hogan then covered him for a pin and was declared the new WCW World Heavyweight Champion.

After this occurred, Hall and Steiner entered the ring and celebrated with Nash and Hogan to reunite the nWo. Goldberg then reentered the building, running to the ring to attack the nWo, only to be jumped by Wolfpac member Lex Luger (marking his place in the reunited nWo) and then beaten down by the rest of the group, including a Human Torture Rack from Luger. As the show ended, the nWo handcuffed Goldberg to the ropes, repeatedly shocked him with a taser, and spray-painted the letters "nWo" on his back. While Goldberg, who represented WCW against the nWo, was being assaulted, the fans started chanting for Sting to come to the rescue. Sting had been out of action since Halloween Havoc on October 25, 1998, after suffering from an (kayfabe) injury at the hands of nWo ally Bret Hart. For a time, it seemed as if history might be repeating itself with a returning Sting, the historical savior of WCW, taking on a new, revived, and united nWo. However, by the time Sting returned to television on March 29, the new nWo storyline had already fizzled out due to several members' injuries.

Mankind claims

Airing opposite Nitro this night was the edition of WWF Raw is War in which Mick Foley (as Mankind) won the WWF Championship from The Rock. As per their procedures at the time, the WWF had taped this particular edition of Raw six days in advance of the program's airing. Earlier that night, armed with knowledge of what happened, WCW revealed the results of the taped WWF show on their broadcast. On orders from Eric Bischoff, WCW announcer Tony Schiavone gave away the result of the match before it aired, saying "We understand that Mick Foley, who wrestled here one time as Cactus Jack, is going to win their world title" and added "Ugh, that's gonna put some butts in the seats." After Mankind won the title, many fans then switched back to Nitro, which still had five minutes of air time left. The final ratings for the night were 5.7 for Raw and 5.0 for Nitro.

Impact

In WrestleCrap: The Very Worst of Pro Wrestling, RD Reynolds says of the match, "That was that. Fans had been burned one time too many by WCW and the nWo. From that point on in 1999, ratings steadily dropped for the company."

World Wrestling Entertainment refers to the match as "one of the most scandalous title changes of all time" and states that "shocking does not even adequately describe this moment". According to wrestling writers Brian Fritz and Christopher Murray, the event insulted fans, upset viewers, and alerted other wrestlers in the company to problems in the company. They draw a direct link between the title change and the drop in ratings that took place in its aftermath. R.D. Reynolds and Bryan Alvarez, authors of the book The Death of WCW, also draw this link, stating that the January 4 incident "more than any other, started the ball rolling towards the company's inevitable doom". They believe that the "now-legendary" event made the episode "the single most destructive Nitro in the history of the company" and call it a "disaster of epic proportions". The New York Daily News stated that the match "is widely considered the beginning of the end for WCW".

Nash, however, refuted in an interview with RF Video that he had anything to do with the booking of the incident. When discussing what RF Video refers to as "infamous one finger pin with Hogan", Nash said that Goldberg is the one who caused that rumor to be spread and that he had not begun booking until February 1999. In The Rise and Fall of WCW, Goldberg said that the incident was Hogan and Nash playing their own little games against the wrestling world. Furthermore, Reynolds and Alvarez contended in The Death of WCW that the actions of Hogan and Nash from the time Goldberg beat Hogan in Atlanta until their own match in the same venue four months later, including the match itself, were part of an ongoing plot between the two wrestlers.

On the August 31, 2009, episode of Raw, Dusty Rhodes, Shawn Michaels, and Triple H were shown watching and discussing footage of the Hogan-Nash match backstage.

Criticism

In his autobiography, Hollywood Hulk Hogan, Hulk Hogan rejected the idea that the Fingerpoke of Doom was pivotal in WCW's fall. He claimed that "watering down the whole concept" of the New World Order by splitting the group and creating spinoffs such as the Latino World Order and an inability to compete with the WWF's more risqué "Attitude style" were more responsible for WCW's downfall. He also claimed that Goldberg had no positive effect on the ratings and was hard to work with.

Eric Bischoff's autobiography Controversy Creates Ca$h includes a chapter entitled The Turning Point That Wasn't. In it, Bischoff claimed that singling out the Fingerpoke as the reason WCW went under to be an over-simplification. He did acknowledge that people switched from watching Nitro to Raw after Schiavone's remark about Foley winning the WWF World Championship, but claimed that "the tide had turned so significantly that us talking about one match didn't matter".

Channel changing myth

It has been claimed that Tony's "butts in seats" comment lead to a large shift in audience from Nitro to Raw. This is an inaccurate claim popularized by the book The Death of WCW and statements by Mick Foley. Nielsen ratings were only calculated by the quarter hour at the time. Minute by minute ratings were not availible until 2002. So any claims of a sudden switch minutes later could not be backed with any statistics or reliable information. Nitro aired an hour earlier than Raw that night and was unopposed in it's first hour. Nitro always lost some ratings in it's second hour due to Raw starting it's first. The change for the January 4, 1999 episode was no exception, and it's drop was not statistically larger than normal; dropping from a first unopposed hour of 5.2 to a 5.1 when Raw started it's first. Tony's comment was made at the start of Nitro's third hour and the Mankind/Rock match was not until 50 minutes later. The quarter hour breakdowns for that time period actualy show a rise in Nitro viewership and a drop in Raw. Nitro aired a 4.1 in it's third quarter of hour three, Raw a 6.2 at the same time(it's third quarter of hour two). Nitro aired a 4.6 in it's fourth quarter of hour three and Raw a 5.9, which was the time the Mankind title change match took place. Showing a gain of Nitro or .4 and a loss for Raw of .3 for the claimed channel changing period.