Few moments symbolize WCW’s collapse more than the infamous “Fingerpoke of Doom,” and Tony Schiavone has never hidden how he feels about it. Looking back on the January 1999 WCW Nitro segment that reunited the nWo in the most anticlimactic way possible, the longtime commentator made it clear that the angle still frustrates him decades later.
“It was stupid,” Schiavone said on What Happened When. “I mean, it really, really was, right?” He added that while fans were clearly meant to understand Hulk Hogan and Kevin Nash were conspiring together, the execution still failed. “The poke itself wasn’t supposed to mean anything,” Schiavone explained, yet the visual of a world title changing hands that way left lasting damage. Reflecting on the night as a whole, he also noted that commentary jabs at WWE weren’t new, saying similar tactics had happened before and weren’t the real issue.
Why this moment still matters is that it represents a larger creative philosophy problem that plagued WCW in its final years. The Fingerpoke of Doom wasn’t just a bad finish, it was a signal to fans that long-term storytelling and competitive stakes no longer mattered. While Schiavone acknowledged that viewers who briefly flipped to WWE Raw eventually came back, the trust lost that night never fully returned, accelerating WCW’s decline as WWE surged ahead.
More than two decades later, the segment remains a cautionary tale. As modern wrestling promotions balance shock value with credibility, the Fingerpoke of Doom still stands as an example of how one creative decision can permanently change how fans view a company.
