KB Busts Up Another Myth: What Killed WCW

[justinept]

It has been 11 friggin years since WCW went out of business, and it's getting ridiculous how many people still believe that anything seen on television led to the demise of the company. WCW was notorious for making head-scratching booking decisions throughout its history. Before the NWO - even with Hogan aboard - the company had a track record of half-filled arenas, low ratings, and non-existent pay-per view buy rates. The only thing that kept WCW "alive" during its first 9 years -- a time period in which WCW was in the red ink every single year -- was that Ted Turner wanted wrestling on his network, and Ted Turner was the only voice that mattered at TBS/TNT.

What killed WCW was Ted Turner losing his voice in the company after the AOL Time Warner merger. This has been said a million times, but for some reason a lot of people write it off as an Eric Bischoff excuse for his own failures. Try not to think in the context of Bischoff trying to explain his failures within the company, but instead look at the history of WCW - the constant failings from 1988-1996 - and then ask yourself how the company survived those failures but couldn't survive the failures from 1999-2001. The answer simply is because WCW's biggest supporter was no longer in charge of the parent company, and the people that took over didn't want to air wrestling on the network.

[BarryHorowitzfanclub]

It was laziness that killed it all. Lazy stories being rehashed. Lazy wrestlers going through the motions because they had ridiculous guaranteed contracts. Everyone just let the ship steer itself until the water ran dry.

The whole "but no TV time" in the sale is also lazy. Bischoff could have gone to another television studio with this. I mean, Spike jumped onto the bandwagon for a while. Sci-Fi shows fricking wrestling! It wasn't impossible, it just had to be done. So you start lower, less pay. Compare that idea with TNA if you wish, but WCW would have still had traction and name recognition back then. The biggest thing I attest is the lack of creativity; push the young, while drawing the crowd with the old. But the A#1 killer was those huge contracts; contracts that were paid for years after the sale of WCW. It was like WCW had 12 Undertakers on payroll.

[dkeating12]

The story of Bischoff not having TV is a true story. According to his book, he tried to talk to other broadcasters and none of them wanted WCW. WWE was on Spike at the time, USA was trying to get WWE back, Smackdown had not yet made the jump to Syfy yet. If I remember the story correctly, Bischoff wanted to keep Nitro on TNT, AOL said no. So, he has trying to make a deal with either WGN or ESPN, I forget which, when AOL sold the company to McMahon. Part of the deal was that there would be no negotiations for wrestling on TBS or TNT, which McMahon agreed to.

Yes I agree NWO storyline went on too long, Arquette winning the title, to tie it into the dumb-ass wrestling movie he was in, also hurt them. Paying the high prices, and no one really booking the shows all killed it. But Bischoff could not buy the company, and thus WCW was dead.

AOL did not want wrestling, and it was there way, plain and simple.

[Not New 2 This]

Jamie Kellner is the ONE who killed WCW. Less than a month or so after Kellner became CEO of Turner Broadcasting he cancelled WCW and sold it. Look his name up.

[WWEIsLife2]

Originally Posted by ProWrestlingFan

David Arqueete's Title reign was nothing different from a Miz (a reality star's) Title reign. It is made out to be a big deal by WWE yet Vince held the WWE Title himself. How was that any different from Arquette or Russo winning the title ?

They had pretty good matches even after the David Arquette Title reign. WCW Slamboree 2000 - Diamond Dallas Page vs David Arqutte vs Jeff Jarrett Triple Cage Match was pretty awesome.

Most of Jeff Jarrett's title reigns weren't even that bad as people made it out to be.

Did you just compare The Miz's WWE Title run to David Arquette's WCW Title run? 1st off The Miz has experience in the Ring where as Arquette just showed up with ZERO experience and wins the a Major World Title. Also you calling that Triple Cage Match awesome just makes me sad to hear someone say that. Arquette had no busisness being in that Match on a PPV Main Event.

Alot of things led to the demise of WCW over the course of time but like others have said its that AOL did not want it anymore. Turner was already out of power after he sold the Braves to AOL as well,I live in Atlanta so I know what im talking about. Other things besides that were the constant use of the nWo,Hogan & Others hogging the Main Event,Chris Jericho & The Radicalz leaving for WWF/E,lack of leadership at the top,and Vince Russo coming in.

[Greg4WWE]

yeah.. WCW at times was crap during the 80s and early 90s. As great as Sting is/was.. when you get guys coming in just to feud with him, it's bad. I mean i remember that Nailz character coming in and feuding with Sting, it was like.. really??? But after they started Nitro, and landed Macho, Hulk, Luger, Steiners, it was good again. Then when the NWO story hit, WOW.. i couldn't wait to tune it, it was just awesome TV..

But I agree the NWO stable just got to big, Hogan, Nash, Hall, maybe with a couple other big named guys should of been the NWO.. But the entire ring was filled with NWO, then the Wolfpac.. don't even get me started. It was like no one was left in WCW except for lower mid-carders and cruiser weights. So we were tuning into a WCW show to see Sting, Luger, Savage, Hall, Hogan, and more.. in the NWO??!! REALLY??

Then after the NWO ended, it got crappy. Kidman feuding with Hogan, Never had clean finishes.. Had Flair losing cleanly to Russo, everyone always turned on someone. The Nash vs a Heel Goldberg could of been good, for Hall's contract, but instead after one match you had Scott Steiner turning on Nash.. and the feud was essentially over. The ONLY decent post NWO deal was the unstoppable Heel Bill Goldberg, but even that fizzled.

My point is basically, yes WCW lost TV time, but that was a result of crap TV for so long. If the numbers were still coming in strong and making money, you think AOL would of dropped a money pot? Get real!

[Honkey_Kong]

David Arquette's world title reign wasn't the death of WCW. They put the strap on him as an attempt to promote that awful Ready to Rumble movie.

What fvcked WCW over was mismanagement. You seriously think if Nitro was making barrels of money for AOL that they'd pull the plug? The higher-ups might not like wrestling, but if it were making money hand over fist, they'd keep it running. It would be retarded business to not. The problem was after the bills got paid, they weren't making anything. Until the WWE started winning the war WCW were pulling in good ratings, and I hear their PPV buys were good, but they wasted so much money it was pathetic. Wrestlers were overpaid and some of them were getting 6 figure paycheques and never once appeared (Lanny Poffo). When the ratings went sour, they were still shelling out the big bucks to their talent which made the bottom-line look even worse. AOL got to the point where they could make more money producing low-budget dramas or just running reruns rather than the high priced wrestling show.

[Rockyfolifebo!!!]

People have many different theories on what marked "the beginning of WCW's demise". I do believe that David Arquette winning the title was it. That's it. Back when this went on, I was about six, but I've watched plenty of footage and done ample research. This is just wrong. There's no other way to explain it. Having a random Hollywood actor (mediocre one at that) come in to win the company's MAIN WORLD TITLE is just insane. Look at the roster they had at that time: Hogan, Sting, Steiner, Booker, Goldberg, Nash, Jarrett, etc. All of this amazing talent, and David wins the title. I would be pissed if he won the Cruiserweight title, but the world's championship? That's a spit in the face of every wrestling fan, with a loogie. I don't know that I could continue watching WCW after that happened. But I was a 6 year old kid, wrestling was wrestling and I was going to watch it regardless.

[FlairFan2003]

Originally Posted by H.A.M.

It was all a perfect storm. Low pay-per-view buys, horrible storylines, shit ratings, lack of pushing quality new stars - all contributed to the storm. Goldberg vs. Hogan on free tv - go fuck yourself. Finger poke of doom - looked good on paper, but turned everyone away quickly. Again, the perfect storm. As the final nail in the coffin - the merger did that. Without Ted backing the company, the higher ups had no interest in a wrestling company. The booking overall was complete shit as well. I won't put the blame on a single person because stories have been different. But anytime you choose Jeff Jarrett or Scott Steiner as your top guy, you're doomed to fail. WCW never utilized its talent to the fullest. Goldberg went from being the company's top, most over draw, to being irrelevant within years. I was a little young at the time but still a huge fan, but even I could tell the quality of the show was slipping drastically. No one thing killed WCW, but bad business, bad booking overtime did. Add in the final nail with the merger, and WCW was fucked; fucked with a big one.

Actually ratings were pretty good for a few months AFTER the finger Poker of Dome, in fact WCW Nitro twice topped a 5.0 rating after that despite going directly against RAW in 1999. The Finger Poke itself re-established the original NWO as a lean, killer heel faction, reuniting Hogan, Nash, Hall, along with Steiner and purging under used or mid card talents like Horace Hogan, Curt Henning, Virgil, etc (pretty much the entire joke NWO jobber roster that comprised the Black & White faction of 98). It also clearly drew the battle lines story wise with the new, lean, mean fighting machine NWO trying to get control of the company from WCW's top anti NWO star, Ric Flair, and clearly established a hatred with Goldberg, the company's most popular wrestler, who was robbed of the World Title by NWO shennanigans.

Really the death started after SuperBrawl when it was clear they were jobbing out Flair (again) to Hogan depsite massive audience distaste. If this would have been followed by Goldberg vs Hogan II then it might not have been so bad, but they quickly began pushing Goldberg into the mid card, never capitolizing on the draw of GB vs Hogan II and really downplaying the idea of a re match with Nash, the man who ended the streak, orchestrated the NWO revival, and handed the title to Hogan in the first place. In Jan and Feb of 99 the numbers were still huge and interest (largely due to the potential fall out of the FingerPoke Of Doom) was high. The non sensical way they buried Flair & Goldberg killed much of the momentum. Switching gears completely out of nowhere having Flair turn heel, Hogan turn face, the NWO breaks up, and DDP (where did he come from) emerges as World Champ while Goldberg is MIA completley turned off the audience. Those high ratings that ran into March were significantly less after Flair's title reign ended. Even Sting's return from injury couldnt save them.

From that point the company never knew where it wanted to go. They bounced between bookers and booking styles so fast between Sept 99 when Bischoff was fired and April 200 when he returned alongside Vince Russo (in his 2nd tour of duty in less than 6 mths at this point) you couldnt keep track of who was coming and what was going on.

Its amazing when you think of the business this company was doing even in 99, drawing over $900,000 for a non televised house show in DC main evented by Flair vs Hogan in March to being on life support 12 months later. SuperBrawl 99 did a PPV rating over 1.0, this past WrestleMania did a 1.3, think about how big that was and in a year's time it was almost dead.

David Arquette's title reign helped bring mainstream media attention to the company and did a lot to publicize their upcoming PPV and weekly TV, much like Mike Tyson's ridiculous turn as "Enforcer Ref" at WrestleMania did in 98 for WWE. If anything it was probably beneficial to the company from a free advertising aspect. The problem was the product they were pushing at that point wasnt very good so all that extra publicity didnt matter in the end.

The death may have started in the Spring of 99 but it really kick started after the whole Arquette thing resolved itself. Suddenly WCW programming was devoid of anyone you wanted to see. By June of 2000 Russo had de emphasized or forced out virtually all of WCW's most popular stars, Hogan, Flair, Sting, Savage, Luger, all gone...Goldberg wasnt around much longer, Nash hardly wrestled, doing backstage vignettes when he was around, you had a large collection of unknowns, WWE & ECW midcarders, jobbers, with Booker T & Steiner in the middle. It was painful to watch just because I DIDNT KNOW WHO ANYONE WAS!!! ALL THE PEOPLE WHO COULD DRAW MONEY WERE GONE!

If Russo had been smart he would have extended his WCW vs New Blood Revolution feud, ultimately with WCW stars winning, it would have given a big rub to some of the unknowns and mid carders and maybe some of them would have become popular with the audience. Instead he wanted to ram the New Blood guys down our throats and in the process killed off everyone fans actually tuned in each week to see. That's the true DEATH NOTICE right there, June 2000, The New Blood kills WCW wrestling forever.

As far as Jarrett as champ goes, he was/is a very good in ring performer although Ive never been crazy about him. He had some very good matches with Flair, Booker T, Nash, etc during this time and fact is he's always been a hard worker. He was also well known as a "WWE" guy, he wasnt the worst choice to main event Russo's NB Revolution.

[HBsam31]

Originally Posted by justinept

It has been 11 friggin years since WCW went out of business, and it's getting ridiculous how many people still believe that anything seen on television led to the demise of the company. WCW was notorious for making head-scratching booking decisions throughout its history. Before the NWO - even with Hogan aboard - the company had a track record of half-filled arenas, low ratings, and non-existent pay-per view buy rates. The only thing that kept WCW "alive" during its first 9 years -- a time period in which WCW was in the red ink every single year -- was that Ted Turner wanted wrestling on his network, and Ted Turner was the only voice that mattered at TBS/TNT.

What killed WCW was Ted Turner losing his voice in the company after the AOL Time Warner merger. This has been said a million times, but for some reason a lot of people write it off as an Eric Bischoff excuse for his own failures. Try not to think in the context of Bischoff trying to explain his failures within the company, but instead look at the history of WCW - the constant failings from 1988-1996 - and then ask yourself how the company survived those failures but couldn't survive the failures from 1999-2001. The answer simply is because WCW's biggest supporter was no longer in charge of the parent company, and the people that took over didn't want to air wrestling on the network.

You have said it right on here. I always wonder where the confusion is in regards to the death of WCW. One question I do have is what if WCW was still pulling in monster ratings at the time of the merger? Would they have kept them on their network then or would their disdain for the product cause them still not to want wrestling on? WCW was absurd near it's end, and I was a big fan up until the last year or two. The thing is Bischoff wanted the company. Even though the show hadn't been good WCW would not have died right away if they were wanted on TBS/TNT after the merger. The final nail in the coffin was the merger.