THTRobtaylor
Once & Future Wrestlezone Columnist
Was more likely done in the "focus groups" that led to the merger... people saying they wanted CSI etc not Wrestling... parents hating their kids spending 50 bucks a month on a crap PPV...
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Bottom line is if a product is profitable, it's foolish to discard it. WCW obviously wasn't profitable. No matter. It's gone and now the ahem, people who were most visible there are now in TNA and now THEIR ratings aren't improving. Once is a coincidence, twice is a trend.
No WCW angle or storyline was bad enough to destroy the entire company. That includes things David Arquette, the finger poke of doom, not establishing new stars, pushing old stars, etc. What killed WCW was the behind the scenes stuff with AOL/Time Warner.
Eric Bischoff was going to buy the company and had the money ready, but AOL/Time Warner didn't want to include WCW on their network anymore. Without TV you didn't have a wrestling show, thus the end of WCW.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.