InsomniaMusic
From the Death Chamberz
Well they killed WCW but WCW at the time deserved to die. THey didn't really have anyone on board that was able to turn it around, though they still could have been turned around with proper management.
KB Busts Up Another Myth: What Killed WCW
- Thread starter klunderbunker
- Start date
whoopin' ass
Championship Contender
the merger did finally kill wcw as it meant Turner no longer had direct control over things. as long as he had final say, nothing would happen to wcw unless he okayed it. when the merger happened, wcw was dead because it was not a committee decision and no one wanted wcw around. but they way things were going, i don`t know if wcw would have survived even if the merger didn`t take place. a revamp was needed and i could see it being taken off the air while they try and decide what to do with it. wcw was dying but still had a slight pulse until the merger hit.
maxakasinner
New Member
I Think WCW Losing It's Cruiserweights Was When It Died
Losing
Chris Jericho
Ultimo Dragon
Rey Mysterio JR
Billy Kidman And Many More
It Was Always N.W.O Where The Body And The Cruiserweights Where The Backbone Or Spine. Thats How I See It
Losing
Chris Jericho
Ultimo Dragon
Rey Mysterio JR
Billy Kidman And Many More
It Was Always N.W.O Where The Body And The Cruiserweights Where The Backbone Or Spine. Thats How I See It
CrucifiedRaven
The Evenflow Effect
Guys, if WCW didn't die in 2001... It would be TNA. Watch TNA. Right now. It's exactly what WCW would be right now if it never ended.
In all honestly, WCW in 2000 and 2001 was probably much worse than what TNA is right now. They'd probably need to shift to Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday night to stay relevant in the ratings. Guarantee they'd be pulling in the same ratings as what TNA is pulling in now. With the same mix of new stars and ex-WWE stars. Especially Hogan, Bischoff and Sting. No way they'd survive on Monday night.
In all honestly, WCW in 2000 and 2001 was probably much worse than what TNA is right now. They'd probably need to shift to Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday night to stay relevant in the ratings. Guarantee they'd be pulling in the same ratings as what TNA is pulling in now. With the same mix of new stars and ex-WWE stars. Especially Hogan, Bischoff and Sting. No way they'd survive on Monday night.
The Boss
'The Boss' Of Pro Wrestling
Or the SAME ratings WWE gets now.
justtxyank
Championship Contender
All promotions develop a core group of fans. When WCW died, a lot of the fans who had been loyal to WCW quit watching wrestling and never came back. Those fans and their kids when they have/if they have them are not watching wrestling. Another group of them switched to the WWF. Of those who switched to the WWF, a small segment of them ended up walking away after the invasion storyline and never came back.
Some fans though waited for something new to come along (TNA) and some switched the to WWF but weren't satisfied with it and switched to TNA when it came along.
Basically the WCW audience got broken down into this:
35%: Walked Away from Wrestling
55%: Started watching the WWF
Of this 40%
40%: Stayed with the WWF
40%: Quit watching all together after a short period
20%: Started watching TNA
10%: Jumped on board with TNA when it came along
Using an easy number, 10 fans, it breaks out like this.
5 out of 10 WCW fans weren't watching wrestling at all by about 2003
2 out of 10 WCW fans were and or are still watching WWE
2 out of 10 WCW were and or are watching TNA
This formula obviously wouldn't apply to a message board about wrestling (sample bias) but in general I think it worked out about like this. If WCW hadn't died and was doing everything today that TNA was doing, the ratings and interest level would be much higher. Why? Because they would have started from a better place. TNA had to start from scratch.
I think the fall of WCW is far more multicausal than what the OP states. WCW was dying but had Fusient been able to keep the TV deals then it may have survived. In a perfect world Bischoff would have made the changes he claimed he would have done: Focus on the Cruiserweights, build back up Goldberg and build new stars. They would have become more regional and cut a boat load of costs. But Kellner shut that possibility down. WCW was down and it had lost millions but it was killed by Kellner....Perhaps put out of its misery. But the ratings still hovered near a 3 and the potential was there. Watch some 01 WCW, it is not that bad.
I did a Blog on every show during the Monday Night Wars, so self-plug time: rawwrestlingrants.blogspot.com.
I will say that I miss WCW and wrestling has not been the same since.
I did a Blog on every show during the Monday Night Wars, so self-plug time: rawwrestlingrants.blogspot.com.
I will say that I miss WCW and wrestling has not been the same since.
You are right WCW had gone to shit in some respects. When you constantly change management over and over, it is going to lead to chaos and it did. However, once Russo was gone in November 00, the show stabilized and actually got a lot better. You had Booker T and then Steiner as champ. Steiner being treated how a heel should be treated, a fucking bad ass.
They had a lot of fresh talent such as Storm, and they started using Mike Awesome better. The Cruiserweights finally got some love and even a tag title division. They stopped the asinine Goldberg Streak redux. You can see the future with Chris Daniels and AJ Styles. Some ECW guys and guys who went on to TNA and other Indy promotions.
The pacing of the shows was much better and they actually wrestled instead of talking and they minimized the Crash TV nonsense. Sure, it still was not great as they kept trying to stem the bleeding by bringing Booker T too early and doing some quick fixes but for the first time in years they actually had some long term plans.
They had a lot of fresh talent such as Storm, and they started using Mike Awesome better. The Cruiserweights finally got some love and even a tag title division. They stopped the asinine Goldberg Streak redux. You can see the future with Chris Daniels and AJ Styles. Some ECW guys and guys who went on to TNA and other Indy promotions.
The pacing of the shows was much better and they actually wrestled instead of talking and they minimized the Crash TV nonsense. Sure, it still was not great as they kept trying to stem the bleeding by bringing Booker T too early and doing some quick fixes but for the first time in years they actually had some long term plans.
Wrestling101
The Shield of Injustice
I can't read this whole thread right now, so I apologize if I say something that's been repeated. No, it wasn't the merger, it was the crappy writing. I looked it up a few weeks ago....There was a 2-3 year stretch where the WCW title was vacated something like 9 times. While this can, at times, be an effective tool to use, overdoing it kills any kind of storylines and momentum anyone might be able to pick up. Then there was that time when Russo and Bischoff came out and said they were resetting everything and vacated EVERY title.....by this time, WCW was dead already, but still. No consistency in anything. And while every storyline is basically rehashed and/or copied from other eras, WCW wanted to rehash storylines from 6 months or 2 years before. That's not nearly enough time. WCW killed themselves.
Ugh... this thread makes me groan. There are so many WWE spoon fed opinions here it is painful. to name a few "WCW sucked so deseved to die!", "WCW never made stars so it died!", "Vince The God of wrestling wanted it dead so he killed it!", "WCW switched or vacated titles too much and that's why it died". Ugh, you people truly hurt me. Do you actually know anything about WCW? Hell, do you actually know anything about your own beloved brain washing WWE? (they played hot potato with their belts just as much). WCW died because once the ratings started to go down a little bit a zillion corporate yes men from AOL stepped in who knew nothing about the business and tried to fix it. Kevin Sullivan (for those of you who don't was the head booker of WCW for most of its Nitro era run) said that once the merger went through that AOL hated wrestling, but as long as the ratings were good they put up with it. However, once the ratings began to slip a little bit that a bunch of people who knew nothing about wrestling stepped in and made all sorts of insane demands in order to do what they thought would create a better product. In the end they messed it up SO bad that Jamie Kellner came in a said they were moving TBS and TNT in a new direction and that wrestling was not going to be a part of that direction. There-that's what killed WCW. Not Vince, Not bad booking (are you kidding me with this one? Have you been watching Raw for the past 6-7 years? It's pretty much worse than WCW was at it's worst! ) Truth be told Jamie Kellner killed it. THE END. Also, before you bring up the WCW debt problem go back and look at this history books. Vince Mcmahon couldn't afford Wrestlemania. It was dead in the water until the Rock and Wrestling connection came about. Vince Mcmahon has Cindi Lauper (look her up you lemmings) to thank for his entire fortune. WCW's debt problem could have been fixed. The name WCW, the stars that it had ( "stolen" and created...F' you if you don't think WCW created any stars you brain dead WWE zombies) and with proper booking it could have become profitable agian. You're a moron if you think otherwise. WWE was a dead brand in 1996. Vince was almost bankrupt. It took three guys to turn that around for him Austin, The Rock and Mike Tyson (another guy who doesn't get the credit he deserves for helping Vthe WWF out). With proper marketing and booking anything can be salvaged!
Mighty NorCal
SHALL WE BEGIN?
The TV Network dropping it was most certainley Kellner, which was due to his biases against wrestling. Ratings are all a network could give two fucks about, and they were still getting 2's and 3's.
However, wasn't there some type of dealie were Bischoff was going to buy it, but wouldnt be allowed to do TV shows with it? Sounds odd, but I feel like I remember hearing something of that sort.
But yes, losing money by virtue of being utterly atrocious was 90% of it. Usually losing money isnt good for the longterm longevity of a company. I have no degree in buisness, but im fairly certain that is how it works. lulz.
So I would call WCW euthanized more than killed. Kellner pulling the plug on it was just that.
However, wasn't there some type of dealie were Bischoff was going to buy it, but wouldnt be allowed to do TV shows with it? Sounds odd, but I feel like I remember hearing something of that sort.
But yes, losing money by virtue of being utterly atrocious was 90% of it. Usually losing money isnt good for the longterm longevity of a company. I have no degree in buisness, but im fairly certain that is how it works. lulz.
So I would call WCW euthanized more than killed. Kellner pulling the plug on it was just that.
Bischoff had a deal through Fusient. But at the last moment, Kellner did not believe that wrestling fit in with TNT/TBS' image. So he canned them (The irony being that this merger went to shit, losing billions!), well he canceled their TV programming.
That being said, WCW had just lost 60 million dollars and someone was going to be saddled with that debt. Not saying that the ship couldn't be righted, as 01 WCW was surprisingly good, but there were inherent risks in keeping WCW on TV as Bischoff may have asked for money to keep it floating.
Anyway, it is also ironic that a year after failing, RAW's ratings fell below a 4. All those WCW and even ECW fans refused to tune in. Monopolies don't work and Vince's ego has refused to see his failure. Hell, even Jericho in his book, and he has nothing ever nice to say about WCW, blames Buff Bagwell in Tacoma for the loss of anything pertaining to WCW and the rise of the Brand Extension. When in fact it was Vince putting Buff on TV in a WWF market....Jesus, I really dislike Vince.
That being said, WCW had just lost 60 million dollars and someone was going to be saddled with that debt. Not saying that the ship couldn't be righted, as 01 WCW was surprisingly good, but there were inherent risks in keeping WCW on TV as Bischoff may have asked for money to keep it floating.
Anyway, it is also ironic that a year after failing, RAW's ratings fell below a 4. All those WCW and even ECW fans refused to tune in. Monopolies don't work and Vince's ego has refused to see his failure. Hell, even Jericho in his book, and he has nothing ever nice to say about WCW, blames Buff Bagwell in Tacoma for the loss of anything pertaining to WCW and the rise of the Brand Extension. When in fact it was Vince putting Buff on TV in a WWF market....Jesus, I really dislike Vince.
Also, if you can get a hold of the Kevin Sullivan "End of WCW" shoot interview he goes through EVERYTHING that went right and wrong in WCW from the first nitro up until the last. He also say's that someone (and he believes he knows who it was but didn't really say for certain) that we will never know about cut a back door deal with Vince Mcmahon. It had nothing to do with ratings or debt. The WCW brand was dead once before and it came back. With stars like Goldberg, Sting, Nash, Hall, Hennig, DDP, Booker T, Scott Steiner, Rey Mysterio, Ric Flair, Hugh Morrus, Mike Awesome, Lance Storm, Billy Kidman even Hulk Hogan (who still had name value) and future stars like Christopher Daniels, Aj Styles and Steve Corino who was set to come in and become one of the companies top heels. It could have come back again.
We will probably never know the details that really killed WCW. Obviously we can speculate because of the egos, lack of structure, loss of money, ratings and buyrate losses and of course Kellner.
I did enjoy Death of WCW which is as close as we will probably get (I wrote about every show on my Blog and it is a sad slow death) but at the same time, Alvarez is really biased. He speaks to guys who were anti-WCW. You never hear from Nash who swears to this day that he was having so much fun that of course he never wanted it to end. DDP or Booker T or even Scott Steiner. You hear from the more "bitter" members, and this is not saying that there weren't issues as there clearly were. However, most stuff written is when Flair or Hogan or others are writing under WWE publishing or employed by them.
One of my main problems is Chris Jericho. I love the guy but his incessant bashing of all things WCW in his two books got really tiresome. Bitching about the Goldberg angle but when he got to the WWF he was derailed in his angle with the Rock, had heat with the boys and was accused of not being able to work a WWF match nor could he control what he did in the ring unlike WCW. But he nary has a bad word to say about Trips shoving him under the bus or Vince. But WCW, oh yeah....So people get this and other propaganda from the terrible WWE produced WCW DVD's.
Unfortunately too, WWE has purposely buried WCW. One PPV was kept. If you watch a lot of the DVD's they mock WCW, and even when promoting it they get in their digs (HBK saying he was working so he could not watch Nitro, basically unlike the top guys as WCW when the Best of Nitro DVD came out). WWE has a goldmine on its hands but refuses to promote it. Classics on Demand bash WCW. It is just so sad. Its history all but wiped out and then perpetuated by guys like Alvarez who refuse to see the good that it did, such as no Attitude Era or SCSA or Rock without Nitro. Nitro revolutionized wrestling. It did so much well, but that typically gets overlooked for IWC darlings like Malenko, Jericho, Benoit, Eddie, Rey and others and even Flair. Meanwhile, WWF gets praise for new guys like HHH, Austin, Foley and the Rock. But if you look closely they will pretty much use the same guys from the late 90s until the Cena era. Make some new guys here and there like Angle and Lesnar but not much is done. I would argue that the WWF is just as guilty in not creating new stars, killing pushes, politics, bad angles and so on as WCW. But it was lightening in a bottle and took off.
Back to what you said about backroom deals: After Hall and Nash jumped ship, WWF sued and apparently part of the deal was that they'd get first dibs if WCW ever sold. Now there is a lot of murkiness there and whether or not it had any validity when it was finally sold.
I did enjoy Death of WCW which is as close as we will probably get (I wrote about every show on my Blog and it is a sad slow death) but at the same time, Alvarez is really biased. He speaks to guys who were anti-WCW. You never hear from Nash who swears to this day that he was having so much fun that of course he never wanted it to end. DDP or Booker T or even Scott Steiner. You hear from the more "bitter" members, and this is not saying that there weren't issues as there clearly were. However, most stuff written is when Flair or Hogan or others are writing under WWE publishing or employed by them.
One of my main problems is Chris Jericho. I love the guy but his incessant bashing of all things WCW in his two books got really tiresome. Bitching about the Goldberg angle but when he got to the WWF he was derailed in his angle with the Rock, had heat with the boys and was accused of not being able to work a WWF match nor could he control what he did in the ring unlike WCW. But he nary has a bad word to say about Trips shoving him under the bus or Vince. But WCW, oh yeah....So people get this and other propaganda from the terrible WWE produced WCW DVD's.
Unfortunately too, WWE has purposely buried WCW. One PPV was kept. If you watch a lot of the DVD's they mock WCW, and even when promoting it they get in their digs (HBK saying he was working so he could not watch Nitro, basically unlike the top guys as WCW when the Best of Nitro DVD came out). WWE has a goldmine on its hands but refuses to promote it. Classics on Demand bash WCW. It is just so sad. Its history all but wiped out and then perpetuated by guys like Alvarez who refuse to see the good that it did, such as no Attitude Era or SCSA or Rock without Nitro. Nitro revolutionized wrestling. It did so much well, but that typically gets overlooked for IWC darlings like Malenko, Jericho, Benoit, Eddie, Rey and others and even Flair. Meanwhile, WWF gets praise for new guys like HHH, Austin, Foley and the Rock. But if you look closely they will pretty much use the same guys from the late 90s until the Cena era. Make some new guys here and there like Angle and Lesnar but not much is done. I would argue that the WWF is just as guilty in not creating new stars, killing pushes, politics, bad angles and so on as WCW. But it was lightening in a bottle and took off.
Back to what you said about backroom deals: After Hall and Nash jumped ship, WWF sued and apparently part of the deal was that they'd get first dibs if WCW ever sold. Now there is a lot of murkiness there and whether or not it had any validity when it was finally sold.
I'm not going to read thru 9/17 pages right now to see if what I want to post has been posted, but I would like to add my ignorant .02 (I say ignorant because of my refusal to read the thread 
)
-Even though the Classics Roundtable can be misleading at times, Kevin Nash mentioned that PPVs, VHS and DVDs were distributed by Turner Home Entertainment and not WCW. PPV production within the Turner/Time Warner division was redmarked to WCW, whereas all profits made went to Turner Home Entertainment. I also remember this being true when renting PPVs at Blockbuster when they were released on VHS Home Video. Even when broadcast live or an encore on inDemand/Viewers Choice/etc, it was all profitted by Turner Home Entertainment and promoted by Time Warner as that and not WCW. The profits were treated just like any normal movie distributed/produced by Time Warner at the time, not WCW.
The best way to explain this (not-spam): The Atlanta Braves were owned by Time Warner. I remember my mom buying the Braves 1995 World Champions Video from the pro shop at Fulton County Stadium. The video was produced by MLB in conjunction with Turner Home Entertainment on the credits. WCW never said "produced by World Championship Wrestling in conjunction/association with THE".
The only thing the company was making money on was ratings and ticket sales. They had over 350 workers under written agreements within WCW (wrestlers, refs, agents, production crew, booking, etc.) The company went from making $100+ Million in 1997 to losing $60 million in 1999.
-The profits for any merchandise went to the wrestlers (merchandise revenue percentage), distributors and manufacturers of the merchandise.
)-Even though the Classics Roundtable can be misleading at times, Kevin Nash mentioned that PPVs, VHS and DVDs were distributed by Turner Home Entertainment and not WCW. PPV production within the Turner/Time Warner division was redmarked to WCW, whereas all profits made went to Turner Home Entertainment. I also remember this being true when renting PPVs at Blockbuster when they were released on VHS Home Video. Even when broadcast live or an encore on inDemand/Viewers Choice/etc, it was all profitted by Turner Home Entertainment and promoted by Time Warner as that and not WCW. The profits were treated just like any normal movie distributed/produced by Time Warner at the time, not WCW.
The best way to explain this (not-spam): The Atlanta Braves were owned by Time Warner. I remember my mom buying the Braves 1995 World Champions Video from the pro shop at Fulton County Stadium. The video was produced by MLB in conjunction with Turner Home Entertainment on the credits. WCW never said "produced by World Championship Wrestling in conjunction/association with THE".
The only thing the company was making money on was ratings and ticket sales. They had over 350 workers under written agreements within WCW (wrestlers, refs, agents, production crew, booking, etc.) The company went from making $100+ Million in 1997 to losing $60 million in 1999.
-The profits for any merchandise went to the wrestlers (merchandise revenue percentage), distributors and manufacturers of the merchandise.
I'm not going to read thru 9/17 pages right now to see if what I want to post has been posted, but I would like to add my ignorant .02 (I say ignorant because of my refusal to read the thread
-Even though the Classics Roundtable can be misleading at times, Kevin Nash mentioned that PPVs, VHS and DVDs were distributed by Turner Home Entertainment and not WCW. PPV production within the Turner/Time Warner division was redmarked to WCW, whereas all profits made went to Turner Home Entertainment. I also remember this being true when renting PPVs at Blockbuster when they were released on VHS Home Video. Even when broadcast live or an encore on inDemand/Viewers Choice/etc, it was all profitted by Turner Home Entertainment and promoted by Time Warner as that and not WCW. The profits were treated just like any normal movie distributed/produced by Time Warner at the time, not WCW.
The best way to explain this (not-spam): The Atlanta Braves were owned by Time Warner. I remember my mom buying the Braves 1995 World Champions Video from the pro shop at Fulton County Stadium. The video was produced by MLB in conjunction with Turner Home Entertainment on the credits. WCW never said "produced by World Championship Wrestling in conjunction/association with THE".
The only thing the company was making money on was ratings and ticket sales. They had over 350 workers under written agreements within WCW (wrestlers, refs, agents, production crew, booking, etc.) The company went from making $100+ Million in 1997 to losing $60 million in 1999.
-The profits for any merchandise went to the wrestlers (merchandise revenue percentage), distributors and manufacturers of the merchandise.
Kevin Nash has a vested interest when he is talking about these things. He wants to protect his legacy as a draw.
There is a couple of thing you have to consider.
Wrestling promotions most important revenue source is PPV-buys. Second is the live gates. WCW had a huge ppv-year in 1997. In fact that was WCW's one and only great year. In 1998 they did ok. That is two good years in, what?, 12 years? You can't say "hey there is something fishy here someone was stealing the money" when they turned profit one year out of 12 and another ok year on top of that. All those other years Turner had to sit there pay for WCW's losses.
The point is that all these things, rentals, home video sales, merchandise, even the tv-deal could not save WCW. That money would not have made a difference.
I just cannot agree with this. WCW had some pretty solid buyrates over the years. Here are just some from the Hogan era. This are ones around the 1.0 buyrate. There have been numerous others from .70 up to .90 from 95 up through 99. Then there are earlier buyrates such as Starrcade and Havoc and others that were not that bad.
1 * Dec-97 *Starcade *1.90 *Hogan/Sting
2 *Jul-98 *Bash at the Beach *1.50 *Hogan + Rodman vs. DDP + Karl Malone
3 *Dec-98 *Starcade *1.15 *Goldberg/Nash
4 *Feb-99 *SuperBrawl *1.10 *Hogan/Flair
5 *Mar-98 *Uncensored *1.10 *Sting/Hall - title, Hogan/Savage - Main Event
6 *Feb-98 *SuperBrawl *1.10 *Hogan/Sting
7 *Oct-97 *Halloween Havoc *1.10 *Hogan/Piper
8 *Jan-98 *Souled Out *1.02 *Luger/Savage and Bret Hart/Ric Flair
9 *Jul-94 *Bash at the Beach *1.02 *Hogan/Flair
10 *Oct-94 *Halloween Havoc *0.97 *Hogan/Flair
11 *Mar-95 *Uncensored *0.96 *Hogan/Vader
12 *Dec-96 *Starcade *0.95 *Hogan/Piper
13 *Feb-95 *SuperBrawl *0.95 *Hogan/Vader
Well, if you watched the video, the entire panel (excluding Patterson) even mentioned the same thing (Ross, Hayes and Okerlund) when it came to PPVs. That went to Turner Home Entertainment, not WCW.
justtxyank
Championship Contender
PPVs as the most important source of wrestling revenue is not a universal. It hasn't ALWAYS been true. It's true for the WWF because they make the most money.
However, WCW wasn't a wrestling company. It was a wrestling company owned by a television network. Television broadcast right deals are much more lucrative to a television network than ppv revenue is to a wrestling company.
The mothership got to benefit from the fact that WCW on their network increased the value of their broadcast rights deals that were sold to carriers, got to pocket all of the advertising revenue that they could sell, not just during WCW's time slot but during all the other time slots that were on the network that were heightened by WCW.
However, WCW wasn't a wrestling company. It was a wrestling company owned by a television network. Television broadcast right deals are much more lucrative to a television network than ppv revenue is to a wrestling company.
The mothership got to benefit from the fact that WCW on their network increased the value of their broadcast rights deals that were sold to carriers, got to pocket all of the advertising revenue that they could sell, not just during WCW's time slot but during all the other time slots that were on the network that were heightened by WCW.
Undoubtedly though PPV buyrates, revenue from gate attendance and merch sales play a big role too. You are correct in advertising revenue. When Nitro went back to two hours in 00, they lost that hour of revenue from commercials and ratings did not stabilize, so it was essentially a lose-lose for WCW. The reason RAW went to three hours: Money. Not saying that WCW would not have died all because of losing that hour. But undoubtedly it impacted their bottom line.
Starrcade had bad buyrates from 92-95
Say they had a two good years, say they had two and a half. What difference does it make?
Supposedly Hogan was getting a ridiculous percentage of the ppv-money.
They all said rentals and home video was a major revenue source for WCW?
Turner advertised WCW during their NBA broadcasts. That was pretty much their most valuable promotion slots. It works both ways. WCW benefited more from TBS/TNT than the other way around.
Advertisers didn't(still don't) want to advertise on wrestling shows. Wrestling shows can't demand ad-rates that major league sports can.
http://www.twnpnews.com/information/wcwinfo.shtml
Here is a look at WCW buyrates: You can find it under Past PPV Info.
Wrestling has always looked for "respectability" when it comes to advertising. But WCW programming was the highest rated for Turner despite them not knowing what to make of it. They still did a lot of cross-promotion and did it through the NBA too.
Even Bash at the Beach 99 with a .43 buyrate made money through gate and merch; this was along with the cost of the Junkyard Match. It does not take much to make money through PPV.
As for money: Wasn't Hogan's PPV pay and a lot of the higher up guys covered by Time Warner? Therefore it had not impact on WCW?
THTRobtaylor
Once & Future Wrestlezone Columnist
There is a little more than that... Corporate/Sun Tzu 101 states "Kill something/fire someone immediately you take over, it shows you are the boss and forces respect."
That is more what AOL/TW did, they saw that WCW had been massive and even potentially could be turned round but by NOT doing so it sent a message to all it's branches in all medias... no one is safe, if you slip for even a year, you are gone...
That is more what AOL/TW did, they saw that WCW had been massive and even potentially could be turned round but by NOT doing so it sent a message to all it's branches in all medias... no one is safe, if you slip for even a year, you are gone...
lowandmighty
lowandmightyer
Some of that is partly true but it wasn't just because "wcw didn't fit in with the image they wanted to promote" they made that excuse because wcw had become embarrassing and it was all because of Vince Russo having a power trip.
Hulk Hogan has admitted that the finger poke of doom incident was the very beginning of the downfall of wcw. He has also explained the reason why it was done and that was because Vince Russo wanted to get rid of anyone who was 40 and Russo didn't understand that that wasn't what the fans wanted. So the finger poke of doom thing was Hogan and Nash asserting their power and pretty much a "fuck you" aimed in the direction of Russo who had absolutely no right to barge in and call the shots. So Hogan and Nash decided if Russo doesn't want them to wrestle, then they won't and they'll just be assholes back.
It started a chain of childish behavior by both parties - there was a bit where Hogan was supposed to go face again and beat sting for the belt who was a heel at the time but Russo changed the plan so Hogan just lay down in the ring. It all culminated at the bash at the beach where Jarret was made to just lie down for Hogan when Hogan had decided to cross out what Russo had written and write his own script.
So wcw was killed by Vince Russo if you want to point the finger at who actually started it.
Hogan would have been fine with jobbing to a younger guy but he cared about the business too much to just take crap from Vince Russo who had no idea. Hogan knew that they at least needed a young guy who was actually over first.
The Fingerpoke happened over ten months before Russo arrived.
Also, Hogan was not fine with jobbing. He has always stated he played the game the best (politically) and that if they wanted his spot then they'd have to come take it.
Similar threads
