The day wrestling changed forever.

[SFC]

On March 26, 2001, Vince McMahon came onto Monday Night Raw on TNN to announce that he had acquired WCW, and would make the deal official with a contract signing via a simulcast of Nitro later in the night.

Instead, his son Shane (kayfabe) became the owner by putting his name on the contract, becoming the first and only McMahon to appear on WCW programming.

It was a historic night in wrestling, and now occurred 11 years ago (even though the actual transaction was a couple of days earlier).

What do you remember about that night? Were you spoiled by it via dirt sheets? Were you genuinely shocked to find out?

I can remember, being around eight at the time, being floored. I was always a loyal WWF guy, and was absolutely shocked to see not only a simulcast, but that Vince had bought out his competition.

What happened afterwards goes without saying, but what do you remember about that fateful day?

 

[Dcool77]

I remember me and my older brother watched it and when they were showing WCW on the Titantron or one of the tvs backstage we switched it to Nitro to see if that was really happening I am proud to be the loyal WWF fan that i always have been and always will be!

 

[mlp420]

Remember it almost like it was yesterday. Didn't even know what dirt-sheets were during that time, so I was excited. I thought that WCW was going to stay around, and I was really excited about the potential of guys bouncing around from one promotion to the next. They actually teased that for a few months after WCW went under. And then when Shane said Vince was blocking other networks from airing WCW so instead they were just gonna invade WWF I was disappointed.

 

[The Dragon Saga]

I was watching RAW, Vince kept looking in on WCW's programming saying how he put Turner out of business and how he wanted Turner at Wrestlemania later that month or some shit. The only entertaining part that comes to me when I think about it, is when he was looking at Jeff Jarrett getting prepared for his match, turned to the barrel of the camera and said, "You know how you spell Jeff Jarrett's name, double-F, double-R, double-T? Well I spell it, double-G, double-O, double-N, double-E - GONE!!" Thought it was actually pretty funny.

Shane walking out onto WCW Nitro came as a surprise but I'd known about WCW's purchase, it was hard not to, it was in the newspapers for Christ sake. When Shane said he'd signed the contract and that WCW was his company I thought maybe WCW would remain open in some form, but alas, we got the horrible WCW/ECW Invasion angle which tanked if anything has ever tanked before.

 

[whoopin' ass]

First, i heard about the sale on the weekend from a friend and thought it was a joke. but then i saw it was legit and my thought was wcw is dead and wrestling is in trouble. when they did the storyline with Shane coming out and saying he owned it, i thought it could be something interesting but was worried that they were not going to handle it right. i am sure lots of people felt the same way. but to find out he bought wcw, pure shock since they had Bischoff`s announcement the week earlier so i was expecting him to come back, not Vince to buy it out.

Just as an aside to this, it was Vince`s ego that caused his WCW to fail. say what you want about how some of the guys from WCW worked, simple fact is they still had an audience and several guys from there had already come over to WWF and had been successful so while it may have been an issue, it wasn`t a huge problem. Vince wanted to be the biggest company and if they treated WCW like a real company - lock guys into WCW contracts so they can`t just start appearing at WWF events, same production value as WWF, etc - his WCW might have actually caused him the same issues that Turner did. he took the easy way out and it is a shame.

 

[HorsemenNo4]

I remember waking up and going on wwf.com with a big "WCW BOUGHT BY WWF" picture on the front page. I didn't see it coming at all. I never followed the dirt sheets and didn't realize WCW was in such chaos at the time. Than again, I stopped watching about a year before its collapsed.
Seeing Vince's face backstage at the start of the show was priceless. The look in his eyes said it all, "I WIN! and you're all FIRED."
I figured Shane or Stephanie would come out to ruin Vince's moment to create an invasion storyline. It was only logical.

 

[HBKperfect23]

A friend told me in school that day. So, indirectly the dirt sheets ruined it for me. I did get some wrong information about WWF guys being on Nitro. Obviously that didnt happen. I couldnt wait for RAW and Nitro that night. Vince killed it that night..."He used to spell his J-a-double R.....now he will spell it Capital G double O double N double E GONE!"...classic. Loved how he annouced each WCW wrestler and asked for the fans to react. Shane coming out was a huge surprise. The end of an era that night. The night the attitude era ended. Great time to be a wrestling fan. Im going to youtube this now

 

[WCW_Sting]

Instead, his son Shane (kayfabe) became the owner by putting his name on the contract, becoming the first and only McMahon to appear on WCW programming.

Nitro actually opened that night with Vince backstage at Raw giving the whole "I bought my competition/the fate of WCW is in the palm of my hands" spill. So Vince was the first McMahon to appear on WCW programming, and Shane was the only McMahon to appear live at a WCW show. Of course, someone could make an argument that Vince did appear in person on NWA World Championship Wrestling after he bought that timeslot on WTBS (or something like that...I don't feel like looking up the details). But that was when World Championship Wrestling was just a show, not a company.

This happened when I was 14, shortly before I even knew about these wrestling news sites (other than Bruisermania...which sucked). My cousin called me on Sunday and told me WWF had bought WCW. I couldn't believe it. He said that WWF personnel would be there, which excited me because I thought that "personnel" could mean wrestlers. I got on WWF.com on Monday just to see if it was true, and there was a big WCW logo (the one that I hate that kind of looks like a spaceship) on the main page confirming the news. It was weird seeing Vince shown throughout the show.

I was disappointed with the final Nitro. I was thrilled Sting returned for it, but I expected more big names to come back. When Shane McMahon walked out to the ring, I hadn't been shocked like that since Hulk Hogan turn heel.

It was a bittersweet experience. I was always loyal to WCW, and though I was sad to see it go, I thought at the time that it would still be a separate show from Raw and Smackdown! since Vince "wasn't" the owner (how wrong I was).

Get over yourselves and enjoy some wrestling, as always.

 

[PunkTruster91]

Three major days stick out to me right now, once being obviously March 26th, 2001. For obvious reasons. Where can all the young talent come into their own on screen, in the big time now? Look back and think of all the stars that Vince McMahon was able to steal away from WCW or ECW for that matter before their prime.. Chris Jericho, Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, Steve Austin, Mick Foley and Big Show. These are all guys with the exception of Benoit that will be in the Hall of Fame some day, with out another company thats as big as WWE, wrestling has no way to make stars as big as back then.

Second, when Vince McMahon chose to change to PG, I as a red blooded male did love the bra and panty matches of old.. but they werent why i wish there was a TV-14 rating, everything is different, the way superstars can act on the mic now (dont know how DX did what they did with PG), the way they wrestle, the hardcore matches are pretty much now extinct because well the rating and well because the gore factor is gone now too.

Call me crazy on this but... The day Eric Bischoff was taken off WWE TV (DX against Bischoff sounds like a hell of a better play off to the attitude era than vs the McMahons). When Eric Bischoff was taken off WWE TV, that controversial vibe was gone.. Ya Know? Oddly enough, there have been less title matches, less one on one main events you WANT to watch. I mean Laurinitus is good for TV, he is a super heel and they make you love to hate him, but he is good for business. But no dis-respect to Johnny Ace, you are no Eric Bischoff.

Those are my three lemme know what you think.

 

[Raiden46]

On March 26, 2001, Vince McMahon came onto Monday Night Raw on TNN to announce that he had acquired WCW, and would make the deal official with a contract signing via a simulcast of Nitro later in the night.

Instead, his son Shane (kayfabe) became the owner by putting his name on the contract, becoming the first and only McMahon to appear on WCW programming.

It was a historic night in wrestling, and now occurred 11 years ago (even though the actual transaction was a couple of days earlier).

What do you remember about that night? Were you spoiled by it via dirt sheets? Were you genuinely shocked to find out?

I can remember, being around eight at the time, being floored. I was always a loyal WWF guy, and was absolutely shocked to see not only a simulcast, but that Vince had bought out his competition.

What happened afterwards goes without saying, but what do you remember about that fateful day?

This was one of the greatest days of my childhood. For YEARS, I had to put up with my friends who sided with WCW through the Monday Night Wars and harassed me about it. They took great fun in saying WWE was going to be buried, even though for a large chunk of that time the WWE was putting out a much better product.

Then came this day that WCW was purchased. Oh boy did I ever rub this in their faces. I was all over the phone, their email, whenever I saw them in school. I couldn't wait to find an opportunity to shove this down their throats. I remember this as the day the better company won.

 

[kokoBawesome]

It was my freshman year of college. My buddy and I each took our TV's out into the lobby with a splitter to watch Nitro and Raw at the same time. The ending of the broadcasts were maybe two minutes apart but it was amazing watching the entire night lead to that three minute simultaneous(ish) ending.

I remember wishing that Shane had actually bought WCW out from under Vince. I was 19 so i knew it was all part of the story, but I loved the competition between the companies and was hoping it would continue.

 

[Azane]

I had stopped watching Nitro at this point, wasn't really a fan of Russo WCW, my brother runs into my room and flips my VCR off my Platstation to TV and turns it to Nitro on me, and I kind of did a slow motion face palm.

It took until they actually pulled the plug on WCW for my brother and I to realize it wasn't a part of the story that they'd gotten together to do.

We then started coming up with dream matches, and a good number of them happened.

 

[Tripleb2k1]

Actually it was Monday the 26th I was wondering how it would unfold as on Friday the 23rd I went out in the morning, came home around noon, logged onto WWF.com and seen the splash wallpaper that said "WWF Buys WCW!"

 

[neildittmar]

I have fairly vivid memories about the last night WCW existed as a separate entity from the WWF.

I was 23 years old and a HUGE wrestling fan at the time. I knew that WCW was up for sale and that Eric Bischoff (via his Fusion Media Ventures outfit) was in the running to buy the company. I was pretty happy, since Russo and company had done a fairly good job of burying the company. The "New Blood" vs. "Millionaires Club" angle came way too late, and WCW had already experienced one "reboot" of sorts. It was time for full control to be put back into the hands of the companys most successful figurehead.

Then Time Warner decided that they didn't want Wrestling on their networks anymore. Bischoff/Fusion pulled out of the deal and WCW was bought by Vince McMahon for pennies on the dollar. Going into the last Nitro I didn't know what to expect. I figured there would be some pretty heavy gloating by all involved with WWF, particularly Vince McMahon. It just went with his character, and this was the company that almost put WWF out of business. I didn't expect their to be a "simulcast" of sorts though.

From the event itself, I remember the announce team seeming overly cautious of what they said and did, and kept hyping the fact that Vince McMahon would appear later in the night to formally address the WCW audience. Later I'd realize the cautiousness was a direct result of WWF officials watching over the event like hawks.

The most memorable things for me were the Sting/Flair match, even though it wasn't particularly good, and Flair's response to Vince holding the company in the palms of his hands. Calling out past NWA/WCW legends and everything.

It was a great night, but an incredibly poor night all at the same time. Especially considering what WWF would do with WCW over the next year or so.

 

[SFC]

What they did with WCW afterwards goes without saying. It was a disaster. The Invasion was blown.

But that's a whole other thread itself.

It was a historic night nonetheless, but it was something that eventually proved inevitable.

 

[ITrippedTheShockmaster]

I remember the day pretty well. I was 21. I'd read up on the topic, so I knew that it was already done that Vince had bought WCW. I flipped between both shows, as always, waiting to see how they would handle it.

Everything else aside, I thought it was classy as far as the WCW matches they used to bring an end to the company, with Flair and Sting closing it out. Nneither were at their best by this point, but the symbolism of their feud was there and I respected that Vince had it end with those two.

The announcing on Nitro - which I never really liked since JR left - was indeed held back a bit. Think about it. You just got bought out and were going to lose your job. You want to vent your frustration, but your new boss (at least for now) is looking over your shoulder the entire time. As someone who has been involved in a corporate buyout myself, I can understand the feeling.

I was a fan of WCW back from the NWA days, so it was sad to see the company go, but it was time for it to end in terms of product. It had definitely gone downhill. The fact that Time Warner didn't give a damn about it and didn't want to be associated with it only put the death knell in deeper, with Vince gladly striking the final blow. I enjoyed both companies, and I liked the competition of it all. When you have competition, you have to constantly be on your toes to keep your audience. Or, like Vince, you could just buy all of your competition at the time. To see the end of WCW was disheartening, to say the least.

WCW had its great run during the Monday Night Wars, but when you're suddenly owned by a parent company that doesn't want to be associated with pro wrestling, there's not much else you can do. I was kind of hoping that Vince would keep WCW running in some fashion, even as a "minor league" system of sorts like FCW, but not the "invasion" angle. The "invasion" angle was dumb, IMO, and spit on the legacy of WCW and ECW. But, Vince owned them both, so I guess he could do what he pleased and rub the noses of supporters of those two companies in it.

 

[xxxdaniel_ariesxxx]

I was 14 and was still pretty new to reading the websites. I knew that WCW was up for sale and had heard that Vince had made an offer, or was at least interested in buying it, but the deal had never really gone very far, and the last I had heard was that Eric Bischoff and Co. were in the process of buying it, and that was pretty much a done deal.

Then I made my usual morning rounds while getting ready for school on Monday morning and the first website that I went to was WCWs site and it had the huge WWF Logo with the announcement that WWF had bought WCW. At first I thought that it was a joke, because a) Eric Bischoff and Co. were buying WCW, not WWF, and b) it seemed like the sort of desperate/stupid storyline that I had come to expect from WCW in its final year... but I was wrong.

I had hope that something good might come of it, but once it was announced that that nights Nitro would be the last (on TNT at least) and then they turned it into a part of the ongoing Shane v Vince feud heading into WrestleMania a week later followed by nothing for nearly two months, and then finally the big kickoff to what should have been one of the biggest storylines in wrestling history was... Lance Storm running in during a mid card match between Steve Blackman and Perry Saturn? Not to interrupt the entire show, ala Scott Hall debuting on Nitro, but just to help Blackman win...? after that I knew that it was going to be a really sucky storyline.

 

[Mustang Sally]

Just as an aside to this, it was Vince`s ego that caused his WCW to fail.

I suppose it can be seen that way, although I don't. I saw Vince's standing in a WWE ring and making his announcement as the watershed moment of his professional life. He took the best the corporate conglomerate (Time-Warner) could throw at him..... they were tossing around mega-bucks with the sole purpose of knocking VKM's company out of business..... and he not only came out on top; he wound up owning the competition. Many people truly don't realize the magnitude of this accomplishment, but I can only imagine what it must have been like for Vince to stand in that ring, knowing he had obliterated his enemy. Talk about being "the best in the world at what you do." The big company picked the wrong guy to mess with.

Yes, before we start the merry-go-round of who actually did what to whom, it's recognized that WCW probably did more to shoot themselves in the foot than anyone else ever could have, but face it: the prime goal of WCW was to knock WWE out of business and be the only remaining major wrestling company in the country. Instead, it happened exactly the opposite way......and truly did amount to the day that changed wrestling forever.

 

[enviousdominous]

I remember thinking that something crazy was going to happen to WCW. I was a fan of both shows and noticed Nitro started happening at smaller venues.

I had such high hopes for the future. I honestly thought that Vince would be able to check his ego and let WCW (and to a lesser extent ECW) live on under more responsible management and perhaps all wrestlers could come together at certain pay per views. Raw could be WWE, Smackdown could be WCW/NWA and ECW could be an online thing.

Vince and a certain handful of assholes got a hair up their asses regarding rival talent being allowed to look like anything besides horrible and after all the misery we finally got a rushed match between Vince and Shane to finally end the madness. I think it could not have been handled more irresponsibly and it was the most painful saga for the wrestling fan to endure.

It was big, it seemed like it couldn't fail and it did. Let's all forget the pain.

 

[RANSOM]

I remember being on the wrestleworld forums back then & remember alot of us being so let down that once again it was all about the mcmahons. It was every wrestling fans dream, wwf vs. Wcw & we all thought it was finally gonna happen. Well when it did they dropped the ball big time.

The potential dream Matches & classic storylines were almost endless. Vince made a boatload of money off it but he could of tripled his profits if he just swallowed his pride & just go balls to the wall with it but god forbid that ever happens.

Anyone know what the invasion ppv buyrate was?

 

[WolfNyte]

I remember it well and what led up to it.

Ted had to sell off his TV stations as he was loosing money and AOL/TW purchased it. The first thing they did was evaluate the state of the stations and Programing. At that point WCW had become a cash cow due to high salaries verses what the company was actually making. They were in the red by thousands every month. Business wise it was not a good investment. Turners money and other investments kept it afloat Bishoff's expendatures were higher than his income for the show for years.

When it was put up for Sale Bishoff immediately wanted to buy it, speculation was that is why he ran it into the red to begin with. He could buy it for a lower price than if it was a money maker. However, his investors pulled out once seeing the books of past performance and all he had was Jason hervey<sp>, Hogan and himself as money men. He knew they could not afford the costs so he backed out as well. This was after trying to gain more investors and failing.

So in stepped VM and he purchased the VIDEO LIBARY for a song. People bash him for it however if he did not do that all the NWA and WCW tapes and history would have been in the trash and never seen again. He actually only purchsed those Archives not the entire company. But he did offer contracts to certain superstars of WCW some refused, Sting and a few others, Some accepted it but were fuckups , buff bagwell anda few others, this is why the Invasion angle died. The ones they kept couldnt cut it in WWE.

Goldberg was an attitude problem, Bagwall was a steroid junkie and believed his own hype. Then you had some that did great till they just didnt like the schedule..Marc Mero comes to mind. Then you have Booker and a select few that actually did well.

Dont blame Vince or the writers 100% alot of it had to do with the wrestlers themselves and their true abilities and attitudes.

Vince saved the History of WCW/NWA and thats a fact.

 

[Fenris]

Ahhhhh yes, Black Monday....

I remember it well. Sadly I remember it virtually EVERY Monday night when lackluster Raw after lackluster Raw goes off, week after week. That was not a good day, at all. There's been one time in my life where I literally vomited and that was on that Night when I flipped on Nitro and Vince is standing backstage at Raw announcing his big purchase.

I didn't know at the time that the WWF had actually bought WCW. Remembering the timelines it was announced the previous week that Eric Bischoff and Fusient had bought them, was announced on the business websites that monitor that sort of thing and was a "go." There had been rumors that this group and that group were interested including the WWF but I took it as virtually a done deal that Bischoff owned WCW. In fact legit media sources thought it was a go.

The WWF rumors were pretty much just that, rumors until that Monday. I did read dirt sheets at the time and they were claiming it would happen but let's face it, anyone who remembers the dirt sheets back then took about 2% of what they said serious. Back then rumors were made up on a whim and filed as fact, usually made up by 13 year old "insiders" that talked mommy into buying them a domain name where they could put out breaking "news" such as "lool lax lugar has aids lol" or "Trish Stratus agrees to make a porno movie lulz." Or my favorite, that WCW paid off a Neilson employee and set up 5 million TV's and Neilson boxes at their HQ in order to beat the WWF's ass for two years. They weren't something taken that serious.

Anyways back to WCW. The Sunday before then it was kind of split with the news. Some were claiming the WWF was negotiating to buy WCW still, some were of the belief that Fusient had already bought WCW, others had the offers on and off the tables a dozen or more times that week and were hearing that Bischoff/Fusient were back at the table with another offer(which turned out to be true) and that several Networks were interested in WCW. Needless to say there wasn't a 100% answer heading into Monday but the world was buzzing.

When I went to bed Sunday night it was all up in the air still. Most of Monday I was at work then the gym and taking care of various business so I didn't have the time to check the news (cell phones with internet access didn't exist at the time kiddies) so I literally had no idea until I turned on the TV to watch Nitro and there's Vince, laughing and cackling that he bought and was killing World Championship Wrestling.

Horrible, horrible day. Worst day of wrestling in my life. I knew wrestling had terminal cancer and it would only be downhill from then on. From 12 million fans watching down to 5 million fans(and shrinking) of lackluster product, my fear certainly came to fruition.

Adding insult to injury was later figuring out the back room deals that went down enabling Vince to buy WCW for $57 million dollars LESS than Bischoff and Fusient had on the table. Vintage Vince circa 1980's struck again, get moles inside the competitor and take them down from within.

 

[thedude19766]

I remembered I was 25 at the time and when WWF brought WCW and I thought an epic rivaly between the two or dream match but we got the horriable the inVasion angle and right about now Jaime Kelliner is flipping burgers at burger king!

 

[justtxyank]

The day wrestling died.

From this day forward wrestling's future and past would be washed and rewashed through the McMahon laundromat. The victory was complete. It's not accepted truth that the WWF was always the best and most popular company and that McMahon was a genius that the others couldn't compete with.

This began the creation of the product McMahon has always wanted. Simple, unsophisticated, not based in logic and wrestling "matches" generally being uninteresting with sequences of a few moves of doom.

 

[FlairFan2003]

Very sad. I was working so I taped Nitro to watch when I got home. Growing up in the 80s the old NWA was so much more entertaining that WWE. The matches in particular were way better, product much more adult, much fewer cartoon like characters. WWE had a slicker look production wise but for wrestling NWA blew them out of the water.

During the Monday Night Wars I watched Nitro regularly and barely followed WWE. By the end of 99 though the writing was on the wall, way too many mistakes by Bischoff and Hogan (marginalizing Guerrero & Jericho till they left, letting Big Show leave, horrible non sensical booking Brett Hart, burying Ric Flair, burying Goldberg) fans were leaving and it would take a huge shake up to get them back. Instead we got a revolving door of bookers and control men from Kevin Sullivan to Vince Russo etc with little continuity in the product. Only briefly during the onset of New Blood story did things look promising.

Ultimately I agree with a newspaper interview Ric Flair did that weekend before the final Nitro. The people I felt bad for were the uknown wrestlers and mid carders, there was no room for them to continue working, no place in WWE. Also all the clerical and administrative employees would be out of work. WCW may have been dying for awhile but it was the lifeblood to those people. They, not the fans, not WWE, not stars like Nash, Goldberg, etc, those up and coming wrestlers and office employees, they were headed to unemployment, they are the ones I feel bad for.

As for The Invasion Angle and its subsequent failure, Ive posted before it failed because there were no main event WCW stars involved (I'll give you DDP, that was it). WWE didnt want to buy out the contracts of top talent, offering only a small % of the contracts worth. Therefore major stars like Hogan, Nash, Sting, Flair, Goldberg, etc had no interest in working right away. Flair and Sting were the only ones heavily courted bz WWE initially. Personal issues and reputation may have made McMahon reluctant to bring Hogan & Nash on board but he did anyway a few months later so that was a wash. If team WCW hadnt been comprised of all 2nd teamers vs Team WWE's All Stars it would have been more appealing. In terms of money though Vince made a lot off Hogan & Flair and got what he could out of Nash & Goldberg so he did well, Invasion angle aside.

At the end of the day I miss that special feel you get when a program is filled with main event stars, like every match is something important. WWE today doesnt have that, for a long time Nitro did.