[supernova]

Re: What or who killed WCW ?

The true thing that killed it was the AOL/Time Warner merger. Nitro was still the highest rated show on Turner television networks.

If they had been pulling a good profit at that time, instead of being a cash sink, it probably would've stayed, but the AOL/TW execs were not fans of wrasslin.

 

[Oh Lymping Hero!]

Re: What or who killed WCW ?

God this thread again. Might start another one on HHH backstage politics too.

 

[reDREDD]

Re: What or who killed WCW ?

The true thing that killed it was the AOL/Time Warner merger. Nitro was still the highest rated show on Turner television networks.

If they had been pulling a good profit at that time, instead of being a cash sink, it probably would've stayed, but the AOL/TW execs were not fans of wrasslin.

this makes no sense

who gives a fuck if it was the highest rated show, it was the equivalent of Joker setting fire to his giant pile of money in the dark knight

its business 101, if something is bleeding you dry, and historically has lost money in far more years than it made a profit, you cut it

otherwise youre just being a mark

 

[Rick_James]

Re: What or who killed WCW ?

There's literally hundreds of reasons why WCW failed IMO, but most of them lead to the fact that the top guys pretty much ran the place while guys like Eric Bischoff did very little to try to stop them, which would lead to a variety of problems such as screw job finishes on big PPV's since nobody wanted to look bad, the glass ceiling that very talented midcarders had over them, main eventers that would hardly work or get put on the back burner to appease guys like Hogan or Nash that didn't want to give up their spots, and much much more. All of it can be traced back to giving the wrestlers too much power coupled with bad management.

 

[HollywoodHoganNWO]

Re: What or who killed WCW ?

What killed WCW? Giving all NWO members creative control in their contracts

 

[alliance]

Re: What or who killed WCW ?

is it true McMahon bought it for only like 5 million or something ??

 

[Thad Castle]

Re: What or who killed WCW ?

Jeff Jarrett as WHC.

Thread/

 

[celticjobber]

Re: What or who killed WCW ?

this makes no sense

who gives a fuck if it was the highest rated show, it was the equivalent of Joker setting fire to his giant pile of money in the dark knight

its business 101, if something is bleeding you dry, and historically has lost money in far more years than it made a profit, you cut it

But someone else would've bought WCW, and at that point all Warner had to do was air the shows.

But Jamie Kellner hated pro wrestling and wanted it off of their networks. So he killed it and they sold WCW for peanuts to Vince McMahon.

 

[SOR]

Re: What or who killed WCW ?

is it true McMahon bought it for only like 5 million or something ??

Rumour is between 2-3 million.

 

[Lockard The GOAT]

Re: What or who killed WCW ?

is it true McMahon bought it for only like 5 million or something ??

Think it sold for either 4.5 or 6.5 million or something.

WCW died for a variety of reasons:

-Bad management
-Failure to make new stars
-Severe misuse of their biggest star and draw, Bill Goldberg
-Same guys on top (this goes along with the second reason)
-Horrible angles and storylines, one after another
-Horrible ideas on who to push (Jeff Jarrett as WCW World Champion, etc.)
-Wrestlers having creative control in their contracts and having too much power backstage. Basically, letting the inmates run the asylum
-Turner executives never cared for WCW and always wanted to throw it off the networks, and it bleeding red only gave them more incentive to do so
-It didn't help that when the company was at it's worst financially (i.e. losing $77 million in two years), you had WWF putting on awesome show after awesome show, making it much easier to just switch the channel over to Raw and Smackdown and never look back

 

[Jupiter Jack Daniels]

Re: What or who killed WCW ?

Gerald Levin. Came in with the Time Warner merger in 1996, did a lot of fuckery on the board (EVERYWHERE HE WENT), causing Turner to lose power and his supporters to lose jobs and is responsible for the AOL-Time Warner merger and everything that came with it.



Let's be real. IIRC, I read in a book recently that the board wanted Turner to sell as far back as '91 because it wasn't making money. And he refused, saying he never would.


Another thing people need to realize is that, by January 2000, Turner was no longer in charge, still on the board, but not steering the ship. Levin was in charge. The AOL-Time Warner deal was announced January of 2000 and finalized in December. Offers were pouring in to by WCW by the summer of 2000. There's a report online about Mandalay Entertainment purchasing it but that it wouldn't be final until October at the earliest.


The company was for sale months before those losses were even reported. I take that back. OFFERS were being made to by it before those losses were reported. Didn't matter because Levin & co. wanted to ride that internet wave that was a total bust and Levin was gone 11 months after the merger was finalized. Kellner was gone the next year.



In the end, it's business deal gone bad, a business that Turner was all in on:

“When I cast my vote for 100 million shares, I did it with as much excitement as I felt the first time I made love some 42 years ago….I voted for it because we will have a stronger company that will create value. It’s not so easy to go out and recreate AOL. No one has been able to do it so far.”

Until it got finalized:

"The two things that make men commit suicide the most often are losing their job and losing their wife. And I lost them both in the same year, along with $7 billion."

"Their earnings were overstated, see? So we were buying damaged goods and paying outrageous prices. [Addressing Time Inc. editor in chief John Huey] Huey, am I right or not? They cooked the books on us. Of course, we only did one day of due diligence, but that wasn't my fault."

On Levin's $1 million offer for Turner's resignation:

"I told him, 'You take your million dollars and shove it up your ass. For you to offer me the shareholders' money, to offer me a million a year to do nothing when you're letting people go because you say you can't afford to pay their wages -- how can you love a company like that?' [Addressing the audience] Do you think that's right? I know the difference between right and wrong and some of those people did not."

When your own board asked you 10 years ago to sell the company, that said you were the only one who wanted the company. So, when you're no longer chairman of the board and other people are making decisions, is it really going to last?



Again, Gerald Levin's fault, simply because Turner lost his power to him and it's pretty obvious that Turner would've never let that company die.

 

[Billy8383]

Re: What or who killed WCW ?

But someone else would've bought WCW, and at that point all Warner had to do was air the shows.

But Jamie Kellner hated pro wrestling and wanted it off of their networks. So he killed it and they sold WCW for peanuts to Vince McMahon.

This is correct. Bischoff and some buyers had a deal nearly complete to buy WCW. In fact on the next to last Nitro Bischoff came on to announce a night of champions where all of the titles would be on the line so it was pretty obvious that the deal was nearly complete, and Bischoff was moving forward with whatever plans he had for the company. Then the word came down that there would be no tv for the shows, and without a place to air the shows the other buyers backed out.

 

[reDREDD]

Re: What or who killed WCW ?

But someone else would've bought WCW, and at that point all Warner had to do was air the shows.

But Jamie Kellner hated pro wrestling and wanted it off of their networks. So he killed it and they sold WCW for peanuts to Vince McMahon.

still not entirely sure what the problem was

they wanted to sell wcw

and they did

because its common sense

 

[Mifune Jackson]

Re: What or who killed WCW ?

Bad Management.

Whoever was higher up on the food chain at Time Warner (Dr. Harvey Schiller?) actually made moves that showed that Time Warner wanted WCW to improve and sustain itself. That's what firing Bischoff in 1999 and then bringing in Russo was all about! And that's also what firing Russo was all about! They wanted WCW to actually get better, and whoever wasn't getting the job done was replaced rather quickly.

1998/1999/2000 was wrestling's hottest time and WCW was drawing awful crowds, declining buyrates, and ratings that were below standard. On top of all that, and probably the biggest reason he got fired, Eric Bischoff overspent SOOOO MUCH MONEY that by the time it reached the top brass, there was no way he was going to keep his job.

They could have maintained the momentum of popular money-drawing stars like Goldberg and Sting, but they cut them short for Hogan and Nash. They could have saved bigger matches for PPVs, but instead aired them on Nitro. They could have managed their time better on TV - even with a forced three-hour Nitro - and they didn't.

Time Warner never trusted Bischoff with the ball again (which is why he was paired with Russo upon his return). Bischoff couldn't make it better, so he blames the Time Warner merger. That's weaksauce. Time Warner was in the right when they canned him.

Yes, there were people within the company that wanted to get rid of WCW, but like a real business, when it was making money (or at least showing signs of being worth the return of investment), it was worth existing. When it went back into the red, Bischoff got fired and the people who wanted WCW gone regained their voice within the company. But it all hinged on WCW being a success, and at that time in the business, there was no logical reason why it shouldn't have been.

 

[Dub J]

Re: What or who killed WCW ?

Shouldn't NWO be covered under another one of the options?

 

[Dub J]

Re: What or who killed WCW ?

And the correct answer is...

so much horrible shit happened/was done in such a relatively short time that one simply cannot point at one factor as the killer. Way too simplistic of an approach imo.

 

[TSE]

Re: What or who killed WCW ?

Awful management which lead to awful decisions on who got pushed which lead to awful matches and angles which lead to an awful roster which lead to even more awful matches and angles which lead to the death of WCW.

1997, 1998 WCW was the most talented roster of all time. Jericho, Saturn, Malenko, Guerrero, Bret Hart, Benoit, Booker T, Steiner, Hall, Raven, Giant, and more made up JUST THE MID CARD. That doesn't count for all the talented cruiser weights, a solid tag team division, and an alright, albeit getting boring Main Event scene of Sting, DDP, Macho Man, Hogan, Nash, Goldberg, Savage, Flair, etc. etc.

The problem came that WCW spent money on stupid shit like traveling the whole fucking roster to places where only 25% of the roster was going to be used, lucrative luxuries for it's wrestlers, and a heck of a lot more advertising than was needed. Even when WCW was profitable in 1995, 1996, 1997, and 1998... WCW should have made A LOT more money than it did because Bischoff and Co. were awful, awful spenders. That spending continued through 2000 and only until late 2000- to it's death was WCW actually spending it's resources wisely.

The problem that gets mentioned here a lot too was the fact that WCW didn't create new stars. Goldberg, Sting, and DDP were the only stars WCW created in it's 15 years of existence.

Goldberg wasn't a sustainable character, he should have lost his streak to either Jericho or Benoit (Jericho preferably as the two had great chemistry in the ring and Jericho was more over than Benoit and had bigger star potential). Goldberg's streak was an angle that singlehandedly had the most potential of any angle in wrestling to put someone over. Ever. If Jericho pinned Goldberg clean, or even made him tap without interference, WCW's ratings would have skyrocketed. Everyone would have wanted to see who Jericho was. I guarantee you that. Instead they had Nash beat Goldberg with interference of a stun gun with a pilled up and drunk Hall, not putting anyone over.

Then I think to make sure Goldberg doesn't lose his luster it would have been awesome to just let Goldberg have a current Lesnar-type contract... Only making 30 or so appearances a year and fighting at the main PPVs. He would have remained a huge draw.

 

[Rugrat]

Re: What or who killed WCW ?

Would it not have been better for Jericho to win dirty if he did win? A dirty win would have got more heat for Jericho, as well as setting up a huge rematch for the title.

 

[TSE]

Re: What or who killed WCW ?

Maybe... I don't know... really didn't think that far with it. As long as there isn't interference (Something that was just too often in 1998-2000 WCW)