Shining a Spotlight 9.27.07: The Death of WCW

For several months, all anyone has talked about is the problems facing WWE with many going so far as to say that the company is on the verge of totally collapsing. Falling ratings and PPV rates, the Benoit mess, injuries, the steroid suspensions, it really does put WWE in a tough spot right now. There are concerns that all this can affect younger fans, make it harder to hook onto the business, not to mention frighten off those who might want to get a start in it. So with all this combined with some poor creative decisions (many of which had to be changed because of injuries/suspensions), it’s pretty easy to predict doomsday upon the WWE totally.

Myself, I think it’s important to remember that Vince has been counted down and out many times before and each time has not only survived, but thrived. The man lives off of being challenged and this could be the challenge he’s been lacking for some time. He’s also still got a huge following in the mainstream and the fact that WWE is the one major place for wrestlers to really gain fame so its fall seems unlikely. But of course there are still going to be doubters and so to those who seem so sure of WWE’s inevitable downfall, I thought I’d recommend picking up a book that shows what the destruction of a company really looks like.

RD Reynolds is the creator of “Wrestlecrap” which remains one of the best wrestling sites out there, dedicated to focusing on the worst angles, gimmicks and characters wrestling has ever produced, which he’s expanded to a couple of books. Brian Alverez is one of the key founders of Figure Four Weekly, one of the most well regarded newsletters out there. When they work together for a book, you know it’s going to be something well-written and well-researched. And The Death of WCW (ECW Press, $19.95) is all that and more, one of the biggest must-read books for any wrestling fan and enthralling even to those who don’t know wrestling that well. I’ve heard a few colleges even offer it as one of the books for business courses for an example of bad business choices.

It helps that they have one hell of a business story to tell. Even years later, it’s still hard to accept. As 1998 dawned, World Championship Wrestling was on top of the world. “Nitro” ratings were through the roof, PPV buy-rates were high, the New World Order angle was making them the talk of the wrestling world and the talent base was deep. They had mega-stars like Roddy Piper, Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage, Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, Sting and Lex Luger. They had terrific wrestling stars with luchadores and light heavyweights. They had rising stars like Chris Jericho and the Giant. They had just signed Bret Hart after the most infamous screwjob in history, a sign that morale was bad with WWF. And they were being backed by one of the richest men in the country who gratefully allowed them TV time, giving them massive exposure. Virtually everyone was predicating that within a year or even six months, WCW would put Vince McMahon out of business.

In March of 2001, having lost nearly $100 million and 90% of their viewing audience in the previous year alone, WCW, its talent, trademarks and tape library of wrestling programming going back over 30 years was sold to McMahon for the pittance of $5 million. It remains one of the greatest business collapses of all time. This wasn’t one of those small promotions that tried to go big and failed (World Class, USWA, Global, UWF). This was the biggest competitor WWF/E ever had with so much talent and financial backing falling apart big-time and in less time than anyone could tell. Naturally, blame has shifted to so many people but as the book brilliantly illustrates, the collapse of WCW wasn’t due to any one single decision, simply a long history of bad ones that culminated in the company’s death.

It’s a story that’s long been waiting to be told. Scott Keith had considered doing it and I remember seeing him post a sample opening. It’s probably just as well as the sample shows that it follows much of Keith’s writing, which is highly opinated and filled with name-calling. True, Reynolds and Alvarez do throw in some snide commentary from time to time but they do their best to let the facts speak on their own. They’re backed up by the good detail of providing ratings and cash numbers to show the company’s rise and fall in fortunes which helps solidify their words wonderfully.

The book opens with a foreword by Dave Meltzer, noting how WCW had been badly managed but at the height of the Monday Night War, they and WWF combined to create the most popular period in the history of wrestling with millions of new fans created. He talks about what will be a big theme in the book, which was Eric Bischoff seemingly failing to understand the fanbase at the height of the company’s success and letting the old stars run amuck. He also blames talent for messing up what should have been a great period for them. His final words are interesting given the mistakes of TNA in the last year, that WCW should be remembered as too many are copying what killed them instead of copying what made them successful. The introduction is written more for non-wrestling fans to note how WCW wasn’t supposed to die, having survived so much already and was being backed by Ted Turner, with a plethora of new stars. It then slides into how WCW, having made it to the top, decided that things were going so good, they didn’t need to change anything, keeping the same old stars and same old angles and not giving the younger talent a push. “WCW wasn’t supposed to die? Right.”

Part I “The Birth” starts with a nicely done overview of the early years of WCW. It skims through the history of the NWA, the formation of WWF and the problems of Jim Crockett Promotions. There’s a nice bit discussing how Vince had a show for a time on TBS but fans hated seeing the cartoonish WWF on the same network as Georgia Championship Wrestling, with Vince selling it out to Crockett while Bill Watts did his best to move into the national arena. It’s here we see the first of what will be many sidebars, inserted into the main text in bold blackface, here discussing how Watts sold the UWF to Crockett who proceeded to run it into the ground, an eerie foreshadowing of the Invasion angle. It then moves to how Crockett tried to compete nationally with Vince but failed thanks to the poor booking of Dusty Rhodes and the hardball tactics of Vince with stuff like the first Survivor Series, was soon forced to sell to Turner.

Interestingly, the authors skip over the first two years of the Turner hierarchy from the highs of Flair vs Steamboat and Funk to the lows of the Black Scorpion. Instead, after talking about Dusty being made to wear polka dot trunks in WWF, they move to his return with War Games and then Flair’s firing, leaving for WWF with the NWA World Title belt. There’s a big focus on the 1991 Great American Bash, a mess of a card with fans chanting “WE WANT FLAIR” constantly as a show of how bad things were going to get. They talk about Starrcade’s “Battle Bowl” and Luger leaving in early ’92 and also Kip Frye, a rare boss of WCW who really knew how to motivate people by offering a cash bonus to whoever had the best match of a given night. However, just as things clicked with that, he left and Bill Watts took over. The book covers what I’ve mentioned before about Watts: His affinity for tough guys, banning moves from the top rope (with a sidebar on how that incesened Brian Pillman and his famous “I’ll be the world’s highest-paid jobber” comment), cutting costs and pushing son Erik to the moon.

Then it’s on to the insanity of 1993 with the mini-movies for Beach Blast, White Castle of Fear and Cactus Jack Lost in Cleveland, all of which cost major money with no real pay-off, as well as the idiotic idea to tape months of TV shows in advance, writing title changes and moves into stone and causing problems. Eric Bischoff makes his entrance here, although Reynolds and Alvarez do make the mistake of stating as fact that Bischoff was booking the AWA in its last years and came up with the Team Challenge Series, two things that have since been shown as false. Nonetheless, it shows how the Turner group had failed to find anyone who could know how to properly run a wrestling company and figured this young guy might have some new ideas. It all culminates with Bischoff forced to sub Flair into the big Starrcade ’93 match with Vader with Flair winning the title to the joy of the fans which should have been the sign of how things should go.

But, and this is a key thing that pops into the book so many times, the Turner hierarchy didn’t give a damn how hard-core WCW fans felt about the product. They cared about not making as much as WWF was and demanded Bischoff do something about it. So Bischoff talks Hulk Hogan into coming on board to a massive contract and creative power, bringing all his old ‘80’s cronies with, all of them getting big pushes over the long-time WCW talent (the late John “Earthquake” Tenata, a long-time friend of Reynolds, talks about how Hogan was pushing for him in the company). So Hogan and Flair had their big showdowns which did well but once Hogan moved onto a feud with Ed Leslie, the buy rates dipped and the company realized things were going poorly. So in the meeting that would change the course of wrestling history, Bischoff met with Turner personally who demanded to know what he could do to compete with WWE. On the spot, Bischoff blurted out that he needed prime time and to his shock, Turner, after about five seconds of thought, gave him two hours on TNT. Given this opportunity, Bischoff came right out, first signing on LEx Luger to a shocking appearance only 24 hours after he’d wrestled for WWF, getting Medusa to drop the WWF Women’s title in the garbage and giving away taped RAW results so fans wouldn’t change the channels. They mention how Bischoff even had a monitor installed in his announcer’s desk to check out live RAW shows so he could switch bookings on the fly to compete, something that didn’t go well with the boys backstage but got the show attention. All of this made the early months of “Nitro” truly exciting and amazing. “Bischoff didn’t just come out fighting—he kicked Vince in the ass, then turned him around to kick him in the balls.”

This leads to the second chapter which chronicles the entrance of Hall and Nash into WCW. Now, everyone talks about how the NWO fell apart but as the book demonstrates, their entrance was just brilliant as fans truly believed these two were still under contract to WWF (this was in the infancy of the Internet after all) and were coming on to start the much-heralded WWF/WCW war. WCW never mentioned them by character name but as themselves but it was clear that they were using the duo’s WWF fame to boost things, resulting in a real-life lawsuit and the very ugly “New” Razor and Diesel characters. This led to the Bash at the Beach show where Hulk Hogan turns heel and boosts the New World Order to prominence. Again, the book details how well-done things were as the NWO attacked both heels and faces alike with the idea of all of WCW having to unite against them. They talk about “Road Wild” and how the show was always such a money-loser for WCW (no paid admittance before bikers who weren’t wrestling fans) but Bischoff liked it because he was a motorcycle nut. They discuss the women’s title match and then Hogan beating the Giant for the WCW title which made it all the more baffling when the Giant joined the NWO only weeks later (apparently, the authors reveal, it was going to be Davey Boy Smith but he decided to stay with WWF). It discusses the fake Sting and how that led to the new “Crow” Sting look that would pave the way for the big payday for WCW. Then the big move of Roddy Piper coming over and the revelation that Bischoff was helping the NWO all along, giving him a major starring role with the company. They discuss the kickoff of the mass bidding wars for talent that would lead to such huge paydays during this period and then the first big mistake for the NWO, which was allowing small time guys like Buff Bagwell and Scott Norton to join, watering down what had been presented as an ultra-cool, elite organization. The chapter finishes with the well-built-up but poorly done Hogan-Piper Starrcade match with Piper cleanly beating Hogan but not for the title but still ending the year at an all-time high.

Part II, “The Rise” begins with 1997, titled “The Waiting Game.” It starts off with the “Souled Out” PPV which was intended as an NWO dominant show but met with nasty reviews from fans and should have been the first sign that too much NWO was not a good thing. It also showed what will become a recurring theme in the book, which was that Bischoff went too far making WCW look like infective losers against the might of the NWO, hurting the main company. Another recurring theme arrives as Reynolds and Alvarez note how the undercards of both PPVs and “Nitro” shows were filled with great action and excitement thanks to the light heavyweights and such, something that WCW should have recognized. The buildup to Hogan-Sting begins and it’s quite surprising to see how patient WCW was back then with such a major money maker. A fun thing details Dennis Rodman’s wrestling appearance at Bash at the Beach with the announcers going nuts over him stalling and doing the most basic of maneuvers. All this led to major publicity for WCW, pushing their ratings into the 5.2 range.

But here is where the problems came with how the major players of WCW were not allowed to get wins over the NWO. By this point, fans were waiting to see the NWO get their just deserts but instead, WCW kept pushing them hard with stuff like Luger getting a five-day reign as champ over Hogan while the Steiners were refused the chance to regain the tag titles from Hall and Nash. Even worse was the treatment of Ric Flair and the Four Horsemen with the NWO mocking Arn Anderson’s heartfelt retirement speech, the Horsemen refused the chance to pay them back with an attack and then Curt Henning turning on them to join the NWO for a beat down in Flair’s hometown. But the ratings and buy rates were more than enough to make Bischoff ignore the problems. “Who the hell cared about wrestlers pissing and moaning when WCW was making so much jack?”

After noting the debut of Bill Goldberg, the book moves to a detailed examination of the Montreal screw job and Bret Hart signing on which Bischoff saw as proof that Vince was going under soon. But given such a brilliant opportunity, Bischoff ended up making some bad moves. First, he tried to do an entire episode of Nitro around the NWO with long sections devoted to tearing down WCW ring signs and posts and an extremely long celebration to Hogan complete with Bischoff giving him a ring on bended knee. The ratings dived so low that Bischoff’s plan to push the NWO as a separate show (he honestly thought this would make WWF number three) was called off fast. Then we get to Starrcade, something I plan to cover a bit further on down the road. First, after the coup of getting the hottest free agent in wrestling on board, Bischoff decided to have Bret’s first appearance be the referee for a match between Bischoff and Larry Zybsko for control of “Nitro.” Then, of course, the main event, something that really should be paid attention to now. People may complain over the bad payoff to the “Vince’s son” angle but that’s nothing compared to this. After spending over a year—-a year!—–building up Sting taking down Hogan, fans were treated to Hogan dominating Sting and then pinning him cleanly with Bret claiming it was a fast count (which it wasn’t) restarting the match and giving Sting the win. Reynolds and Alvarez don’t come right out and say it but it’s clear they think Hogan got the ref to switch things around so Hogan wouldn’t lose his momentum despite the fact that his loss was the only logical conclusion to the whole thing. The chapter ends with noting how “Starrcade” was the biggest moneymaker WCW would have with a sell-out crowd, massive gate, their highest-ever PPV buy rate and “the beginning of the end.”

“1998: Momentum is Money” opens with a truly brilliant and well-written examination of exactly why everything that was about to happen happened. It examines how a wrestling star can catch fire, often with no real rhyme or reason, then that, no matter what, a star’s heat will fade but rather than do the logical thing and have the older star be used to give the rub to a younger star, promoters will just keep that older star going and going. This isn’t just a WCW or WWF problem but can be seen to effect promoters through wrestling history, that they’ll always insist the business is cyclical while everyone outside can see they just don’t want to mess with what works and that’s exactly what helped topple WCW from the top. The year itself kicks off with the nice Bret-Flair program which WCW killed cold-turkey just as it was taking off because they were focusing on Hogan. Another recurring theme in the book is the authors’ assertion that Hogan may well be the most brilliant backstage strategist in wrestling history, making himself look indispensable to WCW so he could get more money and air time, which would lead to trouble down the line.

A nice focus of this year is on the problems WCW had with the Mexican and Japanese wrestlers. They mention how Guerrera (and, later, Mysterio) were forced to unmask because they weren’t “marketable” enough with the masks. After being forced to defy the traditions of their culture and training, both men were pushed down the card big-time. There’s also talk of how WCW’s relations with New Japan fell apart when Bischoff demanded that he be the one to decide how the Japanese version of the NWO be run, despite the fact not a single American fan could tell you who was in that faction. Little sidebars mention more stuff like how they blew Buff Bagwell’s star-making return from a severe neck injury by having him turn heel and join the NWO as well as ignoring the house shows switches of the TV title between Benoit and Booker T, telling these small-time folks that “you don’t matter” which didn’t help fan morale. Then, we get to WWF getting Mike Tyson for Wrestlemania, the kick-off of Austin-McMahon, Waltman being fired and joining DX and RAW finally ending Nitro’s 82-week ratings streak and that’s where things start to get bad…which makes for good reading. The part of Bischoff openly challenging Vince to a fight at “Slamboree” is interesting as is the legal battles that followed.

We then move onto Goldberg’s rise with noting how, after a good start, his unbeaten streak soon led to problems like WCW inflating the numbers and piping in the “GOLDBERG” chants which made him look less real. That soon led to the decision to have him beat Hogan for the World title with a massive pop and seemingly huge turnaround for the company. But of course, that wasn’t as perfect as it seemed. First off, by giving it away for free on “Nitro”, WCW blew millions of potential PPV buys. Second and more importantly, was how Goldberg, despite being the World champion, was pushed down the card majorly in favor of the tired NWO. I should mention that here’s where a surprising omission takes place. While Reynolds and Alvarez are generally excellent detailing things, they completely skip over the split of the NWO between Hollywood and Wolpak. That’s surprising as one of the central themes of the book was that WCW relied far too much on the NWO and making it look like you had to belong in order to get anywhere and now fans were being told to accept long-time faves like Luger and Sting belonging to the group. You’d think such an event would be an obvious highlight so leaping over it completely is something odd.

Of course, you need room to discuss the insanity of Rodman and later Jay Leno coming in to main-event PPV shows and of course, the madness of the Warrior’s entry, the twisted mind-games with Hogan and their atrocious Halloween Havoc match. As bad as that match was, it was worse as WCW let the show run over without telling the PPV companies so those who bought it missed the good Goldberg-DDP main event. So, WCW decided to run it totally on “Nitro” which of course, gave the idea that those who bought the show were idiots for spending money for something they got for free the very next night. Also, the first hints of the Bischoff-Flair problems come up with Bischoff cutting the knees off another attempt to revive the Horsemen, suspending Flair and even making Flair act like he was having a heart attack. Bischoff’s shove down of Flair is all the more galling as sidebars talk about Hall obviously showing up drunk and getting into a DUI but still getting a huge push.

When we get to the events of the last week of 1998, the authors do some interesting investigation. They detail how what happened was all part of a plan cooked up by Hogan and Nash to work the locker room with Nash getting the book, Hogan acting upset and leaving and announcing he was running for President. Nash, naturally, booked himself to be the center of attention and number one contender and that led to him beating Goldberg. This, of course, was a horrible move as the fans were so behind him and the authors compare this to King Kong on top of Empire State Building and getting shot by the planes. “Goldberg losing the belt was the first bullet. And another barrage…was about the company in a very short period of time.”

So we move onto the “Part III: the Fall” with 1999: “Gambling on a Savior” opening with Bischoff declaring that NBC was going to get WCW some prime-time specials to compete with PPVs and that Bischoff was going to revolutionize wrestling like he had in 1996 by “doing everything he’d done in 1996 all over again.” It opens with the now infamous first “Nitro” of the year with Goldberg arrested, Hogan and Nash facing off and the “Fingerpoke of Doom.” As the book points out, while Tony Schivone giving away Mick Foley winning the WWF title on RAW and causing almost half the “Nitro” audience to switch the channel was bad, making Goldberg look like a loser and putting the NWO back on top was even more damaging to WCW. A little sidebar talks about the Giant leaving for WWF although I do disagree a bit with their statement on how Vince ended up booking him “a million times worse than WCW on their most inept day.”

As you might have figured by my review, the book has been very tightly focused and well-detailed. But from here on in, things get far more free-wheeling and confusing. This is not the author’s fault in any way. Indeed, it perfectly captures how unbelievably chaotic the company suddenly went with insane skits, stupid angles, hot-shotting all the titles until they meant nearly nothing and keeping all the talented workers down. It mentions the Flair heel turn that went nowhere and how WCW failed to properly use that first hour of “Nitro” to push the coming two hours but instead just threw it away on dumb stuff, sometimes featuring no wrestling at all. Meanwhile, “Thunder” was considered a throwaway show with stuff that directly contradicted storylines from “Nitro” but never treated seriously. It’s a bit jarring to see Bret’s name come up as it hits you how, after spending so much money to get him at the height of his fame, WCW did nothing with him. They talk about the feud with Goldberg and then Owen’s death which removed him for a time. While Reynolds has let his trademark sarcasm and dry wit come up a few times before, from here on in, he lets loose with an air that he can’t believe he’s actually writing all this, at one point saying “if you thought the last three paragraphs were confusing, imagine watching it play out in all its glory on your television set.” There’s pages given to the stupid stuff like Flair as President then in an insane asylum and Bischoff suddenly coming back as a babyface, all presented with numbers on PPV and ratings and gates diving big time.

One thing the book nicely illustrates is how WCW failed to use the mainstream the same way WWF did which could have helped them. Sure, they’d give big paydays to Rodman and Leno and book bands like KISS and Megadeth to give concerts on Nitro but they wouldn’t show much else. A nice example is when Master P and his No Limit Soldiers fought the Texas Rednecks, the Rednecks cheered as they did a song named “Rap is Crap” which actually got airplay on country radio stations. Instead of using this to bolster the company, WCW killed the whole thing because Master P was meant to be the big face and ended a potential moneymaking angle. With business failing, Bischoff holds the infamous locker room meeting blaming everyone but himself for the troubles, saying that if anyone wanted out, they could go, with Raven immediately walking right out. Sid was built up as a monster with a win streak that bounced around with wins added even after he lost matches. Finally, it was too much to take, Bischoff was let go and Vince Russo was brought in.

Russo and Alvarez make it clear from the start their opinion of Russo, that he may have helped build the WWF with his new attitude but without Vince McMahon as an editor, he went way too far. The problems were big from his stated belief (given in a transcript) that American fans would never accept Mexican or Japanese wrestlers to his belief that every single wrestling fan was as hooked on the Internet as he was and thus did on-screen stuff with inside jokes that went over the heads of everyone around. A great example is when Bischoff makes a crack on Sid about the Sid-Arn stabbing incident from 1993, the crowd (90% of who had never heard the story) reacting in dead silence. Trying to recount Russo’s antics is almost futile as even the authors have a hard time trying to make it look presentable. You’ve got Nash returning from retirement just because he had a match booked, Medusa in a tournament for a men’s title, and Ed Ferrera mocking Jim Ross as “Oklahoma.” They also mention Goldberg nearly losing an arm punching out a window and “Starrcade” forcing Bret Hart to replay Montreal with himself in the Shawn Michaels role. Bad but it was going to get worse.

2000: “Everything Falls Apart” is the big climax of the book, the year the shit hit the fan big time for the entire company. It starts off by debunking the theory that the guaranteed contracts were such a big deal killing the company. They do talk about how everyone figured cutting “Nitro” from three hours to two would improve ratings and were shocked to draw the exact same number. There’s a transcript of a column Bret did where he talked openly about his bad feelings on the business and then retiring from a concussion. That leads to the mess of the “Souled Out” PPV where Russo wanted to have a battle royal for the World title Bret had vacated with washout shoot fighter Tank Abbott winning. Even Bill Busch saw what a dumb idea this was and removed Russo with Kevin Sullivan taking over booking. That leads to the big walkout of Benoit, Guerrero, Malenko and Saturn which cost the company four of its most well respected workers and sent things even further downhill.

So the chaos continues with Hogan brought back in after talking on the radio how none of the new guys could draw despite the fact they weren’t being given any chances to and more crazy antics (the Sid-Nash-Harris Twins mess simply has to be read to be believed) and Reynolds and Alvarez make the nice argument that it wasn’t so much “New guys vs old guys” as “fresh faces vs stale faces” with WCW ignoring any problem. There’s more of paying big bucks for appearances by KISS and James Brown but doing no hype so fans weren’t buying to see them. So with business going down, the Turner heads decided to bring both Russo and Bischoff together with what everyone was convinced was a disaster in the making. There’s a fun comment where Russo mentions how he’d love to bring Warrior in as he figured there wasn’t a fan who wouldn’t want to watch a Warrior-Golberg match. “Incredibly, Russo was not fire immediately after that statement.” While it started off well with the “New Blood vs Billionaires Club” program, things soon fell apart thanks to Russo’s passion for swerves. True, they did manage to get stuff like Shane Douglas vs Flair (two guys who pretty much heated each other for real) and Hogan losing to Kidman but neither was the real “putting over” they should have been.

Of course, the big problem was Russo openly talking about works and shoots to the fans. The authors nicely compare this to watching Jurassic Park and seeing the dinos replaced by computer outlines or green screen. Yes, fans knew it was fake but wanted to get lost in the illusion instead of having it thrust on. This leads to the point of no return as David Arquette is given the WCW title, a cheap publicity ploy that killed any prestige the belt had left. They do reveal how Arquette not only fought against the title but gave the money he was paid to the families of Owen Hart and Brian Pillman, which deserves respect. That leads to more insanity like the David Flair-Daphne-Stacy arc, the “blood falling from the ceilings,” multiple title changes with even Russo getting a run as the champion. A big examination is on the Hogan-Jarrett “Bash at the Beach” incident with the revelation it was meant to be a work on the locker room (with even Nash not knowing about it) so Russo could make everyone think he’d given Hogan the boot and be a hero, Hogan coming back to feud with him and set up a big program. Unfortunately, Russo went too far with his “big, bald bastard” rant and Hogan took such exception, he walked out, filed a lawsuit and still refuses to talk to Russo today.

There’s more on Russo’s antics with ignoring a study that said fans wanted more wrestling, less soap opera, blaming the talent (including Scott Steiner who was on an extremely short fuse and violent but still getting the biggest push of his life) for the problems and canceling “Thunder” tapings while the Saturday afternoon TBS shows, a mainstay for over twenty years, was suddenly ended with no warning whatsoever. It is simply incredible reading just how bad this company was with idiotic rants, out of nowhere twists and turns, stories that went nowhere and made no sense, matches with ridiculous stips and ratings and shows dwindling so fast, many times WCW refused to admit the numbers. There’s a great bit on how Nash cut a promo mentioning Scott Hall but because Hall was persona non grata due to run-ins with Turner, all mention of his name was bleeped out so Hall and DDP were seen eyeing a lamp while words were bleeped and the show “turned into the wrestling version of Ed Wood’s cult film Plan Nine From Outer Space.” By the end of 2000, WCW had lost nearly $100 million and a full 90% of their audience with the numbers clearly showing that no matter what his supporters (yes he has them ) will say, Russo did more harm than good to the company.

That gets us to Part IV: The Death. “2001: The Ultimate Swerve” starts by noting that the one thing that kept WCW going all these years was that Ted Turner loved their programming and as long as he was in charge, WCW would have a home. The key words there are “as long as he was in charge.” As most anyone who follows business knows, in 2000, Turner made the biggest mistake of his life by agreeing to the AOL-Time-Warner merger, figuring he’d be held in esteem by the AOL guys as the man who created CNN and cable TV. Instead, the guys in charge of AOL thought Turner was an outdated, over-the-hill old man who had no place in this hot new future (which, if you stop and think about it, was the long-held attitude of WCW heads about Ric Flair). Turner was forced out and for the first time, WCW found themselves with bosses who truly cared about the bottom line and weren’t going to let such bad antics and mounting losses slide.

It’s very interesting to read how Bischoff teamed with Fusient Investments to buy out WCW with the original plans to shut the company down for a bit, rebuild and relaunch. It wasn’t too bad and might have worked except Fusinet lost a few investors and thus money. Then, the accountants got a hold of the books and saw just how deep WCW was in the hole and realized buying the company was more trouble than it was worth. But then the big move: brand-new TNT head Jamie Kellner decided, as one of his first moves, that wrestling no longer had a place with the Turner family and canceled “Nitro” and “Thunder.” Without the TV shows, WCW had nothing and despite all of Bischoff’s attempts, no other network was buying. And so the company died but, because of all the various works and swerves and plays on them, the workers didn’t believe it until their checks stopped.

I have to say, this is a problem I have with the book, that Russo and Alvarez state that it was Kellner who killed WCW. Yes, canceling the shows was the final blow but the damage had been done by Bischoff, Russo, Hogan, Nash and the rest. It just seems off to me that after spending the better part of three hundred pages detailing how ineptly run a company WCW was, the authors suddenly give the idea that if it wasn’t for this one guy, who had nothing to do with the actual operations of the promotion, WCW might still be around. Losing the TV was the death blow but frankly, the body was already in the coffin and waiting for the lid to be shut. The whole theme of the book is that the Death was a culminative effort instead of all resting on one man as they suddenly say.

The epilogue “Spitting on the Grave” details the Invasion and how McMahon blew such a major money-making opportunity by refusing to give WCW an even shake. Again, it seems off to suddenly talk of the value that WCW had considering they’d long been seen as losers at the hands of WCW since mid-1998 so it shouldn’t be a surprise things turned out the way they did. They also chastise McMahon for having Bishcoff come in and embrace instead of a big feud with the real-life hatred both men had but that had pretty much passed the chance to make work really. The book ends noting the rise and fall of WCW and how they fell apart by inept booking and a failure to understand what fans wanted with the final sentence making it clear what they think its legacy is: “Little did they know Vince McMahon would ultimately prove himself worthy of owning the WCW name.”

As I stated, this book is one of the must-reads for any wrestling fan and even those who weren’t followers of WCW will be enthralled by how a company on top of the world fell so fast. But as I mentioned, the reason I bring it up is to show that, as bad as things may be with WWE now, they’re still not as bad as WCW’s fall was. Yes, there’s bad skits and such but WWE still delivers good shows and is still capable of boosting young talent even when reluctant to let go of past names. Moreover, they have what WCW didn’t, a mainstream acceptance. Even at the height of success, you’d be hard-pressed to find many non-wrestling fans who knew anyone in WCW past Hogan or Piper or Savage. But the likes of Michaels, HHH, Rock and Austin were all over the place and even today, folks know of Cena. WWE knows how to use the mainstream to their advantage which gives them more attention and is still capable of bringing in newer fans more than WCW did.

There’s also one obvious fact, something Bret Hart himself stated, which is that WWE has the one thing WCW lacked: Vince McMahon. For all his ego and such, McMahon is still the boss of the company and the final word on all angles and characters. He’s also a stable force from on high who dictates how things are run. That’s light years beyond WCW, where no one knew who the hell was in charge any given week and shows were being written out while they were on the air. Unlike the Turner guys, Vince knows wrestling and knows how to handle workers which is why he’s still around when so many of his competitors are dying out.

If any company is duplicating WCW’s bad times, it’s TNA and it’s downright eerie to see the parallels to what I’ve been talking about: Money blown on celeb appearances, goofy angles and skits, pushes for workers who have long been big names while not giving fresh young talent a proper shot and Russo’s writing. True, WWE is having problems but they still have the mainstream acceptance and adulation of millions of fans around the world to keep going. Not only that, but they have a man who knows how to run things and won’t let the backstage chaos get too out of control.

Yes, the Death of WCW was a sad and painful thing to watch because it really was a great promotion at times with terrific workers. Its fall should be a lesson to any promotion but to those convinced WWE is copying them exactly, I recommend this book as a great wake-up call and a nice perspective that as bad as the E can get, it’s WCW who remains the poster child of promotional ineptitude. If you didn’t follow the fall, the book is a great examination and if you were a fan…well, it can be painful but then remembering the past often is. All we can hope is to learn from it.

Also around 411mania:

Ironically, What Were They Thinking looks at Arquette as WCW champ.

Seventh Dimension has an interesting essay on Chris Benoit.

Evolution Schematic tracks the Godfather.

Quick Talkdown helped inspire this column with talk on whether wrestling is doomed.

Hitting Below the Beltway examines the ROH guys who jumped to the E.

The Shimmy continues HHH’s report card.

The Way I C It examines guys who won’t win the big ones.

My Take On does a great thing on how TNA is out of excuses.

Can They Be Champ looks at the next generation of champs.

Piledriver Report imagines the ultimate dream supercard.

Pro Wrestling Pundit uses the PWI 500 to build a new promotion.

Don’t forget Ask 411, Column of Honor, Fact or Fiction, Viral Dose of Reality, Cut to the Crap, 3 R’s, Triple Threat and all the rest.

Next week, I examine how TNA has been misusing two of its biggest home-grown stars. For now ,the spotlight is off.