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The Monday Night War Review: Episode Twenty – ‘Life After Wartime’

January 14, 2015 | Posted by Robert Leighty Jr.
Monday Night War WWE WCW Raw Nitro

The Monday Night War Review: Episode Twenty – ‘Life After Wartime’

-After months of reviewing this series we have finally reached the finale. The last two weeks kind of buried WCW for all their mistakes in losing the war and this episode seems to be focused on the fall-out after the battle ended. I will post some comments later about the series as a whole, but for now we have a final episode to get to.

-For the final time: Opening Awesomeness!

-For nearly six years Vince and Turner battled in a war the likes of which television had never seen. In the end the heart and will of a visionary beat out the deep pockets of Ted Turner. Just hearing voice over guy say that kind of made me queasy!

-We back track a bit now and quickly cover Eric Bischoff taking over WCW and running Nitro which dethroned Vince as king. Vince gets in a shot as he calls Bischoff a puppet for Ted (a good puppet though) and gives all the credit to Ted. Damn! This is all just a rehash of what we have been fed for weeks on end with Turner stealing poor Vince’s stars.

-Poor old Vince had lost his talent and his spirit, but he damn sure wasn’t going to go down without a fight. Vince mentions that losing the stars meant they had to find new ones, and makes me think we really do need another billionaire to “steal” some of Vince’s current stars to light a fire under his ass again. The WWF fought back with the Attitude Era and it took the company to new heights. JR mentions that there were times RAW topped Monday Night Football in the ratings.

-Over in WCW things were falling apart around Bischoff with most of the blame being given to backstage politics. Jericho mentions in the WWF you knew Vince was the boss and that in WCW you had no clue who was the top dog in charge. Cody calls the WWF a wrestling company and calls WCW a TV company that does pro-wrestling. Vince says Ted didn’t have roots in the business where he was 3rd generation and that helped him in the end.

-WCW eventually went up for sale after the merger with Time Warner. Taylor brings up how Turner said he had lost more money with the Hawks and Braves than he ever did with WCW, but the new brass didn’t like losing money period and Turner no longer had the power to save the company.

-The rumors were Bischoff was the one on the verge on buying WCW, but Vince kept an eye on things. Hogan mentions he had a gut feeling Vince might end up with company and largely based on how much the video library could be worth more than just the brand “WCW.”

-In March of 2001 Bischoff and Fusient Media were about to purchase WCW with a 10 year commitment to air WCW on TBS/TNT. Just before the deal was signed they were told they could buy the company, but they wouldn’t get the TV time. That killed the deal even with WCW being the top rated show on TBS/TNT (according to DDP). On the penultimate Nitro Bischoff called into the show and told the audience the deal had fallen through.

-Vince swooped in and bought the assets of WCW, and admits he never thought Turner would go out of business just due to spite. Vince says to him it was just another day at the office and he wasn’t gleeful in wanting to rub things in those in WCW’s face.

-The Final Nitro was live from Panama City and the first thing we see is Vince announcing that he had bought his competition. Luger says he never thought something like that was going to happen so quickly, but when they saw the WWF trucks at Panama City they knew shit was real. Heyman brings up how all this craziness happened the week before Mania and in your wildest dreams you could never even think of the war ending in this fashion. Everyone puts over Vince and Cole says it was Vince putting a stamp on the fact that he is the King of the Wrestling World.

-We get show footage of Vince’s simulcast and shit is still fascinating to watch. We get stock footage of Shane McMahon from 2006 and it was a holy shit moment to him. Bischoff mentions he couldn’t watch the last WCW. They show a hilarious sign from a fan in WCW that reads “Vince: 1st XFL and now WCW, you are a dumbass.” Keep in mind this was before the XFL even kicked off their first game. Hayes gloats some about the sale of WCW and says with glee “ding dong the bitch is dead.”

-CM Punk mentions he watched it and thought the whole thing was sad. For years you could count on the Monday Night War and now what was next. That segues to Shane showing up in Panama City. Road Dogg tells a great story in that he was fired from the WWF so he went to the final Nitro to see about getting a job there and knew he was screwed when he saw Shane there as he realized the people that just fired him were now running the competition. Shane was then revealed as the “owner” of WCW, and everyone was going nuts as we figured there was no way Vince could fuck this up and he would be printing money for years.

-Tony Schiavone admits he had no clue what was going to happen next and that there were a lot of tears being shed. Johnny Ace pops up and talks about how Shane had a meeting with the WCW roster and told all of them they would have an opportunity. Arn and Hugh Morrus paint a different picture as most guys knew they were screwed.

-WCW traced their roots back to the start of pro-wrestling, and it was a sad night to see them shut their doors. Cody Rhodes talks about how WCW offered a very gritty product and something different than what the WWF was doing. They bring up the n.W.o and Goldberg mentions that WCW provided a lot of good entertainment to a lot of people. Malenko puts over the cruiserweight division and how it changed the business forever and catapulted a lot of guys that would not have gotten a shot. Luger says that WCW will always have a legacy and especially in the southeast.

-The Final Nitro was billed as a Night of Champions and JBL says that the WWE honored WCW and their legacy that night. Booker talks about being one of the loyal ones that stuck things out and he was rewarded by winning the WCW Title from Steiner on that final show.

-They do bring up that a lot of the bigger stars were absent from the show (Nash, Hall, Luger, Hogan, and Goldberg). Goldberg and Luger bring up the guaranteed contracts and Goldberg (from 2003) says a guarantee is a guarantee and so be it if anyone has a problem with it. Nash says he had 13 months of guaranteed money coming his way and he watched the final episode being amazed they lost the war.

-The Main Event paid homage to the first episode of the show with WCW’s heart and soul in Flair and Sting doing battle one more time. Jericho calls it poetic justice as in the end for WCW the focus was on those two and not the n.W.o or other former WWF guys. Stock footage of Flair saying it was the happiest day of his life to see the company close down. He says he was sad for the hard working guys and girls behind the scenes, but had no sympathy for the people in charge. He didn’t like one thing about the final show other than it was the final show.

-Kidman talks about how everyone was worried about the future and Mysterio brings up how people were trying to make connections to get their foot in the door. The fans were excited for the eventual crossover, but the WWF guys were worried about their spots being taken by this influx of talent. Lita discusses how it was an unhappy family as both sides felt they had earned their spots.

-They start discussing how Vince was going to handle both companies and Styles gets into the legalities with their contract with TNN in regards to shows other than WWF shows and just sounds like a headache. Now while this is happening the WWF was 6 days away from WrestleMania X-Seven, and had to focus on what turned out to be the greatest Mania of All Time.

-The event broke 1.0 million buys and sold out the AstroDome. Notable on the show was Shane giving a shout-out to WCW stars sitting in a sky box. The idea was to have Shane run WCW and compete against Vince. Soon WCW was invading WWF shows and they show Mike Awesome beating the piss out of Rhyno. They admit that the Invasion was very similar to the n.W.o angle. Cole says the lower card guys were worried about the new guys coming in and Albert says there was resentment towards the WCW guys.

-The Attitude Era guys kind of piss on the WCW guys for a few minutes. Kidman admits that he did feel like an outsider and he knew the WWF guys were going to go over because they did win the war. Basically all the petty bullshit that you figured happened did and that is what killed the angle from the start. Lita sums it up as she says the WCW people needed to stay humble because whatever success they had in WCW they didn’t have in the WWF and the WWF won the war. Petty stuff that again shows why Vince is a millionaire instead of a billionaire!

-Cody admits that there were diamonds in the rough, and they discuss how some of the top talent was delayed in getting to the WWF. While some guys waited out for their guaranteed contracts, some like Booker T tore up those contracts and took less money to make the jump from the start. Without the top stars it kind of hurt the Invasion Angle and Heyman admits it failed from the start as they were missing Hogan and the n.W.o, Flair and Horsemen, and Goldberg because they were sitting at home collecting checks. He does say he can’t blame those guys however and what we were left with was the WWF vs. Thunder. Ouch!

-The Invasion ended at Survivor Series 2001 and as we neared the end of the year some of those guaranteed contracts started to end. First Flair debuted the night after Survivor Series and then the n.W.o arrived in February of 2002. Hogan, Hall, and Nash all had some checkered pasts with Vince, but business is business. Henry says they are lucky Vince is so forgiving. Hogan mentions there was a vote on whether he should be brought back with the WWF brass and only 2 of 7 people voted to bring him back, but Vince overrode their decision. Hogan says it felt great to be coming home, but he also knew he had to deliver.

-The n.W.o returns in Feb 2002 and Nash talks about the great reaction they got from the crowd, and most notable the crowd was jacked to see Hogan back inside a WWF ring. Shane talks about how his dad would always bring guys back as long as it made business sense. They discuss how the WWF guys were kind of troubled seeing Hall, Nash, and Hogan back considering their baggage. Show mentions he was concerned what kind of trouble Hall and Nash would stir up and Godfather questioned why they would bring in guys that killed WCW. Nash says they had a ton of heat and nobody wanted any of them back and he understood their point.

-The n.W.o adjusted quickly with Vince at the helm and Jericho mentions all three guys quickly changed their attitudes when they came into the company. JBL felt it was a great time to be a fan and Lita says the same as those 3 guys were more accepted because they had more star power. The Rock brings up how Vince talked to him about bring Hogan back and he was down with it from day one as he was a fan and knew it would do great business. That led to the greatness of Hogan vs. Rock at Mania!
-They bring up how stacked the roster was in 2002 as you had the past in Flair, Hogan, Nash, Hall, the present in HHH, Rock, Jericho, and the future with debuting stars like Lesnar, Orton, and Cena. 2002 was definitely a crazy year in the business.

-Things only got crazier as Vince did the seemingly unthinkable as he brings in Eric Bischoff as the new General Manager of RAW. Bischoff calls it a very odd feeling, but it was a good feeling. Bischoff made his WWF debut in July of 2002 and Flair says it was the first time he thought Vince had done something stupid. Jericho and Styles were shocked that Bischoff would even take a job offer from Vince. Bischoff says his biggest fear was that he wouldn’t be able to deliver for Vince, but he was able to. JBL calls the whole deal magic, but at the same time a lot of the talent was rather pissed. Steph says she knew Eric was coming it, but she was still dumbfounded seeing him on RAW. Vince says he will do anything for entertainment value and he admits he couldn’t wait to see the reactions of everyone in the back after he hugged Bischoff. HHH thinks that was Vince’s way to let the roster know that if he can hug Bischoff then they can work with him. Good call there!

-Cody discusses how Bischoff was a great character and Russo says the same. He calls Eric a great on air character and as a wrestling fan he wanted to see Bischoff and Vince interacting. They have a point as Eric probably still goes down as the greatest GM in RAW history. JR talks about how Eric had to eat a ton of shit so to speak when he came in, and they show the various things he got put through: stink face, Mae Young ordeal, having his head shaved, etc. Big Show admits he enjoyed seeing that but it also gave him more respect for Eric and that Eric was a different person than he was in WCW. Austin brings up how people still think he has heat with Bischoff and he says he doesn’t and that he gets along great with the guy. All the talking heads talk about how great Bischoff was in the WWF and how he was great to get along with because he didn’t have the added pressures of running a company.

-More big names continued to debut with the likes of Rey Mysterio and Goldberg, but not much else is said about them.

-Instead we start to get the wrap up for the episode and the series. Vince says that at times he didn’t like the war as there were tough times. Hogan says he had 2 monitors in the back and would have segments moved around to best compete against what the WWF was doing. He calls it the Wild West and you had to do what you could to win. All the talking heads put over the greatness of the War and how each side was doing all they could to win fans and entertain.

-For 290 weeks the two companies battled tooth and nail while at the same time taking the business to heights it hasn’t seen since. Cena talks about how competition was bringing out the best in both sides and how you couldn’t miss a minute of either show. Bischoff talks about how he loved the War and even when they were losing he loved battling. He would do it all over as the highs far outweighed any lows. Everyone continues to talk about the explosion of the business thanks to the Monday Night War, and Punk mentions how for a period of time everyone was watching pro-wrestling on Monday Night.

-The Era was the Golden Age for the business and Lawler says that going back sometimes tarnishes the memories for him as they were so special. Nash doesn’t think the era will ever be surpassed and Christian doesn’t think they would be where they are today without the war. Vince gets the final word as he mentions it was an interesting time and it is a time that most likely will never happen again.

Final Thoughts: Well, there you have it boys and girls. Before getting to the series as a whole, I felt the finale was a strong episode. It started rocky with the usual Turner deep pocket stealing my stars crap, and the Vince ego stroking, but it picked up once they got the final Nitro stuff. There was a good bit of information passed on here and everyone was rather open with their thoughts on how the war ended. The attitudes of some of the WWF people showed why the Invasion was doomed from the start, but to Heyman’s point the fans were salivating over seeing Flair, Goldberg, Sting, Savage, and the n.W.o. When that finally happened the iron wasn’t quite as hot. I was also pleased they gave Bischoff his just due in what he brought in his role with the WWF.

-As for the series as a whole I will say that it enjoyed all 20 hours. Sure some of the negatives have been discussed over and over: WWE rewriting history and harping on fact that Billionaire Ted stole poor family man Vince’s stars and used edgier TV while he was stuck running through his cartoon characters. The other negative was the way the series was put together with episodes tackling one part of the war instead of going in chronological order like some had expected. After a few episodes that stuff didn’t bother me as much even if it did cause a lot of the repeating of things. The more interesting stuff in the series actually focused on WCW as since they were the losers we don’t get as much stuff on them. The last 3 episodes were all very strong and it was mainly because the WWF didn’t have to prop their own guys up as being the reason they won the war. Overall I enjoyed the series probably more than some and probably less than others. It is something I would buy on DVD/Blu-Ray if it was ever released, but as long as the WWE Network is around there really is no need.

-Finally, thanks to Larry for giving me the shot to review this series and thanks to all of you that read these reviews and took the time to comment or e-mail me. This was easily the most popular thing I have done in my nearly 7 years on 411. Now I guess I have a lot of catching up on the Countdown series until the WWE breaks out another 5 month long, weekly series.