411’s Who Killed WCW? Report: ‘New Blood’

-Welcome to the third episode in this series. This week introduces Vince Russo and I saw on X where some places are doing a “Bro” counter. I will see if I can keep track as well. Let’s get to it!

-We ended the last episode with Eric Bischoff being fired and WCW on the losing end of the Monday Night War with the WWF.

-1999: Brad Siegel says WCW was one of the many things he was responsible for and it was the thing he liked the least. He notes Eric was the glue that held things together and was fired, so he had the run WCW and didn’t want to do it. Bill Busch was put in place as an interim and was the acting COO. Guy Evans notes that Busch’s first major move was picking up Vince Russo (and Ed Ferrera though not mentioned). Bret says he got the call and was told that Russo was a genius. Let’s check in with The Rock who remembers Russo leaving for WCW and he thought it was great for Russo, but it’s pro-wrestling and shit like this happens all the time. DDP says he was excited when he heard Russo was coming and Konnan agrees. Booker heard that Russo was a genius.

-1992: Russo says he had a degree in journalism and started writing a few articles for the WWF magazine. He would sit in while they were writing TV and it was so bad, he started writing his own angles in the magazine that had nothing to do with the TV show. McMahon called up Russo to his office at 9 AM and told him he wanted his TV to be like the RAW magazine that Russo had been writing. Now, we get mention of Ed Ferrara, who Russo notes was a legit television writer. Russo notes that what WCW was doing was real and it had a sense of danger. He was influenced by what WCW was doing at the time and talks about the fans switching between the shows. The idea was you could not give the fans the chance to change the channel or they might not come back.

-Russo was the head writer during the Attitude Era when then WWF was making all the money. SmackDown was introduced and Russo couldn’t write for another show as he was getting burned out and never saw his kids. McMahon expected Russo and Ed to write another show and never offered any additional money. 1 Bro! Russo started wondering if McMahon cared about him as much as he cared about McMahon or was he just the cash cow writing his show. He broke down and cried in McMahon’s office and called his WCW connection. Rock notes Russo did what was best for his family and was given control in WCW.

-Russo looked at WCW as a great challenge and he saw a new breed (New Blood) that was stuck in the middle and couldn’t break the establishment. He arrived and all the mid-card talent (bro 2) like Malenko, Benoit, Konnan, etc coming up to him. Booker puts over the young talent and the brass agree there was more talent there than people knew.

-Russo recalls looking at Hogan for the first time and he just knew Hogan did not trush him (bro 3). He knew Hogan would not believe a word he said and knows Bischoff was responsible for a little of that. SHOTS FIRED! “I am partially responsible for costing Eric his job.” Kevin Nash (who was stoned apparently) says he always liked Russo, but told him he wasn’t in Kansas anymore. He would know as he was OZ! SID SCREAMING GOLDBERG OVER HIS CRUSHED CAR! SHUT THIS SHOW DOWN.

-Russo says he had a great plan and if we go back and watch the first three months we will see it. He always had Jerry Springer on because it was so hot and that is what he wanted to do with WCW. The wrestlers note it was a shift as the show was now louder and faster. Russo knows the numbers as they are out there for anyone to see and they went up in his first three months. I checked and Russo’s first Nitro in charge was 10/18/99 and it looks like the ratings were the same with some up and down over those three months. He does note it was a slight change, but they went up.

-He took WCW in a direction that the suits did not like. Siegel says it had a slightly positive effect on the ratings, but not enough and they surely weren’t advertiser friendly anymore. Russo says his job was to make the show the best he thought it could be. He wanted to appeal to an entire wrestling audience. Konnan notes Russo wanted to get the fans who weren’t watching wrestling and drops a bro (I won’t count that one). He buries the Judy Bagwell on a pole match and the pinata on a pole match. Booker thinks Russo was just trying to entertain himself.

-HOLD THE PHONE WE HAVE A MIRACLE AS GOLDBERG AND BRET HART AGREE ON SOMETHING. Bret calls Russo and idiot and Goldberg is a little more direct as he calls Russo a “shit stain.” He feel Russo was there to kill WCW and see Seven staring in the room of a little boy. Yes, that is a thing that happened in WCW.

-The execs talk about how Russo no longer had McMahon as a buffer. Russo says he noticed that JJ Dillon and Kevin Sullivan were having meetings and running to the office. Bill Busch told Russo they wanted him to work with a committee (bro 4) and he told Bill his contract made him head of creative and he didn’t want anything to do with a committee. He was going home and they could figure out how they could pay him.

-Kevin Sullivan took over and his first thing was to get back to wrestling. Russo says that when Benoit, Malenko, Saturn, and Eddie Guerrero saw he wasn’t there anymore, they went ballistic as they knew what that meant for their careers. Sullivan says they were a big part of the show, but they weren’t Hall, Nash, Hogan, or Savage. He does say they may have become names like that. Russo brings up Sullivan throwing the group a bone when he made Benoit WCW Champion. It didn’t work as the group asked for their release and Bill Busch said okay. I am sure that won’t backfire at all.

-Eric Bischoff recalls sitting in a restaurant with his wife and RAW was on a screen and he saw Dean, Eddie, Saturn, and Benoit on the show. He knew WCW had hit rock bottom. He told his wife that he knew they were going to call him and ask him to come back.

-Commercials!

-Back to RAW in Pittsburgh where The Radicalz debuted fifteen days after Benoit won the WCW Title. DDP and Booker say it was a big move. Konnan says the office screwed up as they felt they didn’t need the guys. Russo says the ratings plummeted after he left and WCW hit rock bottom. Oh no, they aren’t there yet.

-Siegel notes all the decisions were made by him and someone suggested bringing Eric back. He says his relationship with Eric was always good and felt bringing him back as a consultant was a good idea. Eric told Brad he would come back, but not as an employee because things were crazier now. He would just report back to Brad and nobody else. That accepted the terms and asked Eric if he would meet with Russo to see if they could work together. Russo: “I never thought it could work.” He says Brad never told him that Eric was his boss or had the final say. Eric says he was hired to oversee Russo and the creative process. Siegel says his memory was sketchy but if Eric came back he had to approve it.

-Eric says that Russo was a charming guy and he figured he could make it work. We see the big reboot on Nitro where Russo and Eric hug. Eric says things were worse when he got back.

-They show Nash the infamous moment where the blood was supposed to fall on him and missed. CLASSIC! Nash says to take that clip and show it after The Finger Poke of Doom and tell him what really killed WCW. You could just see how pissed Nash was. Eric: “There was no hope.”

-Eric discusses the plan of The Millionaire’s Club vs. The New Blood (young vs old, a tale as old as time). Russo notes that was inspired by things that had been going on in the wrestling business since day one. That young up and comer Shane Douglas cutting shoot promos on Hulk Hogan. DDP says they were making money because they earned their spot. Booker brings up the Hogan promo where he said he was getting older, but so was everyone else in the back. Booker gets it, but wanted his work to get him ahead and not his politics.

-Russo knew there would be politics, but not to the extent he witnessed (bro 6). He still wanted to do all he could to bring the ratings up.

-Ready To Rumble! I saw the movie in the theater and I thought it was fine. David Arquette is here and says he never wanted to be a wrestler except when he was a kid. The plan was to tie the movie into what was really happening with Nitro. They pitched the idea of a tag match with Bischoff and Jeff Jarrett facing DDP and Arquette. The meeting went fine and Russo was there by himself when Tony Schiavone came up to him. It seems Schiavone pitched the idea of Arquette winning the WCW Title (so there is who you can blame or applaud I guess). Russo (bro 7) brought everyone back in for the meeting and he says 100% of the people agreed with Tony’s idea. Eric isn’t sure how the idea generated and says it was an elaborate way to promote the movie. He didn’t see the harm in it. DDP on the other hand laughed out loud and thought it was a joke. He told them it was a terrible idea and Arquette agreed with him. “You can’t do that.”

-Commercials!

-Back to Thunder where David Arquette pins Eric Bischoff in a tag match and becomes WCW World Champion. There was a little bit of backlash from the fans and the boys in the back. Arquette brings up being in the back and being in shock, but excited and asked Booker how many times he had been champion. DAMN! Booker laughs now, but told David then he had never been Champion. David’s tone instantly changed. Guy Evans says it was another nail in the coffin of a dying company.

-People were pissed an actor had won The World Title. Russo told them it guys eyes on the product and Konnan says it was for the wrong reasons. Russo brings up Arquette winning (bro 8) being on the front cover of USA Today and that would have never happened in a million years. Bro 9 as he says he is writing a television show and that’s what they needed. Eric notes the wrestling audience didn’t appreciate it and really it was the hardcore fans, who he is not dismissing. Eric was looking at the bigger picture and felt they could handle a few weeks of bad press. Eric says he didn’t stop it and participated in it, so he has to take the blame as well. Russo (bro 10) says he would do the same thing today without blinking an eye. He doesn’t care about the anger of the fans and yells back (bro 11) that David only had the belt for like a week and didn’t want it. They show Arquette cutting the promo where he wants to give up the belt as someone like Booker T deserves it. Booker says David was his biggest cheerleader. Good on David!

-Booker says he had started at the bottom of the company and was doing something he never dreamed of in a million years. They took Booker and made him GI Bro again. He says he just would do what they asked and figured hard work would get him where he wanted. He does say that the goal of being World Champion seemed so far off because he was black. Russo puts over Booker huge and says everyone loved him. Bro 12 as he talks about everyone gunning for the person on top. Hogan did everything he could to protect his spot on top.

-Commercials!

-We jump back to Halloween Havoc 1999 where Hulk Hogan laid down for Sting in the middle of the ring and went home as he didn’t want to work with Russo. Eric gets brought back and that also brings Hogan back. Russo was tired of dealing with Eric and told Brad (bro 13) if he wanted Eric to be head of creative that would be fine. Brad (bro 14) told Russo he was in charge of creative still and that was two days before Bash at The Beach 2000. We had a Dark Side of the Ring episode on that show and you can find my report here. Also, here is my Retro Review of the show.

-Bash at The Beach 2000: Eric says this was the culmination of all the issues were at this show. Russo says if there was no Eric, he thinks he and Hogan would have worked well together and there never would have been any issues. Eric says that Hogan had creative control and the two of them were on the same page. He notes Hogan having creative control was the end of any dispute. Russo had his ideas and took the original idea and changed it. The agreed to plan was Hogan leaving with the belt, but Russo jumped in after Hogan and Bischoff left and went into business for himself (Eric’s side of the story).

-Russo cuts a shoot promo where he buries Hulk Hogan. Sharmell had no idea what was happening and asked the others in the back if this was part of the show. Russo says it was a work and everyone was in on it, but he really was that pissed off. Konnan claims that Russo was shooting and Booker felt it was as real as it could possibly be. Russo says the point of the promo was not to run Hogan down. Could have fooled me! Instead, it was a way to get Booker into the Main Event and have it make sense. Booker says he found out 10 minutes before Russo announced it and he was ready to become World Champ.

-Commercials!

-Back to Bash at The Beach with Booker T beating Jeff Jarrett to become WCW World Champion for the first time. Booker says it took someone like Russo to get that done. He was out of the loop as far as what was happening between Russo, Bischoff, and Hogan.

-Russo (bro 15 and 16) says everyone online bought the story hook, line, and sinker. Everyone was happy to see someone put Hogan in his place. Russo says this angered Hogan and his ego. Back to Eric who says his phone and Hogan’s phone were blowing up with people telling them what happened. Eric notes again that contractually Hogan had creative control and this was not what was agreed to. He knew Hogan was done as there would be a lawsuit and he knew he was done.

-Guy Evans says the fans were the most important and how WCW failed them by having the backstage play out in front of the camera. Russo notes he did the right thing and Booker deserved to be World Champion. He claims that is far and away his greatest moment. Eric knew he couldn’t trust Russo and knew he couldn’t trust Brad because he had a choice to send Russo home and he didn’t. Brad says Eric and Hogan were partners in WCW and he was doing what he thought he needed to get it back on track.

-Creative changes again as Russo and a committee are working together as Eric and Hogan went home. Now we start hitting rock bottom as Russo is all over the screen. Booker: “He was brought in to be a writer and now he was writing himself all over the show.” Funny how that works! Russo: “As far as being an on air character, I thought I was better than 80% of that roster.” WOW! They put all kinds of pressure on him (bro 17) to get ratings, so he went out to get ratings himself. He notes he almost got killed as we see Goldberg spear him through a cage.

-Commercials!

-Next week, the end of WCW!

-Russo says people hate him because they think he is his character. Konnan: “He put the belt on himself. He became Champion, somehow, which I thought was kind of self serving.” DDP isn’t sure what brought that on other than childhood dream. Russo says he never thought he was a wrestler, and uses the excuse this was a television show. He also says the wrestlers were hurting him on purpose. So, he has an ax to grind with Goldberg and says he hurt him on purpose with the spear. Russo says he had a concussion and told Goldberg to make sure he speared him into the entrance way, but the spear happens and Russo crashes into the railing. In Goldberg’s defense I had no clue how Russo was going to avoid the railing based on where he was standing and where the cage wall was gimmicked. We get Bro 18, 19, 20, and 21 during that story. Goldberg says that Russo would be underground if he wanted to intentionally hurt him. Russo thinks Goldberg was intentionally trying to hurt him and that spear was enough for him.

-Russo’s last show was Nitro on Oct 2, 2000. He says when he sees himself during that time it makes him realize how much he hates the business. It makes him depressed and he says the same politics exist today.

-Preview for next week’s final episode.

-This wasn’t as off the walls crazy as I was thinking it would be, but it’s always fun to see Russo tell his side with everyone else telling their side. I was worried the bro count wasn’t going to hit 20, but that final Goldberg story picked up the pace. I still have no clue what to believe about Bash at The Beach 2000 as each side has dug their heels in and won’t budge. Overall another enjoyable episode and I am sure people will have fun picking sides and dissecting what’s true and what’s not. Have fun in the comments! Thanks for reading!