411’s Who Killed WCW? Report: ‘The Final Nitro’

-Rest in Peace to Sika! I have a special Retro Review of a WWF show I did a few hours ago that features what is likely the highest profile match of his career. Also, Rest in Peace to Jamie Kellner. Ironically, we may be hearing a lot about Mr. Kellner in tonight’s episode. We close this 4 episode series tonight and there should be no need for a Bro counter this week. Let’s get to it!

-The following pops up on the screen to start: “This episode contains footage filmed by cameraman Scott Lansing that documents the final days of Nitro. It has never been seen by the public until now.”

-We see behind the scenes footage from the final Nitro at Panama City Beach. Chris Kanyon, Jimmy Yang, Dustin Rhodes are some of the people proving soundbites from that day. Booker says he can only imagine how much money went out the window.

-Eric Bischoff says that things in Turner Broadcasting were more dysfunctional than ever. That leads to going back to 2000 with the AOL Time Warner merger. Look at that sweet, old internet footage. Those were the days. LISTEN TO THAT DIAL UP SOUND! You kids today with wifi! AOL shareholders got 55% of the new company and Timer Warner, 45%. Teddy Turner says his dad never owned a cellphone, never touched a computer, or was ever online in his life. He never even used an ATM. Well, I can see why he never needed an ATM. He was advised that he could never turn in down because of all the money. Teddy says it was a Ponzi Scheme and was going to all fall down. WCW became collateral damage.

-WCW was no longer a hit every night and Siegel says he was trying to fix it and do whatever he could to get it back on track. The wrestlers note it was a chaotic shit show and they had to start looking out for themselves. Brad was not a wrestling person and he admits he could not fix it. They kept losing money and they discuss how Uncensored in 99 had 325,000 buys and in 2000 the same show had 60,000 buys. Both shows had Hogan vs. Flair on top.

-Bischoff says the narrative is that WCW had loses of $62 million in 2000 and there is a grain of truth, but people don’t understand the why. He thinks other divisions had losses and they were pushed to WCW because they knew it could be written off there once the company was shuttered. Others back up that there was truth to that. Eric asked Brad to let him explore selling WCW while it still had some value. Brad laughed as they didn’t sell things, they bought them.

-We move to 2001 where on Jan. 11, The FCC approves the merger of AOL and Time Warner. It took a year to get the approval and by that point AOL was being predicted as being DOA. They discuss the .com bubble exploding which affected AOL. The stock price dropped 50% and that meant suits were looking at what divisions were bleeding money and could be cut. Ted was standing there to protect WCW, but he was given an executive role in name only. Brad said Time Warner didn’t need to own a wrestling company that was losing money.

-Commercials!

-Eric says Brad called him a few months later and asked if he could find a buyer for WCW. Eric called Peter Guber, Founder and CEO of Mandalay Entertainment Group, and he wasn’t interested, but knew people who would be interested. Enter Steven Greenberg and Brian Bedol, who were co-founders of Fusient Media Ventures. Fusient created the Classic Sports Network, which became ESPN Classic Sports. I watched the crap out of that channel when it debuted. They understood media and had connections in New York. Fusient media funded they money and raised $62 million. Eric says the pro-wrestling industry is indestructible and it’s just a matter of the company being in the right hands.

-Eric says they had a loose plan of what they were going to do when the deal went through. They went to Vegas and met with Hard Rock Hotel, who were willing to build a 3500 seat entertainment theater on the roof of their parking garage to hold the shows. The idea was to bring WCW back with a PPV called The Big Bang.

-The deal was seemingly all set and the price was $62 million. We hear audi of Bedol talking about working with Eric and their goal was to be #1 again and win 100 weeks in a row. Konnan thinks they were going to see a fresher and smarter version of Eric running the company. Eric says Turner Broadcast guaranteed them a time-slot on Monday Night and Thursday Night. They were leaving advertisers up to Eric and his group. They were scheduled to close the deal.

-March 6, 2001: Jamie Kellner is named as CEO of Turner Broadcasting. Here we go! Jamie was credited with the huge growth of FOX Network and a founder of WB Network. Jamie said Turrner was a great company and his goal was not to mess things up. Brad tells us that Jame hated pro-wrestling. He didn’t get or understand it and wanted nothing to do with it. Brad things he made the suggestion to sell WCW and Jamie said to get rid of it as fast as he can.

-March 16: Brad sends a memo telling WCW employees there will be a hiatus. A few days later, no hiatus as wrestling is being canceled on Turner ending a decades long tradition.

-March 19: Nitro has a show in Gainesville, FL and Eric Bischoff announces via phone to everyone that he has been trying to buy WCW. They have hit roadblocks that may be brick walls and next week could be the last night of wrestling on The Turner Networks.

-Eric says they were ready to close and Brian called him and said it was done. Eric thought that meant the deal was done, but instead it was off the table. Eric blames Kellner as he was the head dog and didn’t want his prime time hours cluttered with pro-wrestling. WCW relied heavy on television and as Eric famously said, “without TV, WCW was only worth 20 bucks.” Ehh, the real money was in the tape library and Vince was set up best to use that as we would find out.

-Stu Snyder, former executive vice president of Turner Home Entertainment, says he grew up loving wrestling. He grew up in New York and would go to shows at MSG once a month. He is a wrestling fan at it’s core. He worked at THE and then left and became President and CEO of WWF Entertainment. He wanted to grow the core business and made sure to keep up with what was happening behind the scenes at WCW. He had known Brad for a long time and made a call to him to see how things were going. He told Brad they were interested if there ever needed to be a conversation. WWF was going to work hard to get a deal done. They knew there was another player as they pan over a graphic “May 6, 2001: The Big Bang: The Creation of The New WCW,” but they were focused on what they could offer.

-March 23: The unthinkable happens: WWF announces they have purchased WCW.

-Commercials!

-March 26, 2001: The Final episode of Nitro. My review of the show can be found here. We get more behind the scenes footage and it’s pretty surreal to see. We see refs and wrestlers asking what is happening and then losing it when they see a rundown sheet and it starts with “Vince McMahon vignette.” This is wild!

-Vince McMahon starts the show on camera and I can’t put into words how much of an insane, crazy moment this was. “The fate of WCW is in my hands.” It’s still crazy to hear! Booker says nobody knew until that night. Rock says it felt like the end of an era. Goldberg: “It sucked.” He didn’t know if it was better for Vince to buy it and keep it going or destroy it. Konnan notes there was a lot of sadness and uncertainty.

-It was an emotional night and Dusty was there. There were WWF signs up and they felt that was a slap in the face. Shane McMahon has a meeting with the staff and inform them WWF owned the company now. They credit the boys for performing when out in the ring. Booker says he and Scott Steiner had a conversation and Booker said they were auditioning that night. “We went out and rocked it.” Booker closes WCW as The WCW and US Champion. Booker felt that meant the WWF had eyes on him.

-Nash says it was pathetic that people showed up to be on the Titanic. He was happy to sit at home and watch the ship go down. Yeah, bunch of idiots being professional and doing the jobs they are being paid money to do. Suckers! Eric didn’t watch it as it happened live. He felt bad for the talent and the production staff.

-They talk about the production guys and girls that had been working for WCW and NWA for nearly 30 years. DDP: “That’s why I say, fuck you Jamie Kellner.” Yeah, kind of rough hearing that after his passing. We see photos of the production crew and it does suck they all lost their jobs. We see a member of the team start to break down talking about losing that job and losing the friendships they made.

-Konnan was shocked at how low the amount was that WWF paid for WCW. Eric won’t say anything spooky happened, but he has his suspicions.

-Commercials!

-Guy Evans says at their peak, WCW was generating over $200 million dollars a year and they were sold to WWF for $4 million. Some of the talking heads thing it was an inside job. Kevin Sullivan thinks maybe there was an envelope pushed across the desk. Eric says Stu Snyder was an executive at Turner and got a plum executive job with WWF.

-Bob Ryder, shown being attacked on Nitro by Tank Abbott, was part of WCW.com as a host. After the sale to WWF, he posted online that there had been a conspiracy at play. Eric calls Bob a good guy and friend and that the idea was Brad gave Jamie the idea to take the television out of the sale to Fusient, so they would cancel and then they could sell to WWF to get WCW off Turner for good. They discuss how Stu and Brad worked in together and I swear they just admitted to this earlier in the show. Eric doesn’t know if it is true, but there are relationships. Brad says he has known Stu for their entire careers, but it was purely coincidence. Stu says he had no advance knowledge that The Fusient deal was going to fall through and says from what he understands, Kellner is the one that wanted WCW off Turner.

-They note that this would be illegal with the FCC and it would not be worth the risk of what they would lose. Eric says he just doesn’t believe in the number of coincidences behind the situation. Stu says he understands the gossip, but people don’t understand the economics. If there was a deal for $60 million he guarantees the Turner executives would have taken it. Brad says they wanted to salvage what they could and they sold it for what it was worth. He regrets when the ratings started to drop, they could find the right people or story to get things back on track. He admits he didn’t know the business well enough to figure that out.

-Stu doesn’t think anything could have been done to save WCW without having a strong advocate who really understood the business. Ted was the person that was their chief advocate and he was no longer there. They bring up that in the WWF everyone knew the buck stopped with Vince and WCW never had anyone like that. That has always been a valid point!

-Commercials!

-Stu says the WWF wasn’t looking to buy something and kill it. The idea was to figure out how to keep it alive and down the line it can be a separate show again.

-We jump to the story of Shane buying WCW from under Vince’s nose. The Rock says he wrote down all the names of the WCW guys he wanted to wrestle: Sting, Goldberg, Savage, and the nWo guys. Eric notes that when WWF bought WCW, they didn’t get the contracts of the wrestlers. Some guys took the deals from WWF where they got 50 cents on the dollar. Goldberg: “That was not happening with me.” I don’t blame those guys either. If you can sit at home and collects millions from a billion dollar company, more power to you. Eric: “not everyone wanted to go work for WWF.”

-Booker says he had over a year left on his contract and he took the 50% buy-out and went to work with WWF as Flair told him years before that time away was an enemy. He wanted to see how he compared to the WWF guys. They discuss The Invasion storyline and how the WCW side didn’t have the star power to get it off the ground. Konnan thinks Vince missed the boat, but I can’t fault him too much as we just learned he couldn’t get the big names to abandon their high paying contracts. Even with the lackluster Invasion Angle, the initial PPV still did a monster number of PPV buys for a show in the middle of the summer. It is scary to think what they could have drawn if they had all the big names. All the big names came eventually and WWE is still making buckets of money of things like the nWo with merchandise today.

-Nash brings up that WWF won the war and would write the history while treating them like the Confederate Army. “They brought us in under the guise, this isn’t going to work twice. I get to watch the wonderful experience of watching my friend who had been sober for 11 months, go downstairs and start pounding drinks.” WWE won the war and wanted to bury the flag to make sure everyone knew they won.

-July 2002: Eric Bischoff gets a call from Vince McMahon and Eric knew he could work for him. Eric shows up as the new RAW GM and it was another surreal moment. Rock says he likes Eric a lot and they are good buddies. He notes Eric has his bust on the Mount Rushmore of Wrestling Executives. ERIC AS THE PREACHER! Kudos to whoever decided to put that in. Eric loved his time in WWE and when it was over, he was fine with it. The idea was for Cena to throw Eric in the back of a garbage truck and Eric went to Vince and told him that didn’t make sense. He pitched the idea that Vince should be the one to throw him into the garbage truck. He loved every minute of that WWE run and got rewrite a new chapter. He doesn’t regret a second of that run.

-They go around to the talking heads asking the question we have been trying to figure out the last four weeks of this show: Who Killed WCW? Cheatham says Turner Corporate. Konnan says the people in Turner that didn’t like wrestling and the top guys who held down the mid-card. Brad says WCW killed itself as it didn’t function as a team. Nash has never seen someone as high up on the food chain as Brad not take responsibility. He holds up an ipad with Brad talking and says “this is what killed WCW.” Madusa says they were eating their own. DDP says Turner Sports. Booker says the person with the checkbook: Eric Bischoff. Bret blames Eric and Russo, who had no knowledge of how to run a wrestling company. Russo says a business decision killed WCW. Goldberg says a shitload of people contributed to it. The Rock brings up Downtown Bruno and how he told him, “one day you will hear a voice tell you the big run is over. WCW heard that voice and the big run was over, but it was fucking awesome.”

-We close with some happiness as they talk about the packed houses and the highs of the company. Madusa notes they need to remember the lessons. The ride was fun and they were all family even if dysfunctional. We see video of fans having Nitro Parties! Goldberg notes all good things come to an end.

-Nash says WCW was Eric’s creation and nobody else on this planet can say they beat Vince McMahon at pro-wrestling. They have Eric watching on an Ipad as Nash makes these comments and you can see it means a lot to Eric. He breaks down a little and says, “cool.” As time goes on he notes the memories tend to blur together. “We were the number one wrestling company on the television.” Eric closes by saying with all the good and bad he was very lucky.

-This may have been my favorite episode of the series. It’s a close race between this episode and the second one. I found the entire series enjoyable, but I am a sucker for documentaries like this. I did appreciate they asked the question of who killed WCW at the end and let the various talking heads give their opinion on the matter. Konnan came off great during the entire run and DDP was pretty good as well. Goldberg also came off well for the most part as he seemed very honest and open about everything. Eric was the main star of the series as WCW as his baby as Nash noted. Brad annoyed me, but he admitted to not being a wrestling fan, so that was held against him. Bret was bitter, but that’s Bret and while WCW paid him a ton, I can see why he was annoyed with what they did with him. With Russo you either love him or hate him and the main thing I took is he won’t accept any accountability. At least Bischoff will admit what he messed up and will accept that some of the decisions he made or allowed were not good. One of the criticisms was that they didn’t cover anything new, but just getting these people on records with these stories was enough for me. We have heard from the wrestlers and bookers for over 20 years, but hearing for the suits and production members was the interesting stuff. This episode had the cool footage from the last Nitro and I kind of want to see even more of that. I don’t know if that is something WWE owns or if it is personal property of the cameraman that was filming it that day.

-As I mentioned, I was team WCW during the Monday Night Wars, because of Hulk Hogan. I grew up on Hogan and followed him to WCW. The nWo was the coolest thing ever and then you cruiserweights doing things I had never seen. WCW was awesome and there is a reason why a lot of fans never came back after it was sold. I stayed because I am a pro-wrestling fan and will always be one. Even in the dying days of WCW, I watched every week because I honestly believe that even “bad” wrestling is better than no wrestling. This whole series made me nostalgic for the Monday Night War days and it is hard to put into words what that time was like unless you where there. Thanks for reading!