411’s Who Killed WCW? Report: ‘The Streak is Over’

-Welcome to episode two of this series. Thanks to everyone who commented on last week’s episode. I enjoyed all the discussion. By the subtitle this one seems like it will be Goldberg heavy, so expect Bret Hart to pop up as well. Let’s get to it!

-Eric Bischoff says by 1997 they had built a lot of goodwill with the audience thanks to the nWo. For 83 straight weeks, Nitro beat RAW in the Monday Night Ratings. Then BOOM! Eric gets a phone call and Harvey Schiller (President of Turner Sports) informs him that Ted wants another wrestling show on Thursday. Eric and Kevin Sullivan both note it will only weaken the Monday show. Eric didn’t think it would work, but didn’t want to be the guy to tell Ted no and he admits that was his mistake.

-1998: WCW Thunder debuts on TBS, who want the show, but don’t have the budget to pay for it according to Eric. Instead, it is paid for out of WCW’s budget. The challenge was audience fatigue as they saw too much of the same talent. Eric says he needed each show to have unique talent. So a type of Brand Split you’re saying? That is why he brought Bret Hart into WCW.

-We get to Bret who notes he was at the top of the WWF and beat Undertaker for the Title and beat Stone Cold Steve Austin. Kevin Nash notes he had his best matches with Bret and has ultimate respect for him. Konnan loved Bret and calls him a National Hero in Canada. Booker T talks about emulating some of Bret’s moves as we see each man deliver a suplex. Bret says Bischoff got up to 2.8 million dollars a year, so he joined WCW.

-Eric says he needed an anchor for Thunder as Bret notes he got a great reaction his first night and then it went downhill from there. He talks about being flown down from Calgary to TV and they wouldn’t use him. He would sit in the dressing room and do nothing. Eric apologized to him, but Bret says that everything Eric said was a lie.

-The talking heads talk about being spread to thin as they had to book 10 hours in two days and it killed any attention to detail. Nash says they didn’t have finishes for certain matches and angles because it was time consuming. We see Giant destroying the ring while Hall sells it collapsing in on him, which I remember and still think is cool.

-Eric says the nWo was still printing money so they doubled down and made the Red and Black and the LWO. Konnan says there were too many people and you can’t just hand out t-shirts. Bret says all the matches were the same and 20 guys would run in for no reason. Bischoff says they lost their momentum and found themselves in rebuild mode.

-April 13, 1998: RAW wins 4.6 to 4.3 for the first time since June 10, 1996 (that was the show Nash debuted). RAW ran the tease of an Austin/McMahon match to get the win. Brad Siegel says there was reason for concern, but the numbers were still good as each show continued to push each other.

-Goldberg: Brad Seigel says his eyes were on Goldberg. The man himself says he was born with something and the business was missing a character like him. “I am the character. I am Goldberg.” Eric isn’t sure if there has ever been a performer, athlete, wrestler that rose as quickly. Goldberg says he never wanted to be a wrestler and his dream was to play football. He tore his abdomen in 1994 when playing for the Falcons and didn’t know what he wanted to do with the rest of his life. He was depressed and figured he needed to give wrestling a try.

-Sullivan notes he gave Goldberg the short, black boots and tights. He made it so he didn’t talk and this was all based off Mike Tyson in the 80s. Goldberg just MURDERS people week after week and the crowd is loving every second of it. DDP notes they pushed Goldberg like crazy and there has never been any push like it. Eric says they plan was to put him out there and SQUASH people. “Why would you mess with that?”

-Sullivan says there was jealousy and we jump to Nash: “Bill’s a fan. Bill’s a mark. Bill’s a football player.” Bret says someone should have pulled Goldberg aside and told him it was pretend. Nash: “This is a fucking television show.” Goldberg says he feels bad about it, but as long as the intent is not there, it’s not his fault. Nash: “Get some skills dude.” Konnan brings up the jealousy and how people didn’t think Goldberg paid his dues and didn’t love it like they did. Goldberg: “They can kiss my ass. I will take that criticism on the way up because I am still that guy.” He says they all tried to keep him from being that guy, but he prevailed.

-Seigel had stars in his eyes when looking at Goldberg. He thought he was the guy to bring in the sponsors and advertisements. The kids loved him and they loved that he was undefeated.

-Eric is in LA and gets a call from Hulk Hogan, and he wants to wrestle Goldberg and put him over clean. He told Eric the time was right and they needed to do it. That leads to The Georgia Dome with over 40,000 fans on Nitro to see Hogan vs. Goldberg. Eric brings up that 10 million people in the US watched wrestling between RAW and Nitro. Booker calls that night the height of WCW. Goldberg: “That was the coolest shit ever.” Again, hate on Hogan, but he put over Goldberg clean as a sheet.

-The question is then asked, “why wasn’t this on PPV?” Eric says he was criticized for putting PPV quality matches on TV. Nitro was bringing in the ratings, but the issues was that ad revenue didn’t work with pro-wrestling. So it was a show that brought in the ratings, but not the ad money they wanted as apparently wrestling was looked down upon. Goldberg says there always seemed to be an ulterior motive, which could lead to the destruction of your company. They really didn’t give any answer as to why they did the match on PPV, though I assume it was a ratings grabs and perhaps they knew Hogan wanted to do it, so do it before he changes his mind.

-Commercials!

-Hey, we haven’t heard for The Rock yet, so we go back to 1996 and see his debut at Survivor Series again for some reason. It seems The Rock was the opening match and would be back in his hotel room so he could watch Nitro. He wanted to see what they were doing differently and what they could do to steal it and make it better.

-The WWF answer to the nWo was The Attitude Era. Bischoff says he calls it The Nitro Era because they took The Nitro format. WCW wasn’t hurting apparently as it was just WWF getting stronger. He says 98 was a record revenue year, but that didn’t matter anymore. He was introduced to a different corporate structure in WCW. He was told by 10-12 suits how he was going to operate WCW and change the demo to go after kids and families.

-Stu Snyder, former executive Vice President of Turner Home Entertainment, and Brad Siegel each discuss the idea that they weren’t going to be lewd like the WWE. Eric says WWE took what he did and did it better. Bret notes that Vince was happy to do all the things that Turner didn’t want to do. Nash: “They had Jenna Jameson on their show and our rebuttal was give the guy an nWo shirt.” DUSTY IN NWO COLORS! Nash says everything they could do to combat WCW was taken away from them. Eric continues they had to go back to doing what they were doing in the early 90s when they weren’t even a distant second place. Eric decided to fight back as he was tired of being told what to do by Standards and Practices.

-The fight took a toll on Eric and he became a negative person. He found himself fighting departments at Turner that he never heard of and it took a lot out of him. He was in his office and Nash saw he was having a hard time, so offered to temporarily take the book until Eric got his feet back under him. What a swell guy! Guy Evans defines what a head booker is. Eric says he had confidence in Kevin’s instincts. Nash says he was just offering to help and should have just invited Eric to a strip club.

-Madusa notes that once you have the monkeys running the zoo you are in trouble. Konnan says Nash was listening to all the guys that didn’t have the best interest of the company in mind. Nash says he didn’t have any problem with Bill and was happy he was being pushed, but he had the belt too long. Over to Bret who says Bill was still really green and hurting all the wrestlers and hurting himself. Goldberg brings up messing up a spot wrestling Hall (at the famous Georgia Dome show). Hall asks what he’s doing and Goldberg responds, “I don’t know what the fuck I am doing.” He was scared shitless as he didn’t know what to do. Nash says if you can’t do that, then you can’t be the top guy. Look I understand the man was green, but they were printing money off his back. The crowd did not care and didn’t not want to see 20 minute 5 star matches from the man. Goldberg says that was when he realized there was a lot of shit going in and he started to smarten up to the business. He learned the good, bad, and evil quickly.

-Commercials!

-Nash: “Common fact. Wrestling 101. Babyface always draw more money chasing the belt than having the belt.” Sure, except for that Hogan guy in the 80s who drew millions fighting monster heel after monster heel. WrestleMania III did pretty well with Hogan as the defending champion. He then mocks the undefeated streak as a padded stat. Goldberg says they gave the people what they wanted and noted he never got tired of seeing Mike Tyson come out and destroy people. They have me on Goldberg’s side in this one so far. Nash continues to harp on the money being in the chase and once you put the title on him, you take it right back.

-Eric says Kevin was a politician, but he has never met a top talent that wasn’t one. He talks about the way they built Goldberg up and Nash was one of the few guys that looked like he could beat the monster that was Goldberg. We get highlights from their better than remember match from Starrcade. Eric needed a creative finish to tell a story. Sullivan says the finish he wanted was for Nash to win clean in the same way Goldberg was beating everyone clean. Instead, we get Scott Hall tazing him and Eric breaks out laughing. He calls it a mistake! Nash brings up the pop from the crowd when he hit Goldberg with the powerbomb. “I’m over as fuck.” Goldberg says he questioned it, but he doesn’t control that and went out and did his job. Guy Evans says there was no plan on where Goldberg goes from there and the follow-up was not good.

-Jan 4, 1999: Nitro is back in The Georgia Dome while RAW is taped with everyone knowing Mankind is beating The Rock for the WWF Title. So, WCW has the advantage of not being taped and their idea is to do Nash vs. Hogan for The World Title. Eric says they were creating the illusion there was issues with Nash and Hogan and this was a battle for nWo supremacy. This leads to the infamous FINGER POKE OF DOOM! I was 17 and I found it hilarious! Again though, Hogan fan, so seeing him with the World Title again was cool with me. Eric talks about the online backlash and calls it dirt sheet material. Nash says people hate it so much because it got them. Eric notes WCW had chronic bad finish disease.

-As noted, RAW had Mick Foley winning the WWF Title from The Rock. Eric went back to his old tricks and had Tony Schiavone give the results away with his famous “that will put butts in the seats,” line. The Rock laughs thinking about it and Eric says a big chunk of Nitro’s audience left. He admits it backfired on him in a huge way. Rock says they got a little lucky that night and it was a real defining moment. Nash: “There were a lot of mistakes, but my check didn’t change.” Konnan says they were their own worst enemies. The Turner executives didn’t want them, but they didn’t do themselves any favors.

-Commercials!

-We get CSPAN on this documentary! They have a discussion about wrestling and Siegel is asked if he is embarrassed by wrestling being so popular. He tells them no as they now have families going instead of guys in pickup trucks. That leads to a discussion if wrestling is classy enough for Time Warner. Eric says that WCW being successful was frustrating for some people as it was never part of their plan. WCW had prime territory on TNT and other people wanted their shows to have that spot. Eric says they would move money from WCW to another division to make that look better and moved losses to WCW to make it look worse. Siegel says it could have been made profitable if WCW charged a lot of money to carry their show, but the license was very low. He notes that wasn’t his decision.

-We get executives blaming Eric for the big contracts he threw out and all the guaranteed money. Eric talks about “ATM Eric” and how that wasn’t necessarily true. He was told by Harvey Schiller that he had been under a forensic investigation for misuse of funds. Someone threw out the idea that Eric was giving out millions of dollars in contracts to wrestlers so he would get a kickback. The investigation proved it wasn’t true but the idea that someone thought it was, pissed Eric off and he wishes he would have quit then.

-Commercials!

-Bret says there will always be bitterness about his time in WCW. He claims they killed him off on purpose. That lets us jump a year later for Bret vs. Goldberg in WCW. He says he wanted to teach Bill how to not hurt guys. He told Goldberg to trust him and not hurt him out there. He feels Goldberg saw him as a job guy. He tells us to watch the match and Bill whispers for him to watch the kick. He doesn’t understand what Bill is doing and Bill “kicks me as hard as he could.” Goldberg: “protect yourself. You knew the kick was coming.” Bret says it was never talked about or explained to him. Goldberg says nobody deserved that, but it was an accident. Bret: “no Bill. It wasn’t an accident. That is a career ending injury you idiot.” Again, it sucks for Bret, but shit happens. I mean, Owen broke Austin’s neck with a botched piledriver. Bret calls it a sad day and he knew his career was over. Goldberg notes Bret’s life was to be a wrestler and he took that away from him. He has apologized and been remorseful, but he can’t do anything else. Bret continues by saying Goldberg is not qualified, but he was the star and they had to look the other way. “When you go through the brain injury I have, you are lucky to be alive.” He says WCW never understood the talent they had and dropped the ball with him. In the end only Eric Bischoff can answers to himself apparently.

-Eric says by the end of 99 he lost hope and was being disrespectful on purpose as he felt he always had Ted in his corner. Well, the merger happens and Ted starts to lose power and he can no longer protect Eric, who notes he was out of ammunition.

-Commercials!

-Next week it’s Vince Russo and his one clip: “I was better than 80% of that roster.” STRAP IN!

-Eric says all the battling internally took the fun out of it for him. The summer of 99 was one of the worst periods of his life. He gets a call on Sept 10, 1999 that he needs to come to Harvey’s office. They inform Eric that he needs to go home, but Eric says he has a PPV on Sunday. Harvey: “not anymore.” Eric was confused but also relieved. He wasn’t disappointed and didn’t fight it. Sullivan was shocked as Eric beat Vince for 83 straight weeks even with the head start Vince had. The suits do give Eric credit for doing the impossible. Eric went home and told his wife he got fired. He jumped on a plane and went fishing in Wyoming. Konnan gives Eric his props for the nWo, pushing the cruiserweight division, and pushing Goldberg. Nash says Eric put it all together and people can say it wasn’t his money but he knew what he was doing. Sullivan puts over bringing in Hogan, Hall, Nash, Savage, and changing Sting. Siegel says Eric delivered everything he asked him. They note Eric worked hard and stayed at it.

-Tease for next week with Vince Russo. Again, STRAP IN! BRO!

-I continue to enjoy this show. This week I appreciate that they just let the wrestlers go shot for shot blaming each other. As mentioned, I found myself taking Goldberg’s side, but perhaps I just felt bad for him with Nash and Bret taking shots at him with nobody really standing up for Goldberg. I understand the idea that the money is in the chase, but that’s not always the case and I don’t think it was with Goldberg. As for Bret, I sympathize with his idea that Goldberg ended his career and that sucks, but he isn’t the first and won’t be the last wrestler to get taken out by an accidental injury. It’s still happening today as we saw with Big E. In the end though there is nothing that says Bret has to forgive Goldberg, but I can see why Goldberg is tired of taking the verbal abuse when he has apologized over and over.

-Bischoff was the other component of this episode and I appreciated that Siegel and the other executives gave Eric credit for what he did and how he was able to do it with the odds against him. Overall, I think I enjoyed this episode more than last week as it was focused. Last week I was just hooked on the nostalgia of the early nWo days. Here, they got deeper into what hurt WCW and what worked. The Rock’s inclusion still comes off kind of jarring, but he is the executive producer (and former WCW Champion). Next week should be fun with Russo and judging by the preview, Goldberg is not a fan. Thanks for reading!