411’s Who Killed WCW? Report: ‘Where The Big Boys Play’

-I am rather excited for this one as I was Team WCW during the Monday Night Wars. That was all thanks to me growing up a Hogan fan and then I thought the nWo angle was the greatest thing ever. I have seen the WWE produced Rise and Fall of WCW documentary and have read several books on the subject. The Death of WCW has been covered countless times and let’s just add another to the list. For some there may not be anything new to learn, but I am sure I’ll get something out of it. We also have the factor of these being wrestlers, and executives and how much can you believe from them. Let’s get to it!

-We start with behind the scenes footage of the final WCW Nitro on March of 2021. Eric Bischoff wonders what he would say if he had to give a eulogy for WCW. Quick flash to some of the talking heads: Madusa, Booker T, Goldberg, The Rock, Konnan, Kevin Nash, Bret Hart. Bret makes sure to note, “Thanks for nothing.” That’s our Bret!

-Eric takes us back to the 80s and 90s and how the media referred to wrestling as The WWF. He notes WCW was if a different universe back then from where the WWF was. He says everyone was happy to be a distant number two, except for him. He talks about the difference between where WCW was in 1993 and 1998. They became the most successful company in the world and almost over night.

-WCW transcended pop culture. DDP calls the nWo the greatest faction of all time. Eric: “It’s like we are standing on the mountain and wondering how we got here.” Egos, jealousy, and wrestlers being pathological liars are cited as reasons for WCW dying. Eric says it was a death by a thousand paper cuts.

-The Rock says the question will always be, “who killed WCW?” Goldberg: “That’s easy. It’s Vince Russo.” HA! Russo: “That’s idiotic.” Nash says the lack of organization ando an executive says the talent killed WCW. Booker says the person with the checkbook: Bischoff. Others say there was too much blame to go around.

-Now we get the proper show opening. Yes, that was just the first five minute tease.

-Eric says back in the day before social media there was an internet culture in wrestling and fans had a desperate need to discuss who killed WCW. He says they ultimately felt it was on him for WCW dying.

-Eric says if he had to watch a tape that took him through WCW’s journey from start to finish he would do it in a heartbeat. He notes before working for WCW, he didn’t even know what WCW was. That line got a big discussion going earlier in the day from Alvarez and Meltzer. They both think it’s insane he didn’t know as he was working in the AWA. Bischoff notes he was an outsider to the business and partnered with Sonny Onno to sell a game called Ninja Star. It was similar to Laser Tag, but you threw plastic ninja stars. They decided to run commercials in the AWA programs and Verne Gagne agreed. Verne also offered Eric a sale job in AWA.

-Eric says he was always curious how television worked and soon they put him on air as a TV host. He notes he wasn’t paid the last 8-9 months as Verne wasn’t making enough money. He had two babies at the time and needed to get money to provide for them.

-Larry Zbyszko worked with Eric in the AWA and made the move to WCW. He told Eric they were hiring for an announcer and Eric was happy to be a third string announcer. He came into WCW wide eyed as he knew he was now working for Turner Television. We meet Janie Engle, who was an executive assistant in WCW. She says Eric was very nice, but you could see he seemed uncomfortable.

-The talent was there with Flair, Sting, Dusty, and they had young guys like Kevin Nash and Scott Hall. We take some fun jabs at Nash and his various gimmicks in WCW. TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES MOVIE FOOTAGE! HELL YEAH! Nash notes he filmed the movie as he was cast as Super Shredder and he thinks Dusty took acid as he told him he was going to be Oz. Fantastic! Nash told him that the movie was called The Wizard of Oz. You can be The Wizard, but Oz was the geographic region. Hey, here’s some Wizard of Oz footage just because. Nash buries the lime green suit, old man mask, and “you’re going to wrestling a geographical region.” ROBOCOP! ABDULAH IN AN ELECTRIC CHAIR!

-Bischoff notes WCW had a very loyal audience. They talk about how it was a southern audience. Guy Evans (author) notes that WCW executives saw the WCW fans as “downscale.” That brings in Brad Siegel, former President of Turner Networks, who says the fans were downscale. He didn’t care about WCW and wasn’t a fan of it. Dick Cheatham, Group Financial Controller of Turner Sports, says that 80% of executives in Turner were not wrestling fans. The one who was though and the one that mattered was Ted Turner. DAVID LETTERMAN FOOTAGE!

-Bischoff says they called Ted, “Captain Outrageous.” He knew people in the offices didn’t like his Rasslin and that was part of the reason he liked it. THAT’S RIGHT TED! Turner built a broadcasting empire and a main part of the rise of TBS was pro-wrestling, which made Ted loyal to it.

-Ted purchased Jim Crockett Promotions and turned that into WCW. They again note WCW was seen as the long suffering distant number two to the WWF.

-We jump to 1993 and Kevin Nash and Scott Hall jump to WWF and become big stars as Razor Ramon and Diesel. They talk about the cavernous gap between WCW and WWF and Eric notes WCW was losing millions every year. Cheatham says the executives hated WCW so much, they would alter the careers of people who were perceived as trying to help WCW grow in anyway. Sounds like a solid plan!

-Only Ted wanted WCW around while the rest never got the appeal and wanted the entire company shut down. That set the crazy relationship between Turner Television and WCW. They brought in Bill Shaw and he informed everyone that WCW had to make a profit or Ted was shutting it down. Meltzer called BS on that line earlier today as well as he noted he would have heard that by now. The idea was to hire an executive producer to take WCW from a wrestling company to a television company. Eric saw that idea and threw his name out there and was hired for the job a month later. Eric: “What the hell am I going to do?”

-Commercials!

-Booker T says they came into WCW when it was a good old boy era, but Bischoff started to change that. Eric says his job was to change the look of the show. He had the idea to shoot the show at Disney’s MGM Studio where he could control the look and had a fresh audience coming in every few hours. I loved that Studio Set!

-In 1994 Eric was moved to Vice President and nobody thought WCW could be competitive with WWF. Eric: “I needed people. I needed Hulk Hogan” THAT’S RIGHT YOU NEED HULK HOGAN! Kevin Sullivan says nobody would be here without Hulk Hogan. Guy goes over the awesomeness of 1980s Hulk Hogan. The Rock says Hogan was the one that broke pro-wrestling wide open as fan or not, you knew the name Hulk Hogan. Nash: “Ric Flair is the greatest wrestler of all time, but the guy that was on Sports Illustrated is The Guy.”

-While they were shooting WCW at Disney, Hogan was shooting Thunder in Paradise. So Hogan was out of wrestling for a bit as we touch on the steroid trial. HOLY CRAP! They have Beavis and Butthead footage from when they were watching “Real American,” and include the clip where Butthead is talking about Hogan taking steroids. I LOVE THIS SHOW! Eric wanted to get a meeting, but Hogan didn’t know him, so Eric went to Ric. He set up the call and Hogan called Eric in the middle of the night.

-Hulk Hogan joined WCW in 1994 and the benefit was immediate. Just being associated with Hulk Hogan had people returning phone calls quicker. Eric says Hogan’s original deal included 4 PPVs a year and he had full creative control. We see Hogan winning The WCW World Title from Flair at Bash at The Beach 1994. Bischoff notes that people could see that Ted was becoming serious about making WCW the top wrestling company. Teddy Turner, son of Ted Turner, says his dad loved competition and he loved that Vince was assuming wrestling was his territory.

-1995: Eric says he had never had a 1 on 1 meeting with Ted. He went into a meeting that also included Harvey Schiller, his boss, and Scott Sass, who was seen as the heir apparent to Turner. Ted asked Eric what it would take for WCW to be competitive with WWE. Eric shot back as he saw his life flash before his eyes with “they are on prime time Monday Night coast to coast and we can’t be competitive with that.” Ted told Scott to give Eric 2 hours every Monday Night to go head to head with WWE (small quibble, but Nitro was only an hour long the first seven or so months). Eric walked out wondering how he was going to do this and say down with a legal pad to write down ideas.

-We discuss Monday Night RAW and it’s importance to television wrestling. Brad Siegel was not happy that Ted wanted to put WCW on TNT. He built TNT into a premium network on cable. He tried to fight Ted on it and lost that battle. I am not liking Siegel.

-Meanwhile, Bischoff is trying to see what WWF is doing and what he could do different or better. He knew the one vulnerability is that WWE was taped every other week, so Eric wanted to be live every week. They had a block of action programming on TNT called Nitro, so Brad wanted to keep the synergy and said to call the new show Nitro. Eric was all for that, though he noted they couldn’t give tickets away. That is where he came up with the idea of doing the show in The Mall of America.

-We get a brief rundown of The Mall of America and how it was a destination place. It is still the largest Mall in the United States. I miss malls! Eric’s hope was he would have enough people walking by and stopping to see what was happening to make the show look well attended.

-It worked wonderfully, and he knew they needed something shocking. Enter, Lex Luger. He was just with the WWF a few days earlier, but only on a handshake agreement. Eric notes that WWE had no idea and it set the tone for Nitro. We jump to Madusa and she talks about dumping the WWF Woman’s Title in a trash can. Eric says that is the magic of live and that’s what made them competitive.

-Back to Hogan as some internet troll they have typing notes that Hogan is no longer the most popular guy in the company. Sullivan notes that in the US we love to build people up, tear them down, and see them rise again. The crowd still reacted to Hogan, but you could hear the boos. They needed to change the perception of Hogan forever.

-Commercials!

-May 27, 1996: SCOTT HALL COMES THROUGH THE CROWD ON MONDAY NITRO (my review of that show is here) and 15 year old me, runs around his house losing his mind thinking WWF is invading WCW. I love this era so, so much! Kevin Nash pops up two weeks later and the whole idea is that Razor Ramon and Diesel are invading. Booker says it was something different. Eric says they didn’t tell the fans it was an invasion, but they didn’t tell them it wasn’t when their first reaction was to think it was. Great American Bash 1996: BISCHOFF POWERBOMBED THROUGH THE STAGE! I still smile every time I see that clip!

-The story becomes who is the third man with Hall and Nash. Meanwhile, Hulk Hogan is away filming a movie. Eric calls Hogan and wants to head out to the set to talk about creative. They meet and Hogan asks, “brother, who is the third man?” Eric says he had spent three-week convincing Sting to turn heel, but he didn’t want to tell Hogan that or lie to him, so he asked Hogan who he thinks it should be. Eric says Hogan shot back, “you’re looking at him, brother.”

-Bash At The Beach 1996: My review here! Eric didn’t want Hogan to go to the arena until the last minute, so he stayed at Kevin Sullivan’s house. They talk about babysitting Hogan in case he got cold feet. Sullivan notes Hogan is a loyal guy and there were risks in turning him heel as he had endorsements, and movies, and his loyal fans. Sullivan says they didn’t leave his house until the first match started. Hogan arrived and Bischoff still wasn’t sure what he would do and didn’t even know when Hogan went out and walked to the ring.

-IT HAPPENS! HULK HOGAN DROPS THE LEG ON RANDY SAVAGE AND WRESTLING IS NEVER THE SAME AGAIN! They show the fan that rushed the ring and got decked by Nash and Hall. Rock compares it to Babe Ruth telling the fans to stick it up their ass. Sullivan calls it the biggest turn in the history of wrestling. That’s not hyperbole.

-The nWo then took off and became the greatest thing in the history of everything associated with wrestling. They hit everything out of the park in the early days with all the small details. LOOK AT THOSE CROWDS AND THE WAY THEY ARE REACTING! Garbage everywhere! The classic nWo shirt and yes, I got one of them Christmas 96. Konnan notes there are still nWo shirts being worn and he doesn’t see any other WCW shirts still being sold and worn.

-Commercials!

-Bischoff notes the ratings battle with WWF was even until the nWo. Once that hit, WCW went on a massive winning streak and became the top wrestling company in the world. He says the nWo was responsible for 80% of their growth. He needed to keep things looking real and we discuss the idea of backstage fights. Nash says they always looked fake as guys oversold it.

-That leads to Nitro at Disney MGM and the famous episode where Hall and Nash lay out WCW guys in the back. They note they were inspired by Hill Street Blues in the way of filming what was happening. The camera runs to the back and we see Arn laying down as Hall and Nash have ball bats. Nash says it was the old Hitchcock where you let the mind create the violence. Riggs runs out and gets blasted in the head and then the moment everyone remembers. REY MYSTERIO LEAP ONTO NASH, BUT GETS CAUGHT AND LAWN DARTED INTO A TRAILER! This is chicken noodle soup for my wrestling soul! Nash says Rey wanted him to throw him into the glass window. “No dude. It’s window. You’ll die.” It was chaos and looked like crime scene. It was great for us watching at home, but apparently sucked for the fans in attendance as they had no clue what was happening.

-Nash says they were pro-wrestling and WWF was playing catch-up for the first time. Rock thought WWF needed to do shit like that, but didn’t have the freedom. The ratings came in and for 83 straight weeks, WCW won the war with WWF. Siegel says Bischoff cared more about the ratings and less about advertising dollars. He took the war with Vince personal and Eric admits he may have gone a little over the top.

-Commercials!

-We are still in 1996 as Eric says he heard that Vince planned things a year out and worked backwards from Mania. He wanted to do something similar and saw that opportunity with Sting. Hall had the idea for a new version of Sting based on The Crow. That is where the new Sting character was born and he spent 18 months in the rafters and got more over than any other time in his career without ever having to wrestle.

-Starrcade 1997: This was the culmination of 18 months of story and Eric says the plan was for Sting to beat Hogan for the World Title and then the nWo was going to be the ones that needed to regroup. You can enter, “that don’t work for me, brother” here. Eric says the finish got convoluted throughout the day. The ref was supposed to do a fast count, but that didn’t happen, yet Bret Hart had to act like it was one. Bret thought it was lame ending even if the count was fast. Bischoff notes the crowd reacted how you wanted them to initially, but afterwards people realized it was a convoluted finish. DDP: “You can crew up the whole match, but don’t fuck up the finish.”

-Time to blame the internet fans again and how they raged about the finish. Eric says he still gets crap today for how that show finished. Eric says that on the day of the match, Sting did not appear nearly as excited about the opportunity as they felt he should be. There was something about him that was off and Eric asked Hogan. “Not today brother. Not today. His head’s not right.” So they changed the clean finish as Hogan had creative control. Konnan says the only guy that wasn’t political was Sting. Bischoff says Sting expected Hogan to pull the ring out from under him and manifested it. Booker says that is when the ship started to go down.

-Commercials! Including one for AEW Dynamite! I am sure any comments about AEW having a commercial during “Who Killed WCW?” will be civil and well thought out.

-Next week’s show looks to focus on the down fall of the nWo and rise of Goldberg.

-Bischoff says Starrcade 97 will haunt him the rest of his life. He says that show wasn’t the reason WCW went down hill though.

-Over in the WWF they started to turn things around with The Attitude Era. Eric says Vince basically admitted they were going to do what those other guys are doing because they are tired of getting their asses kicked. Nash brings up Mike Tyson showing up on Monday Night RAW. We see Tyson punch out Shawn and celebrate with new WWF Champion, Steve Austin. Kevin Sullivan says he looked at Nash and told him he could feel the water getting cold. Nash: “in other words we are on our way to the iceberg.”

-Konnan says he though Rock and Austin were cool. He and Disco would get heat for watching RAW and he yelled he was doing it because their show was better.

-Everyone jumps on The Hogan/Bischoff relationship and you don’t have to beg Bret to take shots at Hogan. He calls Hogan the puppet master and says that Eric was a prop and that’s what killed WCW. Shocking, Bret blamed Hogan. Actually, I’m shocked he didn’t blame Goldberg, though we may get there next week.

-Bischoff looks at the high ranking executives in Turner that wanted WCW to go away and they got their wish.

-Previews for next week’s episode!

-There was a lot here as what is an hour show (with commercials that rolled through) took me nearly two hours to recap. I appreciate the mix of talking heads as it’s a combination of WCW guys that lived it and Turner executives as well. The Rock is kind of weird as he can only comment on what he saw from the WWF side, but he is the executive producer. I like that we don’t have a narrator and they just let the talking heads handle everything. The use of movie, and television footage is great here and lets our wrestling tie into pop culture outside the wrestling bubble. The man key here is Eric Bischoff as this is his story and that makes all the sense in the world as WCW was his baby and it was under his watch that it did what no other company has done and that’s make WWF/E number two. The one thing this show is missing though is Hulk Hogan. Others are speaking for him, but having him there and giving his thoughts in his own words would be huge. With that said, I was never expecting that to happen. Everyone will dissect what everyone on here had to say, and people will take sides. I am already looking forward to next week! Thanks for reading!