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Chris Jericho & Dave Meltzer Recall Vince McMahon Killing Entire WCW Brand Plan After Booker T vs. Buff Bagwell RAW Match

May 9, 2019 | Posted by Jeremy Thomas
Booker T Buff Bagwell WCW Raw Image Credit: WWE

– During the latest Talk is Jericho, Chris Jericho and Dave Meltzer discussed Vince McMahon initially having plans to run WCW as its own brand under WWE, with Nitro running on Monday nights and RAW moving to another night (McMahon allegedly felt Nitro needed Monday night more than RAW) and even going so far as to schedule out dates and cities for WCW shows. However, a Booker T vs. Buff Bagwell WCW-branded match (video below) that took place on Raw on July 2nd, 2001 was hated by fans in attendance, who cheered when the then-heel two of Steve Austin and Kurt Angle came out to attack the two. According to the story, McMahon saw the negative reaction to that match as a sign that WWE fans would never accept a WCW brand and dropped the entire idea. Highlights from the discussion are below:

Meltzer on the original plan: “You know, the thing that’s so fascinating to me is that, again, going through that period was how quickly Vince made that decision based on literally not even one night, but one match. I mean, you’ve already started the angle. They did an angle where Vince was caught with his pants down by Linda in front of Torrie Wilson, which was going to lead to the Vince and Linda divorce. So this is the storyline reason. They were gonna have a divorce, and then [in] the settlement, Linda gets Monday night television, and she gives it to Shane, and that’s WCW. And they were going to use the name WCW. WCW Monday Nitro was going to be run by WWF and that was it.”

Meltzer on the whole storyline being dropped: “And then the reaction to the Buff Bagwell and Booker T match in Tacoma, Washington was so bad. And I remember that night, literally an hour after the show I was talking to somebody in WWF. And I was like, ‘Man, I think Vince is gonna drop this whole thing.’ And he was like, ‘Never, never. There’s so many plans in place, never. This is long-term planning.’ And like two days later, Ed Cohen who was the head of scheduling called me up and went, ‘Oh my god, you’re not going to believe what’s going on.’ I was like, ‘What?’ He said, ‘Vince just dropped everything.’ And so Ed has scheduled these dates for six [to] nine months in advance of where you’re touring, what you’re doing, what cities, what cities are Nitro, what cities are WCW, what cities are WWF. The whole thing. And he just goes, ‘Vince has dropped everything. I have to redo nine months of work like, immediately.’ I go, ‘What?!?’ And it’s like ‘Yeah, I have to redo the entire schedule for this company because WCW’s not going to work. The audience won’t accept it.’ And that’s how it went.”

Jericho on the location factoring into the match not working: “But that’s Vince though. Changing things on a whim or listening to– you know, and once again … the first Raw with this WCW theme was in Tacoma, Washington. And I remember like, Tacoma Washington, I don’t know if WCW ever even came to Tacoma, Washington. Maybe once or twice, but if they’d had that in North Carolina or Dallas, or anywhere! Atlanta, anywhere other than the Pacific Northwest.”

Meltzer on there being better locations for the match: “My memory seems to be the very next week or two weeks later, they were in either Atlanta or — I think it was Atlanta. And I was like, ‘This would probably do pretty well if you had just thought it out.’ And just gone, ‘You know, we don’t have to do it this very week. We can wait two weeks to do this, right? And do it in Atlanta, but you know, [laughs] that was history! That’s what happened … If they had just waited until Atlanta, the crowd probably would have been — I mean, it’s still a WWF crowd at this point that’s going to the show, but they probably would have been not so vociferous and maybe a lot more receptive.”

Meltzer on the bad reaction to the match: “The Booker T/Buff [match], in a sense, those two guys to a degree, got a bad rap. Because that crowd was going to hate that match almost no matter what. They hated the match before it started. That was the thing that was so bad. And then the match itself didn’t do wonders, but those people were just so negative. Because you’ve gotta remember, these fans had been trained by WWF, the WWF audience, to hate WCW for years and years. So now they’re seeing WCW, so what’s the reaction? They hate this.”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Talk With Jericho with a h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.