I just got tired every week it was who is in the nwo who is out guys bouncing back and forth then the whole group splits and it never got to a point. There wasn’t a beginning middle and end. Just doing the same shit week to week over and over for years. Then Russo comes in and everything just breaks down into nonsensical insanity where nothing made sense. Swerve bro.
I never watched wcw but did read the book of the unaliving of WCW and it the nwo stable does not make sense. And the variety of members was extremely bizarre.
@@JohnKobaRuddy The NWO made sense at first, but that changed when they started to just add a ton of people for no reason at all. Had the NWO been made up of just former WWF guys the angle could have been perfectly logical, especially if they had kept signing WWF talent and adding them to the NWO. This would have allowed them to really build on the "invasion" that started with The Outsiders, and keep the warring factions of WCW vs NWO fresh (and more importantly coherent) for a much longer period of time.
All this series is doing for me is reassuring my belief that Jamie Kellner killed WCW, not Russo or Hogan or Nash or Bischoff. Kellner basically dumped all the losses of the other Turner departments on WCW, while also blaming it for the decline of Turner-Time Warner. Kellner to me will always be a doofus, as he was the key that helped establish one of the worst corporate mergers in America.
There’s a lot of parallels between Bischoff and Tony Kahn. Not understanding the industry, relying on the wrong wrestlers for advice, throwing around somebody else’s money at will. Paying out more money than bringing in.
The difference is that Bischoff is actually good at something, as Jim and Brian have admitted. Tony has yet to reveal himself to be good at anything aside from collecting his inheritance.
Throwing around your dad’s money while never making a profit, and spending aggressively after having made major profits are two totally different things, come on
At this point, if AEW "dies" (Tony gives up), if there's a multi-episide program about how it died, no one will give a shit. THAT'S why the neckbeards want so badly to bless every "dream match" as the new Rock vs Austin because they know they're not going in that direction and time is ticking.
@@SSJ4Omega because WCW was atleast entertaining. AEW is just off in the weeds half the time. Even TNA announcers remember to say the participants' names 3 times. Tony can go an entire match without naming anyone correctly.
@@OffSumThraxx unfortunately I saw it. That was RIGHT before they turned him into a 70’s hippie. I already had one foot out the door when they turned him into “The Fat Chick Thrilla” tho 🤦🏾♂️
I think a lot of fans who were open to watch both WWF and WCW have a story like that when they quit watching WCW. For me I never fully stopped but quit watching every week when David Flair was on all the fucking time
"You see I've waited a long time to say this to you Eric Bischoff! But in case you don't notice it's not Paul Heyman with his tail between his legs going to a WCW PPV" - Paul Heyman
Vince McMahon wasn't "competitive." He flat out sabotaged Crockett with his indirect ban of Starrcade. Vinnie Mac deserves everything he gets and then some.
Vince is a pretty lousy person but on his of atrocities, screwing Starrcade doesn’t even make the top 10. The territory system people despise him for destroying was effectively a cartel. They were every bit as petty and aggressive towards the “outlaw” promotions or independents as they’re known today. They were all cutthroats, Vince was just better at it. And if the stories about Moolah are true, then Vince wasn’t the only promoter with skeletons in the closet.
I'll take anything Russo did in WCW over everything WCW was from the Fingerpoke of Doom in January 1999-Halloween Havoc 99. I forced myself to watch all of those episodes of everything WCW in 1999 and my god, it's a slog. At least the things Russo did were entertaining in the absurdity of it. 1999 WCW is just flat out boring.
Double M was a funny heal commentator. Mark getting involved physically and having a feud with Mean Gene was an abomination but he wasn’t the one booking it.
Nope. Not at all. Geeez man. The network never wanted to lose WCW. The fans gave up on WCW and new acquiring entity did not want to handle all the red ink on the balance sheet. Nothing whatsoever to do with "the network giving up on it" 😂
Has anyone mentioned Bob Pittman, Steve Case, Gerald Levin, and Dick Parsons about how they dissolved Turner Sports and deliberately manipulated Ted Turner out of control of his own corporation?
@kidcoyoteanarchy Right!! Reading the books published by Nina Munk and Alex Klein opens up the strategic manipulation that AOL used to get the Time Warner execs on board with the merger. Very informative and educational, by the way.
I just feel like this show was rushed. It just jumped to 1995 in the first episode. It completely skipped the rise and fall of Jim Crockett Promotions and the NWA, the Birth of WCW in the late 80’s’, and the dark days of WCW in the early 90’s.
Regarding Bischoff not knowing the business, what does Jim think of the fact that both bischoff and Russo(with help from Al Snow) are posting a video every other day about how Tony Khan is the biggest idiot ever in wrestling?
@@arthurdaffos1490 yeah I'm just wondering how Jim feels about it. I'd bet anything they are only doing it because they are some of the few WCW era guys tony is not throwing money to and they see Jim's views are through the roof.
Ud think it b scary that cornette bishoff Russo Nash snow all agree on something but this is aew we r talking about. Only thing worse than the TV r the crazy fans trying to say aew is the greatest thing since sliced bread
Good question. I'd still take Bischoff over Khan since he's the only one to have lead a company to success. And I acknowledge that he may have also lead that same company to failure.
Bischoff has always said he wasn't a wrestling mind and never looked at WCW as a touring wrestling promotion but instead a TV show. Even now on his podcast, he admits he let the wrestling minds (Flair, Dusty, Sullivan etc) take care of the booking and he'd do the production side.
@@stuartoreilly2019 He says alot of things. Sullivan was a good choice though. It's hard to find a booker that doesn't just takeover, or book himself in like a thousand main events
Just read Eric’s book. He was doing a good job until the Turner executives pulled the rug out from underneath him. Even Turner himself lost control over his own stations at some point.
At the time all the business shows and magazines talked about how ted was forced out of his own company what happened was bigger than wrestling and wcw was just collateral damage.
Detroit didn't get Cable until 1984 or 85. They used to have ON TV. WXON Channel 20 would go off the air at 8:pm. You needed to subscribe to the monthly service or buy a decoder box illegally to watch the movies, sports and adult entertainment that aired after 8 every night.
I think a point people don't understand or just don't know is even if you had cable, that didn't mean you had TBS. I grew up in the Albany, NY area and we didn't get TBS on our cable systems till Summer 1995. The only way I saw WCW was 2am early Sunday mornings on WSBK 38 out of Boston, MA which was a superstation along with WPIX 11 in NY.
I just saw a commercial about this.Vince Russo,said he was better than 80% of the roster.This guy was and still is a joke.He will always be the pimple on the ass of wrestling.
Absolutely loved WCW from 1996-1998. Unfortunately by the time 1999 rolled around, Hogan, Nash, Hall, Macho Man were overexposed and nobody wanted to see them anymore. People were ready for young guys like Benoit, Jericho and others to be elevated but never came about and hence the decline started. Eric bischoff is truly the master of pro wrestling.
To get Nash and Hall WCW cut Austin Foley HHH Ron Simmons (Farooq) Jim Ross That's essentially everyone that killed them. They had in 2000 AJ Styles Batista R Truth That's the next wave. WCW killed itself.
98 had some baaaaaad stuff Fall Brawl and World War 3 were 2 of the worst PPVs ever Hogan, Piper, Savage, Nash, Luger stinking the main events up REALLY over midcarders (Booker, Raven, Jericho, Eddie, Benoit) not getting any bigtime push
I'm not trolling when asking this. What is the love for WCW? I never watched it. In the UK. It was only seen as a 2nd rate show and only shown late night on a random night. I found a series called Reliving the War. I thought I would give it a try. We are now 3 weeks away from Ruffo turning up at WCW and I still have no idea why the love. The NWO unveil was good but then that was it's highest point. It seem to run on hope more than any substance. The 1st promo on Nitro was a babyface Hogan trying to be heel. Nearly every main event match from then on was a - Run in DQ finish. I FULLY understand that people wanted away from WWF 95 to early 97. WCW growth seems it was built on hope but ended up just being a let down. WWE turned into what WCW fans thought it was going to be like when the NWO took off. Each bad story just opened peoples eyes and they just started switching off bit by bit.
@@fingersTitan Hogan still had some fans. Savage/Flair pre-NWO was a rather hot program. NWO set things on fire with a brilliant story. Cruiserweights and new faces kept it interesting, a good mixture from early 96 to maybe fall 98. DDP and Goldberg drew money, guest stars like Rodman, Malone, Leno kept them afloat for a while too
@@smarkslowplay3512 but why was the NWO popular? Hogan couldn't cut a promo and half the rubbish he kept spouting was random, made no sense and that happened very early on. He only worked X amount of matches from that moment and got them out of the way in the first half of each year and didn't wrestle for the next 6 months. Nash and Hall were good but badly written on all fronts. Nash did work but not as much as you think. Hall worked a lot of matches. He were 2 or 3 times the total matches of Hogan and Nash combined at the split. DDP was great for a short time and as soon as he hit the top. They messed it up. Goldberg is the same. The run was good but the end was WCW. Yet again. If they pushed the Cruisers more. That would of been better. That is why Eddie, Chris and co jumped. Great talent used wrong. I honestly do not get it. Sorry.
Eric's television personality was like an actor playing a politician. And I loved (to hate) it. He is polite and well spoken in perosn but he's definitely a bit of a slimebag so it worked so naturally for him, just like Jim being an obnocious rich southern boy. Art imitating life a bit. 😂
Wahoo, VonRashke, Zuhmoff, Gagne. Enos and Bloom are the only ones that did anything (The Beverly Brothers) that I recall. That's about a 2:30 clip...with an ad promo
@@maceomaceo11 zuhmoff went to the slammer Gagne looked like peanut vendor at a baseball game. Raschke was built like a ostrich wahoo by that point was old.enos was in the Beverly Brothers I think.
@@PJBlick mismanaging Bret. Bret was my favorite since kindergarten and when Bret turned heel after Austin, spring of my 4th grade year, Bret's mic skills peaked and his in ring attitude was gritty and Vince gave that heel spot to Shawn and Shawn wanted Bret out and Vince wanted to cut costs so he let Bret go, Montreal happened and then WCW mismanages the hot free agent they poached it shows how horrible the operation was.
Why does Corny never bring up when he did the table for 3 show on the network with bischoff and Michael Hayes when he tells the story that he's so proud of that he almost blows his load every time he tells it about wiping the booger on Eric's car. And found out that he was the stooge being played by another stooge?
Because he really had or has no reason to hate Bischoff tbh. He only hates him because of what Ole said or Greg Gagne has said,I fuck with Jim but he really just makes up reason why he hates Eric…now its his bankruptcies and he wasnt a big enough wrestling fan
I swear he brought that exact story up not that long ago. I think it was on the podcast after Ole Anderson died. Also speaking from experience, I think being the stooge of a stooge is still enough reason not to like someone. Objectively I know the store manager of my former workplace has no real authority to change what I hated about my time working there but he was the direct authority above me, that was being very uncommunicative and requesting I work through holidays and so on. Sure he's making his life easier by not bucking the system and covering his own arse and I got that but knowing that, didn't make my life any easier, nor did it make me like him any more.
There’s probably some truth in Eric’s statement. Around that time, he was working for AWA, and Eric admitted that he wasn’t getting paid well at that time so he was struggling financially. I’m sure that he didn’t have cable if he was financially struggling.
For all that they say Bischoff did to kill WCW, I don't think WCW made it as long as it did without him. Yeah he was using Turner's money, but so did others before him & did worse.
@@dzig228 People act like WCW was the only department to use Turner's money. The Atlanta Falcons survived on Turner money, for nearly 2 decades. The right's to the NBA went in the red a few times too. Also, Warner Bros and the Cartoon Network were hemorrhaging money.
I just watched the second episode of this series, and it made me a lot more sympathetic towards Bischoff. Dude had to deal with execs rooting against the show on top of all the wrestlers's egos and demands. Anyone would go off the rails in that environment.
A warning for what ? The warning should be to WWE. Bigger doesn't mean better. Tony can keep doing what He's doing and doesn't have to answer to anybody. When the feds are done with Vince the wwe house of cards will fall. Multiple wwe indictments are coming. The feds have a 97% conviction rate
@@sionrouge1697"doesn't have to answer to anyone" isn't always good. You gotta have some filter or hierarchy so your talent isn't essentially running your promotion which is what we've seen in AEW. WWE at least has structure, if you wanna keep hanging your hat on Vince's crimes that's fine but WWE is separate from that now especially with the new regime in charge. And bigger does mean better, actually. WWE is making money hand over fist from the Endeavor merger, Netflix deal, sold out buildings and sponsorship deals. The content or creative is shit but they're raking in so much money and getting more eyes back on the product. AEW has been in the red for 5 years.
The NWO obviously was a really effective storyline. But it had a shelf life. You always have to have new, fresh ideas. Bischoff became so obsessed with that storyline that he neglected the rest of his highly talented roster. The midcard and cruiserweight division got buried so that when the NWO did become stale, he had nothing to turn to. Also, continuity from the beginning was nonexistent. You’d have random matches from week to week and storylines would just die. That happened in WWF too, but Vince did it because he saw that it wasn’t going anywhere and pivoted to something that worked. By the time Bret Hart was properly utilized, he was basically just another guy. He wasn’t seen as main event material. If you don’t book a top talent correctly, that can happen. The NWO drew money. For a little while. But you have to have something else on the go constantly and something for everyone to do that keeps them relevant.
This is why I knew the documentary wouldn't be an accurate one. It was produced by a wrestler, who didn't really care about wrestling until he was in it. Till then he just knew his dad was a wrestler. So he just uses the WWE talking points of what happened with WCW
I havent seen this series just yet, but they should have done it chronologically. First episode be about Jim Herd, the second about Bischoff, and the third be about Russo and the end of official WCW. From a story standpoint, I feel like that would make the most sense.
With the WCW it was bad hires in the office , because the office deals with story line and promotions and advertising, you can't spend more than you gross for long , this type of (wrestling) is a sell asses in seats and PPV buys , that's why it failed
Alot of people talking about what killed wcw but you wanna know what didn't kill wcw? Those awesome themes that were just bootlegs of major radio hits of the time.
@@sionrouge1697 They were different characters yeah, But still of the top 7 guys in WWF from 1998 - 2001 4 of them came from WCW at a point in time. Austin, Taker, Foley and HHH. only Rock, Angle and Kane weren't there. But when in WCW none f them were the same level of star WWF made them into. Cactus jack in WCW never would have made it the way mankind blew up in the attitude era. Stunning Steve never would have taken off the way Stone cold did. Mean mark would never have even hoped to live up to The Undertaker. And Jean paul levesque never could have hoped to be what Triple H was. While at a point WCW thrived in that mid to late 90s. Ultimately yeah WWE is where stars are made in pro wrestling outside of some years in the old NWA.
@@sionrouge1697That was a very bad comparison lol. A WR and a QB have two completely different skillsets and responsibilities. In wrestling every wrestler has the same goal which is to get over
I just ran into a old clip of Jim Cornette on WCW. Pretending to be Elmer Fudd. Using his tennis racket as a gun. He said... shhhh be quiet I'm hunting warriors. 😂
Re: bankruptcy & financial problems. Guys like Bischoff have a tendency to live beyond their means, to sell the image and use that to make money off others. It's usually a dance along the edge; and, if it goes south, they fall over the edge quickly and land hard.
Jim speaking fire 🔥. I didn't get cable in NY until my mom got it in 1990. I had to depend on a friend to give me WCW updates prior to that. Nobody cared about WWF we wanted the REAL wrestling in the late 80s which was the southern wrestling of WCW/NWA
At its worst WCW was still pulling about 2 million in the ratings. Still better than anything AEW does now. WCW was gonna be worthless without a TV deal.
If you can find a copy, read The Death of WCW. It's written by WrestleCrap founder R.D. Reynolds and Bryan Alvarez, and published by ECW Press. It's worth the effort because they really go into detail and they also inject irreverent humor into the whole saga.
The reason wcw in the early days gets often glossed over is nobody outside of nwa die hards saw wcw as competition to Vince...So the WCW story is often told as...when Eric took over...And I'm a nwa guy from the late 70s. .watching Georgia Championship Wrestling.
@@RobertoTheOriginalManFromTheA Basically the wheels started coming after Halloween Havoc '89. It was bad before that, but as a fan, we didn't know that
The answer to the question “who killed WCW?” isn’t a mystery anymore. It was answered in the first episode the moment Dick Cheetum explained that he was told in no uncertain terms by aol/time warner that being seen as in anyway pro WCW would be “career suicide” Bad creative (at least in comparison to WWF at the time) and profit deficits were like handing time warner the gun to shoot them with, but TW eventually would have found it themselves regardless.
We all knew Bischoff didn't know what the hell he was doing but Jim be talking like he would've done much better. How many failing companies how you played a part in.....a few. You've failed at booking as well, but excelled at being a manager. You're good at knowing the business but you can't run a successful company yourself.
Bischoff is a snake but goddamn is he a smooth operator. Seriously, if you could give Corny 2% of Eric’s slick talking and ability to hold his temper, he’d have conquered the wrestling business.
Crazy that both Ted Turner and Vince McMahon were essentially tricked & played out of their companies. That era of ambitious businessmen is officially dead and gone.
Remember staying up to 2 in the morning for WCW. Nikita Kolof is why I started. Went from Dr.Death Steve Williams to Magnum T.A. Then was so happy to see Nitro on Monday. Chris Jericho fan from day 1.
I always like Tony Schiavone’s story about an executive insisting Tony put together a proposal for running the company after Watts left but Tony was so depressed he didn’t care and Eric got it instead. WCW literally told Tony they wanted him to run it.
@@sionrouge1697 Eric was an even lower ranking announcer. Eric is credited with being able to talk with the executives, and Tony said they were essentially inviting him to their meetings. He was as much one of them as Eric, and Tony was from the area.
I was perfectly okay with early 90s WCW, pre-Hogan. If that was a distant number 2---it was number one with me. Yes, they did some hokey things like Norman the Lunatic, PN News and the Ding Dongs (and I'm glad Bill Watts came in and cleaned up some of that shit), but that was balanced out with really quality talent---the best they had in years
Bischoff has openly admitted that he's great at making money, but not good at keeping it. He's just one of those higher risk entrepreneurial guys. Wins some and loses some.
It isn't complicated. WCW didn't make new stars, the older guys like Hogan had too much pull and say, and they lost money with a company that didn't tolerate it
I would argue that Bischoff actually picked up a lot of wrestling knowledge. He definitely knows a lot about wrestling at this point, maybe not early on though.
I know Bill Watts didn't make things worse than Jim Herd did, but I think Jim lets him off lightly; things like banning top rope moves (and then taking part in a pointless segment where he announces the rule is being removed before 'sperging out over exceptions) and removing protective mats from ringside were never going to draw dimes and I've heard he still seemed to think that house shows were more important than PPVs for profit (at least Kip's financial incentives raised backstage morale, even if supposedly wanting to play $3.5 million/year for Jake Roberts was ridiculous).
I think this channel is behind the times and unaware for TH-cam strategies. It's more lucrative to release the full podcast ASAP and then put out clips. Not wait 2 weeks to release them. Maybe release a few clips right before it comes out. They're just losing money and making it inconvenient to the consumer
Good or bad it would have gone under , if it was a top rated show it would have simply sold for higher but the same thing would’ve happened , THEY NO LONGER WABTED TO DEAL WITH WRESTLING , the bad booking was just cosmetic to the story
What killed wcw was the inability to move onto younger talent. Had such great young wrestlers they could have pushed. Very vince like in the early 90s being unable to move on from the older generation for guys like bret, scsa, rock. Vince got very lucky wcw took hogan and shawn losing his smile opened the door for the young talent
Ah, yes...Corny mentioned that Starrcade '86 sales ad. I remember them playing it at least once per show back in '86-'87. I remember that one and the sales ad for the Crocket Cup '87. Here's the Starrcade ad: th-cam.com/video/fvwvNl7P8zY/w-d-xo.html
Corny is way off on this... He has no idea how the aol tome warner merger changed everything. The WCW he describes was gone by the time bischoff really had control. Bischoff gradually gained full control. At first he was just in charge of the TV side (his strength)
When sh1t stain (Russo) got rehired in 2002 by WWE, he wanted to rehash the invasion storyline with wcw guys who missed the invasion as they decided to sit out their contracts with Time Warner. Russo was let go 2 days later.
@DBecks09 "nobody needed the nwo in 2002" - yet when they debut at No way put that year. They got the biggest reaction that night. You revisionist marks are something else
@DBecks09 "nobody needed the nwo in 2002" - yet when they debut at No way put that year. They got the biggest reaction that night. You revisionist marks are something else
@@louio Yes you're right I exaggerated a bit. But they were old, especially Hall was struggling. So there was differently a case to do something with the fresher guys like Goldberg and Steiner. And then imagine they finally manage to convince Sting with it. (of course Steiner's injury would have ruined it for him as well unfortunately)
Eric Bischoff is a snakes oil salesman but I trust his account of what went on the corporate side of things because nobody else was there or a least anybody from the wrestling podcast community and with all due respect that includes Jim and Brian's opinion. Edit: Jim admittedly was running smw, then working for WWE, and then ovw at the time, so he wasn't paying attention to wcw. And Brian last is a little bit older than I am so he was in high school or early twenties at the time.
@@kidcoyoteanarchy Eric’s accounts have been disputed by COUNTLESS people who were also there went it all happened. He’s been proven to be a liar and someone who doesn’t know how to tell the truth. He’s taking advantage of the fact that many of these people are either dead or have decided to not take part in the documentary.
I remember in late 99 we couldn’t get nitro in Canada for some reason. The only way I could keep up with them was their horrible clip shows on the weekends. I knew around that time that wcw was headed downwards
Say what you want about bischoff. 96,97, 98 with him In charge, wcw was making a ton of money. The merchandise, video games, wrestlers making tv appearances were everywhere. I remember watching the mlb all star game and Jason Kendall came to bat with the nwo music playing in the back. Nitro filled up the Georgia dome. This is nearly a 3 year run. You cannot just simply say bischoff was just a good tv personality.
We already know who killed WCW.
Rikishi did it. And we all know why...
Because he did it for the rock
😂😂😂😂😂😂
Cuz stone cold said so?
Bro did it for the rock
He did it….for da people
I just got tired every week it was who is in the nwo who is out guys bouncing back and forth then the whole group splits and it never got to a point. There wasn’t a beginning middle and end. Just doing the same shit week to week over and over for years. Then Russo comes in and everything just breaks down into nonsensical insanity where nothing made sense. Swerve bro.
Yep, the are you in or out storyline is why I stopped watching. And why go check back from WWF to WCW when the entire show is only that😂
I never watched wcw but did read the book of the unaliving of WCW and it the nwo stable does not make sense. And the variety of members was extremely bizarre.
I love that the whole angle of Sting was being anti-nwo. So what do they do? Kill his momentum at Starcade, then make him join NWO. Huh????
@@JohnKobaRuddyThe NWO was still making tons of money even after it was dissolved. I don't think we'll ever see that again outside WWE.
@@JohnKobaRuddy The NWO made sense at first, but that changed when they started to just add a ton of people for no reason at all. Had the NWO been made up of just former WWF guys the angle could have been perfectly logical, especially if they had kept signing WWF talent and adding them to the NWO. This would have allowed them to really build on the "invasion" that started with The Outsiders, and keep the warring factions of WCW vs NWO fresh (and more importantly coherent) for a much longer period of time.
All this series is doing for me is reassuring my belief that Jamie Kellner killed WCW, not Russo or Hogan or Nash or Bischoff. Kellner basically dumped all the losses of the other Turner departments on WCW, while also blaming it for the decline of Turner-Time Warner. Kellner to me will always be a doofus, as he was the key that helped establish one of the worst corporate mergers in America.
Nope.
💯% Eric Bischoff.
Bischoff has always been a conman clown 🤡
Even worse was that Jamie Kellner was successful with his changes
@yoholmes273 The boss of the entire company said, "get rid of it (WCW)". Not one damn thing anybody in WCW could do about it.
Kellner gave it the killing blow, but it was already beaten, bruised and bleeding from Hogan, Bischoff, Shitstain, etc.
Nah. He just shot the old dog. Wcw wasn't worth much. More than they sold it for but not worth 100$ million dollar loss a year
"They weren't paying me that much, so I was stoned to the bone while I was there."
-Kevin Nash, trying to remember this documentary on his podcast.
Kevin “I never had a problem with *insert name*…” Nash
I knew he looked fkd up when he came up to talk. Lol
I had my suspicions lol
Kevin Nash is the epitome of an unreliable narrator.
@@zlinedavidhe doesn't have a problem with anyone NOW. But when he was active he had a problem with anyone in wcw not named Scott hall or syxx
There’s a lot of parallels between Bischoff and Tony Kahn. Not understanding the industry, relying on the wrong wrestlers for advice, throwing around somebody else’s money at will. Paying out more money than bringing in.
You forgot to drop the mic after spittin them facts.
The difference is that Bischoff is actually good at something, as Jim and Brian have admitted. Tony has yet to reveal himself to be good at anything aside from collecting his inheritance.
Which is why Bischoff is calling Tony out regularly. His Tiny rants are hilarious!
@@DovahFett snorting lines and writing checks, and maybe hugging
Throwing around your dad’s money while never making a profit, and spending aggressively after having made major profits are two totally different things, come on
AEW wishes they can get more press than WCW. Even in 2024, WCW has been dead for over 20 years and still gets more press and coverage than AEW. 😂
At this point, if AEW "dies" (Tony gives up), if there's a multi-episide program about how it died, no one will give a shit. THAT'S why the neckbeards want so badly to bless every "dream match" as the new Rock vs Austin because they know they're not going in that direction and time is ticking.
@@SSJ4Omega because WCW was atleast entertaining. AEW is just off in the weeds half the time. Even TNA announcers remember to say the participants' names 3 times. Tony can go an entire match without naming anyone correctly.
Literally nobody cares about either but wrestling fans.
You outta line, but you right.
WCW died to me when Mike Awesome became “That 70’s Guy”. I never watched another episode of WCW after that.
The "FAT Chick Thrilla"
That was bad, but I think I was done with WCW by the time "That 70s guy" was a thing.
You were lucky enough to avoid seeing his fatty chaser gimmick
@@OffSumThraxx unfortunately I saw it. That was RIGHT before they turned him into a 70’s hippie. I already had one foot out the door when they turned him into “The Fat Chick Thrilla” tho 🤦🏾♂️
I think a lot of fans who were open to watch both WWF and WCW have a story like that when they quit watching WCW. For me I never fully stopped but quit watching every week when David Flair was on all the fucking time
"You see I've waited a long time to say this to you Eric Bischoff! But in case you don't notice it's not Paul Heyman with his tail between his legs going to a WCW PPV" - Paul Heyman
What’s their from? Love it.
@@tylerbushong3452 One Night Stand 2005... A WWE PPV that pretended to be an ECW one ;)
Vince McMahon wasn't "competitive." He flat out sabotaged Crockett with his indirect ban of Starrcade. Vinnie Mac deserves everything he gets and then some.
Vince McMahon 2024.
Vince McMahon killed JFK and also had a hand in taking down the twin towers on 9-11
Did Vince own the TV networks?
Vince is a pretty lousy person but on his of atrocities, screwing Starrcade doesn’t even make the top 10. The territory system people despise him for destroying was effectively a cartel. They were every bit as petty and aggressive towards the “outlaw” promotions or independents as they’re known today.
They were all cutthroats, Vince was just better at it. And if the stories about Moolah are true, then Vince wasn’t the only promoter with skeletons in the closet.
@@ymca4547 He briefly owned the Saturday night slot on TBS. Black Saturday. But he would sell it to Crockett.
I just saw one nitro from 2000, it boggles my mind how some people will excuse and even praise vince russo.
Exactly, it sucked then, now & forever 😂
Russo pushed Bret in wcw and the midcard guys so it wasnt all bad.
Still miles better than the current product
I'll take anything Russo did in WCW over everything WCW was from the Fingerpoke of Doom in January 1999-Halloween Havoc 99. I forced myself to watch all of those episodes of everything WCW in 1999 and my god, it's a slog. At least the things Russo did were entertaining in the absurdity of it. 1999 WCW is just flat out boring.
@@markellzey1531 mid 90s wwf with all the great characters and real wrestling before crash tv was my favorite era
Correct me if I'm wrong but I thought Eric bischoff was trying to sell meat out of a truck in Minneapolis.
"Eric was a precursor to Tony Khan." Not quite, it's just that AEW is a 1999-2000 WCW cover band.
At least Tony the cocaine homie is using family money, Eric was using an old billionaires bread
AEW is nowhere near as bad as 99-2000 WCW
@@midlifemcnonswagger No cover band is as good as the original artist.
@@Cruising_On_Lake_Havasoma I mean yes, but when the bar’s level is set to to 99-2000 WCW it’s pretty easy to be better than that
@@midlifemcnonswagger Well said!!!
My definitive Larry Nelson memory, is him trying to figure out the name of the Beverly Hills Lingerie, Street Fight, Battle Royale at Super Clash III
WCW killed WCW.
Vince: It was me all along!!
Eric had a hand in it at least 😅
Corny once called it a reverse mass murder - many killers, one victim.
Time Warner merger killed WCW period...
WCW Screwed WCW
Mark Madden killed WCW.
And then he ate it.
(Read like Jabba the Hutt) Ho Ho Ho! 😂😂😊
Lmfao 😂😂😂
Double M was a funny heal commentator. Mark getting involved physically and having a feud with Mean Gene was an abomination but he wasn’t the one booking it.
😆
Heel*@@sendtodevnull1269
2030 we'll be watching Who Killed AEW?
I don't think it'll take that long.
Probably be in 2025
We'll need to wait a few years to let the corpse decompose a bit.
I can’t wait 😂
No we won't be.
WCW had talent in the mid card past all the steroid guys. And most of there guys could cut a promo. And they sold merchandise.
I'm I the only one who wishes Jim and Eric got along? Because they could have been a fantastic duo
WCW died when TNT stopped caring about it honestly, kinda how AEW is dying. TBS is over it
AEW was dead on day 1.
Nope.
Not at all.
Geeez man.
The network never wanted to lose WCW.
The fans gave up on WCW and new acquiring entity did not want to handle all the red ink on the balance sheet.
Nothing whatsoever to do with "the network giving up on it" 😂
The story of WCW's Death is eerily similar to what is going on at AEW
Except AEW doesn't have the success part of the equation. They're entirely the failing/dying years.
Not really wcw was the number one promotion at one time
AEW is family-owned not a corporate investment. You guys really need to think BEFORE YOU REPLY
@@sionrouge1697aew is family owned trash
not even close.
It cracked me up when nash said oz is the geographical region
Has anyone mentioned Bob Pittman, Steve Case, Gerald Levin, and Dick Parsons about how they dissolved Turner Sports and deliberately manipulated Ted Turner out of control of his own corporation?
The AOL time Warner merger was a cluster f*** to begin with. Wcw demise was just a foot note.
@kidcoyoteanarchy Right!! Reading the books published by Nina Munk and Alex Klein opens up the strategic manipulation that AOL used to get the Time Warner execs on board with the merger. Very informative and educational, by the way.
I just feel like this show was rushed. It just jumped to 1995 in the first episode. It completely skipped the rise and fall of Jim Crockett Promotions and the NWA, the Birth of WCW in the late 80’s’, and the dark days of WCW in the early 90’s.
Regarding Bischoff not knowing the business, what does Jim think of the fact that both bischoff and Russo(with help from Al Snow) are posting a video every other day about how Tony Khan is the biggest idiot ever in wrestling?
It doesnt take a genius to see that AEW is Bad TV
@@arthurdaffos1490 yeah I'm just wondering how Jim feels about it. I'd bet anything they are only doing it because they are some of the few WCW era guys tony is not throwing money to and they see Jim's views are through the roof.
It would betray a surprising amount of self awareness if they noticed that he's pretty much like them.
Ud think it b scary that cornette bishoff Russo Nash snow all agree on something but this is aew we r talking about. Only thing worse than the TV r the crazy fans trying to say aew is the greatest thing since sliced bread
Good question. I'd still take Bischoff over Khan since he's the only one to have lead a company to success. And I acknowledge that he may have also lead that same company to failure.
Bischoff has always said he wasn't a wrestling mind and never looked at WCW as a touring wrestling promotion but instead a TV show.
Even now on his podcast, he admits he let the wrestling minds (Flair, Dusty, Sullivan etc) take care of the booking and he'd do the production side.
@@stuartoreilly2019 He says alot of things. Sullivan was a good choice though. It's hard to find a booker that doesn't just takeover, or book himself in like a thousand main events
Just read Eric’s book. He was doing a good job until the Turner executives pulled the rug out from underneath him. Even Turner himself lost control over his own stations at some point.
At the time all the business shows and magazines talked about how ted was forced out of his own company what happened was bigger than wrestling and wcw was just collateral damage.
Detroit didn't get Cable until 1984 or 85. They used to have ON TV. WXON Channel 20 would go off the air at 8:pm. You needed to subscribe to the monthly service or buy a decoder box illegally to watch the movies, sports and adult entertainment that aired after 8 every night.
“Good looking Heyman” is a great nickname
I think a point people don't understand or just don't know is even if you had cable, that didn't mean you had TBS. I grew up in the Albany, NY area and we didn't get TBS on our cable systems till Summer 1995. The only way I saw WCW was 2am early Sunday mornings on WSBK 38 out of Boston, MA which was a superstation along with WPIX 11 in NY.
I just saw a commercial about this.Vince Russo,said he was better than 80% of the roster.This guy was and still is a joke.He will always be the pimple on the ass of wrestling.
A pimple. Tony Khan is another one.
Watch his videos now man he's horrible non-stop man that dude says bro 50 times a video
@@paulcarpenter7844 his videos aren't bad. Al Snow wanted to kill him once, though. Lol!
For all the credit he gets for the attitude era I think quality actually improved once Russo stopped feeding people their own dogs 🙄
Russo had bad ideas but good ones I loved brawl for all and he pushed Bret in wcw
Absolutely loved WCW from 1996-1998. Unfortunately by the time 1999 rolled around, Hogan, Nash, Hall, Macho Man were overexposed and nobody wanted to see them anymore. People were ready for young guys like Benoit, Jericho and others to be elevated but never came about and hence the decline started. Eric bischoff is truly the master of pro wrestling.
To get Nash and Hall WCW cut
Austin
Foley
HHH
Ron Simmons (Farooq)
Jim Ross
That's essentially everyone that killed them. They had in 2000
AJ Styles
Batista
R Truth
That's the next wave. WCW killed itself.
98 had some baaaaaad stuff
Fall Brawl and World War 3 were 2 of the worst PPVs ever
Hogan, Piper, Savage, Nash, Luger stinking the main events up
REALLY over midcarders (Booker, Raven, Jericho, Eddie, Benoit) not getting any bigtime push
I'm not trolling when asking this.
What is the love for WCW? I never watched it. In the UK. It was only seen as a 2nd rate show and only shown late night on a random night.
I found a series called Reliving the War. I thought I would give it a try.
We are now 3 weeks away from Ruffo turning up at WCW and I still have no idea why the love.
The NWO unveil was good but then that was it's highest point. It seem to run on hope more than any substance. The 1st promo on Nitro was a babyface Hogan trying to be heel.
Nearly every main event match from then on was a - Run in DQ finish.
I FULLY understand that people wanted away from WWF 95 to early 97. WCW growth seems it was built on hope but ended up just being a let down. WWE turned into what WCW fans thought it was going to be like when the NWO took off.
Each bad story just opened peoples eyes and they just started switching off bit by bit.
@@fingersTitan Hogan still had some fans. Savage/Flair pre-NWO was a rather hot program. NWO set things on fire with a brilliant story. Cruiserweights and new faces kept it interesting, a good mixture from early 96 to maybe fall 98. DDP and Goldberg drew money, guest stars like Rodman, Malone, Leno kept them afloat for a while too
@@smarkslowplay3512 but why was the NWO popular?
Hogan couldn't cut a promo and half the rubbish he kept spouting was random, made no sense and that happened very early on. He only worked X amount of matches from that moment and got them out of the way in the first half of each year and didn't wrestle for the next 6 months. Nash and Hall were good but badly written on all fronts. Nash did work but not as much as you think. Hall worked a lot of matches. He were 2 or 3 times the total matches of Hogan and Nash combined at the split.
DDP was great for a short time and as soon as he hit the top. They messed it up. Goldberg is the same. The run was good but the end was WCW. Yet again.
If they pushed the Cruisers more. That would of been better. That is why Eddie, Chris and co jumped. Great talent used wrong.
I honestly do not get it. Sorry.
Eric's television personality was like an actor playing a politician. And I loved (to hate) it.
He is polite and well spoken in perosn but he's definitely a bit of a slimebag so it worked so naturally for him, just like Jim being an obnocious rich southern boy. Art imitating life a bit. 😂
I always liked Bischoff.
Bischoff was the authority figure screwing over talent as an on air character before the Montreal screw job and the Austin/McMahon feud.
@@mrg8581One of those "you have every right not to" but yes, me too. He would make a great snake oil salesman.
These bankruptcies are business related. He's not actually losing personal wealth
Corny needs a special episode of "Where did all of the AWA talent go in 1991?"
Who was left?
Wahoo, VonRashke, Zuhmoff, Gagne. Enos and Bloom are the only ones that did anything (The Beverly Brothers) that I recall.
That's about a 2:30 clip...with an ad promo
@@maceomaceo11 zuhmoff went to the slammer Gagne looked like peanut vendor at a baseball game. Raschke was built like a ostrich wahoo by that point was old.enos was in the Beverly Brothers I think.
@@TheJbonez1000 Buck didn't go to the slammer until way after 1991.
@@maxxdahl6062 yeah buck probably worked as a jobber somewhere
Starrcade 1997 and the Fingerpoke of Doom.
Don't forget Bash At The Beach 2000.
Those accusations don't work for me, brother. - HH
There’s a bunch. Goldberg losing, the radicals going to wwf and wwf being better
Stroke the fu manchu, brother
@@PJBlick mismanaging Bret. Bret was my favorite since kindergarten and when Bret turned heel after Austin, spring of my 4th grade year, Bret's mic skills peaked and his in ring attitude was gritty and Vince gave that heel spot to Shawn and Shawn wanted Bret out and Vince wanted to cut costs so he let Bret go, Montreal happened and then WCW mismanages the hot free agent they poached it shows how horrible the operation was.
Time Warner made WCW sick, Bischoff put it in a coma, Russo left it on the brink of death, Kellner pulled the plug.
@@azapro911 except nobody did that except for the Kelner part
@@deadpilled2942 Except every part happened, well documented by now.
Why does Corny never bring up when he did the table for 3 show on the network with bischoff and Michael Hayes when he tells the story that he's so proud of that he almost blows his load every time he tells it about wiping the booger on Eric's car. And found out that he was the stooge being played by another stooge?
Cause he got called out for not knowing what he was talking about and had no response.
Because he really had or has no reason to hate Bischoff tbh. He only hates him because of what Ole said or Greg Gagne has said,I fuck with Jim but he really just makes up reason why he hates Eric…now its his bankruptcies and he wasnt a big enough wrestling fan
I swear he brought that exact story up not that long ago. I think it was on the podcast after Ole Anderson died.
Also speaking from experience, I think being the stooge of a stooge is still enough reason not to like someone. Objectively I know the store manager of my former workplace has no real authority to change what I hated about my time working there but he was the direct authority above me, that was being very uncommunicative and requesting I work through holidays and so on. Sure he's making his life easier by not bucking the system and covering his own arse and I got that but knowing that, didn't make my life any easier, nor did it make me like him any more.
I don't know why people question that Eric never watched WCW. Not everyone got TBS in the late 80s.
There’s probably some truth in Eric’s statement. Around that time, he was working for AWA, and Eric admitted that he wasn’t getting paid well at that time so he was struggling financially. I’m sure that he didn’t have cable if he was financially struggling.
@@Jennifer_Lewis_Beach_Living Absolutely. Of all the things people pick at...it's ridiculous.
WCW was still NWA when Turner bought out Crockett.
We should all be so lucky to never have had any financial difficulties.
For all that they say Bischoff did to kill WCW, I don't think WCW made it as long as it did without him. Yeah he was using Turner's money, but so did others before him & did worse.
@@dzig228 People act like WCW was the only department to use Turner's money. The Atlanta Falcons survived on Turner money, for nearly 2 decades. The right's to the NBA went in the red a few times too. Also, Warner Bros and the Cartoon Network were hemorrhaging money.
@@deadpilled2942 yep. Turner was in on so many different things.
Don't forget about the Atlanta Braves@@deadpilled2942
The death blow to WCW was Ric Flair taking his clothes off
Not the finger poke?
which time?
Cringe or not, that Flair promo was legendary. Man threw that shoe like he was pitching for the World Series.
The death blow was Flair not taking his clothes off sooner.
I just watched the second episode of this series, and it made me a lot more sympathetic towards Bischoff. Dude had to deal with execs rooting against the show on top of all the wrestlers's egos and demands. Anyone would go off the rails in that environment.
It was a tough position to be in. Ted Turner wanted wrestling but was an absent owner wwe better be paying attention this is their fate
After watching that and being a long-time fan and listen to this podcast and Eric's, I feel like this was a love letter to Tony and a warning
A warning for what ? The warning should be to WWE. Bigger doesn't mean better. Tony can keep doing what He's doing and doesn't have to answer to anybody. When the feds are done with Vince the wwe house of cards will fall. Multiple wwe indictments are coming. The feds have a 97% conviction rate
@@sionrouge1697"doesn't have to answer to anyone" isn't always good. You gotta have some filter or hierarchy so your talent isn't essentially running your promotion which is what we've seen in AEW. WWE at least has structure, if you wanna keep hanging your hat on Vince's crimes that's fine but WWE is separate from that now especially with the new regime in charge.
And bigger does mean better, actually. WWE is making money hand over fist from the Endeavor merger, Netflix deal, sold out buildings and sponsorship deals. The content or creative is shit but they're raking in so much money and getting more eyes back on the product. AEW has been in the red for 5 years.
The NWO obviously was a really effective storyline. But it had a shelf life. You always have to have new, fresh ideas. Bischoff became so obsessed with that storyline that he neglected the rest of his highly talented roster. The midcard and cruiserweight division got buried so that when the NWO did become stale, he had nothing to turn to. Also, continuity from the beginning was nonexistent. You’d have random matches from week to week and storylines would just die. That happened in WWF too, but Vince did it because he saw that it wasn’t going anywhere and pivoted to something that worked. By the time Bret Hart was properly utilized, he was basically just another guy. He wasn’t seen as main event material. If you don’t book a top talent correctly, that can happen. The NWO drew money. For a little while. But you have to have something else on the go constantly and something for everyone to do that keeps them relevant.
We lost Jamie Kellner (who often takes credit as the official "killer" of WCW) and Kevin Sullivan within two and a half months this year.
This is why I knew the documentary wouldn't be an accurate one. It was produced by a wrestler, who didn't really care about wrestling until he was in it. Till then he just knew his dad was a wrestler. So he just uses the WWE talking points of what happened with WCW
I havent seen this series just yet, but they should have done it chronologically. First episode be about Jim Herd, the second about Bischoff, and the third be about Russo and the end of official WCW. From a story standpoint, I feel like that would make the most sense.
It wouldnt have sold as much, people dont remember or care about early 90's wcw
@@arthurdaffos1490 I liked early 1990's WCW.
@@mrg8581yeah but I don't think that's as marketable as the Monday night wars era. Same reason most don't talk about the new generation era wwf
Cornette trash talking Eric's finances and age was weird....
With the WCW it was bad hires in the office , because the office deals with story line and promotions and advertising, you can't spend more than you gross for long , this type of (wrestling) is a sell asses in seats and PPV buys , that's why it failed
Alot of people talking about what killed wcw but you wanna know what didn't kill wcw? Those awesome themes that were just bootlegs of major radio hits of the time.
WWE did it too, they just were less obvious in the resemblance.
Those were songs they had in the time Warner library and could use for free.
The boys killed WCW never give the talent control
When you think about it WWE ran WCW out of business with all WCW guys Austin, Taker, HHH,
Not really. All of those guys were repackaged in wwf. You can't change a WR into a Qb and say look they won.
@@sionrouge1697you actually can.
@@sionrouge1697 They were different characters yeah, But still of the top 7 guys in WWF from 1998 - 2001 4 of them came from WCW at a point in time. Austin, Taker, Foley and HHH. only Rock, Angle and Kane weren't there. But when in WCW none f them were the same level of star WWF made them into. Cactus jack in WCW never would have made it the way mankind blew up in the attitude era. Stunning Steve never would have taken off the way Stone cold did. Mean mark would never have even hoped to live up to The Undertaker. And Jean paul levesque never could have hoped to be what Triple H was. While at a point WCW thrived in that mid to late 90s. Ultimately yeah WWE is where stars are made in pro wrestling outside of some years in the old NWA.
@@zeromagnum2811 that's my point. I'm not patting a guy on the back for being repackaged
@@sionrouge1697That was a very bad comparison lol. A WR and a QB have two completely different skillsets and responsibilities. In wrestling every wrestler has the same goal which is to get over
I just ran into a old clip of Jim Cornette on WCW. Pretending to be Elmer Fudd. Using his tennis racket as a gun. He said... shhhh be quiet I'm hunting warriors. 😂
Re: bankruptcy & financial problems. Guys like Bischoff have a tendency to live beyond their means, to sell the image and use that to make money off others. It's usually a dance along the edge; and, if it goes south, they fall over the edge quickly and land hard.
Jim speaking fire 🔥. I didn't get cable in NY until my mom got it in 1990. I had to depend on a friend to give me WCW updates prior to that. Nobody cared about WWF we wanted the REAL wrestling in the late 80s which was the southern wrestling of WCW/NWA
"Nobody cared about WWF" - definitely a revisionist mark
I lived in great plains I had no idea about wcw/nwa and we had tbs and tnt. But I was 12 at the time.
AOL/Time Warner Merger Killed WCW
Say it louder. People need to blame somebody so they say Hogan or Eric but it's the suits who did it.
At its worst WCW was still pulling about 2 million in the ratings. Still better than anything AEW does now. WCW was gonna be worthless without a TV deal.
Dude it was dead before the damn merger. The product sucked.@sionrouge1697
They could only kill it because it didn't draw ratings anymore. It didn't draw ratings anymore because the creative sucked.
@@Sky_Blaze when you have people working against you it's not easy. They wanted old tv shows and movies.
If you can find a copy, read The Death of WCW. It's written by WrestleCrap founder R.D. Reynolds and Bryan Alvarez, and published by ECW Press. It's worth the effort because they really go into detail and they also inject irreverent humor into the whole saga.
The reason wcw in the early days gets often glossed over is nobody outside of nwa die hards saw wcw as competition to Vince...So the WCW story is often told as...when Eric took over...And I'm a nwa guy from the late 70s. .watching Georgia Championship Wrestling.
Exactly. Jim will die in denial about that but I never even heard of WCW until Jake,Rude,and all the Golden Era WWF guys went there in 91-93
Also wwf wasn't at its peak either wrestling as whole was down.
@@RobertoTheOriginalManFromTheA Basically the wheels started coming after Halloween Havoc '89. It was bad before that, but as a fan, we didn't know that
The answer to the question “who killed WCW?” isn’t a mystery anymore. It was answered in the first episode the moment Dick Cheetum explained that he was told in no uncertain terms by aol/time warner that being seen as in anyway pro WCW would be “career suicide” Bad creative (at least in comparison to WWF at the time) and profit deficits were like handing time warner the gun to shoot them with, but TW eventually would have found it themselves regardless.
We all knew Bischoff didn't know what the hell he was doing but Jim be talking like he would've done much better. How many failing companies how you played a part in.....a few. You've failed at booking as well, but excelled at being a manager. You're good at knowing the business but you can't run a successful company yourself.
Ric Flair tweeted that Bischoff, Herd and Russo killed WCW and then deleted the tweet a couple days later :P
He's not wrong.
Like David Flair or Ric in the insane asylum sold any tickets.
R.I.P kevin sullivan
JIM WHO ARE YOUR TOP 5 WCW CHAMPIONS?
1.Booker T
2. Hulk Hogan
3.Sting
4. Goldberg
5. Scott Steiner
Some how. I left off Rick Flair 🤦🏽♂️ that’s a crime take Steiner off for Rick flair
You’ve got to appreciate Bischoff’s hustle
Bischoff is a snake but goddamn is he a smooth operator. Seriously, if you could give Corny 2% of Eric’s slick talking and ability to hold his temper, he’d have conquered the wrestling business.
@@zlinedavidsmooth operater aka great salesman
@@zlinedavidhe beat the wrestling game
@@louio That’s precisely what I meant.
Hustle??
Crazy that both Ted Turner and Vince McMahon were essentially tricked & played out of their companies. That era of ambitious businessmen is officially dead and gone.
This is my first time hearing about the Larry Nelson coke binge thing 😮.
I liked Larry Nelson.. I miss AWA.
Remember staying up to 2 in the morning for WCW. Nikita Kolof is why I started. Went from Dr.Death Steve Williams to Magnum T.A. Then was so happy to see Nitro on Monday. Chris Jericho fan from day 1.
I always like Tony Schiavone’s story about an executive insisting Tony put together a proposal for running the company after Watts left but Tony was so depressed he didn’t care and Eric got it instead. WCW literally told Tony they wanted him to run it.
He was an announcer not an executive. It makes sense for him to step aside
@@sionrouge1697 Eric was an even lower ranking announcer. Eric is credited with being able to talk with the executives, and Tony said they were essentially inviting him to their meetings. He was as much one of them as Eric, and Tony was from the area.
I was perfectly okay with early 90s WCW, pre-Hogan. If that was a distant number 2---it was number one with me. Yes, they did some hokey things like Norman the Lunatic, PN News and the Ding Dongs (and I'm glad Bill Watts came in and cleaned up some of that shit), but that was balanced out with really quality talent---the best they had in years
Bischoff has openly admitted that he's great at making money, but not good at keeping it.
He's just one of those higher risk entrepreneurial guys. Wins some and loses some.
It isn't complicated. WCW didn't make new stars, the older guys like Hogan had too much pull and say, and they lost money with a company that didn't tolerate it
TV executives were mad ted bought wcw in the first place so wcw always had a target on its back.
@@kidcoyoteanarchy Shut up oh my god
Eric is the type that could have you turn over your life savings to him
And convince you it was your fault when he lost your money.
I always liked Larry Nelson , IMO he's the voice of the AWA
Same. Even when the product nose-dived after the Road Warriors left, the announcing was still better than anything AEW has offered thus far.
I watched AWA to the very end. I still miss it and Larry Nelson.
I would argue that Bischoff actually picked up a lot of wrestling knowledge. He definitely knows a lot about wrestling at this point, maybe not early on though.
I know Bill Watts didn't make things worse than Jim Herd did, but I think Jim lets him off lightly; things like banning top rope moves (and then taking part in a pointless segment where he announces the rule is being removed before 'sperging out over exceptions) and removing protective mats from ringside were never going to draw dimes and I've heard he still seemed to think that house shows were more important than PPVs for profit (at least Kip's financial incentives raised backstage morale, even if supposedly wanting to play $3.5 million/year for Jake Roberts was ridiculous).
"yeah he looks good for his age but jesus christ look at his fucking age!"
23:15 “I bet the board is spelled B O R E D”
I think this channel is behind the times and unaware for TH-cam strategies. It's more lucrative to release the full podcast ASAP and then put out clips. Not wait 2 weeks to release them. Maybe release a few clips right before it comes out. They're just losing money and making it inconvenient to the consumer
Agreed.
I do think Eric deserves credit for the rise of WCW. Clearly, he also shares blame for it's demise, but I don't think he just lucked into things.
I'd love for Jim to review Eric's Pro Wrestling TED talk
Eric was spending money in Gold's club
Jim Herd killed the original NWA WCW & Executives at Turner Broadcasting killed the WCW of the 90's Dubya C Dubya.
AOL/Time Warner ultimately killed WCW, but there a lot of accomplices.
Good or bad it would have gone under , if it was a top rated show it would have simply sold for higher but the same thing would’ve happened , THEY NO LONGER WABTED TO DEAL WITH WRESTLING , the bad booking was just cosmetic to the story
What killed wcw was the inability to move onto younger talent. Had such great young wrestlers they could have pushed. Very vince like in the early 90s being unable to move on from the older generation for guys like bret, scsa, rock. Vince got very lucky wcw took hogan and shawn losing his smile opened the door for the young talent
Wasn't bret and Shawn supposed to be the young talent after Hogan left?
tbf, my job situation was pretty rotten until I was in my 30s.
Vice should definitely make this a prequel doc.
"Who Killed WCW?" (The First Time)
Its funny that Eric hates Tony when Tony is just a young version of Eric😂😂
Ah, yes...Corny mentioned that Starrcade '86 sales ad. I remember them playing it at least once per show back in '86-'87.
I remember that one and the sales ad for the Crocket Cup '87.
Here's the Starrcade ad:
th-cam.com/video/fvwvNl7P8zY/w-d-xo.html
".....you pull out your 'gat' and say FREEZE!!" Fuckin Cornette 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Corny is way off on this... He has no idea how the aol tome warner merger changed everything. The WCW he describes was gone by the time bischoff really had control. Bischoff gradually gained full control. At first he was just in charge of the TV side (his strength)
Was someone skimming in JCP before the sale to TBS?
Damn I didn't realize EZE was that old
I give Russo most of the blame... Drove right into the ditch full of piss and shit.
When sh1t stain (Russo) got rehired in 2002 by WWE, he wanted to rehash the invasion storyline with wcw guys who missed the invasion as they decided to sit out their contracts with Time Warner. Russo was let go 2 days later.
Honestly could have been good. Nobody needed the nWo in 2002. They could have done some invasion stuff with Goldberg, Flair, Hogan, Nash, Steiner.
@DBecks09 "nobody needed the nwo in 2002" - yet when they debut at No way put that year. They got the biggest reaction that night. You revisionist marks are something else
@DBecks09 "nobody needed the nwo in 2002" - yet when they debut at No way put that year. They got the biggest reaction that night. You revisionist marks are something else
@@louio Yes you're right I exaggerated a bit. But they were old, especially Hall was struggling. So there was differently a case to do something with the fresher guys like Goldberg and Steiner. And then imagine they finally manage to convince Sting with it. (of course Steiner's injury would have ruined it for him as well unfortunately)
@@DBecks09Nash was 43 in 2002 punk is 45 now who's too old?
I tried watching the episode, but I just couldn’t stand listening to Eric Bischoff lie his ass off and warp the truth.
@antoineLebrane
You must not be very well acquainted with Eric Bischoff. 😂🤦♂️
Eric Bischoff is a snakes oil salesman but I trust his account of what went on the corporate side of things because nobody else was there or a least anybody from the wrestling podcast community and with all due respect that includes Jim and Brian's opinion.
Edit: Jim admittedly was running smw, then working for WWE, and then ovw at the time, so he wasn't paying attention to wcw. And Brian last is a little bit older than I am so he was in high school or early twenties at the time.
@antoineLebrane
You need to learn how to be a bit more discerning about who you choose to believe. 😂🤦♂️
@@kidcoyoteanarchy
Eric’s accounts have been disputed by COUNTLESS people who were also there went it all happened. He’s been proven to be a liar and someone who doesn’t know how to tell the truth. He’s taking advantage of the fact that many of these people are either dead or have decided to not take part in the documentary.
I remember in late 99 we couldn’t get nitro in Canada for some reason. The only way I could keep up with them was their horrible clip shows on the weekends. I knew around that time that wcw was headed downwards
What’s wild is Turner sold it to WWE for a steal
Turner didn't sell anything
Time Warner sold ted turner was off living on his ranch when AOL time Warner merger happened.
Are we now calling AEW WCW's "Second Death?"
No. AEW would be the third.
Fourth.
1. 88 - Crockett goes broke
2. 01 - WCW folds
3. 02? - Invasion and the burial of WCW
Aew is a whole different company with different owners so can't say that
They have nothing to do with each other, bruh. Besides them both just throwing money at the dumpster fires they call companies, terrible take
Say what you want about bischoff. 96,97, 98 with him In charge, wcw was making a ton of money. The merchandise, video games, wrestlers making tv appearances were everywhere. I remember watching the mlb all star game and Jason Kendall came to bat with the nwo music playing in the back. Nitro filled up the Georgia dome. This is nearly a 3 year run.
You cannot just simply say bischoff was just a good tv personality.
@antoineLebrane absolutely
As a kid, I can remember feeling like around 1990 WCW had a noticeable downgrade in quality