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June 4th Dark Side of the Ring -Who Killed WCW?
Posted on 5/22/24 at 9:08 pm
Posted on 5/22/24 at 9:08 pm
Posted on 5/22/24 at 9:19 pm to tigerfan84
Rey Mysterio Jr
This post was edited on 5/23/24 at 3:40 pm
Posted on 5/22/24 at 9:20 pm to tigerfan84
Jamie Kelner, head of Turner Broadcasting, who cancelled WCW programming.
Without TV, no one but Vince would buy it.
Without TV, no one but Vince would buy it.
Posted on 5/22/24 at 9:20 pm to tigerfan84
AOL-Time Warner merger killed WCW
Posted on 5/22/24 at 9:21 pm to tigerfan84
ego of Hulk Hogan, nobody else to blame.
Posted on 5/22/24 at 9:54 pm to RuckMaul1
Not Vince Russo although he will be blamed
Posted on 5/22/24 at 10:09 pm to tigerfan84
I’d say it’s a combination of a few things
- WCW kicking WWF’s arse so bad for nearly two years, which pushed McMahon to finally pivot from the extremely stale 80s crap to a much edgier product resulting in the attitude era
- Which in turn allowed guys like Stone Cold and The Rock to become white hot and more entertaining than anything WCW had. It’s pretty insane looking back that WWF had two of their all time Mount Rushmore type talents on the come up at the exact same time.
- Hogan having full creative control was a total disaster after the NWO angle started getting stale. They couldn’t pivot to anything else because “That doesn’t work for me, brother.”
Kevin Nash even said in a recent interview that he and Scott Hall created the NWO Wolfpac to get away from Hogan’s bullshite, only for Hogan to come up with the finger poke of doom angle that resulted in Hogan joining the Wolfpac
No one could escape him
- The AOL Time Warner merger was the death blow since WCW’s severely overpaid dinosaur roster now no longer had Ted Turner signing blank checks. And they certainly couldn’t rationalize paying these ridiculous guaranteed contracts while getting destroyed by WWF in ratings at that point
- The nail in the coffin imo was bringing in Vince Russo to run the thing alongside Bischoff. I have no idea what WCW could’ve done to turn the ship around at that point, but that doofus Russo only sped up the process towards going out of business
- WCW kicking WWF’s arse so bad for nearly two years, which pushed McMahon to finally pivot from the extremely stale 80s crap to a much edgier product resulting in the attitude era
- Which in turn allowed guys like Stone Cold and The Rock to become white hot and more entertaining than anything WCW had. It’s pretty insane looking back that WWF had two of their all time Mount Rushmore type talents on the come up at the exact same time.
- Hogan having full creative control was a total disaster after the NWO angle started getting stale. They couldn’t pivot to anything else because “That doesn’t work for me, brother.”
Kevin Nash even said in a recent interview that he and Scott Hall created the NWO Wolfpac to get away from Hogan’s bullshite, only for Hogan to come up with the finger poke of doom angle that resulted in Hogan joining the Wolfpac

- The AOL Time Warner merger was the death blow since WCW’s severely overpaid dinosaur roster now no longer had Ted Turner signing blank checks. And they certainly couldn’t rationalize paying these ridiculous guaranteed contracts while getting destroyed by WWF in ratings at that point
- The nail in the coffin imo was bringing in Vince Russo to run the thing alongside Bischoff. I have no idea what WCW could’ve done to turn the ship around at that point, but that doofus Russo only sped up the process towards going out of business
Posted on 5/22/24 at 10:18 pm to David Ricky
Guaranteed contracts, Turner Broadcasting, Hulk Hogan's creative control clause, and the lack of an overall booking/match visionary is what killed WCW...it wasn't one entity or person.
Posted on 5/22/24 at 10:22 pm to tigerfan84
Sorry for not updating the original thread.
Aol
Aol
Posted on 5/23/24 at 5:39 am to David Ricky
WCW peaked with Starrcade ‘97 but they botched the ending. Things fully turned back in favor of WWE for good and WCW had its downward spiral in January 99 with the Fingerpoke and the Mankind title win.
Posted on 5/23/24 at 5:55 am to teke184
quote:
Without TV, no one but Vince would buy it.
I think Bischoff still wanted it
He wanted it to go off the air for a few months anyway and they’d have a reset with a PPV called The Big Bang
This post was edited on 5/23/24 at 5:58 am
Posted on 5/23/24 at 6:33 am to tigerfan84
Stone Cold Steve Austin killed it
Posted on 5/23/24 at 10:53 am to tigerfan84
I think they were lucky to get the talent they got to compete with the juggernaut that is the WWE for a little while. It never was going to have the staying power to keep competitive at that level.
Posted on 5/23/24 at 11:48 am to David Ricky
Heh great takes. You should do the documentary 

Posted on 5/23/24 at 12:00 pm to tigerfan84
After the merger and turner lost control, a lot of folks in power didn’t want wrestling on tbs/tnt anymore. Bischoff has spoken about this often on his podcast, budgets being cut and standards & practices cancelling storylines.
Really a shame, because I watched mostly wcw from 96-early 99.
Really a shame, because I watched mostly wcw from 96-early 99.
This post was edited on 5/23/24 at 12:01 pm
Posted on 5/23/24 at 12:16 pm to tigerfan84
AOL/Time Werner merger killed it, they slashed their budget in half all the while making them put Thunder on tv. They knew it would tank and didn't want wrestling on television anymore, they'd rather have their primetime movies.
Posted on 5/23/24 at 12:38 pm to Dairy Sanders
quote:
WCW peaked with Starrcade ‘97 but they botched the ending. Things fully turned back in favor of WWE for good and WCW had its downward spiral in January 99 with the Fingerpoke and the Mankind title win.
Starrcade 97, what a cluster. I'd take a full DSOR on that by itself. Look at that card. This is where WCW failed miserably. This is your Wrestlemania. You're killing WWE right now, but they have signs of life. This is your chance to stomp on the neck and kill any momentum they have. AND YOU PUT TOGETHER THAT CARD. Sting/Hogan was etched in stone. The rest of the card, you gotta be shitting me. Nash always makes it a point to say he was reading the tea leaves and that's why he no-showed.
That's who killed WCW. The fact that they cannot piece together a decent card for their biggest show...EVER...nor could they make sure Sting wasn't just eating cheetos in the rafters, or keep Hogan's ego in check to have a coherent finish to a really important and long running storyline that can make or break the next few years for your company. They shite the bed, so goddamn hard here.
Posted on 5/23/24 at 1:17 pm to tigerfan84
Too many captains trying to steer the ship. Huge contracts + Huge egos = FAIL
Just imagine if WCW kept Goldberg undefeated, and WCW and WWF collaborated to put on a supershow headlined w/ Austin vs. Goldberg and DX vs. nWo. It would've broken every record
Just imagine if WCW kept Goldberg undefeated, and WCW and WWF collaborated to put on a supershow headlined w/ Austin vs. Goldberg and DX vs. nWo. It would've broken every record
This post was edited on 5/23/24 at 9:44 pm
Posted on 5/23/24 at 1:47 pm to tigerfan84
Why does Rock care about WCW? He should focus on not making horrible movies
Posted on 5/23/24 at 2:16 pm to migui8618
build up was amazing for the year 97, but it the execution failed cause of Hogan and Eric B. egos
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