Demise of WCW

[edgehead09]

ok, so many people claim that WCW began to die when Ted Turner sold WCW to AOL-Time Warner. This is around the time that Vince Russo was the head booker and he booked himself to win the World Championship, the New Blood(greatest faction that failed in history) and the many shoot interviews and basically circus that WCW became. All of these reasons that people said that the once proud empire in professional wrestling died.

I, however, feel differently. As i was washing dishes at like 1 in the morning at work(never work at fast food restuarant, especially Wendys) i realised that the WWF, as it was known as in this time, was the demise of the WCW. World Championship Wrestling had all it needed to be as succesful as the Federation. There were your putent stars in Ric Flair & Hulk Hogan, the Home-grown superstars in Sting, Scotty Steiner, Booker T, and DDP, and there were the "New Blood" in Vampiro, Kidman, and Jeff Jarrett.

Now, that seems like it is just fine but lets take a look at the stars that WCW could of had. There is Edge, who wrestled one match and jobbed, then HHH, again a jobber, Chris Jericho, WWF "stole" him, all of the Radiclz(sp), again the WWF "stole" them, The Undertaker, yes he was in the WCW in like 1990( i have the tape to prove it) and lastly the reason the WWF won the Monday Night Wars, Stone Cold Steve Austin.

Now lets just say that WCW had all of these superstars under contract with them at the time of the Russo era. Do you actually think that there would be a WCW burial. I think not. Jericho is a main-eventer, Edge and Trips are multiple time World Champs, and Stone Cold is Stone Cold. The Radicalz could help the "New Blood" in the ring by showing them how to actually wrestle.

So pick a side and debate

Did the WWF kill WCW or did AOL-Time Warner do it?

 

[1chiban]

Bit of both I suppose. WWF was murdering WCW in the ratings, while AOL Time Warner just didn't think it was viable anymore.

Perhaps more of the blame should be put on the company that was supposed to take WCW over but pulled out... the name escapes me now.

 

[edgehead09]

Are you talking about that company Bischoff was in....yea but what i am saying is that all of this could of been avoided if WCW had not gotten their future stars stolen by WWF

 

[1chiban]

I don't think they were stolen as such - they wanted to leave. Austin was fired over the phone, ended up being one of the biggest stars in history thanks to the WWF. Jericho was unhappy, was signed by WWE. Benoit and co, similarly, were unhappy. Quit and were rightfully picked up by WWF. WCW stole ECW stars from what I can see (although the lack of written contracts in ECW does make that dubious admittedly). Simple fact was that in these cases, WCW bookers were not utilising talent properly - WWF/E made them into stars. I know Benoit won the World Title just before he left, but other issues left his severely unhappy with WCW management, or so I believe.

In this way WCW killed itself

 

[edgehead09]

yes but WCW had Edge and HHH....now you cannot say that they would not of kept WCW alive

 

[1chiban]

Edge and HHH had left WAY before WCW hit its peak let alone its demise? Using those two doesn't really make sense in this context. I see what you mean about what they've gone on to do, but they are irrelevant factors really.

 

[edgehead09]

you could say that they were irrelavant but who else did WCW have that could of been main eventers beside Vampiro and Kidman....

I mean WCW had like 200 superstars under contract at one point

 

[Montana]

I still think the main reason WCW failed was money. Yes, they were raking in lots of dough, but they spent without limits. It got to a point where they had all these legends, (Hogan, Warrior, Macho, Roddy, Perfect, Dibiase, Rude, hart +++++++) and most those guys couldn't do anything. They way overpaid Bret Hart, and had nothing for him to do. No one wanted to job to anyone. Backstage politics became a problem, due to a huge roster. The younger guys were screwed so they left. (Jericho, big show, Radicalz) So when the NWO got stale, they turned to goldberg, and yes he was popular, but he's not a marketing machine. He made the programing, worse rather than better. Now, the boat was rocked, they got desperate, but it was too late. They focused too much on short term sucess, rather than long term. Pretty much that is exactly why WCW failed imo. Heres some bullet points.

- Spent too much money (bret hart + large roster)

- Backstage politics due to large roster

- NWO became stale

- Young talent left

- Goldbergs massive push

- WCW started to sink, and tried stupid stuff.


So i think wcw killed wcw. Time warner and wwe didnt help, but ultimately it was the mistakes by wcw that led to its dimise.