Vince McMahon says he didn't run WCW out of business.

[Crayo]

Who came up with the name Raw:

“I did. The name ‘Raw’ came out of my head. I was trying to come up with a word that would embody everything we wanted the program to be. It had to be gritty. It had to be cutting edge. It had to be confrontational. Raw fit perfectly.

If RAW helped drive WCW out of business:

“I don’t think we drove WCW out of business. That was certainly never our intent. That was the mindset of Ted Turner and WCW, but not WWE. See, if you spend all of your energy trying to kill the other guy, your product suffers. If you don’t kill the other guy, then he’s going to come back at you, and when he comes back, you won’t have done anything to make your house better. It’s no different than being in a fight and knowing that, if the other guy keeps on hitting you, that son of a b—h is going to wear himself out pretty fast.”

His memories of the first RAW on January 11, 1993:

“I wanted to go back to our roots. I wanted the first broadcast to have a small, intimate, raucous crowd, and I was certainly not disappointed in the feel of the Manhattan Center. As soon as we went on the air, even before we went on the air, we knew we were on to something special.”

The most important Superstar for the show:

“There’s no question that guys like Triple H, The Rock, Shawn Michaels, and The Undertaker have all made enormous contributions to this company, but if there was one single personality that exemplified Raw in the truest sense of what I wanted it to be, it would be ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin.”

If Austin was the greatest contributor to the Attitude Era:

“Make no mistake, the Attitude Era started long before “Stone Cold” Steve Austin. Bret Hart was the first one to push Mr. McMahon on his ass. When the audience responded to that incident so positively, I knew we had something. The great thing about what we do is that we have a focus group every night—our fans. You think you’re giving them what they want, but then they shift on you. Raw has changed. Raw has continued to be flexible in order to keep true to what WWE fans want to see. That’s why Raw has produced more hours than any other television show in history.”

The goal looking toward the 2,000th episode of RAW:

“The goal will be to remain flexible, and to adapt, so that WWE can give the audience what they want. Twenty years from now, who knows what that will end up being?”

Read more: http://www.pwmania.com/artman/mcmahon-says-he-didnt-run-wcw-out-of-business-with-raw#ixzz20X6KWrO5

Interview is from 2007 but republished on wwe.com.

 

[Dolph'sZiggler]

He contributed to some extent, but WCW shoveled a lot more dirt onto their own grave than VKM ever did.

 

[Snowman1]

"The great thing about what we do is that we have a focus group every night—our fans. You think you’re giving them what they want, but then they shift on you. Raw has changed. Raw has continued to be flexible in order to keep true to what WWE fans want to see. That’s why Raw has produced more hours than any other television show in history.”

lol

As for WCW... WWF kicking ass didn't help, but WCW was more notorious for their own stupidity from the way I understand it. There's a reason that Hogan-Bishoff-Russo got so much grief in TNA. And stuff like David Arquette and announcing Mick Foley was going to win the WWF Title only confirms that.

Although the merger was the real death nail.

 

[Matt]

why does Monday Nitro sound same as Monday Night Raw? :angry:

 

[Lockard 23]

Vince has also always claimed he didn't run the territories out of business back in the day, they ran themselves out of business. I always pictured him as a dominant businessman that would be sitting back and laughing and taking credit for being the king of the wrestling world who destroyed his competition over and over but whatever. Is is true, though, that WCW dug their own grave. Even without mentioning what the WWF was doing at the time, I could go on and on about all the stupid shit that WCW did all on their own.

 

[Crayo]

"The great thing about what we do is that we have a focus group every night—our fans. You think you’re giving them what they want, but then they shift on you. Raw has changed. Raw has continued to be flexible in order to keep true to what WWE fans want to see. That’s why Raw has produced more hours than any other television show in history.”

lol

Also lol'd

 

[Leo C]

Indeed, WCW sucked. If you have a company that's doing well and another one that does stupid things while taking shots at the other company, which one is going to succeed?

 

[seabs]

It's a shame about WCW, they were a great company up until 99, then it all started going pear shaped.

 

[Cloud]

WCW had positives but towards the end they did indeed take a stupid turn and just mess things up for themselves. Such as Steiner interviewing Chucky fml!

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEbXo3rTJPQ[/yt]

 

[Crayo]

Really wanted to have the title as "run WCW out of buildness".

 

[BrockLesnarFanForLife]

Vince Russo killed WCW

 

[shrayan]

Vince---he deserves to be screwed

 

[seabs]

Wasn't it Aol that killed WCW, they still pulled in decent ratings if I remember correctly, imagine if Bischoff's consortium had bought it. Would things have changed?

 

[shrayan]

I think so yeah

 

[Leo C]

Wasn't some AOL executive named Jamie Kellner who pulled the plug on Nitro's TV spot? He didn't want wrestling airing so he removed Nitro, which was pretty much the nail in the coffin.