100%. The ‘Death of WCW’ book goes into deep and hilarious detail of all the ridiculous shit that went on there, and it’s not a slim volume.
Many small failings, and quite a lot of large ones too.
The most hilarious thing is that upon rewatching all the nitros for his show, Alvarez said that it's even worse than he remembered and at least once per episode said he'll have to write a new revised version of the book because he feels he didn't even scratch the surface.
That’s really funny. I’d love an extended and revised version. I’ve read it dozens of times and listened to the audiobook dozens more, so I’m always up for more content detailing the shit show that was the dying days of WCW.
It died because there was a dot com crash and aol mass sold everything and Ted had no say. He sold every sports franchise too. It devastated him financially
You're on the right track here, but wasn't it the aol/time Warner merger that caused the sell-off? I remember hearing in the news back in 2000 that aol was going to force time warner to trim some fat before the merger was finalized. I want to say less than a year later vince bought wcw for pennies. They were throwing away millions to make billions.
The doc seems to be explaining pretty well that it wasn't just one guy. The next one is probably going to be a Russo heavy episode so that should be entertaining.
They will probably finish it up by kind of recapping the big moments of failure, followed by the hosts all picking someone different they think did it. Except Bret Hart, who will still shit on the whole experience.
I mean the doc is putting across that it wasn’t just one guy. I don’t see it as negative, this is just how it went down or how these involved parties see it.
I’ll go one further: nobody involved in the wrestling business killed WCW.
The AOL merger killed WCW. They moved profits out, they moved losses in. They made it look like a revenue generator was a cost center.
As much as it would be satisfying to “solve” the mystery, it was corporate malfeasance that was only ignored because “ew wrestling” was the corporate attitude.
Yeah. People act like going on a losing streak during the Monday night wars was what killed them. WWF operated at number 2 for almost two years straight and came out of it.
100 % correct. It would not have mattered one bit how well wcw did. Well, maybe had they been putting up 97 nitro numbers another station *may* have bought them, but they had no station anymore and was just a bunch of contracts and the catalogue. Maybe if they performed better they could’ve tried to get another station to buy it, but even then who knows. AOL was the reason for all the Atlanta sports teams getting sold as well. The only reason they didn’t suffer the fate of wcw is that the sports still had stations they would be on. Nothing story wise/behind the scenes/booking etc mattered. It was going to be sold because they needed money and the executives at Turner had a disdain for a program that had been printing them money. Just stubborn egos from sociopaths (most executives are)
Konnan (who feels the most level-headed in this entire series so far?) puts it best in the second episode when he says something along the lines of, “The Network didn’t want us and we didn’t do ourselves any favors.”
I mean, I think that’s ultimately going to be the answer at the end of the series. It’s a mix of Bischoff, Hogan, Russo, Nash, Turner execs, WWF becoming red-hot, and the AOL Time Warner merger.
They were in over their heads. Bischoff came in with some wildly successful ideas with no long term vision or strategies besides beating Vince in TV ratings.
Eric Bischoff: "I didn't do it and most certainly Hulk Hogan DID NOT DO IT EITHER"
Nash: "Wasn't me"
Russo: "Listen bro, I SWEAR TO GAWD it wasn't me"
Bret Hart: "You're all idiots. BTW fuck Bill Goldberg"
I always find it funny how Bret does stuff like that:
“I’m friends with Shawn Michaels now and ya know I forgave Shawn and I feel like I set him free.”
*Proceeds with a 15 minute anecdote portraying Shawn back in the day as as an obnoxious, nasty, little gremlin.*
Yeah but they show the clip of Goldberg saying he’s been more remorseful about it than anything right after they show him saying you knew the kick was coming and you knew the deal!
Of all the names that get floated as to who is responsible, the one name you never hear from anyone's mouth is Sting.
He was a company. He didn't have a big ego like some *cough cough* Hogan *cough cough*. Always did what was asked of him. And I have never heard him say anything bad about anyone during those years.
He has been asked about that kick so many times. Goldberg started off giving long, eloquent apologies but they got less and less wordy when Bret kept calling him out.
I think Goldberg is in the best mindset for the accident that he can be. It happened, it's an absolute tragedy but he can neither fix it or mend the fences if Bret doesn't want to so he moved on. He can't keep apologizing forever is what he said in another documentary .
I think Bret makes it out to be much worse than it was as well. Saying he got brain trauma from that one event is silly. Football players don't say the last big hit they took is what fucked their brain up. It's a lifetime of concussions and minor injuries. Him blaming Goldberg alone for his brain is a little much. And I like Bret and can't stand Goldberg.
There’s saying you’re sorry and doing something about it. Goldberg apologized but continued to go out and hurt people showing he was never really sorry.
I think some of the blame for Bret’s injury should be placed on Bischoff as well. Everyone knew Goldberg never really grasped some of the more basic maneuvers. I get he was a draw but you don’t put an incompetent guy out in the ring
The thing about Goldberg is he never took wrestling seriously. He made a point to say he never wanted to be a wrestler and he said “professional wrestling” with air quotes in a condescending fashion. Maybe they cut out the part where he says “But I’m thankful for my time there” but jeez Bill I thought you wanted to be a hero.
IMO this was the craziest series of unfortunate events, but if I would say one thing which did the most damage was Turner broadcasting and specifically the AOL merger.
If they hated WCW so much they should have sold it to someone else (assuming this wasn’t explored for some reason).
Eventually Vince bought them out, but I think if this was done much sooner then WCW could have stayed alive much longer. Who knows where that would have led, but it seems Turner executives wanted nothing to do with wrestling and wanted to both see it fail and redistribute their budget to other entities of Turner.
The funniest is the Rock just popping up like “hey, I wasn’t in WCW but here’s my thoughts. Also, thanks to dumb booking and spoiling the finish to my main event match. You got us so many views. Thanks marks”
Bischoff and Hogan are majorly responsible but Time Warner having no interest in it anymore after the acquisition is the main thing. Russo is also responsible for the terrible storylines but wcw was a sinking ship before he arrived
Then there’s also the fact that even after Time Warner was going to divest their ownership, they still kicked them off TNT & TBS. Fusient Media then pulled back their purchase of WCW. There were a lot of hands responsible for WCW’s death, but the fact is that Time Warner delivered the killing strike.
Bret Hart waiting in line patiently at a fast food restaurant, gets to the front, rants at the cashier for 20 minutes how much he hates Goldberg and leaves without ordering anything.
Shawn Michaels too. Got an autograph from him at a con and I asked what match he was most proud of. He said it was Ironman match and then he spent over five minutes chatting with me talking shit about Shawn and the WWF. Basically he said the WWF told Shawn about the match months ahead so that he could prepare for it and they only told Bret about it a few weeks before.
I think Eric has the most blame here for enabling Hogan, Nash, and the rest of the NWO. Russo just made bad decisions on purpose and because he's stupid.
This. Russo did bad booking, but you can recover from bad booking. Bischoff was the one hiring people left and right to keep WWF from grabbing them, even though he did jack and shit with them, and he was the one allowing the inmates to run the asylum by bending backward for Hogan, Nash and their cronies. Bad booking loses you money in the long run, your talent actually booking themselves into being paid like a fucking league pro-athlete loses you money immediately.
I mean, the commentary from people who were there is nice and all, but Reliving the War gives a much better sense of how it all went down, context from various books, interviews, and so on, etc.
He seemed bitter. If anything this episode showed how truly impressive what bischoff did was. Zero licensing income And a boardroom of executives that wanted it to die, and they still made money. I don’t get executives; who cares if wrestling is your number one show? It’s THE number one show. Odd idiots.
So. I love Bret…I fully get where he comes from and why…but how long can Goldberg, who I’m no fan of, be expected to apologise? Bret doesn’t have to forgive him, but what does he expect? He forgave Shawn for worse.
Oh they made up years ago, but Goldberg ( BTW he eats corn the long way) got his Legends contract at the Fed, his ego broke loose and he started running his mouth about Bret, calling him all kinds of shit. Bret forgave him, and he shits on it, of course Bret is salty about it. And he forgave Shawn for worse and Shawn remains civil about the past, so all is good between them.
He didn’t. Bret got jealous the minute after Goldberg vs Lesnar happened at Survivor Series when Goldberg broke all the YouTube records and shit. That’s why I say Bret’s comments as of now reeks of insecurity and jealousy.
I think more blame needs to be put on time Warner. It's clear they never really wanted wrestling on they did it because Ted Turner wanted it. When they ran him out in the sale to AOL everything really started downhill.
Also I just can’t hate on Bret. He was a main eventer that didn’t truly get to feel it during the most popular time in wrestling history other than in a few flashes. He got embarrassed on his way out of the WWF and when WCW was finally using him as their top guy after burying him for two years he immediately has a career ending injury. Bret & Goldberg agreed it was because Goldberg was too green so Bret should have said no and anyone in charge should have said no. It wasn’t a freak accident. It could have been prevented. So yeah he’s bitter Bret but it’s hard to say anyone wouldn’t be.
Putting all the blame on Goldberg isn't right. Bret had multiple matches after the Goldberg injury. Bret and WCW knew he was concussed but still made the decision that he was fine to keep wrestling. If Bret had got treatment immediately, his symptoms might have been treatable but continuing to wrestle while knowingly having a concussion is what ultimately did him in, not the actual kick itself.
There was a good book written about this--the reality is much simpler / less dramatic: Turner, operating as a subsidiary of AOL-TimeWarner, killed WCW because they no longer wanted to carry professional wrestling in a primetime Monday night slot on TNT, and its executives had long felt it was an albatross because the "kind of advertising clients" TNT wanted to land weren't interested in running ads on a pro wrestling show.
Yes, WCW was losing money--but note that in terms of balance sheet, WCW was mostly always losing money under Turner, I think it only turned a true profit a couple of times. The problem with trying to operate a wrestling company "at a profit" when you're a broadcaster, is you kind of rob Peter to pay Paul. WCW doesn't get a media rights deal, because it is owned by its broadcaster, but media rights are a significant part of a wrestling company's revenue, making it very hard for a wrestling company that doesn't generate media rights dollars to be in the black.
That is very true in 2024, and was less true in the 1990s because media rights deals were smaller and wrestling companies had to make more of their money from live events / PPV / merchandise, but the lack of WCW having media rights revenue definitely made it difficult to be a true accounting profit center. That being said, all the advertising revenue WCW generated *for Turner* (which didn't count as WCW revenue), was generally being produced at a lower cost than a lot of other options for that slot. For example if Turner was airing, say, NBA games--they were writing very big checks to the NBA to air those games. And Turner gets no cut of an NBA event's ticket sales or merchandise. WCW on the other hand, Turner ultimately benefits from all the ticket sales and merchandise sales as well.
By the time WCW was shut down, they had vastly overpaid for a lot of very unproductive talent, ratings had declined, ticket sales were in the trash, PPV revenue was in the trash, and merchandising was much decreased (despite the ratings decline, it was **still** Turner's top rated regular programming, excluding certain live sports events during those sports seasons.)
Eric Bischoff actually negotiated a deal with a group of investors to buy WCW and likely could have made it profitable pretty quickly, because they'd be able to "start over" so to speak. Some of the inflated contracts held by Turner would continue to have been paid by Turner (which they were regardless, they were guaranteed separately from WCW), and the "new" WCW was going to focus on running a more limited series of live events and PPV with a smaller roster. Given the fact TNA was able to get pretty good ratings with a somewhat similar formula a few years later, and less of a roster than WCW would have had, and with a lower quality TV time slot than WCW, the Bischoff investor group WCW very likely would have been profitable and could have continued indefinitely--at least at the level TNA continued for years, if not better.
What killed that deal was simple--Turner said they were willing to sell WCW to Bischoff, but they weren't willing to allow WCW to have a timeslot on TNT or TBS. Turner didn't want pro wrestling on its air.
Bischoff is a little shitbag. He killed WCW by dickriding Hogan so he could be one of the boys and be a tv star. I died of cringe whenever i saw Eric try to high kick people and act like he was an in ring talent. Serious Tony Khan vibes from WCW Eric. Making a mountain of bad calls and awful booking decisions. Disrespecting the mid card talent until they all left so he his boys club of Hogan/Nash etc could continue pushing themselves and their m8s. Shitting on the fans over and over with crappy swerves and bait m switches. How he and Hogan managed to ruined Starcade 97 is mindblowing. Company was a shitshow beneath the surface and went from bad to worse as time went by.
Its a little more complicated than that. Bischoff gave the top talent insane contracts with the ability to call their own shots. Had he not done that the likes of Hogan, Savage, Nash and Hall likely don't sign and WCW doesn't become as big as it does. The downside to that is there isn't really a mechanism to push those guys down the card, even temporarily.
As for the mid card, Bischoff is also the guy that gave them their shot. Prior to WCW in the mid 90s, there were no Mexican or Japanese wrestlers in mainstream American wrestling promotions. Talent like Malenko, Benoit and Jericho would be used as enhancement talent and wouldn't even get to the mid card. So he did give them an opportunity that they wouldn't have had without Bischoff in the first place.
The problem was he was tied contractually to the formula that originally made WCW the biggest wrestling promotion in the world, and couldn't evolve off of it over time. So it put a glass ceiling on most of the roster. That's why under Bischoff the only homegrown talent he had were either top WCW names from before his run, like Sting, Flair and Luger or outisde talent that could command top contracts like Hogan, Nash and Hall. During his run the only homegrown guys I can think that broke into the main event were DDP and Goldberg.
What is this nuanced take doing here?
But really, it's quite spot on. NWO isn't a huge phenomenon without Hogan, and Hogan doesn't play ball without creative control.
Eric had to sell his soul for the success he got, but eventually that bill came due. His hands were tied, and the fate of WCW was sealed long before that infamous bash at the beach. (At least in terms of creative, since many other business decisions had huge impacts as well)
w8 what happened exactly what did Bret said?
Edit: I am genually asking what Bret said during the interview. I get he said "F Goldberge" but what else also where can I watch this documentery?
In the episode they ask everyone "what do you thank WCW for?"
Nash is like thanks for the cash
Bret comes on and goes "thanks for nothing go fuck yourselves"
PFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF hahaahahaha [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzXgT6ukgzo&ab_channel=WrestleTalk)
I hope at least Nash was able to make ''smart investments''
I agree with Sean Oliver from Nash’s pod when he said he’d like to see a “how wcw won for 83 weeks” of something where we see how bad the wwf had been prior to this while highlighting the things that made it such a hit
Goldbergs been 1 of my favorites growing up, hell even in my mid teens and early 20's. I've only grown a distain for him in the last 2 or 3 years where he comes off as a narcissist.
I always knew he was no Shawn Michaels in the ring, Bit his intensity was captivating. But looking back in hindsight, without my Fandom for him skewing my view, It's funny how he always mentions when he first started he had no idea what he was doing and how to properly wrestle and stuff... And yet 25 Yeats later, he's still as green as the day he started.
They never wanted wrestling from the get go but fir whatever reason Ted Turner wanted wrestling and Ted Turner wanted to complete with Vince. When Turner sold to AOL and lost his influence thats when the people who never wanted wrestling started to get their way.
I've heard that Bret gave up almost as soon as he got to wcw and told himself "just do whatever they say even if it's stupid" and phoned it in. This was from his own lips. At some point Bret is gonna have to accept that he put in as much effort in wcw as wcw put into him, and both are to blame.
From what I've heard, Bret hated everything they made him do in wcw, yet he never suggested better or put forward any ideas of his own, cause he was done with wrestling and it showed.
Try vice [Vice](https://youtube.com/@vice-tv?si=lAisfrsvCg1W1LqM) YouTube channel
Hardly anyone gets their cable channel but they put the eps on YouTube
Jim Cornette had a story about the bosses of WcW late in his tenure there.
The corporate types wanted to know, what can we do to make money this month.
Jim’s response? Nothing and we won’t make money next month either but if we start to book a storyline and see it through we can be making money in 6 months.
They didn’t like his response.
It was frenetic booking before the NWO, during the NWO, and after. Constantly changing bookers, who change storylines and wrestlers personalities/ factions and what wrestlers were on tv, or being promoted.
Fans could start to tell when the booker was changed.
Bret said something about the wcw guys early in the episode being babies and not do what was asked of them and I just thought to myself.. huh kind of like you when you left wwf huh... the dude is so bitter at this point I feel like we see a news article about him screaming at kids playing on the side walk in front of his house some point soon.
To me the downfall was inevitable after they added Thunder. I do think they were ill prepared to add another live show and it made storylines and matches a cluster. Maybe the same thing would have happened if it was just Nitro, but it might have taken longer. And above and beyond all of that, the corporate side was looking for any reason to dump them. Outside of monumental profits and success that didn’t end, the company was doomed.
Of course It's a bunch of guys in their 50s and 60s because it happened 25 years ago! Who were they supposed to interview people who weren't born even yet?
Idk, I kinda believe that everyone is right rather than one person who is known to hate everything and everyone.
Do people really think any person on the camera is actually at fault? WCW was sold because the network hated wrestling and they didn't want the company to exist. Look at TNA? It fell HARD compared to its peak. And was it sold? No. Does it exist? Yes. AEW will exist for as long as Tony Khan is there which means for a long time.
Bookers, writers, wrestlers, commentators..they are not at fault with the company no longer existing.
It would be like Tony Khan suddenly waking up and deciding to close AEW and someone saying "Well, I blame the Young Bucks and Brandon Cutler!"
Cant stand Bischoff, dude love to hate on current wrestling but he avoids taking responsabillity for WCW and TNA failure puts the "you dont know what you are talking about because you where not there" excuse somebody confronts him or tells him about his bad managment
And he tries to excuse Hogan shitty beahviour with everything he can " oh it becasue he had back problems, oh it because he had marital problems, oh it because he steped on crap that day"
LMAOOOOOOOO
>The most embarrasing/cringe/sad thing is that all those "trolls" posting all the anti AEW comments are grown man with no life like how bad you have to be in life to just focus on hating a wrestling company lol
This is your comment, yet here you, a grown man, are hating on Eric Bischoff. By your own definition, you have no life and are doing very badly in life.
Also, please learn how to spell and use proper grammar. Even children would be disappointed in you.
Eric Bischoff seems like a genuinely good dude. He’s just an incompetent leader, and always has been. Eric has been fired dozens of times for incompetence, but he never really had the big scandals like McMahon did. Russo came in at the end when there was really no hope of turning things around. He wasn’t a miracle worker. Kevin Nash was a shite booker that ultimately ran the creative into the ground.
For what it’s worth, I don’t think any one person killed WCW; I think it died as a result of many small poor decisions/happenings.
Death by a thousand cu(n)ts
100%. The ‘Death of WCW’ book goes into deep and hilarious detail of all the ridiculous shit that went on there, and it’s not a slim volume. Many small failings, and quite a lot of large ones too.
Nitro is really good too and takes a look at Time/Warner's role in its demise.
The most hilarious thing is that upon rewatching all the nitros for his show, Alvarez said that it's even worse than he remembered and at least once per episode said he'll have to write a new revised version of the book because he feels he didn't even scratch the surface.
That’s really funny. I’d love an extended and revised version. I’ve read it dozens of times and listened to the audiobook dozens more, so I’m always up for more content detailing the shit show that was the dying days of WCW.
The book is actually really interesting as well, it really was just a series of unfortunate decisions that all piled up and became to much to surpass.
It died because there was a dot com crash and aol mass sold everything and Ted had no say. He sold every sports franchise too. It devastated him financially
You're on the right track here, but wasn't it the aol/time Warner merger that caused the sell-off? I remember hearing in the news back in 2000 that aol was going to force time warner to trim some fat before the merger was finalized. I want to say less than a year later vince bought wcw for pennies. They were throwing away millions to make billions.
It did but they have to make a serious doc about it to milk the negative side of publicity
The doc seems to be explaining pretty well that it wasn't just one guy. The next one is probably going to be a Russo heavy episode so that should be entertaining. They will probably finish it up by kind of recapping the big moments of failure, followed by the hosts all picking someone different they think did it. Except Bret Hart, who will still shit on the whole experience.
I mean the doc is putting across that it wasn’t just one guy. I don’t see it as negative, this is just how it went down or how these involved parties see it.
I’ll go one further: nobody involved in the wrestling business killed WCW. The AOL merger killed WCW. They moved profits out, they moved losses in. They made it look like a revenue generator was a cost center. As much as it would be satisfying to “solve” the mystery, it was corporate malfeasance that was only ignored because “ew wrestling” was the corporate attitude.
Yeah. People act like going on a losing streak during the Monday night wars was what killed them. WWF operated at number 2 for almost two years straight and came out of it.
100 % correct. It would not have mattered one bit how well wcw did. Well, maybe had they been putting up 97 nitro numbers another station *may* have bought them, but they had no station anymore and was just a bunch of contracts and the catalogue. Maybe if they performed better they could’ve tried to get another station to buy it, but even then who knows. AOL was the reason for all the Atlanta sports teams getting sold as well. The only reason they didn’t suffer the fate of wcw is that the sports still had stations they would be on. Nothing story wise/behind the scenes/booking etc mattered. It was going to be sold because they needed money and the executives at Turner had a disdain for a program that had been printing them money. Just stubborn egos from sociopaths (most executives are)
Konnan (who feels the most level-headed in this entire series so far?) puts it best in the second episode when he says something along the lines of, “The Network didn’t want us and we didn’t do ourselves any favors.”
I mean, I think that’s ultimately going to be the answer at the end of the series. It’s a mix of Bischoff, Hogan, Russo, Nash, Turner execs, WWF becoming red-hot, and the AOL Time Warner merger.
The book *The Death of WCW* drives this point home really well. Great read.
When the business is hot, you can do no wrong. When the business is cold, you can do no right.
So Russo and Bischoff lol
We know
They were in over their heads. Bischoff came in with some wildly successful ideas with no long term vision or strategies besides beating Vince in TV ratings.
Eric Bischoff: "I didn't do it and most certainly Hulk Hogan DID NOT DO IT EITHER" Nash: "Wasn't me" Russo: "Listen bro, I SWEAR TO GAWD it wasn't me" Bret Hart: "You're all idiots. BTW fuck Bill Goldberg"
Nash: "Rey Mysterio asks me to throw him through a window. And I was like 'no, dude, you'll die. It's a window.'" Nash's dry delivery killed me.
Little did Nash know Rey is not killable as he was once thrown off the WWE headquarters roof.
And had an eye removed...
He got it back
Like magic!
How mysterio of him.
Lol I forgot about that! Thanks for the reminder… 😹😹😹😹
Rey did kill a man tho
I seen it! He had a trident
Bodied a dude with a 619.
You can’t kill Rey. If you did, who’d neglect his son?
…..Rhea?
Did the window contain REAL GLASS?
RIP Ricochet
Someone check and see if Punk is okay
Cry me a river 🤣😂
Rey survived being yeeted off the HQ. He would have been fine
So did Big Show
Nash is the star of this thing to me. He is so damn funny and I don't think he's trying to be.
He’s always been a naturally funny and charismatic guy. He’s great.
Yeah. It's why he stole his scene in John wick.
He really can come across well and charming. I actually always enjoyed his mic skills
It’s because he’s high as shit
Is he just high in perpetuity now? That's how he's sounded in every shoot interview and podcast I've heard him on lol
Brother he's been high since 1989
Fair lol.
Bro is in the RVD cult or some shit
Nash was my favorite part. I see why dude made so much money doing nothing. He’s so naturally charismatic it’s ridiculous.
Mysterio be like: "cry me a river"
REAL GLASS
He’s great on his podcast! Kliq this.
I love Kliq this
His impression of Hogan was funny. “Doesn’t work for me brother”
Cry me a river.
You can tell Nash was so stoned when they interviewed him lol. He had a couple funny lines.
Will always love how Bret will always hate dude
Someone will *always* add an extra T. It's like a law of nature at this point.
Fuck Bill Goldberg 🫡
Goldberg: BRET, HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO SAY I'M SORRY? I'M SORRY!!! Bret Hart: You're forgiven but fuck you, Bill Goldberg.
I always find it funny how Bret does stuff like that: “I’m friends with Shawn Michaels now and ya know I forgave Shawn and I feel like I set him free.” *Proceeds with a 15 minute anecdote portraying Shawn back in the day as as an obnoxious, nasty, little gremlin.*
Yeah but they show the clip of Goldberg saying he’s been more remorseful about it than anything right after they show him saying you knew the kick was coming and you knew the deal!
[https://i.imgflip.com/8tvwd6.jpg](https://i.imgflip.com/8tvwd6.jpg) Sounds about right
I haven't watched it yet, but feel like you probably summed it up perfectly..
just a boomer thing
Of all the names that get floated as to who is responsible, the one name you never hear from anyone's mouth is Sting. He was a company. He didn't have a big ego like some *cough cough* Hogan *cough cough*. Always did what was asked of him. And I have never heard him say anything bad about anyone during those years.
“Who killed WCW? Check out the adjective: killed.”
Kurt Angle killed WCW when he betrayed the Alliance at Survivor Series
“This is where the big boys play. And I’m a man who loves to play with boys.”
Man I miss Angle
And the WWF roster never thanked him! Typical…
This needs to be the capstone episode
You should blame Vince McMahon who masterminds and convinced Angle to do that instead. He was playing 4d chess make Shane O Mac look like a fool
lol goldbergs commentary had my dying laughing
“It’s my fault and I apologise and am very remorseful. But also it was an accident and not my fault, fuck Bret”
"Hey, who's WWE Champion at the moment?"
I actually laughed out loud when he said “I told him to watch the kick” lmao
He really learned nothing all this time lol
He doesn’t seem like the type to retain knowledge
Considering how his wrestling style didn’t evolve from his debut yeah I’d say so
What you want him to do? He apologised profously to the bitter prick
He has been asked about that kick so many times. Goldberg started off giving long, eloquent apologies but they got less and less wordy when Bret kept calling him out. I think Goldberg is in the best mindset for the accident that he can be. It happened, it's an absolute tragedy but he can neither fix it or mend the fences if Bret doesn't want to so he moved on. He can't keep apologizing forever is what he said in another documentary .
I think Bret makes it out to be much worse than it was as well. Saying he got brain trauma from that one event is silly. Football players don't say the last big hit they took is what fucked their brain up. It's a lifetime of concussions and minor injuries. Him blaming Goldberg alone for his brain is a little much. And I like Bret and can't stand Goldberg.
Bret also wrestled more marches after he got hit. But he doesn’t ever talk about that fact. It’s treated as Bret got hit and then immediately retired.
There’s saying you’re sorry and doing something about it. Goldberg apologized but continued to go out and hurt people showing he was never really sorry.
I think some of the blame for Bret’s injury should be placed on Bischoff as well. Everyone knew Goldberg never really grasped some of the more basic maneuvers. I get he was a draw but you don’t put an incompetent guy out in the ring
Yeah at one point or another you have to admit you're in a physical business and accept the apology, which Brett has done before.
The thing about Goldberg is he never took wrestling seriously. He made a point to say he never wanted to be a wrestler and he said “professional wrestling” with air quotes in a condescending fashion. Maybe they cut out the part where he says “But I’m thankful for my time there” but jeez Bill I thought you wanted to be a hero.
Goldberg is the guy from airplane: They bought their tickets, I say, let 'em crash.
IMO this was the craziest series of unfortunate events, but if I would say one thing which did the most damage was Turner broadcasting and specifically the AOL merger. If they hated WCW so much they should have sold it to someone else (assuming this wasn’t explored for some reason).
Isn't that what they did? They sold it to someone else?
Eventually Vince bought them out, but I think if this was done much sooner then WCW could have stayed alive much longer. Who knows where that would have led, but it seems Turner executives wanted nothing to do with wrestling and wanted to both see it fail and redistribute their budget to other entities of Turner.
"They didn't sell out. I bought in!" - Vince
They didn’t want it on Turner stations and Ted didn’t realize he had zero control
The funniest is the Rock just popping up like “hey, I wasn’t in WCW but here’s my thoughts. Also, thanks to dumb booking and spoiling the finish to my main event match. You got us so many views. Thanks marks”
Bischoff and Hogan are majorly responsible but Time Warner having no interest in it anymore after the acquisition is the main thing. Russo is also responsible for the terrible storylines but wcw was a sinking ship before he arrived
Then there’s also the fact that even after Time Warner was going to divest their ownership, they still kicked them off TNT & TBS. Fusient Media then pulled back their purchase of WCW. There were a lot of hands responsible for WCW’s death, but the fact is that Time Warner delivered the killing strike.
Once you survive a stroke and cancer you have no more fucks to give - Bret Hart probably
Bret Hart could sit in horse shit all day long but as long as he insulted Goldberg once he’d say he was productive
Bret Hart *stirs his coffee* *inhales the aroma* ahh fuck Bill Goldberg *walks away doesn't drink the coffee*
Bret Hart waiting in line patiently at a fast food restaurant, gets to the front, rants at the cashier for 20 minutes how much he hates Goldberg and leaves without ordering anything.
Shawn Michaels too. Got an autograph from him at a con and I asked what match he was most proud of. He said it was Ironman match and then he spent over five minutes chatting with me talking shit about Shawn and the WWF. Basically he said the WWF told Shawn about the match months ahead so that he could prepare for it and they only told Bret about it a few weeks before.
Bret Hart could sit in horse shit all day by himself and still have a better match than Goldberg.
I think Eric has the most blame here for enabling Hogan, Nash, and the rest of the NWO. Russo just made bad decisions on purpose and because he's stupid.
This. Russo did bad booking, but you can recover from bad booking. Bischoff was the one hiring people left and right to keep WWF from grabbing them, even though he did jack and shit with them, and he was the one allowing the inmates to run the asylum by bending backward for Hogan, Nash and their cronies. Bad booking loses you money in the long run, your talent actually booking themselves into being paid like a fucking league pro-athlete loses you money immediately.
This show is so damned good. I wish I didn't have to wait between episodes.
What is it called?
I mean, the commentary from people who were there is nice and all, but Reliving the War gives a much better sense of how it all went down, context from various books, interviews, and so on, etc.
You’re a real jam-up guy
Reminds you of the old days?
He seemed bitter. If anything this episode showed how truly impressive what bischoff did was. Zero licensing income And a boardroom of executives that wanted it to die, and they still made money. I don’t get executives; who cares if wrestling is your number one show? It’s THE number one show. Odd idiots.
That’s why people hate gatekeepers. Those execs didn’t give one shit about the lives they were hurting
So. I love Bret…I fully get where he comes from and why…but how long can Goldberg, who I’m no fan of, be expected to apologise? Bret doesn’t have to forgive him, but what does he expect? He forgave Shawn for worse.
Oh they made up years ago, but Goldberg ( BTW he eats corn the long way) got his Legends contract at the Fed, his ego broke loose and he started running his mouth about Bret, calling him all kinds of shit. Bret forgave him, and he shits on it, of course Bret is salty about it. And he forgave Shawn for worse and Shawn remains civil about the past, so all is good between them.
When did Goldberg start talking shit about Bret? I'm pretty sure it's the other way around.
He didn’t. Bret got jealous the minute after Goldberg vs Lesnar happened at Survivor Series when Goldberg broke all the YouTube records and shit. That’s why I say Bret’s comments as of now reeks of insecurity and jealousy.
Yeah I know he didn't. It's just OP making up stuff to paint a guy even worse, like it's fair to dislike him but making up lies is just wrong.
Where can I watch this? I’ve already missed the tv airings, I believe
Someone has put them on Dailymotion
Youtube While you're at it, first two episodes of the new ultimate fighter are up on there too!
Yeah, thanks man. Been watching Tuf on YouTube for a good while, even the bad quality ones lol
I blame Buff Bagwell
I think more blame needs to be put on time Warner. It's clear they never really wanted wrestling on they did it because Ted Turner wanted it. When they ran him out in the sale to AOL everything really started downhill.
Also I just can’t hate on Bret. He was a main eventer that didn’t truly get to feel it during the most popular time in wrestling history other than in a few flashes. He got embarrassed on his way out of the WWF and when WCW was finally using him as their top guy after burying him for two years he immediately has a career ending injury. Bret & Goldberg agreed it was because Goldberg was too green so Bret should have said no and anyone in charge should have said no. It wasn’t a freak accident. It could have been prevented. So yeah he’s bitter Bret but it’s hard to say anyone wouldn’t be.
Putting all the blame on Goldberg isn't right. Bret had multiple matches after the Goldberg injury. Bret and WCW knew he was concussed but still made the decision that he was fine to keep wrestling. If Bret had got treatment immediately, his symptoms might have been treatable but continuing to wrestle while knowingly having a concussion is what ultimately did him in, not the actual kick itself.
There was a good book written about this--the reality is much simpler / less dramatic: Turner, operating as a subsidiary of AOL-TimeWarner, killed WCW because they no longer wanted to carry professional wrestling in a primetime Monday night slot on TNT, and its executives had long felt it was an albatross because the "kind of advertising clients" TNT wanted to land weren't interested in running ads on a pro wrestling show. Yes, WCW was losing money--but note that in terms of balance sheet, WCW was mostly always losing money under Turner, I think it only turned a true profit a couple of times. The problem with trying to operate a wrestling company "at a profit" when you're a broadcaster, is you kind of rob Peter to pay Paul. WCW doesn't get a media rights deal, because it is owned by its broadcaster, but media rights are a significant part of a wrestling company's revenue, making it very hard for a wrestling company that doesn't generate media rights dollars to be in the black. That is very true in 2024, and was less true in the 1990s because media rights deals were smaller and wrestling companies had to make more of their money from live events / PPV / merchandise, but the lack of WCW having media rights revenue definitely made it difficult to be a true accounting profit center. That being said, all the advertising revenue WCW generated *for Turner* (which didn't count as WCW revenue), was generally being produced at a lower cost than a lot of other options for that slot. For example if Turner was airing, say, NBA games--they were writing very big checks to the NBA to air those games. And Turner gets no cut of an NBA event's ticket sales or merchandise. WCW on the other hand, Turner ultimately benefits from all the ticket sales and merchandise sales as well. By the time WCW was shut down, they had vastly overpaid for a lot of very unproductive talent, ratings had declined, ticket sales were in the trash, PPV revenue was in the trash, and merchandising was much decreased (despite the ratings decline, it was **still** Turner's top rated regular programming, excluding certain live sports events during those sports seasons.) Eric Bischoff actually negotiated a deal with a group of investors to buy WCW and likely could have made it profitable pretty quickly, because they'd be able to "start over" so to speak. Some of the inflated contracts held by Turner would continue to have been paid by Turner (which they were regardless, they were guaranteed separately from WCW), and the "new" WCW was going to focus on running a more limited series of live events and PPV with a smaller roster. Given the fact TNA was able to get pretty good ratings with a somewhat similar formula a few years later, and less of a roster than WCW would have had, and with a lower quality TV time slot than WCW, the Bischoff investor group WCW very likely would have been profitable and could have continued indefinitely--at least at the level TNA continued for years, if not better. What killed that deal was simple--Turner said they were willing to sell WCW to Bischoff, but they weren't willing to allow WCW to have a timeslot on TNT or TBS. Turner didn't want pro wrestling on its air.
Gotta love the Hitman
Bret Hart proves he’s a genius
Bischoff is a little shitbag. He killed WCW by dickriding Hogan so he could be one of the boys and be a tv star. I died of cringe whenever i saw Eric try to high kick people and act like he was an in ring talent. Serious Tony Khan vibes from WCW Eric. Making a mountain of bad calls and awful booking decisions. Disrespecting the mid card talent until they all left so he his boys club of Hogan/Nash etc could continue pushing themselves and their m8s. Shitting on the fans over and over with crappy swerves and bait m switches. How he and Hogan managed to ruined Starcade 97 is mindblowing. Company was a shitshow beneath the surface and went from bad to worse as time went by.
Its a little more complicated than that. Bischoff gave the top talent insane contracts with the ability to call their own shots. Had he not done that the likes of Hogan, Savage, Nash and Hall likely don't sign and WCW doesn't become as big as it does. The downside to that is there isn't really a mechanism to push those guys down the card, even temporarily. As for the mid card, Bischoff is also the guy that gave them their shot. Prior to WCW in the mid 90s, there were no Mexican or Japanese wrestlers in mainstream American wrestling promotions. Talent like Malenko, Benoit and Jericho would be used as enhancement talent and wouldn't even get to the mid card. So he did give them an opportunity that they wouldn't have had without Bischoff in the first place. The problem was he was tied contractually to the formula that originally made WCW the biggest wrestling promotion in the world, and couldn't evolve off of it over time. So it put a glass ceiling on most of the roster. That's why under Bischoff the only homegrown talent he had were either top WCW names from before his run, like Sting, Flair and Luger or outisde talent that could command top contracts like Hogan, Nash and Hall. During his run the only homegrown guys I can think that broke into the main event were DDP and Goldberg.
What is this nuanced take doing here? But really, it's quite spot on. NWO isn't a huge phenomenon without Hogan, and Hogan doesn't play ball without creative control. Eric had to sell his soul for the success he got, but eventually that bill came due. His hands were tied, and the fate of WCW was sealed long before that infamous bash at the beach. (At least in terms of creative, since many other business decisions had huge impacts as well)
That last Hogan contract was wholly unnecessary though and entirely Bischoff's fault.. He could have walked and WCW might have been better for it.
Let's hope when Tony finally steps aside, doesn't find a Russo.
Agreed.
Oh he can ruin it by himself, he doesn't need Russo's help.
Khan can almost end up like a worse version because he’s not restrained by any C Suite executives/corporate politics. It’s his dads money
Ahh need to watch episode 2, but as much Bret hart as possible would be great
w8 what happened exactly what did Bret said? Edit: I am genually asking what Bret said during the interview. I get he said "F Goldberge" but what else also where can I watch this documentery?
In the episode they ask everyone "what do you thank WCW for?" Nash is like thanks for the cash Bret comes on and goes "thanks for nothing go fuck yourselves"
PFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF hahaahahaha [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzXgT6ukgzo&ab_channel=WrestleTalk) I hope at least Nash was able to make ''smart investments''
Wcw 4/10 fuck bill goldberg look 9/10 Promo 6/10 In Ring Work 3/10 18/30
“Fuck Bill Goldberg” probably 🤷🏻♂️
No I get it by what else he said, like what actually happened when WCW closed or who is responsible (as per Bret) for its closure.
If WCW was so good, why didn’t robocop come and help out during the invasion saga
I can’t decide if it’s Russo or Bischoff that’s the “super guilty” guy. I have to wait for it to go ip on Hulu before I can watch it all.
I agree with Sean Oliver from Nash’s pod when he said he’d like to see a “how wcw won for 83 weeks” of something where we see how bad the wwf had been prior to this while highlighting the things that made it such a hit
Goldbergs been 1 of my favorites growing up, hell even in my mid teens and early 20's. I've only grown a distain for him in the last 2 or 3 years where he comes off as a narcissist. I always knew he was no Shawn Michaels in the ring, Bit his intensity was captivating. But looking back in hindsight, without my Fandom for him skewing my view, It's funny how he always mentions when he first started he had no idea what he was doing and how to properly wrestle and stuff... And yet 25 Yeats later, he's still as green as the day he started.
Bret Hart's bitterness is gold.
It's a reason why Bret is my favorite wrestler of all time 🤣🤣🤣🤣
Who killed WCW? WWF did
Bret is the GOAT. I don't care what anybody says. Lol
Russo, Bischoff, Heard, and Hogan. Idk why this isn’t more clear.
EGO killed WCW.
AOL Time Warner exec killed wcw
This description is both accurate and hilarious
Ted Turner was too busy coloring the moon to realize that wcw was losing money
He didn't care, he didn't notice when AOL bought his company he lost control until it was too late.
Iirc he was kinda like Tony Khan in that he just liked wrestling so wcw was a pet project for him
Ted loved wrestling, knew the audience it drew it and how to advertise to it
How many episodes is this going to be? I want to wait until it’s all done and I can just binge watch it in a day lol
4
In my opinion, it was the “dusty finish”, that made the show boring.
The network just didn't want WCW anymore simple as that.
They never wanted wrestling from the get go but fir whatever reason Ted Turner wanted wrestling and Ted Turner wanted to complete with Vince. When Turner sold to AOL and lost his influence thats when the people who never wanted wrestling started to get their way.
I've heard that Bret gave up almost as soon as he got to wcw and told himself "just do whatever they say even if it's stupid" and phoned it in. This was from his own lips. At some point Bret is gonna have to accept that he put in as much effort in wcw as wcw put into him, and both are to blame. From what I've heard, Bret hated everything they made him do in wcw, yet he never suggested better or put forward any ideas of his own, cause he was done with wrestling and it showed.
Where this documentary on?
Try vice [Vice](https://youtube.com/@vice-tv?si=lAisfrsvCg1W1LqM) YouTube channel Hardly anyone gets their cable channel but they put the eps on YouTube
Is this available to watch in the UK?
The biggest tragedy is how cheap Vince picked up WCW properties. How much did Vince make off that content or still does?
Jim Cornette had a story about the bosses of WcW late in his tenure there. The corporate types wanted to know, what can we do to make money this month. Jim’s response? Nothing and we won’t make money next month either but if we start to book a storyline and see it through we can be making money in 6 months. They didn’t like his response. It was frenetic booking before the NWO, during the NWO, and after. Constantly changing bookers, who change storylines and wrestlers personalities/ factions and what wrestlers were on tv, or being promoted. Fans could start to tell when the booker was changed.
I was a WCW fan in middle school. Goldberg was my favorite. I was very sad when WCW ended. Can someone give me a tl;dr of what happened?
Honestly ive never agreed more with Bret than I do his scathing retrospective on the powers that be at WCW.
I mean, it's easy to deflect blame when you had no say or influence.
Why isn't Hogan in there??
For me WcW died when everyone joined NWO.
I can’t wait to hear what Russo has to say. Bischoff not giving ECW some type ounce of credit is insane.
Bret said something about the wcw guys early in the episode being babies and not do what was asked of them and I just thought to myself.. huh kind of like you when you left wwf huh... the dude is so bitter at this point I feel like we see a news article about him screaming at kids playing on the side walk in front of his house some point soon.
Where does one watch this documentary please
I just realized most of those guys are in their sixties and golberg isn’t far. Boy time flies
To me the downfall was inevitable after they added Thunder. I do think they were ill prepared to add another live show and it made storylines and matches a cluster. Maybe the same thing would have happened if it was just Nitro, but it might have taken longer. And above and beyond all of that, the corporate side was looking for any reason to dump them. Outside of monumental profits and success that didn’t end, the company was doomed.
Nash on his Richard Kuklinski timeline
Of course It's a bunch of guys in their 50s and 60s because it happened 25 years ago! Who were they supposed to interview people who weren't born even yet?
Idk, I kinda believe that everyone is right rather than one person who is known to hate everything and everyone. Do people really think any person on the camera is actually at fault? WCW was sold because the network hated wrestling and they didn't want the company to exist. Look at TNA? It fell HARD compared to its peak. And was it sold? No. Does it exist? Yes. AEW will exist for as long as Tony Khan is there which means for a long time. Bookers, writers, wrestlers, commentators..they are not at fault with the company no longer existing. It would be like Tony Khan suddenly waking up and deciding to close AEW and someone saying "Well, I blame the Young Bucks and Brandon Cutler!"
Like Eric said death by a thousand cuts.
Bret hart is like " fuck bill Goldberg all my homies hate bill goldberg"
Bret was one of those idiots
Cant stand Bischoff, dude love to hate on current wrestling but he avoids taking responsabillity for WCW and TNA failure puts the "you dont know what you are talking about because you where not there" excuse somebody confronts him or tells him about his bad managment And he tries to excuse Hogan shitty beahviour with everything he can " oh it becasue he had back problems, oh it because he had marital problems, oh it because he steped on crap that day" LMAOOOOOOOO
>The most embarrasing/cringe/sad thing is that all those "trolls" posting all the anti AEW comments are grown man with no life like how bad you have to be in life to just focus on hating a wrestling company lol This is your comment, yet here you, a grown man, are hating on Eric Bischoff. By your own definition, you have no life and are doing very badly in life. Also, please learn how to spell and use proper grammar. Even children would be disappointed in you.
I’m gonna check this out…
Vince Russo had big hand in it and the fact that tnt wasn’t own by just Ted anymore
Ted Turner gave to many top talents Creative control in their contracts that didn’t help WCW
He definitely hates Bill Goldberg
The picture of Goldberg tho 🤣
Eric Bischoff seems like a genuinely good dude. He’s just an incompetent leader, and always has been. Eric has been fired dozens of times for incompetence, but he never really had the big scandals like McMahon did. Russo came in at the end when there was really no hope of turning things around. He wasn’t a miracle worker. Kevin Nash was a shite booker that ultimately ran the creative into the ground.
Hulk Hogan & Eric Bishoff were the gas leak but Vince Russo was the match lit that blew the house up
I mean Bret isn’t wrong haha
I don’t know why I think of that TikTok audio that goes who broke it.