Scott's Mailbag
Rants

WCW in Canada

By Scott Keith on 25 May 2024


I remember you saying in a lot of your reviews back at the time that Canada was a WWF stronghold where WCW never really got a footing

What do you think WCW could have done, if anything, to stem the tide?

Run more shows in Canada during their hot period?

Push Canadian's like Bret, Benoit and Jericho more effectively?

I don't think they even ran a major show/taping in Canada until 1999 with the “Goldberg Spear's Bret's protective shirt” episode of Nitro did they?


Historically speaking, WCW was up against two major barriers against breaking into Canada:

1. The Chicken and the Egg. Although Crockett had some history in Toronto, that was long before the “modern” era of WCW and by the time WCW was a thing, WWF was basically a monopoly there. WCW had no presence in Canada because they didn't tour, and they didn't tour because they had no presence in Canada. Added onto that the fact that Canada didn't get access to TBS until 1991 and WCW didn't have a major Canadian syndication deal for their programming, and there just wasn't an easy way for Canadian fans to be hooked by WCW shows unless you watched the US TV stations.

2. Legal issues. This would be the big one, in that the WWF had a stranglehold on the major arenas they ran, forbidding them from dealing with WCW for a period before and after a WWF show, which meant that they only had to run all the major Canadian cities about every six months to legally prevent WCW from ever touring up here. I still don't know how they managed to get away with that one. Eventually Vince lost interest in touring Canada for long enough periods that WCW was able to sneak in if they wanted, but with the Canadian dollar so low, I don't think it would have been worth it.