The SmarK Rant for Who Killed WCW? – Episode 4

The SmarK Rant for Who Killed WCW? – Episode 4

“The Final Nitro”

And so we come to the end of this frequently strange and sometimes self-contradicting series that has basically revealed nothing new about the death of WCW and really doesn’t seem like it’s for anyone in particular. Kind of like WCW itself.

Previously on Who Killed WCW: Everything was great! And then it wasn’t so great! And then it got really bad, but it absolutely wasn’t Vince Russo’s fault according to Vince Russo!

So now you’re caught up again.

Booker T thinks that Ted Turner finally had to look at the books and pull the plug in 2001. Well Ted wasn’t involved in the company in 2001, Book. Speaking of which, we cover the merger of Time-Warner and AOL, which effectively removed Ted from day to day operations of his own company for the first time. They talk about how the dot-com bubble was insanely overpaying people for future promises. I was one of those people getting insanely overpaid in 2000! Those were the days. I think Sean Shannon probably stole all the money, but that’s another topic.

Kevin Nash sums up the post-Russo era of 2000 as “what a bunch of fucking boobs” and Brad Siegel admits he couldn’t save it, as the red kept getting redder and ratings kept getting lower. Guy Evana talks about the terrifying plunge in buyrates from 1999 to 2000, which killed off their biggest source of revenue.

They talk about how TBS would transfer losses onto WCW’s books because everyone knew the company was just going to be written off anyway. To be fair, it also went the other way in a lot of cases. Eric Bischoff asked Brad Siegel to let him explore selling the company, but Siegel resisted the idea. And then the FCC approved the AOL merger, at which point WCW was under a microscope and Ted Turner was marginalized out of his own company. And at that point, Brad Siegel felt like it was time to unload WCW. So he finally called up Eric and told him to explore selling the company.

Eric Bischoff introduces us to Fusient Media, who started ESPN Classics, and made an offer of about 67 million dollars to buy WCW. The rough plan was to produce weekly TV at the Hard Rock Café in Las Vegas and restart with a PPV called “The Big Bang”. Yeah because doing weekly TV in Las Vegas sure worked out great for the AWA. Also they had just rebooted the company in April of 2000 and it immediately went off a cliff again so I’m also skeptical about that approach meaning anything less than a year later. Eric and Fusient had the deal ready to close…and then Jamie Kellner ended up in charge of WCW in March of 2001.

And Jamie Kellner hated wrestling and didn’t want anything to do with it, according Brad Siegel, and wanted it gone as soon as possible. So everyone was informed that there was going to be a hiatus coming up, which then turned into a cancelation. So Fusient called up Eric and killed the deal, because the product was literally worthless without TV.

Stu Snyder talks about his history with TBS and leaving to become president of WWF. So seeing the end of WCW in the future, he called up Brad Siegel and made a casual offer to buy them. And on March 23, the WWF announced that they had purchased WCW, setting up the final Nitro on March 26.

Booker T claims that no one knew about the Vince McMahon thing until he showed up on the big screen, which is silly because WWF had previously tried to buy the company months earlier before the deal fell through due to Viacom’s objections. EVERYONE knew this was happening. Anyway, Booker was excited and felt like he was the only one. Kevin Nash: “You guys want to be on the Titanic when it’s sinking? Great! I’ll sit and watch it sink from my house.” DDP was more upset about all the production people who suddenly lost their jobs and livelihood because of Kellner’s decision.

Next up, we discuss how this giant wrestling company and their archives were sold for $4 million, which everyone agrees is some pretty murky math. And then we talk about Bob Ryder and his theory that Brad Siegel sabotaged his own company by killing the TV side so that Kellner would be able to more easily kill the remains. But everyone agrees that there’s not actually any evidence that Siegel and Snyder were conspiring. Snyder dismisses the whole nonsense theory and notes that if there actually was someone offering $60 million then they would have taken the money. This whole thing feels like Twitter rumor-mongering to be honest, just put in there to fill some time on the show.

Stu Snyder thinks that without Ted Turner advocating for them, there wasn’t going to be anyone who could help the company survive. And over in the WWF, the buck stopped with Vince and everyone knew it. You either fell in line or got pooped on. Or words to that effect.

Snyder talks about how they wanted to keep WCW alive and run it as a separate show. But Bischoff points out that the contracts of the big names weren’t part of the deal, and not everyone wanted to go work for WWE. But Booker took the 50% buyout and went back to work. And then we discuss the Invasion storyline, and Konnan thinks that it could have booked better. Someone should write something about that. Kevin Nash talks about coming in for the nWo angle in 2002, and how they were never going to go over any of the top guys, and they gave up. Well aside from Hulk Hogan ending up as the WWF champion and beating HHH. And then Eric Bischoff joins up in 2002 as we’re really treading on paths well-worn now.

And then we finish with everyone offering their final word on Who Killed WCW? Everyone literally blames each other. And then everyone remembers the good times as we wrap it up. Bischoff thinks he’s a very lucky guy and that’s it. Well if the show was called “Deflect All Blame From Eric Bischoff and Make Him a Sympathetic Character” then they at least made a good effort on THAT front.

Jesus what an underwhelming finale this was. The show is literally called WHO KILLED WCW and they never even answered the question. This was just another hour rehashing the same basic story we already know, not even going into any details like Vince’s initial offer to buy the company in late 2000 and the complications with lawsuits and all that. Like it’s one thing to gloss over it, but they literally didn’t even MENTION It. That’s a HUGE piece of the history to leave out, because they were portraying it like WCW was just fine after Russo left and then suddenly in 2001, Vince just up and bought the company one day and no one knew it was coming. And that’s nowhere near what the situation actually was and it’s actually really dishonest to frame it that way.

So is it worth watching? It’s fine. You won’t learn anything new and honestly there’s way better and more comprehensive and entertaining documentaries produced, ironically enough, by WWE themselves in order to cash in on WCW’s name. But I’d call it more frustratingly undercooked and bland than offensive. Obviously none of these pathological liars is gonna take responsibility and admit to anything, and the the producers weren’t gonna press anyone on anything, so you get a bunch of people blaming “the corporate suits” and doing the equivalent of “Who are the ad wizards who came up with that one?” over and over without ever going any deeper. But it could have been something way more interesting, and really what else can you say about it?

Because WCW.