Who Killed WCW Season 1 Episode 4 The Final Nitro
Who Killed WCW Season 1 Episode 4 The Final Nitro
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00:00WCW is about to dominate the globe in professional wrestling.
00:1710 million people in the United States were zeroed in on professional wrestling.
00:22We were the number one cable rated show.
00:24For almost two years, mind blowing.
00:27And when something gets too big too fast, shit's going to hit the fan at some point
00:31and it did.
00:32Little by little, we just fell.
00:35We already knew that we were running thin.
00:38It is so good to be king.
00:41He cared more about ratings than he cared about advertising dollars.
00:44It was a shit show.
00:47Vince Russo was just another idiot.
00:49He was there to lead to our ultimate demise.
00:54I was done.
00:55It was over.
00:56I could have cared less.
00:58No doubt in my mind, Bischoff was responsible for a little of this.
01:02Another nail in the coffin of a company that was rapidly dying at that time.
01:06I don't control that shit.
01:07I go out and I do my job.
01:10My check didn't change.
01:11It was the easiest money I ever made in my career.
01:13Like they got what?
01:16When guys got those kind of agendas, thinking about themselves, that's pretty much when
01:20the ship started to go down.
01:22This is some fucked up shit.
01:25You ain't in Kansas anymore.
01:27You cannot sweep this under the rug.
01:31This is a fucking television show.
01:33The real reason men come in lies.
01:36I believe WCW has come to an end.
02:02It is.
02:03At an end.
02:05It didn't feel like a family anymore.
02:07It felt like everybody was out for themselves and it seemed like the blood was in the water
02:11and the sharks were coming to get it.
02:14I think everybody just didn't know what was happening.
02:16We were still hearing the rumors that we were just going to shut the doors.
02:19So I think at that point everybody was just really unsettled.
02:24It's easy to lose sight of how lucky we are to be a part of this.
02:27Hopefully it ain't over.
02:29WCW wrestling is so important to me.
02:32That one guy, Turner, I think, just doesn't think wrestling is cool or whatever.
02:36It's on the road for millions of people.
02:39I think Turner finally started looking into the books and said,
02:42we got to pull the plug on this.
02:44No matter how much Ted Turner loved this business and wanted to keep it afloat,
02:50you start looking at the books at that time and seeing how much money we were spending.
02:54I can only imagine how much money went out the window.
02:57Oh my God.
03:00After Brad brought me back to oversee Russo,
03:03it was apparent to me that things were more dysfunctional
03:06within Turner Broadcasting and the relationship between Turner and WCW
03:10than they had ever been.
03:12I'm not talking about what was going on in television
03:14or how much money they were making or losing.
03:16I'm just talking about the relationship.
03:20Time Warner is a company of winning brands and winning people,
03:24and so is AOL, for this merger.
03:27Just like when we put Turner Broadcasting into Time Warner,
03:30it made the company much, much stronger,
03:32and I think we're all committed to making this thing work.
03:35AOL was absolutely ubiquitous at that time in terms of,
03:38in the public consciousness, the company introduced many people
03:42to the concept of logging onto the internet for the very first time.
03:46I've been on America Online two months, and it's really been a revelation for me.
03:51You got mail!
03:54This was at the time where a lot of the new internet.com businesses
03:59were receiving wild overvaluations based on promises of future growth.
04:04If you looked at the assets besides furniture,
04:08they have a subscription list,
04:11and that's the people who subscribe to AOL.
04:14AOL's leadership in the early part of 1999
04:17also were keenly aware of this reality as well.
04:20So one option that was considered was to merge
04:23with a media and entertainment conglomerate, which was Time Warner.
04:26The combined company, which will be called AOL Time Warner,
04:30gives each partner what it now lacks.
04:32What ended up happening is that AOL shareholders
04:35would receive 55% of the new company and Time Warner 45%.
04:41Now, my dad's never been online in his life.
04:44Never touched a computer, never owned a cell phone,
04:46never used an ATM, right?
04:48He's old school.
04:49So I think it was a whole generation gap loss
04:53on AOL's going to buy this giant company with nothing,
04:58where the older investment guys are like,
05:00well, you can't turn it down.
05:01It's hundreds of dollars a share.
05:03This is going to be awesome.
05:04We're only going to make a billion dollars.
05:06But nobody would stand up and go,
05:08this is a Ponzi scheme, man, right?
05:10This is all going to fall apart.
05:12The blockbuster deal still needs regulatory approval
05:15and a nod from Time Warner and AOL shareholders.
05:17AOL had serious, serious issues.
05:21WCW got caught up in that also.
05:25In a sense, you could say it was collateral damage.
05:28Wrestling has become fun, crazy entertainment.
05:32It's an alternative.
05:34It doesn't define our network.
05:35It's one night a week.
05:37It's a hit every Monday night, but it wasn't anymore.
05:40Because it was broken and I had to fix it,
05:42I was a physical presence there.
05:44I was in there trying to do whatever I can do
05:47to get it back on track.
05:49Big mistake!
05:51What a bunch of fucking boobs.
05:54It was so bad, I really felt like,
05:57okay, stake in our heart.
05:58It was a chaotic shit show and a blur.
06:02And I said, I'm about to get the hell out of here
06:05because I've had it.
06:06You had to look out for yourself.
06:08I just felt like Brad didn't know anything about wrestling.
06:11I mean, he knew about the corporate side,
06:13but he wasn't a wrestling person.
06:15He wasn't somebody that was going to try
06:17to help save the company.
06:19It was like going through the motions.
06:21To be completely honest, I couldn't fix it.
06:24And the red kept getting redder.
06:25And the ratings kept falling and falling and falling.
06:28In addition, WCW drove away its paying audience.
06:31Look at the difference in buy rate
06:33between the uncensored pay-per-view in March of 1999
06:37and the same event just 12 months later in March of 2000.
06:40They basically put on the exact same main event,
06:42Hogan Flair, two years in a row.
06:44Hold on to your hats!
06:46One, two, three!
06:47In March of 99, the uncensored pay-per-view
06:50enticed some 325,000 viewers to purchase the event.
06:55But just 12 months later,
06:56only 60,000 people were willing to purchase
06:59the 2000 version of WCW Uncensored.
07:02That represents a drop of 81%.
07:07The narrative is at the end of 2000,
07:11WCW had losses of around $62 million.
07:14That's the narrative.
07:15And I think that there probably is a grain of truth to that.
07:18But what people don't understand is the why.
07:23Professional wrestling is very different
07:25when you're a company like Time Warner AOL,
07:28a lot of answering to shareholders
07:30that have expectations on a monthly and quarterly basis.
07:35I think there was a lot of debt
07:38from other divisions in the company
07:40that could be allocated legally,
07:42but allocated as losses against WCW
07:44because everybody knew it was going to be written off as a loss anyway.
07:48The bullshit internal transfers
07:50that people tried to park all their trash on our books
07:53while we were getting hurt.
07:56It was clear to me at that point
07:58that Turner Broadcasting didn't want anything to do with WCW.
08:02And I said to Brad specifically,
08:04I said, Brad, why don't you let me explore selling WCW
08:10while it still has some value?
08:12Because the velocity at which WCW was losing round
08:17at that particular time was pretty dramatic.
08:20Brad kind of chuckled at me and he said,
08:23Eric, you know this company,
08:25we don't sell anything, we buy things.
08:28So I just let it go.
08:30Fast forward.
08:32Good evening.
08:34Today we announce that the Federal Communications Commission
08:37has approved the merger of America Online and Time Warner Inc.
08:42So the merger was announced on January 11, 2000,
08:46finalized on January 11, 2001.
08:49There had actually been a lot of financial experts
08:53who had been predicting the imminent demise of AOL for quite some time.
08:57Keep in mind that throughout the year 2000,
09:00a number of significant things happened.
09:02We had the dot-com recession, right?
09:05We had a number of these internet companies
09:07that were going to be the darlings of the future
09:09that went belly up, which affected AOL in a serious way.
09:13Its stock price dropped by 50%,
09:16which of course creates a huge pressure
09:18to look closely at which divisions are profitable
09:22and which are registering huge losses.
09:24That put WCW even more in the crosshairs.
09:27There were a lot of executives at very senior levels.
09:30The only person standing in front of them was Ted Turner.
09:34The merger happens, Ted becomes vice chairman.
09:38You know, he was excited about that person.
09:40You know, you have an office in New York, you know.
09:43I've made it.
09:44Well, no.
09:45Your name made it, your businesses made it.
09:48They didn't want to even hear at the board meetings from him.
09:51Ted Turner was no longer a challenge.
09:53Ted Turner was regulated to the corner
09:55and didn't have a voice or vote in his own company.
09:59You know, Ted is no longer in a position
10:01to have control over WCW and its affairs.
10:05I remember saying, you know, we're Time Warner.
10:08Is it that important to own a wrestling company
10:11that's losing money, bleeding massively,
10:14has lost money every year of its existence
10:17except for one or two years?
10:19Is that really what Time Warner needs to own?
10:22I don't think we need this.
10:29Brad Siegel, Jay Porter.
10:32I get a phone call from Brad.
10:34He said, so let me ask you, Eric.
10:36A couple months ago, you brought up the idea of selling WCW.
10:39Do you think you could find a buyer?
10:41And I immediately said, sure.
10:43I had no idea.
10:44I'd never done anything like that before.
10:46But I assured him that I could find someone
10:48who had the resources to buy it.
10:50I said, do you want me to put a deal together?
10:51Do you want me to try to put some people together?
10:53And he goes, see what you've got.
10:55I went to a guy by the name of Peter Goober.
10:58Peter Goober, at that point in time,
11:00owned a company called Mandalay Sports & Entertainment.
11:02He's a very, very, very well-established Hollywood guy.
11:05And he said, look, I'm not interested in investing
11:07and buying WCW, but I think I know some people who may.
11:11And he put me in touch with Brian Badal and Steve Greenberg,
11:14who owned a company called Fusion Media Ventures.
11:17Fusion Media Ventures had created the Classic Sports Network,
11:20which became ESPN Sports Classic.
11:23Brian and Steve understood media.
11:25They had great connections in New York on Wall Street.
11:28And we hit it off and started the process.
11:31I called Brad back, said, OK, I got the investment.
11:34Fusion Media funded the initial round with $5 million of their own
11:38and then went out and raised $62 million in the market.
11:42I felt like I was capable with the financial resources
11:45and the right partners with me, that there was potential for WCW.
11:48The professional wrestling genre as a whole is indestructible.
11:52It's just a matter of the company being in the right hands.
11:56Eric was invested in trying to keep WCW alive and moving.
12:02So it was very exciting when the opportunity came up to buy it.
12:08And it wasn't surprising that he went 100% all-in
12:12and just gave it all he had.
12:15We had come up with a loose plan of what we were going to do
12:19once the deal was consummated.
12:20For example, went out to Las Vegas.
12:23We met with Hard Rock, and they were planning on building
12:25a entertainment theater on top of one of their parking garages
12:28that would hold about 3,500 people.
12:30So we started to negotiate the opportunity for kind of a full-time location,
12:34producing our shows in front of a live audience in Las Vegas every Monday night.
12:38And one of the initial thoughts we had is let's bring WCW back
12:42with this pay-per-view called the Big Bang.
12:47So on January 11, 2001, it appears that Fusiant Media Ventures
12:52has purchased the company.
12:54The figure that was reported at the time of the apparent sale to Fusiant
12:58was $67 million.
13:00You know, there's a lot of exuberance about, once again,
13:02this being now the turning point.
13:04Now we've got the new owners in play.
13:06Now Eric Bischoff's back in his position.
13:08This is where we're off to the races.
13:09The new goal is 100 weeks in a row, and that's kind of what's in the future
13:12for WCW.
13:13We always looked at this as a partnership between us and Eric.
13:18You know, we certainly aren't buying this because we think it should just
13:23stay number two.
13:25We won't be satisfied until this thing is number one again,
13:29and our goal this time is 100 weeks, not 96 weeks in a row.
13:33I was excited.
13:34I thought, you know, okay, great, this is going to open a new door.
13:37We're going to continue to go on like we are.
13:39I think we were going to see a smarter, newer, more refreshed version of Eric.
13:44He looked really gung-ho to make this work.
13:47Turner Broadcasting guaranteed us our time slot on Monday night
13:52and Thursday night.
13:53So our job was then to produce the show, find the advertisers,
13:56and turn the show profitable.
13:58I remember that being part of the deal, and I like that as part of the deal,
14:01knowing that you've got that slot, then being able to calculate
14:05what the advertising value of that's going to be is critical.
14:09So it was a fait accompli as far as we were concerned,
14:13and we were scheduled to close that deal.
14:17On March the 6th, Jamie Kellner is announced as the new CEO
14:21of Turner Broadcasting.
14:22Jamie Kellner is someone whose reputation certainly preceded him
14:25in the television business.
14:26He's credited with having a huge influence over the growth of the Fox network
14:31and then actually becoming a founding partner of the WB network.
14:36And upon being appointed to the role, his initial comments to the press
14:41were that, I'm paraphrasing, this is a great company full of great people.
14:45I'm going to try not to mess things up.
14:47I'm going to tweak it.
14:49Jamie Kellner was one of the best television executives in the business,
14:53but Jamie hated wrestling.
14:55He hated it.
14:56You know, he hated it, didn't get it, didn't want anything to do with it.
15:00It was a pain in the ass, and we were losing so much money all the time
15:05that I think I made the suggestion to sell WCW.
15:09I don't know if it came from me or somebody suggested it and I latched on to it,
15:13and Jamie was like, yep, get rid of this as fast as you can.
15:16I don't want anything to do with it.
15:18March 16th, Brad Siegel sends out a memo advising WCW employees
15:23there's going to be a period of hiatus.
15:26Then just a few days later,
15:29naturally there's not going to be hiatus,
15:31but the programming is being canceled after a 29-year run on the Turner Networks.
15:36And that leads us to an episode of Monday Nitro
15:39in the midst of all of this chaos that has to occur in Gainesville, Florida
15:43that Monday evening.
15:45Many of you may know that for the past six months
15:48I've been working with a group of people whose goal it was, it is,
15:51to acquire World Championship Wrestling.
15:54But recently we've hit a couple roadblocks
15:57that may be, in fact, brick walls.
16:00And while it is still in my power,
16:03I want to do something befitting what could be, very well,
16:07the last night of wrestling on the Turner Networks.
16:12That being said, I'll see you all in Panama City
16:15next Monday night, the Night of Champions.
16:18Incredible!
16:21We were just getting ready to close,
16:24and I got a call from Brian Badal.
16:26And Brian said, Eric, it's done.
16:29I said, congratulations, Brian.
16:31He said, no, you don't understand. It's done.
16:33The deal is over. It's off the table.
16:37We were rounding third, heading for home,
16:40and there was no warning whatsoever.
16:42It came completely out of the blue.
16:44Jamie Kellner, he was the head dog.
16:47And he looked at the WCW deal and contemplated
16:50us having at least a couple years
16:52of two hours of primetime on Monday night,
16:54two hours of primetime on Thursday night.
16:56And Kellner didn't want that beachfront property
16:59to be dedicated to wrestling content.
17:01He wanted that primetime schedule for other programming.
17:05The cold, hard truth is that WCW
17:07was completely reliant on television.
17:10So much so, in fact, that Eric Bischoff famously quipped
17:13that without television, the company was worth 20 bucks.
17:16If anything.
17:17So at that point, when you take
17:19the television distribution off the table,
17:22you're taking 90% of the revenue out of the equation.
17:25The deal was not worth it to us.
17:27It effectively killed the deal.
17:29I was devastated.
17:34What am I doing here?
17:36Stu, Snyder, ready, go, action.
17:39Growing up, I loved wrestling.
17:43I lived in New York.
17:45I remember going to Madison Square Garden once a month.
17:48Bruno Sammartino, Ivan Putzky,
17:51Gorilla Monsoon, George the Animal Steel.
17:54I can go on. I enjoyed it, I loved it.
17:56It's a core element of my childhood.
17:58I joined Turner Broadcasting in 1993.
18:01My responsibility was to come on board
18:04and head up a unit called Turner Home Entertainment.
18:07And then I left, did a few other things,
18:10including becoming the president and chief operating officer
18:13of WWF Entertainment.
18:16The first thing I was looking to do
18:18was to keep growing the core business,
18:20to look for new opportunities for the company.
18:23I continued to read about what was happening at WCW.
18:26I kept reading about the behind-the-scenes angst going on there.
18:30The ratings weren't improving.
18:32What's going to happen here?
18:33Are they going to stick with this?
18:34Are they not going to stick with it?
18:36And what I recall is picking up the phone
18:38and calling Brad and, you know, just checking in, first of all,
18:41because we've known each other for a long, long time.
18:44Keep reading about this stuff. Are you okay?
18:47And, you know, he'd share with me
18:49some of the angst he was going through.
18:51I may have said something to the effect of,
18:53hey, look, if there's ever a reason to have a conversation,
18:56I think we might be interested.
18:58We were aware that there was another player.
19:01It didn't factor into anything.
19:03I didn't know their deal.
19:04I didn't know what they were offering.
19:07Internally at WWF, we had made a decision and thought
19:10if we could do a transaction to acquire WCW,
19:14we were going to work really hard to get that done.
19:18On Friday, March 23rd, the WWF announces the unthinkable,
19:22that it has purchased its competition, WCW.
19:27On March 26th, 2001, the final episode of WCW Nitro
19:32is broadcast live from Panama City Beach, Florida.
19:35Oh, what is this for?
19:37We're doing a little documentary on the last two days of Nitro.
19:40The last two days of Nitro.
19:44Believe what you want to read!
19:46Believe what you want to believe!
19:48But don't leave the net!
19:50Don't leave the net!
19:52Don't leave the net!
19:54But don't leave the net!
19:58It's great.
20:03Get the fuck out of here.
20:06Do you know what you think is going on tonight?
20:08Brother, I have a cool man right here in my back pocket.
20:11Holy shit.
20:12What is that all about?
20:17Panama City, Florida. Vince McMahon vignette.
20:20Wow. That's big time, brother.
20:22Here we go, in five, four...
20:27You had Vince McMahon starting the show on camera.
20:31It's hard to overstate just how shocking that was at the time.
20:35Imagine that.
20:38Me, Vince McMahon.
20:41Imagine that.
20:43Here I am on WCW television.
20:48How can that happen?
20:50Well, there's only one way.
20:52You see, it was just a matter of time
20:55before I, Vince McMahon,
20:58bought my competition.
21:00That's right.
21:02I own WCW.
21:05Therefore, in its final broadcast
21:09tonight on TNT,
21:11I have the opportunity to address
21:13what is the fate of WCW.
21:17Because the fate,
21:20the very fate of WCW
21:24is in my hands.
21:29We thought we were coming to work like a regular day.
21:32And no one knew until that night.
21:34No one knew.
21:37We saw Vince come up on the trot.
21:40No matter how you look at it at that point,
21:42no matter how it's spread,
21:44they win the war.
21:46When WWE acquired WCW,
21:49it felt like the end of an era.
21:51It sucked.
21:53The 800-pound gorilla of the room had won.
21:56Had no idea what Vince would do with it.
21:58I didn't know if it was more advantageous for him
22:01to buy it and keep it afloat
22:04and then have the competition
22:07or destroy it.
22:09So the fear of the unknown is pretty heavy.
22:13There was a lot of sadness and a lot of uncertainty.
22:16Who they were going to hire, who they were going to cut.
22:19We don't really know what's going on.
22:21People are happy and sad at the same time.
22:23They don't know why.
22:25I don't think you want my real feelings about it
22:27because they ain't pretty.
22:28It was very emotional.
22:30I remember Dusty was there,
22:32so I was sticking pretty close to him.
22:34There were WWF signs up,
22:36which was really weird.
22:38You know, because there's always signs
22:39like on the dressing room doors, you know, wherever.
22:41You were seeing WWF.
22:43I mean, it felt like a slap.
22:45I remember Shane McMahon coming in
22:47and he had, like, a little brief meeting with everybody.
22:50And we get told the company's been sold to the WWE.
22:53And tonight, everybody's going to find out about it.
22:56And a lot of guys were like, oh, my God.
22:59As I was seeing, you know,
23:01the wrestlers and performers backstage,
23:03you know, shoulders might have been slumped
23:05before they walked through the curtain.
23:07But then when they walked through,
23:08it's back to business as normal.
23:10And then when they came back after their match
23:12or segment or whatever,
23:13it's back to what's going on,
23:15what's going to happen.
23:16Let's not lose sight of the fact
23:18this is the last Nitro on the Turner Network,
23:20and we're going out with a bang.
23:22Scott Steiner and I, we had a conversation.
23:25And Scott goes, you know,
23:27what do you think you're going to do, man?
23:28What do you think you're going to do?
23:29And I look at Scott, and I go, bro,
23:31who's auditioning that night?
23:33But Booker T in the cover!
23:35Down goes the Warblaster!
23:37Yes, yes!
23:38Oh, and he nailed it!
23:39And we was working that night,
23:40so we went out and we rocked it.
23:42He's got it!
23:43Booker!
23:44Here it is!
23:45And one, two, could it be it?
23:46Yes!
23:47Yes!
23:48Booker T!
23:49I didn't know I was going to win
23:50the world title that night.
23:51But then when I did find that out,
23:53I go, oh, yeah, man.
23:55I got a chip in the game.
23:56They got eyes on me.
23:58You know, so I was really excited.
24:03I was probably perhaps one of the only guys
24:05that was excited, though.
24:08I mean, it was sad, you know?
24:10It wasn't even sad, it was pathetic.
24:13Why?
24:14Because fucking people actually showed up.
24:17Hey, you guys want to be on the Titanic?
24:21Nah.
24:22Good.
24:24I'll sit and watch the fucking thing
24:26sink from my fucking house.
24:28I didn't watch it as it happened live.
24:30I feel bad for the talent that were there.
24:32I feel bad for the production staff that were there
24:34that didn't see it coming,
24:35had no idea what their futures were going to be.
24:37It's a big life change.
24:38But as far as the brand itself,
24:41I walked away from it.
24:43I no longer cared.
24:44It's going to be an emotional thing.
24:46You see a lot of production guys,
24:47a lot of people with cameras
24:48taking pictures of the guys.
24:49And to me, I look at it as the day you left college
24:53and guys you might not see again.
24:55But this is a Titanic group of guys we have.
24:58It's like one of the camera guys
25:00and one of the sweetheart guys,
25:01he'd been working for the company for 27 years.
25:05All of those people lost their livelihood.
25:10And that's why I say,
25:11fuck you, Jamie Kilner.
25:13I was concerned about a lot of people
25:15that just couldn't walk into a job so easily.
25:18Our jobs are so different.
25:20It's not a factory.
25:21We don't do the same thing every day.
25:23We're a combination of a circus and an army.
25:26And to get that good at it,
25:28we had to have the right people in the right places.
25:31And the way you got to that point
25:33was the trust of one another.
25:43Then now you can't do it together anymore.
25:47Everybody was in a bad space.
25:50A lot of them didn't know what they were going to do.
25:52But there was a time, you know, you got to let it go.
25:56But in this business, it's a little bit different.
26:00What was really weird to me,
26:02this multimillion-dollar company
26:04was sold to WWE for, like, nothing.
26:08I'm not saying that there was anything
26:10spooky-kooky going on there,
26:12but I have my suspicions.
26:20I own WCW!
26:23I own the WWF!
26:25And you will treat me with respect!
26:31When you think about the final purchase price,
26:35we're talking about a company that at its peak
26:37was generating in the neighborhood
26:39of $200 million a year
26:41and a huge part of pop culture
26:43that gets sold for a little over $4 million.
26:46I always thought that when I heard the price
26:48of what they paid for WCW,
26:50it was an inside job of some sort.
26:52Somebody filled their pockets by making that deal
26:55for as cheaply as it was.
26:57Maybe there's an envelope pushed across the desk.
27:01Maybe you got influence with the guy that's selling it.
27:05Look, there's some murky circumstances.
27:08Stu Snyder was an executive at Turner Broadcasting.
27:11Oh, by the way, Stu Snyder, after the fact,
27:14just happens to land a plum executive role with WWE.
27:18Oh, my God, that's Bob Ryder!
27:20That's Bob Ryder from WCW.com!
27:23Bob, run! Run!
27:26Bob Ryder, he was one of the hosts
27:29on shows that were broadcast over WCW.com.
27:32So in the summer following the sale of WCW
27:36being purchased by the WWF,
27:38Bob Ryder puts out a widely disseminated post online
27:42essentially alleging that there had been a conspiracy at play.
27:45Bob Ryder, he was a good man and a good friend.
27:48And I know that Bob had written about a theory
27:51that Brad Siegel helped facilitate the actual sale to WWE
27:56by convincing Jamie Kellner
27:58to take the distribution of programming out of the deal.
28:03Bob's theory was Brad Siegel really didn't want WCW
28:07as a part of the Turner portfolio,
28:10and this was Brad Siegel's way
28:12of using Jamie Kellner to kill the deal.
28:15The conspiracy theory was really something
28:18like out of a wrestling storyline essentially.
28:20There was a plot initiated by Brad Siegel and Stu Snyder
28:24to clear the path for it to have a quick sale to the WWF.
28:29Stu Snyder at that time was the president of the WWF.
28:32He had previously worked at Turner Broadcasting,
28:34had a relationship with Brad Siegel,
28:36and so the allegation was that
28:39there were covert talks between the two,
28:41and the primary piece of evidence was the fact
28:44that WCW was sold for $4.3 million.
28:47I don't know that that's true.
28:49It is a conspiracy theory.
28:51Unfortunately, there are enough questions
28:54and questionable relationships
28:56that lend interest in a conspiracy like that.
29:00Because you were friends with Stu Snyder,
29:03it was a way to ensure the WWF
29:05would have an advantage to the sale.
29:08No. Well, first of all,
29:10I mean, we'd known each other our entire careers.
29:14I mean, the fact that Stu Snyder was running WWE
29:18and was a likely buyer for WCW
29:22is purely coincidence.
29:25Did you have any advanced knowledge
29:27that the QCN deal was going to fall through?
29:30No.
29:32Simple as that.
29:34My understanding is that Brad reported up to Jamie Kellner
29:38and that Jamie made the decision to say,
29:41said, I don't want it on our end, canceled it.
29:44If you think about how serious these particular allegations are
29:48and the fact that they would lead to potential SEC violations
29:52and have serious professional and personal consequences
29:55for all people involved,
29:57it's quite the audacious plot,
29:59given the high-profile nature of the people that we're talking about
30:02and what they stood to lose
30:04if eventually they would be convicted, essentially,
30:07of corporate espionage.
30:09I'm not saying I'm 100% convinced
30:11that Stu Snyder was part of an orchestration
30:15to make sure WCW got sold for nickels on the dollar.
30:19I'm not suggesting that I know that.
30:21I just lean in that direction
30:23because I don't believe in the number of coincidences
30:26that surround this entire situation.
30:28I'm just not buying it.
30:30I understand gossip.
30:32I understand rumor.
30:34But it's easy to sit on the sidelines
30:37and not really understand the economics of the businesses
30:40to say what something is worth.
30:42If there was a deal out there worth $60 million,
30:46I can guarantee you, as I'm sitting here today,
30:49the Turner executives would have made a deal.
30:52We wanted to sell it.
30:54When we sold it, that's what it was worth.
30:56My regret is that when the ratings started to plummet,
31:00we could not find the right story,
31:03the right players in that story
31:06to turn it around.
31:08You know, that's a big regret of mine.
31:10We weren't successful.
31:11Sometimes that happens.
31:13You can't always be successful.
31:15I feel a responsibility for it
31:18because I clearly was not the person to do it.
31:21I didn't know the business and the story
31:24well enough to write it myself.
31:26I'm not a writer.
31:28So, yeah, I'm really sad about that
31:30and regret it wasn't a different outcome.
31:33Could anything have been done to save WCW?
31:36In my opinion, without a strong advocate
31:42who really believed in the business,
31:45it would have been tough to exist there
31:47with everything else, their challenges as a company.
31:50But that world had passed.
31:52Ted was that person who was its chief advocate.
31:55In the new AOL time warner, without that person,
31:58I don't know how it succeeds there.
32:00And for good or for worse,
32:02the one thing that all the talent knew,
32:04they knew where the buck stopped at WWF.
32:07It was Vince.
32:09You were either in line or you were out.
32:11That's how Vince ran that place.
32:13That place was a different story,
32:15a different time, different era.
32:17So unless you had somebody like that
32:19who could go, this is the way it's going to run
32:21and I have the support of corporate
32:23to leave it alone and let me do my thing,
32:26I think it would have been challenging.
32:28It's been proven that it was challenging.
32:33WWF
32:39Let me be clear.
32:40We weren't looking at all to buy something and kill it.
32:44This brand is still good.
32:46It's still relevant to an audience.
32:48We're going to figure out how do we keep it alive
32:51and maybe over time it comes back as a separate show.
32:56In my head I saw this great rivalry
32:58that was under one roof.
33:01First of all, it all started with the famous Shane McMahon
33:04showing up on WCW on Nitro
33:07and proclaiming the storyline of basically
33:11Vince was going to buy WCW,
33:13but he snagged it out from him.
33:16That's right.
33:18I now own WCW.
33:22I remember sitting down in my hotel room
33:24and writing down all the wrestlers
33:26who I had hoped to wrestle.
33:28Goldberg, Sting, Savage, everybody in the NWO.
33:32I remember writing everybody down and going to Vince
33:34and saying, hey, this might be a good idea.
33:36What about this guy and this guy and this guy and this guy?
33:38Let's bring them in.
33:40There was so much speculation as to how it would all work.
33:43What people don't realize is that when WWE acquired WCW,
33:47the assets of WCW,
33:49the contracts weren't really part of the equation.
33:51It wasn't like all of the talent that was under contract
33:54automatically came to WWF.
33:56At least not the big names that mattered.
33:58Some of those people had quite a bit of time
34:01left on their contracts,
34:02and they were going to get paid anyway.
34:04I knew that at the time,
34:05guys were getting 50 cents on the dollar
34:07on their existing contracts,
34:08and that was not happening with me.
34:10I'm not going to give in.
34:11I'm not going to do it.
34:12So if I had to sit out for three years,
34:14I sat out for three years.
34:15Not everybody wanted to go to work for WWE.
34:18You didn't have Sting.
34:20You didn't have Lex Luger.
34:21You didn't have Goldberg.
34:23What do you really have?
34:26I still had like over a year left on my contract.
34:29They offered me a 50% buyout and go to work
34:33or just, you know, sit at home for the next year.
34:36I said, nah, man.
34:37I said, you know, out of sight, out of mind.
34:40You know, I remember Ric Flair said a long time ago,
34:43time off is your worst enemy.
34:45You know, so I was like,
34:47let's take the 50% buyout and let's go to work.
34:50Wait a minute!
34:51What the hell?
34:54Buckle, buckle, buckle, buckle T!
34:57He's the WWE, WCW champion!
35:00Back then it was a test.
35:02Let's throw these guys out here and see how good they really are
35:05compared to the WWE guys.
35:08Shane and I decided to join forces.
35:12The invasion storyline was supposed to be
35:15the best that WCW had to offer
35:17versus the best that WWE had to offer.
35:21But we were in no shape to actually be able to
35:24really, really pull off an invasion angle
35:26just because we did not have enough star power
35:29to really, really get that thing off the ground.
35:32They never really did a WCW, WWE feud correctly.
35:36And I think that was a big mistake by Vince McMahon.
35:39I think he could have done some really cool match-ups
35:42and some really cool things.
35:44Hey, yo.
35:47They were going to write the history that they wanted to create,
35:51and no matter how you looked at it,
35:53we were the Confederate soldiers going to work for the Union.
35:57And if you thought that you were going to go over
36:00one of their top guys, bullshit.
36:02They brought us in under the guise of
36:05this isn't going to work twice.
36:08I looked at Scott, I said, we're gone.
36:10We're done, we're dead.
36:13I get to have the wonderful experience
36:16to watch my friend who now has been sober for 11 months
36:21go downstairs and just start pounding drinks.
36:25And he's like, fuck it.
36:27You talking about a miserable day in my life?
36:31The way they said WCW,
36:34there was no room in New York City
36:37for a company like WCW.
36:39That's just the way I felt about it.
36:41When the WWE won the war,
36:43not only did they want to win the war,
36:45but they wanted to bury the opposition
36:48and they wanted to plant the flag.
36:51And that's what they needed to do more than anything
36:54to really solidify winning that war, planting that flag.
36:59Yeah, they had to be in a dominant position to do that.
37:05We're back live here, ladies and gentlemen.
37:07This crowd is still buzzing.
37:09Well, here comes Mr. McMahon back.
37:11He promised to name the new general manager of Raw.
37:15In 2002, Vince McMahon called me.
37:17And while Vince was speaking,
37:19I had already made up my mind that this is my opportunity.
37:23Allow me to introduce you to the new general manager of Raw.
37:27His name is Eric Bishop.
37:32I'm not going to say that everybody in WWE
37:34was happy to see me show up,
37:36but the people that mattered
37:38could not have made me feel more at home.
37:40I like Eric a lot. We're good buddies.
37:42Known him for a very long time.
37:44And he has his bust on the Mount Rushmore
37:47of professional wrestling executives.
37:49Everything that went wrong,
37:51the fusion sale falling through,
37:53the fact that the narrative is Eric Bishop, creator WCW.
37:59I had an opportunity to write the last chapter of my story.
38:03Wait a minute!
38:05What the hell is going on? What is this?
38:07You know, I had been with WWE for a few years
38:09as that general manager character,
38:11and everything was going great.
38:13And I remember getting a phone call from Stephanie McMahon,
38:15who was head of creative at that point.
38:17She goes, Eric, I don't want you to take this the wrong way.
38:19You've done a great job,
38:21but we're going to go in a different direction.
38:23Erica Bishop has abused his power for too long.
38:27John Cena was going to hit me with his finish
38:30and then drag me out of the ring,
38:32and John Cena was going to throw me in the back of a garbage truck,
38:34and I was going to be hauled out of the arena.
38:37And I very seldom questioned creative.
38:40But I went to Vince and said,
38:42it doesn't make any sense for John Cena to do it.
38:44It makes more sense for you to do it.
38:46And I thought, if I'm going to do this,
38:48I'm going to have fun doing it.
38:50I'm going to make this fun for me.
38:52And I did, and I had a blast.
38:54And I got to live a dream and rewrite my own chapter.
38:57And I loved it, every minute of it.
38:59There's not a second of it that I regret.
39:05Who killed WCW?
39:07Ooh.
39:10Who killed WCW?
39:13I think it was Turner Corporate.
39:16And some of the people within the booking committees.
39:19AOL, Time Warner, the executives,
39:22they were embarrassed by Goofy Wrestling.
39:25The guys in Turner that didn't want us and didn't like us,
39:30and the top guys not letting the mid-card guys interact with them.
39:35WCW killed itself.
39:38The cast of characters that was WCW killed WCW.
39:43It didn't function as a team any longer.
39:46It functioned as a bunch of self-seeking individuals.
39:50I've never seen anybody that was that high up in the food chain
39:55take less responsibility.
39:58This is what killed WCW.
40:01They were fighting within themselves. They were eating their own.
40:04The Wolves.
40:05Who killed WCW? That's easy.
40:07Turner Sports.
40:09It would have to be the person with the checkbook.
40:12It would have to be Eric Bischoff.
40:14Vince Russo, Eric Bischoff,
40:16two guys that had zero knowledge about how to run wrestling.
40:20And they put themselves in a position to tell people like me what to do.
40:25And that's what killed WCW.
40:28As a matter of fact, I'm going to give myself a round of applause for that.
40:32Yes, thank you.
40:34Bro, they took such a drop from where they were
40:38to where it was when it was sold and so much money lost.
40:42I don't think anybody could have done anything.
40:45So I would say a business decision killed WCW.
40:50I don't think one person could have killed WCW by any stretch of the imagination.
40:54There were a shitload of people who contributed to its downfall.
40:57I think it's a collection of factors, a number of reasons that explain its demise.
41:02There's plenty of blame to go around,
41:04but I think ultimately it was inevitable that it was going to fall apart.
41:09A good buddy of mine, he's one of my best friends, downtown Bruno.
41:13When I first started, I said, Bruno, give me some advice.
41:16He said, you're going to hear a voice one day,
41:19and that voice is going to say, go on home, the big run's over.
41:24WCW as an entity, they heard that voice,
41:27and the big run was over, and it was fucking awesome.
41:34Wow, man, what a run.
41:37It was always about the performances for me.
41:39It was always about the fans.
41:41We were rock stars.
41:44Everywhere we went, it was packed.
41:47The whole WCW experience was a hell of a ride, period.
41:52Let us remember the lessons learned and strived
41:56to build a fairer and more equitable future for wrestling.
42:00We've done over 350 or 60-some-odd nitros,
42:03and a lot of these people are like family to me.
42:06It was a good ride. It was fun.
42:08You were like a big family, even though you're a dysfunctional family.
42:11You may not get along with everybody,
42:13but you're still going to be there when it comes to it.
42:16It was the greatest job.
42:17They let us be as creative as we wanted to be.
42:20The first time I realized WCW was big
42:23was my very first show when I debuted.
42:26There was a palpable energy.
42:28You could feel the crowd.
42:30There's something special
42:32and something different about a wrestling fan.
42:35It just blew my mind to see what a big deal WCW really was.
42:40He's got him up!
42:42Those were some great times, terrific times.
42:45And it came to an abrupt end like that.
42:47But, hey, man, all good things come to an end.
42:52I still think that, you know, when it comes down to it,
42:55WCW is Eric's creation.
42:57Any success they had was with Eric.
43:00There's nobody on this planet that can look in the mirror and say,
43:04I beat Vince McMahon
43:07at professional wrestling for 83 weeks.
43:12It's a pretty fucking huge accomplishment.
43:18Cool.
43:20Time fucks with your head, you know?
43:23It becomes distorted.
43:26My memory is more like a series of photographs.
43:30There's bits and pieces and moments that stand out in my mind.
43:34But as time goes on, they kind of just all blur together.
43:38When I look back at my time during WCW,
43:40the journey, the ups, the downs,
43:42the ride all along the way was a rush.
43:45We were the number one wrestling company on television in the world.
43:48Very proud of that.
43:50I was able to experience and achieve things
43:53that nobody thought possible.
43:55And I wouldn't have had any of this
43:57if it wasn't professional wrestling.
43:59So I'm grateful for every minute of it.
44:01The good, the bad, everything in between.
44:03Very lucky.
44:10www.larryweaver.com