Who Killed WCW Season 1 Epidode 4
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00:04-♪♪
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00:12WCW is about to dominate the globe
00:15in professional wrestling.
00:16Ten million people in the United States
00:19were 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,
00:29shit's gonna hit the fan at some point, and it did.
00:31Little by little, we just fell.
00:34We already knew that we were running thin.
00:37It is so good to be king.
00:40He cared more about ratings
00:41than he cared about advertising dollars.
00:44It was a shit show.
00:46Vince Russo was just another idiot.
00:49He was there to lead to our ultimate demise.
00:51Kiss my ass!
00:53I was done. It was over.
00:56I could have cared less.
00:58No doubt in my mind,
00:59Bischoff was responsible for a little of this.
01:02Another nail in the coffin
01:04of 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.
01:09My check didn't change.
01:11It was the easiest money I ever made in my career.
01:13Like, they got what?
01:15When guys got those kind of agendas,
01:18thinking about themselves,
01:19that's pretty much when the ship started to go down.
01:22This is some fucked-up shit.
01:24You ain't in Kansas anymore.
01:27You cannot sweep this under the rug.
01:30This is some fucking television shit.
01:32I don't understand what he's doing.
01:33The real reason men come in lies.
01:35♪♪
01:42♪♪
01:47♪♪
01:52♪♪
01:54Trent, going out!
01:56♪♪
02:00You believe WCW's coming to an end?
02:02It is at an end.
02:05It didn't feel like a family anymore.
02:06It felt like everybody was out for themselves,
02:09and 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
02:18that we were just gonna shut the doors.
02:19So I think, at that point,
02:21everybody was just really unsettled.
02:24It's easy to lose sight of how lucky we are to be part of this.
02:27Hopefully it ain't over.
02:29WCW wrestling is so important to me.
02:31There's just that one guy, Turner, I think,
02:34just doesn't think wrestling's cool
02:36and whatever's on the road for millions of people.
02:39I think Turner finally started looking into the books
02:41and said, we got to pull the plug on this.
02:44No matter how much Ted Turner loved this business
02:48and wanted to, you know, keep it afloat,
02:50you start looking at the books at that time
02:52and 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 kind of oversee Russo,
03:03it was apparent to me that things were more dysfunctional
03:06within Turner Broadcasting
03:08and the relationship between Turner and WCW
03:10than they had ever been.
03:12I'm not talking about what was going on in television
03:13or how much money they were making or losing.
03:16I'm just talking about the relationship.
03:19Time Warner is a company of winning brands
03:22and winning people, and so is AOL, for this merger.
03:26Just like when we put Turner Broadcasting into Time Warner,
03:29it made the company much, much stronger,
03:31and I think we're all committed to making this thing work.
03:34AOL was absolutely ubiquitous at that time
03:37in terms of, in the public consciousness,
03:39the company introduced many people
03:42to the concept of logging onto the internet
03:44for the very first time.
03:46I've been on America Online two months,
03:48and it's really been a revelation for me.
03:51You got mail!
03:54This was at the time
03:55where a lot of the new internet.com businesses
03:58were receiving wild overvaluations
04:01based 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
04:16also were keenly aware of this reality as well.
04:20So one option that was considered
04:22was to merge with a media and entertainment conglomerate,
04:25which 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
04:36would receive 55% of the new company,
04:38and Time Warner, 45%.
04:42Now, 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 gonna be awesome.
05:04We're only gonna make a billion dollars,
05:05but nobody would stand up and go,
05:08this is a Ponzi scheme, man, right?
05:10This is all gonna 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.
05:21You know, WCW 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,
05:38but 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
05:48to get it back on track.
05:49Big mistake!
05:51What a bunch of fucking boobs.
05:54It was so bad.
05:56I really felt like, okay, stake in our heart.
05:59It 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.
06:09I just felt like Brad didn't know anything about wrestling.
06:12I mean, he knew about the corporate side,
06:14but he wasn't a wrestling person.
06:16He wasn't somebody that was gonna try
06:18to help save the company.
06:19It was like going through the motions.
06:22To be completely honest, I couldn't fix it.
06:24And the red kept getting redder.
06:26And the ratings kept falling and falling and falling.
06:29In addition, WCW drove away its paying audience.
06:32Look at the difference in buy rate
06:34between the uncensored pay-per-view in March of 1999
06:38and just 12 months later in March of 2000.
06:41They basically put on the exact same main event,
06:43Hogan Flair, two years in a row.
06:45Hold on to your hats!
06:46One, two, three!
06:48In March of 99, the uncensored pay-per-view
06:51enticed some 325,000 viewers to purchase the event.
06:55But just 12 months later, only 60,000 people
06:58were willing to purchase the 2000 version of WCW Uncensored.
07:03That represents a drop of 81%.
07:09The 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
07:26when you're a company like Time Warner AOL.
07:28A lot of answering to shareholders
07:31that have expectations on a monthly and quarterly basis.
07:36I think there was a lot of debt
07:38from other divisions in the company
07:40that could be allocated legally,
07:43but allocated as losses against WCW
07:45because everybody knew it was gonna be
07:46written off as a loss anyway.
07:48The bullshit internal transfers
07:51that people tried to park all the trash on our books
07:54while we were getting hurt.
07:56It was clear to me at that point
07:59that Turner Broadcasting didn't want anything to do with WCW.
08:02And I said to Brad specifically,
08:05I said, Brad, why don't you let me explore selling WCW
08:10while it still has some value?
08:13Because the velocity at which WCW was losing round
08:17at that particular time was pretty dramatic.
08:21Brad kind of chuckled at me and he said,
08:23Eric, you know this company, we don't sell anything,
08:27we buy things.
08:29So I just let it go.
08:31Fast forward.
08:33Good evening.
08:34Today we announced that the Federal Communications Commission
08:38has approved the merger of America Online
08:41and Time Warner Inc.
08:43So the merger was announced on January 11th, 2000,
08:47finalized on January 11th, 2001.
08:50There had actually been a lot of financial experts
08:53who'd been predicting the imminent demise
08:55of AOL for quite some time.
08:57Keep in mind that throughout the year 2000,
09:01a 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
09:19to 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.
09:31The only person standing in front of them was Ted Turner.
09:35The merger happens.
09:37Ted becomes vice chairman.
09:39You know, he was excited about that, a person.
09:41You know, you have an office in New York, you know.
09:43I've made it.
09:44Well, no, your name made it, your businesses made it,
09:48or they didn't want to even hear
09:49at the board meetings from you.
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?
10:23I don't think we need this.
10:25I get a phone call from Brad.
10:26He said, so let me ask you, Eric, a couple of months ago,
10:30you brought up the idea of selling WCW.
10:32Do you think you could find a buyer?
10:34And I immediately said, sure.
10:36I had no idea.
10:37I'd never done anything like that before.
10:38But I assured him that I could find someone
10:40who had the resources to buy it.
10:42I said, do you want me to put a deal together?
10:44You want me to try to put some people together?
10:45And he goes, super, super, super, super, super,
10:48super, super, super, super, super, super, super, super,
10:51super, super, super, super, super, super, super, super,
10:52super, super, super, super, super, super, super, super,
10:53He goes, let's 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,
10:59owned a company called Mandalay Sports and Entertainment.
11:01He's a very, very, very well-established Hollywood guy.
11:04And he said, look, I'm not interested
11:06in investing in buying WCW, but I think
11:09I know some people who may.
11:11And he put me in touch with Brian Bedall
11:13and Steve Greenberg who owned a company
11:15called Fusion Media Ventures.
11:16Fusion Media Ventures then created
11:18the Classic Sports network, which
11:20became ESPN Sports classic.
11:22Brian and Steve understood media.
11:24They 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, okay, I got the investment.
11:34Fusion Media funded the initial round
11:36with $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
11:44and the right partners with me,
11:46that 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
12:05came up to buy it.
12:07And 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
12:17of what we were going to do once the deal was consummated.
12:20For example, went out to Las Vegas.
12:23We met with Hard Rock, and they were planning
12:25on building a entertainment theater
12:26on top of one of their parking garages
12:28that would hold about 3,500 people.
12:30So we started to negotiate the opportunity
12:32for kind of a full-time location,
12:34producing our shows in front of a live audience
12:36in Las Vegas every Monday night.
12:38And one of the initial thoughts we had is,
12:40let's bring WCW back with this pay-per-view
12:44called the Big Bang.
12:46So on January 11th, 2001, it appears that
12:50Fusiant Media Ventures has purchased the company.
12:53The figure that was reported at the time
12:56of the apparent sale to Fusiant was $67 million.
12:59You know, there's a lot of exuberance about,
13:01once again, this being now the turning point.
13:04Now we've got the new owners in play.
13:05Now Eric Bischoff's back in his position.
13:07This is where we're off to the races.
13:09The new goal is 100 weeks in a row,
13:10and that's kind of what's in the future for WCW.
13:14We always looked at this as a partnership
13:17between us and Eric.
13:18You know, we certainly aren't buying this
13:21because we think it should just stay number two.
13:26We won't be satisfied until this thing is number one again,
13:29and our goal this time is 100 weeks,
13:32not 96 weeks in a row.
13:34I was excited.
13:35I thought, you know, okay, great.
13:36This is gonna open a new door.
13:38We're gonna continue to go on like we are.
13:40I think we were gonna see a smarter, newer,
13:43more refreshed version of Eric.
13:45He looked really gung-ho to make this work.
13:48Turner Broadcasting guaranteed us our time slot
13:51on Monday night and Thursday night,
13:53so our job was then to produce the show,
13:55find the advertisers, and turn the show profitable.
13:58I remember that being part of the deal,
14:00and I like that as part of the deal.
14:02Knowing that you've got that slot,
14:04then being able to calculate what the advertising value
14:07of that's gonna be is critical.
14:10So it was a fait accompli as far as we were concerned,
14:14and we were scheduled to close that deal.
14:18On March the 6th, Jamie Kellner is announced
14:20as the new CEO of Turner Broadcasting.
14:22Jamie Kellner is someone whose reputation
14:24certainly preceded him in the television business.
14:27He is credited with having a huge influence
14:29over the growth of the Fox network,
14:31and then actually becoming a founding partner
14:34of the WB network, and upon being appointed to the role,
14:39his initial comments to the press were that,
14:42I'm paraphrasing, this is a great company
14:44full of great people.
14:46I'm gonna try not to mess things up.
14:47I'm going to tweak it.
14:49Jamie Kellner was one of the best television executives
14:52in the business, but Jamie hated wrestling.
14:55He hated it.
14:56You know, he hated it, didn't get it,
14:58didn't want anything to do with it.
15:00It was a pain in the ass,
15:02and 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
15:12and I latched onto it, and Jamie was like,
15:14yep, get rid of this as fast as you can.
15:17I don't want anything to do with it.
15:19March 16th, Brad Siegel sends out a memo advising
15:23WCW employees there's gonna be a period of hiatus.
15:26Then just a few days later,
15:30actually there's not gonna be hiatus,
15:32but the programming is being canceled
15:34after a 29-year run on the Turner networks,
15:37which leads us to an episode of Monday Nitro
15:39in the midst of all of this chaos
15:41that 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
15:49whose 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
16:04of 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!
16:22We 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
16:49and contemplated us having at least a couple years
16:52of two hours of prime time on Monday night,
16:54two hours of prime time on Thursday night.
16:56And Kellner didn't want that beachfront property
16:59to be dedicated to wrestling content.
17:01He wanted that prime time 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,
17:14the company was worth 20 bucks, if anything.
17:18So at that point,
17:19when you take the 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.
17:30I was devastated.
17:35What am I doing here?
17:36Stu, Snyder, ready, go.
17:38Action.
17:41Growing up, I loved wrestling.
17:43I lived in New York.
17:45So I remember going to Madison Square Garden once a month.
17:48Bruno Sammartino, Ivan Putzky, Gorilla Monsoon,
17:52George the Animal Steel.
17:54I can go on.
17:55I enjoyed it.
17:56I 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
18:14of 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
18:29going 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 and calling Brad
18:40and, you know, just checking in, first of all,
18:42because we've known each other for a long, long time.
18:45Keep reading about this stuff.
18:46Are you OK?
18:47And, you know, he'd share with me some of the angst
18:50he was going through.
18:51I may have said something to the effect of, hey, look,
18:54if 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, knew nothing.
19:07Internally at WWF, we had made a decision
19:10and thought if we could do a transaction to acquire WCW,
19:14we were going to work really hard to get that done.
19:18On Friday, March 23, the WWF announces the unthinkable,
19:22that it has purchased its competition, WCW.
19:33On March 26, 2001, the final episode of WCW Nitro
19:38is broadcast live from Panama City Beach, Florida.
19:41Oh, what is this for?
19:42Do a little documentary on the last day of the Nitro.
19:45Last day of the Nitro, huh?
19:46Yeah.
19:47Oh, wow.
19:49Believe what you want to read.
19:51Believe what you want to believe.
19:54But don't read a book.
19:56You've got to read the book.
19:58That's great.
20:03Get the fuck out of here.
20:06Do you know anything that's going on tonight?
20:08Brother, I have a cameraman right here in my back pocket.
20:11Holy shit.
20:12What is that all about?
20:17Panama City, Florida.
20:18Vince McMahon vignette.
20:20Wow.
20:21That's big time, brother.
20:22Here we go.
20:23In five, four, three, two, one.
20:28We had Vince McMahon starting the show on camera.
20:31It's hard to overstate just how shocking that was at the time.
20:36Imagine that.
20:38Me, Vince McMahon.
20:42Imagine that.
20:44Here I am on WCW television.
20:48How can that happen?
20:51Well, there's only one way.
20:52You see, it was just a matter of time
20:55before I, Vince McMahon, bought my competition.
21:01That's right.
21:02I own WCW.
21:06Therefore, in its final broadcast tonight on TNT,
21:11I have the opportunity to address
21:13what is the fate of WCW?
21:17Because the fate, the very fate of WCW is in my hands.
21:29We thought we were coming to work like a regular day.
21:32And no one knew until that night.
21:35No 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, they win the war.
21:46When WWE acquired WCW, it felt like the end of an era.
21:51It sucked.
21:52The 800-pound gorilla of the room had won.
21:55Had 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 and then have the competition
22:07or destroy it.
22:08So the fear of the unknown is pretty, 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.
22:24I don't think you want my real feelings about it,
22:26because they ain't pretty.
22:28It was very emotional.
22:30I remember Dusty was there, so I was
22:31sticking pretty close to him.
22:33There were WWF signs up, which was really weird.
22:37You know, because there's always signs,
22:38like on the dressing room doors, you know, wherever.
22:40And you were seeing WWF.
22:42I mean, it felt like a slap.
22:45I remember Shane McMahon coming in,
22:47and he had like a little brief meeting with everybody.
22:49And we get told the company's been sold to the WWE.
22:52And tonight, everybody's going to find out about it.
22:55And a lot of guys were like, oh my god.
22:59As I was seeing, you know, the wrestlers
23:01and performers backstage, you know,
23:03shoulders might have been slumped before they
23:05walked through the curtain.
23:06But then when they walk through,
23:08it's back to business as normal.
23:10And then when they came back after their match or segment
23:12or whatever, it'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.
23:25Scott goes, you know, what do you think you're going to do,
23:28man?
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 Bucket T in the corner.
23:35Down goes the World Star Blaster.
23:37Yes, he is.
23:38Oh, and he nailed it.
23:39Everyone was working that night.
23:40So we went out, and we rocked it.
23:42He's got it.
23:43Oh, God.
23:44Here it is.
23:45And one, two, could it be it?
23:47Yes, yes.
23:48Bucket T.
23:49I didn't know I was going to win the world title that night.
23:51But then when I did find that out, I 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.
24:11It was pathetic.
24:14Because fucking people actually showed up.
24:16Hey, you guys want to be on the Titanic?
24:20Nah, good.
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, had no idea what
24:36their futures were going to be.
24:37It's a big life change.
24:39But as far as the brand itself, I walked away from it.
24:43I no longer cared.
24:45It's going to be an emotional thing.
24:46You see a lot of production guys, a lot of people,
24:48cameras taking pictures of the guys.
24:50And 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.
24:59It's like one of the camera guys and one of the sweetheart guy,
25:01he'd been working for the company for 27 years.
25:05All of those people lost their livelihood.
25:09And that's why I say, fuck you, Jamie Kilner.
25:13I was concerned about a lot of people that just couldn't
25:15walk into a job so easily.
25:17Our 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, we had
25:28to have the right people in the right places.
25:30And the way you got to that point
25:32was the trust of one another.
25:43Then now you can't do it together anymore.
25:47Everybody was in a bad space.
25:49A 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.
25:55But in this business, it's a little bit different.
26:00What was really weird to me, this multi-million dollar
26:03company was 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.
26:15I own WCW!
26:17I own the WWF!
26:19And you will treat me with respect!
26:27When you think about the final purchase price,
26:30we're talking about a company that, at its peak,
26:32was generating in the neighborhood of $200 million
26:34a year, and a huge part of pop culture
26:38was coming out of that company.
26:40I always thought that when I heard the price of what
26:42they paid for WCW, it was an inside job of some sort.
26:47Somebody filled their pockets by making
26:49that deal for as cheaply as it was.
26:51Maybe there's an envelope pushed across the desk.
26:55Maybe you got influence with the guy that's selling it.
27:00Look, there's some murky circumstances.
27:02Stu Snyder was in the business.
27:04He was in the business.
27:05He was in the business.
27:07There's some murky circumstances.
27:09Stu Snyder was an executive at Turner Broadcasting.
27:12Oh, by the way, Stu Snyder, after the fact,
27:14just happens to land a plum executive role with WWE.
27:19Oh, my God!
27:20That's Bob Ryder!
27:21That's Bob Ryder from WCW.com!
27:24Bob, run!
27:25Run!
27:26Bob Ryder, he was one of the hosts on shows
27:29that were broadcast over WCW.com.
27:32So in the summer following the sale of WCW
27:36being purchased by the WWF,
27:37Bob Ryder puts out a widely disseminated post online,
27:41essentially alleging that there had been a conspiracy at play.
27:45Bob Ryder, he was a good man and a good friend.
27:47And I know that Bob had written about a theory
27:50that Brad Siegel helped facilitate
27:53the actual sale to WWE by 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,
28:09and this was Brad Siegel's way
28:12of using Jamie Kellner to kill the deal.
28:15The conspiracy theory was really something like
28:18out 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.
29:01Because 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, it was, I mean,
29:11we'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 QC and deal was going to fall through?
29:30No. It's as simple as that.
29:33My understanding is that Brad reported up to Jamie Kellner
29:38and that Jamie made the decision to say,
29:41I don't want it on our end and canceled it.
29:44If you think about how serious these particular allegations are
29:47and the fact that they would lead to potential SEC violations
29:51and have serious professional and personal consequences
29:54for all people involved,
29:56it's quite the audacious plot
29:58given the high-profile nature
30:00of the people that we're talking about
30:02and what they stood to lose
30:04if eventually they would be convicted
30:06essentially of corporate espionage.
30:08I'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. I 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,
31:01we could not find the right story,
31:04the right players in that story to turn it around.
31:08You know, that's a big regret of mine.
31:10We weren't successful. Sometimes 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, 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 who could go,
32:19this 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.
32:39Let me be clear, we weren't looking at all
32:42to buy something and kill it.
32:44This brand is still good.
32:46It's still relevant to an audience.
32:49We're going to figure out, how do we keep it alive?
32:52And maybe over time, it comes back as a separate show.
32:56In my head, I saw this great rivalry that was under one roof.
33:02First of all, it all started with the famous Shane McMahon
33:05showing up on WCW on Nitro
33:08and proclaiming, you know, the storyline of basically,
33:12Vince was going to buy WCW, but he snagged it out from him.
33:16That's right.
33:18I now own WCW.
33:23I remember sitting down in my hotel room
33:25and writing down all the wrestlers
33:27who I had hoped to wrestle.
33:29Goldberg, Sting, Savage, everybody in the NWO.
33:32It's like I remember writing everybody down
33:34and going to Vince and saying, hey, this might be a good idea.
33:37What about this guy and this guy and this guy and this guy?
33:39Let's bring them in.
33:40There was so much speculation as to how it would all work.
33:44What people don't realize is that when WWE acquired WCW,
33:48the assets of WCW, the contracts weren't really part of the equation.
33:52It wasn't like all of the talent that was under contract
33:55automatically came to WWF,
33:57at least not the big names that mattered.
34:00Some of those people had quite a bit of time left under contracts
34:03and they were going to get paid anyway.
34:05I knew that at the time, guys were getting 50 cents on the dollar
34:08for existing contracts, and that was not happening with me.
34:11I'm not going to give in. I'm not going to do it.
34:13So if I had to sit out for three years, I sat out for three years.
34:16Not everybody wanted to go to work for WWE.
34:19You didn't have Sting, you didn't have Lex Luger,
34:22you didn't have Goldberg.
34:24What do you really have?
34:26I still had like over a year left on my contract.
34:30They offered me a 50% buyout and go to work
34:34or just sit at home for the next year.
34:37I said, nah, man, I'll say it.
34:39I decided out of mind.
34:41I remember Ric Flair said a long time ago,
34:44time off is your worst enemy.
34:46So I was like, let's take the 50% buyout and let's go to work.
34:51Wait a minute! What the hell?
34:56Number T, he's the WWE, WCW champion!
35:01Back then, it was a test.
35:03Let's throw these guys out here and see how good they really are
35:06compared to the WWE guys.
35:09Shane and I decided to join forces.
35:13The Invasion storyline was supposed to be
35:16the best that WCW had to offer
35:18versus the best that WWE had to offer,
35:22but we were in no shape to actually be able to
35:25really, really pull off an Invasion angle
35:27just because we did not have enough star power
35:30to really, really get that thing off the ground.
35:33They never really did a WCW-WWE feud correctly,
35:37and I think that was a big mistake by Vince McMahon.
35:40I think he could have done some really cool match-ups
35:43and some really cool things.
35:45Hey, yo!
35:49They were gonna write the history that they wanted to create,
35:53and no matter how you looked at it,
35:55we were the Confederate soldiers going to work for the Union.
35:59You thought that you were gonna go over one of their top guys.
36:02Bullshit.
36:03They brought us in under the guise of,
36:07this isn't gonna work twice.
36:09I looked at Scott, I said, we're gone.
36:11We're done, we're dead.
36:14I get to have the wonderful experience
36:17to watch my friend, who now has been sober for 11 months,
36:22go downstairs and just start pounding drinks.
36:26And he's like, fuck it.
36:28I'm talking about a miserable day in my life.
36:32The way they said, WCW?
36:35There was no room in New York City
36:38for a company like WCW.
36:40That's just the way I felt about it.
36:42When the WWE won the war,
36:44not only did they want to win the war,
36:46but they wanted to bury the opposition
36:49and they wanted to plant the flag.
36:51And that's what they needed to do more than anything
36:55to really solidify winning that war, planting that flag.
37:00Yeah, 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.
37:09Here 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.
37:28His name is Eric Bishop!
37:32I'm not going to say that everybody in WWE
37:35was happy to see me show up,
37:37but the people that mattered
37:39could not have made me feel more at home.
37:41I like Eric a lot. We're good buddies.
37:43Known him for a very long time.
37:45And he has his bust on the Mount Rushmore
37:48of professional wrestling executives.
37:50Everything that went wrong,
37:52the fusion sale falling through,
37:54the fact that the narrative is Eric Bischoff, 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?
38:08I had been with WWE for a few years
38:10as that general manager character, and everything was going great.
38:13And I remember getting a phone call from Stephanie McMahon,
38:16who was head of creative at that point.
38:18She goes, Eric, I don't want you to take this the wrong way.
38:21But we're going to go in a different direction.
38:23Eric Bischoff 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,
38:35and 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, it doesn't make any sense
38:43for John Cena to do it, it makes more sense for you to do it.
38:46And I thought, if I'm going to do this, I'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.
38:57I loved it, every minute of it.
38:59There's not a second of it that I regret.
39:08Who killed WCW?
39:10Ooh!
39:12Who killed WCW?
39:15I think it was Turner Corporate.
39:18And some of the people within the booking committees.
39:21AOL, Time Warner, the executives,
39:24they were embarrassed by Goofy Wrestling.
39:27The guys in Turner that didn't want us and didn't like us,
39:31and the top guys not letting the mid-card guys interact with them.
39:36WCW killed itself.
39:39The cast of characters that was WCW killed WCW.
39:44It didn't function as a team any longer.
39:47It functioned as a bunch of self-seeking individuals.
39:51I've never seen anybody that was that high up in the food chain
39:57take less responsibility.
39:59This is what killed WCW.
40:02They were fighting within themselves.
40:04They were eating their own, the wolves.
40:06Who killed WCW? That's easy.
40:08Turner Sports.
40:10It would have to be the person with the checkbook.
40:13It would have to be Eric Bischoff.
40:15Bruce Russo, Eric Bischoff,
40:17two guys that had zero knowledge about how to run wrestling,
40:21and they put themselves in a position
40:23to tell people like me what to do,
40:26and that's what killed WCW.
40:28As a matter of fact, I'm going to give myself
40:31a round of applause for that.
40:33Yes, thank you.
40:34Bro, they took such a drop from where they were
40:38to where it was when it was sold,
40:41and so much money lost.
40:43I don't think anybody could have done anything.
40:46So I would say a business decision killed WCW.
40:50I don't think one person could have killed WCW
40:52by any stretch of the imagination.
40:54There were a shitload of people who contributed to its downfall.
40:58I think it's a collection of factors,
41:00a number of reasons that explain its demise.
41:02There's plenty of blame to go around,
41:04but I think ultimately it was inevitable
41:07that it was going to fall apart.
41:10A good buddy of mine, he's one of my best friends,
41:12downtown Bruno.
41:13When I first started, I said,
41:15Bruno, give me some advice.
41:16He said, you're going to hear a voice one day,
41:19and that voice is going to say,
41:21go 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.
41:43Everywhere we went, it was packed.
41:47The whole WCW experience was a hell of a ride, period.
41:53Let 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,
42:09even 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
42:37what 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
43:03and say, I 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.
43:25My memory is more like a series of photographs.
43:30There's bits and pieces and moments
43:32that stand out in my mind, but as time goes on,
43:35they kind of just all blur together.
43:37When 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.
43:44We were the number one wrestling company
43:46on television in the world, very proud of that.
43:49I 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.
43:59I'm thankful for every minute of it,
44:01the good, the bad, everything in between.
44:04Very lucky.