Who Killed WCW? 1x1

1. Standby.

2. Here we go, in 5...

3. 4, 3...

4. 2... Roll it, Drew.

5. This is the last Nitro on the Turner Network,

6. and we're going out with a bang!

7. How do we all, on this very surreal day for all of us

8. at World Championship Wrestling,

9. a historic day in sports entertainment,

10. and it goes down on our very last telecaster.

11. Where does WCW go from here?

12. What's in the cards?

13. What's, what's going to happen?

14. If I'm giving a eulogy for WCW,

15. what would I say?

16. We were WCW!

17. We lived, we breathed!

18. We sweat!

19. We paid the price!

20. To be the best!

21. We gather here today

22. to bid farewell to a wrestling company.

23. A company that grew from the ashes,

24. rose to become the phoenix of professional wrestling.

25. The legacy of WCW is iconic.

26. I have just such a tremendous amount of reverence and

27. respect for everything that they were able to do.

28. To know that it went from that...

29. to being out of business, is a tragedy.

30. People thinking about themselves and not the

31. good of the company led to the death of WCW.

32. Thanks to the cash.

33. Thanks for nothing. Go fuck yourselves.

34. I think that would sum it up.

35. You know, if I looked back and

36. tried to describe the journey-

37. the ups, the downs, the twists, the curves-

38. the ride all along the way was a rush.

39. WCW innovated so many things that are still

40. so much a part of the wrestling programming

41. that we watch today.

42. Going back to the 80s, early 90s,

43. it was a little company that nobody thought was

44. ever going to be successful.

45. Boom!

46. Any time anybody talked about professional wrestling

47. in mainstream media...

48. they didn't refer to it as "professional wrestling".

49. They referred to it as "WWF".

50. The World Wrestling Federation!

51. If you look at where WCW started from...

52. Tonight! On World Championship Wrestling!

53. We were in a different universe,

54. and not a favorable one.

55. That's how far behind we were.

56. Everybody was very happy to be a distant #2.

57. Except for me.

58. Nitro! It's on the air!

59. The difference between WCW in '93...

60. Take a look at the crowd!

61. And '98...

62. Over 40,000 fans are jammed in the Georgia Dome!

63. We became the most successful wrestling company

64. in the world, almost overnight.

65. Gentlemen! Start your engines!

66. WCW was able to transcend pop culture.

67. Wow! The Sting!

68. Timmy.

69. Here comes the NWO, the greatest faction ever.

70. I don't think I'd seen anything that's

71. hotter than NWO. I was like,

72. "Wow, this company's gonna go through the roof."

73. We were standing on top of the mountain, going,

74. "How did we get here?"

75. And then, little by little, we just fell.

76. Good night!

77. It was like me having a puppy,

78. raising him to be a full grown dog,

79. and I watch him run across the street and

80. he gets hit by a bus.

81. Ugh!

82. Egos, egos, egos.

83. A lot of jealousy, a lot of problems.

84. Do I got your attention now, Eric Bischoff?

85. Think about it- what are wrestlers?

86. They're a bunch of pathological liars.

87. What a big word for a suit and tie.

88. The death of WCW is really death by 1,000 cuts.

89. So, what really happened?

90. Who's responsible for killing WCW?

91. That's always gonna be the million-dollar question:

92. Who killed WCW?

93. Well, the easy answer is Vince Russo.

94. It's just idiotic.

95. Turner.

96. The organization, or lack of.

97. The talent killed WCW.

98. Ha-ha-ha! This is preposterous to me.

99. It would have to be the person with the chequebook.

100. It'd have to be Eric Bischoff.

101. Oof.

102. Sometimes more than one thing can be true.

103. There's too much blame to go around.

104. You want to hear the real story,

105. or you want to hear the bullshit story?

106. You cannot sweep this under the rug!

107. this is a fucking television show...

108. I don't understand what he's doing...

109. The real reason...

110. Back in the day,

111. back prior to social media...

112. there was still an internet culture for the

113. wrestling fan scene to congregate,

114. and it had a desperate need for an understanding

115. of what happened to WCW...

116. who have convinced a certain percentage of the audience

117. that it ultimately comes back to me.

118. If someone were to come to me and say,

119. "Okay, here's a tape."

120. "I want you to watch this whole tape,

121. and it's gonna be the entire WCW journey,

122. and you can decide if you want to do it all over again."

123. What would I say?

124. In a heartbeat...

125. In a heartbeat.

126. You know, it's really interesting and almost

127. embarrassing- before I was hired by WCW,

128. I didn't know what WCW was.

129. World Championship Wrestling.

130. I was an outsider to the business.

131. I was...

132. a sales guy.

133. Right about that time,

134. through a good friend of mine- Sonny Onoo-

135. this little thing called Ninja Star Wars

136. came into my life.

137. You put these vests on, and you put one on, I put one on,

138. we chase each other around the house,

139. and if I hit you with three of my stars you're out,

140. just like laser tag, only with these little stars.

141. Oh!

142. Then it was like...

143. All right. How do we sell 'em?

144. At the time, the AWA was on Monday through Friday,

145. and the AWA was Verne's business.

146. Verne Gagne, thanks for being out here.

147. Well, my pleasure, and I'm glad I got out here because...

148. Verne Gagne- professional athlete,

149. wrestler, promoter.

150. Don't you dare miss it.

151. Verne did it all.

152. Verne Gagne's pro wrestling report.

153. Here's how to order. Mail 14.95!

154. I thought, I'm gonna call Verne Gagne.

155. If Verne runs to commercial in his wrestling program

156. that's seen nationwide, we'll split 50/50.

157. I took one of the games, and went to meet Verne.

158. I thought I was gonna get the deal, right,

159. that I was looking for- which I did,

160. but I was also offered a job.

161. Welcome to AWA Championship Wrestling.

162. So, my job was to travel around the Midwest,

163. and talk independent television stations into

164. carrying AWA shows.

165. It's a sales job. Sales is sales.

166. And I think we're gonna erase any doubts

167. you've ever had.

168. I had never met anybody like Eric.

169. If he thought something was a really good idea,

170. then he would start to take action,

171. to breathe life into it.

172. I'd always been curious how television works.

173. At night, I just sat in and learned.

174. Then eventually I was on camera.

175. My name is Eric Bischoff, and you-

176. All this took place over the course of about a

177. year and a half, two years, while I was in AWA.

178. Buckle up real tight because you're going for

179. a hard, bumpy ride, I promise.

180. The last six or eight months of it I didn't get paid.

181. He couldn't afford to pay me.

182. My wife and I- and our kids-

183. suffered financially.

184. Now we have two little ones and,

185. we are literally bouncing checks to buy diapers,

186. and barely making rent.

187. That's how bad it was.

188. Heavyweight champion!

189. He is the living legend, Larry Zbyszko!

190. Larry Zbyskzo had worked with me in AWA,

191. we had become friends.

192. He left AWA, was working in WCW.

193. Larry told me that, "Hey, they're looking for

194. announcers down here."

195. And, within days, I got a call.

196. See you next time.

197. I got to WCW, man, I was the happiest...

198. third-string announcer that had ever put on

199. a pair of shoes.

200. I came into WCW so wide-eyed,

201. because I was working for Turner Broadcasting.

202. He was very nice. He was,

203. just seemed like he was- not a fish out of water,

204. but he was kind of uncomfortable,

205. is the way it seemed to start with.

206. He's got a suit on, and he's got,

207. you know, perfect black hair.

208. He looked like a Ken doll.

209. I'm here with Diamond Dallas.

210. The talent within WCW...

211. unbelievable.

212. There was Dusty Rhodes, and Gordon Solie,

213. and Kevin Sullivan and, certainly, Ric Flair.

214. Woo!

215. And there was a new generation.

216. Guys like Sting, Diamond Dallas Page.

217. Scott Hall was the Diamond Stud.

218. On 3- 1, 2, 3!

219. Rip it off!

220. Scott was working in WCW when I was hired.

221. So was Kevin Nash.

222. Good-looking guy, great physique.

223. Fuck yeah.

224. Poor Kevin Nash had so many different characters

225. in the beginning.

226. They didn't know what to do with him.

227. Cowabunga!

228. I just shot Ninja Turtles.

229. And then, I believe Dusty took acid.

230. And he said, "Baby, you're gonna be Oz."

231. I said, "You do realize that the movie is called

232. 'The Wizard of Oz'?"

233. I am Oz!

234. You can be the wizard, but you can't be Oz.

235. Oz is the geographical region.

236. "No, baby, you gonna be Oz."

237. And I was just like, "All right."

238. World Championship Wrestling is bringing it to you, baby.

239. We're taking a look at Oz.

240. I just show up in this lime green outfit,

241. in an old man's rubber mask.

242. And then they wrestle...

243. a geographical region.

244. Look at this move right here.

245. They were trying to put a round peg in a square hole.

246. They tried to do the gimmicks.

247. It looks like something's going on down here.

248. They would bring, you know, RoboCop.

249. What strength by RoboCop!

250. But they really didn't work.

251. It didn't work.

252. It was an absolute shit show.

253. He's getting cooked!

254. And I think he's well done, guys!

255. The crowd here, going crazy!

256. WCW had a loyal following.

257. But, the Turner executives regarded the WCW audience

258. as being downscale.

259. It was downscale.

260. Very sort of, um...

261. Southern and Midwestern.

262. I didn't care about it, I wasn't a fan of it.

263. 80% of the people who worked at Turner weren't really

264. wrestling fans to start with, except for Ted.

265. Ted Turner wears many hats for his many colorful careers.

266. He is the owner of the baseball Atlanta Braves.

267. Basketball Atlanta Hawks.

268. He has pioneered television with his own cable network,

269. which broadcasts 24 hours of news.

270. Playboy Magazine called him a bonafide

271. larger-than-life character.

272. Captain Outrageous, that was one of his nicknames.

273. He will say anything he wants to,

274. any time he wants to.

275. You said, "Network presidents should be..."

276. - "... lined up and shot." - And shot.

277. My kinda guy.

278. Ted enjoyed the fact that, "I know that you don't like

279. my wrestling, and that's exactly why I like it."

280. It started when Dad bought a little TV station

281. here in Atlanta, and he built an international

282. broadcasting empire in a few years.

283. And wrestling was one of those things that helped

284. build TBS and the entire network.

285. I mean, you go back to the beginning of television,

286. wrestling was there.

287. It was a lifeblood of programming for

288. local television stations.

289. Oh!

290. It could command a loyal audience

291. into millions of viewers.

292. So, Ted believed in the power, in the loyalty...

293. and the size of the

294. professional wrestling audience.

295. Ted launched WCW as a result of

296. purchasing Jim Crockett Promotions,

297. which was a Southern wrestling company.

298. Jesus Christ!

299. WCW was seen as sort of the long-suffering distant #2,

300. trailing behind the WWF.

301. The winner of the match... The Diamond Stud!

302. Scott Hall, Kevin Nash...

303. they left, they go to the WWF.

304. Scott Hall becomes Razor Ramon,

305. he becomes a big star.

306. Kevin Nash becomes Diesel.

307. Boom, big star.

308. From a standpoint of the talent,

309. we always considered WWE the show.

310. There's no comparison.

311. From a production value perspective...

312. from a talent roster perspective,

313. from a marketing perspective, from a financial perspective.

314. WCW lost millions of dollars, every year.

315. I had been warned by my boss, you know,

316. "Don't help WCW."

317. Why? If I help 'em make money?

318. "No, you don't understand." Executive mangement

319. hates wrestling and wants to get rid of it,

320. and if you're perceived as trying to help them,

321. that's career suicide for you."

322. I was like, "Huh."

323. Other than Ted Turner, there was not an executive in

324. Turner Broadcasting that wanted WCW to be

325. in the Turner portfolio.

326. Put yourself in the position of a television executive

327. within that corporation.

328. You have this division that is losing as much as

329. $10 million on a yearly basis, and we don't really

330. get the appeal of this entire genre to begin with.

331. So, of course, that was going to create

332. a lot of resentment and confusion as to,

333. "Why do we even have this on the air waves?"

334. Makes my blood boil too!

335. That's what really set the conditions for this

336. dysfunctional relationship between TBS and WCW.

337. Bill Shaw was the Vice President of Human Resources

338. for Turner Broadcasting.

339. He was given responsibility to take over WCW

340. as effective president of it.

341. So, Bill came in. He said, "Ted Turner has made a

342. decision that this company is going to either turn a profit,

343. or Ted's gonna pull the plug."

344. Ted had made up his mind that enough was enough,

345. and he was gonna give WCW one last shot.

346. And, we're going to hire an executive producer...

347. who is going to take WCW

348. from a wrestling company to a television property.

349. Wrestling was seen by the wrestling people

350. as an arena business.

351. The only other person besides Ted that

352. saw it as television was Eric.

353. So, I threw my name in the hat.

354. A month or so later, I'm the executive producer.

355. This is your chance to be a part

356. of professional wrestling history.

357. What the hell am I gonna do?

358. From Harlem! The Harlem Heat!

359. Who comes down in the hands of the Heat.

360. And don't forget that, sucker!

361. The way my brother and I came into WCW was a good old boy

362. system gimmick, you know, for two Black guys.

363. This is a spectacular team!

364. But, you could tell the difference going from the

365. good old boys era to the Eric Bischoff era just by

366. the way he tried to create something.

367. I was hired as the executive producer.

368. My responsibility was solely the look and feel of the show.

369. Saturday Night!

370. The biggest challenge that we had was the fact that

371. we couldn't attract an audience.

372. It looked horrible because you had to turn the

373. lights down to hide the fact that nobody was there.

374. How do we fix that?

375. That's when I decided I was gonna shoot the shows

376. down at the Disney MGM Studios.

377. They had sound stages,

378. so I could control the look of the environment.

379. And I had a fresh audience coming through five times

380. a day, so I could shoot five or six shows with

381. a fresh audience each and every time.

382. Spin 'em up- lights, camera, action.

383. I think Eric Bischoff really wanted to

384. take WCW away from being

385. a Southern 'wrastling' company.

386. You could see the difference.

387. You could feel it.

388. In '94, I ascended from Executive Producer to

389. Vice President and, at that time,

390. nobody thought WCW would ever be

391. competitive with WWF.

392. I needed people to take WCW seriously.

393. I needed Hulk Hogan.

394. Hulk! Hogan!

395. I don't think we'd be here if there was no Hulk Hogan.

396. In the 1980s, Hulk Hogan is the patriotic, ultra-good guy.

397. He's coming out waving an American flag,

398. fighting off these evil foreigners.

399. Hulkster tearing it to pieces!

400. He was the one who broke professional wrestling

401. wide open!

402. Commercials, cartoons.

403. Kids loved him.

404. Everybody knew Hulk Hogan.

405. Whether you're a professional wrestling fan

406. or not, you knew the name.

407. Eating your vitamins, saying your prayers.

408. Say your prayers! Eat your vitamins!

409. Ric Flair's the greatest wrestler of all time.

410. But the guy that was on Sports Illustrated,

411. he's the guy.

412. He is truly a real American.

413. Coincidentally, while we were shooting WCW at

414. the Disney MGM Studios,

415. Hulk Hogan was down at Disney shooting a

416. new series called "Thunder In Paradise".

417. Now, Hulk had been out of wrestling for some time

418. because of the steroid trial.

419. a good role model 'cause he just, like,

420. did whatever it took to get big, like,

421. he took those steroid pills.

422. And I thought, why not at least try to get a meeting?

423. But he didn't know who I was.

424. So, I went to Ric Flair.

425. Hello?

426. I said, "Ric, do you think you can set up a call or

427. meeting between Hulk and I?"

428. One night, I was sound asleep,

429. and the phone rings and I'm picking up the phone,

430. and it's- "Hey, Brother."

431. Whoa! Wake up! It was Hulk.

432. Welcome Hulk Hogan!

433. Being able to work with Hulk Hogan,

434. being on the same roster as Hulk Hogan

435. elevated everybody's career.

436. And it had immediate impact.

437. All of a sudden, people were

438. returning phone calls much faster.

439. It's all perception.

440. That's why we're here today, for a match between

441. two of wrestling's biggest superstars-

442. Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair.

443. So, Hulk's original deal included four Pay Per View's

444. a year, and he had creative control.

445. Essentially means that he gets a thumbs up or

446. thumbs down as to whether or not he wants to do it.

447. 1, 2...

448. WCW is about to dominate the globe

449. in professional wrestling.

450. Talent began to get a little confident that this

451. Turner guy over here is starting to get serious.

452. Dad always loves competition.

453. So, you get a Vince McMahon who says,

454. "Oh, this is my territory."

455. Yeah, there's gonna be problems.

456. Keep in mind, at that point, I had never had a

457. one-on-one meeting with Ted Turner.

458. And, I walked into the meeting- my boss,

459. Harvey Schiller, he was already sitting there.

460. Scott Sassa, the heir apparent to Ted Turner

461. at the time, he was in the room.

462. So, I sat down and, "Eric...

463. Let me ask you a question."

464. I can't do a good Ted Turner impersonation.

465. "Ah, Eric...

466. what's it gonna take for

467. WCW to be competitive with WWE?"

468. In what seemed like 20 minutes-

469. it was maybe milliseconds,

470. but it was like watching your life pass before you

471. right before the train hits you.

472. I don't know what the answer is.

473. What are my options? I can't bullshit Ted Turner.

474. He'll see through that so fast.

475. Tell the truth. Truth usually works.

476. So, I'm just going to tell him the truth.

477. So, I said, "Ted, they're on prime time.

478. Monday night, coast to coast.

479. We're 6:05 Eastern, 3:05 Pacific

480. on a Saturday.

481. We can't be competitive with that."

482. Ted looks over to Scott Sassa, and says,

483. "Ah... Scott!

484. Give Eric two hours every Monday night,

485. head-to-head. WWE."

486. I thought, how am I gonna do this?

487. And I walked out of Ted's officed...

488. locked myself in my room,

489. sat there with a yellow legal pad

490. and said, "Start thinking of ways."

491. So, at this time, you know, Monday Night Raw

492. was the primary show for the WWF.

493. And the WWF was, at that time,

494. the first company to have that prime time show

495. on Mondays.

496. Welcome to Monday Night Raw!

497. When Ted said, you know,

498. "I want to move WCW to TNT,"

499. it was like, "What? Are you kidding me?"

500. I'd been killing myself to build this brand that

501. we were known as the premium network on basic cable.

502. When I tried to fight Ted on it, I lost that battle.

503. How can I be better than the WWF?

504. I can't.

505. Their production value was much better.

506. The story telling, it was cleaner, easy to follow...

507. and built everything to feel larger than life.

508. WCW always looked like it was trying to

509. catch up to the wheel that just fell off.

510. But if I can give people a reason to watch me

511. instead of them,

512. I got a shot.

513. Their one vulnerability was that they were taped

514. every other week.

515. We should be live.

516. I went to Brad Siegel, and said,

517. "I want to do this live every week."

518. We were so competitive with USA Network.

519. If we go up against them, we're gonna hurt their

520. highest rated show, Raw, on Monday night.

521. It would be the way that we could win as the

522. He said, "We've got a block of action programming

523. called 'Nitro'.

524. Why don't we thematically keep it the same?

525. We'll call the show Nitro." "Hell yeah!"

526. WCW Monday Nitro.

527. But we could not give tickets away.

528. Keep in mind, this is the first Nitro.

529. Nobody's ever heard of it before.

530. Well, if I can't put it in an arena where

531. it's going to look cool...

532. what about Mall of America?

533. Mall Of America at the time was like a big damn deal.

534. The bargains are coming! The bargains are coming!

535. Back then, Mall Of America was kind of a destination.

536. Still, they're the largest mall in the United States.

537. Just about big enough to hold WCW and

538. its debut broadcast of Monday Nitro.

539. My hope was that I'd get enough people that were

540. walking by in the mall that would stop long enough and

541. watch that I could get kind of a couple beauty shots.

542. And it worked great.

543. It looked like a really cool fight club for yuppies.

544. If you want surprises, this is where you come,

545. because our show is live,

546. and you never know who's gonna show up.

547. Luger!

548. Lex Luger, everybody thought that Lex was under contract.

549. He had just been on WWE the night before.

550. WWE had no idea.

551. And it set the tone for Nitro.

552. When I came there, Eric was testing the waters.

553. I am Madusa.

554. I was WWF's champion.

555. I'm like, I got an idea.

556. And that's what I think of the WWF

557. Women's Championship belt.

558. That shock value is what we really needed

559. to get the attention.

560. That's the magic of live.

561. That's what will make us competitive.

562. I'm focused on that big, nasty giant.

563. But the main thing, like you said...

564. is to get in that ring, brother...

565. In this country...

566. we love to build people up.

567. We love to tear them down.

568. And then, we love them to rise from the ashes again.

569. We weren't seeing the gains in terms of ratings

570. that we had anticipated.

571. We had kind of leveled out.

572. Hulk could sense, I think,

573. that the Hulk Hogan character...

574. it was losing steam.

575. They are taking him apart.

576. The audience still reacted to it,

577. but not the same way.

578. I started to hear "boo's".

579. Hulk Hogan making his way to the ring.

580. The 80s were done.

581. I needed to change the perception of Hulk Hogan...

582. and forever.

583. What is he doing?

584. Hulk Hogan has betrayed WCW!

585. Randy, what's going on here?

586. May 27th of 1996...

587. Scott Hall debuted on WCW television.

588. You people...

589. you know who I am.

590. Scott Hall worked and performed for WWF

591. as Razor Ramon.

592. But you don't know why I'm here.

593. Then Kevin Nash shows up.

594. Everybody knew they were WWF guys.

595. Oh, my god! No, no! Turn it over now!

596. Razor Ramon and Diesel are on Nitro!

597. Are they the WWF?

598. You want a war? We are taking over.

599. They were bad guys that were like invading the company.

600. This is different.

601. This is something that we have never seen

602. in professional wrestling.

603. By not dissuading people,

604. that's what created the perception that

605. perhaps this was an invasion.

606. But of course it wasn't.

607. They didn't want to renew their contract with WWE.

608. I'm thinking, ah, I need a reality storyline.

609. Admittedly now, you know, enough time has gone by-

610. I, admittedly, allowed them to think that

611. they were showing up on behalf of WWE.

612. Do you work for the WWF?

613. No.

614. And then they alluded to a third man.

615. You tell billionaire Ted to break out the money and

616. get anybody he can because the big "mang",

617. and the medium-sized "mang", and our surprise buddy

618. are gonna carve them up.

619. Big surprise coming in. Who's the third man?

620. All while that's going on on television,

621. Hulk Hogan's in California doing a movie called

622. "Santa With Muscles".

623. Keep the milk and cookies warm.

624. - Classic.

625. I get a phone call "Brother..."

626. "Any way I could get you to come out?

627. I want to talk to you about creative."

628. Got to his trailer, he's waiting for me.

629. He says, "Brother, who's the third man?"

630. What have we got here, The Sting!

631. I already spent two weeks convincing Sting to

632. turn heel and be the third man.

633. I didn't want to tell Hulk,

634. but I didn't want to lie to him either.

635. "Who do you think it should be?"

636. "You're looking at him, brother." Oh, wow!

637. World Championship Wrestling presents the

638. Bash at the Beach!

639. I didn't want him to come to the building

640. until the very last minute.

641. I talked to Kevin Sullivan about the best way to

642. try to achieve that.

643. Kevin Sullivan sequestered Hulk in Daytona Beach.

644. He had to babysit him for like a whole night

645. 'cause he was afraid that Hogan might not show up

646. as a mystery third man.

647. There were a lot of risks to Hulk turning heel.

648. You have to put yourself in his shoes.

649. Hulk is a very loyal guy,

650. and he was carrying a lot of people.

651. If he lost his endorsements,

652. if he lost movies...

653. Maybe their pocketbook would be hurt.

654. I knew that there was a chance with the

655. people around Hulk,

656. he could possibly second guess himself.

657. We don't know yet who the third man is.

658. We didn't leave my house

659. 'til the first match started.

660. I didn't want anybody to get to him.

661. Hulk shows up at the building.

662. I still don't know at this point where his head is at

663. 'cause we hadn't talked all day.

664. Lex Luger!

665. The Macho Man Randy Savage!

666. And Sting will represent WCW to beat these outsiders.

667. Oh!

668. When Hogan came down the ramp,

669. I still wasn't 100% sure.

670. Hulk Hogan is here! Hulk Hogan's here!

671. Hulk comes down, we clear out.

672. He hits the rope, drops the leg.

673. Oh, oh, oh! What is he doing?

674. Oh, my god! Is he the third man?

675. He's the third man!

676. The production truck erupted with elation for what just

677. went down and how the crowd reacted to it.

678. It was a roar like we hadn't heard before.

679. And it got louder and angrier,

680. and it was building.

681. They were pissed! Really pissed.

682. What do we got here? We got a fan coming in.

683. He's a hero, and now the hero's standing in the

684. middle of the ring that was filling up with garbage,

685. telling every one of those fans he was only in it

686. for the money.

687. It would be like Babe Ruth telling all the fans

688. who had followed him for years, and years, and years

689. to stick their support right up their ass.

690. All this crap in the ring

691. represents these fans out here!

692. It was the biggest turn in the history of wrestling.

693. Saved his career.

694. And then it becomes the three guys, with Hulk.

695. Now it's like, who are they?

696. You can call this...

697. The New World Order of wrestling, brother!

698. I didn't know what the NWO was about to become.

699. NWO, take one.

700. NWO's the thing that really broke everything.

701. What was happening in pop culture,

702. they were representing it with their spin on it.

703. It was like street.

704. We can't have them have any association

705. with WCW whatsoever.

706. This is our show!

707. We're doing it our way!

708. Those small elements-

709. the way we shot the NWO interviews-

710. we shot in black and white.

711. "Black and white?"

712. "Why are you doing black and white?"

713. Trust me, black and white'll be cool.

714. Not only was it pretty fucking cool,

715. but also, disruptive.

716. And, those guys were the right talent to pull it off.

717. They did whatever the fuck they wanted to do.

718. Didn't care whether you cheered them

719. or you booed them.

720. - Oh, my god! - Zero fucks to give.

721. NWO!

722. For life!

723. Those guys really set the world on fire.

724. Woo!

725. My son came home from school and asked me if I could

726. bring him four or five NWO shirts so he could take them

727. to school the next day, and I said, "Why?" He said,

728. "All my friends want them." Well, absolutely!

729. That's what we began to see emerging

730. with Eric's version of what the NWO was.

731. They were bad, but they were cool.

732. To this day, there's still NWO shirts.

733. I don't see any other shirts from WCW.

734. The fans were so...

735. intoxicated with NWO.

736. It made everything bigger.

737. And, when something gets too big, too fast,

738. shit's gonna hit the fan at some point.

739. And then it did.

740. Oh, they're in the control room now!

741. Hold on, what do we got here?

742. - What does that do? - Don't touch that.

743. Whoa! Fade to black!

744. Shouldn't have bought that cheap TV!

745. You go back, and you look at Nitro ratings from the

746. premiere episode all the way up until

747. the NWO was revealed.

748. We were doing fine.

749. We'd win a week or two.

750. WWE would win a week or two.

751. We were essentially even.

752. Until the NWO.

753. Legitimately, the NWO was responsible for

754. 80% of our growth.

755. And I thought, okay,

756. I've gotta find a way to maintain the reality.

757. New World Order, punk.

758. Something that the audience can't tell

759. whether it's real, or whether it's not.

760. Worst thing you can do on earth in

761. professional wrestling is have a backstage fight.

762. Hey!

763. Everybody that throws a punch backstage...

764. goes, "Ugh! Ooh! Uh!"

765. It's so bad.

766. We wanted to make the back look completely real.

767. Not a wrestling program.

768. Oh, no!

769. Neal Pruitt came up with the idea of the

770. production people helping.

771. Up until that time, I never had gone to a producer

772. and said, "What kind of shot?"

773. But I went to him.

774. Konnan up on the middle turnbuckle, climbs the top.

775. Nicely done.

776. There was that one night we were in Orlando

777. at the Disney tapings.

778. We wanted to make it look like NWO

779. just came and wreaked havoc.

780. And, took over.

781. We need somebody in the back! Please!

782. What is he talking about, need somebody?

783. He's trying to get a cameraman-

784. We were inspired a bit by Hill Street Blues,

785. as far as the way you moved throughout a scene

786. with one camera.

787. We were all about making it work.

788. Making what looked like reality happen.

789. Craig can hear us.

790. Craig, are you gonna send a cameraman back there or not?

791. They're coming around the corner.

792. Wait a minute, we go to the back!

793. And we had baseball bats.

794. They got baseball bats!

795. All the carnage has already taken place.

796. It's the old Hitchcock.

797. See the knife and then you see the blood.

798. You let the mind create the violence.

799. They're picking up props.

800. They were nailing it.

801. They all worked their asses off to make it look

802. as believable as it could.

803. And I don't know if it was planned in advance-

804. only Kevin Nash or Rey Mysterio

805. could tell you that.

806. Nash picked up Rey Mysterio and threw him

807. against the trailer like a lawn dart.

808. Whap!

809. We're gonna have Kevin Nash standing there.

810. And, they're gonna have Rey Mysterio Jr. jump on him.

811. And there's Rey Mysterio- Hey! He dove!

812. Rey says, "Do you think you can throw me

813. through that window?" "No, dude.

814. It's a window." "You'll die."

815. I said, "Let me just throw you off the trailer."

816. - Ugh! - Oh! Headfirst!

817. So, we were doing things that nobody had ever seen.

818. It looked like a giant crime scene.

819. Creates emotion in the audience.

820. Please, somebody help him!

821. And they forget that

822. they're watching professional wrestling.

823. We're gonna try to get this all back together.

824. And, ah, we'll be back.

825. WCW really started to leave their competition in the dust,

826. and that was the vaunted 83-week winning streak.

827. We were pro wrestling.

828. And they were playing catchup for the first time.

829. I remember when that happened.

830. I remember thinking,

831. "We should do more shit like that."

832. That freedom, we did not have.

833. And to see the company,

834. not only compete with the WWE,

835. but knock 'em on their ass for 83 weeks,

836. like, straight weeks...

837. Wow!

838. It is the #1 professional wrestling program

839. around the world!

840. Once those ratings started, there was no stopping him.

841. I think the war with WWF was personal with Eric.

842. He was always tracing ratings.

843. Eric cared more about ratings than advertising dollars.

844. This is a television company.

845. And we're going to run WCW like a television company.

846. It was this maniacal desire

847. to be #1 and to beat WWF.

848. There was a competitive pressure that I put on myself.

849. So, Vince McMahon, this is for you.

850. And I said something like, "I'm not gonna stop

851. 'til I drive a stake through the heart of

852. Vincent K. McMahon!"

853. I may have gone a little over the top.

854. "Er". Back up. 1996.

855. I keep hearing how Vince McMahon

856. plans his stuff out a year in advance.

857. He knows what he's gonna have in next year's

858. WrestleMania ten months before it happens.

859. Why can't we do that?

860. And I saw Sting as the opportunity to do that.

861. And the Stinger making his way to the ring!

862. One night, Scott Hall started explaining

863. this idea that he had for a new version of

864. the Sting character, based on the

865. Brandon Lee character in the movie The Crow.

866. And he goes, "You're the scary Sting."

867. And I looked over at Sting,

868. and his eyes were like this big.

869. The Sting Crow character was born.

870. - That's Sting. - It is, but...

871. Once he went up in the rafters,

872. that built the anticipation that was needed to

873. really put that character over.

874. That started what became an 18-month story.

875. Oh, my! Sting!

876. And he started showing up and

877. scaring the hell out of everybody in the NWO.

878. He's got everybody!

879. Sting would finally confront Hogan.

880. They'd have the match for control of WCW.

881. - He's pointing at me! - Don't worry about it!

882. It was something, really, that had not been done to

883. this degree before in the history of wrestling,

884. which was making the decision that...

885. we're actually not gonna pay this off next week or

886. next month, but we're gonna keep this going until the

887. end of the year in our Starrcade Pay Per View.

888. Welcome to Starrcade!

889. 1997!

890. An event 18 months in the making!

891. Sting is gonna lead Hogan clean.

892. WCW's gonna come out on top.

893. Then it's gonna be up to NWO to kind of

894. rebuild from the ground up.

895. That was the plan.

896. Sting has returned to the wrestling ring...

897. to reclaim WCW's title from the NWO.

898. The original finish, it got convoluted and

899. compromised throughout the day.

900. There was supposed to be the big boot by Hogan,

901. the leg drop on Sting, the cover.

902. But, the referee's supposed to do a fast count.

903. It wasn't a fast count, but Bret Hart came in,

904. restarted the match with himself as the referee.

905. That was three. Hey, what are you doing? Ah!

906. Well, even the idea, the referee and the fast count

907. and the whole thing, I remember when they

908. gave it to me, it was like, "Really?"

909. Like, that is the lamest ending.

910. Bret Hart is here tonight as the referee.

911. Is that right? Is that correct?

912. It's an awful, stupid, and very...

913. convoluted ending for the match,

914. but I remember Eric Bischoff insisting

915. how it was gonna be fantastic.

916. Hart's right in Hogan's face!

917. And the crowd reacted the way you wanted them

918. to react, initially.

919. "Yay! Sting finally won."

920. Heavyweight Champion of the World!

921. Sting!

922. It wasn't until afterwards that people started to

923. realize what a convoluted finish it was.

924. In our business,

925. you can screw up the whole match.

926. Do not fuck up the finish.

927. Then all hell broke loose.

928. Back in internet world,

929. all the purveyors of truth out there, they-

930. all of a sudden- became so obsessed over

931. the finish of Starrcade '97.

932. 'What really happened between Sting and Hogan?"

933. "Why did it happen?"

934. "How did you let that happen?"

935. I mean, I still get heat for that.

936. Bischoff had kind of hitched his wagon to Hogan,

937. he kind of listened to what he said

938. more than the other guys.

939. On the day of the Sting-Hogan match,

940. it was apparent to both Hulk and I that Sting didn't

941. appear to be nearly as excited about the opportunity

942. that we'd been working on for 18 months.

943. There was something about him that day that was off.

944. Sting left the room,

945. and Hulk and I kind of looked at each other,

946. and I said, "What are you thinking?"

947. And he goes, "Not today, brother.

948. Not today. His head's not right."

949. Hulk just wasn't feeling it so,

950. we changed the finish, or lack thereof,

951. of a clean finish,

952. because Hulk Hogan has creative control.

953. He had creative control, he didn't give two shits.

954. He'd walk in at 7:30, read the TV and say,

955. "Doesn't work for me, brother."

956. Yes, you know, free right to pretty much do

957. whatever he wanted, and he has no interest

958. in that company other than himself.

959. That right there can really start

960. turning things a certain way.

961. I think the only guy that

962. was not political was Sting.

963. Sting didn't seem to be part of that group.

964. I think Sting had been convinced that Hulk was

965. gonna pull the rug out from underneath him

966. at the last minute.

967. He walked into that meeting expecting it.

968. And it actually manifested it.

969. When guys got those kind of agendas,

970. thinking about themselves, that's what happens.

971. And, ah, that's pretty much when the ship start-

972. started to go down.

973. Starrcade '97, Hogan and Sting,

974. is gonna haunt me for the rest of my life.

975. We had the audience in the palm of our hands.

976. But unfortunately, the end didn't

977. live up to the rest of the story.

978. And certainly wasn't what the fans wanted.

979. You'll find people who think that was the reason

980. WCW kind of went downhill.

981. Whatever, wrestling fans.

982. The WWF had really established a strong

983. creative foundation throughout '97.

984. If you go back and look at the numbers,

985. you can start to see that gap getting ever closer.

986. Vince McMahon went on camera, and said,

987. "We're gonna change the way we do things.

988. We're not gonna insult the audience's intelligence."

989. The World Wrestling Federation has been an

990. entertainment mainstay here in North America,

991. and all over the world.

992. As the times have changed, so have we.

993. I'm happy to say that this new,

994. vibrant creative direction has resulted in a

995. huge increase in television viewership.

996. He's saying, "We're gonna do what those other guys are

997. doing because it's really kicking our ass and

998. it's beginning to hurt."

999. Vince brings Mike Tyson into WrestleMania...

1000. knowing that anything that Tyson does,

1001. it's a million bucks.

1002. Tyson!

1003. The next night I saw Kevin,

1004. first thing I said to Kev was...

1005. "You feel the water? It's getting cold."

1006. In other words, we're on our way to the iceberg.

1007. Me and Disco Inferno,

1008. we thought The Rock was cool.

1009. And we thought Steve Austin was cool.

1010. And me and Disco were always in the back watching them,

1011. you know, backstage,

1012. "Why are you watching the show?"

1013. "'Cause it's better than ours."

1014. You know, at that time, I really did not give a fuck.

1015. Bischoff, he remembers the big crowds and

1016. he was the king pin. But the truth of it is,

1017. he never knew anything about wrestling.

1018. And then towards the end, basically,

1019. he was just yes-ing to Hogan.

1020. It was a disaster.

1021. Hogan was the bigger talent.

1022. Hogan was the guy that he was gonna go with.

1023. No matter what.

1024. That's the bond right there, Hogan and Bischoff.

1025. They're both accountable to each other.

1026. That's the secret, is that Hulk Hogan was basically

1027. the puppet master to Eric Bischoff,

1028. and Erich Bischoff...

1029. he was just a prop and,

1030. that's what killed WCW.

1031. Everything looks easier from the outside,

1032. but once you get inside, you realize just how

1033. complicated and nuanced some things that appear to be

1034. so easy and so simple really are.

1035. Who's responsible for killing WCW?

1036. Just look at some of the names who were floating around

1037. at the highest levels within Turner Broadcasting.

1038. They wanted WCW to go away.

1039. And they got their wish.

1040. Whenever you're leading a night and now you're not

1041. leading a night, there's reason for concern.

1042. We hit a small brick wall.

1043. The wheels started falling off, creatively.

1044. What the fuck is this?

1045. WWE's answer was Attitude.

1046. Oh!

1047. They were willing to go further creatively.

1048. That's exactly what we're gonna do to kill you off.

1049. Why are we doing this?

1050. Is this "classy" enough for our networks?

1051. That pissed me off.

1052. They started to handcuff us with Standards & Practices.

1053. Can you say "butt" on TBS?

1054. I'm not convinced that wasn't an orchestrated hit job.

1055. I don't think that's debatable.

1056. There were too many conspiracies

1057. behind the scenes trying to knock him off.

1058. Once you have the monkeys running the zoo,

1059. you're in trouble.

1060. Woo!

1061. The blood was in the water,

1062. and the sharks were coming to get it.

1063. That's the name of the game.

1064. People will try to manipulate.

1065. And who prevailed?

1066. He is in the house!