Should WCW Have Died a Lot Sooner?

[tmc1982]

We like to talk about how badly WCW was managed from about 1998 until the day that Vince McMahon bought them, but not from the moment that Ted Turner bought Jim Crockett Promotions in 1988 up until say, when they signed Hulk Hogan in 1994.

The main reason I believe, that WCW lasted so long was because of Ted Turner. The main difference between WCW and WWE (or WWF at the time) was that WWE is a wrestling organization that needs TV to survive. WCW just happened to be a wrestling promotion that was owned by a major television company in Turner Broadcasting.

I'm going off the top of my head, some of the questionable decisions that they made during this period:
*Hiring Jim Herd to run the day-to-day operations. Herd knew little about the wrestling business. He tried to turn WCW into a WWF clone (albeit, second rate) by having a bunch of cartoonish gimmicks, which wound up alienating the die hard NWA audience.

*Jim Herd firing Ric Flair (even though he was still WCW's biggest draw) over petty jealousy and politics. And of course, Flair proceeded to go on their biggest rival's TV shows parading the World Title (which Flair never actually lost in the ring).

*The 1991 Great American Bash (which came off the heels of Ric Flair's firing), which is generally considered to be one of the worst pay-per-views ever.

*Letting Ole Anderson and Dusty Rhodes do a bulk of the booking. Ole seemed to be more interested in putting his buddies over than the younger, fresher talent. Also, Ole was responsible for crap like the Black Scorpion and and the Shockmaster. Meanwhile, Rhodes' booking was a large factor in why Jim Crockett Promotions (WCW's predecessor) went belly up in the first place. Dusty also came up w/ his share of goofy angles like the Yellow Dog.

*Hiring Bill Watts to run the day-to-day operations. Watts at that point, was so out of touch what was and wasn't relevant in the wrestling business. Watts also, royally pissed his employees off with his hard nosed business tactics (e.g. cutting the pay roll, making guys stay for the entire show, not letting the wrestler's families backstage, etc.). There's one famous story about Watts threating to give Brian Pillman a pay cut. When Pillman refused, Watts threatened to force Pillman to job, for which Pillman responded by saying "Fine, I'll be the world's highest paid jobber!"

*Wasting money on cheesy "mini-movies" like the Cactus Jack "Lost in Cleveland" skits or the "Beach Blast" one with Sting, Davey Boy Smith, Vader, and Sid Vicious.

*Paul Roma as one of the Four Horsemen.

*The Disney Tapings.

[Rocky Van Heineken]

I know that Turner brass wanted to close it in 1992. If they would have closed it then, who knows where wrestling would be at today.

[corndog]

I think Turner's lack of success has the finger to point at one main mistake he made, and several other big but smaller mistakes.The WWF in the 80s strongly targeted children. They had cartoons, Hulk Hogan regularly told children to say their prayers and eat their vitamins, Ultimate Warrior was obviously targeted to children(most adults just thought he was a drugged out maniac), and they had toys and t-shirts for kids. Turner obviously wanted WCW to be targeted to children also(in the late 90s he refused to compete with the WWF in a battle of obsenity and kept his shows clean until Russo showed up.) But I thought this was a huge mistake, you couldn't beat Vince at his own game. Jim Crockett Promotions folded due to poor money management, not lack of ratings or attendence. World Championship Wreslting's from 85-88 ratings rivaled the WWF's top attitude era Raw ratings and almost every show was a sellout. The NWA was succesful and could make alot of money if the accounting side of the businesswas ran correctly, the promoting part definitely was done right. What was the secret of having success against the might WWF and Hulk Hogan? Jim Crockett targeted young adults for his shows, much like the WWF did in the attitude era. He had more straight forward characters that people could relate to, instead of cartoonish unrealistic characters that were in the WWF. Wrestlers regularly talked about sex and how much they could drink. The NWA had more blood and violence, their wrestlers resembled men you would see in a drunken bar room brawl more than bodybuilders. A great example is when Roddy Piper busted a beer bottle over his head on Georgia Championship Wrestling. If Ted Turner would have continued a more PG-13 product and kept the talent around(Dusty Rhoades, Arn Anderson, Barry Windham, and Tully Blanchard) by signing on a better promoter(I thought he should have offered the job to David Crockett) things could be a little different today and I doubt we would have seen Robocop on a WCW PPV.

[Ryushinku]

WCW had been badly-run for...well, sad to say, for most of its life. I think it wasn't until 1995 or 1996 that they actually turned a profit for the first time. But Turner was a true believer in wrestling on his channel, and was always willing to bail it out. I think 1993 was meant to be a particularly rough year financially.

If he'd been able to retain control, it's a very arguable point that WCW would've never gone under in 2001. Ted would've still wanted to channel a lot of cash in its direction. Though it has to be said that 2000 was an absolute black hole of cash the likes of which have never been seen in pro wrestling.

[Gillberg: 0-175]

Yes, yes it should have. I don't know why it survived so long. Looks like we'll have to see where TNA winds up in the next 5 years. If it still exists without growth then we know WCW survived so long because of a need for a WWE alternative. If TNA dies, then we know it was because of Turner. If TNA grows (which it should), the data is inconclusive.

[The Ichi]

It shouldn't have died at all. It can't help that it caught the lethal disease known as Russoitus.

[corndog]

Jul 23, 2008 20:35:21 GMT -5 The Ichi said:

It shouldn't have died at all. It can't help that it caught the lethal disease known as Russoitus.

And Eric Bischoff wouldn't have eventually sunk the ship? Please, if he never got Hogan and all the other WWF superstars they would have died in 95 at the latest. Bischoff ran all the young talent up north because geezers like Hogan and Nash wouldn't put over people like Benoit and Jericho, wanted the whole rooster to join the NWO, and Bischoff didn't have the balls to say no. Russo just boarded the titanic when it was already have sunk, he just couldn't get everyone on the rescue boats.

[kingoftheindies]

Jul 23, 2008 20:35:21 GMT -5 The Ichi said:

It shouldn't have died at all. It can't help that it caught the lethal disease known as Russoitus.

I'd say the fall was more because a lot of the guys could go out and do whatever they wanted and weren't told otherwise (this goes back to 97)

[Single H]

WCW should still be alive now WWE should be dead WCW always had the worst product of the 2

[Bravo Echo November]

To me it died when the Finger Poke of Doom happened, that night was the night that got the ball rolling.

Also it was the booking team in general that failed WCW, Ted Dibiase said in his book that WCW was treated like every other program on Turner's channel, it was given a writing team but they did not know anything about the product whatsoever.

[tmc1982]

WCW could still be around today had those in charge (e.g. Ted Turner, Eric Bischoff, etc.) made people take responsibility for their actions. Ted didn't seem to care about how much money was going down the drain (WCW supposedly ever turned a profit until maybe, 1995) as long it was the highest rated show on his channel. Letting the talent have virtually complete control over their characters (e.g. Hulk Hogan and Kevin Nash) also seriously hurt WCW in the long term.

WCW also always seemed to be too concerned with what Vince McMahon and his people were doing. Every time WCW would attempt to emulate WWF (whether it was Jim Herd incorporating cartoonish elements, signing top WWF guys like Hogan, Piper, Savage and Warrior, or hiring Vince Russo to reduplicate the "Attitude" brand) it really came off as second rate. WCW should've fully embraced itself as a more adult oriented (but not to the degree that Vince Russo was trying to peddle), traditional, down to earth alternative (dating back the Jim Crockett/NWA era) to WWF.

[dalenichol]

i think, personally, that WCW would still be around today, possibly number one, maybe number 2, if it wasnt for the merger of time warner and turner. Turner had always been one of the WCW's biggest supporters even when the company was failing to make money. When time warner took over, turner began to get less and less control over the company, and as a result of this, bischoff's job became harder and harder, he was given new guidlines on what he could and could not do on the air, he was told he had to cut all the companies costs, and then was told that the company now had to focus on a family friendly demographic.

As far as i believe, WCW failed because time warner wanted it to fail.If Bischoff had been given the creative power and freedom that he had when he first took charge of WCW, they would still be around today IMHO

[TheKillShot]

Look, I know it's fun reading wiki, especially after editing a fraking 100 slide Captivate file, and importing it to Flash only to find out that those bitches who did the file typed in something wrong, but......

The problem of WCW having trouble with management side was brought about the onwer being merely a fan of the product. I assume that he needed pointing out booking wise when it comes to rasslin. He was a fan to the point that he didn't care if the show was loosing money by the minute as it aired.

Should we start a picket line with the chant "Blame Turner!" ?.

Well, we could.

But, it could have been better if he didn't rely on Bischoff too much.

[Deleted]

It shouldn't have died at all.

[Parrish]

Huge guaranteed contracts...

And no it shouldnt have died sooner, NWA/WCW was a centerpiece of wrestling and becoming obsessed with TV ratings and trying to sink WWF/E by signing everyone that would agree to leave there was its downfall

[chunkylover53]

To those who said Hulk Hogan never put over young talent, he put over BILLY KIDMAN of all people and most fans STILL don't know who he is. Hiring Vince Russo wasn't the real problem, the real problem was, they let him run freely with his ideas. Not only that, but he made it look like a WWF clone. There was alot of factors to WCW dying, but I wanted to dispute those two.

[Macho Dude Handy Damage]

No, WCW shouldn't have died sooner. In fact, WCW never should have died in the first place.

As for reasons to why WCW did turn out to be such a failure and eventually sold to Vince McMahon, I think "The Death of WCW" covers that story pretty well.

[BillyBlood]

Well, WCW was sure on life support when Flair left to join the WWF in '92, it very well could have died around that time if it wasn't for the fact that Turner still owned his station back then.

As for WCW dying, it was sort of like the Dot Com bubble: Somebody was gonna end up the loser anyways, and sadly, it was WCW.

[BlackJackRobby]

The Disney taping saved WCW tons of money.

Much like it saves TNA money to run a show from there studios.

So that point is invalid.

I just wish WCW died about six months earlier so one of the huge companies that wanted to acctuly run WCW would have taken over.

Either SFX, or the group that owned the arenas or New Japan would have been so nice.