Its been 10 years....

[Cranjis McBasketball]

Was in school at the time. There were rumors all morning it was going down. Didn't find out for sure until I got home and saw the news. I marked like crazy. It was surreal to watch the Nitro/Raw simulcast.

Then I watched through most of the Invasion, I did miss a couple PPVs though.

[ToyfareMark]

And yeah while the Invasion wasn't all that good, I still maintain that 2001 is still the company's best year ever in terms of high quality matches. Buying WCW didn't have much to do with that, but it completely overshadows all the great matches throughout that whole year. Then again it was such a huge event that its understandable.

[Jacob Lee]

Mar 23, 2011 15:00:17 GMT -5 alabastergrim said:

Greatest day? Seriously? There's no way you can spin WWE buying WCW into a good thing. Competition leads to creativity. WWE is incredibly stagnant without it. On top of that, the wrestlers themselves have less places to work and a lot less leverage in bargaining contracts. This is lose lose and the only way this can be seen in a positive light is if you drink the kool-aid or work for the WWE. (PS-you don't, McMahon fired us!)

WCW wasn't doing themselves any favors with the product they were putting out and they stated many times they would have gladly put WWF out of business. Everybody wants competition, but is it WWE's fault that there is none right now? Is it their fault TNA is in the state they're in? It has nothing to do with kool-aid and everything to do with how big the moment was. I liken it to the AFL-NFL merger to be honest.

Also, if competition "leads to creativity" as you stated...then why is TNA so horrible? Why was WCW so bad for those few years before they died? It appears this whole competition leading to creativity thing is the real kool-aid.

[MiLB Fan]

Mar 23, 2011 15:00:17 GMT -5 alabastergrim said:

Greatest day? Seriously? There's no way you can spin WWE buying WCW into a good thing. Competition leads to creativity. WWE is incredibly stagnant without it. On top of that, the wrestlers themselves have less places to work and a lot less leverage in bargaining contracts. This is lose lose and the only way this can be seen in a positive light is if you drink the kool-aid or work for the WWE. (PS-you don't, McMahon fired us!)

I'd say there's one good thing about WWE's purchase of WCW that we can all agree on: It has allowed us to see matches and events we might not otherwise be able to. Who knows where all that footage would be now if not for WWE?

Still, it's weird to watch a classic Flair/Steamboat match and see a WWE logo in the corner.

[Citizen Zero]

Mar 23, 2011 10:15:57 GMT -5 Lizuka #BLM said:

I personally disagree with the idea WWE needs competition, but that's neither here nor there.

I don't see how you can argue that they don't. They're not like Ma Bell or Microsoft. Nobody 'needs' pro-wrestling. If their product isn't up to snuff people'll simply watch something else. And it's obvious that WWE's product has been gradually stagnating ever since WCW went down and the quality is suffering.

[Jacob Lee]

Mar 23, 2011 17:34:14 GMT -5 Citizen Zero said:

Mar 23, 2011 10:15:57 GMT -5 Lizuka #BLM said:

I personally disagree with the idea WWE needs competition, but that's neither here nor there.

I don't see how you can argue that they don't. They're not like Ma Bell or Microsoft. Nobody 'needs' pro-wrestling. If their product isn't up to snuff people'll simply watch something else. And it's obvious that WWE's product has been gradually stagnating ever since WCW went down and the quality is suffering.

That's somewhat revisionist history. 2003 is around when WWE started to suffer and it had less to do with WCW and more to do with guys like the Rock, Steve Austin and a few others not being there.

[vinnie245]

Mar 23, 2011 11:13:44 GMT -5 HMARK Center said:

And thus, pro wrestling's downward slide hit an irreversible slope that it has yet to recover from.

Pretty much this, WCW got me into wrestling in the first place and it's never been the same since WCW died.
I still maintain its the greatest tragedy in pro wrestling history, theres not been ONE SINGLE EVENT that has caused over 3 MILLION fans to leave wrestling and NEVER come back regardless of whos fault it was, not to mention cutting employment options with decent pay for a lot of young wrestlers (We all know about TNA paying peanuts)
It's depressing tbh

[Vampiro138]

i heard a rumor in the paper about it, i didnt check wwf.com at all that day though because the computer systems were down that day at school so nobody knew...

i had homework so i didnt go online when i got home, and i remember turning into Nitro that night, my mom and grandma would watch with me....and when Vince popped up on the screen Mom actually said "what the f***" and when Vince said he purchased wcw Grandma said "well....shit, i guess thats it then"

[alabastergrim]

Mar 23, 2011 16:23:39 GMT -5 Jacob Lee said:

Mar 23, 2011 15:00:17 GMT -5 alabastergrim said:

Greatest day? Seriously? There's no way you can spin WWE buying WCW into a good thing. Competition leads to creativity. WWE is incredibly stagnant without it. On top of that, the wrestlers themselves have less places to work and a lot less leverage in bargaining contracts. This is lose lose and the only way this can be seen in a positive light is if you drink the kool-aid or work for the WWE. (PS-you don't, McMahon fired us!)

WCW wasn't doing themselves any favors with the product they were putting out and they stated many times they would have gladly put WWF out of business. Everybody wants competition, but is it WWE's fault that there is none right now? Is it their fault TNA is in the state they're in? It has nothing to do with kool-aid and everything to do with how big the moment was. I liken it to the AFL-NFL merger to be honest.

Also, if competition "leads to creativity" as you stated...then why is TNA so horrible? Why was WCW so bad for those few years before they died? It appears this whole competition leading to creativity thing is the real kool-aid.

WCW being bad for the last few years has nothing to do with competition and everything to do with backstage politics. On top of that, the last few months of existence were good and WCW was clearly getting back on the right path.

I like TNA but honestly, they're not competition to the WWE and probably won't ever be. There will NEVER be another WWE/WCW style war ever again.

And just because WCW would've done the same thing to WWE doesn't make it right. I'm not hating on what happened because Vince McMahon did it, I'm hating on it because it sucks. It's killed wrestling.

[Hawk Hart]

I still have the original on VHS. I too feel now old now.

Wasn't it the 26th though and not the 23rd?

[01010010 01101001 01100011]

Mar 23, 2011 16:57:15 GMT -5 MiLB Fan said:

Mar 23, 2011 15:00:17 GMT -5 alabastergrim said:

Greatest day? Seriously? There's no way you can spin WWE buying WCW into a good thing. Competition leads to creativity. WWE is incredibly stagnant without it. On top of that, the wrestlers themselves have less places to work and a lot less leverage in bargaining contracts. This is lose lose and the only way this can be seen in a positive light is if you drink the kool-aid or work for the WWE. (PS-you don't, McMahon fired us!)

I'd say there's one good thing about WWE's purchase of WCW that we can all agree on: It has allowed us to see matches and events we might not otherwise be able to. Who knows where all that footage would be now if not for WWE?

Still, it's weird to watch a classic Flair/Steamboat match and see a WWE logo in the corner.

Quite honestly most would probably be lost to time. According to rumor the WCW tapes were poorly marked and taken care of. They are as bad as say Memphis (most taped over) or Florida (destroyed by poor caretaking) but, it took WWE years to get things in order to try and start putting things to DVD.

As for how found out, I actually saw a story on the local news about it. They mentioned that WWF had bought the rights to WCW and I remember thinking they had been fooled by an internet rumor as I still thought Bischoff and Fucient Media had bought it.

Also, crazy factoid I heard about the sale, as a part of the sale, WWE got the profits from WCW's last PPV, Greed, and it was so much that WWE basically got WCW for nothing.

[Cry Me a Wiggle]

In my head, WCW is still going strong.

Lash LeRoux is facing Sean O'Haire for the title at Uncensored this Sunday! Ahahaha! WHEE!

[dragonpride2001]

the 23rd was the day it actually went down (wwf buying wcw) the 26th was the last nitro
i rewatched the ending of the monday night wars dvd and it was the 26th
i remember watching an episode of the byte this show on the wwf website and all of the people who called in were talking about the dream matches that could have happen

[turkeysandwich]

I was a huge wrestling fan from 1992-2000. Once I started college I quit watching. But I did read on the internet about WWF buying WCW, and so I decided to watch that night, but when Shane came out and I saw that it was all going to play out as an angle, I changed the channel and didn't watch wrestling again until 2005.

[SAJ Forth]

It felt weird at the time because up until that point in terms of major national promotions it was the World Wrestling Federaton and Crockett/WCW. Then there was just one left. A 15 year era came to an end.

[percymania]

It was the saddest and most exciting day ever.

[Hugh Mungus]

And the next day after WWF bought WCW, I was on my way to Fort Benning, GA for Basic Training.

[Threadkiller [Classic]]

If Vince had bought out just a few of the big name WCW contracts, he could have made back every penny he spent x10. The Invasion show nearly drew as big as Wrestlemania that year IIRC, and that was a completely off-brand, non-Big Five (they still had KOTR as a PPV back then) event. Imagine if he'd actually had guys like Goldberg, Hall, Nash, Goldberg and Steiner sooner?

It would have been a license to print money.

But since they didn't have those guys, the very least I would have done was kept running WCW as a separate brand the way they'd initially tried. Do it for a year and try and build new stars in that year so that when the Invasion finally happens, you have more to go with than Booker T and Diamond Dallas Page (no offense intended to either man, but they were never going to draw the kind of buyrate that any of the guys with the big money guaranteed contracts would have - but hey, it's arguable if those guys would have even taken a full buyout to come back to work, when they could have made as much money sitting at home).

Sheesh, at LEAST get Ric Flair before you do the Invasion, you know?

[Deleted]

Back during this time I was a huge wrestling mark, I was loving every second of it. But now, looking back on it, not so much. I still remember thinking that Vince acting like a face was absolutely surreal (I only started watching WWE in 2000.)

[DSR]

I was 17 at the time. And I had almost always been a "WWF guy" over a "WCW guy", though there was a brief time period where I'd rather watch WCW than WWF. I wasn't on the internet at the time, so I didn't find out 'til I flicked on Nitro and saw Vince standing there. I wound up taping the show.

At the time I was stoked because a.) my "team" won and b.) the guys I liked from WCW were finally gonna end up on what I thought was "my show" at the time.

Since that time, though, I've long since lost that mentality of WWF/E being my brand, or whatever. And the events and stars of WCW at the time that I didn't really care for, I miss like hell now.

Dammit, now I feel old AND sad.