The Billionaire Ted skits in 1996

[Zen411]

Billionaire Ted had the last laugh after these when he signed away razor and diesel and launched the nwo winning the Monday night war for many weeks.

At the time they were funny because Hogan and macho did seem archaic and rehashed at the time. Looking back it was mean spirited and desperate.

[Tiger Millionaire]

I never liked the practice of pro wrestling companies knocking guys, who they promoted as great, when they left.

[Dub H]

Jan 11, 2019 9:49:09 GMT -5 Tiger Millionaire said:

I never liked the practice of pro wrestling companies knocking guys, who they promoted as great, when they left.

That culture still survives a little in WWE sadly.The most notorious modern example being they wasted no time removing AJ Lee from history when she left(i think).

Luckily they dont straight up mock then anymore.

Or in a professional /business level...ENOS!

[Slingshot Suplay]

I thought it was dumb, and let's not forget that they had a match.

[OVO 40 hunched over like he 80]

Jan 11, 2019 5:38:22 GMT -5 segaz said:

Jan 10, 2019 11:46:41 GMT -5 OVO 40 hunched over like he 80 said:

In wrestling the rule applies. Vince cried like a bitch and tried to mock wcw when they were owning him, but when the tide turned, he stopped mentioning them when he was number one again.

That's true, although I do remember some of his wrestlers mentioning them, such as the rock going through several catchphrases

He was paying tribute to legends like Flair and Bret. Meanwhile in wcw Russo made Juventud Guerrera a parody of the Rock. That was desperation that begged the wwe to answer them, same with Oklahoma, or when Kevin Nash wasted precious tv time and money by doing a parody of McMahon.

Number one don’t need to parody number two. TNA parodied the wwe during their whole life and that didn’t raise them a nickel.

[Aceorton]

My initial awe at Vince finally acknowledging WCW was tempered by how bush-league it was. If your product is good enough, you don't need to waste TV time on vignettes telling people you're better than the other guy.

[Deleted]

I was 16 and a WWF mark who resented WCW for trying to be competitive. I thought the skits were comedy gold and a vicious stab at WCW, even though Macho was my favorite wrestler.

I watch them now and they just seem childish and petty.

[héad.casé]

I was a youngster who grew up watching WWF tapes and read the magazines but was never able to actually watch until I got Sky TV in 1994. Before then I watched WCW Worldwide on ITV, and even then that got taken off the air too - but at least I had WWF now.


I used to read the Apter magazines around the time too, so even though I wasn't able to watch, I still knew Hogan and Savage were in WCW through the magazines. When I saw the Billionaire Ted skits, I just didn't get it. I mean, obviously I knew they were poking fun, but I didn't really get why. I mean, I didn't even know who Ted Turner was.


I do remember being so happy to have my WCW back when I flicked over to TNT in April '96 and saw that it was still around though.

[Hit Girl]

Utter hypocrisy from WWE.

[The Dark Order Inferno]

It was pathetic, even then I knew that Hogan would probably be WWF champion at that point if he wasn't signed to a WCW contract.

[Nickybojelais]

Puerile and painful, but it made Vince guffaw uncontrollably so it achieved its goal.

[Bang Bang Bart]

1996 WWE: Lookit WCW using over-the-hill old fogeys for their shows!

2018 WWE: Look at us using over-the-hill old fogeys for our shows!

[Deleted]

Jan 9, 2019 22:18:13 GMT -5 Milkman Norm said:

At the time I found the Nacho and Huckster impressions pretty funny.

Same. I didn't give a damn why Vince thought it was a good idea. It was amusing.

[nate5054]

Jan 9, 2019 22:34:46 GMT -5 GuyOfOwnage said:

Honestly? 8-year-old me was incredibly confused because, with the WWF having a stranglehold on the Canadian market at the time, I'd never even heard of WCW up until that point. So the joke was totally lost on me.

On the flip side, even as a 20-22 year old there were so many things that WCW did when slamming WWF that I was like "huh?" about because I didn't watch WWF (in retrospect, I detest tgs i missed the attitude era but oh well).

Both companies loved their petty inside baseball.

[RI Richmark]

If you watched those later skits you can clearly see that Vince was terrified of the Turner/Time Warner deal and the money WCW could get from that. Ironically, that deal turned out to be the worst thing to happen to WCW. Ted Turner lost a lot of power in the corporate restructuring and the new bosses wern't so tolerant about WCW's spending habits. And eventually they promoted an new executive to head Turner programming who's first act was to throw WCW off the air simply because he thought wrestling was lowbrow.

Funny how things turn out.

[James Fabiano]

Jan 11, 2019 8:53:09 GMT -5 imthewalrus97 said:

I hated them when they aired and still hate them now. I thought it was bad when WCW would give away the results of the taped Raws. And Vince had to top them in bad taste. And I don't find it surprising at all how both companies started having more success when they stopped focusing on attacking their competition and looked at improving their own product.

See, back then I saw it as retaliation for the giving away results and then the commercial outro bits where they showed current WWF stars being destroyed by current WCW ones. So I was like, YES, FINALLY! I remember finding most of the skits funny. But yeah don't think they'd hold up today.

Now, with the reminders here about how it's not really THAT productive to mock the competition...it also makes me think of how cool people used to think it was when ECW did that to the Big Two all the time. How do you think that holds up today?

And I always remember BK knocking Mickey D's in their ads. Not the other way around.