Did WCW ever have Longevity?

For anyone growing up in the 1990’s, The Monday Night War was something special to watch. I myself had to experience it a little later in my life as I was an avid WWF fan growing up and I didn’t realize the significance of what was on the other channel. I watched the aftermath of it all and went back to watch much of what happened during that time after WCW had closed its doors. For 83 Weeks in a row, Eric Bischoff and WCW were able to thwart the competition each Monday Night during the decade to become the top wrestling brand in the world. They were the Kings of the Mountain for a brief period of time, and their fall from grace has been looked at in the over 20+ years WCW has closed it’s doors when it got bought out by he who shall not be named, and the WWF in 2001.

At the time of this writing there’s a new Vice documentary called “Who Killed WCW”. It’s one of the first times in the past couple of decades where new people have discussed the fall of WCW, why the company folded and who and what were the major factors in having what was once considered the biggest wrestling company close its doors.

But I’ve always been curious about something that perhaps isn’t talked about quite as much as everything else when it comes to WCW (and the same goes for ECW as well), and that is; Did WCW ever really set itself up to be a company that had longevity to it?

WCW was a flailing company in the early 90’s and although it was a brand steeped in history with it’s association with the NWA, the wrestling company not the rap group. It still couldn’t keep up with the WWF in terms of star power, production value and global impact. Once Eric Bischoff took over WCW and started running things around 1993, it was a paradigm shift that changed professional wrestling and the effects are still felt even today.

Eric Bischoff made 2 key decisions to really shape WCW into being a wrestling promotion to not be taken lightly. No doubt the first one was one of the those moments where you think, oh shit, they really pulled it off. That was when Hulk Hogan, the darling of the WWF and its megastar, made the switch over to WCW.

Even though Ric Flair, who was arguably the NWA/WCW’s biggest star at the time, had recently come back to WCW after being gone to the WWF for just under 2 years, was not on the star level that Hulk Hogan was ever since the first WrestleMania. Eric offered Hogan a shitload of money, a reduced schedule and the absolute definition of icing on the cake “Creative Control”. That meant whatever was brought to Hulk Hogan during his time in WCW, he still had the final say in any decision that related to his character. This would go on to cause many headaches and legit controversy up until the final day’s of WCW. Not many people have nice things to say about Hogan and his ability to “do business”.

The second most important decision Bischoff made was creating a LIVE 3 hour show that went head to head with the World Wrestling Federation’s flagship program “Monday Night Raw”. Nitro was able to get the 8pm-11pm time slot on national television with it being aired on TNT. There was no doubt that this was an enormous risk, going up against such an already established brand. And would people really be tuned into that much professional wrestling. The answer, oh hell ya.

There were many things Eric Bischoff and WCW did extremely well during that time which I’ll speed round here in bullet point form. These things, in my opinion, made WCW the number one brand at the time.

• Signing big names and guys already established from the WWF. Starting with Hogan, you then had Randy Savage, Lex Luthor, Medusa, Roddy Piper, Scott Hall and Kevin Nash.
• Goldberg and everything about building up someone new and “homegrown”
• The beginnings of the nWo.
• The cruiserweight division.
• Riveting storytelling.
• Having Nitro be live when Monday Night Raw was not.
• A television product that had compelling storylines with great wrestling from guys like Eddie Guerrero, Chris Benoit, Chris Jericho, Ultimo Dragon and Rey Mysterio Jr.

So everything is firing on all cylinders. And then in late 1997 WCW starts slipping. They start slipping hard. I’ll speed round in bullet point form below some factors I feel from everything I’ve read, watched and listened to, about why WCW really dropped the ball.

• The WWF established new stars like Shawn Michaels, The Undertaker, Mankind and Stone Cold Steve Austin. WCW wasn’t keen on bringing up younger talent.
• Any younger talent that started to make noise in WCW was quickly shot down and went to WCW. Guys like Benoit, Eddie, Jericho and Big Show.
• The WWF also started competing with WCW’s more adult forward television product with the “Attitude Era”
• WCW couldn’t pull off the Sting vs Hogan match at Starrcade 1997, which was 18 months in the making (Hogans creative control coming into play on that one).
• WCW continued to rely on the older established guys they had previously signed from the WWF. They were running out of juice with fanfare and heat with the audience.
• Bringing in writers who claimed to have been the leading factor of helping the WWF with the Attitude Era, but only continued to make the television product shit.
• The overall quality of the product just sucked ass. It’s torture to watch anything in WCW from late 1999–2001.
• In general, piling on bad decision after bad decision without any course correction executed well enough.

Ok, so that’s my take and a spark-notes version about the rise and fall of World Championship Wrestling. But with WCW back in the news, it got me thinking. Did WCW ever really set itself up for longevity. Did they have the pieces in place to be a company that lasts 20, 30 or even 40 years and beyond?

When WCW started losing their momentum to the WWF in the late 90’s, it seemed like whoever was in charge of making decisions were all collectively taking stupid pills. Storylines were dogshit, the older guys like Hogan, Flair, Steiner, Nash and Sid Vicious were all still main-eventing PPV’s even though they were well passed their primes. No younger talent was being built up for the future. WCW lacked the foresight to look ahead to where the company could go. Guys were collecting paycheques and taking the easy path to getting paid. And why wouldn’t they? When WCW got bought by the WWF, the major names you would expect to see appear on WWF TV shortly after didn’t. Instead they say at home collecting their paycheques cause of the guaranteed money they were owed by WCW. So you saw guys like Nash, Hogan, Steiner, DDP and Scott Hall come into the fold in the WWF in early to mid-2000.

I don’t think WCW had it in them to overcome their own self inflicted issues. They had the biggest star at the heels of the biggest event in wrestling history when they signed Bret Hart and the Montreal Screwjob. Bret was absolutely wasted in WCW.

They didn’t just make bad television, they consistently doubled down on the stupidity with shitty storylines and bad matches. It’s a different kind of pain to put on a PPV from WCW in 2000 and try to watch it from start to finish.

I think about how WCW would’ve managed to stick around and I look to Total Nonstop Action, or TNA Wrestling. TNA started in 2002 and is around STILL. This is a company that’s also made some shitty decisions in its time. Its hired the wrong guys, produced some terrible storylines and has even gone several name changes (TNA, iMPACT , Global Force Wrestling, back to iMPACT, back to TNA). But they’ve created a ton of stars, made guys who left WWE have value for the most part, and has put on some all-time great WRESTLING MATCHES. In 2024 they’re still strong as they’ve ever been. Perhaps not drawing as big of crowds as they once did. Nevertheless they’ve never had to close their doors although I’m sure they’ve come close on several occasions. They’re putting on a good product right now and a legit third brand to WWE and AEW.

So why couldn’t WCW adjust? Why don’t we still have WCW on our tv’s via smaller television deals or streaming?

A lot of it has to do with the AOL/Time Warner merger and the business side of things I’m sure. Perhaps WCW was always destined to vanish. It was never meant to last. The board members never intended to keep a wrestling television program in their portfolios for a publicly traded company.

But WCW had a good thing going, or so it seemed. They had an established crowd that seemed to follow them through the good times and bad. What would’ve happened if WCW had restructured the way they produced television? Smaller venues on a different channel. Not going head to head directly with the growing popularity of the WWF on Monday Nights. Getting rid of their Thursday Night show Thunder so that there wasn’t two shows a week including PPV’s once a month.

Focus back on two key components. Great Storytelling and Great Wrestling. But that seemed to be difficult given guys wanted to keep their spots, the creative control go in the way and when you’re content with mediocrity you never see the problems starting you in the face.

Getting rid of the terrible guaranteed contracts with the older guys like Hogan, Nash, Sting and others. Restructuring deals they offered those wrestlers when renegotiating contracts. Establishing younger talent and showcasing the men and woman who would’ve killed for TV time. Let the old timers go to the WWF if they were mad about their place on the card. Instead of having younger talent leave WCW who ended up shining in the WWF because they were given a chance. WCW tried to give younger talent a push once in 2000, they had a PPV called New Blood Rising. Only to be squashed immediately after because the old guys weren’t willing to put the company first to make new stars.

WCW once had a facility called “The Power Plant” that was a training ground for wrestlers. WWE took this to the next level with the Performance Centre. Point being, that WCW could’ve put in the work to create new talent through their training facilities. They chose not to do that in any aggressive way and were happy coasting with the same tired main events over and over again on their PPV’s.

Perhaps on May 6th, 2001 we would’ve been witness to something new and exciting from WCW. But we’ll never know. Was this just another marketing scheme? Would the promise of a brand new World Championship Wrestling come to fruition? I’m not sure if WCW had it in them to right the wrongs they were consistently making during 1999 and 2000. There was a foundation set at least to be able to make the changes needed in order to stay alive for years to come. But it was just not to be. We ask ourselves who killed WCW? My question still remains, would WCW have lived for much longer?