The curtain falls on WCW as the cast and crew gather to produce one last episode of Nitro, and the dust settles on the fallout of the worst corporate merger of all time.
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00:00WCW is about to dominate the globe in professional wrestling.
00:04Ten million people in the United States
00:07were zeroed in on professional wrestling.
00:10We were the number-one cable-rated show.
00:12For almost two years, mind-blowing.
00:15And when something gets too big too fast,
00:17shit happens.
00:19We were the number-one cable-rated show.
00:21We were the number-one cable-rated show.
00:23We were the number-one cable-rated show.
00:25We were the number-one cable-rated show.
00:27And when something gets too big too fast,
00:30shit's gonna hit the fan at some point, and it did.
00:32Little by little, we just fell.
00:35We already knew that we were running thin.
00:38It is so good to be king.
00:41He cared more about ratings than he cared about advertising dollars.
00:44It was a shit show.
00:47Vince Russo was just another idiot.
00:50He was there to lead to our ultimate demise.
00:52Kiss my ass!
00:54I was done. It was over.
00:56I could have cared less.
00:58No doubt in my mind, Bischoff was responsible
01:00for a little of this.
01:02Another nail in the coffin of a company
01:04that was rapidly dying at that time.
01:06I don't control that shit. I go out and I do my job.
01:09My check didn't change.
01:11It was the easiest money I ever made in my career.
01:13Like, they got what?
01:15When guys got those kind of agendas,
01:17thinking about themselves,
01:19that's pretty much when the ship started to go down.
01:21This is some fucked-up shit.
01:24You ain't in Kansas anymore.
01:28You cannot sweep this under the rug.
01:30This is a fucking television show.
01:32I don't understand what he's doing.
01:34The real reason men come in lies.
01:54Three, going out!
02:00You believe WCW is coming to an end?
02:02It is at an end.
02:04It didn't feel like a family anymore.
02:07It felt like everybody was out for themselves,
02:09and it seemed like the blood was in the water
02:12and the sharks were coming to get it.
02:14I think everybody just didn't know what was happening.
02:16We were still hearing the rumors
02:18that we were just gonna shut the doors,
02:20so I think at that point,
02:22it was just really unsettled.
02:24It's easy to lose sight of how lucky we are to be part of this.
02:27Hopefully it ain't over.
02:29WCW wrestling is so important to me.
02:31There's just that one guy, Turner, I think,
02:34just doesn't think wrestling's cool
02:36whenever it's on the road with millions of people.
02:39I think Turner finally started looking into the books
02:41and said, we gotta pull the plug on this.
02:44No matter how much Ted Turner loved this business
02:48and wanted to, you know, keep it afloat,
02:50you start looking at the books at that time
02:52and seeing how much money we were spending.
02:54I can only imagine how much money went out the window.
02:57Oh, my God.
03:00After Brad brought me back to kind of oversee Russo,
03:03it was apparent to me that things were more dysfunctional
03:06within Turner Broadcasting and the relationship
03:09between Turner and WCW than they had ever been.
03:12I'm not talking about what was going on in television
03:14or how much money they were making or losing.
03:16I'm just talking about the relationship.
03:19Time Warner is a company of winning brands
03:22and winning people, and so is AOL.
03:25For this merger, just like when we put
03:28Turner Broadcasting into Time Warner,
03:30it made the company much, much stronger,
03:32and I think we're all committed to making this thing work.
03:35AOL was absolutely ubiquitous at that time
03:37in terms of, in the public consciousness,
03:40the company introduced many people
03:42to the concept of logging onto the Internet
03:45for the very first time.
03:46I've been on America Online two months,
03:48and it's really been a revelation for me.
03:51You got mail!
03:53This was at the time where a lot of the new Internet.com businesses
03:58were receiving wild overvaluations
04:01based on promises of future growth.
04:03If you looked at the assets besides furniture,
04:07they have a subscription list,
04:10and that's the people who subscribe to AOL.
04:13AOL's leadership in the early part of 1999
04:16also were keenly aware of this reality as well.
04:20So one option that was considered
04:22was to merge with a media and entertainment conglomerate,
04:25which was Time Warner.
04:26The combined company, which will be called AOL Time Warner,
04:30gives each partner what it now lacks.
04:32What ended up happening is that AOL shareholders
04:35would receive 55% of the new company,
04:38and Time Warner, 45%.
04:42Now, my dad's never been online in his life.
04:44Never touched a computer, never owned a cell phone,
04:46never used an ATM, right?
04:48He's old school.
04:49So I think it was a whole generation gap loss
04:53on AOL's going to buy this giant company with nothing,
04:57where the older investment guys are like,
05:00well, you can't turn it down.
05:01It's hundreds of dollars a share.
05:03This is going to be awesome.
05:04We're only going to make a billion dollars.
05:06But nobody would stand up and go,
05:08this is a Ponzi scheme, man, right?
05:10This is all going to fall apart.
05:12The blockbuster deal still needs regulatory approval
05:15and a nod from Time Warner and AOL shareholders.
05:18AOL had serious, serious issues.
05:21WCW got caught up in that also.
05:25In a sense, you could say it was collateral damage.
05:28Wrestling has become fun, crazy entertainment.
05:32It's an alternative.
05:34It doesn't define our network.
05:36It's one night a week.
05:37It's a hit every Monday night, but it wasn't anymore.
05:40Because it was broken and I had to fix it,
05:42I was a physical presence there.
05:44I was in there trying to do whatever I can do
05:48to get it back on track.
05:49Big mistake!
05:51What a bunch of fucking boobs.
05:54It was so bad.
05:56I really felt like, OK, stake in our heart.
05:59It was a chaotic shit show and a blur.
06:02And I said, I'm about to get the hell out of here
06:05because I've had it.
06:06You had to look out for yourself.
06:08I just felt like Brad didn't know anything about wrestling.
06:12I mean, he knew about the corporate side,
06:14but he wasn't a wrestling person.
06:15He wasn't somebody that was going to try to help save the company.
06:19It was like going through the motions.
06:21To be completely honest, I couldn't fix it.
06:24And the red kept getting redder.
06:26And the ratings kept falling and falling and falling.
06:28In addition, WCW drove away its paying audience.
06:31Look at the difference in buy rate
06:33between the uncensored pay-per-view in March of 1999
06:37and the same event just 12 months later in March of 2000.
06:40They basically put on the exact same main event,
06:43Hogan Flair, two years in a row.
06:45Hold on to your hats!
06:46One, two, three!
06:48In March of 1999, the uncensored pay-per-view
06:51enticed some 325,000 viewers to purchase the event.
06:55But just 12 months later, only 60,000 people
06:58were willing to purchase the 2000 version of WCW Uncensored.
07:03That represents a drop of 81%.
07:08The narrative is at the end of 2000,
07:11WCW had losses of around $62 million.
07:14That's the narrative.
07:15And I think that there probably is a grain of truth to that.
07:18But what people don't understand is the why.
07:23Professional wrestling is very different
07:25when you're a company like Time Warner AOL.
07:28A lot of answering to shareholders
07:30that have expectations on a monthly and quarterly basis.
07:35I think there was a lot of debt
07:38from other divisions in the company
07:40that could be allocated legally,
07:42but allocated as losses against WCW
07:44because everybody knew it was going to be written off as a loss anyway.
07:48The bullshit internal transfers
07:50that people tried to park all their trash on our books
07:53while we were getting hurt.
07:55It was clear to me at that point
07:58that Turner Broadcasting didn't want anything to do with WCW.
08:02And I said to Brad specifically, I said,
08:05Brad, why don't you let me explore selling WCW
08:10while it still has some value?
08:12Because the velocity at which WCW was losing round
08:17at that particular time was pretty dramatic.
08:20Brad kind of chuckled at me, and he said,
08:23Eric, you know this company.
08:25We don't sell anything, we buy things.
08:28So I just let it go.
08:30Fast forward...
08:32Good evening.
08:34Today we announce that the Federal Communications Commission
08:37has approved the merger of America Online and Time Warner Inc.
08:42So the merger was announced on January 11, 2000,
08:46finalized on January 11, 2001.
08:49There had actually been a lot of financial experts
08:53who had been predicting the imminent demise of AOL
08:56for quite some time.
08:58Keep in mind that throughout the year 2000,
09:01a number of significant things happened.
09:03We had the dot-com recession.
09:05We had a number of these Internet companies
09:07that were going to be the darlings of the future
09:10that went belly up, which affected AOL in a serious way.
09:13Its stock price dropped by 50%,
09:16which of course creates a huge pressure to look closely
09:19at which divisions are profitable
09:22and which are registering huge losses.
09:24That put WCW even more in the crosshairs.
09:27There were a lot of executives at very senior levels.
09:31The only person standing in front of them was Ted Turner.
09:35The merger happens, Ted becomes vice chairman.
09:38You know, he was excited about that person.
09:41You know, you have an office in New York, you know.
09:43I've made it.
09:44Well, no, your name made it, your businesses made it.
09:48They didn't want to even hear at the board meetings from him.
09:51Ted Turner was no longer a challenge.
09:53Ted Turner was regulated to the corner
09:55and didn't have a voice or vote in his own company.
09:58You know, Ted is no longer in a position
10:01to have control over WCW and its affairs.
10:05I remember saying, you know, we're Time Warner.
10:08Is it that important to own a wrestling company
10:11that's losing money, bleeding massively,
10:14has lost money every year of its existence
10:17except for one or two years?
10:19Is that really what Time Warner needs to own?
10:23I don't think we need this.
10:30Brad Siegel, take one.
10:32I get a phone call from Brad.
10:34He said, so let me ask you, Eric.
10:37A couple months ago, you brought up the idea of selling WCW.
10:40Do you think you could find a buyer?
10:42And I immediately said, sure.
10:44I had no idea.
10:45I'd never done anything like that before.
10:47But I assured him that I could find someone
10:49who had the resources to buy it.
10:51I said, you want me to put a deal together?
10:53You want me to try to put some people together?
10:55He goes, see what you've got.
10:57I went to a guy by the name of Peter Goober.
10:59Peter Goober at that point in time owned a company
11:01called Mandalay Sports & Entertainment.
11:03He's a very, very, very well-established Hollywood guy.
11:06He said, look, I'm not interested in investing
11:08in WCW, but I think I know some people who may.
11:11And he put me in touch with Brian Badal and Steve Greenberg,
11:14who owned a company called Fusion Media Ventures.
11:16Fusion Media Ventures had created
11:18the Classic Sports Network,
11:20which became ESPN Sports Classic.
11:23Brian and Steve understood media.
11:25They had great connections in New York on Wall Street,
11:28and we hit it off and started the process.
11:31I called Brad back, said, okay, I got the investment.
11:34Fusion Media funded the initial round
11:36with $5 million of their own,
11:38and then went out and raised $62 million in the market.
11:42I felt like I was capable with the financial resources
11:45and the right partners with me,
11:47that there was potential for WCW.
11:49The professional wrestling genre as a whole is indestructible.
11:52It's just a matter of the company being in the right hands.
11:56Eric was invested in trying to keep WCW alive and moving,
12:02so it was very exciting when the opportunity came up to buy it.
12:07And it wasn't surprising that he went 100% all-in
12:12and just gave it all he had.
12:14We had come up with a loose plan of what we were going to do
12:18once the deal was consummated.
12:20For example, went out to Las Vegas.
12:22We met with Hard Rock, and they were planning
12:24on building a entertainment theater
12:26on top of one of their parking garages
12:28that would hold about 3,500 people.
12:30So we started to negotiate the opportunity
12:32for kind of a full-time location,
12:34producing our shows in front of a live audience
12:36in Las Vegas every Monday night.
12:38And one of the initial thoughts we had is,
12:40let's bring WCW back with this pay-per-view
12:44called the Big Bang.
12:47So on January 11, 2001,
12:50it appears that Fusiant Media Ventures
12:52has purchased the company.
12:54The figure that was reported at the time
12:56of the apparent sale to Fusiant was $67 million.
12:59You know, there's a lot of exuberance about, once again,
13:02this being now the turning point.
13:04Now we've got the new owners in play,
13:06now Eric Bischoff's back in his position.
13:08This is where we're off to the races.
13:10The new goal is 100 weeks in a row,
13:12and that's kind of what's in the future for WCW.
13:14We always looked at this as a partnership
13:17between us and Eric.
13:19You know, we certainly aren't buying this
13:21because we think it should just stay number two.
13:25We won't be satisfied until this thing is number one again,
13:29and our goal this time is 100 weeks,
13:32not 96 weeks in a row.
13:34I was excited. I thought, you know, okay, great.
13:36This is going to open a new door.
13:38We're going to continue to go on like we are.
13:40I think we were going to see a smarter, newer,
13:43more refreshed version of Eric.
13:45He looked really gung-ho to make this work.
13:47Turner Broadcasting guaranteed us our time slot
13:51on Monday night and Thursday night.
13:53So our job was then to produce the show,
13:55find the advertisers, and turn the show profitable.
13:58I remember that being part of the deal,
14:00and I like that as part of the deal.
14:02Knowing that you've got that slot,
14:04then being able to calculate what the advertising value
14:07of that's going to be is critical.
14:09So it was a fait accompli as far as we were concerned,
14:13and we were scheduled to close that deal.
14:17On March the 6th, Jamie Kellner is announced
14:20as the new CEO of Turner Broadcasting.
14:22Jamie Kellner is someone whose reputation
14:24certainly preceded him in the television business.
14:27He is credited with having a huge influence
14:29over the growth of the Fox network
14:31and then actually becoming a founding partner
14:34of the WB network.
14:36And upon being appointed to the role,
14:39his initial comments to the press were that,
14:42I'm paraphrasing, this is a great company
14:44full of great people.
14:45I'm going to try not to mess things up.
14:47I'm going to tweak it.
14:49Jamie Kellner was one of the best television executives
14:52in the business, but Jamie hated wrestling.
14:55He hated it.
14:56You know, he hated it, didn't get it,
14:58didn't want anything to do with it.
15:00It was a pain in the ass,
15:01and we were losing so much money all the time
15:04that I think I made the suggestion to sell WCW.
15:08I don't know if it came from me or somebody suggested it
15:11and I latched onto it, and Jamie was like,
15:14yep, get rid of this as fast as you can.
15:16I don't want anything to do with it.
15:18March 16th, Brad Siegel sends out a memo
15:21advising WCW employees there's going to be
15:24a period of hiatus.
15:26Then just a few days later,
15:29actually there's not going to be a hiatus,
15:31but the programming is being canceled
15:33after a 29-year run on the Turner Networks.
15:36And that leads us to an episode of Monday Nitro
15:39in the midst of all of this chaos
15:41that has to occur in Gainesville, Florida
15:43that Monday evening.
15:45Many of you may know that for the past six months
15:48I've been working with a group of people
15:50whose goal it was, and is,
15:52to acquire World Championship Wrestling.
15:54But recently we've hit a couple roadblocks
15:57that may be, in fact, brick walls.
16:00And while it is still in my power,
16:03I want to do something befitting
16:05what could be, very well,
16:07the last night of wrestling on the Turner Networks.
16:12That being said, I'll see you all in Panama City
16:15next Monday night, the night of champions.
16:18Incredible!
16:22We were just getting ready to close,
16:24and I got a call from Brian Badal.
16:26And Brian said, Eric, it's done.
16:29I said, congratulations, Brian.
16:31He said, no, you don't understand, it's done.
16:33The deal is over. It's off the table.
16:37We were rounding third, heading for home,
16:40and there was no warning whatsoever.
16:42It came completely out of the blue.
16:44Jamie Kellner, he was the head dog,
16:47and he looked at the WCW deal
16:49and contemplated us having at least a couple years
16:52of two hours of primetime on Monday night,
16:54two hours of primetime on Thursday night.
16:56And Kellner didn't want that beachfront property
16:59to be dedicated to wrestling content.
17:01He wanted that primetime schedule for other programming.
17:05The cold, hard truth is that WCW
17:07was completely reliant on television,
17:10so much so, in fact, that Eric Bischoff famously quipped
17:13that without television, the company was worth 20 bucks,
17:16if anything.
17:17So at that point, when you take
17:19the television distribution off the table,
17:22you're taking 90% of the revenue out of the equation.
17:25The deal was not worth it to us.
17:27It effectively killed the deal.
17:29I was devastated.
17:34What am I doing here?
17:36Stu, Snyder, ready, go, action.
17:39Growing up, I loved wrestling.
17:43I lived in New York, so I remember going
17:46to Madison Square Garden once a month.
17:48Bruno San Martino, Ivan Putzky,
17:51Gorilla Monsoon, George the Animal Steel.
17:54I can go on. I enjoyed it, I loved it.
17:56It's a core element of my childhood.
17:58I joined Turner Broadcasting in 1993.
18:01My responsibility was to come on board
18:04and head up a unit called Turner Home Entertainment.
18:07And then I left, did a few other things,
18:10including becoming the president and chief operating officer
18:14of WWF Entertainment.
18:16The first thing I was looking to do
18:18was to keep growing the core business,
18:20to look for new opportunities for the company.
18:23I continued to read about what was happening at WCW.
18:26I kept reading about the behind-the-scenes angst
18:29going on there, the ratings weren't improving.
18:32What's going to happen here?
18:33Are they going to stick with this?
18:35Are they not going to stick with it?
18:36And what I recall is picking up the phone
18:39and calling Brad and just checking in, first of all,
18:42because we've known each other for a long, long time.
18:45Keep reading about this stuff. Are you okay?
18:47And, you know, he'd share with me
18:49some of the angst he was going through.
18:51I may have said something to the effect of,
18:53hey, look, if there's ever a reason to have a conversation,
18:56I think we might be interested.
18:58We were aware that there was another player.
19:01It didn't factor into anything.
19:03I didn't know their deal.
19:04I didn't know what they were offering.
19:06Didn't know nothing.
19:07Internally at WWF, we had made a decision
19:10and thought if we could do a transaction to acquire WCW,
19:14we were going to work really hard to get that done.
19:18On Friday, March 23rd, the WWF announces the unthinkable,
19:22that it has purchased its competition, WCW.
19:32On March 26th, 2001, the final episode of WCW Nitro
19:37is broadcast live from Panama City Beach, Florida.
19:40Oh, what is this for?
19:41We're doing a little documentary on the last two days of Nitro.
19:44The last two days of Nitro.
19:58It's great.
20:02Get the fuck out of here.
20:05Do you know what you think is going on tonight?
20:07Brother, I have a cool man right here in my back pocket.
20:10Holy shit.
20:11What is that all about?
20:16Panama City, Florida, Vince McMahon vignette.
20:19Wow.
20:20That's big time, brother.
20:22Here we go, in five, four...
20:27You had Vince McMahon starting the show
20:30on camera.
20:31It's hard to overstate just how shocking that was at the time.
20:35Imagine that.
20:38Me, Vince McMahon.
20:41Imagine that.
20:43Here I am on WCW television.
20:48How can that happen?
20:50Well, there's only one way.
20:52You see, it was just a matter of time
20:55before I, Vince McMahon,
20:58bought my competition.
21:01That's right.
21:02I own WCW.
21:06Therefore, in its final broadcast
21:09tonight on TNT,
21:11I have the opportunity to address
21:13what is the fate of WCW.
21:17Because the fate,
21:20the very fate
21:22of WCW
21:24is in my hands.
21:29We thought we were coming to work like a regular day.
21:32And no one knew until that night.
21:34No one knew.
21:37We saw Vince come up on the trot.
21:40No matter how you look at it at that point,
21:42no matter how it's spread,
21:44they win the war.
21:46When WWE acquired WCW,
21:49it felt like the end of an era.
21:51It sucked.
21:52The 800-pound gorilla of the room had won.
21:55Had no idea what Vince would do with it.
21:57I didn't know if it was more advantageous for him
22:00to buy it and keep it afloat
22:03and then have the competition
22:06or destroy it.
22:08So the fear of the unknown is pretty heavy.
22:12There was a lot of sadness and a lot of uncertainty
22:15who they were gonna hire, who they were gonna cut.
22:19We don't really know what's going on.
22:20People are happy and sad at the same time.
22:22They don't know why.
22:24I don't think you want my real feelings about it
22:26because they ain't pretty.
22:28It was very emotional.
22:30I remember Dusty was there,
22:31so I was sticking pretty close to him.
22:33There were WWF signs up,
22:35which was really weird.
22:37You know, because there's always signs
22:38like on the dressing room doors, you know, wherever,
22:40and you were seeing WWF.
22:42I mean, it felt like a slap.
22:44I remember Shane McMahon coming in
22:46and he had like a little brief meeting with everybody.
22:49And we get told the company's been sold to the WWE.
22:52And tonight, everybody's gonna find out about it.
22:55And a lot of guys were like, oh, my God.
22:59As I was seeing, you know,
23:00the wrestlers and performers backstage,
23:03you know, shoulders might have been slumped
23:05before they walked through the curtain.
23:06But then when they walk through,
23:08it's back to business as normal.
23:10And then when they came back after their match
23:12or segment or whatever,
23:13it's back to what's going on, what's gonna happen.
23:16Let's not lose sight of the fact
23:18this is the last Nitro on the Turner Network,
23:20and we're going out with the bang.
23:22Scott Steiner and I, we had a conversation.
23:25And Scott goes, you know,
23:27what do you think you're gonna do, man?
23:28What do you think you're gonna do?
23:29And I look at Scott and I go, bro,
23:31who's auditioning that night?
23:33But Buckethead, the cover!
23:35Down comes the one-shot blaster!
23:37Yes, yes!
23:38And he nailed it!
23:39Everyone was working that night.
23:40So we went out and we rocked it.
23:42He's got it!
23:43Oh, God!
23:44Here it is!
23:45One, two!
23:46Could it be it?
23:4813!
23:49I didn't know I was gonna win the world title that night.
23:51But then when I did find that out,
23:53I go, oh, yeah, man, I got a chip in the game.
23:56They got eyes on me.
23:58You know, so I was really excited.
24:02I was probably perhaps one of the only guys
24:05that was excited, though.
24:07I mean, it was sad, you know?
24:09It wasn't even sad, it was pathetic.
24:12Why?
24:13Because fucking people actually showed up.
24:16Hey, you guys want to be on the Titanic?
24:21Nah.
24:22Good.
24:24I'll sit and watch the fucking thing sink from my fucking house.
24:28I didn't watch it as it happened live.
24:30I feel bad for the talent that were there.
24:32I feel bad for the production staff that were there
24:34that didn't see it coming,
24:35had no idea what their futures were going to be.
24:38It's a big life change, but as far as the brand itself,
24:42I walked away from it.
24:44I no longer cared.
24:45It's going to be an emotional thing.
24:46You see a lot of production guys, a lot of people,
24:48cameras taking pictures of the guys,
24:50and to me, I look at it as the day you left college
24:53and guys you might not see again,
24:55but this is a Titanic group of guys we have.
24:58It's like one of the camera guys and one of the sweetheart guys,
25:01he'd been working for the company for 27 years.
25:04All of those people lost their livelihood,
25:09and that's why I say fuck you, Jamie Kilner.
25:13I was concerned about a lot of people
25:15that just couldn't walk into a job so easily.
25:18Our jobs are so different.
25:20It's not a factory.
25:21We don't do the same thing every day.
25:23We're a combination of a circus and an army,
25:26and to get that good at it,
25:28we had to have the right people in the right places,
25:31and the way you got to that point was the trust of one another.
25:43Then now you can't do it together anymore.
25:47Everybody was in a bad space.
25:49A lot of them didn't know what they were going to do.
25:52But there was a time, you know, you got to let it go.
25:56But in this business, it's a little bit different.
26:00What was really weird to me,
26:02this multimillion-dollar company was sold to WWE for, like, nothing.
26:08I'm not saying that there was anything spooky-kooky going on there,
26:12but I have my suspicions.
26:20I own WCW!
26:23I own the WWF!
26:25And you will treat me with respect!
26:33When you think about the final purchase price,
26:36we're talking about a company that at its peak
26:38was generating in the neighborhood of $200 million a year
26:42and a huge part of pop culture
26:44that gets sold for a little over $4 million.
26:47I always thought that when I heard the price of what they paid for WCW,
26:51it was an inside job of some sort.
26:53Somebody filled their pockets by making that deal,
26:56for as cheaply as it was.
26:58Maybe there's an envelope pushed across the desk.
27:02Maybe you got influence with the guy that's selling it.
27:06Look, there's some murky circumstances.
27:09Stu Snyder was an executive at Turner Broadcasting.
27:12Oh, by the way, Stu Snyder, after the fact,
27:15just happens to land a plum executive role with WWE.
27:19Oh, my God, that's Bob Ryder!
27:21That's Bob Ryder from WCW.com!
27:24Bob, run! Run!
27:26Bob Ryder, he was one of the hosts
27:29on shows that were broadcast over WCW.com.
27:32So in the summer following the sale of WCW
27:36being purchased by the WWF,
27:38Bob Ryder puts out a widely disseminated post online,
27:42essentially alleging that there had been a conspiracy at play.
27:45Bob Ryder, he was a good man and a good friend.
27:48And I know that Bob had written about a theory
27:51that Brad Siegel helped facilitate the actual sale to WWE
27:56by convincing Jamie Kellner
27:58to take the distribution of programming out of the deal.
28:03Bob's theory was Brad Siegel really didn't want WCW
28:07as a part of the Turner portfolio,
28:09and this was Brad Siegel's way
28:12of using Jamie Kellner to kill the deal.
28:15The conspiracy theory was really something
28:18like kind of a wrestling storyline, essentially.
28:20There was a plot initiated by Brad Siegel and Stu Snyder
28:25to clear the path for it to have a quick sale to the WWF.
28:29Stu Snyder at that time was the president of the WWF.
28:32He had previously worked at Turner Broadcasting,
28:34had a relationship with Brad Siegel,
28:36and so the allegation was that
28:39there were covert talks between the two,
28:41and the primary piece of evidence was the fact
28:44that WCW was sold for $4.3 million.
28:47I don't know that that's true.
28:49It is a conspiracy theory.
28:51Unfortunately, there are enough questions
28:54and questionable relationships
28:56that lend interest in a conspiracy like that.
29:08No. Well, first of all, it was, I mean,
29:11we'd known each other our entire careers.
29:14I mean, the fact that Stu Snyder was running WWE
29:18and was a likely buyer for WCW is purely coincidence.
29:30No. It's as simple as that.
29:34My understanding is that Brad reported up to Jamie Kellner
29:38and that Jamie made the decision to say,
29:41I don't want it on our end and canceled it.
29:44If you think about how serious
29:46these particular allegations are
29:48and the fact that they would lead to potential SEC violations
29:52and have serious professional and personal consequences
29:55for all people involved, it's quite the audacious plot,
29:58given the high-profile nature
30:00of the people that we're talking about
30:02and what they stood to lose
30:04if eventually they would be convicted,
30:06essentially, of corporate espionage.
30:08I'm not saying I'm 100% convinced
30:11that Stu Snyder was part of an orchestration
30:15to make sure WCW got sold for nickels on the dollar.
30:20I'm not suggesting that I know that.
30:22I just lean in that direction because I don't believe
30:25in the number of coincidences
30:27that surround this entire situation.
30:29I'm just not buying it.
30:31I understand gossip, I understand rumor,
30:34but it's easy to sit on the sidelines
30:37and not really understand the economics of the businesses
30:41to say what something is worth.
30:43If there was a deal out there worth $60 million,
30:46I can guarantee you, as I'm sitting here today,
30:49the Turner executives would have made a deal.
30:52We wanted to sell it.
30:54When we sold it, that's what it was worth.
30:56My regret is that when the ratings started to plummet,
31:01we could not find the right story,
31:04the right players in that story, to turn it around.
31:08You know, that's a big regret of mine.
31:10We weren't successful.
31:11Sometimes that happens.
31:13You can't always be successful.
31:15I feel a responsibility for it
31:17because I clearly was not the person to do it.
31:21I didn't know the business and the story
31:24well enough to write it myself.
31:26I'm not a writer.
31:27So, yeah, I'm really sad about that
31:30and regret it wasn't a different outcome.
31:33Could anything have been done to save WCW?
31:36In my opinion, without a strong advocate
31:42who really believed in the business,
31:45it would have been tough to exist there
31:47with everything else of their challenges as a company.
31:50But that world had passed.
31:52Ted was that person who was its chief advocate.
31:55In the new AOL time warner, without that person,
31:58I don't know how it succeeds there.
32:00And for good or for worse,
32:02the one thing that all the talent knew,
32:04they knew where the buck stopped at WWF.
32:07It was Vince.
32:08You were either in line or you were out.
32:11That's how Vince ran that place.
32:13That place was a different story,
32:15a different time, different era.
32:17So unless you had somebody like that
32:19who could go, this is the way it's going to run
32:21and I have the support of corporate
32:23to leave it alone and let me do my thing,
32:26I think it would have been challenging.
32:28It's been proven that it was challenging.
32:35Let me be clear.
32:37We weren't looking at all to buy something and kill it.
32:41This brand is still good.
32:43It's still relevant to an audience.
32:45We're going to figure out how do we keep it alive
32:48and maybe over time, it comes back as a separate show.
32:53In my head, I saw this great rivalry that was under one roof.
32:58First of all, it all started with the famous Shakespeare play
33:02First of all, it all started with the famous Shane McMahon
33:05showing up on WCW on Nitro
33:08and proclaiming the storyline of basically
33:12Vince was going to buy WCW, but he snagged it out from him.
33:17That's right.
33:19I now own WCW.
33:23I remember sitting down in my hotel room
33:25and writing down all the wrestlers who I had hoped to wrestle.
33:29Goldberg, Sting, Savage.
33:31Everybody in the NWO.
33:33I remember writing everybody down and going to Vince
33:35and saying, hey, this might be a good idea.
33:37What about this guy and this guy and this guy and this guy?
33:39Let's bring them in.
33:40There was so much speculation as to how it would all work.
33:44What people don't realize is that when WWE acquired WCW,
33:48the assets of WCW, the contracts weren't really part of the equation.
33:52It wasn't like all of the talent that was under contract
33:55automatically came to WWF,
33:57at least not the big names that mattered.
34:00Some of those people had quite a bit of time left on their contracts
34:03and they were going to get paid anyway.
34:05I knew that at the time, guys were getting 50 cents on the dollar
34:07on their existing contracts, and that was not happening with me.
34:11I'm not going to give in. I'm not going to do it.
34:13So if I had to sit out for three years, I sat out for three years.
34:16Not everybody wanted to go to work for WWE.
34:19You didn't have Sting, you didn't have Lex Luger,
34:22you didn't have Goldberg.
34:24What do you really have?
34:27I still had over a year left on my contract.
34:30They offered me a 50% buyout and go to work
34:34or just sit at home for the next year.
34:37I said, nah, man. I said, out of sight, out of mind.
34:41I remember Ric Flair said a long time ago,
34:44time off is your worst enemy.
34:46So I was like, let's take the 50% buyout and let's go to work.
34:51Wait a minute! What the hell?!
34:55That's Buckle T!
34:57He's the WWE, WCW champion!
35:00Back then, it was a test.
35:02Let's throw these guys out here and see how good they really are
35:05compared to the WWE guys.
35:08Shane and I decided to join forces.
35:12The Invasion storyline was supposed to be
35:15the best that WCW had to offer
35:18versus the best that WWE had to offer,
35:21but we were in no shape to actually be able
35:24to really, really pull off an Invasion angle
35:26just because we did not have enough star power
35:29to really, really get that thing off the ground.
35:32They never really did a WCW, WWE feud correctly,
35:36and I think that was a big mistake by Vince McMahon.
35:39I think he could have done some really cool match-ups
35:42and some really cool things.
35:44Hey, yo!
35:47They were going to write the history that they wanted to create,
35:51and no matter how you looked at it,
35:53we were the Confederate soldiers going to work for the Union,
35:57and if you thought that you were going to go over
36:00one of their top guys, bullshit.
36:02They brought us in under the guise of,
36:05this isn't going to work twice.
36:07I looked at Scott, I said, we're gone.
36:10We're done, we're dead.
36:12I get to have the wonderful experience
36:15to watch my friend, who now has been sober for 11 months,
36:20go downstairs and just start pounding drinks.
36:24And he's like, fuck it.
36:26You talking about a miserable day in my life?
36:30The way they said, WCW?
36:33There was no room in New York City for a company like WCW.
36:38That's just the way I felt about it.
36:40When the WWE won the war,
36:42not only did they want to win the war,
36:45but they wanted to bury the opposition
36:48and they wanted to plant the flag.
36:50And that's what they needed to do more than anything
36:54to really solidify winning that war, planting that flag.
36:59Yeah, they had to be in a dominant position to do that.
37:04We're back live here, ladies and gentlemen.
37:06This crowd is still buzzing.
37:08Well, here comes Mr. McMahon back.
37:10He promised to name the new general manager of Raw.
37:14In 2002, Vince McMahon called me.
37:17And while Vince was speaking,
37:19I had already made up my mind that this is my opportunity.
37:22Allow me to introduce you to the new general manager of Raw.
37:27His name is Eric Bishop!
37:31I'm not going to say that everybody in WWE
37:34was happy to see me show up,
37:36but the people that mattered
37:38could not have made me feel more at home.
37:41I like Eric a lot. We're good buddies.
37:43Known him for a very long time.
37:45And he has his bust on the Mount Rushmore
37:48of professional wrestling executives.
37:50Everything that went wrong, the fusion sale falling through,
37:54the fact that the narrative is Eric Bishop, creator WCW.
37:59I had an opportunity to write the last chapter of my story.
38:03Wait a minute!
38:05What the hell is going on? What is this?
38:08I had been with WWE for a few years
38:10as that general manager character,
38:12and everything was going great.
38:14And I remember getting a phone call from Stephanie McMahon,
38:17who was head of creative at that point.
38:19She goes, Eric, I don't want you to take this the wrong way.
38:22You've done a great job, but we're going to go in a different direction.
38:25Erica Bishop has abused his power for too long.
38:28John Cena was going to hit me with his finish
38:30and then drag me out of the ring,
38:32and John Cena was going to throw me in the back of a garbage truck
38:35and I was going to be hauled out of the arena.
38:38And I very seldom questioned creative.
38:41But I went to Vince and said, it doesn't make any sense
38:44for John Cena to do it, it makes more sense for you to do it.
38:47And I thought, if I'm going to do this, I'm going to have fun doing it.
38:51I'm going to make this fun for me.
38:53And I did, and I had a blast.
38:55And I got to live a dream and rewrite my own chapter.
38:58I loved it, every minute of it.
39:00I regret it.
39:08Who killed WCW?
39:10Ooh.
39:12Who killed WCW?
39:15I think it was Turner Corporate.
39:18And some of the people within the booking committees.
39:21AOL, Time Warner, the executives, they were embarrassed by Goofy Wrestling.
39:27The guys in Turner that didn't want us and didn't like us,
39:31and the top guys not letting the mid-card guys interact with them.
39:36WCW killed itself.
39:39The cast of characters that was WCW killed WCW.
39:44It didn't function as a team any longer.
39:47It functioned as a bunch of self-seeking individuals.
39:51I've never seen anybody that was that high up in the food chain
39:56take less responsibility.
39:58This is what killed WCW.
40:01They were fighting within themselves.
40:03They were eating their own, the wolves.
40:05Who killed WCW? That's easy.
40:07Turner Sports.
40:09It would have to be the person with the checkbook.
40:12It would have to be Eric Bischoff.
40:14Vince Russo, Eric Bischoff,
40:16two guys that had zero knowledge about how to run wrestling.
40:20And they put themselves in a position to tell people like me what to do.
40:25And that's what killed WCW.
40:28As a matter of fact, I'm going to give myself a round of applause for that.
40:33Yes, thank you.
40:34Bro, they took such a drop from where they were
40:38to where it was when it was sold, and so much money lost.
40:42I don't think anybody could have done anything.
40:45So I would say a business decision killed WCW.
40:50I don't think one person could have killed WCW by any stretch of the imagination.
40:54There were a shitload of people who contributed to its downfall.
40:57I think it's a collection of factors, a number of reasons that explain its demise.
41:02There's plenty of blame to go around,
41:04but I think ultimately it was inevitable that it was going to fall apart.
41:09A good buddy of mine, he's one of my best friends, downtown Bruno.
41:13When I first started, I said, Bruno, give me some advice.
41:16He said, you're going to hear a voice one day,
41:19and that voice is going to say, go on home, the big run's over.
41:24WCW as an entity, they heard that voice,
41:27and the big run was over, and it was fucking awesome.
41:34Wow, man, what a run.
41:37It was always about the performances for me.
41:39It was always about the fans.
41:41We were rock stars.
41:44Everywhere we went, it was packed.
41:47The whole WCW experience was a hell of a ride, period.
41:52Let us remember the lessons learned and strived
41:56to build a fairer and more equitable future for wrestling.
42:00We've done over 350 or 60-some-odd nitros,
42:03and a lot of these people are like family to me.
42:06It was a good ride. It was fun.
42:08You were like a big family, even though you're a dysfunctional family.
42:11You may not get along with everybody,
42:13but you're still going to be there when it comes to it.
42:16It was the greatest job.
42:17They let us be as creative as we wanted to be.
42:20The first time I realized WCW was big
42:23was my very first show when I debuted.
42:26There was a palpable energy.
42:28You could feel the crowd.
42:30There's something special and something different
42:33about a wrestling fan.
42:35It just blew my mind to see what a big deal WCW really was.
42:40He's got him up!
42:42Those were some great times, terrific times
42:45that came to an abrupt end like that.
42:47But hey, man, all good things come to an end.
42:52I still think that, you know, when it comes down to it,
42:55WCW is Eric's creation.
42:57Any success they had was with Eric.
43:00There's nobody on this planet that can look in the mirror and say,
43:04I beat Vince McMahon
43:07at professional wrestling for 83 weeks.
43:12It's a pretty fucking huge accomplishment.
43:18Cool.
43:20Time fucks with your head, you know?
43:23It becomes distorted.
43:26My memory is more like a series of photographs.
43:30There's bits and pieces and moments that stand out in my mind,
43:34but as time goes on, they kind of just all blur together.
43:38When I look back at my time during WCW,
43:40the journey, the ups, the downs,
43:42the ride all along the way was a rush.
43:45We were the number one wrestling company on television in the world.
43:48Very proud of that.
43:50I was able to experience and achieve things
43:53that nobody thought possible,
43:55and I wouldn't have had any of this
43:57if it wasn't professional wrestling.
43:59So I'm grateful for every minute of it,
44:01the good, the bad, everything in between.
44:04Very lucky.
44:10www.larryweaver.com