WEBVTT

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And welcome to our second installment of
TLF tackles Who Killed WCW, the series

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from Vice TV. It's our companion
pod here on the show on the lapsed

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fan to the series, and episode
two is now in the books and with

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us to talk about it is I
think you could say the guy who kind

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of wrote the book that started it
all in many ways, that being,

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of course, the debate over how
and why WCW collapsed. Brian Alvarez is

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the co author of the Death of
WCW, which was first released in two

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thousand and four, with a revised
and expanded edition coming out in twenty fourteen.

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He's also the co proprietor and podcast
host at Wrestling Observer Figure four online,

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and he chronicle ww's rise and fall
weekly in his Figure four newsletter.

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It's also he's also author rather pardon
of one hundred things WW fan should Know

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and Do before they die. Still
alive, Brian, So I'm still working

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on the list, but really grateful
that you joined us here to talk about

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this series. Yeah. Thanks for
Yeah, this is great. So we'll

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start with the same question for you
that we'll have for all the guests.

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Who Killed WCW. Go a bunch
of people killed. You know, I

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can't believe we're talking about who killed
WCW in twenty twenty four. It's like

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there's part of me that's just a
gast that we're still going back to this.

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But I actually received a royalty check
yesterday for death of WCW, which

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is still selling copies. And so
from that perspective, I'm glad we're still

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talking about it. But other net
is like, do we have nothing else

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to talk about in wrestling that what
killed a company twenty five years ago?

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Apparently not. I mean, there's
so much interest, and you know,

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the thing is, as you know, so many of the key players that

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were I don't know, kind of
tucked away in obscurity or just not talking

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back when you first started working on
the book have come out and offered,

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you know, narratives counter narratives.
So much has come out and I wonder,

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as you know, I've heard it
from Turner executives going on the record

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that we hadn't heard from before since
the book came out, and we've heard,

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of course from Bishoff and everybody else
who's come out with podcasts, everything

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that's come out since you came out
with the book has at all changed your

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sense that WCW had a shot to
survive, no matter if the creative was

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good or bad. You know,
did you get these sense did you develop

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the sense at all when you hear
all these people talking that, you know

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what, maybe WW was fucked no
matter how good the creative was. I

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don't believe that. I don't know
if they would still be around today.

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But you know, I wrote the
first book in two thousand and four,

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and then we did the ten year
anniversary edition ten years later coincidentally, yep.

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And you know I went through and
we read. I can't say we

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read wrote the book when I first
wrote the book, the original book that

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already and I wrote already, Reynolds, right, It was actually closer to

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the tenth anniversary edition than it was
the original because we wrote so much stuff.

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And this was during a period where
wrestling books were starting to sell.

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But like you know, prior to
Mick Foley's first book, you couldn't sell

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a book on wrestling. You know, it's like a it sounds silly and

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it sounds like a cliche, but
you know, they believe that wrestling fans

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couldn't read or wouldn't read, and
then Foley's book came out became a new

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I thing, couldn't exactly right,
couldn't just a good way? People in

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the documentary that would agree with that, or at least purport to know people

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who would agree with that. Yes, yes, So you know, we

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wrote the first one and it wasn't
the books that started coming out, so

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they were like, okay, well
these people can't read, but like,

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I don't know they're going to read
that much. So we were limited to

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like eighty thousand words to cover the
rise and the fall of w CW.

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And it was it's it was very
difficult to do it, so we just

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chopped so much stuff out. Well, we still had it, so when

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it was time for the tenth anniversary
edition, it was kind of like,

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okay, we can put all that
stuff back in, So we put it

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back in. And then obviously,
you know, I read the entire book

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again with fifteen years of hindsight,
and you know, we fixed a few

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things that had been errors in the
first book, et cetera. But I

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can't say that when doing the ten
year anniversary edition, I can't say that

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like anything really changed in terms of
what I believed about the rise and Fall

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of WCW and now here we are
ten years after the ten year anniversary,

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and there have been other books coming
out, there have been other people talking

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about it, and I can't say
that I feel any differently than I did

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when I wrote the original book.
And then on top of that, you

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know, I won't say I'm the
only one, because there are other sad

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individuals in this world. I willingly
watched the Monday Night Wars twice. I

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watched the entire Monday Night Wars that's
right, live podcast, yeah, the

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ninety and then you know, starting
in twenty fifteen or whatever, on the

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Brian of any show, we went
back and we did nineteen years ago in

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WCW and WW like we watched them
raw and Nitro from nineteen years ago this

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week, every single week, all
the way through the end. And when

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I finished watching the entire thing a
second time, you know, my thought

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was, if anything, if anything, I was too kind. If anything,

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this thing was so much worse than
I remembered. And granted, you've

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got you know, we've lived through
a lot since then and everything, But

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you know, I can't say that
I have different feelings about it. I

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can't say that any thing that I
wrote in the in the original book,

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I would massively backtrack on. I
can't say that anything I thought about the

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money that was I was wrong about. You know, there were some things

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I learned a lot more watching it
twice and writing the book a second time,

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but you know, nothing where I
could go. And I don't know

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what I was thinking back then.
They they you know, it just it

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was. It was a It was
a company with a great rise, a

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spectacular fall, and incredible amount of
incompetence and uh, you know, a

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bunch of excuses from a lot of
people. Yeah. I think one of

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the things that the book really does
well and holds up to this day is

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it really replicates the feeling of being
a fan watching WCW and is that the

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years have turned, it's become really
a thing of you know, who can

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come forward with new intel that we
didn't appreciate about what was going on on

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the scenes, turner broadcasting in ww's
offices, those kind of things, all

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fascinating stuff and stuff that's worth folding
into the mosaic of understanding the question at

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hand. But when I when you
read that book, you your your book,

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Brian, you really remember just how
how laborious it felt to force yourself

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to watch Nitro and Thunder every week, and I could never no matter how

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much I learned about Adic Cheatham,
who's in the documentary Unvice talking about how,

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no matter how well we did Turner, folks wouldn't want to sell wrestling

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to generate advertising revenue such that,
you know it would appear to be a

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viable enterprise. Brad Siegel talking about
how, yeah, we clearly underpaid a

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license fee at WCW based on what
we you know, would have paid a

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company drawing those kinds of numbers for
our network, And then he takes a

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pregnant pause and a pregnant cough and
says that was was not my decision.

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I'd love to know whose it was. But what can't get lost in the

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doc and in part two touches on
it, Brian, we can't get lost

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is just how tough it was to
watch WCW television and some of those nitros

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that end with you feeling like,
how could they possibly expect that that intrigued

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me to come back next week?
I think it's easy. Unless you do

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the kind of work you did,
It's it's easy to lose sight of that,

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Yeah, it is. And if
you if you never watched the Monday

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Night Wars, I mean, it's
one thing. If you watch them once,

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it's one thing, because you know, it's it's hindsight. You know,

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the people don't only watched it one
time. It was you know,

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ninety five to two thousand and one. That's a long time ago, and

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memories, memories can change over the
years. But you know, watching it

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a second time, just you know, a few years ago. Up until

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a few years ago. I mean, I watched that documentary last night,

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and everybody had every excuse in the
world except it was fucking terrible. You

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know Bischoff. Last night's episode was, oh, you know Eric, he

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just had everything working against it.
It was like trying to babyface Eric Bischoff.

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And you know, the show literally
ends with everyone going, you know,

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he actually was fantastic what he did, and he was a visionary And

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I'm like, okay, listen,
I'll hand to Eric. Okay. Ninety

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five Nitro was awesome, ninety six
Nitro was awesome, ninety seven less awesome,

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especially at the end of the year. And dude, I don't care

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what they say in that documentary.
The early the first half of nineteen ninety

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eight was already I mean, it
was starting to suck and they were still

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doing good business. But you know, you can ask Dave. I mean,

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Dave remembers this as well as I
do, because we both talked about

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it the exact same time. I
wrote a cover story for Figure four Weekly

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in like March of nineteen ninety eight, and they'd had I don't know,

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I can't remember the number thirteen fourteen
straight sellouts, and I wrote this big

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thing about, you know, they're
having all these sellouts, but dude,

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the wheels are falling off this wagon. And they got it. They got

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to make some changes. And you
know, people talk about ninety nine and

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two thousand, Dude, things were
things were going south way before that,

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way before that. And I think
the discovery of Goldberg gave him an extra

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release on that life in terms of, like, you know, that huge

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January number, would he beat Togan? But yeah, that was sort of

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like a lat that was a a
life raft to something that didn't show the

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signs of having a I don't know, like a second a second lease on

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life after the nWo petered out.
JP We've talked about this endlessly, including

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with Dave on the star Cast series. We did, but I mean,

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you know, after Sting beats Hogan
and we know how how you know that

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was portrayed in episode one of the
Vice series and how poorly that all came

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off, And then Sting comes back
in February at Super Brawl, and no

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one, no one really, no
one really seems to be receiving Sting the

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way he ought to have been had
he bulldozed Hogan. And I think that's

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the story of ninety eight. And
then they realize, oh my god,

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let's just do another nWo into Eric's
credit and others. In episode two the

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Vice documentary, they do say that
they they went to the nWo too many

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times and how could you deny it? But there wasn't a lot of equivocation

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on that, and I expected that. I mean, the red and the

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red and black stuff was just you
know, I don't know it just if

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you were a WCW fan in ninety
eight and you were watching JP, I

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mean, it's just, well,
you gotta agree with what Brian's saying.

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I I mean, I want to
say one thing too. It's fascinating,

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you know, I don't think I
ever really kind of touched upon it until

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what Brian just said, talked about
how everyone was celebrating Bischoff and then talking

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about how creatively, as early as
early ninety eight things were going south,

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but numbers were still good, and
it's like, yeah, that's it right

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there. You know, as long
as you're doing okay, you're a genius.

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You know, we've talked about this
kind of with you know, we

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just did it with the James Bond
movie with Harry salt when we were talking

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about Spyo Love Me on under the
Cinemat, when we were talking about how,

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you know, Albert Brockley is the
genius. He's the one who's the

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genius because he's the one who still
made money. He's the one who was

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still successful. Harry Saltzman petered out
and he died off and nobody cate,

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Nobody cared when he died. You
know. It's that kind of same thing,

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like you're a genius as long as
you're as long as you're got numbers

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up there, as long as you're
making money, as long as you've got

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people watching. It's like it doesn't
matter the quality, but you still you're

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the genius. You're the the the
Eric Bischoff visionary, which I think is

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so funny and it's a weird it's
like a weird phenomenon anomaly of people in

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general. But go ahead, please. Oh but in regards to you know,

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I was during ninety eight, I
was definitely you know, not watching,

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not not flipping back and forth.
But I remember I can remember turning

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on Nitro one time and seeing Sting
having no idea what it happened. I

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turned Nitro Sting wearing the red face
paint and joining up with with with Nash

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and Luger, and I'm like,
what the fuck just happened? Like what

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the fuck is going? Like where
did this come from? Like I was

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like three months ago, probably the
last time I watched Nitro it was like

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this was it was like, no, not, none of this would have

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happened. Everyone was against Nash and
all these what happened? It's yeah,

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it's I think that they they took
for granted the you know, any sort

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of logic, at least from a
fan standpoint, like any sort of logic

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that would clearly tell you that this
shouldn't happen. It should never happen.

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It's a bad decision. Show me
that. I mean, you're talking about

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not watching for three months and tuning
in and not know what's going on.

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I watched every fucking show, and
I would go from Nights out of Thunder

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like literally the next show, and
I would sit there going, what is

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happening here? Like what is happening? And you know, I want to

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go back to Eric for one thing, because I was I was like sickened

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by the everybody putting over Eric Bischoff
as this this genius that got screwed by

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the whatever. But one thing that
like nobody actually does give Eric Bischoff credit

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for, which I will be the
first to give him credit for, is

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if you watched episode two, I
mean it was very very clear that everybody

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wanted to cut the legs off Goldberg. And yeah, I shouldn't say everybody,

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but like there were a lot of
people that wanted to cut the legs

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off Goldberg. And if they didn't
want to cut the legs off Goldberg,

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like you could see Conan, he
recognized at least that everybody else wanted to

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cut the legs off Goldberg. And
I think that, to Bischoff's credit,

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one of the one of the main
things that you can give him credit for

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is he didn't cut the legs off
Goldberg. I mean, everybody wanted to

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beat that guy, and he got
all the way through Goldberg, beating Hogan,

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the Georgi at Ome and uh,
and he didn't screw it up.

208
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It's it's actually when you when you
rewatch WCW, it is a miracle.

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It is a miracle the rise of
Goldberg when you look at how they messed

210
00:14:41.080 --> 00:14:48.799
up every everything, and like the
one thing they didn't mess up was Goldberg,

211
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which I mean it was amazing the
first time, it was even more

212
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amazing the second time. It's like, man, they never beat the guy,

213
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I want, not once until until
it happened obviously, But I mean

214
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I got to give the guy credit
for that. He kept his he kept

215
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Goldberg strong until Jullian. Yeah.
But you know, as Kevin makes clear,

216
00:15:09.320 --> 00:15:13.919
Bell's a mark, it's Bill's a
fan. Hey, it's a television

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00:15:13.960 --> 00:15:16.919
show. All that's then there.
Man, this guy is like he has

218
00:15:18.000 --> 00:15:20.879
not moved off his position at all
on star K ninety eight. And I

219
00:15:20.919 --> 00:15:22.840
don't know, Brian, how do
you look at star K ninety eight?

220
00:15:22.159 --> 00:15:26.720
Was it was it was the book
already written or because the thing is,

221
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I don't think anybody with a straight
face can say that there wasn't more money

222
00:15:30.919 --> 00:15:33.120
left in Goldberg campaigning as the world
champion. Well, of course, I

223
00:15:33.120 --> 00:15:37.799
mean I'm sitting there listening to Kevin
Nash stage. There's no money in a

224
00:15:37.879 --> 00:15:39.960
babyface champion? Yeah, do you
want to want to start the list?

225
00:15:39.960 --> 00:15:43.840
Now, let's see what are you
talking about? Let's go. He's been

226
00:15:43.919 --> 00:15:50.000
the champion for too long. I'm
like Bruno, Hogan, Austin, Sina,

227
00:15:50.320 --> 00:15:52.720
Rock Cody. Hey. Yeah,
he's saying that during a period where

228
00:15:52.759 --> 00:15:58.759
like Steve Austin was on top on
the other channel kicking their ass. The

229
00:15:58.840 --> 00:16:03.360
babyface must the money is in the
chase. Yeah, initially there is money

230
00:16:03.360 --> 00:16:07.200
in the chase, but if you're
competent, there's money in the title run.

231
00:16:07.639 --> 00:16:10.840
Like that's the story of wrestling.
So anyway, and then he goes,

232
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ah, man, he just he
just sucked, like you know,

233
00:16:15.480 --> 00:16:19.159
And my thought is, well,
first off, he didn't suck, and

234
00:16:19.200 --> 00:16:22.919
I could talk about Goldberg for hours. He wasn't. He wasn't a smooth

235
00:16:22.960 --> 00:16:29.279
worker. Okay, but like,
if he's the guy that is that is

236
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making money, if he's the top
guy that's drawing money, that nobody else

237
00:16:32.960 --> 00:16:36.240
is drawing right now because this thing
is sinking. I don't give a fuck

238
00:16:36.279 --> 00:16:40.399
if he can work or not.
Your job. Your job is to get

239
00:16:40.440 --> 00:16:42.399
him over, not go out there
and go, well, you know,

240
00:16:42.440 --> 00:16:45.039
he's making the most money, but
god, he can't work. So like

241
00:16:45.039 --> 00:16:48.759
we got to put the belt on
someone who can work. Like this is

242
00:16:48.799 --> 00:16:52.399
Kevin Nash by the way, saying
this Kevin Nash, So you know,

243
00:16:53.000 --> 00:16:59.960
I don't know, man, that
that starcade, you know, and they

244
00:17:00.000 --> 00:17:03.840
even kind of mentioned it. It's
like, okay, we're gonna beat him.

245
00:17:03.200 --> 00:17:06.839
Even Kevin Suliman was like, I
wanted to beat him clean. And

246
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we'll never know what would happen if
he would have done that. I mean,

247
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who knows. But it's not even
it's not even what the finish was,

248
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you know, it's it's what happened
afterwards. Like it's it's always the

249
00:17:18.359 --> 00:17:23.519
follow up and the follow up to
Goldberg getting tased, and then you follow

250
00:17:23.559 --> 00:17:29.000
that up with a finger poke of
doom and you know, and don't forget

251
00:17:29.039 --> 00:17:32.599
that Georgia on Nitro Jenerary fort ninety
nine, that was that was supposed to

252
00:17:32.640 --> 00:17:36.279
be the rematch between Goldberg and Nash
that everybody wanted to see. That's what's

253
00:17:36.319 --> 00:17:38.039
always forgotten about that finger poke.
It wasn't supposed to be Nah Hogan until

254
00:17:38.039 --> 00:17:41.279
the last second. Everyone was excited
to see that rematch, and that's where

255
00:17:41.279 --> 00:17:45.640
the Georgian homes fall. They promoted
it the week before that. That's what

256
00:17:45.759 --> 00:17:48.079
hurts so much about that finger poke
thing, is it is it just completely

257
00:17:48.079 --> 00:17:52.039
obliterated confidence that they were going to, you know, lean into what was

258
00:17:52.079 --> 00:17:56.960
electric about that night at Starcade.
Well that and it's just like, Okay,

259
00:17:57.279 --> 00:18:00.359
if you're gonna put the belt on
Nash, gonna be Goldberg whatever,

260
00:18:00.880 --> 00:18:03.279
Okay, you got to go with
Nash then, and you've got to have

261
00:18:03.359 --> 00:18:07.200
some sort of follow up with Goldberg. Yes, Instead, it's like,

262
00:18:07.240 --> 00:18:12.200
okay, Nash wins with a taser
and then he does a phantom fingerpoke of

263
00:18:12.279 --> 00:18:17.720
doom with Hogan and they put the
belt on Hogan. And then the whole

264
00:18:17.759 --> 00:18:21.279
explanation is, well, we wanted
to keep the belt in the family.

265
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It's like it's already in the family. Like nothing about it was good.

266
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Everything about it sucked. He was
under questioning for follow up. Everything it

267
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all sucked. And and the issue
is people were already getting irritated. People

268
00:18:37.240 --> 00:18:41.799
are already getting pissed off. And
when when your fans are already irritated and

269
00:18:41.839 --> 00:18:45.319
you're already starting to lose some of
those fans, the last thing you want

270
00:18:45.319 --> 00:18:48.680
to do is accelerated. And you
know, it's the same thing throughout the

271
00:18:48.759 --> 00:18:52.799
years in every company. When when
you're hot, hey, you can do

272
00:18:52.839 --> 00:18:56.160
a bunch of stupid stuff. You're
hot, when the decline starts, hey,

273
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I mean you got to do your
best. Because even even doing your

274
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best, when the decline starts,
it's very, very difficult to turn that

275
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around. And by ninety nine it
was like what they needed was everything to

276
00:19:10.519 --> 00:19:15.440
be I don't want to say perfect, but like at least good well,

277
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and instead it was like they were
on a decline and everything just got worse

278
00:19:19.599 --> 00:19:22.400
and worse and worse. Yeah,
yeah, it did because they didn't have

279
00:19:22.400 --> 00:19:26.519
another gear. They didn't they had
they had laid the foundation for nothing.

280
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If if Hogan's program stopped working,
I mean, that's that's the broader narrative

281
00:19:30.640 --> 00:19:34.240
of WCW and in the boom period, in the downfalls, if Hogan's program

282
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isn't working, WCW isn't working.
It's very simple. And you know,

283
00:19:37.799 --> 00:19:41.039
as we learned about the nature of
his contract later that's probably just as well.

284
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But but to be setting up a
setting up a situation where you have

285
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all the guys that go on a
headline throughout the two thousands in WWF under

286
00:19:48.359 --> 00:19:52.200
under your roof, you know,
from Jericho to ben Wada, Eddie to

287
00:19:52.319 --> 00:19:55.559
Ray to the rest of them,
who proved that they could draw over there

288
00:19:55.680 --> 00:19:57.680
and and not activate any of those
plans? Is that's your answer right there?

289
00:19:57.720 --> 00:20:00.240
They had no other gear to kick
into. But you know what you're

290
00:20:00.240 --> 00:20:03.680
missing, Brian, I think about
the finger poke of newm is this Kevin

291
00:20:03.720 --> 00:20:06.640
puts it in the documentary. You
know, you know why people hate that

292
00:20:06.720 --> 00:20:11.160
so much because it got him.
What did you think about he says?

293
00:20:11.240 --> 00:20:14.480
He says, quote, look at
the crowd, they don't know what the

294
00:20:14.480 --> 00:20:18.640
fuck they've seen. I would agree
with that, but they got him.

295
00:20:18.799 --> 00:20:21.880
I don't know. I've never gotten
his line of reasoning on that one.

296
00:20:22.599 --> 00:20:23.480
Well, I mean, it's the
same thing you to hear in all of

297
00:20:23.480 --> 00:20:29.240
episode three when you when we cover
Vince Russo, which is basically, you

298
00:20:29.279 --> 00:20:32.279
know, you got to surprise,
you got to swerve the people, you

299
00:20:32.359 --> 00:20:36.200
got to surprise them. And you
know the thing with the fit. We're

300
00:20:36.200 --> 00:20:37.400
getting it to Russo now. But
I mean, yeah, you don't have

301
00:20:37.440 --> 00:20:40.279
to do that. Don't worry about
that. It goes back to Nash.

302
00:20:40.319 --> 00:20:42.319
But I mean the whole thing is
it's okay to have a swerve in wrestling

303
00:20:44.000 --> 00:20:48.880
as long as the swerve is a
swerve that it makes sense where Okay,

304
00:20:48.079 --> 00:20:51.839
I didn't see that coming, but
I get it. That makes sense.

305
00:20:52.759 --> 00:20:56.880
You swerve for the sake of a
swerve. It's like, the reason fans

306
00:20:56.920 --> 00:21:00.920
are angry is because, yeah,
you got him with some really fucking dumb

307
00:21:00.920 --> 00:21:04.799
why don't we do that? That's
what irritates people about a swerve. I

308
00:21:04.799 --> 00:21:08.160
mean there have been swerves in the
history of wrestling that were like good swerves.

309
00:21:08.200 --> 00:21:11.119
Oh I didn't expect that, But
you know what I look back at.

310
00:21:11.200 --> 00:21:15.119
You know, this seed was planned
here, this seed was planning here.

311
00:21:15.400 --> 00:21:17.440
You know, that's been the plan
the whole time. And God,

312
00:21:17.480 --> 00:21:21.240
they got me. But the finger
proke of doom is not they got.

313
00:21:21.559 --> 00:21:25.519
The finger pok of doom is you
came up with a really stupid idea and

314
00:21:25.559 --> 00:21:27.559
you did it, and we hate
it and we'd rather watch the other show

315
00:21:27.599 --> 00:21:30.680
where stuff is like good now,
yeah, yeah, and JP I mean,

316
00:21:30.680 --> 00:21:33.640
you know what it set up was
all it was was a facility to

317
00:21:33.640 --> 00:21:37.319
get the bat belt back to Hogan. Yes, after that you know,

318
00:21:37.559 --> 00:21:41.039
short lived retirement ninety eight in the
presidential run and all that show, it's

319
00:21:41.079 --> 00:21:42.559
like Hogan's gonna have the belties back. And he was back and he was

320
00:21:42.640 --> 00:21:47.200
champ and they did the Flare series
in the ninety nine pay per views up,

321
00:21:47.240 --> 00:21:51.920
you know, uncensored in super Brawl
Dude, section section eleven, sub

322
00:21:51.960 --> 00:21:56.279
paragraph e, brother speaks to why
featured performer, Dude, I'll be a

323
00:21:56.279 --> 00:22:00.880
feature performer, brother, And you
know, further in two thousand, he

324
00:22:00.759 --> 00:22:04.000
extends his deal and he's you know, for Nitros and thunders. He's on

325
00:22:04.039 --> 00:22:07.519
that do between I forget what it
was, two hundred and three hundred thousand

326
00:22:07.519 --> 00:22:08.720
dollars at the gate. He gets
one hundred percent of the gate receipt.

327
00:22:10.160 --> 00:22:14.519
They further sweetened this insane ninety eight
deal that's been circulated, as we learned

328
00:22:14.519 --> 00:22:17.880
when we pulled documents for the Batch
of the Beach two thousand episode that just

329
00:22:18.079 --> 00:22:22.000
like it didn't get any better,
they doubled down on contractual arrangements that that

330
00:22:22.200 --> 00:22:25.839
weren't working for them already. So
you can't. I mean I heard too,

331
00:22:25.920 --> 00:22:29.200
I heard too that that even at
one point in two thousand there was

332
00:22:29.279 --> 00:22:33.039
negotiation in the contract that Hogan was
going to own Turner. Is that what

333
00:22:33.079 --> 00:22:36.880
you're heard? Yeah? I wonder
if propagated to that one. Oh,

334
00:22:37.039 --> 00:22:41.799
Brian as a book. Yeah,
that's the thing. We're all waiting for

335
00:22:41.839 --> 00:22:44.960
that one thing to come out where
it's like, oh, let's reconsider everything

336
00:22:44.960 --> 00:22:48.160
we thought we knew about WCW and
the series will play around with some of

337
00:22:48.200 --> 00:22:51.559
the wwfwcwcl rumors. I mean that's
clear. Well, we'll see what they

338
00:22:51.559 --> 00:22:52.680
have to say on that. But
Brian is a worker yourself, you know,

339
00:22:52.880 --> 00:22:56.799
you've wrestled for years. What do
you make of what Brett Hart has

340
00:22:56.799 --> 00:22:59.480
to say about Goldberg? It's easy
to, you know, lean in on

341
00:22:59.599 --> 00:23:03.440
Nash's sarcasm about Goldberg, but Brett
hates Goldberg for a much different reason.

342
00:23:03.480 --> 00:23:06.799
But it's not too different in that, you know, he's he's he's calling

343
00:23:06.880 --> 00:23:08.839
into question whether he should have been
in that position based on his ability to

344
00:23:08.920 --> 00:23:15.799
work safely. Well, you know, I'm a gigantic, gigantic Brett Hart

345
00:23:15.839 --> 00:23:22.559
fan, and uh, I I
got to say I was I was a

346
00:23:22.640 --> 00:23:26.559
little confused when I when I was
watching it, because I mean, I

347
00:23:26.559 --> 00:23:29.960
don't know, maybe he's maybe he's
to undred person accurate, but you know,

348
00:23:30.000 --> 00:23:33.640
when he's describing what happened with the
kick, I mean, what he

349
00:23:33.759 --> 00:23:41.359
what he says is Goldberg said watch
the kick, and I was I was

350
00:23:41.440 --> 00:23:45.799
confused, like there was no there
was there wasn't supposed to be a kick.

351
00:23:45.839 --> 00:23:48.559
And all I could think was,
dude, this guy's one of the

352
00:23:48.559 --> 00:23:52.519
greatest workers of all time and he
didn't go into the ring, and like,

353
00:23:52.640 --> 00:23:55.799
choreograph is matches. I mean,
is he trying to tell me that

354
00:23:55.839 --> 00:24:00.359
this match was choreographed start to finish, Because a normal match, if you're

355
00:24:00.400 --> 00:24:03.480
going in there and calling it in
the ring, I mean, that's exactly

356
00:24:03.519 --> 00:24:07.519
what Goldberg would do. He would
say watch the kick, and he would

357
00:24:07.559 --> 00:24:11.200
shoot you off, and then you
watch the kick, and that's exactly what

358
00:24:11.319 --> 00:24:14.839
happened. And obviously, you know, Goldberg kicked his head off, and

359
00:24:15.160 --> 00:24:21.319
you know he's still I think that
I don't know, Man's it was obviously

360
00:24:21.319 --> 00:24:25.680
an accident. You know, it
sucks. I had a guy break my

361
00:24:25.799 --> 00:24:29.440
orbital bone once, you know,
with a kick, and it was an

362
00:24:29.519 --> 00:24:33.079
accident. I hold, no ill
will towards him. I think part of

363
00:24:33.119 --> 00:24:37.279
the issue is that, you know, for a long time, Brett felt

364
00:24:37.880 --> 00:24:45.880
that Goldberg was not remorseful about it, and I think that what probably happened

365
00:24:45.960 --> 00:24:49.079
was, you know, Brett was
expecting him to be more remorseful than he

366
00:24:49.240 --> 00:24:55.240
was, and Brett got mad about
it, and then Goldberg got mad that

367
00:24:55.319 --> 00:24:59.640
he was mad because he didn't mean
to do it, and he probably apologized.

368
00:25:00.039 --> 00:25:03.160
Brett probably felt it wasn't a sincere
enough apology, and like, over

369
00:25:03.200 --> 00:25:04.920
the years, it probably just snowballs. Not These two guys hate each other,

370
00:25:06.480 --> 00:25:08.200
and you know, Goldberg admits he
still feels bad about it, but

371
00:25:08.240 --> 00:25:11.880
at the same time, it's like, shit happens, dude, Like now

372
00:25:11.920 --> 00:25:14.880
he's kind of mad about it,
and of course that makes so at the

373
00:25:14.960 --> 00:25:17.880
end of the day. You know, the thing they didn't mention also was

374
00:25:18.799 --> 00:25:22.240
they did that match, and you
know, Brett talks about how, you

375
00:25:22.240 --> 00:25:26.240
know, I got kicked in the
head and I knew my career was over,

376
00:25:26.680 --> 00:25:30.359
you know, was I got concussed
and everything, but that was not

377
00:25:30.480 --> 00:25:36.000
his last match, and there's a
there's a I don't know, I shouldn't

378
00:25:36.000 --> 00:25:38.599
say, a very good chance,
but you know, people got concussions regularly,

379
00:25:40.319 --> 00:25:44.440
And the difference here is that he
did not get kicked in the head

380
00:25:45.079 --> 00:25:48.079
and then take time off until he
recovered. He went right back on the

381
00:25:48.160 --> 00:25:55.759
road and he had a series of
matches with Terry Funk, which were hardcore

382
00:25:55.799 --> 00:26:00.680
matches, and this dude was getting
waffled in the head every night. Yeah,

383
00:26:00.720 --> 00:26:03.960
and you know what really happened was
he got kicked by Goldberg, got

384
00:26:03.960 --> 00:26:07.960
concussed, and then went out and
just got concussed over and over and over

385
00:26:08.039 --> 00:26:12.160
and over again. And you know, it was all of that that ended

386
00:26:12.240 --> 00:26:15.960
up leading to his actually first retirement
because he had come back with we.

387
00:26:17.640 --> 00:26:22.519
But you know, it was an
unfortunate situation. It was obviously an accident

388
00:26:22.599 --> 00:26:26.599
both guys admitted, But I think
that both of them have so much pride

389
00:26:26.400 --> 00:26:32.359
that they just dug in their heels
and at the end of the day,

390
00:26:32.440 --> 00:26:34.400
it made the situation significantly worse,
at the point where they now hate each

391
00:26:34.440 --> 00:26:37.359
other. Yeah. When we did
our like full career watch along on a

392
00:26:37.359 --> 00:26:41.960
lot of Terry Funks highlights, we
touched on that match only because it's exactly

393
00:26:42.000 --> 00:26:44.519
what you're saying, Brian. You
know, you see it. There's a

394
00:26:44.519 --> 00:26:48.240
match they have on Thunder in particular, where Funk loads him into a laundry

395
00:26:48.599 --> 00:26:52.400
basket and rolls him down the ramp
as Funk would do right, and then

396
00:26:52.720 --> 00:26:56.680
he hits like it seems like a
snag in the carpeting in the rampway or

397
00:26:56.680 --> 00:27:00.000
maybe the mats around the ring,
and Brett tumbles out of the laundry basket

398
00:27:00.200 --> 00:27:03.519
on the top of his head at
an angle that was hard to control,

399
00:27:03.559 --> 00:27:07.119
and he comes up loopy. And
Brett had amazing admiration for Terry Funk,

400
00:27:07.200 --> 00:27:10.039
so he's not going to put him
on blast for it. Funk expressed a

401
00:27:10.079 --> 00:27:14.039
fair degree of you know, sympathy
for having done that. He felt badly

402
00:27:14.079 --> 00:27:15.680
about it, but he didn't lean
into it too too much. And then

403
00:27:15.720 --> 00:27:18.720
Brett just went in on a goldberg
as the years went on, because you

404
00:27:18.759 --> 00:27:22.640
know, that's where he sort of
cites it as the you know, as

405
00:27:22.680 --> 00:27:26.160
the genesis. But it's so true
that that's that's that's something you get from

406
00:27:26.200 --> 00:27:30.160
watching ww back week after week as
you realize that these flash points that that

407
00:27:30.160 --> 00:27:33.680
fit the narrative, they have these
they have these precursors and these moments of

408
00:27:33.759 --> 00:27:37.920
follow up that really explain, like
the full scope of insanity going on,

409
00:27:38.160 --> 00:27:41.680
and how little people were sort of
pausing and thinking, well, well,

410
00:27:41.759 --> 00:27:45.359
maybe this isn't the right thing to
do, or like what are we even

411
00:27:45.400 --> 00:27:49.160
doing until it's way too late for
anybody to even make constructive suggestions. I

412
00:27:49.200 --> 00:27:52.720
mean, Bischoff has talked about Terry
Tingle, who was an executive at ww

413
00:27:52.839 --> 00:27:56.079
in ninety eight, when he when
he kind of lost his grip on everything

414
00:27:56.519 --> 00:27:57.640
coming to him, and you know, they're trying to counter the ww F

415
00:27:57.720 --> 00:28:00.960
raunchiness and saying like, we need
scripts, and he's like, you can't

416
00:28:00.960 --> 00:28:02.880
do scripts, and it's like,
of course, you can't do scripts because

417
00:28:02.880 --> 00:28:04.519
you don't know what you're doing if
you get to the building. Well on

418
00:28:04.599 --> 00:28:07.480
part of this way, you don't
know what you're getting till Terry gets to

419
00:28:07.559 --> 00:28:11.519
the building. That is Terry Bala. Of course you can't submit scripts.

420
00:28:11.519 --> 00:28:14.240
But you know, with Brett Brian, one of the things that was huge

421
00:28:14.240 --> 00:28:17.519
at the time, and you really
hone in onto the book that they kind

422
00:28:17.519 --> 00:28:18.759
of breeze over a bit in the
dock, which, look, that's not

423
00:28:18.799 --> 00:28:21.759
a criticism, that's just what you
have to do. You have to make

424
00:28:21.799 --> 00:28:25.759
these decisions to fit forty four minutes
but people forget I think how rich the

425
00:28:25.839 --> 00:28:30.200
opportunity was to make Brett the top
baby face in the company if people with

426
00:28:30.240 --> 00:28:33.279
influence were willing to countenance it.
Because Wrestling with Shadows had just come out

427
00:28:33.319 --> 00:28:37.160
on Ane and the whole country son
it did incredible ratings, and they could

428
00:28:37.160 --> 00:28:41.160
have really run with the Brett is
here, you know, to get justice

429
00:28:41.240 --> 00:28:45.200
for the injustice and prop up the
you know, the competitor to the company

430
00:28:45.200 --> 00:28:48.000
that did him so wrong. And
the way they ran away from that and

431
00:28:48.039 --> 00:28:52.720
tried not to talk about it is
really symptomatic I think of what was wrong

432
00:28:52.720 --> 00:28:56.640
over there. Well, yeah,
when when Brett laughed, it was like,

433
00:28:56.759 --> 00:29:03.119
my god, you just got theF
champion and he got screwed in Montreal

434
00:29:04.000 --> 00:29:07.400
and it really, I mean it
was one of many turning points. But

435
00:29:07.960 --> 00:29:15.680
you know, Montreal led to Austin
McMahon, okay, and that was you

436
00:29:15.720 --> 00:29:19.960
know what skyrocketed WWE to where they
are today. Really and at the same

437
00:29:21.039 --> 00:29:26.880
time, Brett went to WCW and
they totally squandered it. And you know,

438
00:29:26.960 --> 00:29:30.680
the original idea behind that starcad finish, which I think everybody knows,

439
00:29:32.319 --> 00:29:34.519
is that it was supposed to be
an actual fast count. You know,

440
00:29:34.640 --> 00:29:40.599
Nick Patrick was going to do a
fast count on Sting and then Brett playing

441
00:29:40.599 --> 00:29:42.839
off Montreal was supposed to say,
which he did actually say, but it

442
00:29:42.880 --> 00:29:45.319
was stupid because it wasn't a fast
count. You know, I'm not going

443
00:29:45.359 --> 00:29:49.119
to allow a screwjob here, restart
the match, and away we go.

444
00:29:49.480 --> 00:29:56.000
Now, I don't know if if
Nick Patrick would have counted fast and Brett

445
00:29:56.000 --> 00:29:57.759
would have done that, I still
don't know if that would have made any

446
00:29:57.759 --> 00:30:02.680
difference whatsoever, because because I saw
the follow up to Sting's title win,

447
00:30:03.079 --> 00:30:06.079
right, and even if he would
have won with a whatever, I mean,

448
00:30:06.160 --> 00:30:07.720
they still were going to watch the
follow up, so it probably doesn't

449
00:30:07.720 --> 00:30:11.680
even matter if it's a fast count
or not. But I don't even think

450
00:30:11.720 --> 00:30:14.480
that, Like, I get what
you were doing with Brett to play off

451
00:30:14.480 --> 00:30:18.599
the screw job, but why is
he there to play off the screw job

452
00:30:18.680 --> 00:30:22.720
as a referee, and why are
you doing it in the biggest match you've

453
00:30:22.720 --> 00:30:27.000
ever booked? Yep, And what
is your follow up to him doing that?

454
00:30:27.880 --> 00:30:32.240
If you recall, like they had
a Brett hart Rick Flair match which

455
00:30:32.279 --> 00:30:36.640
actually did remarkably well, which was
a problem apparently, and then they vanished

456
00:30:37.000 --> 00:30:41.319
they like totally vanished. You know. There was just one thing that also,

457
00:30:41.680 --> 00:30:45.039
you know, since we're on that
subject, that was not mentioned enough

458
00:30:45.039 --> 00:30:48.720
in the documentary, although it was
mentioned, you know, kind of in

459
00:30:48.759 --> 00:30:53.799
passing, was that this was a
double whammy for WCW in the sense that

460
00:30:55.440 --> 00:31:02.759
they went from you know, winning
kicking WWE's assafsasas and having far better shows.

461
00:31:02.880 --> 00:31:07.000
I mean, ninety five ninety six, it was way more fun to

462
00:31:07.039 --> 00:31:12.000
watch WCW than it was WWF.
But by the middle of ninety seven,

463
00:31:12.759 --> 00:31:18.680
i mean, WWF was starting to
turn around. And by the time we

464
00:31:18.759 --> 00:31:23.160
hit ninety eight, it's like you
had a combination of not only were they

465
00:31:23.200 --> 00:31:30.599
doing everything wrong in WCW, but
they were doing everything right in WWF,

466
00:31:32.200 --> 00:31:34.720
And so you had the double whammy
of not only are you fucking everything up,

467
00:31:34.759 --> 00:31:38.160
but the alternative is doing everything right. And so, you know,

468
00:31:38.279 --> 00:31:44.920
had WWF still been you know,
nineteen ninety four, new generation, et

469
00:31:45.000 --> 00:31:48.400
cetera, et cetera, it's possible
the decline of WCW would have been slower.

470
00:31:49.079 --> 00:31:55.000
But because they turned everything around,
it was like both companies turned everything

471
00:31:55.039 --> 00:31:59.559
around at the same time, and
so it helped the rise of WWF.

472
00:31:59.720 --> 00:32:04.559
Because WCW was so shitty and it
sped up the decline of WCW because WWF

473
00:32:04.640 --> 00:32:07.559
was doing so great. Yeah,
but meanwhile the show was all about oh,

474
00:32:07.599 --> 00:32:14.799
you know, corporate Turner. They
didn't want to do whatever. It's

475
00:32:14.799 --> 00:32:21.400
like, there's so many excuses from
everybody. He's a lapsed fan wrestling podcast

476
00:32:21.799 --> 00:32:34.880
with Jack and carn Seo and JP
Soro. He's a lapsed fan wrestling podcast.

477
00:32:35.200 --> 00:32:37.240
Well, I'm glad you cued that
up because the thing with Brad Siegel

478
00:32:37.319 --> 00:32:43.599
was key to me because he's always
pointed at and perhaps rightfully so, as

479
00:32:43.599 --> 00:32:46.480
someone that would just have easily have
killed WCW then kept it alive if it

480
00:32:46.519 --> 00:32:49.920
wasn't his remit to keep it alive. You know, he's a guy that

481
00:32:50.000 --> 00:32:52.359
obviously had a bit of disdain for
the for the wrestling fan didn't, but

482
00:32:52.400 --> 00:32:57.839
he but he was. He was
there watching the Nitro explosion and the demos

483
00:32:57.880 --> 00:33:00.640
it brought to TNT and then later
TB. Yes, and he saw the

484
00:33:00.680 --> 00:33:04.680
play it. You know. The
thing about it is, and we heard

485
00:33:04.720 --> 00:33:07.759
from somebody who listens to the show, who's who's been involved in pitching TV,

486
00:33:07.880 --> 00:33:09.319
and you know, Brad Siegel comes
in and wants to know what the

487
00:33:09.319 --> 00:33:12.880
next big idea is. And he
was kind of faulted for that by JJ

488
00:33:12.960 --> 00:33:15.359
Dillon in his book and some others
for you know, expecting there to be

489
00:33:15.400 --> 00:33:19.000
this this spark that was going to
turn anything around. But you always always

490
00:33:19.079 --> 00:33:22.519
need to have the next big idea
in television. That that's a creative's job.

491
00:33:22.880 --> 00:33:24.799
You always have to be able to
progress to the to the next thing,

492
00:33:25.880 --> 00:33:29.599
you know, pointing out that,
you know, Nitro is not the

493
00:33:29.599 --> 00:33:32.720
first number one show whose network executives
hated it. You think of Married with

494
00:33:32.839 --> 00:33:37.920
Children, Fox hated it, CBS
hated Survivor. You know, he hated

495
00:33:37.960 --> 00:33:39.480
it. In that they it wouldn't
have been their their prime choice is their

496
00:33:39.480 --> 00:33:44.119
calling card. But the job of
the television executive is is to lean into

497
00:33:44.160 --> 00:33:46.799
what's working and then run as fast
as you can as soon as it stops

498
00:33:46.799 --> 00:33:50.960
working. You have to know that
as the rules of engagement. You can't

499
00:33:50.960 --> 00:33:52.960
be surprised by that, and you
certainly can't interpret it as a betrayal.

500
00:33:53.119 --> 00:33:57.160
I mean a betrayal. I mean
you can interpret it that way, but

501
00:33:57.200 --> 00:34:00.559
then history won't really be on your
side when you look at how how it

502
00:34:00.599 --> 00:34:05.119
all works. You know, Reality
TV's explosion generated great revenue from advertising,

503
00:34:05.839 --> 00:34:09.079
but it has a short shelf life. The advertisers stop thinking that something that

504
00:34:09.480 --> 00:34:14.719
kind of fleeting as a phenomenon is
something to lean into, as opposed to

505
00:34:14.760 --> 00:34:16.639
Gray's Anatomy, which is on the
air for twenty years and you know,

506
00:34:16.679 --> 00:34:20.079
doesn't do the ratings that used to
do, but advertisers see it as a

507
00:34:20.840 --> 00:34:22.719
proposition that they can pile into over
and over again. And this is all

508
00:34:22.760 --> 00:34:25.760
to say that Brad Siegel says on
the show, on episode two of the

509
00:34:25.800 --> 00:34:30.519
Vice series that Goldberg was the key. He saw what was after the nWo,

510
00:34:30.840 --> 00:34:34.880
he saw what the next acceleration was. He talked about it. He

511
00:34:34.880 --> 00:34:37.199
said, you know, I felt
that Goldberg was really the phenomenon that could

512
00:34:37.199 --> 00:34:42.119
bring advertisers and all the other stuff
that they're buying or that they're consuming as

513
00:34:42.119 --> 00:34:45.000
they were trying to push in a
more family friendly direction. So can you

514
00:34:45.039 --> 00:34:50.119
imagine Brian A. Brad Siegel observing
this, watching coldly the television numbers,

515
00:34:50.519 --> 00:34:53.920
seeing this Goldberg phenomenon explode, seeing
the licensing opportunities it created, and then

516
00:34:53.960 --> 00:34:59.480
by the end of nineteen ninety eight, Goldberg is kind of not washed,

517
00:34:59.519 --> 00:35:02.199
but not not the biggest concern in
WCW anymore. You know that that's the

518
00:35:02.239 --> 00:35:07.280
problem is is even if the executives
did put their finger on something to keep

519
00:35:07.400 --> 00:35:13.079
WCW going and a live and vibrant, it might not have happened once it

520
00:35:13.119 --> 00:35:15.719
trickled down to the wrestling operation side
of things. Well, yeah, and

521
00:35:15.800 --> 00:35:20.119
that's another thing we're going to learn
about in the in the Vince Russo episode.

522
00:35:20.639 --> 00:35:23.039
Is you know when you talk about
advertisers, I mean, you know

523
00:35:23.119 --> 00:35:25.960
they talked about it on the show. The amount of money that you're going

524
00:35:27.039 --> 00:35:30.519
to make from advertisers on pro wrestling
is is a I mean, it's it's

525
00:35:30.559 --> 00:35:34.639
nothing compared to what you would make
for a survivor, for example. So

526
00:35:34.880 --> 00:35:37.800
if you've got a if you've got
a wrestling company and you're trying to sell

527
00:35:38.119 --> 00:35:44.360
advertising for a wrestling show, and
you're getting a fraction of what another show

528
00:35:44.440 --> 00:35:47.920
might get, Well, what does
that mean? That means that how what

529
00:35:49.039 --> 00:35:52.519
is the what is how does this
thing make money? Okay, it's obviously

530
00:35:52.559 --> 00:35:55.360
not going to make the kind of
money a survivor would make on ads,

531
00:35:55.880 --> 00:36:00.280
So you know, part of it
is it's got to make money like a

532
00:36:00.320 --> 00:36:02.519
pro wrestling company makes money. You
know, during their peak on hundred and

533
00:36:02.519 --> 00:36:06.119
twenty five million dollars in revenue,
you know, one hundred and twenty five

534
00:36:06.159 --> 00:36:08.320
million dollars. At that time,
it was the most money any wrestling company

535
00:36:08.440 --> 00:36:13.599
ever made in a year. And
it wasn't because of ratings, you know,

536
00:36:13.719 --> 00:36:17.199
it was because of pay per view
numbers and ticket sales and merchandise and

537
00:36:17.239 --> 00:36:22.320
everything that a traditional pro wrestling company
how they made their money. So the

538
00:36:22.440 --> 00:36:28.960
one of the biggest problems with WCW
is when things started to collapse, you

539
00:36:29.000 --> 00:36:34.679
know, and when they stopped winning
the Monday Night wars the Monday Night ratings,

540
00:36:35.639 --> 00:36:42.280
they fixated on we're losing this ratings
war, and we've got to bring

541
00:36:42.280 --> 00:36:46.960
the ratings up. And if you
look at the entire rain of Vince Russo,

542
00:36:47.679 --> 00:36:52.480
it was all focused on one thing, which was trying to bring the

543
00:36:52.599 --> 00:36:58.119
ratings up, and in doing so, you know, their ticket sales collapsed,

544
00:36:58.199 --> 00:37:01.559
their merchandise collapsed, their payper reviews
absolutely collapsed. I mean, their

545
00:37:01.760 --> 00:37:05.119
pay per views were like a tenth
of what they were a year earlier.

546
00:37:05.599 --> 00:37:08.400
I mean, they just stopped making
money. They just stopped making money.

547
00:37:08.880 --> 00:37:14.360
And on top of that, even
if Let's say he had drastically increased the

548
00:37:14.480 --> 00:37:16.480
ratings, Say ratings had got up
twenty five percent across the board on Vince

549
00:37:16.559 --> 00:37:21.800
Russo, which they didn't. But
had they how much more money were they

550
00:37:21.800 --> 00:37:23.639
going to make from those advertisers they
didn't want to buy ads in a wrestling

551
00:37:23.679 --> 00:37:30.519
show. And meanwhile, you've destroyed
every other revenue stream because you're worried about

552
00:37:30.679 --> 00:37:37.320
beating WWF in this ratings work.
That's the death of WCW is they stopped

553
00:37:37.480 --> 00:37:43.559
generating revenue. And when you're no
longer generating revenue, all this talk about

554
00:37:43.679 --> 00:37:47.199
corporate and mergers and all this bullshit. If they had been generating two hundred

555
00:37:47.199 --> 00:37:51.800
million dollars a year in two thousand
and one, I don't think there's any

556
00:37:51.880 --> 00:37:55.760
chance, no chance they're being canceled, really, But instead their numbers were

557
00:37:55.800 --> 00:38:01.519
down. They were losing sixty two
million dollars in a year. They're not

558
00:38:01.639 --> 00:38:07.519
making anything off advertising because the ratings
have fallen. They were making anything when

559
00:38:07.519 --> 00:38:10.519
the ratings were good. I mean, what is it You already have an

560
00:38:10.599 --> 00:38:15.960
organization that doesn't really want wrestling.
All you've done with all of this atrocious

561
00:38:15.960 --> 00:38:22.840
booking and killing every revenue stream is
making it easy for them to go goodbye.

562
00:38:23.000 --> 00:38:25.599
That's right. It served them up
on a silver platter all the reasons

563
00:38:25.639 --> 00:38:30.280
they needed to act on those instincts. They no longer had countervailing revenue figures

564
00:38:30.320 --> 00:38:34.159
and ratings to tell them, well, maybe this isn't the time to be

565
00:38:34.199 --> 00:38:37.079
so aggressive now the merger, and
they don't even mention. I mean,

566
00:38:37.119 --> 00:38:39.119
they mentioned on the show, but
they didn't tie it together, like throughout

567
00:38:39.159 --> 00:38:43.559
the show. They're talking about this
during the Eric Bischoff era. They don't

568
00:38:43.559 --> 00:38:45.880
want wrestling, they're not fans of
wrestling, you know, they'd rather have

569
00:38:45.960 --> 00:38:50.519
some they're talking about all of this, but as they're talking about this,

570
00:38:50.960 --> 00:38:57.239
it's still on why Because it didn't
matter whether they wanted it or not.

571
00:38:57.679 --> 00:39:01.039
The thing was generating tons of money. Yeah, and so okay, well

572
00:39:01.079 --> 00:39:04.639
you know I like WCW. Well
they're making out of twenty five million dollars,

573
00:39:04.679 --> 00:39:07.239
you're gonna get rid of that?
Well? No, right, but

574
00:39:07.440 --> 00:39:09.159
it's much easier to do that when
I don't like wrestling. How's it doing

575
00:39:09.239 --> 00:39:12.880
last sixty two million last year?
What get rid of them? And when

576
00:39:12.920 --> 00:39:15.159
you quibble with that loss figure?
And we talked about how Brad Stiegel,

577
00:39:15.199 --> 00:39:19.880
in a sworn deposition in the two
thousand WW lawsuit puts the exact you know,

578
00:39:20.119 --> 00:39:22.840
on the record, sworn losses on
the books. It's pretty similar to

579
00:39:22.800 --> 00:39:25.519
what everyone is said about ninety nine
and two thousand. That aside, then

580
00:39:25.559 --> 00:39:30.320
you start leaning into well, you
know, once it became clear the WCW

581
00:39:30.960 --> 00:39:34.320
wasn't I didn't have a very bright
future in this new merged environment. We

582
00:39:34.360 --> 00:39:37.760
started putting more losses on their books
for things that they weren't necessarily responsible for

583
00:39:37.840 --> 00:39:43.320
to make other divisions of Turner Broadcasting
and Time Warner look better. And while

584
00:39:43.320 --> 00:39:47.239
that may also be true, is
anyone suggesting that they would have been profitable

585
00:39:47.320 --> 00:39:52.559
under any method of accounting. WCW
is a unit even if all of those

586
00:39:52.639 --> 00:39:55.519
losses weren't piled on to their books. I mean, these are staggering numbers

587
00:39:55.519 --> 00:39:59.719
we're talking about. And when people
mention a sixty two million Brian or eighty

588
00:39:59.719 --> 00:40:02.159
million, and you well know the
I think the defensive thing is to lean

589
00:40:02.199 --> 00:40:05.639
in and say, well, actually
that loss isn't what it appears to be,

590
00:40:05.679 --> 00:40:07.519
but it wouldn't have been a profit. And that's what's key here.

591
00:40:07.559 --> 00:40:09.599
We're talking about revenue. Were talking
about money in the door. We're not

592
00:40:09.639 --> 00:40:14.199
talking about profit on the other side, when you play all the accounting games

593
00:40:14.239 --> 00:40:16.440
to make it look like you actually
lost money when you maybe the figures are

594
00:40:16.480 --> 00:40:21.039
there year over year in the same
markets. They're coming back to buildings and

595
00:40:21.079 --> 00:40:23.639
doing half of what they did year
before. It's I know that, But

596
00:40:23.679 --> 00:40:29.280
think about this. Okay, let's
say that WCW was generating two hundred million

597
00:40:29.280 --> 00:40:32.760
dollars a year. Okay, two
hundred million dollars. Yeah, and okay,

598
00:40:34.199 --> 00:40:37.079
other divisions in turn are not doing
so well, so we move a

599
00:40:37.119 --> 00:40:40.599
little bit of money over to bolster
up those divisions. So WCW is now

600
00:40:40.639 --> 00:40:44.719
on the books making one hundred and
ten million and ninety million of that is

601
00:40:44.719 --> 00:40:49.400
going to help bolster other whatever.
Okay, you're gonna get rid of WCW.

602
00:40:51.480 --> 00:40:52.800
I don't know. I mean that. That's no, that seems to

603
00:40:52.840 --> 00:40:55.440
be the claim that everybody's making.
Maybe, like my god, this thing's

604
00:40:55.480 --> 00:40:59.000
making a one hundred and ten million
plus we're being able to move some money

605
00:40:59.039 --> 00:41:00.440
over to make some other divisions look
good. Right, No, you don't

606
00:41:00.440 --> 00:41:04.840
get rid of WCW. You get
rid of WCW when it's that big a

607
00:41:04.920 --> 00:41:09.320
sixty two million dollars drain, and
it's a drain because of Creative. You

608
00:41:09.360 --> 00:41:13.840
can talk all day about everything else, but it's a drain because they made

609
00:41:13.880 --> 00:41:15.840
the wrong decisions on who won,
who lost, and who was featured.

610
00:41:16.039 --> 00:41:21.079
I'm not saying WW would have survived
forever if they pushed Chris Jericho in nineteen

611
00:41:21.159 --> 00:41:24.800
ninety nine, but I am saying
that everything comes back to what the numbers

612
00:41:24.840 --> 00:41:30.239
reflected because of the decisions you made. Sorry, Yeah, I think that

613
00:41:30.239 --> 00:41:32.880
that we'll never know, obviously,
unless we can find our way to another

614
00:41:32.960 --> 00:41:42.400
timeline. But I think that had
they had they not collapsed. Honestly,

615
00:41:42.440 --> 00:41:47.599
I think they might even still be
around because the ashes of WCW or TNA,

616
00:41:47.679 --> 00:41:52.960
which has managed to stay around.
So I think that in some form

617
00:41:53.039 --> 00:41:58.039
or fashion, we might still have
a WCW today. And you know,

618
00:41:59.280 --> 00:42:06.519
history is in pops possible to you
know, look at WWE, I mean

619
00:42:07.280 --> 00:42:12.320
super Hot and then WCW died and
they didn't collapse because they found ways to

620
00:42:12.519 --> 00:42:15.840
generate revenue in other ways, but
they did drive off fans for you know,

621
00:42:16.400 --> 00:42:21.880
quite a while, and they hit
you know, a creative absolute down

622
00:42:21.920 --> 00:42:24.400
period in twenty nineteen, and you
know, in twenty nineteen they weren't as

623
00:42:24.400 --> 00:42:29.840
bad as WCW, but they were
seeing year over year double digit declines in

624
00:42:29.840 --> 00:42:34.599
a lot of different areas. And
they turned it around and today they're bigger

625
00:42:34.599 --> 00:42:37.360
than they have ever been. I
mean significantly bigger than they ever were in

626
00:42:37.440 --> 00:42:42.320
the Monday Night Wars, not as
many people watching, but I mean way

627
00:42:42.400 --> 00:42:45.599
television is now, it's impossible for
that to happen. But I mean,

628
00:42:45.840 --> 00:42:47.880
you know, WCW, maybe if
they hadn't died, they could have turned

629
00:42:47.920 --> 00:42:52.800
it around. But you know,
they they collapsed in such a spectacular way

630
00:42:52.519 --> 00:42:58.119
that I mean it was inevitable they
were done. And as they bleed over

631
00:42:58.280 --> 00:43:00.840
on episode two in the nineteen ninety
nine and Bischoff's departure in September of that

632
00:43:00.920 --> 00:43:04.800
year, basically Harvey Schiller sending him
home and that's how the episode ends.

633
00:43:05.920 --> 00:43:08.760
We do miss that that key moment. JP. We've talked about this and

634
00:43:09.039 --> 00:43:12.400
Bishof will be the first person to
say this was in a disaster. No

635
00:43:12.440 --> 00:43:16.000
one defends this. The rebranding campaign
in April of ninety nine, I mean,

636
00:43:16.239 --> 00:43:21.559
what a component did you talk about
sucking the life out of the esthetic

637
00:43:21.639 --> 00:43:27.719
And I mean who enjoy WCW with
that logo and that gray apron. I

638
00:43:27.719 --> 00:43:30.760
mean, I remember part of this. I remember the first time I saw

639
00:43:30.800 --> 00:43:34.199
that logo and I was just like, what the fuck is that? What

640
00:43:34.360 --> 00:43:37.639
is that abomination? That's I don't
even know what that was like. It

641
00:43:37.679 --> 00:43:42.960
took me, I think it took
me until maybe we started doing this podcast

642
00:43:43.000 --> 00:43:46.679
to figure out how the WCW was
actually formed in that in that bizarre splotch

643
00:43:46.679 --> 00:43:51.840
of a logo. Yeah, and
they did a new set and they booked

644
00:43:51.840 --> 00:43:54.559
a lot of stuff that that was
sort of back to the future in terms

645
00:43:54.559 --> 00:43:58.639
of like, you know, suddenly
Hogan's back beating Savage for the world title.

646
00:43:58.880 --> 00:44:02.239
He's wearing the the white and black, but he's basically back to red

647
00:44:02.280 --> 00:44:06.800
and yellow Hogan in terms of uber
babyface. I remember that nitro that he

648
00:44:06.800 --> 00:44:09.440
did that he would be back in
and by mid ninety nine anyway, Yeah,

649
00:44:09.480 --> 00:44:13.159
and then when when he went back
to the yellow tights forget about It's

650
00:44:13.199 --> 00:44:15.519
like, Okay, we really don't
have a plan here. I'm not saying

651
00:44:15.559 --> 00:44:17.800
that people hated it when he did
that, which they did in terms of

652
00:44:17.920 --> 00:44:22.079
voting with their wallets, but it
was like, Okay, we really don't

653
00:44:22.079 --> 00:44:24.320
have anything here but what Hulk wants
to do in any given month. Brian,

654
00:44:24.360 --> 00:44:28.079
what do you remember about that rebranding
campaign? Do you look back on

655
00:44:28.400 --> 00:44:31.000
that version of WCW is just hopeless. I just I can't help but mark

656
00:44:31.079 --> 00:44:36.760
that as I jumped the Shark's funny
about it is like throughout history I've heard

657
00:44:37.480 --> 00:44:42.800
from people like within companies and particularly
production people, and they get so excited

658
00:44:42.800 --> 00:44:45.400
about these rebranding like we're gonna have
a new logo, and we're gonna have

659
00:44:45.400 --> 00:44:51.239
a new set, and we're gonna
have and you know, it's like fans

660
00:44:51.239 --> 00:44:55.039
don't give a shit. They never
do. It's like no one cares except

661
00:44:55.039 --> 00:44:58.960
for the people that are like building
the set. Remember it, same thing

662
00:44:59.000 --> 00:45:00.360
with like Dynamite. Remember they we'd
have like a new set and they were

663
00:45:00.320 --> 00:45:05.159
going to remember Impact. Remember that. Yeah, it's like it's like none

664
00:45:05.199 --> 00:45:07.920
of it. Well, Actually,
the TNA rebranding for that one show did

665
00:45:07.960 --> 00:45:13.159
really well because for reasons I cannot
fathom, having also watched some of TNA

666
00:45:13.239 --> 00:45:16.639
over again, I mean, why
do people romanticize about this? What's wrong

667
00:45:16.679 --> 00:45:20.880
with them? But that would work, But like for a day now it's

668
00:45:20.920 --> 00:45:23.320
right back. That's it, so
you like WCW is like, Okay,

669
00:45:23.320 --> 00:45:27.880
we got some big problems. The
booking fucking sucks. We got no stars.

670
00:45:27.920 --> 00:45:30.599
Everybody is turning out in droves or
watching the other you know what,

671
00:45:30.199 --> 00:45:35.440
Let's rebrand, Let's have a new
set. Yeah, and you know you

672
00:45:35.559 --> 00:45:37.679
just watched the new set and it's
like, okay, I mean you cared

673
00:45:37.679 --> 00:45:40.559
about it way more than I did. I was busy watching the horrible show

674
00:45:40.639 --> 00:45:45.199
that was wrapped around. Well that's
yeah. Maybe it's just I associate the

675
00:45:45.199 --> 00:45:50.440
two in my mind because things you
probably do did get much worse. Yeah,

676
00:45:50.519 --> 00:45:52.599
yeah, because it was they were
out of ideas. I mean they

677
00:45:52.639 --> 00:45:55.440
had they had lost the plot in
so many ways, and me ww F

678
00:45:55.480 --> 00:45:58.960
had been kicking their ass for a
straight year. At that point, Austin

679
00:45:59.039 --> 00:46:01.639
was hotter than ever, just wasn't
wasn't going well. So maybe that's I

680
00:46:01.719 --> 00:46:05.800
want to say before we have to
wrap it up. There's two things I

681
00:46:05.800 --> 00:46:08.280
want to say, Oh please do
I don't have time to like really go

682
00:46:08.400 --> 00:46:12.400
into it because it would take me
like an hour. But you know we

683
00:46:12.400 --> 00:46:15.039
were talking about earlier. What did
you you know, would you rewrite the

684
00:46:15.039 --> 00:46:17.639
book or write anything different or what
did you learn it. There are things

685
00:46:17.639 --> 00:46:21.920
that I did learn that are not
even in the tenth anniversary edition because I

686
00:46:21.960 --> 00:46:25.960
learned them afterwards doing the rewatch.
The first thing is that if you want

687
00:46:25.960 --> 00:46:32.480
to know when the wheels first started
falling off this wagon, like the very

688
00:46:32.599 --> 00:46:37.280
first time that in rewatching it,
I went, Okay, what the fuck's

689
00:46:37.320 --> 00:46:43.639
going on on the show? It
was when Eric joined the nWo one.

690
00:46:43.840 --> 00:46:46.199
So I don't know if that was
like late ninety six or early ninety seven

691
00:46:46.320 --> 00:46:51.320
or when it was, but he
joined the nWo when he started coming out

692
00:46:51.360 --> 00:46:55.360
with him every week and literally that
was right when all of a sudden it

693
00:46:55.440 --> 00:46:58.800
was like, wait a second,
you were going to do this, and

694
00:46:58.840 --> 00:47:02.440
then you did that. And I
think it was when he became a character.

695
00:47:04.599 --> 00:47:07.719
Then he was so concerned about what
he was doing on TV as a

696
00:47:07.800 --> 00:47:13.800
character that the effort that he was
putting into actually booking the show started to

697
00:47:14.320 --> 00:47:17.840
falter. Interesting, So I could
talk about that and the other thing that

698
00:47:17.880 --> 00:47:21.039
was late ninety six, by the
way, before we move on from it,

699
00:47:21.039 --> 00:47:22.639
that was late ninety six. Yeah, that was when we first watched

700
00:47:22.639 --> 00:47:27.280
the shows and it was like this
show, some weird's going on in this

701
00:47:27.320 --> 00:47:30.239
show. That was the first time
was when he joined the nWo. And

702
00:47:30.280 --> 00:47:31.840
then the other thing I want to
mention is, since we're talking about Goldberg

703
00:47:31.880 --> 00:47:37.079
and Nash and Nash complaining about Goldberg, what I really noticed when I watched

704
00:47:37.239 --> 00:47:42.119
WCW the first time, I also
thought, you know, this Goldberg guy

705
00:47:42.159 --> 00:47:46.960
is green, not very good,
kind of sucks. But when I watched

706
00:47:47.039 --> 00:47:53.000
his second time, it really hit
me that Goldberg's strength was that he was

707
00:47:53.079 --> 00:48:00.280
green. Goldberg was a phenomenon because
when he came out, it was unlike

708
00:48:00.360 --> 00:48:04.920
anything else. It was not just
that he never lost, because we've seen

709
00:48:04.960 --> 00:48:07.000
a million member Crimson. I mean, you could go through a history of

710
00:48:07.000 --> 00:48:10.880
guys they tried to make Goldberg and
their solution was he just never loses.

711
00:48:12.639 --> 00:48:17.079
But what Goldberg had was the same
thing that brock Lesner had, who also,

712
00:48:17.119 --> 00:48:20.679
by the way, was one of
the biggest stars in draws, you

713
00:48:20.679 --> 00:48:24.280
know, WWE ever had when he
was in his you know, they were

714
00:48:24.320 --> 00:48:29.639
wild animals and when they came out, it was like, oh my god,

715
00:48:30.000 --> 00:48:34.440
like somebody could die in this match. And obviously the downside is a

716
00:48:34.480 --> 00:48:37.079
lot of people did get hurt.
But you know, you would watch those

717
00:48:37.119 --> 00:48:42.000
shows even in ninety eight when Goldberg
would come out and murder somebody. It

718
00:48:42.119 --> 00:48:45.440
was like you would watch this show
and it would be terrible, hokey,

719
00:48:45.039 --> 00:48:49.719
angle sucked, matches were bad.
But then all of a sudden, this

720
00:48:49.760 --> 00:48:52.639
Goldberg would come out and it felt
like you were in ninety six again because

721
00:48:52.679 --> 00:48:57.119
the crowd went nuts for this guy
and he would just get in the ring

722
00:48:57.239 --> 00:49:01.039
and he would maul somebody, and
it was like it was like watching a

723
00:49:01.119 --> 00:49:05.559
UFC, almost like an early UFC
where I don't know what the fuck's gonna

724
00:49:05.559 --> 00:49:07.559
happen, and he just like even
when the thing was terrible, like he

725
00:49:07.599 --> 00:49:12.159
had that feud with Tank Abbott,
that feud was fun. You know,

726
00:49:12.559 --> 00:49:16.760
Goldberg his strength was that he was
a wild animal. And if he had

727
00:49:16.840 --> 00:49:22.760
been like a good technical worker,
everything smooth, he wouldn't have been Goldberg.

728
00:49:23.199 --> 00:49:27.599
So I really learned that watching the
second time, that as much as

729
00:49:27.599 --> 00:49:30.880
people complained about how he sucked and
he couldn't work and he was sloppy and

730
00:49:30.920 --> 00:49:35.719
this and that, that's what made
him work. That and being undefeated was

731
00:49:35.760 --> 00:49:38.119
what made him work. And can
I suggest that even if he was the

732
00:49:38.159 --> 00:49:42.960
best worker in the business with that
exact same winning streak, he would have

733
00:49:42.960 --> 00:49:45.280
had the shark circling. He would
have had the shark circling. That was

734
00:49:45.360 --> 00:49:50.519
just you know, that was the
reason served up to reposition things because here

735
00:49:50.559 --> 00:49:52.679
was a guy that was gonna be
the cash cow. Here's the guy JP.

736
00:49:52.199 --> 00:49:54.599
Just listen to Brad Siegel. You
know, if you're gonna put the

737
00:49:54.599 --> 00:50:00.559
blame at Brad Siegel's door for not
resuscitating WCW when he took over in nineteen

738
00:50:00.639 --> 00:50:05.480
ninety nine after the departure of Harvey
Schiller, as I'm coming around to that

739
00:50:05.519 --> 00:50:07.800
thesis in terms of like, if
you have to say one person, it

740
00:50:07.920 --> 00:50:12.199
might be him, because he didn't
lean into improvements. He leaned into going

741
00:50:12.239 --> 00:50:14.880
back to what didn't work, and
he was the one with the ultimate decision

742
00:50:14.880 --> 00:50:17.280
making authority in terms of the Turner
hierarchy. He just said it in the

743
00:50:17.280 --> 00:50:23.119
documentary Goldberg was the play that that's
the answer. They shifted away from Goldberg

744
00:50:23.159 --> 00:50:27.000
at a time when that made the
most sense up and down the corporate ladder.

745
00:50:28.119 --> 00:50:30.760
Yeah, I mean that that's I
mean, that's not uh uh,

746
00:50:31.800 --> 00:50:35.599
that's not news, you know,
Like I mean, I think that's that's

747
00:50:35.599 --> 00:50:39.360
the that's the thing. Like it
they you turn away from your hottest I

748
00:50:39.400 --> 00:50:44.000
mean, it's the dumbest thing.
It's like, it's like you're selling a

749
00:50:44.079 --> 00:50:46.280
you know, it's like selling a
new the brand new you know, uh,

750
00:50:47.320 --> 00:50:51.800
like iPhone that you can you know, not only does it does it

751
00:50:51.880 --> 00:50:53.880
take these incredible photos, but also
it can do your taxes, It can

752
00:50:53.920 --> 00:50:58.000
clean up your kitchen, the whole, the whole fucking kaboodle. But you

753
00:50:58.039 --> 00:51:00.880
know what, we're gonna take it
away from you. Can't have it,

754
00:51:02.079 --> 00:51:07.039
can't have it because one day he
might get booed more than he gets cheered.

755
00:51:07.320 --> 00:51:10.679
But instead of waiting for that day, we'll act Brian like that day

756
00:51:10.719 --> 00:51:14.400
is today. So they close with
Bischoff, as you've said, and we'll

757
00:51:14.400 --> 00:51:16.519
close our episode here with him sort
of looking out on the Wyoming wilderness.

758
00:51:16.559 --> 00:51:21.599
And he mentioned this thing where he
was accused and I guess is exonerated of

759
00:51:21.599 --> 00:51:23.400
misuse of funds. Schuler calls him
into the office. That was new to

760
00:51:23.440 --> 00:51:30.000
me that he was he never heard
it. There was so much gone,

761
00:51:30.159 --> 00:51:34.639
so much swirling around back then.
It's like, but to me, I

762
00:51:34.679 --> 00:51:37.920
can't escape this, and I'll leave
with this is because we started talking about

763
00:51:37.920 --> 00:51:42.079
Bischoff. The episode starts talking about
Bischoff and ends talking about Bischoff. There

764
00:51:42.119 --> 00:51:46.599
was a point when Bischoff pitched that
he disappeared on a plane. Okay,

765
00:51:46.719 --> 00:51:51.000
that was the angle We're gonna get
buzz thinking that Eric Bischoff has died in

766
00:51:51.039 --> 00:51:52.960
a plane crash because he has a
he has a pilot's license, or at

767
00:51:53.039 --> 00:51:58.480
least he's he's disappeared into you know, the vortex. I mean, what

768
00:51:58.480 --> 00:52:05.039
does that say says this is a
bad idea. But amazingly he didn't do

769
00:52:05.079 --> 00:52:07.199
it that well. They did would
let him. I mean, according to

770
00:52:07.440 --> 00:52:10.480
what Schiller said in the Nitro book
and what others have said about that idea,

771
00:52:10.519 --> 00:52:13.159
they just didn't. They he came
back, he tried to do it

772
00:52:13.159 --> 00:52:15.079
again in ninety nine. That was
just but to me, like you can't

773
00:52:15.119 --> 00:52:20.880
underestimate how much Bishoff became sort of
a I don't want to say desperate,

774
00:52:20.920 --> 00:52:27.079
but it just it just became abundantly
clear that there wasn't another well of creativity

775
00:52:27.360 --> 00:52:30.039
to reach into when the nWo stopped
working. And I think, I think

776
00:52:30.039 --> 00:52:35.000
that's it. So Brian, keep
in touch. We're really happy that you

777
00:52:35.000 --> 00:52:37.599
took the time to revisit this.
I know it's a painful, yet,

778
00:52:37.639 --> 00:52:40.800
as you said, profitable subject for
you, So not a problem. But

779
00:52:42.159 --> 00:52:44.159
what do you hope for the rest
of the series. I mean that there's

780
00:52:44.199 --> 00:52:46.079
a couple of episodes still to go. I got to watch the Vince russ

781
00:52:46.159 --> 00:52:50.000
one next week. I'm not looking
forward to it at all. I'm not

782
00:52:50.039 --> 00:52:52.320
looking forward to it at all,
dude, Very quickly, this week was

783
00:52:52.360 --> 00:52:59.639
all about how everything in WW that
was great man, Eric was a visionary,

784
00:53:00.199 --> 00:53:05.440
my man, everything that went wrong
was somebody else's fault. And I

785
00:53:05.480 --> 00:53:07.800
mean there were a couple of things
where like he couldn't help but say it

786
00:53:07.880 --> 00:53:10.440
sucked. But I mean, you
know, he's a carnie, he's a

787
00:53:10.480 --> 00:53:14.519
worker. You say, oh,
and I knew that kind of thing sucked.

788
00:53:14.559 --> 00:53:16.440
So you take a little bit of
blame and then you can shift the

789
00:53:16.480 --> 00:53:21.480
blame to everybody else. But I'm
not sure I can handle an hour of

790
00:53:21.559 --> 00:53:25.320
Vince brus Will blaming everybody else for
his shitty booking. It'll be interesting,

791
00:53:25.519 --> 00:53:29.000
that that's for sure. That that's
why we're still talking about it. So

792
00:53:29.559 --> 00:53:31.440
next episode coming, we'll be back
with you to talk about episode three.

793
00:53:31.519 --> 00:53:34.960
Brian Alvarez, thank you so much
for being with us here in episode two.

794
00:53:35.559 --> 00:53:37.280
All right, thanks for having me. We'll see you next time on

795
00:53:37.440 --> 00:53:52.199
TLF tackles Who Killed w C.
Wil is a production of the Lab Entertainment

796
00:53:52.199 --> 00:54:00.599
Group. It's content is intended for
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