The final WCW Monday Night Nitro on TNT took place on March 26th, 2001. There was something of an air of finality to the show, as the talent all knew that something had changed, and many of the fans seem aware as well. No one was certain exactly what had changed, though. There were strong rumors that WCW had been sold - which would turn out to be accurate - but no one seemed to have clear knowledge of to whom the sale had been made or what it meant for the future of World Championship Wrestling.
Or if World Championship Wrestling had a future at all.
The show had been promoted on the WCW website and ads on TNT as the "final Monday Night Nitro". The only direct on-air references to the coming change were from Tony Schiavone. Early in the broadcast, he mentioned that this would be the final Monday Night Nitro, and later stated that this would be the final time WCW would be on TNT. No further detail was provided to either statement. Given Schiavone's lack of credibility with most fans, its doubtful a detailed explanation would have helped anyway.
After the March 26th Nitro, WCW disappeared, for all intents and purposes. What would emerge several months down the road was a vastly different entity.
Determined fans could locate information on what was happening. Ironically, it was easier to find the information on third party sites, as the WCW website carried the details but oddly made them difficult to locate. Simply put, World Championship Wrestling had been sold and its programming was being moved from TNT.
The new ownership group was Fusient Media Ventures. The investor group was headed by none other than Eric Bischoff, who regained his position as company President. The purchase of World Championship Wrestling from AOL Time-Warner was a complicated process which had taken months to complete. The final purchase price was just under $8 million. AOL Time-Warner was ready to accept less, but interest from Vince McMahon forced Fusient to drive their offer up at the last minute, in addition to structuring the offer in a manner that Bischoff was never happy with. While the ownership group avoided taking on any debt or pending lawsuits, there were several contracts which were not part of the sale as they were directly with the previous ownership group. As such, talent like Ric Flair, Rey Mysterio, Bill Goldberg, Sting, Kevin Nash, and others were not part of the sale.
Also not part of the sale was WCW's broadcast slots with TNT and TBS. The media giant decided in early March that all WCW programming would be removed from its channels, regardless of any pending sale. This decision almost killed the sale to Fusient. The pending sale was salvaged by Bischoff's successful bid to secure a deal a Fox, which would put WCW back on the air.
It would be fair to say that WCW got a raw deal from Fox. Nitro was given a weekly 2-hour slot on Wednesday nights, starting at 10pm, on Fox Sports Net. The promotion got precious little per episode and a minuscule cut of the advertising revenue (what little of that there was). Fox was able to take advantage of the obvious desperation of Bischoff, but the deal kept WCW on the air. Unfortunately, the first broadcast would not be until June, so Nitro would be off air for more than two full months. Although this was known at the time of the final TNT Nitro, that network would not allow the switch to FSN to be explained, advertised, or even referenced.
On June 6th, 2001, the 285th episode of WCW Nitro aired on Fox Sports Net. The episode of Nitro kicked off with WCW's new stylized red logo and a very basic intro video. It was immediately clear to anyone watching (and anyone in attendance at the taping) that this was no longer the same World Championship Wrestling that had brought the mighty WWF to its knees. The taping had been done a week prior at the John H. Lewis Gymnasium in Atlanta. The set used was basic and austere, all bare metal and dark colors, with the new red WCW logo splashed here and there. There were no pyrotechnics and the crowd could barely be seen in near-darkness, save for the ring itself. There was a definite and undeniable drop in the overall production values, with the use of just a few basic camera angles. Everything had a had a more basic and "gritty" feel that some have compared to the NWO Souled Out pay per view set used back in 1997.
In prototypical WCW fashion, there were some problems. Shiavone referred to the show as "Monday Night Nitro" several times, despite the Wednesday night timeslot. When four cruiserweights – Billy Kidman, Chavo Guerrero, Elix Skipper, and Jason Jett - came out for a tag team match, it was obvious that no one was quite sure whom was supposed to be teamed with whom. Referee Billy Silverman had to sort things out for the wrestlers before the match could commence. Several of the promos seemed to be intended to do nothing more than fill time, as the wrestlers just talked aimlessly. Such snafus were even more headache-inducing when ones considers that they should have been edited out in post-production yet were not.
There were good moments on that first FSN Nitro as well. One highlight was WCW World Heavyweight champion Booker T cutting a solid in-ring promo about his determination to defend his world title against the dastardly number one contender. This still held some humor, as this mystery challenger was never identified by either the champion or the commentators. The showed culminated in a very good main event between Lance Storm and Hugh Morrus, with the smaller Canadian showing toughness as he took the win over his bigger opponent. At nearly 20 minutes, it was easily the longest TV main event WCW had seen in a long time. It was also notable simply for the fact that Storm and Morrus were main eventing.
The main event of that first Fox Sports Net Nitro highlighted what would become a major problem for WCW - talent. As in, lack of it. That's not to say the likes of Booker T, Lance Storm, and Hugh Morrus are not talented wrestlers. Rather, there was not enough other talent on the roster. Not when trying to fill two hours of wrestling programming each week. It was an ironic reversal of fortunes for World Championship Wrestling, who featured a bloated roster through much of their late 90s heyday, with more contracted talent than they could hope to feature. As is so often the case with WCW, the circumstances that resulted in the promotion having a dearth of talent available in June of 2001 is not simple nor clear.
Eric Bischoff and his advisors reportedly looked at the sale as an opportunity to "clean house" with regard to the talent. As previously mentioned, some of the more notable names were contracted directly to AOL Time Warner and therefore remained under contract until their deal expired or were "bought out". Beyond the uncertainty that surrounded those talents, Bischoff was looking at reducing the number of "lower card" talents and non-wrestling talents. Though these were all amongst the lowest-earners on the WCW roster, they were still numerous. There was no more endless fountain of money to pay for every unneeded, wasteful extravagance that could be conceived of. Eric Bischoff and WCW now had to be fiscally responsible. “ATM Eric” no more.
Only two wrestlers chose to have their contracts with AOL Time Warner to be bought out during this period rather than being paid out for their duration. They were Scott Steiner and Diamond Dallas Page, two key talents who had very different motivations. It cost both men money to take that option. DDP signed with WCW again almost immediately, taking a significant pay-cut to do so – an uncommon display of loyalty to the promotion. Steiner would make no such display – he believed he could score a big money contract with Vince McMahon...
Ironically enough, the transfer of ownership became official on April 1st, 2001. Although it may not have been an intentional decision, the company did show the good sense not to send out any of the contract termination notifications with that date on them. Those were still under contract and expected to remain so were contracted by the company and given a brief explanation of the situation - Nitro would be on FSN beginning in June, but there would be no shows until the TV tapings resumed.
It is not entirely clear exactly where the contract mess began during WCW's downtime, but the commonly mentioned culprits are Sean O'Haire, Lex Luger, and Buff Bagwell. Though the parties involved have never publicly confirmed nor denied the story, it is typically accepted that WCW notified some (or perhaps all) of the more highly paid talent that the promotion would be activating the "unable to perform" clause of their contracts during the downtime. These talent were on exclusive, guaranteed contracts, and that clause was intended to allow the promotion to pay a reduced salary during periods of injury, suspension, etc. While some of the workers were willing to accept this, others were not. Luger supposedly told Bischoff that he was able to perform and WCW had no right to invoke that clause, so therefore the veteran considered WCW to have defaulted on the contract. Luger considered himself a free agent and began shopping his services. Word spread and much of the rest of the roster followed
The timing of this problem could not have been worse. Bischoff and his staff were reportedly working 18 to 20 hours per day 7 days per week in an effort to get things running smoothly again for the June start up. The new WCW management team was a skeleton crew compared to what WCW had in its heyday, and figuring everything out post-sale was a logistical nightmare. For example, the purchase had included far less of the production equipment than anticipated. Supposedly, the fact that much of that production equipment used by WCW was leased or borrowed was included in the "due diligence" report but it was somehow overlooked. While it may have been possible to transfer the leases over over to the new management, no such arrangements were made until it was too late. Similarly, the office equipment that had been used by the WCW front office was also not owned by promotion and therefore not included in the sale – so while the streamlined promotion moved to a new headquarters, new office equipment had to be obtained. So while Bischoff was scrambling to deal with issues like this, a large portion of the roster that WCW wanted to retain decided they were free agents and began to act as such.
Were they actually free agents? O'Haire supposedly sought expert legal advice before he decided that he was no longer bound by the contract he had signed with WCW. Arguments have been made - even occasionally by those with more than a passing knowledge of the American legal system - in both directions. It was the kind of dispute which could require legal arbitration or even a court case to figure out. It never went that far.
When the realization of the gravity of the situation that had developed became clear, Bischoff reportedly went into panic mode. He began contacting the talent individually, using varied approaches to try to convince them to stay. Guys like Booker T, Chris Kanyon, and Lance Storm agreed quite quickly, signing new contracts that used a WWE-style downside-guarantee system rather than an actual guaranteed contract. Others were not as decisive. There was interest from the WWE in some of the talent and that was difficult opportunity to pass up, especially given the uncertainty that surrounded World Championship Wrestling. Many have since admitted that they were not certain WCW would ever return from its two-month hiatus. Bischoff persuaded, convinced, cajoled, begged, and even threatened. Some talent were told that if they didn't return to honor their contract, they would be burning a bridge with WCW and would never be welcomed back. With ECW gone and no other larger independent promotions around, there were limited options on the American wrestling scene.
For its part, the World Wrestling Federation was not as aggressive as it could have been. When they were contacted by some of the WCW talent, they became aware of the situation and reached out to other talent they had some interest in. Offers were made. Vince McMahon, however, refused to offer anything above what they considered "market value" for the talent. Though the promotion could most certainly afford it at that point, the view that McMahon took was that WCW would not survive very long under the ownership of Bischoff, so overpaying for most of the talent simply didn't make sense when that same talent could be signed for less in a year or so.
The WWE could have put WCW into an untenable position if they had chosen to steal away much of the roster. It also would have certainly lead to lawsuits. The WWE instead focused on specific talents that they were particularly interested in. This supposedly included Scott Steiner, most of the Natural Born Killers group, Mike Awesome, Stacy Kiebler and Torrie Wilson, and a few of the younger guys. Kiebler and Wilson were both offered large contracts, but with the idea that they would be full Divas. Though neither had much desire to be full-time wrestlers, Wilson still took the offer while Kiebler rejected it.
Before the Nitro tapings began in late May, WCW had lost Shawn Stasiak, Chuck Palumbo, The Wall, Lash LaRoux, Kid Romeo, Mike Sanders, Kwee Wee, Shannon Moore, and Evan Karagias, in addition to Torrie Wilson. Most of them were signed with the knowledge that they would be considered developmental talent, and some of them took less money than they were making with WCW. Did the WWE even have the right to sign these workers? Again, this is unclear. Since Bischoff decided against pursuing legal action, it was never determined. There was reportedly some contact between Bischoff and Vince McMahon during this period. Whatever the content of those conversations, it was enough to convince the WCW President to accept the losses rather than engage in a legal fight than the promotion simply could not afford.
Although it took some time, Bischoff was able to convince Scott Steiner, Mike Awesome, and Sean O'Haire to remain with WCW, giving all three men new contracts with the same downside-guarantee structure as the other new deals. Steiner never got the huge payday he had been seeking, with the stories of his heated meetings with Vince McMahon becoming part of the professional wrestling urban legend pantheon. There were a number of WCW workers who knew they would not be welcome in the WWE for various reasons and so there was never much danger they would leave. Jeff Jarrett and Shane Douglas fell into this group. Amusingly, there were two workers who were absolutely convinced they would be welcomed into the WWE and so they supposedly tore into Bischoff when he contacted them. They made it clear that he was the reason that WCW had failed and would be the reason it would die soon enough. However, it would turn out that neither of the two workers were of much interest to the WWE. The two wrestlers - Lex Luger and Buff Bagwell - ended up on the outside looking in. One has to wonder if the satisfaction of telling off your boss was worth being unemployed over?
During this period of contract confusion, many of the WCW contracted talent accepted independent dates with smaller promotions in the United States, Canada, Mexico, and even a few in Japan. Given that most were on exclusive, guaranteed contracts, this could have constituted a breech of contract on the part of the talents. Again, in this situation, WCW management chose not to pursue the issue and simply moved forward.
Part of what made this whole contract situation even more problematic for Bischoff and WCW was that it was not entirely resolved when TV tapings resumed in late May. Steiner and O'Haire would not agree and return until mid-June. Many others agreed to return around the same time, likely encouraged by the first new TV tapings actually taking place. As previously stated, many of the workers have admitted that they really did not believe WCW would return after the sale to Bischoff.
An accusation that has often been levied against World Championship Wrestling is one of poor management. That is a encompassing, simplified, and yet somewhat-accurate explanation for how WCW went from a global entertainment entity worth hundreds of millions of dollars to a pariah worth just a few million in a few short years. Given that some of that management structure remained in place after the sale – notably Eric Bischoff – it should not be a shock that many of the elements of “poor management” remained in place. The entire contract chaos was indicative of a significant internal issue which had plagued WCW for some time – communication within the organization. Communication with the fans was as bad or worse, which is a particularly galling issue, given that the WCW website provided such an easy and cost-effective tool for keeping fans up-to-date. Inexplicably, the promotions website was rarely updated during the shutdown period.
Another significant issue that Bischoff had to deal with during the shutdown period was attempting to secure new sponsors for WCW. In its heyday, the promotion had been able to attract some lucrative sponsors. They had never appealed to the elite-level global sponsors (such as car manufacturers, high-end hotel hotel chains, financial institutions, etc), but they did manage to attract national-level sponsors who poured millions of dollars of revenue into the WCW empire. Every sponsor was lost when the promotion lost its TV deals and the search for new ones was not easy. Bischoff could not try to woo potential sponsors with glitz and glamor, as the finances simply would not allow him to roll out the red carpet in any significant way. The WCW President apparently refused to even take potential sponsors to the WCW headquarters, which had moved from the modern CNN Center to a small office complex in an industrial area of Atlanta. In the midst of dealing with the entire contracts mess and all the other issues, Bischoff did manage to secure a number of new sponsors, including Great Lakes Airlines, Rolling Rock Beer, Woods Brothers Racing, and several similar companies.
World Championship Wrestling emerged from the sale and two-month hiatus in a messy, uncertain state. However, the key point is simply that it did emerge. It survived.
It has often been speculated as to what would have happened to WCW if the sale to Bischoff and Fusient had fallen through. Despite the asking price for WCW having dropped massively, there was still limited interest. Mark Cuban was thought to be interested at one point but walked away due to the significant liabilities the promotion had. Vince McMahon was known to be very very interested, and did make a bid that forced Fusient to pay more. That bid has been the source point for a great deal of speculation, as no one but the man himself knows for certain what McMahon would have done. It was rumored he wanted to absorb WCW and create a "brand" within the WWE company for it, much as Raw and Smackdown were later made "separate". Other insiders indicate that McMahon really only coveted the WCW video library, which includes a lot of NWA action from the 1980s.
Eric Bischoff always has been and probably always will be a lightning rod for the wrestling industry, and its fans. He has taken a huge amount of criticism for both the decline that WCW underwent leading up to its sale and for much of what happened in the two years afterward. Its difficult to argue that he should be free from all that criticism. What he does not get enough credit for is his key role in ensuring that WCW survived.
