WCW is remembered by wrestling fans as a promotion owned by Ted Turner and employed a southern style of wrestling. It reached
its peak in the late 90’s with the nWo storyline and with the signings of the biggest names in the industry. It was able to pirate from the WWE big name wrestlers such as Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage, Roddy Piper, Lex Luger, Bret Hart, Kevin Nash and Scott Hall. However, things started to unravel in a few years and WCW closed shop in 2001. According to the book “The Death of WCW” by R.D. Reynolds and Bryan Alvarez, WCW died because of the following reasons:1)David Arquette won the WCW championship – This did a lot to discredit the WCW championship and reduced its value to a mere trinket instead of being the biggest prize in sports
entertainment. David Arquette was a famous Hollywood actor but it isn’t believable that he could become WCW champion. This was probably done to promote Ready to Rumble more than anything else.
2)The Fingerpoke of Doom – With the nWo Black and White and the nWo Wolfpac bashing each other week after week, this incident was a good way of reuniting the nWo into a bigger and stronger faction. However, this also served to devalue the WCW belt as it changed hands in such a manner that it was given away rather than competed for.
3)Creative Control given to Big Name Wrestlers – In order to lure and keep big name wrestlers in their stable, WCW granted them “creative control” over their character and they had a strong influence in terms of booking. This lead to older big name wrestlers becoming champions most of the time and the young but deserving talent not getting the right push and opportunities.
4)The nWo Storyline – As instrumental as the nWowas in taking the company to the top, it was also instrumental in bringing the company down. It was a simple case of going to the well too many times. People always something new and fresh. They would not go for recycled
storylines.
5)Guaranteed Contracts – This is something professional sports should get rid of. Look at the NBA for instance. There are so many lazy players that do not give it their all simply because they know at the back of their mind they have huge guranteed contracts. Just look at the Kwame Browns, the Eddy Currys and the Darius Mileses. Now compare that to WCW which handed out guaranteed contracts to big name wrestlers like candy. This caused wrestlers to slack off and be lazy instead of producing four or five star matches.
6)Backstage Politics – Not only does this apply to the company you work in but to wrestling as well. The big name wrestlers pulled their weight around and got the money, the power, the matches and the titles. the younger wrestlers were buried and reduced to midcarders or jobbers.7)Vince Russo – Vince Russo was brought in to get creative ideas in WCW but he had so many botched storylines. Plus he won the WCW belt and further reduced its credibility.8)The Merger – When AOL and Time Warner were merging, AOL wanted to eliminate wrestling as it was not family friendly. They did everything they could to kill WCW. They even scared away a potential buyer by not giving it a time slot in the Turner networks.
9)Bad Booking – Give the fans what they want to see. The peaking WCW featured matches like Hogan vs Goldberg and The Outsiders vs Harlem Heat. The declining WCW featured mid carders like Jeff Jarrett and Booker T winning the championship belt. The matches were also awful and story lines made no sense.
10)The Exodus of Eric Bischoff – Eric is the man who made WCW successful through good storylines, quality booking and signing big name wrestlers. He also was a good heel character to boot. Why force him out of WCW television?