WHAT IF... WWF Went Out Of Business First

[ben.]

So the history now goes according to every Monday Night retrospective that Vince McMahon was fighting to keep the lights on from 1995-1997 so this is something I never really thought about:

 

What if the WWF went out of business first?

 

Things didn't turn around and Vince McMahon had to sell off WWF. Does Turner buy it or does someone else sweep in and buy it? In the interim because WWF guys don't have guaranteed contracts, who leaves to WCW? Or if WCW buys it, who do they keep? What happens to Vince McMahon? 

 

Lets set the date for this February of 1997 so this makes the WWF Championship vacant with Shawn Michaels "out with a knee injury", Bret, Austin, Vader, Taker and Sid feuding over the belt, Rocky Maivia having recently debuted, you have guys on the roster like Triple H, Mankind, Goldust, Ahmed Johnson, Faarooq, Flash Funk, Sultan, etc.

 

So how do we see the future years play out?

[greenbat]

Lots of leg drops brother.

[Andrew POE!]

I think what would happen would be the WWF would still be around -- they just wouldn't have a major TV deal during prime time or if they did, it would be for an hour. More than likely, I suspect that Vince McMahon would let his big stars like Bret Hart, Austin and HBK 'buy in' to curb the WWF's costs and get more profits from the WWF (so in other words, even if they don't show up on TV or are injured, they would still make money depending on ticket sales).

 

This would change the landscape (obviously no "Monday Night Wars" per se, less incentive for WWF stars to jump ship, WCW would likely to stay the same or become even more of a money pit, etc.)

 

If this scenario played out to today, the WWF would have likely had a different name or even broke up altogether.

[Niners Fan in CT]

The people running WCW could fuck up a cup of coffee so I would wager that if WWE goes out of business, WCW still goes out of business sometime in the mid 2000s. Vince basically starts over with a new promotion and eventually buys back into WWE and we still end up with WWE as the lone major promotion just a lot less popular.

I don't think WCW ever survives in the longterm with who they had in charge.

[muhammedboehm]

I agree that WCW likely still dies in some way...the thing to remember the death of WCW had to do as much with wrestling as it did with the AOL/TW merger and a change in leadership at Turner Broadcasting which didn't have the same view of wrestling that Uncle Ted did.

[The Nature Boy]

I can't see a scenario where the WWF goes completely out of business. As has already been said, Vince would've scaled back massively to keep things going until he could raise more money. We probably would've seen a bigger ECW vs. WWF Invasion angle so Vince could get some talent on the cheap. ECW and the WWF would've quasi-merged and the WWF would've likely returned to running the same Northeast venues they did pre-expansion. We would've seen a lot of WWF/ECW joint shows during this time. Shawn Michaels and Triple H likely jump ship because of the big money offers that WCW has handing out, Austin likely sticks around because he was fired from WCW just 2 years earlier and Taker probably ends up jumping ship.

 

The big question is what happens to WCW here. I see Bischoff having more leverage in negotiating a TV deal for them when Fusient buys them out. They're the only game in town and wrestling would be "dead" without them on the air. Bischoff likely takes the chance and buys WCW sans TV deal in this reality. I imagine that Bischoff uses his TV industry connections to at least get WCW Saturday Night on for an hour somewhere.

 

In 2001, we end up with a massively scaled down WCW, WWF and a thriving ECW. It's a much different landscape than we know and wrestling never goes through the Attitude Era boom. Pro Wrestling in 2014 is a niche "artform" that gets (at the highest) 2.0 ratings. 

[cwoy2j]

Agreed with The Nature Boy. I don't think Vince ever would've gone out of business, just scaled back drastically. 

[Hollywood Cibernetico]

I think Vince and Bischoff would have come to some type of deal/working agreement to buy WCW and merge EVERYTHING under one company. So we would have the same result today. Perhaps a different company name to represent this merger. The new company will own all of the WCW footage, trademarks, etc. and the company probably would take on few wrestlers than WWE did in 2001. Some company would pick them up and give them TV. Spike is the obvious candidate.

 

The more I think it out the more I think we would be EXACTLY were we are today (one company owning everything), but the power structure at top would be different and perhaps the company would be making less money and might be 5-7 years behind where they currently are.

[The Nature Boy]

Actually, I see Spike/TNN as the likely home of a Fusient-led WCW. USA would've kept Vince on with probably just an hour slot. Viacom never comes calling to lure Vince away because there is never a boom for the WWF. 

 

2001 comes around, TNN wants a wrestling show and WCW needs a home. As a result, we get WCW Saturday Night on TNN. I don't see Vince having enough capital in 2001 to make a merger with Bischoff worthwhile (for Bischoff at least). 

[Niners Fan in CT]

I don't think Vince's ego would ever allow him to merge with a rival.

[AxB]

The thing with Vince is, he's always wanted to be successful in something - anything - that's not Pro-Wrestling. He's always been using his boom money to try and expand into another area, and only paid attention to Wrestling when it's not doing enough business to fund whatever hare-brained scheme he's cooked up. So if his Wrestling business went down in 1997, he'd probably try to get in the ground floor of the internet porn business.

[mco543]

Wasn't Vince's backup plan allegedly selling, merging, or working with Jerry Jarrett? Or is that a different story?

[Victator]

I agree that WCW likely still dies in some way...the thing to remember the death of WCW had to do as much with wrestling as it did with the AOL/TW merger and a change in leadership at Turner Broadcasting which didn't have the same view of wrestling that Uncle Ted did.

That is a lie peddled by the people who killed WCW.

[Skeeball Wizard]

Wasn't Vince's backup plan allegedly selling, merging, or working with Jerry Jarrett? Or is that a different story?

When Vince was in hot water for the steroid allegations back in the 90's, he had Jarrett ready to take over for him in the event he had to do time.

[notoriusvig]

Let's be honest, that Hogan train would've kept going, probably even longer, if the WWF went under.  Also, the situation is what if they went under, not any other situation.  I'm looking at a few different things that may have happened...

 

We need a timeline, and I'm going to say late 97-early 98 since they had to let Bret out of his contract around that period.  Really, what was the boom by April 98, for the WWF?  Ratings.  However, do those bring in revenue yet, by that time?  I'm guessing not. 

 

Russo, etc. would not have been as big commodities and thus, may have never been signed to help the ailing WCW.  WCW would have probably been stronger leading up to 2001 since they'd end up signing God knows who.  Hogan still would not have allowed much wiggle room for new stars in that company or for putting over WWF guys.  Bischoff sold Hogan the soul of the company in 94 since I think we can all agree that not creating new stars was a big part of WCW's failing business, by 2000.  The only way they got Hogan, besides money, etc., is with the creative control.  That being said, the Turner merger was happening, no matter what.  WCW may never have turned a profit, at all, without the boom and the competitive nature of the business of the boom.  So, Kellner and the rest of the corporate guys may still have pulled the plug.  I suspect the ratings for Nitro, etc. would've been a little higher since I think Bischoff's business model from 95-98 would have stuck around longer and business would not have tanked quite as much leading into 2000. 

 

In my opinion, Kellner would've pulled the plug on wrestling on TBS/TNT and Fusient would not have come into the picture.  It's not easy to get a TV deal so suddenly and without lengthy negotiations.  I guess one could argue that the company could have gone on hiatus while negotiations took place and not be hit too badly when they returned.  Of course, this is all assuming ratings for the shows were higher than they ended up being in reality, by 2001.  Overall, I suspect that PPV buys, house numbers, and other business aspects would be a little higher.  If the ratings were the same, they'd end up passing on buying the company, in my opinion.

 

ECW may have had a shot at getting the USA slots of the WWF but Paul still had no idea how to handle the business aspects of the company.  He would have needed to sign some new/old talent.  The hayday of ECW booking and stuffing instead of potatoes were gone by 1998, so they would need fresh faces and a different business model, to live past 2001.  I suspect, if they got a deal with USA, they'd be able to sustain good enough ratings to keep the deal but honestly, where does that get them?  A TV deal and the usual crappy ad revenue for a wrestling product.  In my scenario, now they have to pay for more talent and Paul would end up probably having to sell off part or all of the company to stay afloat.  If I remember correctly, he never wanted to do that.  If he ended up selling and finding some company to fix things, while retaining Paul as creative head, they'd be alright and might continue to grow in the Northeast and branch of to the West coast.

 

In the end, I think WCW would have tanked.  If Vince had some capital (pun intended) stashed, he would buy the brand and probably try and find a TV deal and he might even have gotten the brand for the same price he paid in reality.  If he didn't buy the brand, I think eventually, he would have started a new company and grown it, as best he could, or even have bought into ECW, again if he had the capital (is that the correct spelling?).  Wrestling would be pretty scaled back, I suspect, with one tiny company running the ship.  Whether or not Vince returned, their would have been a power vacuum and someone would have shown up, with some company and would have attempted to become #1, ala TNA in 2002.  Finally, I just can't see Vince just disappearing like Howard Hughes.  Although, it is not a guarantee Vince would have had any money after selling off the company.  I tend to think Turner would have bought the assets of the WWF and they would have died in 2001 along with WCW.

[E.J.]

Yeah I gotta agree that Vince probably would have hung it up if they went under. Football, Bodybuilding, Reality TV, Vince would have probably chosen something else to pursuit.

[Parties]

So at what point in its history was WWE closest to going bankrupt and/or out of business? According to WWE itself, the worst years financially were 94/95 going into '96.

1994 - 1995 : $87,352,000 : -$4,431,000
1995 - 1996 : $85,815,000 : $3,319,000
1996 - 1997 : $81,863,000 : $6,505,000

 

They're at least kind of turning it around by the end of '96: the young guys are getting hot, they're trimming their budget, things are on the rise even if it took until Mike Tyson to start making big money. But at the end of '95, WWE had a terrible roster and perhaps the smallest they've ever had: 38 guys. If they'd closed then, you never would have had the Rock debut, no Austin 3:16, no Iron Man match, no Hall and Nash jumping as the Outsiders, no DX in '97, no Bret comeback from hiatus and heel turn, no partnership with ECW. If WWE can't hang on in '96, it isn't just “Does WCW screw up the Attitude Era?” - it's do any of the big WWE players of the era even have careers?

 

Look at the two rosters at the end of '97:

http://www.solie.org/wwf97.txt

http://www.solie.org/wcw97.txt

 

WWF is such a younger, smaller group at that time. WCW's roster is 50% bigger, much older, and top heavy with international stars and long established WWF guys. While Bischoff always brags about having a blank check from Turner, it seems unrealistic that he would have taken more than 20-25 guys from WWF. To do so he would have likely had to fire some of his least essential players (Jim Powers, Darsow, Bobby Blaze, etc.).

 

The Rock either never becomes a movie star, or goes about it in a very different manner. Maybe just outright quits the business and pursues acting earlier, becoming the sidekick in Steven Seagal movies. Maybe Heyman takes him and he gets a Shane Douglas-type push off his mic skills. Had he even been signed by WCW in 96/97/98, he'd have been Buff Bagwell: young good looking guy who the old guard would've embarrassed with bad booking.

 

I see Austin coming back to ECW before he'd go back to WCW, which would have been interesting. Ditto Lawler and Jim Ross. A rated R version of Austin as the ace of ECW going in '97 is strange to picture, but could have had real upside for Heyman's prospects in getting on TV. Austin wouldn't have been as big, but he'd have been something positive for whoever took him.

 

If Hall and Nash are never "the Outsiders", but rather just some guys scooped up in a sea of scooped up guys, is there even an NWO? Or is it nearly as successful? Bischoff could have gotten the whole gimmick out of his system doing a variation on that New Japan vs. WCW Starrcade, using actual Japanese guys in his rip off of their angle. Assuming WWE goes out of business after Hall and Nash jump, then I'd say the whole Kliq goes to WCW and are well protected. HHH basically gets Scott Steiner's push. If WWE closed in early '96, I could even see a scenario in which Michaels is the third man in the NWO, leaving Hogan out to dry and looking old. It's impossible to say how Hogan's relationship to Bischoff would have changed had all of WWE's biggest stars been hired at once. Bischoff was always loyal to him, but it would have been such a different scenario that I could easily see Hogan becoming a Ric Flair situation in which the guys in power portray him as the old, delusional has-been who's mocked for being behind the times even though the crowd still loves him. Though as others have said here, Hogan was promised the moon and stars in his contracts, so if he still had his full creative control and all the idiocy that entailed, he may have found a way to bury anyone and everyone.

 

Vince sits on the money he has and becomes an event promoter, doing concerts and PPV stuff. Ironically, one place he could have had the kind of pull he wanted would be as a figurehead of UFC during it's post-McCain lull. In '98 I could certainly see him attracted to a spectacle that was toning down its bloodsport and trying to go legit. Built around pro wres style guys like Abbott, Frye, Couture and the Shamrocks. You could even imagine Vince acquiring investors to help him purchase the company a year or two before Zuffa does, thereby fulfilling Shane's then-aspirations to buy and run the UFC.

[Jenalysis]

If Hogan blocked things for too long, what's to keep a bunch of guys from pulling a NOAH?  There were still territories as well- Lawler could have kept on going another decade, a bigger Memphis perhaps?

[GuerrillaMonsoon]

Decided to spare you all pages of fantasy booking.

 

Reckon the most likely timeframe that they go broke is if the Mike Tyson involvement in Wrestlemania backfires and he no-shows/walks out.

 

From there - think you end up with them signing Shamrock, the NOD, Triple H, Taker, Owen, Edge and Christian, Bradshaw, the Hardys, Jarrett, Dustin Rhodes, Sable and Sunny. Maybe the Outlaws and TAKA get bought in to drop/unify the belts. Austin eventually comes in later in the year to work a program with Goldberg or Hogan. Foley probably goes to ECW.

 

Meanwhile, you get some bizarre Memphis off-shoot of the existing Randy Hales promotion as the TNA of its time, run by Lawler, Ross and Cornette largely featuring the guys who WCW didn't want - Vader, Ron Simmons, Brian Christopher, Glenn Jacobs, Roadies. LOTS OF HOSSES rather than the Attitude era competes with WCW.

[GuerrillaMonsoon]

So at what point in its history was WWE closest to going bankrupt and/or out of business? According to WWE itself, the worst years financially were 94/95 going into '96.

1994 - 1995 : $87,352,000 : -$4,431,000

1995 - 1996 : $85,815,000 : $3,319,000

1996 - 1997 : $81,863,000 : $6,505,000

 

Does the 94/95 budget account for the Charles Austin payout?

[Hagan]

A couple of years ago WWE.com did a bonkers interview with Vince out of character where he talked about just this. He said, I recall, that if things got bad they scale back and become a Northeast promotion, just like the company was initially. 

[BEN!]

They pretty much were a Northeast promotion during the New Generation period.  People forget how bad business was back then.  You look at some of those Raws from back then and you can see basketball hoops on the walls of the venue cause they were running high school gyms.

 

It depends on the time frame cause I think if the WWF goes under during the Monday Night Wars period then he spends his last dime on a cockamamie American Idol-style reality show about bodybuilding and loses his ass.  Loses his house, Linda leaves him.  Then he ends up on the streets and nobody hears anything about him for a few months until he resurfaces with an army of hobos and he attempts to overthrow the federal government.  Gets shot on the White House lawn and ends up paralyzed below the waist.  Does some time and when he gets out does a crazy shoot interview and becomes the new Iron Sheik.

 

If the WWF goes under pre-Monday Night Wars, just skip the part about the reality show.

[Parties]

 

So at what point in its history was WWE closest to going bankrupt and/or out of business? According to WWE itself, the worst years financially were 94/95 going into '96.

1994 - 1995 : $87,352,000 : -$4,431,000

1995 - 1996 : $85,815,000 : $3,319,000

1996 - 1997 : $81,863,000 : $6,505,000

 

Does the 94/95 budget account for the Charles Austin payout?

 

From Bill Apter's column in the Jan '96 PWI: "Remember Chuck Austin, the preliminary wrestler who sued the WWF after having his neck broken by Marty Jannetty's "Rocker Drop." He has agreed to settle out of court and will receive approximately $10-million. That is more than $15-million shy of what a jury had originally awarded him."

 

So if he didn't get a dime from them until early '96, then no. The WWF lawyers (pre-McDevitt at that) tied the deal up in court for a couple years until Austin caved. Plus I would assume they paid him the money over several years rather than anything close to a lump sum. Even at 1M per year, they'd have been paying him almost $20,000 every week until 2006. In the original $27 million settlement that WWF appealed, Jannetty himself was required to pay $1.3 mil. But I don't know if he ended up having to pay anything, or if worked for peanuts for the rest of his WWF time, etc.

 

When that original $27 mil ruling came down, Meltzer wrote about it as a deal that could severely hurt the company. Not "out of business" bad, but maybe "USWA Northeast" bad.

[Petey]

With WWF out of business, I wonder if WCW/Bischoff gets fed up with Hogan and gets rid of him in 1998 or possibly earlier. With no competition, there'd be no fear of Hogan going elsewhere and doing damage.

[Jerry Hattrick]

Sticking with the literal question, who would be the second company? With WCW still around, Jarrett possibly still has a job, so NWA/TNA doesn't come into existence. Is this the rise of wrestling from Mexico and Japan in the states?