WHAT IF... WWF Went Out Of Business First

[GuerrillaMonsoon]

I still think its Memphis with Lawler able to give his full attention to it.

 

Vince turning up in ECW and doing the Mr. McMahon character there instead would have been kinda fun.

[Zakk_Sabbath]

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.

 

The fact that Owen gets to live notwithstanding, I'd probably be down to watch the shit out of TNA/Memphis '98.

 

 

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.

 

One thing I'd like to mention, going back to the New Generation high school gym Raws (many of which I recently re-watched): WWF still drew pretty good houses overseas in places like the UK and Germany. I watched a Nash shoot pretty recently where he talked about going to Europe for a month, coming back for TV, then going right back.

 

So with that in mind, It's certainly possible that the WWF may have just done what many have been calling on TNA to do over the last couple years, and pretty much only tours overseas.

[notoriusvig]

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?

Who is to say a company like TNA wouldn't pop up?  Some company similar to it would have to pop up with the power vacuum.  I bet, in reality, if TNA ever goes under, another company will pop up eventually.  Also, I'd be willing to bet WCW would go under, in this scenario, so Jarrett might still be out of a job.  There is no reason to suggest that Kellner and the rest wouldn't still pull the plug.  Nitro still had decent ratings for a cable show, yet they still cancelled it even with a potential buyer for WCW.

[The Nature Boy]

No amount of WWF going out of business stops Jamie Kellner from rising in power. If the WWF goes out of business and WCW gets cancelled just a few years later, pro wrestling is now just an underground thing that barely gets attention. 

[BEN!]

Someone would've bought the WWF.  I doubt Vince would ever sell willingly but I'm sure someone would've bought the assets in bankruptcy because that brand name is too valuable to sit idle for very long.

 

The underground stuff would be Vince's hobo fights that he'd hold down by the train tracks after midnight.