The Viceland Wrestling Documentaries

[zendragon]

It is interesting to think of what Bishoff/Fusient owned WCW looks like? Does Vince try to out spend them on talent to kneecap them? Who jumps who stays?

[Mister TV]

32 minutes ago, zendragon said:

It is interesting to think of what Bishoff/Fusient owned WCW looks like? Does Vince try to out spend them on talent to kneecap them? Who jumps who stays?

I don’t think Bischoff/Fusient would have had a pot to piss in after buying WCW, wasn’t there a lot of shadiness when it came to where the money was coming from? 

[zendragon]

I don’t know much about it

[DMJ]

My memory of the post-WCW cable world, specifically TBS and TNT, was that those channels were 90% reruns (most notably Seinfeld starting in 2002), old movies, and NBA and MLB games (I think they still aired a ton of Braves games). A quick look at Wikipedia reveals that TNT and TBS didn't even really bother developing their own series until the mid-to-late 2000s and really didn't kick it into high gear until the 2010s.

And while us wrestling fans love to shit on Jamie Kellner for being an idiot, one could also play devil's advocate and say that, ultimately, he was right. Pro-wrestling had a few more years (months?) of truly being in the zeitgeist of mainstream culture before the downfall began.

Not long after, WWE left the USA Network and then basically flopped when they moved to TNN/Spike/MTV. The expectation was that WWE, which was peaking in popularity at the time, was now going to benefit from Viacom's corporate synergy and its dual "young, hip" cable channels - MTV still being the "youth culture" channel and TNN/Spike being 100% marketed towards a male demographic  - but, lo and behold, the MTV youth culture audience got bored with wrestling (because that's precisely what happens to things that are trendy) and the company failed to bring in new viewers as they slipped deeper into lowest common denominator booking filled with envelope-pushing nonsense like necrophilia jokes that even the dumbest tribal tattoo-covered proto-bro knew were lame. 

[Cobra Commander]

yeah there was a little bit of a WWF ratings drop that was probably purely due to leaving USA for TNN, not sure how much of it was due to people who had USA and not TNN and how much was just stubborn people

the documentary narration saying Bash 2000 was a pivotal moment for WCW as if that company wasn't cooked for at least a year before that, was some creative license

really if any moment potentially involving Hogan's creative control fucked WCW, it was the Finger Poke. I don't know if there was a specific Hogan demand to win the title back or if they preemptively moved towards that or what. The first half of 1999, some of it coincidentally overlapping with Bischoff being out of the country, was awful for WCW

Bischoff's approach to life is probably sound enough. It might be sorta like Heyman's approach to dwelling on ECW. Overall Bischoff probably did more financial damage but Heyman did financial damage that hit specific people harder. If one can differentiate between Bischoff spending money and not making enough as a result from Heyman borking the credit of his closest confidants and then skating to a batter job after the company folded

[Elsalvajeloco]

The only solution is by not giving Kellner a choice at all, but by the time Russo got there in late 1999, it seemed like they were hellbent on driving fans away. I am not saying you don't give them time to turn it around but what promise did WCW show that things could get back to a decent position in the industry? That hard reset they did in April 2000 should have been it, but they threw it away.

[odessasteps]

If you read deep into things, and possibly play the conspiracy card, the fact you had a wwf executive and a wcw executive who were former fraternity mates, the whole thing was likely a done deal of who was going to win the race. 

(Stuart Snyder and Brad Siegel, if memory serves) 

[zendragon]

33 minutes ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

The only solution is by not giving Kellner a choice at all, but by the time Russo got there in late 1999, it seemed like they were hellbent on driving fans away. I am not saying you don't give them time to turn it around but what promise did WCW show that things could get back to a decent position in the industry? That hard reset they did in April 2000 should have been it, but they threw it away.

I know people say that by 2001 WCW had turned a corner creatively , not sure if BATB 2000 ( and the aforementioned finger poke of doom) had poisoned the well too much by then 

[Elsalvajeloco]

I think by the the time of the fingerpoke, it was clear that they had stopped creating NEW fans. I think it was a combination of everything from the time just before Eric was fired to the final months of the promotion.

[Matt D]

Can’t help but ask: how deep is this Marty episode going to incriminate Shawn? 

[Cobra Commander]

gotta love how the Bash 2000 episode didn't directly say that the method Russo used to 'increase' ratings was to cut Nitro back to 2 hours, which only really helped ratings in more of the sense that you can lose weight through amputation. Meltzer pretty much said "yeah, they weren't gaining" over that time

3 hour wrestling TV shows are among the last things i'm inclined to bingewatch on Peacock. 3 hour PPVs, that's difference since there's at least a logical reason for them to exist but 3 hour Raws or 3 hour Nitros can be a chore to get through especially if the product sucks.

I also prefer 1 hour over 2 hours for rewatching stuff on Peacock but there are obviously worthwhile 2 hour TV shows, and I think even with the adbreaks, a 1:45 version of a 2 hour show finishes up in a little under 2 hours

Which is to say that the 2 hour Nitros are more rewatchable than 3 hour Nitros. Having experienced Nitros from late 97 to the end, i'm not exactly hungering to rewatch many of them.

also not sure when the Cornette podcast will have a long talk about how Jim would certainly never book a match that he couldn't find a good finish for along with all the other stuff that he has likely said before about Russo.

Cornette and Eric Bischoff having some positive bonding over their distain for Vince Russo is a hell of a "we have mutual enemies" alliance

[GuerrillaMonsoon]

I came in to point out the 4 sold out shows they did in Australia in October 2000, as well as some really good shows in Germany and the UK around that time as proof that the company still was viable.

Never heard this story though: https://www.thesportster.com/wcw-sold-out-tour-of-australia-lost-money/

The reboot was good in theory - it just sprinted through three months of storylines in a single night and again on PPV a fortnight later. 

My view was that Thunder was the impetus for the decline of the promotion. A second show could have worked had a) it was not three hours and b) they'd appropriately reviewed all relevant contracts to work out sustainable costs and who would viably appear most weeks rather than most of your top guys having a maximum amount of dates per year to work around. Instead they had this huge albatross that guaranteed huge roster costs as a necessity and produced awful content as a result.

Hindsight being twenty twenty, repackaging WCW Saturday Night was the way to go.

[Cobra Commander]

guess we're about to find out how much of the Collison audience is gonna stick around when there's College Football going head to head with Collision because I gotta figure there was some eventual decline in Wrestling ratings at 6:05 even if WCW kept WCWSN important because College Football began airing a lot more games on TV in the late 90s/early 2000s. We're all old enough to remember that you weren't always able to see every college football game on TV in recent years. They even tried stuff like PPVs for college football games in the 2000s

As for WCW international in 2000, isn't that sort of the mirror of how the WWF was able to draw in Europe in the mid-90s when American audiences were burned out on them? WCW did decently well in England in 1993 too, right?

[odessasteps]

A certain wrestler personality comparing Russo to Stan Lee on his podcast is brilliant. 

[BloodyChamp]

I almost wish Bischoff would have been able to buy WCW just to see how long his crush on Hogan would have lasted. He was so obsessed with the guy. Say Hogan just left 1 day for the WWF. I really think Eric Bischoff would have had a mental health issue over it. 

[BloodyChamp]

3 hours ago, Cobra Commander said:

guess we're about to find out how much of the Collison audience is gonna stick around when there's College Football going head to head with Collision because I gotta figure there was some eventual decline in Wrestling ratings at 6:05 even if WCW kept WCWSN important because College Football began airing a lot more games on TV in the late 90s/early 2000s. We're all old enough to remember that you weren't always able to see every college football game on TV in recent years. They even tried stuff like PPVs for college football games in the 2000s

 

I got ROFLED at for merely asking if ECW ON TNN would suffer from that channel’s fan’s highschool football back in the day. I know the channel was changing but it was still like I remember until after ECW was gone.

[The Natural]

[Cobra Commander]

I can see why he didn’t shave his head during his career but bald Lance Storm looks more threatening than Lance Storm with hair

[Curt McGirt]

What, you mean this guy doesn't look threatening? 

Spoiler

I mean, some people find mannequins to be creepy, after all. 

 

[Eivion]

He does look a bit like a serial killer.

[Cobra Commander]

The final episode (of this season) is tonight. Guess I’ll have to see if Royals/Red Sox finishes before this goes on the air.

Once DSOTR finishes, then Jon Bois Minnesota Vikings miniseries takes over this timeslot for me on Tuesday nights

[Web Conn]

Speaking on the “what if Eric Bischoff and Fusient bought WCW” topic, a big thing that popped into my mind only maybe in the last 6 months or so is that inevitably Hulk Hogan was gonna be back as long as Eric Bischoff was in charge of WCW. So no matter what it was gonna end up with the same old Hulk Hogan conquers all BS. Sadly.

An interesting thought came into my head about Bischoff and Fusient if they had purchased WCW. With the way Eric Bischoff and Ric Flair felt each other at that time and that Ric Flair showed up on Raw in November of 2001 so theoretically Flairs contract with Turner was up would Flair have signed with The New WCW or would he had sat out for 8 months and still shoo or up on Raw the night after Survivor Series

[Cobra Commander]

yep Marty's accent makes me think that he's about to talk about how Firuhhhhed up he is

whoa... didn't know that Mean Mike from Disorderly Conduct was actually a dude in anything else

okay.. Brutus Beefcake got his wife into this episode.. I'm not sure why either of them are here but we'll see (edit: okay i'm an idiot, it makes sense why Brutus is here)

Edited August 9, 2023 by Cobra Commander

[Cobra Commander]

one thing is for sure, if you say you're speaking about hypothetical things, then you can describe crimes without scrutiny..

[The Idiot King]

Man. What a bummer. Marty was up there with Warrior and Hawk as a kid where I was hoping that whenever they came back it would be for real this time. I think also, importantly (if only superficially) the more-than-friends relationship between Shawn and Marty was explored some. Maybe it's a little taboo or still seen as a slight in some way, but to hear them both tell it, there's a complicated romance there. More than anything else, this episode made me want to see a deep dive on Pat Tanaka.