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TVTranscript
00:00WCW is about to dominate the globe in professional wrestling.
00:1710 million people in the United States were zeroed in on professional wrestling.
00:22We were the number one cable rated show for almost two years, mind blowing.
00:27And when something gets too big too fast, shit's going to hit the fan at some point,
00:31and it did.
00:32Little by little, we just fell.
00:35We already knew that we were running thin.
00:38It is so good to be king.
00:41He cared more about ratings than he cared about advertising dollars.
00:44It was a shit show.
00:47Vince Russo was just another idiot.
00:50He was there to lead to our ultimate demise.
00:54I was done.
00:55It was over.
00:56I could have cared less.
00:58No doubt in my mind, Bischoff was responsible for a little of this.
01:02Another nail in the coffin of a company that was rapidly dying at that time.
01:06I don't control that shit.
01:08I go out and I do my job.
01:10My check didn't change.
01:11It was the easiest money I ever made in my career.
01:14Like they got what?
01:16When guys got those kind of agendas, thinking about themselves, that's pretty much when
01:20the ship started to go down.
01:22This is some fucked up shit.
01:25You ain't in Kansas anymore.
01:27You cannot sweep this under the rug.
01:31This is some fucking television shit.
01:33I don't understand what he's doing.
01:34The real reason men come in lies.
01:36I believe WCW has come to an end.
02:02It is.
02:03At an end.
02:05It didn't feel like a family anymore.
02:07It felt like everybody was out for themselves and it seemed like the blood was in the water
02:11and the sharks were coming to get it.
02:14I think everybody just didn't know what was happening.
02:16We were still hearing the rumors that we were just going to shut the doors.
02:19So I think at that point everybody was just really unsettled.
02:24It's easy to lose sight of how lucky we are to be a part of this.
02:27Hopefully it ain't over.
02:29WCW wrestling is so important to me.
02:31There's just that one guy, Turner, I think,
02:34just doesn't think wrestling is cool and whatever.
02:36It's on the road with millions of people.
02:38I think Turner finally started looking into the books and said,
02:42we got to pull the plug on this.
02:44No matter how much Ted Turner loved this business and wanted to keep it afloat,
02:50you start looking at the books at that time and seeing how much money we were spending.
02:54I can only imagine how much money went out the window.
02:57Oh my God.
03:00After Brad brought me back to oversee Russo,
03:03it was apparent to me that things were more dysfunctional
03:06within Turner Broadcasting and the relationship between Turner and WCW
03:10than they had ever been.
03:12I'm not talking about what was going on in television
03:14or how much money they were making or losing.
03:16I'm just talking about the relationship.
03:19Time Warner is a company of winning brands and winning people,
03:24and so is AOL, for this merger.
03:27Just like when we put Turner Broadcasting into Time Warner,
03:30it made the company much, much stronger,
03:32and I think we're all committed to making this thing work.
03:35AOL was absolutely ubiquitous at that time in terms of,
03:38in the public consciousness, the company introduced many people
03:42to the concept of logging onto the Internet for the very first time.
03:46I've been on America Online two months,
03:48and it's really been a revelation for me.
03:51You got mail!
03:54This was at the time where a lot of the new Internet.com businesses
03:59were receiving wild overvaluations based on promises of future growth.
04:04If you looked at the assets besides furniture,
04:08they have a subscription list,
04:11and that's the people who subscribe to AOL.
04:14AOL's leadership in the early part of 1999
04:17also were keenly aware of this reality as well.
04:20So one option that was considered was to merge
04:23with a media and entertainment conglomerate, which was Time Warner.
04:27The combined company, which will be called AOL Time Warner,
04:30gives each partner what it now lacks.
04:33What ended up happening is that AOL shareholders
04:36would receive 55% of the new company and Time Warner 45%.
04:42Now, my dad's never been online in his life,
04:45never touched a computer, never owned a cell phone,
04:47never used an ATM, right? He's old school.
04:50So I think there was a whole generation gap loss
04:53on AOL's going to buy this giant company with nothing,
04:58where the older investment guys are like,
05:00well, you can't turn it down.
05:02It's hundreds of dollars a share. This is going to be awesome.
05:04We're only going to make a billion dollars.
05:06But nobody would stand up and go,
05:08this is a Ponzi scheme, man, right?
05:10This is all going to fall apart.
05:12The blockbuster deal still needs regulatory approval
05:15and a nod from Time Warner and AOL shareholders.
05:18AOL had serious, serious issues.
05:21You know, WCW got caught up in that also.
05:25In a sense, you could say it was collateral damage.
05:28Wrestling has become fun, crazy entertainment.
05:32It's an alternative.
05:34It doesn't define our network. It's one night a week.
05:37It's a hit every Monday night, but it wasn't anymore.
05:40Because it was broken and I had to fix it,
05:42I was a physical presence there.
05:44I was in there trying to do whatever I can do
05:47to get it back on track.
05:49Big mistake!
05:51What a bunch of fucking boobs.
05:54It was so bad, I really felt like,
05:57okay, he's staking our heart.
05:59It was a chaotic shit show and a blur.
06:02And I said, I'm about to get the hell out of here
06:05because I've had it. You had to look out for yourself.
06:08I just felt like Brad didn't know anything about wrestling.
06:12I mean, he knew about the corporate side,
06:14but he wasn't a wrestling person.
06:16He wasn't somebody that was going to try to help save the company.
06:19It was like going through the motions.
06:21To be completely honest, I couldn't fix it.
06:24And the red kept getting redder.
06:26And the ratings kept falling and falling and falling.
06:28In addition, WCW drove away its paying audience.
06:31Look at the difference in buy rate
06:33between the uncensored pay-per-view in March of 1999
06:37and the same event just 12 months later in March of 2000.
06:41They basically put on the exact same main event,
06:43Hogan Flair, two years in a row.
06:45Hold on to your hats! One, two, three!
06:48In March of 1999, the uncensored pay-per-view
06:51enticed some 325,000 viewers to purchase the event.
06:56But just 12 months later, only 60,000 people
06:59were willing to purchase the 2000 version of WCW Uncensored.
07:03That represents a drop of 81%.
07:08The narrative is at the end of 2000,
07:11WCW had losses of around $62 million.
07:14That's the narrative.
07:15And I think that there probably is a grain of truth to that.
07:19But what people don't understand is the why.
07:23Professional wrestling is very different
07:25when you're a company like Time Warner AOL,
07:28a lot of answering to shareholders
07:30that have expectations on a monthly and quarterly basis.
07:35I think there was a lot of debt
07:38from other divisions in the company
07:40that could be allocated legally,
07:42but allocated as losses against WCW
07:44because everybody knew it was going to be written off
07:47as a loss anyway.
07:48The bullshit internal transfers
07:50that people tried to park all their trash on our books
07:54while we were getting hurt.
07:56It was clear to me at that point
07:58that Turner Broadcasting didn't want anything to do with WCW.
08:02And I said to Brad specifically,
08:04I said, Brad, why don't you let me explore selling WCW
08:10while it still has some value?
08:12Because the velocity at which WCW was losing ground
08:17at that particular time was pretty dramatic.
08:20Brad kind of chuckled at me, and he said,
08:23Eric, you know this company,
08:25we don't sell anything, we buy things.
08:28So I just let it go.
08:30Fast forward.
08:32Good evening.
08:33Today we announce that the Federal Communications Commission
08:37has approved the merger of America Online and Time Warner Inc.
08:42So the merger was announced on January 11, 2000,
08:46finalized on January 11, 2001.
08:49There had actually been a lot of financial experts
08:52who had been predicting the imminent demise of AOL
08:56for quite some time.
08:57Keep in mind that throughout the year 2000,
09:00a number of significant things happened.
09:02We had the dot-com recession.
09:04We had a number of these Internet companies
09:07that were going to be the darlings of the future
09:10that went belly up, which affected AOL in a serious way.
09:13Its stock price dropped by 50%,
09:16which of course creates a huge pressure
09:18to look closely at which divisions are profitable
09:22and which are registering huge losses.
09:24That put WCW even more in the crosshairs.
09:27There were a lot of executives at very senior levels.
09:30The only person standing in front of them was Ted Turner.
09:34The merger happens. Ted becomes vice chairman.
09:38You know, he was excited about that person.
09:40You know, you have an office in New York, you know.
09:43I've made it.
09:44Well, no.
09:45Your name made it. Your businesses made it.
09:48They didn't want to even hear at the board meetings from him.
09:51Ted Turner was no longer a challenge.
09:53Ted Turner was regulated to the corner
09:55and didn't have a voice or vote in his own company.
09:58You know, Ted is no longer in a position
10:01to have control over WCW and its affairs.
10:04I remember saying, you know, we're Time Warner.
10:08Is it that important to own a wrestling company
10:11that's losing money, bleeding massively,
10:14has lost money every year of its existence
10:17except for one or two years?
10:19Is that really what Time Warner needs to own?
10:22I don't think we need this.
10:29Brad Siegel, tape on. Mark.
10:32I get a phone call from Brad.
10:34He said, so let me ask you, Eric.
10:36A couple months ago, you brought up the idea of selling WCW.
10:39Do you think you could find a buyer?
10:41And I immediately said, sure.
10:43I had no idea. I'd never done anything like that before.
10:46But I assured him that I could find someone
10:48who had the resources to buy it.
10:50I said, you want me to put a deal together?
10:52You want me to try to put some people together?
10:54He goes, see what you've got.
10:56I went to a guy by the name of Peter Goober.
10:58Peter Goober at that point in time
11:00owned a company called Mandalay Sports & Entertainment.
11:02He's a very, very, very well-established Hollywood guy.
11:05He said, look, I'm not interested in investing and buying WCW,
11:08but I think I know some people who may.
11:11And he put me in touch with Brian Baddall and Steve Greenberg,
11:14who owned a company called Fusion Media Ventures.
11:17Fusion Media Ventures had created the Classic Sports Network,
11:20which became ESPN Sports Classic.
11:23Brian and Steve understood media,
11:25they had great connections in New York on Wall Street,
11:29and we hit it off and started the process.
11:32I called Brad back, said okay, I got the investment.
11:35Fusion Media funded the initial round with $5 million of their own
11:39and then went out and raised $62 million in the market.
11:42I felt like I was capable with the financial resources
11:45and the right partners with me, that there was potential for WCW.
11:48The professional wrestling genre as a whole is indestructible.
11:52It's just a matter of the company being in the right hands.
11:56Eric was invested in trying to keep WCW alive and moving,
12:02so it was very exciting when the opportunity came up to buy it.
12:07And it wasn't surprising that he went 100% all-in
12:12and just gave it all he had.
12:15We had come up with a loose plan of what we were going to do
12:19once the deal was consummated.
12:21For example, went out to Las Vegas, we met with Hard Rock,
12:24and they were planning on building an entertainment theater
12:27on top of one of their parking garages that would hold about 3,500 people.
12:31So we started to negotiate the opportunity
12:33for kind of a full-time location,
12:35producing our shows in front of a live audience
12:37in Las Vegas every Monday night.
12:39One of the initial thoughts we had is,
12:41let's bring WCW back with this pay-per-view called the Bing Bang.
12:48So on January 11, 2001,
12:51it appears that Fusiant Media Ventures has purchased the company.
12:55The figure that was reported at the time
12:57of the apparent sale to Fusiant was $67 million.
13:01There's a lot of exuberance about, once again,
13:03this being now the turning point.
13:05Now we've got the new owners in play,
13:08this is where we're off to the races.
13:09The new goal is 100 weeks in a row,
13:11and that's kind of what's in the future for WCW.
13:13We always looked at this as a partnership between us and Eric.
13:18We certainly aren't buying this
13:21because we think it should just stay number two.
13:25We won't be satisfied until this thing is number one again,
13:29and our goal this time is 100 weeks, not 96 weeks in a row.
13:33I was excited. I thought, you know, okay, great.
13:35This is going to open a new door.
13:37We're going to continue to go on like we are.
13:39I think we were going to see a smarter, newer,
13:43more refreshed version of Eric.
13:44He looked really gung-ho to make this work.
13:47Turner Broadcasting guaranteed us
13:49our time slot on Monday night and Thursday night.
13:52So our job was then to produce the show,
13:54find the advertisers, and turn the show profitable.
13:57I remember that being part of the deal,
13:59and I like that as part of the deal,
14:01knowing that you've got that slot,
14:04then being able to calculate
14:05what the advertising value of that's going to be is critical.
14:09So it was a fait accompli as far as we were concerned,
14:13and we were scheduled to close that deal.
14:17On March the 6th, Jamie Kellner is announced
14:20as the new CEO of Turner Broadcasting.
14:22Jamie Kellner is someone whose reputation
14:24certainly preceded him in the television business.
14:26He is credited with having a huge influence
14:29over the growth of the Fox network
14:31and then actually becoming a founding partner
14:34of the WB network,
14:35and upon being appointed to the role,
14:38his initial comments to the press were that,
14:41I'm paraphrasing, this is a great company
14:44full of great people.
14:45I'm going to try not to mess things up.
14:47I'm going to tweak it.
14:49Jamie Kellner was one of the best
14:51television executives in the business,
14:53but Jamie hated wrestling.
14:55He hated it.
14:56You know, he hated it, didn't get it,
14:58didn't want anything to do with it.
15:00It was a pain in the ass,
15:01and we were losing so much money all the time
15:04that I think I made the suggestion to sell WCW.
15:08I don't know if it came from me or somebody suggested it
15:11and I latched onto it, and Jamie was like,
15:14yep, get rid of this as fast as you can.
15:16I don't want anything to do with it.
15:18March 16th, Brad Siegel sends out a memo
15:21advising WCW employees there's going to be
15:24a period of hiatus.
15:25Then just a few days later,
15:29naturally there's not going to be hiatus,
15:31but the programming is being canceled
15:33after a 29-year run on the Turner Networks.
15:36And that leads us to an episode of Monday Nitro
15:39in the midst of all of this chaos
15:41that has to occur in Gainesville, Florida
15:43that Monday evening.
15:45Many of you may know that for the past six months
15:48I've been working with a group of people
15:49whose goal it was, it is,
15:51to acquire World Championship Wrestling.
15:54But recently we've hit a couple roadblocks
15:57that may be, in fact, brick walls.
16:00And while it is still in my power,
16:03I want to do something befitting
16:05what could be, very well,
16:07the last night of wrestling on the Turner Networks.
16:12That being said, I'll see you all in Panama City
16:15next Monday night, the Night of Champions.
16:18Incredible!
16:22We were just getting ready to close
16:24and I got a call from Brian Badal.
16:26And Brian said, Eric, it's done.
16:29I said, congratulations, Brian.
16:31He said, no, you don't understand, it's done.
16:33The deal is over. It's off the table.
16:37We were rounding third, heading for home,
16:40and there was no warning whatsoever.
16:42It came completely out of the blue.
16:44Jamie Kellner, he was the head dog,
16:47and he looked at the WCW deal
16:49and contemplated us having at least a couple years
16:52of two hours of prime time on Monday night,
16:54two hours of prime time on Thursday night.
16:56And Kellner didn't want that beachfront property
16:59to be dedicated to wrestling content.
17:01He wanted that prime time schedule for other programming.
17:05The cold, hard truth is that WCW
17:07was completely reliant on television.
17:10So much so, in fact, that Eric Bischoff famously quipped
17:13that without television, the company was worth 20 bucks,
17:16if anything.
17:17So at that point, when you take
17:19the television distribution off the table,
17:22you're taking 90% of the revenue out of the equation.
17:25The deal was not worth it to us.
17:27It effectively killed the deal.
17:29I was devastated.
17:34What am I doing here?
17:36Stu, Snyder, ready, go, action.
17:39Growing up, I loved wrestling.
17:43I lived in New York, so I remember going
17:46to Madison Square Garden once a month.
17:48Bruno Sammartino, Ivan Putzky,
17:51Gorilla Monsoon, George the Animal Steel.
17:53I can go on. I enjoyed it, I loved it.
17:56It's a core element of my childhood.
17:58I joined Turner Broadcasting in 1993.
18:01My responsibility was to come on board
18:04and head up a unit called Turner Home Entertainment.
18:07And then I left, did a few other things,
18:10including becoming the president and chief operating officer
18:14of WWF Entertainment.
18:16The first thing I was looking to do
18:18was to keep growing the core business,
18:20to look for new opportunities for the company.
18:23I continued to read about what was happening at WCW.
18:26I kept reading about the behind-the-scenes angst
18:29going on there, the ratings weren't improving.
18:32What's going to happen here?
18:33Are they going to stick with this?
18:34Are they not going to stick with it?
18:36And what I recall is picking up the phone
18:39and calling Brad and, you know, just checking in, first of all,
18:42because we've known each other for a long, long time.
18:45Keep reading about this stuff. Are you okay?
18:47And, you know, he'd share with me
18:49some of the angst he was going through.
18:51I may have said something to the effect of,
18:53hey, look, if there's ever a reason to have a conversation,
18:56I think we might be interested.
18:58We were aware that there was another player.
19:01It didn't factor into anything.
19:03I didn't know their deal.
19:04I didn't know what they were offering.
19:06I knew nothing.
19:07Internally at WWF, we had made a decision
19:10and thought if we could do a transaction to acquire WCW,
19:14we were going to work really hard to get that done.
19:18On Friday, March 23rd,
19:20the WWF announces the unthinkable,
19:22that it has purchased its competition, WCW.
19:33On March 26th, 2001,
19:35the final episode of WCW Nitro
19:38is broadcast live from Panama City Beach, Florida.
19:41Oh, what is this for?
19:42We're doing a little documentary on the last two days of Nitro.
19:49Believe what you want to believe.
19:51Believe what you want to believe.
19:54But just leave it there.
19:56You got to leave the bed.
19:58That's right.
20:03Get the fuck out of here.
20:06Do you know anything?
20:07What's going on tonight?
20:08Brother, I have a four-man right here in my back pocket.
20:11Holy shit.
20:12What is that all about?
20:17Panama City, Florida, Vince McMahon vignette.
20:20Wow.
20:21That's big time, brother.
20:22Here we go, in five, four...
20:28You had Vince McMahon starting the show on camera.
20:32It's hard to overstate just how shocking that was at the time.
20:36Imagine that.
20:38Me, Vince McMahon.
20:42Imagine that.
20:43Here I am on WCW television.
20:48How can that happen?
20:50Well, there's only one way.
20:52You see, it was just a matter of time
20:55before I, Vince McMahon, bought my competition.
21:01That's right.
21:02I own WCW.
21:05Therefore, in its final broadcast tonight on TNT,
21:11I have the opportunity to address
21:13what is the fate of WCW?
21:17Because the fate,
21:20the very fate of WCW
21:24is in my hands.
21:29We thought we were coming to work like a regular day.
21:32No one knew until that night.
21:34No one knew.
21:37We saw Vince come up on the trot.
21:39No matter how you look at it at that point,
21:42no matter how it's spread,
21:44they win the war.
21:46When WWE acquired WCW,
21:49it felt like the end of an era.
21:51It sucked.
21:52The 800-pound gorilla of the room had won.
21:55Had no idea what Vince would do with it.
21:58I didn't know if it was more advantageous for him to buy it
22:01and keep it afloat
22:03and then have the competition
22:06or destroy it.
22:08So the fear of the unknown is pretty, pretty heavy.
22:12There was a lot of sadness and a lot of uncertainty
22:15who they were going to hire, who they were going to cut.
22:19We don't really know what's going on.
22:21People are happy and sad at the same time.
22:23They don't know why.
22:24I don't think you want my real feelings about it
22:26because they ain't pretty.
22:28It was very emotional.
22:30I remember Dusty was there,
22:31so I was sticking pretty close to him.
22:33There were WWF signs up, which was really weird.
22:37You know, because there's always signs
22:38like on the dressing room doors, you know, wherever,
22:40and you were seeing WWF.
22:42I mean, it felt like a slap.
22:44I remember Shane McMahon coming in,
22:46and he had, like, a little brief meeting with everybody.
22:49And we get told the company's been sold to the WWE.
22:52And tonight, everybody's going to find out about it.
22:55And a lot of guys were like, oh, my God.
22:58As I was seeing, you know,
22:59the wrestlers and performers backstage,
23:02you know, shoulders might have been slumped
23:04before they walked through the curtain.
23:05But then when they walked through,
23:07it's back to business as normal.
23:09And then when they came back
23:10after their match or segment or whatever,
23:12it's back to what's going on, what's going to happen.
23:15Let's not lose sight of the fact
23:17this is the last Nitro on the Turner Network,
23:19and we're going out with a bang.
23:21Scott Steiner and I, we had a conversation,
23:24and Scott goes, you know,
23:26what do you think they're going to do, man?
23:28What do you think they're going to do?
23:29And I look at Scott, and I go, bro.
23:31We was auditioning that night.
23:33But Booker T and the cover!
23:35Down comes the World Title Blaster!
23:37Yes, yes!
23:38And he nailed it!
23:39Everyone was working that night,
23:40so we went out and we rocked it.
23:42He's got it!
23:43Here it is!
23:44Here it is!
23:45And one, two, could it be it?
23:47Yes, yes!
23:48Booker T!
23:49I didn't know I was going to win the World Title that night.
23:51But then when I did find that out,
23:53I go, oh, yeah, man.
23:55I got a chip in the game.
23:57They got eyes on me.
23:59You know, so I was really excited.
24:03I was probably perhaps one of the only guys
24:06that was excited, though.
24:08I mean, it was sad, you know?
24:10It wasn't even sad, it was pathetic.
24:13Why?
24:14Because fucking people actually showed up.
24:17Hey!
24:18You guys want to be on the Titanic?
24:21Nah.
24:22Good.
24:24I'll sit and watch the fucking thing sink from my fucking house.
24:28I didn't watch it as it happened live.
24:30I feel bad for the talent that were there.
24:32I feel bad for the production staff that were there
24:34that didn't see it coming,
24:35had no idea what their futures were going to be.
24:38It's a big life change, but as far as the brand itself,
24:42I walked away from it.
24:44I no longer cared.
24:45It's going to be an emotional thing.
24:47You see a lot of production guys, a lot of people,
24:49cameras taking pictures of the guys,
24:51I look at it as the day you left college
24:53and the guys you might not see again,
24:55but this is a Titanic group of guys we have.
24:58One of the camera guys and one of the sweetheart guys,
25:01he'd been working for the company for 27 years.
25:04All of those people lost their livelihood.
25:09And that's why I say, fuck you, Jamie Kilner.
25:12I was concerned about a lot of people
25:14that just couldn't walk into a job so easily.
25:17Our jobs are so different.
25:19It's not a factory.
25:20We don't do the same thing every day.
25:22We're a combination of a circus and an army,
25:25and to get that good at it,
25:27we had to have the right people in the right places,
25:30and the way you got to that point
25:33was to trust one another.
25:42Then now you can't do it together anymore.
25:47Everybody was in a bad space.
25:49A lot of them didn't know what they were going to do.
25:52But there was a time, you know, you got to let it go.
25:56But in this business, it's a little bit different.
26:00What was really weird to me,
26:02this multimillion-dollar company was sold to WWE for, like, nothing.
26:08I'm not saying that there was anything spooky-kooky going on there,
26:12but I have my suspicions.
26:17I own WCW!
26:20I own the WWF!
26:22And you will treat me with respect!
26:30When you think about the final purchase price,
26:33we're talking about a company that at its peak
26:35was generating in the neighborhood of $200 million a year
26:39and a huge part of pop culture
26:41that gets sold for a little over $400 million a year.
26:45I always thought that when I heard the price of what they paid for WCW,
26:49it was an inside job of some sort.
26:51Somebody filled their pockets by making that deal,
26:54for as cheaply as it was.
26:56Maybe there's an envelope pushed across the desk.
27:00Maybe you got influence with the guy that's selling it.
27:04Look, there's some murky circumstances.
27:07Stu Snyder was an executive at Turner Broadcasting.
27:10Oh, by the way, Stu Snyder, after the fact,
27:13just happens to land a plum executive role with WWE.
27:17Oh, my God, that's Bob Ryder!
27:19That's Bob Ryder from WCW.com!
27:22Bob, run! Run!
27:24Bob Ryder, he was one of the hosts
27:27on shows that were broadcast over WCW.com.
27:30So in the summer following the sale of WCW
27:34being purchased by the WWF,
27:36Bob Ryder puts out a widely disseminated post online
27:41essentially alleging that there had been a conspiracy at play.
27:44Bob Ryder, he was a good man and a good friend.
27:47And I know that Bob had written about a theory
27:50that Brad Siegel helped facilitate the actual sale to WWE
27:55by convincing Jamie Kellner to take the distribution
28:00of programming out of the deal.
28:03Bob's theory was Brad Siegel really didn't want WCW
28:07as a part of the Turner portfolio
28:09and this was Brad Siegel's way
28:12of using Jamie Kellner to kill the deal.
28:15The conspiracy theory was really something like
28:18out of a wrestling storyline, essentially.
28:20There was a plot initiated by Brad Siegel and Stu Snyder
28:24to clear the path for it to have a quick sale to the WWF.
28:29Stu Snyder at that time was the president of the WWF.
28:32He had previously worked at Turner Broadcasting,
28:34had a relationship with Brad Siegel.
28:36And so the allegation was that there were covert talks
28:40between the two and the primary piece of evidence
28:43was the fact that WCW was sold for $4.3 million.
28:47I don't know that that's true.
28:49It is a conspiracy theory.
28:51Unfortunately, there are enough questions
28:54and questionable relationships
28:56that lend interest in a conspiracy like that.
29:00Because you were friends with Stu Snyder,
29:03it was a way to ensure the WWF would have an advantage to the sale.
29:08No. Well, first of all, I mean,
29:11we'd known each other our entire careers.
29:14I mean, the fact that Stu Snyder was running WWE
29:18and was a likely buyer for WCW
29:22is purely coincidence.
29:25Did you have any advanced knowledge
29:27that the QCN deal was going to fall through?
29:30No.
29:32Simple as that.
29:34My understanding is that Brad reported up to Jamie Kellner
29:38and that Jamie made the decision to say,
29:41I don't want it on our end and canceled it.
29:44If you think about how serious these particular allegations are
29:48and the fact that they would lead to potential SEC violations
29:52and have serious professional and personal consequences
29:55for all people involved, it's quite the audacious plot
29:58given the high-profile nature of the people that we're talking about
30:01and what they stood to lose
30:04if eventually they would be convicted essentially of corporate espionage.
30:08I'm not saying I'm 100% convinced
30:11that Stu Snyder was part of an orchestration
30:15to make sure WCW got sold for nickels on the dollar.
30:19I'm not suggesting that I know that.
30:21I just lean in that direction
30:23because I don't believe in the number of coincidences
30:26that surround this entire situation.
30:28I'm just not buying it.
30:30I understand gossip, I understand rumor,
30:34but it's easy to sit on the sidelines
30:37and not really understand the economics of the businesses
30:41to say what something is worth.
30:43If there was a deal out there worth $60 million,
30:46I can guarantee you, as I'm sitting here today,
30:49the Turner executives would have made a deal.
30:52We wanted to sell it.
30:54When we sold it, that's what it was worth.
30:56My regret is that when the ratings started to plummet,
31:01we could not find the right story,
31:04the right players in that story to turn it around.
31:08You know, that's a big regret of mine.
31:10We weren't successful.
31:12Sometimes that happens.
31:14You can't always be successful.
31:16I feel a responsibility for it
31:18because I clearly was not the person to do it.
31:21I didn't know the business and the story
31:24well enough to write it myself.
31:26I'm not a writer.
31:28So, yeah, I'm really sad about that
31:30and regret it wasn't a different outcome.
31:33Could anything have been done to save WCW?
31:36In my opinion, without a strong advocate
31:42who really believed in the business,
31:45it would have been tough to exist there
31:47with everything else of their challenges as a company.
31:50But that world had passed.
31:52Ted was that person who was its chief advocate.
31:55In the new AOL time warner, without that person,
31:58I don't know how it succeeds there.
32:00And for good or for worse,
32:02the one thing that all the talent knew,
32:04they knew where the buck stopped at WWF.
32:07It was Vince.
32:09You were either in line or you were out.
32:11That's how Vince ran that place.
32:13That place was a different story,
32:15a different time, different era.
32:17So unless you had somebody like that who could go,
32:19this is the way it's going to run,
32:21and I have the support of corporate
32:23to leave it alone and let me do my thing,
32:26I think it would have been challenging.
32:28It's been proven that it was challenging.
32:39Let me be clear.
32:41We weren't looking at all to buy something and kill it.
32:44This brand is still good.
32:46It's still relevant to an audience.
32:48We're going to figure out, how do we keep it alive?
32:51And maybe over time, it comes back as a separate show.
32:55In my head, I saw this great rivalry that was under one roof.
33:01First of all, it all started with the famous Shane McMahon
33:04showing up on WCW on Nitro
33:07and proclaiming, you know, the storyline of basically,
33:11Vince was going to buy WCW, but he snagged it out from him.
33:15That's right!
33:17I now own WCW!
33:21I remember sitting down in my hotel room
33:24and writing down all the wrestlers who I had hoped to wrestle.
33:28Goldberg, Sting, Savage, everybody in the NWO.
33:31It's like, I remember writing everybody down and going to Vince
33:34and saying, hey, this might be a good idea.
33:36What about this guy and this guy and this guy and this guy?
33:39Let's bring them in.
33:40There was so much speculation as to how it would all work.
33:43What people don't realize is that when WWE acquired WCW,
33:47the assets of WCW, the contracts weren't really part of the equation.
33:51It wasn't like all of the talent that was under contract
33:54automatically came to WWF,
33:56at least not the big names that mattered.
33:59Some of those people had quite a bit of time left under contracts
34:02and they were going to get paid anyway.
34:04I knew that at the time, guys were getting 50 cents on the dollar
34:07on their existing contracts, and that was not happening with me.
34:11I'm not going to give in. I'm not going to do it.
34:13So if I had to sit out for three years, I sat out for three years.
34:16Not everybody wanted to go to work for WWE.
34:19You didn't have Sting. You didn't have Lex Luger.
34:22You didn't have Goldberg. What do you really have?
34:26I still had like over a year left on my contract.
34:30They offered me a 50% buyout and go to work
34:34or just sit at home for the next year.
34:37I said, nah, man. I said, out of sight, out of mind.
34:41I remember Ric Flair saying a long time ago,
34:44time off is your worst enemy.
34:46So I was like, let's take the 50% buyout and let's go to work.
34:51Wait a minute! What the hell?
34:56Number T! He's the WWE, WCW champion!
35:01Back then, it was a test.
35:03Show these guys out here, see how good they really are
35:06compared to the WWE guys.
35:09Shane and I decided to join forces.
35:13The Invasion storyline was supposed to be
35:16the best that WCW had to offer
35:18versus the best that WWE had to offer,
35:22but we were in no shape to actually be able to
35:25really, really pull off an Invasion angle
35:27just because we did not have enough star power
35:30to really, really get that thing off the ground.
35:33We never really did a WCW-WWE feud correctly,
35:37and I think that was a big mistake by Vince McMahon.
35:40I think he could have done some really cool match-ups
35:43and some really cool things.
35:45Hey, yo.
35:49They were gonna write the history that they wanted to create,
35:53and no matter how you looked at it,
35:55we were the Confederate soldiers going to work for the Union.
35:59And if you thought that you were gonna go over
36:01the top guys, bullshit.
36:03They brought us in under the guise of
36:07this isn't gonna work twice.
36:09I looked at Scott, I said, we're gone.
36:11We're done, we're dead.
36:13I get to have the wonderful experience
36:17to watch my friend, who now has been sober for 11 months,
36:22go downstairs and just start pounding drinks.
36:25And he's like, fuck it.
36:27You talking about a miserable day in my life?
36:31The way they said, WCW?
36:34There was no room in New York City
36:37for a company like WCW.
36:39That's just the way I felt about it.
36:41When the WWE won the war,
36:43not only did they want to win the war,
36:45but they wanted to bury the opposition,
36:48and they wanted to plant the flag.
36:51And that's what they needed to do more than anything
36:54to really solidify winning that war, planting that flag.
36:59Yeah, they had to be in a dominant position to do that.
37:03Yeah.
37:04We're back live here, ladies and gentlemen.
37:06This crowd is still buzzing.
37:08Well, here comes Mr. McMahon back.
37:10He promised to name the new general manager of Raw.
37:14In 2002, Vince McMahon called me.
37:17And while Vince was speaking,
37:19I had already made up my mind that this is my opportunity.
37:22Allow me to introduce you to the new general manager of Raw.
37:27His name is Eric Bishop!
37:31I'm not going to say that everybody in WWE
37:34was happy to see me show up,
37:36but the people that mattered
37:38could not have made me feel more at home.
37:40I like Eric a lot. We're good buddies.
37:42I've known him for a very long time.
37:44And he has his bust on the Mount Rushmore
37:47of professional wrestling executives.
37:49Everything that went wrong, the fusion sale falling through,
37:53the fact that the narrative is Eric Bischoff, creator, WCW.
37:58I had an opportunity to write the last chapter of my story.
38:02Wait a minute!
38:04What? What the hell is going on? What is this?
38:07I had been with WWE for a few years
38:09as that general manager character, and everything was going great.
38:12And I remember getting a phone call from Stephanie McMahon,
38:15who was head of creative at that point.
38:17She goes, Eric, I don't want you to take this the wrong way.
38:20You've done a great job, but we're going to go in a different direction.
38:23Eric Bischoff has abused his power for too long!
38:27John Cena was going to hit me with his finish
38:30and drag me out of the ring,
38:32and John Cena was going to throw me in the back of a garbage truck,
38:35and I was going to be hauled out of the arena.
38:37And I very seldom questioned creative.
38:40But I went to Vince and said, it doesn't make any sense.
38:43For John Cena to do it, it makes more sense for you to do it.
38:47And I thought, if I'm going to do this, I'm going to have fun doing it.
38:50I'm going to make this fun for me.
38:52And I did, and I had a blast.
38:54And I got to live a dream and rewrite my own chapter.
38:57And I loved it, every minute of it.
38:59There's not a second of it that I regret.
39:08Who killed WCW?
39:10Ooh!
39:12Who killed WCW?
39:15I think it was Turner Corporate.
39:18And some of the people within the booking committees.
39:21AOL, Time Warner, the executives,
39:24they were embarrassed by Goofy Wrestling.
39:27The guys in Turner that didn't want us and didn't like us,
39:31and the top guys not letting the mid-card guys interact with them.
39:36WCW killed itself.
39:39The cast of characters that was WCW killed WCW.
39:44It didn't function as a team any longer.
39:47It functioned as a bunch of self-seeking individuals.
39:51I've never seen anybody that was that high up in the food chain
39:56take less responsibility.
39:59This is what killed WCW.
40:01They were fighting within themselves.
40:03They were eating their own, the wolves.
40:06Who killed WCW? That's easy, Turner Sports.
40:09It would have to be the person with the checkbook.
40:12It would have to be Eric Bischoff.
40:15Vince Russo, Eric Bischoff,
40:17two guys that had zero knowledge about how to run wrestling,
40:21and they put themselves in a position
40:23to tell people like me what to do,
40:26and that's what killed WCW.
40:28As a matter of fact, I'm going to give myself
40:31a round of applause for that. Yes, thank you.
40:34Bro, they took such a drop from where they were
40:38to where it was when it was sold,
40:41and so much money lost.
40:43I don't think anybody could have done anything.
40:46So I would say a business decision killed WCW.
40:50I don't think one person could have killed WCW
40:53by any stretch of the imagination.
40:55There were a shitload of people who contributed to its downfall.
40:58I think it's a collection of factors,
41:00a number of reasons that explain its demise.
41:03There's plenty of blame to go around,
41:05but I think ultimately it was inevitable
41:07that it was going to fall apart.
41:10I had a buddy of mine, he was one of my best friends,
41:13downtown Bruno.
41:14When I first started, I said, Bruno, give me some advice.
41:17He said, you're going to hear a voice one day,
41:20and that voice is going to say,
41:22go on home, the big run's over.
41:25WCW as an entity, they heard that voice,
41:28and the big run was over, and it was fucking awesome.
41:35Wow, man, what a run.
41:37It was always about the performances for me.
41:39It was always about the fans.
41:41We were rock stars.
41:44Everywhere we went, it was packed.
41:47A whole WCW experience was a hell of a ride, period.
41:53Let us remember the lessons learned and strived
41:56to build a fairer and more equitable future for wrestling.
42:00We've done over 350 or 60-some-odd nitros,
42:03and a lot of these people are like family to me.
42:06It was a good ride. It was fun.
42:08You were like a big family,
42:09even though you're a dysfunctional family.
42:11You may not get along with everybody,
42:13but you're still going to be there when it comes to it.
42:15It was the greatest job.
42:17They let us be as creative as we wanted to be.
42:20The first time I realized WCW was big
42:23was my very first show when I debuted.
42:26There was a palpable energy.
42:28You could feel the crowd.
42:30There's something special and something different
42:33about a wrestling fan.
42:35It just blew my mind to see what a big deal WCW really was.
42:41He's got him up!
42:42Those were some great times, terrific times,
42:45and it came to an abrupt end like that.
42:47But, hey, man, all good things come to an end.
42:52I still think that, you know, when it comes down to it,
42:55WCW is Eric's creation.
42:57Any success they had was with Eric.
43:00There's nobody on this planet that can look in the mirror
43:03and say, I beat Vince McMahon
43:07at professional wrestling for 83 weeks.
43:12It's a pretty fucking huge accomplishment.
43:18Cool.
43:20Time fucks with your head, you know?
43:23It becomes distorted.
43:26My memory is more like a series of photographs.
43:30There's bits and pieces and moments that stand out in my mind,
43:34but as time goes on, they kind of just all blur together.
43:38When I look back at my time during WCW,
43:40the journey, the ups, the downs,
43:42the ride all along the way was a rush.
43:44We were the number one wrestling company on television
43:47in the world, very proud of that.
43:49I was able to experience and achieve things
43:53that nobody thought possible,
43:55and I wouldn't have had any of this
43:57if it wasn't professional wrestling.
43:59So for every minute of it,
44:01the good, the bad, everything in between,
44:04very lucky.