Not sure if this falls under HoW Baker, but separate from the 2009 'The Rise and Fall of WCW' there is a new show from Vice produced by Dwayne Johnson and Danny Garcia entitled 'Who Killed WCW'. Did anyone watch the first episode?

Hearing from Bischoff, Ted Turner Jr, a couple of other network peeps, Konnan, Booker T, Madusa, Kevin Sullivan, Kevin Nash, Bret Hart and for some reason (even though I love him) The Rock - Maybe giving the opinion from the other side?

I don't know that I learned anything new from the other series, books, etc. or that my opinion has changed that a variety of factors killed it, but since Dark Side of the Ring is over I'm here for it. I think we're going to start hearing more about Vince's transgressions against wrestlers and the industry as the years go on now that he's 'out'.

Not sure if anyone else is watching this, but great Vice series on the rise and fall of WCW.

First episode was on the rise of WCW and NWO.  Second show was on the oversaturation of nWo, Goldberg and crash TV style.

Def a show worth checking out.

pwcom.proboards.com/post/363848/thread

Ah ok. Should have checked there.

Second episode gets into the books a bit, really wish this was expanded on. As they seem to hint at that Turner losses were pushed to WCW while they were not getting credit for the profit they created.

Wish Vice could do a deep ECW dive next. Or a deep dive into the original All Out that looked at the rise of independent wrestling following the collapse of ECW leading up to the Elite and their show. Like go through NJPW, RoH, CZE and shit.

I think should probably go here but up to Baker. He's the boss.

Yeah was unsure which to put it into so defaulted to general. Does not matter to me where it is though. Just hope more check it out as it is a great series so far. Love the Vice wrestling doc team.

This feels like the right place. We'll leave it here. I can't move iron maiden's post from the other thread though. Big Pete Emperor or RT will have to do it.

Done.

I actually just caught up on both episodes last night and was going to check if there was any discussion on here so that saves me some trouble.

Like a lot of these Vice docos, they're really well put together and they're really good at using the old footage to help paint the picture. Usually there's one or two clips I haven't seen, like the Turner press conference, that makes it all worthwhile. Plus, it's good to see some talking heads like Ted Turner Jr and Brad Siegel among others who you rarely see interviewed.

I thought it was a real missed opportunity in the first episode not to have Sting give his side of the story. We've heard all about the tan and fu-man chu - I would have liked to have heard Sting's 2024 perspective. So far, they're covering a lot of the fan theories on why WCW went down (Starrcade 97, Fingerpoke of Doom, Vince Russo etc.) but they're not really digging deep enough. It also feels like the show gets too caught up in strange tangents instead of focusing on the subject at hand. One second they're talking about Goldberg and the streak, next it's about Bret burying Bischoff.

You could have an episode dedicated to Bret and how they dropped the ball and how difficult things were with him, but I wanted to hear more about what Turner brass had to say about Bill. Nash says there's money in the chase, where was the chase? Tell us more about Barry Bloom, Universal Soldier II etc. stuff that was reported at the time that's been lost in history. Show us the clip of Hogan kicking out of the Jackhammer because Nash pulled a Bossman and 'missed' his cue.

IIRC Sting does not want to be a part of this drama stuff at all. I personally do not recall him really him ever talking about it at all. He always felt above all the fighting. Like even in AEW I do not recall him ever talking about WWE outside of saying his run was not what he would have liked it to be. Which given how badly he was used was being very polite IMO.

And yeah I do wish this was a longer series to really get into more stuff. They really rushed through this all at breakneck speed.

I do love Nash being Nash in it though. Love old man Big Kevin.

Can’t say I’d be interested in this, it’s been a subject that has been covered to death for years and can’t imagine there is anything new about it to talk about. Talk about beating a dead horse. They should have put all this effort into a Pride FC doc, way more interesting story that hasn’t been covered nearly enough, no rise and fall docs have been made about it and it’s massively relevant to The Rock’s new upcoming movie The Smashing Machine. To make another WCW doc just seems odd to
me in 2024.

Jun 13, 2024 9:16:23 GMT Neo Zeed said:

Can’t say I’d be interested in this, it’s been a subject that has been covered to death for years and can’t imagine there is anything new about it to talk about. Talk about beating a dead horse. They should have put all this effort into a Pride FC doc, way more interesting story that hasn’t been covered nearly enough, no rise and fall docs have been made about it and it’s massively relevant to The Rock’s new upcoming movie The Smashing Machine. To make another WCW doc just seems odd to
me in 2024.

100% I never really got into MMA but if this YouTube video is just scratching the surface, imagine what a good doco series would be like?

It’s really a crying shame. The whole first episode could be an hour long tracing of how it all started going back to the 1984-85-86 UWF, how that all ended up back in New Japan and then spun off into Shooto and 1988 UWF, how that influenced all modern day MMA to be what it is today. Then how it all fractures into UWFI, Rings, PWFG in 1991, you could literally spend 2 whole 44 minute episodes on how Pride even came into existence before even touching Pride 1. Then the 2000 Grand Prix is something you could make a whole 5 part series about in itself, Kerr’s story that The Rock is playing is a huge part of that story.

That’s 7 episodes before even touching the Yakuza stuff and the real rise and fall of the company, which is batshit wild itself. Bonkers to me that they made yet another WCW doc. 🤣 These old dogs rehashing the same shit again.

I’ve thought for years and have tons of notes for a Rise And Fall Of Pride FC book since nobody wants to write it I’ve thought for years about writing it myself.

And that’s the thing you can’t tell the story of Pride without telling the story of Shooto, Rings, Inoki, Maeda shooting on Andre, NJPW, Tiger Mask, all of that is in the DNA of Pride, it became what the UWF was supposed to be.

This doc is actually incredible. I had low expectations because A) Vice is overrated and B) everyone lies in this business but damn. First episode had me absolutely hooked and I saw and heard some things I didn’t know previously.

The WCW stuff is interesting, as I know a lot of people who watch these documentaries and have little interest in wrestling today, or are aware of any alternative to WWE.

It's also a massive part of a lot of people's childhoods.

I think WCW deserves a fair trial, as the WWE revisionist pieces are very much in favour of a narrative that suggests WCW's rise was sometimes less about WCW having a better product, and more to do with WWF having a terrible product and hence, WCW was found success by default and then WWF opened up that can of whoop ass and the rest was history.

Time Warner called WCW & every non-wrestling person who tried to sabotage the company did. Ted Turner was the only guy outside of the wrestling infrastructure who cared about WCW.

I'm enjoying the hell out of this so far. I feel like they are being fair in their criticisms and why not one person or thing is to blame but rather a combination of those people/things. I think overall Konnan is the most non bias and honest out of everyone.

Episode 2 did not help with my dislike of Goldberg any. And as much as I love Bret Hart, boy he can hold a grudge, but maybe he has every right seeing as someone not wanting to learn the craft or caring about hurting others (it isn't just my opinion, watch the episode), led to the end of his career. I know I'm in the minority but it's why I'm personally not a fan of extreme wrestling. You have less control with outside items/weapons' and the fans' bloodlust is never satisfied.

Jun 17, 2024 21:12:53 GMT iron maiden said:

I'm enjoying the hell out of this so far. I feel like they are being fair in their criticisms and why not one person or thing is to blame but rather a combination of those people/things. I think overall Konnan is the most non bias and honest out of everyone.

Episode 2 did not help with my dislike of Goldberg any. And as much as I love Bret Hart, boy he can hold a grudge, but maybe he has every right seeing as someone not wanting to learn the craft or caring about hurting others (it isn't just my opinion, watch the episode), led to the end of his career. I know I'm in the minority but it's why I'm personally not a fan of extreme wrestling. You have less control with outside items/weapons' and the fans' bloodlust is never satisfied.

I thought Goldberg's story about his match with Scott Hall was odd. It was nice to see some humility from Bill and admit he was still green, but I'm not sure if that was his point. I didn't quite catch what he said, but it seemed like the point he was making was that guys like Scott Hall were taking advantage of his inexperience. Something about how he realised there was stuff going on and then he started talking about shark invested waters.

I think Bill cares but in regards to Bret, he's apologised for it for nearly two decades and it seems like Bret now more than ever only harbours a bigger grudge. I'm honestly not sure if it's a bit, because Bret was so understanding in his biography. It was like he made peace with Shawn, so he had to find somebody else to fill that place and it's Bill. However, he certainly was reckless in the ring and it's something he never improved on, case in point the Saudi match with Taker.

Two things that annoy me about the documentary is firstly, they skipped A LOT of content from the fingerpoke of doom to Bret/Goldberg '99. The wheels really come off after Superbrawl 1999 and it's such an unexplored area. Often, the fingerpoke of doom is cited as the beginning of the end, but it actually boosted business for awhile and Hogan/Flair outdrew Austin/Vince. That would have been interesting to point out because you could have explored the other issues.

The second is how much they skimmed through Goldberg's reign. I get that they're trying to hit the main story beats, but Warrior/Hogan and Flair/Bischoff is such a pivotal part in WCW's demise and it's largely been glossed over. Instead it seemed like WCW was such a train-wreck that they put this green guy on top when business was booming and then he injured the entire roster and himself before Nash and Hogan politiced their way back on top.

At least that's what I took out of it.

My spoilers for the Russo era, they'll talk about how silly the New Blood vs. Millionaire's Concept was. They'll show the clip of the blood missing Nash and somehow point to that being the smoking gun. They'll recap Hogan/Jarrett and present both sides - Russo will come out of it looking better because Booker will put over what it did for his career. We'll get Judy Bagwell on a pole (like that mattered) then we'll get Goldberg injurying Russo (no comment) all the while it will be presented like WCW asked for Russo, they got Russo but they realised by then it was far too late.

Episode 3

Bring on Vince Russo. I can’t shit on him TOO much because his writing in WWE worked (though I think it was heavily controlled)but a lot of his stuff on both was ridiculous and often hard to watch for me as it pandered to the lowest common denominator.

Showing Benoit winning the title once Sullivan took over. Kinda bitter sweet. And Malenko, Guerrero, Saturn and Benoit showing up on RAW 15 days later.

Very strange that Russo & Bischoff both have a different idea of their work hierarchy and the one guy who knows (Siegel) lies openly on this episode about his recollection being ‘sketchy’. Which is just one more part of this and leads to the whole Bash at The Beach saga. I still say giving Hogan creative control was a dumbass idea and yet another thing that contributed to the end of WCW. I honestly don’t disagree with Russo giving Jarett and Booker a shot at the title. How else were they going to get past Hogan and his ego? Just maybe he didn’t go about everything the right way after he started to believe his own hype and even puts the title on himself.

Then there’s the whole David Arquette as champ idea and there seems to be some confusion as to who agreed and who didn’t, but no mistaking the fallout. While I agree with Russo it got eyes on the product, was it at the cost/value of their title at the time? Did they do the right thing or fix it the next show having him give up the title he felt he didn’t deserve?

The Arquette story ends up being amazing if you follow it until the end. You Cannot Kill David Arquette really is an amazing look at it. He did a feud then tag run with my buddy and was such a great guy at the shows. He is a really weird dude in he seemed to REALLY need the wrestling fans at small indy shows to like him. Like he is a pretty rich hollywood star, but needed the respect of the 400 people that would show up to a local fed running a gym and the guys in the back at these shows. And took that to the extreme fighting Gage in the end in the glass match which he had absolutely reason to ever do.  His doc showed he was struggling with really bad depression that kind of explains the whole wrestling thing and need for approval.  Just such a weirds story, but he really felt like a great guy from my interactions with him and seeing what he was doing.  Like when he teamed with my friend he custom ordered gear from the guy who made my friend's gear to match what he was wearing.  Was just surreal given my friend was just a hometown hero while Dave was an international star.  When he learned Nick Gage was upset that his footage was used in Dave's doc without Dave asking him, Dave sent him a nice 3000 bed a company gave him.  It is just weird shit like that, that made Arquette just something else.

Love seeing this show Russo was ultimately full of shit trying to become reality TV bullshit that no one respected.

Historians: The September 11, 2001 attacks were carried out by Al Qaeda.

Conspiracy: 9/11 was an inside job!

Bret Hart: 9/11 was Bill Goldberg's fault...

Me: "Bro, I swear to god, BRO!"

Lady Rad: "...Why do you keep saying that?"

*a few moments later*

Lady Rad: "oh... Does that guy know any other words?"

Me: "No... No he does not, bro"

Jun 27, 2024 17:39:22 GMT rad said:

Me: "Bro, I swear to god, BRO!"

Lady Rad: "...Why do you keep saying that?"

*a few moments later*

Lady Rad: "oh... Does that guy know any other words?"

Me: "No... No he does not, bro"

Having not watched it... Russo?

Is it true they counted how many " Bros " he said during this episode and it was like 830 times?

So I finished this and my thoughts on who Killed WCW has not changed. It was a mix of things. Did anyone expect Seigel to admit wrong doing? Pretty sure there isn't a statute of limitations when it comes to SEC violations.

You can say several things but there is really one...

Fingerpoke of doom, nah.
Goldberg vs DDP Havoc cut, nah.
Vince Russo...nah.
David Arquette world title, nah.

The Merger is the reason that wcw ended. Remember that even though all those things above happened; the merger is the end all. The headline to follow was they didn't want wrestling included in what they believed to be their path to making money; they saw wcw was a non entity and so they went out of their way to put it up for sale and i think they called wwe about it and sold it. If Jericho had known he would have bought and saved it... maybe.

The Merger ended wcw; nothing else comes close.