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1And as the wrestlers and the fans celebrated, so did Bischoff. All his hard work, all his patience, it had all paid off big-time. Starrcade ’97 was, without question, the biggest money-maker WCW had ever produced. 
217,500 fans. 
3A $543,000 gate. 
4An incredible 1.9 buy rate, meaning nearly $6 million in revenue. 
5And the beginning of the end.
6
7“I read somewhere if something is working, don’t try to fix it. Our ratings are high, our arenas are selling out, we can’t keep merchandise in inventory. You’re right … there must be something wrong with Nitro.”
8—Eric Bischoff to a fan asking why Nitro was so repetitive in a Prodigy Chat, April 17, 1997
9CHAPTER
10ê ê ê FOUR ê ê ê 
111998: 
12MOMENTUM IS MONEY
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14The March 9, 1998 edition of Monday Nitro was the ninth consecutive sellout for World Championship Wrestling. In addition to those nine sellouts, the company had already sold out the following eleven shows in advance as well. Never before had they sold out twenty venues in a row.
15That was not the only good news. Business, as compared to 1997, was through the roof. Attendance in January averaged 8,023 paying fans per show, an increase of 49 percent from the year prior. Gates averaged $157,019 for the month, an increase of almost 150 percent. And the Souled Out pay-per-view in January, which drew just a 0.47 buy rate the year prior, pulled a 1.02, an increase of over 173 percent. That, of course, meant a revenue increase of over 173 percent as well.
16The company was skyrocketing. However, the lesson of the year was not learned until much later; sadly, many in wrestling have yet to learn it to this day.
17The lesson is that when things are hot in pro wrestling, promoters can do no wrong. Booking 
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19can be horrible, matches can suck, storylines can make no sense, TV shows and pay-per-views can be letdowns, wrestlers can be falsely advertised, and none of it matters. Because it’s hot, fans are going to spend money on the product. Of course, any damage done during this period eventually takes its toll, but to promoters who live only for Tuesday-morning Nielsen television ratings, the only thing that matters is the moment. Unfortunately, a few years later, WCW would learn the other half of this lesson: when things are bad, promoters can do nothing right.
20There has always been a theory that the wrestling business is cyclical. A superstar or an act takes off and gets incredibly hot for a period of time, then things cool off, and eventually things get really hot again. It seems that no one ever has bothered to stop and ask why; it has just been accepted. Today, the explanation is fairly obvious to anyone outside the wrestling industry.
21First, a wrestling star catches fire. There is not necessarily any rhyme or reason as to how or why this happens. Sometimes a guy comes along and the company knows from day one that he’s going to be it; the Rock was a perfect example of this. There were WWE officials who predicted that he would be the biggest star in the business by the year 2000 after his very first professional match. He actually beat that estimate by a couple of years. There are also guys nobody saw coming who got over because they just happened to be in the right place at the right time with the right gimmick. “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, probably the biggest star in wrestling history in terms of drawing money, was a good example of this.
22If a star really takes off, he can turn an entire company around. In fact, Austin turned the World Wrestling Federation around to such a degree that they went from losing $6 million in 1996 to grossing $456 million a few years later and going public, making Vince McMahon a legitimate, honest-to-God evil billionaire. But, as the old saying goes, nothing lasts forever. 
23Eventually, even the brightest star starts to cool. There is absolutely no avoiding this. Sure, he might still be popular, and if he’s a big enough star, like an El Santo in Mexico, he may become iconic. But he’s not going to sell millions of dollars worth of tickets and pay-per-view buys forever, especially against the same old foes he’s wrestled a hundred times before. Worst-case scenario, if he’s pushed too hard for too long, the fans may actually turn against him, making him more of a liability than anything else.
24In a perfect world, the company would use the still-super-hot star to create another huge superstar, a successor of sorts. Unfortunately, to do this correctly, the successor has to be booked in such a way that he appears to be a true successor. That means he has to win a lot of matches, and eventually decisively beat the big star.
25Perhaps you can see the dilemma.
26Promoters have rarely been able to bring themselves to replace their bread-and-butter before it’s too late. They see him making extraordinary amounts of money for the company, and they cannot fathom tinkering with the formula in any way. 
27LESSON NOT LEARNED … OR IS IT?: One need only look to the John Cena era of WWE in recent years to see this situation. He is the biggest star the company has, a true ratings and merchandise mover, and thus there is a natural tendency to avoid changing a status quo that has proven to be a money maker. It has led to a product that many fans feel is stale, yet the company views as safe. The idea to do something different with Cena, such as turn him heel, has been bandied about for years, but is always rejected due to their 
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29need to maintain this status quo … and their fear of losing their largest merchandise mover. 
30In many ways, wrestling promoters are notoriously shortsighted; as noted earlier, they live for the moment—for the sound of the cheering crowd, for the following day’s ratings, for the next buy rate. They don’t have the long-term vision to see that unless things stay fresh, the decline in fortunes can be just as swift, and sometimes even faster, than the ascent.
31There is an old saying, popularized by Bret Hart in Paul Jay’s excellent documentary Wrestling with Shadows, that promoters ride a wrestler like a horse until he can’t go any more; then they put a bullet in his head. Inevitably, they ride that horse until he’s long past the point of drawing big money, and then, when things start to decline, they panic. The panic breeds inept and hotshot booking, the decline speeds up, and it finally gets to the point where the company is so cold that, in the eyes of the fans, it can do nothing right.
32Of course, to those inside the wrestling business, especially those who’ve booked their promotions into a cold period, this is absurd: wrestling is simply cyclical; there’s no reason for it. And if there is a reason, well, it certainly has nothing to do with anything they have or have not done.
33Once the decision was made to create Nitro to go head-to-head with Raw, Eric Bischoff created a winning formula that helped the company take off. He put huge marquee matches such as Hulk Hogan versus Lex Luger on free TV to build the audience. He bought all the big-name talent available and put them on TV as often as possible. He used working agreements with promotions in Japan and Mexico to bring in talented performers from around the world and expose them to a new audience. The show basically had it all: big names, 
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35great talent, and good matches. If you wanted to see established superstars like Hogan and Sting, you could watch Nitro. If you wanted to see great wrestling matches with mat technicians like Dean Malenko and Chris Benoit, you could watch Nitro. If you wanted to see crazy highspots from Mexican luchadores, you could watch Nitro. It was the best of all worlds, and the company caught fire.
36Things were clearly reaching a peak in early 1998. However, for every dollar made, it was as though WCW made another stupid mistake. And for every million they made, they made one huge mistake that would help cost them everything in the end.
37The biggest mistake of all was that nothing changed. Ever. At first, that doesn’t sound so bad; they made more money in one year than the money they’d lost in all the previous years put together—why change anything?
38The answer, of course, is that nothing is forever. Those big stars? Some of them were old. Plus, those who were old in 1995 were now three years older. Some couldn’t wrestle a good match to save their lives, and some, sadly, could barely even move. The nostalgia was gone, and now that all the big marquee matches had been used up, fans were anxious for something new. That something new, you’d think, would come from the guys on the undercard, who were having all those great matches three years earlier.
39The good news is that those guys were still having great matches. The bad news is that they were having the same great matches with the same guys they were wrestling in 1995. As great a match as Rey Mysterio versus Juventud Guerrera was, fans could only see Rey give him a huracanrana so many times.
40In essence, Nitro looked the same in 1998 as it did in 1995. When you have several hours of first-run television every single week, three years might 
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42as well be three decades. And anyone who follows the television industry knows that no weekly television program featuring the same characters—no matter how hot it is at the peak—lasts forever.
43And make no mistake about it; there was plenty of talent that just never got a chance, and it was taking its toll. Konnan: “I don’t think you ever heard anyone say they liked WCW, even the guys making millions of dollars. Even though we were all being paid a lot of money to shut up, we were all being held back. There were drugs everywhere. I never had to use drugs before I got to WCW. Never even thought I would use them. And I thought anyone who did use them was a loser. Everybody was pissed off, everyone was depressed.”13 
44Chris Jericho: “The social aspects of WCW were disheartening … Hogan and Savage had their own dressing rooms and didn’t really talk to anyone else … guys like Scott Steiner, DDP, Paul Wight, and Booker T later became my friends, but within the WCW environment they seemed uptight and defensive. Booker even balked at working with Dean, Eddie, and me, complaining, ‘I ain’t no Cruiserweight,’ as if he would get leprosy from touching us.”14 
45In early January, two major television changes took place, both ultimately for the worse. First, after internal pressure from TBS, WCW created a new two-hour program to air every Thursday night, Thunder (originally, it was going to be an nWo show, but that idea went out the window when nWo Nitro bombed). Bischoff was vehemently against the idea, realizing that not only would it likely oversaturate the market (which it eventually did, though not at first), but it would also possibly take a chunk out of Nitro’s numbers. The estimated $12 million TBS paid the company for the show helped to change his mind. 
46The downside to the addition of Thunder from 
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48the boys’ perspective was that, all of a sudden, they had fifty-two more dates on their schedule for the year. One of the perks of working for WCW back in the day was that you could make better money than in the WWF and work fewer dates. Now, with another TV program and more house show dates, the road schedule was getting harder, and the guaranteed deals meant that the wrestlers were pretty much doing those extra dates “for free.” This didn’t exactly go over too well.
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50(box) Amazingly, no one in charge of WCW had any idea whether the debut episode was going to be two hours or three until just a few days prior. It ended up going three hours and fifteen minutes, which threw the rest of the TBS schedule into disarray. Although it was more of a laid-back show, compared by some to WCW Saturday Night, it ended up drawing what was alleged to be the highest debut cumulative rating in cable TV history: a 4.0. To give you an idea of how hot WCW was at the time, the January 15 Thunder drew a 3.7 rating despite the fact that a satellite malfunction destroyed the picture quality and caused the entire show to be virtually unwatchable (as opposed to years later, when the show was unwatchable regardless of whether the picture was good or not). 
51The second major change took place on January 26, as Nitro was also overhauled and given an additional hour, making it a three-hour program. If four hours of WCW weekly weren’t enough, fans were now given five. Over at Raw, the WWF was building toward WrestleMania XIV, and appearing in some capacity on television most weeks was the man who would be the guest enforcer in the Shawn Michaels versus Steve Austin WWF title match: Mike Tyson. As a result, once Nitro ended, many viewers were jumping over to Raw. Instead of moving the two hours head-to-head (Nitro was airing from 8–10 and Raw from 9–11), the decision was made to have Nitro go an extra hour permanently (they’d experimented with a few three-hour shows in late 1997), therefore keeping the high unopposed first-hour rating to add to their cumulative total.
52Alongside all the additional television time, the year started out with yet another new record: 26,733 fans and a $510,610 gate for a January 5 show at the Georgia Dome. It was highlighted by a classic interview between Bret Hart and Ric Flair, in which Hart said that if Flair (who was still the top ratings draw in either company) had a problem with him calling himself the best there is, was, and ever will be, he could do something about it. Some thought it was too early to be booking this match, but the crowd was clearly clamoring to see it. 
53Hart versus Flair took place at the first PPV of the year, Souled Out. The event, largely considered a success, drew a sellout 5,087 fans to Dayton’s Hara Arena to witness Luger beat Savage in a horrible main event. Worse yet, they had a chance to have a great headliner with Hart versus Flair, but at the last minute, this match was moved up to the semi-main position. The reason Luger and Savage went on last was that Hulk Hogan did a run-in afterwards, and of course, he couldn’t do a run-in on a semi-main. The buy rate for the show ended up being on par with many of the Hogan-headlined shows, largely due to the hype for what ended up being an excellent Flair versus Hart match.
54And how did WCW reward these two men for having such a great match, drawing such great ratings, and popping such a great buy rate? They ended the feud cold turkey and took Flair off TV for several weeks. The reasoning was that too many people were cheering for Flair, and they 
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56wanted him to be a bad guy. If the people couldn’t play along and boo him, then they would be punished with his absence. (Ironically, later in the year, when Bret was getting a strong babyface reaction despite being booked as a heel, he too was removed from television. Yet another lesson not learned.)
57In addition to the horrific main event, there was almost another disaster at the PPV as Giant landed on his head after Nash attempted to give him a powerbomb. The two had done the spot successfully in February 1997, but a year later Nash was physically weaker, having suffered a knee injury. Giant had put on what looked like about 100 pounds through various means, most of which involved consuming massive amounts of pizza and milk. Nash got him about halfway up, then dropped him right on his neck. Thankfully, Giant was OK. WCW Commissioner J.J. Dillon later announced in storyline that because of the incident, the powerbomb was now banned. Of course, the ban affected everyone in the company except Nash, who used it regularly and began to get over as a rebellious babyface because of it. At first, he’d be “fined $150,000” and “arrested” every time he did it, but eventually the bookers completely forgot about it, and the angle was dropped.
58Hogan was all over TV. Some found this strange, since he allegedly was not under contract at the time. The belief of many backstage was that this was the latest political move by arguably the most brilliant strategist in wrestling history. Hogan, making around $5 million per year, knew WWF wouldn’t offer him anything close to that, especially since they were already investing millions in Tyson for WrestleMania. So, using the creative control written into his contract, he booked himself on TV until he was pretty much indispensable, then started to float rumors around that he was about to jump ship to the opposition. It
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60worked, and not only did he get re-signed for his $5 million, but he got a $1.5 million bonus as well. Some would argue that, from a business perspective, WCW would have been foolish not to re-sign him, as an untelevised January 31 house show that he worked against Sting drew 18,759 fans and $325,154 at the gate, a new company record.
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62As if anyone needed a sign of just how hot the company was at the time, Sin City Productions began work early in the year on a porn video called Nude World Order. When the porn industry takes note, you can be sure you’re onto something. (box) 
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64Not only was the company doing incredible numbers at the box office, but the ratings continued to soar as well. In fact, the ratings war seemed more futile than ever for the WWF as the February 2 Nitro, headlined by Hogan versus Savage for the nine millionth time, did its second-highest rating in history, a 4.93 to Raw’s 3.45. This was the most impressive number of all time up to this point, because the previous record, a 4.97 on August 25, 1997, was set on a week in which Raw had been preempted for tennis, giving Nitro full access to the entire wrestling audience.
65Speaking of impressive numbers, Hogan did an interview on the show that showed great attention to detail, as he talked about the $50,000 fines Nash would be paying for executing the powerbomb. The announcers never bothered to note the $100,000 discrepancy in his tale. It didn’t help that a few days earlier on Thunder, J.J. Dillon had added to the confusion by talking about the $5,000 fines that were being levied. It was just the latest in a string of storyline inconsistencies that would soon become WCW’s trademark.
66In the midst of all these incredible numbers, tragedy struck. On February 14, Louie Spicolli (Louis Mucciolo), who had just turned twenty-seven and was starting to get a push in WCW as a Chris Farley–like nWo lackey, died of a drug overdose. Spicolli, who took as many as thirty soma pain pills daily, had washed down twenty-seven with some alcohol. He was found dead in his home at 8:55 a.m., facedown in his own vomit. It wasn’t his first overdose; in fact, in 1996, while working for the WWF, he’d collapsed after taking fifty-five somas and was in critical condition for two days. Disturbingly, he’d told friends just days before his death that he was concerned that the drug use in the company was getting out of control. The following Monday, Nitro opened with a tribute for him. His close friends on the show weren’t allowed to mention him at all. The only person who did bring him up was Larry Zbyszko, with whom he’d been feuding. Zbyszko said that there were a few things he’d like to say, but out of respect for the family, he’d keep his mouth shut. Yes, a guy really died, but because there was a wrestling war to fight, WCW wouldn’t even allow Zbyszko to get out of character to acknowledge it. Backstage, there was some shock and sadness, but overall, it was business as usual. In fact, to show just how brazen some wrestlers in WCW were, Dr. Joel Hackett, who had prescribed the pills to Spicolli, was flown into San Francisco for that weekend’s SuperBrawl PPV. (box) 
67Before 12,620 fans at the Cow Palace, the SuperBrawl PPV was yet another sellout with yet another sub-par main event. Sting beat Hogan to win the held-up WCW title, but he’d been killed so dead by the Starrcade booking that it was way tragedy struck. On February 14, Louie Spicolli (Louis Mucciolo), who had just turned twenty-seven and was starting to get a push in WCW as a Chris Farley–like nWo lackey, died of a drug overdose. Spicolli, who took as many as thirty soma pain pills daily, had washed down twenty-seven with some alcohol. He was found dead in his home at 8:55 a.m., facedown in his own vomit. It wasn’t his first overdose; in fact, in 1996, while working for the WWF, he’d collapsed after taking fifty-five somas and was in critical condition for two days. Disturbingly, he’d told friends just days before his death that he was concerned that the drug use in the company was getting out of control. The following Monday, Nitro opened with a tribute for him. His close friends on the show weren’t allowed to mention him at all. The only person who did bring him up was Larry Zbyszko, with whom he’d been feuding. Zbyszko said that there were a few things he’d like to say, but out of respect for the family, he’d keep his mouth shut. Yes, a guy really died, but because there was a wrestling war to fight, WCW wouldn’t even allow Zbyszko to get out of character to acknowledge it. Backstage, there was some shock and sadness, but overall, it was business as usual. In fact, to show just how brazen some wrestlers in WCW were, Dr. Joel Hackett, who had prescribed the pills to Spicolli, was flown into San Francisco for that weekend’s SuperBrawl PPV.
68Before 12,620 fans at the Cow Palace, the SuperBrawl PPV was yet another sellout with yet another sub-par main event. Sting beat Hogan to win the held-up WCW title, but he’d been killed so dead by the Starrcade booking that it was way 
69
70It wasn’t like the luchadores were the only upset mid-carders. Eddie Guerrero, frustrated with both the mask situation and what he saw as a complete lack of upward mobility, tried to quit. Bischoff not only told him no, but yelled at him for even considering it. Later, Eric apologized. He was not sorry enough, however, to give Eddie his release. Dean Malenko wanted to know when Bischoff was going to keep his word and let him book a Cruiserweight tournament. Bischoff, tactful boss that he was, replied that Malenko, Guerrero, Juvie, Mysterio, Benoit, and the like were all great workers, but none of them put asses in the seats.
71Their unhappiness was of no concern to Bischoff, who, on the morning of February 17, was overjoyed to learn that the previous evening’s Nitro (which ran unopposed as the Westminster Dog Show preempted Raw) had done a 5.10 rating—yet another brand-new record. Better yet, it was widely considered to have been a great show, despite the fact that the booking was headache-inducing, and Hogan’s old buddy Ed Leslie—now known as “E. Harrison Leslie”—was introduced as the newest nWo member, further watering down the once-elite faction. Not only was Nitro again breaking its own records, but Eric also had a great card in mind for the Uncensored pay-per-view on March 15 in Mobile, Alabama: Hogan versus Savage in a cage, Sting versus Scott Hall for the WCW title, Luger versus Scott Steiner, and Giant versus Nash. Sure, it was the same old largely horrible workers on top, but it didn’t matter—it was considered a top-billing marquee.
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73The same day that Nitro set this record, Randy Savage was named Real Man of the Year by the Harvard Lampoon for exuding “universal manliness.” Welcome to 1998. (Box) 
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76The next week, Raw and Nitro drew a combined 8.60 rating for shows that saw, on one side, the “baddest man on the planet” Mike Tyson join the cutting-edge Shawn Michaels–led Degeneration X (DX) faction and, on the other side, the 100 zillionth nWo run-in DQ. Fans were anxious for WCW to do something dramatically different and creative like, say, a clean finish, but WCW saw no reason to do that. After all, their show did a 4.81, and Vince’s show only did a 3.80. They beat the WWF by a whole point. 
77There was no reason to change anything.
78Backstage, things continued to spiral out of control. The luchadores, suddenly informed that they would no longer be able to take bookings in Mexico on their off days, were more upset than ever. Most had been making good money collecting paychecks from both WCW and independent groups south of the border. Once the decree was made, some ignored it and took bookings anyway, while others began to trade ideas on ways to get fired.
79The company’s deal with New Japan Pro Wrestling also fell apart. For years, the two sides had been trading talent back and forth. Usually, it was to WCW’s advantage. New Japan would send over one of their big superstars like Masahiro Chono, while WCW would send over talent like Robby Rage, who was unknown not only in Japan, but also in the U.S. Obviously, the international talent spiced up WCW television, and in fact, Keiji Muto (as the Great Muta) was one of the company’s huge stars of the late ’80s.
80The deal fell through mostly because Eric went on one of his now-trademarked power trips. New Japan had an nWo stable, and Bischoff decided to enforce a contract stipulation between the two sides that enabled him to choose who could and who could not be considered a member. Keep in mind that there wasn’t one casual fan in the United States who would have had any idea who was and was not in New Japan’s nWo stable. The point was that Bischoff had the power, so he was going to use it. As if that wasn’t bad enough, he started trying to enforce which guys could even team up with nWo guys. It also didn’t help when word got out in Japan that Bischoff had gone behind New Japan’s back in an attempt to strike up a deal to send wrestlers to a show run by its competition, All Japan Pro Wrestling.
81That was hardly Eric’s only power play of the month. Back home, he was having problems with Hall and Nash, who were upset that they were being moved down the pecking order in favor of Hogan and his new best friend, Randy Savage. Bischoff decided to show them who was boss in a very brash manner: he fired, via overnight courier, their best friend in the company, Sean Waltman, a.k.a. Syxx. Worse, Waltman was on the shelf at the time, healing a broken neck. Amidst quite a bit of fanfare, he ended up quickly signing a deal to return to the WWF. To fans watching at home, it appeared that a big WCW star had suddenly decided that the WWF was really the place to be. To disgruntled WCW wrestlers, especially the smaller guys, it suggested that if they jumped ship, they might also get a big push right out of the gate. Waltman was given a raise of almost $100,000 more than what he had been making in WCW, and this sent the message that the WWF was willing to pay top dollar to be competitive.
82Hall and Nash, meanwhile, were outraged over the firing and wanted to quit. Eric reminded them that they were under contract until 2001 and couldn’t appear anywhere else before then. So they stayed, but that didn’t stop them from going on TV and acting unprofessionally. In one interview, Hall told fans that he was no longer allowed to say “Hey Yo!” On another occasion, he told Giant, “That’s your cue” over the house mic. He was not reprimanded, and he took note of this fact. Later that week, Nash got into a loud argument with Hogan backstage, actually telling him to his face that he wanted his spot. Hogan said he wasn’t giving it up, brother.
83While Bischoff was likely stressed about everything, his worries only ran so deep. Nitro did a 5.7 quarter that week for a Sting and Savage and Giant versus Hogan and Hall and Nash match, killing Raw, which did a 3.3 for a quarter built around Austin and Tyson. Better yet, the following week the show aired unopposed again and did a 5.58 composite, destroying the previous record of a 5.10. The final quarter, featuring Sting and Luger versus Hogan and Savage, also crushed the previous week’s record with an enormous 6.6. Eric felt like the king of the world.
84At least, until Uncensored, which you’ll recall had that great big marquee lineup. The undercard was again below average, although Jericho versus Malenko and DDP versus Benoit versus Raven were very good. Giant versus Nash sucked. Sting versus Hall sucked. And Hogan versus Savage was an atrociously bad cage-match—even by WCW standards—that included run-ins by Sting and E. Harrison Leslie and didn’t even have a finish. To the amusement of some hardcore fans, Uncensored at least lived up to its reputation of being the worst PPV WCW presented each year. But the issue that was becoming clear to anyone but those running the company was that, in spite of the sold-out crowds, record-breaking ratings, and amazing buy rates, they were putting on bad show after bad show.
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86(box) WCW was so hot in 1998 that it affected world commerce. When THQ announced that they would no longer produce WCW’s wildly successful video games, their stock dropped $8 per share on the Nasdaq. Amazingly, a full 25 percent of THQ’s titles had been WCW-related. 
87The March 23 Nitro was notable for being the true dawn of the Bill Goldberg era, an era that should have set the company up for long-term success since he was about to become the company’s most popular wrestler. The idea, devised by announcer Mike Tenay, was incredibly simple: Goldberg did not lose, and the commentators would play up his winning streak. Not only did this ensure that his eventual first loss would mean a great deal (and it did, but unfortunately for all the wrong reasons), but it also gave fans something to keep track of—a statistic of sorts in a fake sport that really didn’t have any. In fact, fans got into it to such a degree that signs featuring simply a stat, “76-0,” for example, began to appear on Nitro. The fragile egos backstage definitely took note of his increasing popularity.
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89(box) In addition to Goldberg, WCW also had another star tailor-made for success, ironically as the result of an in-ring tragedy: Buff Bagwell, who had been injured earlier in the year taking a top rope bulldog. The injury was so bad that when it happened, everyone broke character and rushed to his aid. Doctors later told Buff that he was just three inches away from that worst-case scenario, and that he’d nearly died twice due to complications. After undergoing double fusion neck surgery the next day, in a near miracle, he was told that he’d probably be able to return to training within six months. In his return to Nitro, Bagwell came out in a wheelchair for a face-to-face meeting with the man who broke his neck, Rick Steiner. He told Rick that it was an accident and forgave him for what happened. The people cheered. The other half of the former Steiner Brothers tag team, the heel Scott, then came out and hit his brother with a chair. Bagwell stood up, apparently to make the save, but then jumped Rick and tore his shirt off to reveal, that’s right, “nWo.” In that instant, not only was the next potentially huge babyface star flushed down the drain, but a real-life neck injury was turned into a cornball wrestling angle. What should have been a new birth for Bagwell’s major-league career ended up being the beginning of its end. 
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91Still with the taint of the black spray paint of the nWo, Bill Goldberg was arguably the company’s last chance to save its biggest title. Despite his mighty might, those in charge would make sure his crusade would fail. [GEORGE NAPOLITANO]
92But it was something outside the company that month that changed WCW’s fortunes forever. On March 29, Steve Austin beat Shawn Michaels to win the World Wrestling Federation championship at WrestleMania XIV. Austin’s rise to the title immediately affected the ratings war. The crowning of Austin would lead the WWF into their biggest glory period ever, a period that would ultimately result, just three short years later, in the end of WCW. Every wrestling promoter alive today and who ever lives should strongly consider the fact that no matter how great things might be at any given moment, it really can turn around that fast.
93And it was turning around VERY fast. Despite winning handily in the ratings war just weeks earlier, Nitro was barely able to edge out Raw the following evening, 4.19 to 3.79. In fact, had Nitro not taken the lead in the last half hour, Raw would have won. The WWF’s show was built around Sean Waltman’s debut as a member of DX. In a pretty revolutionary segment, he ran down Hogan and Bischoff before he added, “And I got something else to say. Kevin Nash and Scott Hall would be standing right here with us if they weren’t being held hostage by World Championship Wrestling. And that’s a fact, Eric Bischoff!” With that one interview, DX was pushed over the top as being more revolutionary than the now-stale nWo that, over the past few months, had added such prestigious members as mid-carder Brian Adams and everyone’s favorite flabby geriatric, Dusty Rhodes.
94The devaluation of the nWo with various members certainly did WCW no favors. What was once a tightly focused group, with just three men, had ballooned out of control. That would have been bad enough, but over the years, in both WCW and WWE, various incarnations of the group appeared. This is a (likely in)complete list of all the various groups sporting the nWo name or some variation thereof:
95now The unrefined article. Formed in 1996 with Scott Hall and Kevin Nash as its pillars, the group would begin a run of popularity and prosperity after Hollywood Hogan became the centerpiece. Most of WCW’s success over the next two years was hinged on this ever-expanding group, whose expanse would peripherally cause the company’s downfall.
96nWo Japan
97Also known as “nWo Typhoon,” the group did not, in fact, feature the services of Fred Ottman. Instead, it was an offshoot group meant to take over New Japan Pro Wrestling. NJPW icons like Masahiro Chono, the Great Muta, and Hiroyoshi Tenzan populated the faction, along with American B-Teamers like Buff Bagwell and Scott Norton.
98nWo Wolfpac
99The first group to secede from the nWo, which many point to as the beginning of the end of the effectiveness of the group. The group featured the likes of Nash and “Macho Man” Randy Savage being tired of Hogan’s politics (this probably wasn’t a stretch from reality), and introduced a red-tinted rebel version of the Order. Lex Luger and Sting would join this decidedly heroic group, whose catchy theme song by imprisoned rapper C-Murder was quite popular.
100nWo Hollywood
101Hogan carried on as leader of the remaining nWo members who weren’t quite old/undignified enough to look silly sauntering out to Deep South hip hop, baring their varicose veins. Hall stayed, but was often incapacitated by his own undoings. Bret Hart was another major member, though he had a habit of turning face on Nitro and back to heel on Thunder. Don’t ask us, it’s WCW.
102Latino World Order: LWO
103A frustrated, coffee-stained Eddie Guerrero formed his own offshoot version of the nWo, which was comprised of the hard-working luchadores ignored every week by Eric Bischoff. They performed heinous acts as well, like standing around while Guerrero cut angry promos, and then standing around some more while Guerrero berated Rey Mysterio Jr. Gripping television.
104OWN
105The nWo-parallel that was run by the (faintly ultimate) Warrior, who was hounding Hulk Hogan upon his 1998 return to the spotlight. The group consisted of two members: Warrior and a sexually spellbound Disciple (Ed Leslie/Brutus Beefcake), who was often seen in some random submissive position while Warrior spoke. WWF Raw won a lot in this time frame.
106nWo Elite
107Forged together by the “Fingerpoke of Doom,” which made WCW look like a stuck-in-the-mud, idealess self-parody, Hollywood Hogan reigned again as WCW champion and fearless leader after a fake retirement, aligning with Nash, Hall, Luger, Scott Steiner, and everyone vaguely interesting from the Wolfpac and Hollywood, to the delight of few.
108nWo Black and White
109Whomever wasn’t absorbed into Elite was left to kick around in this fearsome squadron. Stevie Ray would be the odor-eater-wielding kingpin of such luminaries as Vincent, Brian Adams, Scott Norton, and Horace Hogan. The group had no purpose, except to provide fodder for a series of hilarious satires on the old ScoopThis.com website.
110nWo 2000
111Vince Russo was now in charge of a dying WCW, and decided to make the nWo his centerpiece heel group, since the Corporation had worked in WWF. That’s a joke, by the way. Bret Hart turned heel to lead the charge of the Outsiders, Steiner, and Jeff Jarrett. The idea was that Goldberg would be the new Stone Cold, and combat them, but injuries ruined everything.
112nWo, WWE version
113After Vince McMahon had botched the WCW/ECW invasion, he needed another popular concept to ruin. In early 2002, McMahon rehired Hogan, Hall, and Nash to run a hostile takeover of his increasingly stale WWF shows. By this point, the cool factor was gone, as evidenced by the t-shirts for the guerrilla warriors bearing a highly visible WWF logo.
114The following week, the ratings battle was even closer, with Nitro doing a 4.61 to Raw’s 4.43. Head to head, both shows did an 8.99 combined rating, a brand-new record. And the segment in which Austin, as WWF champion, came out on Raw to confront Vince McMahon did a 5.6, another new record. In the same quarter, Nitro did a 3.9. In fact, of all the quarters, Raw won four, Nitro won three, and one was basically a tie. Bischoff was sweating.
115And then, the next week, everything hit the fan.
116For the first time since May 27, 1996, Raw beat Nitro in the head-tohead ratings battle, ending an epic eighty-three-week winning streak. Raw, built for two hours around a supposed McMahon versus Austin singles match that never ended up taking place, drew a 4.63 to Nitro’s 4.34. The final few minutes also did a 6.0 quarter, the highest in history for Raw.
117Bischoff went nuclear.
118Frustrated beyond belief, he was looking to take his anger out on someone, and that someone wound up being Ric Flair, the man fans identified with WCW more than any other. Flair, who hadn’t been used on TV for months, missed the Thunder event on April 9 in which he was supposed to re-form the Four Horsemen. He claimed that he’d given the company plenty of advance notice that he was going to attend his son Reid’s AAU freestyle wrestling championships at the Pontiac Silverdome that same day. Unfortunately, advance notice was useless in WCW because the shows were often booked literally at the last minute (the term “literally” is not being used facetiously—there were times when the shows were still being written while they were on the air live). Flair never knew he was supposed to be at Thunder until three days before the show, at which point he wasn’t about to change his plans.
119LESSON NOT LEARNED: Despite having a full-blown writing staff headed by no less than Stephanie McMahon-Levesque, there have been times recently where Raw was also being written as the show was on the air. Actually, “written” is not correct; the show is generally written several days in advance and then given to Vince McMahon to give it final approval. Often, approval is not given, and rewrites are ordered. And then rewrites of the rewrites are ordered. And then rewrites of those rewrites are ordered.
120Is it any wonder the average tenure of a new WWE writer is about six weeks? Bischoff came completely unglued, verbally tearing Flair apart in a backstage meeting at Nitro on April 13 (which, ironically, had been deemed Ric Flair Day by the city of Minneapolis), then filed a $2 million lawsuit against him for “playing havoc with the script of the wildly popular productions” and “disrupting WCW’s ability to introduce its planned storyline, causing significant loss of time, money, and effort by WCW.” 
121On the bright side, Reid won first place in his division.
122The big pay-per-view of the month was Spring Stampede, which was one of those rare cards that looked horrific on paper, but ended up being, perhaps because expectations were so low, pretty dang good. Both Raven versus Dallas Page for the U.S. title and Chavo Guerrero Jr. versus Ultimo Dragon were excellent. The main event saw Sting lose the WCW title to Randy Savage, who became the very epitome of a “transitional champion” when he dropped the belt to Hogan the following evening on Nitro. Savage was not the only transitional champion, as Raven, who won the U.S. title from Page in their match, immediately dropped the belt the following night to Goldberg, who was starting to catch fire not only as a ratings draw, but as a merchandise seller.
123In many ways, Goldberg was WCW’s greatest ace in the hole and, in hindsight, was their last best chance at salvaging the company. His segments on Nitro were becoming the most highly rated, and his merchandise sales were beginning to skyrocket as well. It appeared that they truly had a fresh, hot commodity that fans were willing to pay to see.
124In their efforts to push Goldberg to the moon, however, WCW made some critical mistakes. Ever since the announcers had mentioned that he was 60-0, fans with way too much spare time had begun to keep track of his winning streak. These fans were so hardcore that they even kept track of his untelevised house show wins. It was fun to see fans so interested in a character, especially one that WCW had created from the ground up. Of course, since WCW created it, they also had to kill it. One week, announcer Schiavone’s number didn’t jive with the number the hardcores had. Then, the next week, it was even farther off. As it turned out, in a lame effort to make his streak appear more meaningful, the company had started to add imaginary numbers to the total. This had the exact opposite of its intended effect, as once fans figured out that the streak number had become fiction, all those signs fans had been bringing to the arenas trumpeting Goldberg’s record disappeared. Worse yet, WCW was so happy to hear fans chanting Goldberg’s name that they decided to pipe in some fake “GOLDBERG!” chants to make it seem like the fans were making even more noise. For whatever reason, though, the Nitro TV directors apparently weren’t clued in to this, because soon shots began to appear of the crowd sitting there with their mouths closed amidst loud “GOLDBERG!” chants. Again, once fans figured out the chants were being piped in, they stopped chanting so much.
125Nitro the following week was in Norfolk, Virginia, at the Scope, just a half hour away from Raw, which was running in Hampton. Unfortunately, Nitro was bumped to a horrible post-midnight slot, so Raw not only broke another ratings record, but broke it by a full point (5.71) to become the most-watched wrestling show in the history of cable. The most memorable part of the show was a series of DX vignettes where they actually went to the Scope before Nitro started and “invaded.” Their invasion, which should have been seen as an omen of sorts for the future WCW invasion of the WWF, consisted of them asking fans if they thought WCW sucked and banging on the outside doors trying to get in. There was one great line where Waltman screamed that he wanted Bischoff to come out and tell him to his face why he was fired. It was the kind of renegade, in-your-face incident that most fans found hilarious. Plus, it was “real,” and if fans believed one thing about the fake business of pro wrestling, it was that WWF and WCW really hated each other.
126
127There was no traditional burial of Ric Flair this week, because Flair was still being sued for $2 million for his fatherly behavior weeks earlier. There were many who thought this whole thing was a work despite the various signs pointing to it being a stark reality (including settlement talks, which don’t happen in fake lawsuits). Fans on the internet were outraged. WCW’s website actually took advantage of this by posting the following ad in late May: “Ric Flair merchandise now on sale in the Pro Shop!! GET IT BEFORE IT RUNS OUT! The WCW Pro Shop now features selected Ric Flair merchandise at a reduced price!! Internet Fans, don’t read anything into this!”
128But they did. There were fans who tried to organize Nitro boycotts, which never worked; fans who tried to start letter-writing campaigns, which never worked; and fans who voted for Flair online in the People Magazine’s Fifty Most Beautiful People in the World poll. Shockingly, that one actually did work, and Flair came in second only to Hank the Angry Drunken Dwarf from Howard Stern with 17,145 votes. What was more impressive was that Hank was actually among the available choices while Flair was a write-in candidate.
129
130(box) WCW had a problem at the Augusta, Georgia, house show on April 30. The main event was scheduled to be Flair versus Hennig, but with Flair out indefinitely and Hennig, well, just not there, fans were very upset. So upset, in fact, that hundreds of them demanded refunds. After thinking over several scenarios, the decision was made to do a last-minute change and have Chris Benoit beat Booker T to win the TV title. It worked; the fans were overjoyed. So the decision was made to do it again the next night. And then again, and again, and again. The belt changed hands four times in four days at the house shows, going from Booker to Benoit to Booker to Benoit to Booker again. 
131Every night, the fans went crazy as they watched something special happen right there in their hometown. But then on Monday, when Booker T showed up to lose the belt to Fit Finley on TV, the announcers never mentioned anything about the house show title changes. They just ignored them, and to all the casual fans watching around the nation, it was as though nothing had ever happened. It also sent a very strong message to all those previously overjoyed fans in Norfolk, Greenville, North Charleston, and Savannah: you don’t count, and if anything happens in your little hick town, it won’t be acknowledged on TV because it’s not important. If they hadn’t already done enough to kill business in those areas, this was another nail in the coffin. 
132May was the beginning of WCW’s House Show Tour From Hell. They booked thirty-one—yes, THIRTY-ONE—house shows during the month. Because the company was still on fire and the previously mentioned mistakes had not caught up with them yet, this was possible. To make life easier for everyone, they split the crew in half so nobody would have to work every single show. Guys still weren’t happy, though, as the once very easy road schedule of WCW was now a complete nightmare.
133But Bischoff wasn’t really concerned about any of these small issues; he was still too obsessed with conquering the WWF in the weekly ratings war. By this point, word of Bischoff’s alleged increasing mental instability had reached Vince McMahon, who decided to have some fun by doing everything in his power to drive Eric completely over the edge. He had his hooligan group DX “invade” the Norfolk Scope where Nitro was being presented. Of course, the WWF guys couldn’t get into the arena, so the invasion merely consisted of them talking to fans and telling WCW to “suck it.” A week or so later, the WWF sent DX and a film crew to Smyrna, Georgia, for another “invasion,” this time of WCW headquarters. Unfortunately, WCW headquarters were private property, so Nick Lambros called the cops and actually claimed that “twenty-five guys” were “attacking” their offices. The cops showed up and told DX to hit the bricks. Their next stop was CNN Center, where they claimed they wanted to interview Ted Turner. The problem here was that the camera crew was now terrified and wouldn’t film anything except them standing around in the lobby doing crotch chops and chatting with fans. This was even lamer than the previous invasion, but, once again, fans wanted reality, and that’s what they were getting.
134That evening on Nitro, Bischoff hit the ring to reveal his master plan for revenge. It was ingenious in that mad-scientist-losing-his-mind sort of way. He entered the ring literally shaking with rage and recited a speech that he’d given many times in the past, almost word-for-word, to folks backstage:
135Vince McMahon, this is for you. I’m coming to your backyard this Sunday. That’s right, Worcester, Massachusetts. Got a little PPV thing going on, and I got a hell of an idea, just a hell of an idea. You want me? I’m going to be in your backyard. Consider this an open invitation, Vince McMahon. You show up at Slamboree, it’ll be you and me in the ring. How about it, Vinny? But I want to warn you people right now. If you think Vince McMahon has got the guts to show up, don’t buy this PPV, because I guarantee you he’s not man enough to step into the ring with me. But I’ll be there, Vinny Mac. I’ll be waiting for you. And I’m going to knock you out. See you there!
136The fans in attendance, understanding the reality of the challenge, cheered Eric as a babyface. The WWF’s response on Raw two hours later was to have announcers Jim Ross and Jim Cornette cry about it and to have Waltman come out and tell Eric to suck it. A few days later on WWF. com, Vince issued a statement calling Eric’s move a cheap ploy to increase PPV buys. “Therefore,” he wrote, “I will not appear at Turner’s next PPV as invited. However, if Mr. Bischoff is hell bent on fighting me, then such a fight can be arranged at any time, in any parking lot in the country; void of television cameras, photographers, and public announcement.”
137Eric wasn’t finished. That Thursday on Thunder, he cut not one, but two promos challenging Vince. He also read a real-life legal letter that Vince’s attorney, the famed and terrifying Jerry McDevitt, had sent to him, threatening him for what it claimed was a cheap bait and switch to try to get fans to order the PPV. In a true story, McDevitt claimed that when Bischoff told the fans that the match wasn’t going to take place he was actually insinuating that it was, because in wrestling, when a person says something isn’t going to happen, it’s usually a sign that it is. Sadly, this never went to court—it would have been very interesting to see a judge and jury’s reaction to that statement. They also aired a Bischoff training video on Thunder, which was comical because he was really training quite hard for an imaginary fight.
138And imaginary it was. To seemingly everyone save for Bischoff and Hogan. Bischoff noted in his autobiography, Controversy Creates Cash, that Hogan had convinced him that Vince would definitely be there “to kick your ass.” “I fully expected Vince to show up,” Eric wrote. “We had security waiting at all the exits. I was fully prepared to get my ass kicked. I didn’t think I would—my kickboxing skills were still there, and I thought I could work the ring.”
139Yes, this is what the man in charge of WCW was doing at the time: honing his martial arts skills for a match that was never, ever going to take place.
140Bischoff came to the ring at Slamboree and had Michael Buffer introduce Vince. Of course, there was no Vince. So Bischoff had the referee count the imaginary Vince out and award him the match. The deal had more than run its course, so it came off as incredibly stupid. 
141The only other major angle of note at Slamboree saw Hall turn on Nash and cost them the tag titles to Sting and Giant. Neither wanted to do the turn, but Eric insisted, so they half-heartedly went along with it. It ended up being the usual WCW brilliance as Hall immediately left to attend rehab for six weeks (which was known well in advance, so they could have changed booking plans), and then Nash never did one interview acknowledging the situation.
142Ric Flair, meanwhile, had gotten himself into great shape sitting at home doing nothing and wanted to work somewhere. However, because of his treatment, that somewhere was not WCW. He filed a countersuit that he hoped would get him out of his deal and allow him to go back to the WWF for a top heel run against Austin. Bischoff, aware of this, made it known that if he wanted to come back, he’d drop the lawsuit and forget the whole thing ever happened. Flair’s attorney said they could talk about it, but he had a list of contract restructuring demands a mile long. So the man who just months earlier was the biggest ratings draw in either company remained on the sidelines instead of helping WCW.
143LESSON NOT LEARNED: You’d think that following the disaster that was the entire Eric Bischoff–Vince McMahon non-match, the days of publicly making challenges that would never be accepted would be over. Think again. In 2006, following yet another D-Generation X reunion of Shawn Michaels and Triple H, Road Dogg Jesse James and Billy Gunn decided to challenge their old partners. Sadly for the latter duo, they now competed in TNA Wrestling, and had changed their name to the Voodoo Kin Mafia, which may have been the stupidest name for a tag team ever. But wait! They did so because abbreviated it became VKM … the same initials as Vincent Kennedy McMahon! How clever! For weeks, the pair came out on national television, badmouthing “Michael Hickenbottom” and “Paul Levesque” (Shawn and Hunter’s real names, so you knew it was a shoot!), offering to fight them anytime, anywhere. They even went to WWE house shows attempting to get attention. Their challenges, of course, were completely ignored. In an effort to elicit some kind of reaction, they offered $1 million to their WWE foes for the fight. Again, ignored. They told Shawn to fight them at the Alamo (really) and showed up there (REALLY!). Ignored. Finally, the TNA guys just claimed victory. During said promo, in which they noted how much they hated their WWE rivals and how Shawn and Hunter were “cowards,” they got serious and told Paul (Hunter) they legitimately hoped his torn quadriceps would get better soon.
144You know, because all that other stuff was fake. 
145Amazingly, all these words and actions did not keep both men from returning to WWE in 2013 and even getting a run with the Tag Team title. Wrestling, everyone. Wrestling. 
146Just weeks after the whole childish “Vince McMahon versus Eric Bischoff” program took place, WCW took their complaints a step further by filing an unfair business practices countersuit against the WWF, a suit almost identical to the one the WWF had filed against them in 1996 after Hall and Nash jumped ship. The suit, like that of the WWF, was mostly frivolous, claiming that Vince and his crew had done mean things like saying all their wrestlers were old (and this was hilarious, because on several occasions when announcer Jim Ross made such claims, elderly men like Gerald Brisco, Pat Patterson, and Vince himself were involved in matches as he spoke). They did have one good point, however: that the WWF had falsely claimed on several occasions that WCW was giving away free tickets, when in reality the shows in question were legitimately sold out. When DX invaded the Scope, the WWF even went so far as to digitally insert a graphic on the marquee claiming that tickets to the show were still available (yes, they went to these absurd lengths for a corny skit). “In the professional wrestling business,” the suit read, “the giving away of free tickets to an event on the day of the show is a response to a failure to sell out the venue, and it reflects badly on a promotion, suggesting that an insufficient number of fans were willing to pay to see the show.” Coincidentally, on Nitro that even and how Shawn and Hunter were “cowards,” they got serious and told Paul (Hunter) they legitimately hoped his torn quadriceps would get better soon.
147You know, because all that other stuff was fake. 
148Amazingly, all these words and actions did not keep both men from returning to WWE in 2013 and even getting a run with the Tag Team title. Wrestling, everyone. Wrestling. 
149Just weeks after the whole childish “Vince McMahon versus Eric Bischoff” program took place, WCW took their complaints a step further by filing an unfair business practices countersuit against the WWF, a suit almost identical to the one the WWF had filed against them in 1996 after Hall and Nash jumped ship. The suit, like that of the WWF, was mostly frivolous, claiming that Vince and his crew had done mean things like saying all their wrestlers were old (and this was hilarious, because on several occasions when announcer Jim Ross made such claims, elderly men like Gerald Brisco, Pat Patterson, and Vince himself were involved in matches as he spoke). They did have one good point, however: that the WWF had falsely claimed on several occasions that WCW was giving away free tickets, when in reality the shows in question were legitimately sold out. When DX invaded the Scope, the WWF even went so far as to digitally insert a graphic on the marquee claiming that tickets to the show were still available (yes, they went to these absurd lengths for a corny skit). “In the professional wrestling business,” the suit read, “the giving away of free tickets to an event on the day of the show is a response to a failure to sell out the venue, and it reflects badly on a promotion, suggesting that an insufficient number of fans were willing to pay to see the show.” Coincidentally, on Nitro that even a Chicago Bulls practice session without bothering to tell anyone, for which he was subsequently fined $10,000. Keeping with his bad-boy persona, he teamed up with Hogan as Rodzilla to put the boots to Page, setting up Page and Malone versus Hogan and Rodman for the PPV. The angle got tons of publicity nationwide, as many of the major sports shows and evening newscasts aired footage of the incident.
150More Hogan fun was on display on June 14 at the Great American Bash pay-per-view. He teamed with Bret Hart to beat Roddy Piper and Randy Savage in a horrible match, which led immediately to an equally horrible match where Piper—wrestling with two fake hips—beat Savage with a figure four. The main event saw Sting beat Giant in a match that was memorable mostly because Giant came out smoking a cigarette to play off an interview Sting did the week before where he yelled at Giant for smoking too much. None of this could even approach the worst match on the show, however, which saw the incredible Juventud Guerrera, as part of the “big push” he was promised after agreeing to drop his mask, beat Ron Reis. Juvie, at the time, was about 5'5" and 160 pounds, and Reis was a legit 7'2", almost 400 pounds, and, best of all, could not wrestle to save his life. Juvie’s superhero babyface performance consisted of him being destroyed forever, then getting the win with a messed-up huracanrana after Van Hammer clonked Reis with a chair. Juvie probably wanted his mask back more than ever at this point, just to hide his shame. By far the lowest moment of the day, however, actually took place backstage when someone with inside knowledge of the Hart family called Bischoff and told him to tell Bret that his father Stu had passed away. As it turned out, it was a hoax, but everyone was greatly disturbed by it and nobody ever found out who made the call.
151
152The Bash show was actually not even a focal point for Eric, as his eyes were on the big Nitro coming up at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta. By early June they’d sold over 20,000 tickets and were closing in on a $1 million gate. As the date drew nearer, Hogan the wily veteran came up with a plan. Aware that all the Turner bigwigs would be at the show, he offered to take Goldberg on in a non-title, non-televised match in which Goldberg would get the win and send the folks home happy. All the company execs, seeing the huge house, would obviously assume that Hogan drew it, and his standing as WCW’s top dog would be cemented.
153As the show approached, however, the decision was made to change the Hogan-Goldberg match to a televised title match. This was due almost entirely to the fact that Nitro had been losing the ratings war, and Bischoff was obsessed with beating McMahon, even if only for one week. With Hogan taking on Goldberg, there was absolutely no way he could lose the night.
154Make no mistake about it: July 6 should have been a pivotal day in wrestling history. It was on that day that Bill Goldberg—less than one year into his professional career—beat Hulk Hogan clean in the middle of the ring to win the WCW World Heavyweight championship. Internally, the sense was that this was the beginning of a new era for the company, and that Goldberg could be the answer to Steve Austin as a super draw. The ovation he received when he won the belt was among the loudest anyone had ever heard. The TV rating spoke volumes as well, as the quarter-hour for the title change set a cable wrestling record: a 6.91 with 5,054,000 homes tuning in, helping Nitro win the night 4.93 to 4.0. And Bischoff no doubt smiled widely on Tuesday morning when the ratings came in.
155But something was lost in that ratings win: money, and lots of it. The first-ever Goldberg-Hogan match, which could have drawn millions of dollars on pay-per-view, was aired free on Nitro instead, owing almost entirely to the fact that Raw had kicked their ass the week before. Instead of showing patience, as he had with the Sting-Hogan bout, Bischoff allowed very lucrative business to be pushed aside because he wanted to brag that Nitro had won a week in a ratings war that he cared about more than any of the fans watching at home did. The title change, also a last-minute decision, effectively put the kibosh on several storylines that Hogan had been involved in that could have led to lucrative matches with Bret Hart and Kevin Nash.
156There was actually worse news than that, too. WCW drew 41,412 fans—the biggest crowd in its history—to the Georgia Dome to see the match. At the time, it was the fourth-largest crowd ever to watch a wrestling show in the U.S. You’d think that WCW would brag about this, and likely even add to the figure, as it had always been common practice in the business to slightly exaggerate attendance numbers. Instead, however, they inexplicably subtracted 1,500 fans, announcing 39,919. Yes, WCW became the first promotion in wrestling history to claim a less impressive number than what they actually drew. It gets even worse than that. When they first announced Hogan versus Goldberg locally, they only sold about 2,000 extra tickets. Realistically, the company was still hot enough at this point that very few, if any, of the wrestlers could actually be considered ticket-sellers. Instead, the name “WCW” itself sold tickets, usually on the very first day, before a card was ever announced. The mainstream wasn’t aware of this, however, so Hogan decided to manipulate it so that it would appear that he did, indeed, sell tickets pretty much on his own. Therefore, he suggested the idea of doing the match live on TV and switching the title. After all, if the match was televised, it would look like he drew the house, whereas if it wasn’t, someone else would get credit for the new company record. And that would be completely unacceptable.
157LESSON NOT LEARNED: The sheer amount of money WCW lost in rushing Goldberg-Hogan to free television cannot be understated, but it hasn’t stopped anyone from hotshotting various angles and matches in an effort to pop what is essentially a worthless one-week rating. While it had nowhere near the ramifications of the Goldberg title win, the unmasking of Kane in 2003 comes to mind as another perfect example of something that could have been built up for months for a pay-per-view big money match. In Mexico, matches in which a competitor is forced to show his face upon being defeated have drawn money for decades. Of course, these are generally done with a proper build. Instead, one week on Raw, it was casually announced that Kane would be battling Triple H for the title. If he lost, he’d lose his mask. He lost. With no real build, the show didn’t even gain viewers, doing the exact same rating as it had the prior week. And then he just put the mask back on years later, again with no real explanation. Oops. 
158Hogan had one major demand: that when “the time was right” to beat Goldberg, he would be the guy to do it. Because he agreed to drop the belt with a clean pinfall loss in the first place, there weren’t any problems with this scenario. He also, as usual, had a few diabolical tricks up his sleeve, to be revealed over the next several months.
159At the time the Goldberg-Hogan Nitro went down, no one really examined Hogan’s motives or the long-term impact the title bout would have on the company. Instead, everyone was looking ahead to Bash at the Beach 1998, in which Hogan and Rodman beat Page and Malone after E. Harrison Leslie interfered. The show was a shining example of the good and the bad that go along with using celebrities. On the bright side, the match got WCW a ton of mainstream publicity, with everyone from Sports Illustrated to USA Today sending reporters to cover it. Plus, Rodman and Malone proved to be successful draws, as the show did the best WCW buy rate since Starrcade—an estimated 1.5 for almost a $7 million gross. For promoters who only look at the bottom line, that number alone was enough to convince them that they’d made a great decision.
160That’s where the good news ends, however. Malone was very professional, and for a guy in his very first pro-wrestling match ever, he was more than acceptable. Rodman, on the other hand, showed up in the infamous “no condition to perform.” You could argue that at least he showed up, because he’d blown off basketball practice to attend Nitro, and blowing off a wrestling show to attend, well, a party or something probably wouldn’t have shocked anyone. In fact, he had disappeared for several hours the day of the show, and when he showed up in whatever condition he was in, the company was actually thrilled because they thought he wasn’t going to be there at all. He got in the ring and was beyond horrible, screwing up moves left and right and actually falling down on several occasions. Then he tagged out, stood on the apron, and put his head on the turnbuckle, seemingly falling asleep. Luckily, that was the best role for him. Hogan had also demanded forty-five minutes for the match—approximately forty-four minutes longer than any of the four, with the exception of Page, could realistically have wrestled and remained entertaining. Everyone, from the fans to the sports reporters who may or may not have ever watched a full wrestling show in their lives, knew it was an in-ring disaster. It should probably also be noted that despite no-showing the last Nitro before the PPV, showing up in a questionable state of mind, and doing nearly nothing in the match, Rodman still later sued the company for $550,000, claiming they defrauded him in contract negotiations.
161In light of all the publicity Rodman had been generating, WCW started to go overboard with celebrities, adding Kevin Greene (actually a pretty decent wrestler given his level of experience) to the semi-main event. The idea was to tag him with Goldberg to face Hennig and Giant. There was no logical reason for doing this, other than to waste a bunch of money on a guy who wasn’t going to add one single buy to the show. Of course, this would be neither the first nor the last time that happened.
162There was a backstory to the Hennig versus Goldberg match as well. A few weeks earlier, an idea was batted around where Hennig would attack Konnan while he was having a match with Goldberg, and as a result Goldberg would be declared the loser via DQ. Of course, this would have brought the win streak to an end. By the grace of God, Bischoff axed that one, much to Hennig’s chagrin. Looking back, it’s frankly amazing that WCW didn’t screw up the Goldberg push a lot earlier than they did.
163And Flair? Still on the sidelines, with WCW unwilling to bring him back to help in the war. Despite this, Flair suddenly found himself ranked number one in the online Time Magazine Person of the Century poll, ahead of Adolph Hitler and Jesus Christ, among others.
164On July 17, the company came to terms with their next huge mainstream superstar, Jay Leno of the Tonight Show. Yes, that Jay Leno. If that wasn’t sufficiently absurd, Bischoff spent an estimated $75,000 to construct a mock Tonight Show set so he could act as host of his own “talk show” during Nitro and bury Leno. The first time they did this segment, it was so successful that it caused thousands of viewers to immediately switch channels to Raw. Eric, perhaps noting that Rodman and Malone meant nothing for TV ratings but did huge PPV numbers regardless, decided to keep doing the segments despite their enormous turn-off factor. This resulted in a string of some of the worst first hours of Nitro in history. The original plan was to bring Leno, a huge motorcycle fan, in for a match at the annual Road Wild biker rally pay-per-view in Sturgis. So not only were they bringing in a non-athlete to compete in a worked athletic event, but they were also spending all that money to bring him in for a free show, meaning they wouldn’t be making hundreds of thousands of dollars at the gate to help offset the cost of bringing Leno in. Obviously, they were hoping that all the free Tonight Show publicity would result in thousands of new viewers buying the PPV.
165In July, the one-year anniversary of Bill Goldberg’s first-ever win, the one that launched the famous streak and catapulted him to stardom, took place on Nitro. To commemorate the occasion, Goldberg—the company’s World champion, remember—never once appeared on the show. The same show also featured the final match for several years of Ultimo Dragon, who after a botched operation by a WCW-appointed surgeon was forced into retirement due to serious nerve damage in his left arm. He destroyed one of his students, Tokyo Magnum, in a match that was given “a trillion stars” by Figure Four Weekly and long considered the greatest squash match of all time. In second place, by the way, was a match a year later featuring Chris Benoit and David Flair. Dragon went on to form his own training school and cult wrestling promotion in Japan, Toryumon, and over the next few years he turned out some of the most exciting wrestlers the country had ever seen. 
166Both shows set a new ratings record the following week, with Raw doing a 4.84 and Nitro doing a 4.72 for a combined 9.58 rating in 7,060,000 homes, meaning that approximately 10.5 million fans were watching wrestling at some point during that evening. This was the only good news for WCW, as Schiavone announced that their show, which actually drew almost 20,000 fans to the AlamoDome, had drawn only 13,000. Meanwhile, the Raw show, which drew 12,000, was billed as having drawn 18,000 by Jim Ross, so everyone figured the WWF had the better night. To make matters worse, those who watched Nitro witnessed one of the most atrocious shows in its history, a show in which, over the course of three hours, exactly nineteen minutes were devoted to actual in-ring pro wrestling. In fact, there was one match in the entire first hour, which ran less than two minutes. Meanwhile, Bischoff did another Tonight Show segment that went almost twenty. At the top of the hour, starting the head-to-head battle with Raw, WCW presented a true mat classic, Scott Norton versus Jim Neidhart, which went sixteen seconds. No, that’s not a typo—sixteen seconds. Come to think of it, though, it was superior to those two going sixteen minutes. They replayed the entire horrible Page and Malone versus Hogan and Rodman match from the PPV, essentially telling everyone who bought it that they were stupid for doing so and had wasted their thirty bucks. At least the match got a good rating. Hogan also cut an amazing promo where he threatened to “ride DDP’s butt,” then “ride him hard and hang him up wet.” Hall beat Sting. The nWo came down and destroyed Sting outside the ring. Instead of DQ’ing Hall for the interference, the ref counted Sting out as he was being pounded on. The highlight of the show, sadly, was a tasteless angle with Steiner and Bagwell. Steiner pushed his buddy through the curtain in his wheelchair, then stopped on the ramp to flex. As he turned his back, the wheelchair rolled down the ramp and crashed into the ring. The look on Bagwell’s face was priceless. Of course, he got right up and started flexing for the fans. The main event was Page beating Hogan via DQ when–YES!–the nWo ran in. Still, Bischoff argued, the bout served its purpose by pushing the Road Wild PPV.
167
168Sadly, the career of Ultimo Dragon was cut short. His matches against the likes of Rey Mysterio are the stuff of legend. [GEORGE NAPOLITANO]
169In legal news, Scott Hall was arrested for allegedly getting intoxicated and groping a fifty-six-year-old woman outside a hotel in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Time for a pop quiz. WCW was so outraged by Hall’s behavior that they:
170(A) suspended him without pay;
171(B) suspended him with pay;
172(C) turned the entire thing into a long-running angle in which Hall would come out on TV “pretending” to be drunk, stumble around in the ring, crash cars (in real life, he crashed five that year), and throw up on people.
173Hopefully, after reading this far, you won’t be shocked to learn that the answer was C. 
174
175The build toward Road Wild continued on the July 29 Tonight Show when, during a skit with a fake Hulk Hogan, the real Hogan and Bischoff showed up and “took over the broadcast” for a minute or so. Leno finally returned with security and, coincidentally, Dallas Page, who helped run off the bad guys. Page then asked Leno to team with him to take them on at the PPV, and Leno said OK. None of this hype ended up meaning a thing for WCW’s ratings yet, but on the bright side, Leno was totally kicking David Letterman’s ass.
176Even though the two non-wrestlers in the match, Leno and Bischoff, were hardly in the same universe athletically as Malone and Rodman, the pay-per-view match was significantly better than anyone had any right to expect. The main reason was because Hogan did not ask for forty-five minutes this time, plus he and Page figured out that the best course of action was to have the non-wrestlers do almost nothing. Sadly, “almost nothing” did not mean “absolutely nothing,” and in a moment that is best forgotten, Hogan and Leno 
177
178squared off with Leno actually getting the best of it. Leno locked an armlock on the Hulkster that had old-timers claiming the business as they knew it was dead forever. On the plus (?) side, there were probably five matches on the show worse than this one, though that’s partly because those five matches were among the worst five of the entire year from any company worldwide. Steve “Mongo” McMichael versus Brian Adams in particular almost set new standards.
179One could have argued that at Bash at the Beach, it was OK for the World champion to work second-to-last, because the semi-main was a huge media event. However, Goldberg ended up working second-to-last on this show as well in a nine-man battle royal that absolutely nobody cared about. While logic would suggest that Goldberg would be eliminated by a new challenger for his belt, he not only won, but won decisively, last eliminating Giant in dominating fashion with a spear and jackhammer. There he was, the WCW World Heavyweight champion, standing there with no challengers, no future programs, and playing second fiddle to—that’s right!—Hulk Hogan. 
180The celebrity magic was gone as the show only did in the 1.0 range, just slightly higher than what most pay-per-views from both companies had been doing. You would think that perhaps WCW would have learned a lesson from this, that A-list celebrities are only valuable when used sparingly. You would be wrong.
181And there was another lesson that should have been learned, but wasn’t. WCW didn’t have a full card for this pay-per-view until six days prior to the show. Normally, cards were announced far in advance so there would be several weeks of television that could be used to promote them. Perhaps the mindset was that the company was so hot that they didn’t need to announce anything other than a main event involving Hogan. It became a trend; the card wouldn’t be announced until a week before the PPV, and the buyrate would be low. This continued for months and months and nobody internally seemed to put two and two together.
182The stupidity wasn’t taking its toll on business yet, however. For July, the company grossed $4.3 million over nineteen house shows, which made it the most successful month for any American wrestling company in history. Part of the reason that house shows were still doing so well was because many of the big stars were still working on them, including Goldberg, and WCW was doing their best to try to make the fans who bought tickets happy. In fact, when it was discovered that Bill wasn’t going to make it on time to compete at the August 16 show in Providence, Rhode Island, WCW did something that was revolutionary—they told the fans that the show was free. That’s right, they blew off a $146,000 gate, saying fans could either get a refund after the show or save their ticket to use the next time WCW came to town.
183On August 17 in Hartford, Connecticut, right in the middle of WWF country, former WWF champion the Ultimate Warrior made his WCW debut, pretty much out of nowhere. Actually, literally out of nowhere: his gimmick was that he could appear and disappear at will in a cloud of smoke. Before we continue, we need to note that none of the following is being made up. This all actually happened, presumably because someone theorized that it would make fans buy tickets and PPVs.
184Prior to his arrival, WCW couldn’t hype up Warrior’s return like they probably wanted to because they were tied up in a legal battle over what they could call him. It was pretty clear that “Ultimate Warrior” was out of the question, since the WWF had that one trademarked (and you should have seen Eric’s face when, on the August 24 Nitro, Hogan accidentally said “Ultimate Warrior”). Just plain old “Warrior” seemed to be OK, 
185
186though, mostly because that’s what Jim Hellwig, the man who played the Warrior character, had legally changed his name to. The WWF didn’t even want him to wear his face paint, but he claimed he’d worn it when he worked in Texas as the Dingo Warrior at the start of his career.
187At the Hartford show, he was scheduled to talk for six minutes, but he ended up rambling on in a pretty much incomprehensible manner for almost twenty, and the entire show had to be rearranged live as a result (not that this was anything new for Nitro). It should be noted that the aforementioned ramble was by far the best interview of his entire career. The gist of his speech was that he was back, and he wanted to face Hogan again in an epic rematch from their first battle at WrestleMania VI in 1990. In a comical moment, Warrior said that beating Hogan was no big deal, which kind of made one wonder why he would want to have a rematch with the Hulk. The interview was, as expected, a huge ratings draw: nearly seven million fans lost eighteen minutes of their lives watching it.
188Warrior allegedly signed a $1 million deal to work roughly three shows per month, which of course had the locker room in an uproar as nearly everyone else was making a hell of a lot less to work a hell of a lot more. And everyone but Eric Bischoff seemed able to predict exactly what the future held: Warrior would have a shelf life of about, oh, five or six weeks, and then it would be all downhill from there. These people were sadly mistaken. His WCW shelf life was actually about three weeks.
189Nitro that evening also featured one of those only-in-WCW angles where you had to have a translator to make heads-or-tails of it. Eddie Guerrero came out and ranted and raved about Bischoff, then finished by pouring a cup of coffee on himself and saying he was saving Eric the trouble. You see, months earlier Eric had gotten really mad backstage and thrown a cup of coffee against the wall by Eddie’s head. What this had to do with wrestling and how anyone in the audience was supposed to know what he was talking about, was never determined. A few months later, Eddie formed a stable of disgruntled Mexicans called the Latino World Order, or the LWO for short. Presumably, this was supposed to be his way of getting revenge on Eric for throwing coffee at him. Since the Mexicans had always been treated as total losers on TV, fans hated it with a passion, booing loudly even as Guerrero ran down Bischoff and Hogan in promos. Many in the WCW hierarchy, however, honestly felt that it was a stroke of genius. This was the same company that had made over a million dollars in one week.
190The week of August 24 was the stuff of legend. The two shows set a new combined ratings record: 9.72 in 7,169,000 homes. Meanwhile, on ABC, the debut of Monday Night Football, featuring a Green Bay Packers versus Denver Broncos preseason Superbowl rematch, did a 9.5. Realistically, because network TV is in more homes than cable, football actually beat wrestling 9.3 million homes to 7.2 million. However, it soon became “common knowledge” (read: “urban legend”) that pro wrestling was so hot that it was regularly beating Monday Night Football in the ratings. Even at its peak, this was never really the case. 
191But wrestling was legitimately hotter than a lot of other sporting acts and concerts, as evidenced by folks who tried to sell tickets to these events in classified ads over the summer. In the San Antonio market, for example, 75 percent of fans used Nitro or Raw in their bold headlines. “WCW NITRO,” the ads would begin, and then underneath it would read: “Yes, Elton John.”
192The TV trend continued for the umpteenth week: Raw was great and Nitro was horrible. On August 24, for example, the main event saw Goldberg and Nash beat Hogan and Giant when Goldberg speared and pinned Curt Hennig, who wasn’t even in the match. Also on the show, Chris Jericho went to a “ten-minute draw” with Hennig in six minutes, and then three nights later on Thunder, he beat Alex Wright in twelve minutes of a match with a ten-minute time limit. Sadly, nobody complaining about Nitro’s quality could even fathom at the time that the following year it would get significantly worse.
193Short-term, Warrior was generating numbers. And it was beginning to look like another major ratings draw was coming back too, as Ric Flair, after being gone nearly six months, would likely return at the Nitro show in Greenville, South Carolina, on September 14. The WWF hadn’t made him a serious offer due to their legal battles with WCW, plus some within the company had been very vocal in expressing their belief that Flair was too old to come in and headline against Austin.
194Among those who argued against bringing Ric Flair back to the WWF was a young man by the name of Hunter Hearst Helmsley, who said outright in a radio interview that Flair should just retire. This was the same Triple H who, five years later, would end up best buddies with the still-active Flair on WWE television, and would, in fact, write the foreword to Flair’s autobiography. 
195With Raw preempted for the annual U.S. Open tennis tournament, WCW’s good fortune contin
196
197ued: Nitro drew a 6.03 in 4,485,333 homes, setting a new record for cable. Never mind that nearly seven million people witnessed yet another installment in a seemingly endless series of hideous programs, this one headlined by Sting and Luger beating Hogan and Hart via countout. Afterwards, Warrior appeared in his cloud of smoke, a cloud now capable of making horrible wrestlers like Ed Leslie and Brian Adams faint, and good wrestlers like Bret Hart vanish into thin air. Let us reiterate that this was designed to be compelling, not comical. Goldberg, the World Heavyweight champion, again worked the semi-main, successfully defending his title against Kevin Nash’s original tag team partner, a man named Al Greene who hadn’t wrestled in what seemed like decades. Exactly how Al Greene became the number-one contender to the World championship remains to be ascertained.
198September 14 saw a battle of the ages, as both sides put on pay-per-view-caliber television shows with marquee matches and major character turns. From a wrestling standpoint, WCW presented one of its best TV matches of the year with Billy Kidman winning the Cruiserweight title from Juventud Guerrera. From a marquee standpoint, Goldberg’s first-ever bout with Sting was a hugely anticipated matchup. On the other channel, the WWF turned both Rock and Mankind babyface, Undertaker made a strong heel turn, and Steve Austin faced Ken Shamrock for the first time ever in a WWF title defense. All of it, though, paled in comparison to the highlight moment of the year: the return of Ric Flair.
199His segment, which did a strong 5.4 rating going up against Mark Henry versus Chyna and X-Pac (now that’s some competition), opened with Arn Anderson coming out and cutting a great promo detailing the history of his career and that of the Horsemen. He called out Steve McMichael and Chris Benoit, then introduced Dean Malenko as the newest member of the group. At that point, he teased that the segment was over, and boy, were the fans ever unhappy about that. Truth be told, the whole thing almost fell through over the weekend, but Flair and WCW came to a new agreement on Sunday and everything went forward as planned.
200“Oh, what a goof,” Arn suddenly blurted. “What a goof. You know, I get accused of getting racked in the head a few times and have a little touch of Alzheimer’s. My God, I almost forgot the fourth Horseman. RIC FLAIR, GET DOWN HERE!” It was the perfect setup. When Flair came out, he got an ovation that rivaled, and probably exceeded, any other ovation in the history of wrestling—an ovation that nobody watching will ever forget. After finally composing himself, Flair cut a promo talking about his appreciation for the fans, his life in the past few months, and finally, Eric Bischoff. Eric showed up just in time to hear the following emotional outburst:
201You’re an overbearing asshole! You’re obnoxious, overbearing—abuse of power! You … abuse of power! Cut me off! Abuse of power! You suck! I hate your guts! You are a liar, you’re a cheat, you’re a scam! You are a no-good son-of-a-bitch! Fire me! I’m already fired! Fire me! I’m already fired! 
202And then they cut to a commercial, right in the middle of the speech that the majority of wrestling fans wish they could have personally cut on Eric.
203Thankfully, Flair’s promo was so great that it took the minds of many fans off the previous night’s Fall Brawl pay-per-view, yet another horrible show that the company actually charged fans money to view. There was one good match on the show, Saturn over Raven, and the main event was so atrocious that if you made a list of the very worst major main events in the entire history of this business, it would probably rank in the top five or ten. Dallas Page beat Hogan, Bret, Stevie Ray, Warrior, Piper, Sting, Luger, and Kevin Nash in a double-cage War Games match. It seems unlikely that with so much impressive talent in the ring a match could be this bad, but it was. Technically, there were two teams working against each other, but you wouldn’t have known this to see it. Hogan came out with a device known as a slapjack (which looked for all the world like an old dirty sock) and knocked out everyone except Stevie. Neither man bothered to pin anyone, however—they just stood there looking at all the corpses. Warrior then appeared in his magical cloud of smoke. Hogan tore his jacket off, but then the smoke rose again, and when it cleared Warrior was gone, and Hogan was left just holding the jacket. Warrior then ran out from the dressing room. Yes, they went to the trouble of hiring a fake Warrior (the artist formerly known as Renegade) just to do this cartoonish spot. Hogan, with help from Ed Leslie, escaped from the cage and locked Warrior in. Despite magically appearing and disappearing just moments earlier in his magical cloud of smoke, Warrior was now unable to get out of the cage. So he got angry, growled, and finally kicked his way out of the cage. They began to brawl in the aisle, and during this short melee, Warrior, despite having displayed no athletic ability whatsoever in this brawl, somehow managed to both twist his ankle and tear his biceps. Once everyone in the ring emerged from the smoke-induced coma, Page pinned Stevie with the diamond cutter. The crowd’s reaction to this whole match took the form of intense and deep-seated hatred.
204“WHAT AN EVENT!” Tony Schiavone screamed as the show concluded.
205Not only was the action in the ring becoming atrocious, so was the television production. In particular, the Thunder prior to this show featured one of the most unintentionally hilarious screw-ups 
206
207ever. Chris Jericho had been spoofing Goldberg by going to the ring for his matches accompanied by fat security guards (one of whom was a real-life ring crew worker who would go on to minor fame as “Ralphus”). The storyline this particular evening was that Jericho got lost trying to find his way to the ring and ended up locked outside the building. Unfortunately, the door didn’t really lock, so when he pulled on the handle, it opened right up. He quickly closed it and pretended it was locked, pounding on the door and screaming to be let inside. Apparently, someone inside thought he was really locked out, because a door about ten feet away opened, and this dude stuck his head out. Jericho had to pretend like he didn’t see him. It gets better. His opponent, Wrath, got sick of waiting in the ring and ran backstage to find Jericho. They did a chase scene outside the building. Finally, they figured the camera was shut off, so Jericho stopped, and Wrath ran past him. Then they both turned and nonchalantly started walking back toward the camera. Problem was, the camera wasn’t off, and this whole fiasco was broadcast to millions.
208Referee Billy Silverman was also having problems on Thunder. One week, he counted three during a Psicosis versus Saturn match when it was supposed to be a two. Since the show was live, millions of fans witnessed Saturn and Psicosis looking at each other in complete confusion, then just giving up and walking to the back. A week earlier, Jericho was supposed to beat Jim Neidhart with his lion tamer submission. He tried to roll Neidhart over, but it just wasn’t working. Neidhart said he gave up. Silverman didn’t hear him. So Neidhart, in great discomfort, rolled out of the hold. Jericho, irate, told Silverman to ring the bell. Silverman actually said he couldn’t ring the bell because he hadn’t heard Neidhart submit yet. So Jericho said something along the lines of: “Wrestling is fake, you jackass, now ring the bell!”
209The string of horrible programming continued the next week on Nitro, with an angle in which Warrior, using his magical cloud of smoke, not only kidnapped E. Harrison Leslie, but instantly teleported him from the ring to the rafters. To accomplish this feat, they had Warrior in the rafters hugging a blow-up doll dressed like Leslie—one of the more surreal visuals fans would ever see. It was never explained how any of this was intended to sell tickets. Later, to further hype the Hogan versus Warrior match planned for Halloween Havoc the following month, Hogan was brutally attacked—by E. Harrison Leslie. The rest of the show featured only slightly more logical yet ultimately inexplicable booking. It was said that the man partially responsible for all this Warrior malarkey was former child star Jason Hervey of Wonder Years fame, who had become good friends with Bischoff. The next week wasn’t as bad overall, but they did present one incomprehensible segment where Billy Kidman, who seemed to be a superstar on the rise following his Cruiserweight title win over Juvie, lost to Scott Hall clean in a totally one-sided match.
210Scott Hall was arrested again the following week for allegedly causing $2,000 in damage by keying a limo outside the Diamond Mine strip club in Orlando during a drunken fit. This led his ex-wife, Dana, to post a message on an nWo fan site, basically taking WCW to task for still employing him when he obviously had some serious issues to deal with. WCW was so outraged by Hall’s behavior that they continued to portray him as a drunk on TV. 
211As nonsensical as all the previous Warrior segments had become, however, nothing could com pare to the October 5 Nitro, which showcased quite possibly the most absurd angle in wrestling history. The idea was that Hogan couldn’t find Leslie, so he was searching for him throughout the building. He ended up in Leslie’s dressing room, and in the mirror he imagined that he saw the Warrior. As he was screaming at this vision, Bischoff walked in. He could not see Warrior, however, and thought Hogan was going crazy. This is all fine and dandy, except for the fact that viewers at home could see Warrior in the mirror. Of course, this would mean that Hogan was not, in fact, crazy, but that Bischoff was. Or Bischoff was right, and the fans were crazy too. But then, to confuse matters, the Warrior in the mirror disappeared, but Hogan could still see him, which basically meant that everyone involved, from Hogan to Bischoff to the fans, was crazy. In the end, it didn’t matter if they were crazy or not, because fans in the arena were booing like crazy.
212LESSON NOT LEARNED: You just read that paragraph about Hogan and Warrior and the magic mirror, right? Did you ever think anyone would want to bring that magic mirror skit back? Unbelievably, WWE did just this in a Randy Orton versus Undertaker feud in 2005. Not only did Orton see Undertaker in a mirror (as did everyone else at home!), but his father, Bob Orton Jr., also began bleeding for no reason. So in addition to bringing back a horrible WCW gimmick, they also reenacted an awful WWF one as well, as voodoo master Papa Shango did the same thing to the Ultimate Warrior in the early ’90s. 
213In all honesty, we’re not sure which is worse. 
214Or why WWE decided to bring the magic mirror back ONE MORE TIME in 2014 as John Cena saw a sheep mask (presumably Erick Rowen) in the mirror during a feud with Bray Wyatt . . . which then miraculously disappeared.
215Again, all this was done in WCW, and it was horrible. And it’s never been good since. Why this bit continues to be recycled will forever remain a mystery.
216And this was becoming a very bad trend. Instead of the “good heat” that the nWo had generated a year earlier, this was “bad heat,” the kind of heat that results in fans feeling ripped off, angry, and annoyed. Some crowds even began to chant “NITRO SUCKS!” Seemingly everyone knew that the ship was sinking at this point with the exception, of course, of those steering it.
217The next week, fans witnessed the continued rise of a new star—Judy Bagwell, Buff’s mother. They’d flown her in months earlier to do cameos with her son, and everyone soon learned where young Marcus got his ego from. The week prior, she’d gotten a huge pop dragging Bagwell to the backstage area by his ear, and, apparently, superstardom went to her head. This week, she’d gotten a total makeover and considered herself part of the show. Unfortunately, she didn’t realize that her part in the show was to act sad when Scott Steiner turned on Buff and dropped him neck-first over the top rope. Instead, she laughed, right there in front of the camera. 
218
219On the October 19 Nitro, Chris Jericho did an interview basically challenging Dallas Page to a match, which most astute fans found confusing since in the weeks prior he’d been gunning for a match with Goldberg. As it turned out, Goldberg, being very green to the business, was taking advice from the wrong people, namely men like Hogan and Nash. He was told point blank that Jericho was way too small to feud with, and if he did so it would kill his credibility. He told Bischoff to nix the program, and that was the end of that. At the moment, it was just another example of WCW putting the brakes on the ascension of someone who could potentially have become a major breakout star. It was even worse over the long haul. 
220Wrestlers were often told the sky was the limit, but young guys would start a climb toward the top, and then, right when they were starting to get hot, something would happen and their rise would be derailed. Guys referred to it as hitting their heads on a glass ceiling. Jericho, frustrated with hitting his head time and time again, refused to re-sign his WCW deal and jumped instead to the WWF. Despite being smaller than the guys Vince McMahon traditionally pushed as superstars, he was given the main event treatment on his very first day, sparring head-to-head with Rock in a tremendous Raw moment. But then a few months later, following a feud with Triple H, he was back to hitting his head on another glass ceiling, this time in the WWF. Years after that, when Goldberg first arrived to the company, Jericho, who hadn’t forgotten about their WCW program getting axed, confronted him about it and they got into a brief altercation backstage. Jericho, son of hockey star Ted Irvine and a former hockey player himself, grabbed the much-larger Goldberg in a front facelock before everything was broken up. Because Goldberg liked to talk about his mixed martial arts training and had a reputation as a tough guy, and because so many people were bitter about the money he was making, Jericho became a hero to much of the WWE locker room.
221Nitro’s main event that evening was interesting. Konnan and Luger and Nash were wrestling Hall and Stevie Ray and Norton. If you’ll recall, fans were more than fed up with Nitro matches ending abruptly when guys ran in to interfere. So WCW had the ingenious solution of ending this match abruptly without anyone running it. That’s right, they were having the match, and then the bell just rang and it was over. Again, fans were outraged.
222But don’t forget this chapter’s early lesson: when things are hot, a promotion can seemingly do no wrong. A few weeks after this debacle of a show, they put tickets on sale for December’s Astrodome and TWA Dome Nitros. As vocal as fans were in their dislike for most Nitros, they still purchased 16,000 and 18,000 tickets respectively on the first day they went on sale. 
223Halloween Havoc the following Sunday just about set new standards for everything. It almost felt as if the company was trying to see how bad a show they could put on that people would still pay to see. The Hogan versus Warrior rematch was so far beyond atrocious that it actually made their War Games match look like a Ric Flair versus Ricky Steamboat classic. The bout went on for nearly fifteen minutes, and it’s no exaggeration that these two forty-plus-year-old men could realistically only go about fifteen seconds. Without question, the highlight of the match was a truly ridiculous spot that looked as though two kindergartners were on the playground. Remember when you were in preschool and you learned how to do the log roll? The one where you lie on your back and just roll over and over sideways? Well, Hogan tried to drop an elbow on Warrior, but Warrior log-rolled out of the way. Hogan decided to try again, and again, Warrior log-rolled out of the way. Suddenly—and I can only imagine the time and effort that went into plotting this spot backstage—Warrior reversed direction and began to roll toward Hogan. You’d think that Hogan would have several options at this point: step to the left; step to the right; or, perhaps, jump. Instead, he seemed stricken with fear, because he just stood there as Warrior rolled right into his legs, making him fall down.
224
225(box) Before he’d agreed to do the job to Hogan at Havoc, Warrior had also demanded that a new contract pick up where his first one left off. WCW used him on TV less than a handful of times afterwards, so they basically paid him $1 million to agree to lose to Hogan and kill this feud off. 
226If that wasn’t bad enough, a spot was planned for later in which Hogan was supposed to throw fire at Warrior. In wrestling, fire is created by lighting a piece of flash paper. In the corner, Hogan poured his fire-making paraphernalia out of a Ziploc baggie. Warrior came at him. The audience, surely on the edges of their seats, then witnessed Hogan throw a piece of flash paper at Warrior. You read that right: he forgot to light it on fire. The fans, who had been chanting “WARRIOR SUCKS!” and cheering Hogan earlier, booed loudly. Hogan tried again. This time, the paper lit on fire, but it ignited in his hand and burned out. Hogan looked terrified. Warrior was terrified, too, and didn’t know what to do.
227Finally, Hogan’s real-life wrestler nephew Horace ran in and hit Warrior with an incredibly weak chairshot, which Warrior sold like he’d been shot with a handgun. Hogan dove in to get the pin. Afterwards, he told Horace that he’d “passed the test,” which begs the question: how bad could the match have been if he’d failed?
228LESSON NOT LEARNED: After bringing his nephew Horace in and it being, well, not so grand, you might think that Hulk Hogan would avoid being associated with other members of his clan on national televison. Instead, in 2012, his daughter, Brooke, showed up on TNA Impact as the “Executive in Charge of Knockouts.” This role consisted of standing approximately three feet taller than any other woman (and many of the men) on the roster, being involved in top storylines with the lead characters in the company, and being unable to deliver lines properly or contain her laughter when things went wrong on air. Which was pretty much weekly. Say what you will about the Hulkster, but he is nothing if not a family man. 
229Much more damaging than the Warrior-Hogan fiasco, however, was the fact that WCW had decided—just a few days before the pay-per-view—that they were going to go three and a half hours instead of the usual three. Fans at home were not alerted to this fact and grew concerned at about the two-hour and forty-five-minute mark, as Hogan and Warrior were still in the ring, and it didn’t appear that Goldberg versus Page for the WCW title was going to happen anytime soon. To make matters significantly worse, nobody bothered to tell the cable companies, because at 11:00 p.m. EST, 25 percent of the folks who had purchased the show suddenly found themselves looking at a blank screen. Local outlets were flooded with angry phone calls and had to struggle to come up with some sort of offer to placate the fans, most of which demanded full refunds. When all was said and done, it’s estimated that WCW lost almost $1.5 million in pay-per-view revenue because of this simple miscommunication.
230
231In a dilemma about what to do, WCW decided to air the Page versus Goldberg match for free on Nitro the following evening. The cable industry was not cool with this because a replay of the pay-per-view was scheduled to air Tuesday night, and they figured airing a match on free TV would kill Tuesday’s buy rate. WCW agreed not to air the Warrior versus Hogan match for free—possibly the smartest thing they’d done in ten years of business. Despite having aired the Bash at the Beach 
232
233main event three months earlier on Nitro, announcer Tony Schiavone, who was losing credibility with the fans on a weekly basis, claimed that this would be the first time in history that a PPV match was ever shown on free TV.
234Goldberg versus Page went shockingly well, not only in the ring, but also in the ratings. Its quarter hour on Nitro set yet another new cable viewership record, a 7.18, beating out the Hogan versus Goldberg match from the Georgia Dome in July. The rating helped win the night, as Nitro did a 5.06 to Raw’s 4.48, which, despite the loss of $1.5 million the night before, no doubt made Eric Bischoff very happy.
235Hype began for their next PPV, World War III. Having learned nothing from past mistakes, they announced no matches save for one that bombed every year previously, a three-ring, sixty-man battle royal. It was somewhat fitting for WCW to run a PPV using three rings.
236In early November, former wrestler and commentator Jesse Ventura was elected governor of Minnesota. Hogan and Ventura had been professional rivals for years, and now, Jesse had finally accomplished something that Hogan could only dream about. Hogan, however, was undeterred and announced on Nitro that he was running for president of the United States. The show ended up being crushed by Raw with the WWF’s biggest winning margin in history, a 5.03 to a 4.06. Worse, Hogan’s segment was beaten 4.3 to 4.1 by Raw’s Val Venis versus Steve Blackman in a battle of lifetime mid-carders. This was a super big blow for Hogan, because he didn’t attend the prior week’s show and it was beaten in the ratings, and he wanted to convince people that his absence was the reason for the decline. This sure put an end to that theory in a hurry.
237
238Things were starting to implode fast. World War III was coming up, and on the last Nitro before the PPV they announced … zero new matches. All that was known was that there was going to be the traditional horrible three-ring battle royal and a Scott Hall versus Kevin Nash match. Apparently, nothing else was important. Zero had changed on the TV, meaning it was still horrific most weeks. The same old guys were on top having the same horrible matches. Actually, that’s not entirely true, there was one new superstar that was pushed right to the top—Judy Bagwell became one-half of the World Tag Team champions with partner Rick Steiner. No, we’re not lying. Raw clobbered Nitro in the ratings, 5.50 to 4.25.
239Nitro had settled into a pattern of finishing a point or so behind Raw every week. As you can imagine, Bischoff was not pleased and decided that changes needed to be made, and fast.
240Unfortunately, these changes had nothing to do with fixing the atrocious shows the company was presenting. No, a completely different plan was in the works: the “time was right,” he believed, to beat Goldberg.
241Actually, that had been the plan for a long time: Hogan would drop the strap to Goldberg at the Georgia Dome; then he’d win it back at Starrcade. But somewhere along the way, there was a change in plans. Perhaps you’re thinking that the change in plans was for Hogan not to beat Goldberg after all. Perhaps you’re thinking that Goldberg was such a good ratings draw, house show draw, and merchandise seller that it would have been foolish to take the belt from him and put it back on Hogan, whose drawing power had waned over the past several months.
242You would be wrong.
243
244The change of plans was to have Goldberg drop the title not to horrible wrestler Hogan, but to horrible wrestler Kevin Nash. Nash had just been named new head booker for the promotion, and once this happened everything backstage went into monster. That was accomplished by a 1:34 victory over Giant on Nitro the next evening (which was also done because everyone figured Giant would jump to the WWF when his contract expired in February). Step four was to start to write wacky storylines for many of the mid-carders, stories that might not always play out, but that would at least make the guys feel like they were being utilized.
245Not all the mid-carders were happy though. A few whose contracts were coming due and hadn’t yet re-signed were booked to lose left and right on TV. Nobody was safe, it seemed, except two men—Rick and Scott Steiner. For whatever reason, they were booked in a positive manner on television all the way up until the last week before their contracts came due. In the long run, it didn’t matter, because they re-signed. But internally, the belief was that they weren’t booked to lose constantly because nobody had the nerve to go up to them and let them know. Scott in particular had become super scary, somehow having managed to develop a Herculean physique despite the constant travel and always seeming on the verge of bursting into a violent, unscripted rage.
246In fact, the following week Steiner was in court on charges of making “terroristic threats” against a Georgia Department of Transportation worker named Paul Kaspereen. Seems Mr. Steiner was driving his F-150 down the road one day and came upon a closed lane. He told Kaspereen he wanted to go. Kaspereen said no. So Steiner said if he didn’t get out of the way he was going to run him over. Kaspereen refused, so Steiner bumped into him twice with his vehicle. That was the dreaded terroristic threat. Even the judge found this absurd, though he didn’t like Steiner’s courtroom attitude and pulled an early plea-bargain bid. Steiner ended up pleading guilty, and in March 1999 was sentenced to ten days in prison, $25,000 in fines, seven years probation, and 200 hours community service. It is tough to imagine what sort of community service Scott Steiner did.
247Part two of Hogan’s long-term two-month plan was to go on the Tonight Show and simultaneously announce that he was running for president and retiring from wrestling forever. Apparently, he was of the understanding that the American people would not want a man in office who devoted several days per month to having horrible matches on WCW television. It would only be the third time he had retired forever from wrestling, which isn’t too bad when you consider guys like the legendary Terry Funk who retired and un-retired so many times that they eventually lost count. Hogan was asked a few hardball political questions, like whether he was a Democrat or a Republican, and he had devoted so much time and research to his campaign that his answer was: “Right now, I’m right in the middle.”
248“What kind of a lame answer is that?” Leno asked.
249Most saw Hogan’s “retirement” for what it really was: a carefully orchestrated political maneuver that would benefit exactly one person in the long run: himself. Say what you will about Hogan, but few in the history of wrestling have proven so many times over how adept they are at playing the game. Hogan had taken himself off TV at many times when it was pretty clear the ratings were about to drop (for example, earlier in the year when Nitro was being preempted for the NBA playoffs). Obviously, he’d later state that the reason things tanked was that he was gone, thereby increasing his perceived value.
250In late November, WCW finally figured out why buy rates had been dropping over the past several months and took steps to rectify the problem. They had the small “Wrestling Online” website shut down because the site owner had been doing PPV play-by-plays on IRC. Strangely, buy rates did not return to previous levels.
251The November 30 Nitro once again told the story of why the company was about to fall off a cliff. They were still able to sell tickets, that wasn’t an issue; in fact, Nitro drew their second-largest crowd ever, 32,076 to the Astrodome in Houston, which between gate and merchandise made them almost $1 million. And what did they give those 32,076 fans who paid almost a million bucks? You guessed it—a horrible show. There were two main events, Steiner versus Hall and Goldberg versus Bam Bam Bigelow, and neither took place. Fans were outraged and pelted the ring with garbage after the show. WCW probably didn’t see this for what it was; they likely assumed it was the “good heat” that the nWo got, oh, two years prior. Plus, who cared if the fans were mad? They made a million bucks, and their two upcoming events at the TWA and Georgia Domes had near-$1 million advances. The good times were obviously going to last forever.
252Bischoff was as positive as ever. The following week he called a meeting and said there was something that would happen in early 1999 that would change the company’s fortunes. As it turned out, he was right, but not in a good way. Speaking of, tickets went on sale for the January 4 Georgia Dome Nitro, and, no joke, Gene Okerlund immediately went on the WCW Hotline and told fans in Atlanta not to bother buying tickets because WCW wanted 60,000 in the building, and there would be comps everywhere.
253The highlight, or lowlight, of Nitro on December 14 was Ric Flair having a fake heart attack that they tried to pass off as real. It started with an interview setting up the match he was set to have at Starrcade with Bischoff, playing off the real-life lawsuit that the vast majority of fans really didn’t know a thing about. Bischoff came out and Flair chased him away from ringside. Flair, who had 
254actually been running really fast, came back looking none the worse for wear or even out of breath, but then began clutching his chest. Nobody believed it was real, so the company went far more out of their way than usual to convince folks that it was. It was never made clear what the point of doing it was except to suggest that Bischoff was going to have the advantage in their match. The most tasteless part of the whole thing was that they tried to pass it off as real backstage, once again working the boys, and both Doug Dillinger and referee Charles Robinson, a long-time Flair mark, were crying thinking that he might die.
255Because Flair’s health was supposedly in jeopardy, he didn’t appear on Thunder that week. You’ll never guess where Thunder emanated from. Oh, yes: Charlotte, North Carolina. The big angle on the show was Eric confronting Flair’s wife, Beth, and giving her a big smooch on the lips.
256The following week, the company dropped a bombshell. According to Bischoff, a deal had been signed with NBC to air two prime time WCW specials in 1999, coincidentally running up against WWF’s St. Valentine’s Day Massacre PPV in February and WrestleMania in March. Strangely, everyone from the WWF to NBC denied that any such thing had been signed. Eric, however, was insistent that it was a done deal.
257On December 20, Wrestling With Shadows, the Paul Jay documentary highlighting the final year of Bret Hart’s WWF run, aired on A&E. This was the culmination of a long court battle between Jay’s High Road Productions, TBS, and the WWF. The WWF didn’t want the movie to get out, and especially wanted all Montreal-related footage cut. They refused to turn over many of the release forms and such that were required by their contract, so High Road was prepared to take them to court. Then Turner decided they wanted to air the movie, since Bret was now working for them, and WCW could obviously promote the movie like crazy on Nitro. Once WWF got wind of that, they agreed to turn over everything (including all future royalties) as long as Jay agreed not to sell to Turner.
258Even though the film wasn’t airing on a Turner station, WCW still had the option of promoting it like crazy. That would make sense, of course, since Hart was portrayed in the film as the ultimate babyface, a hardworking guy who gave his all to a company for over a decade, only to be blatantly lied to and screwed over on his last night in. With nothing more than a few TV plugs, WCW would be on their way to making Hart a babyface star of such magnitude that he’d more than pay off his multi-million dollar contract.
259But that’s not what happened. You see, Bret was a bad guy on WCW TV. If they plugged Wrestling With Shadows and fans watched it, they might start cheering him. While it was never clear why the company found it so imperative that Hart remain a heel, the decision was made to not mention the film at all. In fact, to make sure nobody accidentally made reference to it in an interview, Hart was also taken off television completely.
260Flair, despite suffering that horrible heart attack, was back on Nitro the next week at the TWA Dome, which drew nearly 30,000 fans and broke the company gate record with $914,389 in ticket sales. He returned to an enormous pop and cut one of his ten million all-time great promos, literally crying while hyping up for a final time his match with Bischoff at Starrcade. Tony Schiavone on commentary said it was clear he never had a heart attack. The original plan, as stupid as this sounds, was to claim that Eric poisoned him the week before. Of course, when you look at wrestling angles post-1995, this would have been in the minority as far as total absurdity is concerned.
261Starrcade was considered a far better show than anyone expected going in. The opener, Kidman versus Rey Mysterio Jr. versus Juvie in a three-way for the Cruiserweight belt, was one of the best matches of the year. Flair versus Bischoff was decent only because Flair, at forty-nine, was still one of the best workers in the world when he had to be. Of course, even as great as he was, Flair still lost the match after Curt Hennig ran in and gave Bischoff a pair of brass knux to KO Flair behind the ref’s back.
262And then there was the main event. Goldberg destroyed Nash for a long time until both Disco Inferno and Bam Bam Bigelow ran in. Both were slaughtered. Then, as both Goldberg and the referee were distracted, Scott Hall snuck in and zapped Goldberg with a cattle prod. You read that right, a cattle prod. Nash delivered a formerly banned powerbomb and got the pin.
263The streak was over—in more ways than one.
264When Kevin Nash beat Bill Goldberg to end the legendary win streak, there were basically two schools of thought. The vast minority, consisting of Kevin Nash, his close friends, and immediate family, thought that it was a great idea. To the majority, however, it was really stupid. At the time, however, nobody grasped it for what it really was: the beginning of the end of WCW.
265“When they ended Goldberg’s streak, it was the biggest mistake that company ever made,” recounted WCW announcer Bobby Heenan in an interview years later. “The fans weren’t tired of him—they were buying tickets to see him, buying his shirts, chanting his name. But some people didn’t care about that.”
266Kevin Sullivan agreed: “It was like the Titanic hitting the iceberg. I can tell you the exact night [WCW died]. Goldberg getting beat by Kevin Nash. Goldberg, his matches, they looked semi-real. We drew a [near] million dollar house on free TV, 43,000 people there. I went to Eric and said, ‘Please do not beat him.’ He said, ‘People are going to get sick of him winning and they’re going to turn against him.’ I said, ‘We got a million dollars out there!’ And they showed that tape over and over again. We had the golden goose and we strangled it.”15 
267The beginning of the end for WCW was like the beginning of the end for King Kong. Planes were swarming everywhere. He was teetering there on the edge of the Empire State Building, and he’d just put the girl down. Though his immediate future was not looking good, at the moment, everything was fine. Then he got hit with the first bullet. Then he was bombarded with multiple bullets in a very short period of time … and that was all she wrote.
268Goldberg losing the belt was that first bullet.
269And another barrage of bullets was about to hit the company in a very short period of time.
270
271ê ê ê ê ê PART III
272THE FALL
273
274“The biggest mistake was that they had leadership where all the generals were guys who had never been in a battle. They never had anybody who knew what they were doing. There’s nobody who ever understood wrestling or the minds of wrestling fans. They never understood the nature of the business.”
275—Bret Hart, WCW Wrestler 1997 to 2000
276CHAPTER
277ê ê ê FIVE ê ê ê 
2781999: 
279GAMBLING ON A SAVIOR
280
281On the surface, 1998 had been a hugely successful year. Although WCW made every stupid mistake that could possibly be made, attendance was up 47 percent over 1997, ratings were up 56 percent, buy rates were up 18 percent, a whopping 49 percent of house shows had sold out, and the average house show gross was up 90 percent. It’s not difficult to see why those on the inside thought there was nothing to worry about.
282But the sins of 1998 began to take their toll in 1999. Even worse, 1999 was the year that WCW made some of their most horrendous decisions yet, decisions that, instead of turning things around as hoped, actually sped up the company’s decline. Consider this: just two years earlier, WCW was the number-one wrestling company in the entire world. In the 365 days of this year, they managed to lose no less than $15 million—more money than any promotion had ever lost in the history of the business.
283In a way, it was shockingly similar to the way Jim Crockett Promotions had booked itself intooblivion exactly ten years earlier. They hired a booker (Dusty Rhodes in the mid-’80s, Nash in 1998) who put himself and his friends over at the expense of all the other talent; they booked screw-job after screw-job, run-in after run-in, show after show, until it drew the infamous “wrong kind of heat,” the kind that drives fans away; they put all the old, stale talent on top and pushed them hard despite the fact that the ratings made it clear that fans wanted new blood; and all that exciting, young international talent that Bischoff had scoured the globe for in 1996 had been booked so far into oblivion that they were pretty much unsalvageable. At least with JCP, the wrestlers worked hard and did their best even as the ship sank. But in WCW, things were so bad by mid-year that virtually everyone—from talent to the office personnel—had mentally given up.
284As the year began, however, Bischoff was anything but ready to surrender. He opened the year with another crew meeting, in which he dropped a major bombshell: WCW had struck a deal with NBC, a deal that would give them six prime time specials over the course of the year. This was largely due to an NBA strike going on at the time that had opened up prime time slots, and those within NBC thought that while it would not be an even swap, it would be an acceptable one. Not only that, those specials would compete directly against WWF pay-per-views like WrestleMania and SummerSlam. It would be like the old days of the Clash of the Champions specials, giving WCW a huge advantage over the WWF. He claimed that WCW got it because the network wanted nothing to do with the WWF due to the raunchy nature of their programming. He said that while all the swearing and insanity might benefit the WWF at the moment, in the long run it would work against them. Bischoff was right in the end, but unfortunately for him and many others it worked not only oblivion exactly ten years earlier. They hired a booker (Dusty Rhodes in the mid-’80s, Nash in 1998) who put himself and his friends over at the expense of all the other talent; they booked screw-job after screw-job, run-in after run-in, show after show, until it drew the infamous “wrong kind of heat,” the kind that drives fans away; they put all the old, stale talent on top and pushed them hard despite the fact that the ratings made it clear that fans wanted new blood; and all that exciting, young international talent that Bischoff had scoured the globe for in 1996 had been booked so far into oblivion that they were pretty much unsalvageable. At least with JCP, the wrestlers worked hard and did their best even as the ship sank. But in WCW, things were so bad by mid-year that virtually everyone—from talent to the office personnel—had mentally given up.
285As the year began, however, Bischoff was anything but ready to surrender. He opened the year with another crew meeting, in which he dropped a major bombshell: WCW had struck a deal with NBC, a deal that would give them six prime time specials over the course of the year. This was largely due to an NBA strike going on at the time that had opened up prime time slots, and those within NBC thought that while it would not be an even swap, it would be an acceptable one. Not only that, those specials would compete directly against WWF pay-per-views like WrestleMania and SummerSlam. It would be like the old days of the Clash of the Champions specials, giving WCW a huge advantage over the WWF. He claimed that WCW got it because the network wanted nothing to do with the WWF due to the raunchy nature of their programming. He said that while all the swearing and insanity might benefit the WWF at the moment, in the long run it would work against them. Bischoff was right in the end, but unfortunately for him and many others it worked not only 
286
287out and told Ric Flair, who had become storyline president of the company, that Hulk Hogan must be behind this, and that he therefore wanted a “warm-up” match with him prior to the main event. Hogan, who hadn’t been on TV in some time, just happened to be in the building that evening. He came out and said that he’d planned to announce his retirement as well as his running mate that evening (yes, he was still on the president kick), but now he was appalled at what that “sexual deviant” Goldberg had done, and he wanted to beat up that “spoon” Kevin Nash for accusing him of being behind it. Yes, those were his actual words.
288Back at the police station, Liz changed her story multiple times, and finally, after being threatened with perjury, she admitted to having made everything up. So the race was on: could Goldberg make it back to the Georgia Dome in time for his main event? The unintentional comedy here was that, earlier in the show, it had been revealed that the police station was across the street from the arena.
289Goldberg was somehow unable to get back in time, even though he had thirty minutes to walk several dozen feet. Perhaps the crosswalk light was broken. Regardless, Nash and Hogan came out for their epic encounter. About one minute into the match, Tony Schiavone bellowed, “This is what World Championship Wrestling is all about!” Truer words have perhaps never been spoken. Hogan touched Nash in the chest with one finger, and Nash took this enormous bump like he’d been hit with a cannonball. On the bright side, it was probably the biggest bump Nash would take all year. Hogan covered him and won the belt. Afterwards, Hogan and Nash hugged, revealing that it had been a setup all along. Goldberg finally arrived and laid waste to everyone in the ring until being attacked by his newest foe—the old, immobile, washed-up Lex Luger.
290Fans had paid a record $930,735 to see this show. To say they were outraged by what transpired would be a strong understatement.
291If everything that happened in the ring wasn’t bad enough, Bischoff also made a huge miscalculation in commentary. As you’ll recall, early in the war Bischoff had done something unheard of—he gave away results of taped Raws on live Nitros. The reasoning (aside from this being an attempt to be cutting-edge and cool) was that this would convince fans that there was no reason to watch the opposition. Since this was Bischoff’s 1996 revisited, he went back to that strategy by having Tony Schiavone reveal to the fans that in the Raw main event, Mick Foley was going to beat Rock to win the WWF title. Worse, he had Schiavone bury him, saying a man like that holding a world title was a complete joke.
292The problems here were twofold. First, Foley was greatly respected by hardcore fans, so many of them switched channels to Raw not only to see him win the belt, but also to stick one to WCW. Among casual fans, Foley was a big babyface hero, and they really wanted to see him finally win what they felt he’d deserved for a long time. They switched channels as well. Final tally: Raw did a 5.76, a brand-new ratings record, to Nitro’s 4.96. The biggest gap, not surprisingly, immediately followed Schiavone’s announcement that Foley the Joke would win the belt, as Raw hit a 6.2 opposite Nitro’s 4.1. In total, Schiavone’s announcement, designed to keep fans from jumping to Raw, effectively led almost half a million of them to immediately do just that.
293After the fact, Foley actually called Schiavone and left a message; he was “sickened” by what Schiavone had said on the air. He also noted that the words probably were fed to him by someone else, and left his number in case Schiavone wanted to call him back. Sure enough, Tony did call Mick back scant hours later and his wife, Collete, answered, telling Mick that Tony was on the line and he “sounds so sad.” Foley tells the story of the call: “As I had thought, the feelings were not his own, but had been forced upon him by his superior. Schiavone’s words not only haunted him that night, but for weeks, months, and even years later. Signs started popping up in every arena we went to that disproved WCW’s theory, [signs reading] MICK FOLEY PUT MY ASS IN THIS SEAT.”16 
294In other bad news, that week Eddie Guerrero was involved in a serious car accident that almost killed him, both at the time and later down the road. He fell asleep at the wheel on New Year’s Eve and crashed in a scene so horrific that EMTs on the scene couldn’t believe he’d survived. He did recover, but rushed back to the ring way too early and ended up in tremendous pain. This pain led to an addiction to painkillers that resulted in him later being fired from the WWF. He finally checked himself into rehab, cleaned himself up, and was hired back. For a period, he was one of wrestling’s great stories of beating addition, and he credited the company with saving his life. Sadly, his life was cut short by a heart attack, dying at the age of 38 in 2005. 
295
296The first PPV of the year was Souled Out on January 17 in Charleston, West Viginia. Recall the lesson: when wrestling is hot, a promotion can seemingly do no wrong. As horrible as things had been the previous year, this event was a sellout, with 10,255 fans in attendance. Unlike at the Georgia Dome, at least these fans got a good show. The Kidman versus Rey Mysterio Jr. versus Psicosis versus Juventud Guerrera match for the Cruiserweight title was exceptional. They even had a rare good main event that saw Goldberg—who was underrated as a performer even back then—beat Scott Hall in a ladder match where the idea was to climb up and grab a taser hanging from the ceiling. In commentary, it was teased that Goldberg wouldn’t be able to make it as they’d shot a video before the show of him screaming in his locker room and holding his knee. Tony Schiavone theorized that he’d been attacked by someone.
297“Or maybe he just fell down,” Schiavone added.
298At this point, Bischoff was willing to do anything to unseat Raw in the ratings, so he continued the very dangerous practice of giving away matches that fans likely would have paid to see. Case in point: the following evening’s Nitro had Ric Flair challenge Bischoff to a match in which the loser would get his head shaved bald. Flair versus Bischoff had been done numerous times, but with the proper build, a hair match between the two would theoretically have drawn some money on PPV or at least popped a rating on TV. After all, in his entire career, Flair, famous for his bleached-blonde hair, had never shaved his head, and most people really hated Eric and would have loved to see him humiliated. WCW, however, had different plans. Instead of properly building the bout, Ric’s oldest son, David, came out and demanded the match; then he got the win a few minutes later, and the Horseman shaved Eric bald.
299
300
301Imagine a judge with no knowledge of pro wrestling attempting to make sense of all this.
302(box) Another snafu caused by the tapings involved the WCW Tag titles. The Hollywood Blondes, Steve Austin and Brian Pillman, were to drop their titles to the Horsemen, Arn Anderson and Paul Roma. At the tapings, it was revealed that the Blondes would do this at the Beach Blast show, but at the last minute, WCW decided to keep the belts on Pillman and Austin. They could do this because there was still a live Clash of the Champions event at which WCW would have the belt change hands. All great in theory, until Pillman was injured prior to the bout and couldn’t work the show. A makeshift “championship” team of Austin and Steve Regal (who had never worked with Austin before and had no ties to the Tag belts) defended—and lost—the belts to the Horsemen.
303For all the problems being created, everyone felt as though the pendulum was on the upswing, especially with the biggest show of the year, Starrcade, on the horizon. The event was to feature a match that had never been presented before, one that fans were looking forward to and were therefore willing to pay for the right to view: Vader versus Sid Vicious, with the WCW World title on the line. Again, the MGM tapings revealed the course of events: Sid, with the belt around his waist, was portrayed as a hero.
304This time, though, things really fell apart. During a tour of the U.K., a fight broke out between Sid and Arn Anderson following a confrontation at a pub. Both had been drinking, and Vicious became boisterous. He started bragging that by threatening to not lose to Sting at Halloween Havoc he’d forced the company to give him a $100,000 raise to approximately $600,000 per year over the next four years (and imagine signing someone with Sid Vicious’ reputation to a four-year deal). Meanwhile, he cackled, Arn’s salary had been cut about $100,000 in a renegotiation with Watts before Watts was let go. He said this was fitting, because it was time for guys like Flair and Arn, the old dinosaurs, to step aside so guys like himself could get the spotlight and make WCW great. Arn was good friends with Flair at the time (in later years they had a falling out), and the argument escalated and almost came to blows. It was broken up and both men were sent back to their rooms. A little later, Sid went to Arn’s room and a fight broke out. Exactly what happened and who started the fight depends on whose side of the story you want to believe. What is known is that in the brawl, Arn had a pair of blunt-tipped scissors and Sid had the broken-off leg of a chair. Arn claimed Sid used the chair leg first. Sid ended up stabbed a few times, they got into a wrestling match, Sid got hold of the scissors, and he then proceeded to stab Arn head to toe. When it was broken up, Anderson was a bloody mess with stab wounds everywhere, including very close to one of his eyes. The walls were destroyed and covered in blood, and glass was broken everywhere; it was a horrible mess. The incident got press all over the U.K. (although in most reports the men were listed as WWF wrestlers) and a little bit in the U.S. and Canada. Sid had been scheduled to wrestle against and win the WCW title from Vader at Starrcade, but due to his injuries that plan was scrapped, and ultimately, due to the belief that the whole thing was Sid’s fault, the decision was made to fire him.
305In a cruel irony, because WCW had taped so much TV in advance, while they were suspended in real life both Sid and Arn were on television most weeks, with Arn, no joke, constantly talking about having been STABBED IN THE BACK by the heels.
306And just like that, Sid, the man who was to lead the promotion into 1994 as champion—and who had already been taped doing so!—was history. A mad scramble ensued to determine just who would wind up with the main-event slot at the biggest show of the year against Vader, with Cactus Jack, Sting, and Rude at the top of the list. In the end, the company listened to the crowds at the WCW events: “We Want Flair.” Billed as a match after which he’d retire forever if he lost, an emotional Flair beat Vader before 8,000 fans paying $65,000 in Charlotte’s Independence Arena to regain his title. Yes, despite being “too old” for Jim Herd three years earlier, and of no further use to McMahon or the WWF, Flair was once again the man. 
307The Flair versus Vader match was one of the most memorable in the history of WCW. Flair did some of his best-ever work on the mic, and the PPV itself, a one-match show if there ever was one, was built entirely around the main event. The PPV actually opened with what would today be likened to a UFC Countdown Special, where they showed images from Flair’s childhood, adolescence, and college, interviewed him at home with his family, spoke to the other superstars as they arrived at the building, and more. The match was brutally stiff and hard hitting, with Flair taking an epic beating (well, they both did) before finally clipping Vader’s knee and schoolboying him to win the championship. It remains one of the greatest moments of Ric’s career. It was also the last major angle overseen at least to a degree by Dusty Rhodes, as after three years he resigned as booker shortly thereafter.\
308
309The happiness was short-lived, however, as Turner officials decided to look at the books to see just how well the company had done under Bischoff’s leadership in the past year. No doubt his new style of promoting, along with his money-saving measures—like filming the bulk of WCW programming at MGM—would pay huge dividends when the financials came out.
310But they didn’t. Although TV ratings had increased slightly year-to-year comparing November 1992 to November 1993, both house show attendance and revenue had dropped a staggering 70 percent with your average live event drawing around 300 fans. The company was still losing money, a lot of it, and this was something Bischoff didn’t want to be a part of; after all, if he could be the first man in WCW to actually turn a profit, he’d likely get even more power and money to do with as he pleased. They were close, so close, and he wasn’t about to let his company slip away.
311After a week or so of intense soul-searching, Bischoff decided that the one thing WCW lacked was mainstream media attention. If they could just be accepted as the WWF’s equal, the company would be set. Have we lost money? Yes, Mr. Turner, we have. But we can make it back, tenfold. We just need a bit more time, a bit more money. We need to capture the attention of the casual fan, and I’ve got just the guy to do it. You’ve probably even heard of him: Hulk Hogan.
312Now there was something Ted could buy into: the biggest star the business had ever seen. With Turner’s blessing, Bischoff, with a major assist from Ric Flair, who knew Hogan from their WWF days together and who had taken over as booker after Dusty resigned, set out to catch the biggest fish in the pond and bring him home to Uncle Ted. The timing was perfect, because Hogan had left the WWF earlier in the year, following a blowup with Vince McMahon over the way he was being booked. Hogan felt that he should still be the focal point of the company—the champion. McMahon disagreed, preferring to focus on younger guys such as Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels, believing they would connect with a “new generation” of fans. The two got into a bitter argument following Hogan’s title win at WrestleMania IX, as McMahon wanted Hogan to drop the belt to Hart and “pass the torch” in the process. Hogan, stuck in his 1980s mindset, refused, saying Hart was way too small and wasn’t in “his league.” Instead, he put over the enormous Yokozuna at that year’s King of the Ring PPV, then disappeared from the company to pursue acting and wrestle the occasional big show in Japan.
313But there was room for Hulk Hogan’s star to shine in WCW—if he wanted to be the top dog in the promotion, well, that was just fine. Hogan had, after all, drawn more money than anyone else in the history of the business. Just ask him; he’d tell you so. The only stumbling block was that Hogan wanted so much money—a contract larger than any contract WCW had ever offered before, including $300,000 per match, 25 percent of PPV revenue above the WCW average, 25 percent of house show revenue for any show he worked (which wouldn’t be many), and a whopping 65 percent of all merchandise revenue. Not only that, his WWF release stipulated that Vince McMahon had the right to match any offer Hogan was given from another wrestling company. In other words, in order to ensure Vince didn’t interfere with this deal (which was important given WCW was pushing Hogan very hard on TV, almost to the point of making him the centerpiece of the promotion, before he’d signed any sort of deal), they’d have to offer him a lot of money. A lot as in a lot lot LOT. But Bischoff didn’t care. It was Hogan or bust, and after convincing higher-ups in the company—namely Ted Turner himself—of this, he got booked. Hogan felt that he should still be the focal point of the company—the champion. McMahon disagreed, preferring to focus on younger guys such as Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels, believing they would connect with a “new generation” of fans. The two got into a bitter argument following Hogan’s title win at WrestleMania IX, as McMahon wanted Hogan to drop the belt to Hart and “pass the torch” in the process. Hogan, stuck in his 1980s mindset, refused, saying Hart was way too small and wasn’t in “his league.” Instead, he put over the enormous Yokozuna at that year’s King of the Ring PPV, then disappeared from the company to pursue acting and wrestle the occasional big show in Japan.
314But there was room for Hulk Hogan’s star to shine in WCW—if he wanted to be the top dog in the promotion, well, that was just fine. Hogan had, after all, drawn more money than anyone else in the history of the business. Just ask him; he’d tell you so. The only stumbling block was that Hogan wanted so much money—a contract larger than any contract WCW had ever offered before, including $300,000 per match, 25 percent of PPV revenue above the WCW average, 25 percent of house show revenue for any show he worked (which wouldn’t be many), and a whopping 65 percent of all merchandise revenue. Not only that, his WWF release stipulated that Vince McMahon had the right to match any offer Hogan was given from another wrestling company. In other words, in order to ensure Vince didn’t interfere with this deal (which was important given WCW was pushing Hogan very hard on TV, almost to the point of making him the centerpiece of the promotion, before he’d signed any sort of deal), they’d have to offer him a lot of money. A lot as in a lot lot LOT. But Bischoff didn’t care. It was Hogan or bust, and after convincing higher-ups in the company—namely Ted Turner himself—of this, he got his wish.
315
316(box) Despite Hogan’s signing, the “new WCW” still managed to find ways to be the old WCW, such as when they aired the wrong Control Center segment on the Sunday Main Event TV show. Doesn’t sound like a big deal. Except in this case, the wrong one was actually the one scheduled to air a week later after the next Clash of Champions. Thus before the Clash took place, the Control Center revealed, among things, that Ric Flair had beaten Sting to become the Unified Heavyweight champion (consisting of the WCW title and the “Big Gold Belt”). Oops. WCW actually acknowledged this snafu during the opening moments of the Clash show later in the week. They essentially claimed that Flair had doctored a tape and somehow, perhaps via Bobby Heenan, gotten it to play on TV to mess with Sting’s head. Really. They did not explain how Flair, in doctoring this tape, also managed to predict all the other finishes that were given away as well. 
317WCW’s Hogan era began on June 11, 1994. His arrival was celebrated with an elaborate parade (complete with confetti!), and sure enough Hogan was booked as the number-one contender and set his sights on current WCW champ Ric Flair (who, not surprisingly since he much preferred playing the bad guy, immediately began booking a slow heel turn for himself the moment he took over from Dusty Rhodes). Hogan easily conquered Flair at Bash at the Beach, selling out the Orlando Arena and doing a colossal 1.02 buy rate for the company, its biggest since 1991 and one of its largest ever. Going in, with the exception of Bischoff and a small handful of others, virtually every single person in the wrestling industry thought the idea that WCW could do a 1.0 buy rate with Hulk Hogan was completely preposterous. It was also very reassuring for the company as Hogan had not moved TV numbers at all prior to this PPV. The show where he debuted with the confetti parade did the same rating as a show a few weeks earlier had done with Flair versus Ricky
318
319(box)  Steamboat, and his live debut at the Clash of Champions on June 23 saw that show do the fourth-lowest Clash rating of all time.
320Upon Hogan’s arrival, WCW had an entirely different look. The old Center Stage Theater—the longtime taping location for WCW Saturday Night—had been completely renovated. According to a source who worked for WCW at the time, “Center Stage used to be a rathole in the grossest part of Atlanta. Then, the first day Hogan came in, they put purple curtains up everywhere so you couldn’t see how shitty it was. That very same day. Went from coffee and water and Gatorade to fruit and all sorts of food. In the old days, when wrestlers walked out, they used to come out under the seats, from the bleachers. You’re kind of ducking a little bit to not hit your head. So they put curtains up everywhere to hide things and try to make it look better than what it really was.” 
321
322Regardless, when the Bash buy rate came in, Bischoff breathed a sigh of relief. His investment had paid off (the company needed a 0.75 or so to break even on Hogan’s new deal and they easily exceeded that), and the fans were really starting to buy WCW as a true alternative to the WWF. It certainly helped that the week WCW debuted Hulk Hogan, WWF debuted—wait for it—a FAKE UNDERTAKER played by Brian Lee, a gimmick that died a death, no pun intended. With this promising start, maybe, Bischoff thought, he could catch Vince. No, no maybes about it—he WOULD catch Vince, and even surpass him. Confidence was buoyed when the August 24 Clash of the Champions, headlined by the first-ever free Ric Flair versus Hulk Hogan match on television (they never did a singles TV match in WWF during the early ’90s), did a 6.7 rating and 4.126 million households for the main event, the all-time cable TV viewership record for a professional wrestling match in any company in U.S. history.
323
324In the years after this picture was taken, Steve Austin would lose three things: his hair, his job, and his wife, Jeannie Clark, pictured here. Thankfully, she stuck around long enough to tell him to drink his tea before it turned “Stone Cold” … and the rest is history. [GEORGE NAPOLITANO]
325
326With TV and PPV success, Hogan was able to convince Bischoff that he held the key that would take WCW to the top of the mountain: his friends (all of whom, coincidentally, needed big paydays). So Randy Savage, Jim Duggan, “Earthquake” John Tenta, Honky Tonk Man, Jimmy Hart, and countless others were brought into the fold. Longtime WCW employees like Steve Austin, Vader, and Mick Foley were thrown into the background so as not to steal the limelight from Hogan and his pals.
327
328(box) “I was thrilled to be there, don’t get me wrong,” recalled John Tenta. “Hulk really went to bat for me. But I was amazed by just how much money that company blew. Hogan would tell me about how he and Bischoff would go out for sushi, and spend $1,000 in a single evening. They didn’t care. It wasn’t their money, it was Turner’s.” 
329
330And then there was Ric Flair, the man who had done everything he could to repair WCW following his stint in the WWF. Bischoff quickly realized that there was no way Hogan and Flair could coexist at the top of the WCW mountain. Flair was a heel and Hogan was supposed to be the tippy-top babyface, but Hogan had made appearances in “Flair Country” and been booed out of the building, which was not what the company wanted. And it wasn’t just in the mid-Atlantic area; in “neutral cities” such as Oakland, CA, the response was about 50/50 for both guys. Flair was asked (well, told) to job to Hogan one more time in a “retirement” match at Halloween Havoc. At the time the idea was that Flair would “retire” for a while, maybe a year or so, and then they’d shoot an angle for his return. From WCW’s perspective, the retirement was never supposed to be permanent; first and foremost, it was done to try to hotshot a giant buy rate for Havoc, which would help boost revenue so that when the books were examined at the end of the year, all of the big-money acquisitions, not the least of which was Hulk Hogan, would look like a wise investment. 
331Flair did not want to retire, but when the idea was proposed he claimed—and this is hilarious in hindsight here in the twenty-first century—that if he did this retirement angle, that was it, he was done, and he was never coming back to wrestling. 
332Halloween Havoc, with the Flair versus Hogan, retirement-versus-retirement cage match stipulation, plus appearances by Mr. T and Muhammad Ali, was a cautious success, drawing a live gate just under their all-time record set at Baltimore Bash 1989, and another buy rate around 1.0. There were definite grumblings, however, that it only did roughly the same buy rate as Bash at the Beach, as there had been those in the cable industry predicting a 1.5 or better, and a few WCW higher-ups predicting even higher, perhaps a 2.0. The show also drew less than 9,000 paid in the 21,000-seat Joe Louis Arena, certainly not befitting what was billed as one of the biggest matches of all time. But even with Hogan’s cut it wasn’t a money-loser, and it helped pad revenues for 1994.
333With Flair gone, WCW needed a new challenger for Hogan. This was set up in a post-match Havoc beatdown following the big Legdrop of Doom on Flair. Hogan’s old buddy and longtime lackey Brutus “The Barber” Beefcake, Ed Leslie, teamed up with the former Earthquake, John Tenta, to lay out the Hulkster and set up Hogan versus Beefcake—now the Butcher—for Starrcade.
334But something funny happened on the way to the event. The fans, who had been so hot for the Hogan-Flair showdowns, suddenly lost interest in what Hogan was doing. And when the buy rates came in for Starrcade, the company was stunned. At 0.6, it was 40 percent lower than what they’d done for Havoc just two months earlier. About the only good news was that the live event sold out, the first WCW sellout in years. But with Hogan’s PPV cut and a 0.6 buy rate, while still not a money loser, Starrcade became a financially unsuccessful event for the company.
335Obviously, Ed Leslie was no Ric Flair.
336Also on the show, another former WWF star made his live debut. “Macho Man” Randy Savage, one of the biggest stars of the ’80s and a legitimate mainstream name, appeared after the Butcher match and teased attacking Hogan. Instead, the two teamed up and ran off all the heels before posing together in a celebratory manner. Savage, who had parted ways with WWF earlier in the year, had been Hogan’s opponent at WrestleMania V on April 2, 1989 in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The Hogan versus Savage storyline was among the best long-term storylines not only in WWF history, but in the history of wrestling, and after a yearlong build that saw the Hogan and Savage MEGAPOWERS tag team EXPLODE leading to their title match, WrestleMania V had become the single most lucrative event in wrestling history. At the time of Savage’s debut, the record still stood. Obviously, the long-term idea was to relive the glory days of the ’80s with another Hogan versus Savage feud, this time in WCW.
337While on the surface it appeared WCW was doing nothing but signing old men, the reality was that a lot of ’80s WWF fans had lost interest in wrestling during the early ’90s, and suddenly, in 1995, they slowly began to discover that the stars they grew up on were back in wrestling again—just not in the WWF.
338It was also shortly around this time that a young wrestler named Jean Paul Levesque decided to leave WCW and join the WWF. He would be renamed Hunter Hearst Helmsley … and eventually the heir apparent to WWE upon marrying Vince McMahon’s daughter, Stephanie. 
339WCW continued to rebound in the opening months of 1995. They had barely made it to January when plans were put into motion to bring back the man who a few months earlier said that when he retired he was never, ever coming back, the Nature Boy Ric Flair. Hogan was moved into a feud with Vader. It just made sense, since Vader had been the top heel of the company for the better part of the previous three years. The feud was a big business success, both at the house shows and on PPV. The two battled it out at SuperBrawl, which was the first WCW live event to draw over 10,000 paid fans since 1989 (0.96 buy rate, DQ finish,); at Uncensored, a goofy card featuring all gimmick matches (0.96 buy rate, foolish finish where Hogan beat Vader in a strap match by dragging the now-unretired Ric Flair to all four corners … not kidding); at Slamboree (0.57 buy rate, Hogan and Savage beat Vader and Ric Flair in a tag match where you’ll never guess whooooo did the job); and at Bash at the Beach (0.82). It should be noted that the Bash show took place on a real, live, honest-to-goodness beach, which resulted in a real, live, honest-to-goodness gate of zero dollars.
340The good news was that Bash at the Beach, with all those thousands of beachgoers there watching pro wrestling in the sand (estimated attendance was about 10–12,000 at the peak, so WCW claimed, get this, “HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS”), made it a news highlight on all the local Huntington Beach, CA, TV stations. The bad news was most of them referred to it as a World Wrestling Federation event.
341While WCW was spending more than ever on talent, there was still pressure to cut costs in other areas. A number of longtime execs were fired, including Jim Barnett (who ended up back with the company a few years later as a “talent scout”) and Bob Dhue, leaving Bischoff the number-one go-to guy in the company under the new head of the division, Harvey Schiller. Don Sandifer, who booked buildings and worked as a promoter, was also fired and replaced by Gary Juster and Zane Bresloff. Bresloff, a former concert promoter who had worked for the WWF before jumping to WCW in 1993, would end up an unsung hero of the company during the glory days, becoming one of the best local promoters in the history of the business. He died tragically on June 20, 2003, in an automobile accident.
342“On a business level, [Zane] had a lot of great ideas,” Bischoff told Alex Marvez shortly after his passing. “When it was rolling, I think we talked no less than ten times a day. He had very good instinct. Often when I wanted to try something, I would use Zane as a sounding board because I could trust him and know he was not just telling me what I wanted to hear.”
343Despite the cuts, there were financial positives as well, not the least of which was the decision early in the year to move to nine PPVs annually and raise the price to as much as $32.50 the day of the show, up from $24.95. The price increase was an immediate success as it made WCW Uncensored, which drew a 0.96 buyrate, the biggest-money show in WCW history. At the time the question was whether too many PPVs would oversaturate the market. At the end of the day, and this is still the case in the twenty-first century, the optimum number of PPVs has been one per month, no more, no less, and increasing the number in the mid-’90s ultimately resulted in both WWF and WCW making significantly more money than they ever had before. In fact, moving to monthly full-priced PPVs (they had started with discounted, two-hour In Your House events) was what first took WWF from losing $4.4 million in 1994–1995 to becoming financially solvent a year later.
344With business once again looking promising, on June 5, 1995, Bischoff and Turner had yet another meeting, and this time Ted had a question. Why, he wondered, was WCW Saturday Night not beating Monday Night Raw (the shows were very close in the ratings at the time) if they had Hogan, Savage, and all the other top stars? Bischoff said that Raw aired on Monday nights, a better television night than Saturdays (which was funny since wrestling had a long and storied history of excellent viewership on Saturdays), and had the benefit of sometimes going live. Turner, who was already pissed off at McMahon since Vince had been sending him letters for the past year telling him his promotion was an embarrassment to him and he should shut it down, immediately told a supervisor to give Eric one hour of live programming every Monday night on TNT.
345In other words, WCW would be competing directly against the WWF’s flagship show, Monday Night Raw.
346Bischoff was elated. He had just been given the go-ahead to fight Vince McMahon mano a mano, and now he had to deliver the goods. 
347“At the end of three years,” he said in a press conference a few weeks before the Nitro debut. “I’ll be standing alone.”
348Within the industry, most thought Bischoff was insane to try to run head-to-head with Monday Night Raw, which was, despite WWE’s financial difficulties, the number-one pro-wrestling show at the time. But Bischoff believed something that few others did: WCW could beat McMahon by changing wrestling forever.
349Which is pretty much exactly what WCW Monday Nitro did when it debuted on Turner Network Television the night of September 4, 1995—a week in which Raw was not-so-coincidentally preempted. The years-old formula of wrestling shows consisting primarily of squash matches flew right out the window. In its place were big-name versus big-name showdowns, something reserved for pay-per-views in the past. Shocking happenings, such as Lex Luger suddenly defecting from the WWF, began occurring on an almost weekly basis. Fans soon learned that if you missed Nitro, by God, you could miss a lot, and it became the show to watch on Monday nights.
350Luger jumped the WWF ship for WCW Monday Nitro’s first episode. Although it had been known by those within wrestling that he’d negotiated with WCW a few weeks earlier, the belief was that he could not come to terms with the company only offering him a $1,000 per-shot guarantee. Still, one would have thought that Vince McMahon would have either attempted to sign him to a new deal or refused to book him in a prominent position on his TV if he did not have a contract. But McMahon did neither and Luger made a deal with WCW. They kept the deal a secret and hid Luger backstage during the first Nitro, so that when he walked out in the middle of the Hulk Hogan versus Big Bubba Rogers main event, wrestlers within both companies were stunned.
351Luger, it should be noted, was not brought in by Eric Bischoff, but rather his best friend: “Sting brokered the deal. We were having a casual conversation, and he asked me how much time I had left on my contract. I said, ‘I don’t have one,’ and he said, ‘What are you talking about?’ I gave my ninety-day notice back in December of the prior year [1994]. I told him I was basically week to week or month to month right now. He said, ‘You’ve gotta be kidding me!’ So he contacted Eric, and Eric Bischoff at the time wasn’t a real big Lex Luger fan [‘I thought he was an arrogant ass,’ Bischoff noted7], but I guess he felt I had enough of a name that maybe I could have some momentum for Monday Nitro. I had a conversation with Eric who decided to go ahead and reel me in. Unfortunately, he had a stipulation that no one could know except for he and I and Sting. And I had a problem with that, because I was raised to professionally give at least a two-week notice. [But] Eric really wanted this to be a surprise. I literally finished up [in WWF] on Sunday night at a house show in a tag match against Shawn Michaels and Razor Ramon. And the following night, I flew home to Atlanta, got right on a plane and flew to Minneapolis that afternoon. They hid me in a hotel, then they brought me to the building with a towel on my head. About an hour before I was going to go out, they brought me out to the position to go on TV from a side door. And no one knew I was going on until the moment I was standing at the go position, and then I was watching Hogan in the ring. It was a pretty wild turn of events over two weeks, especially those last few days.”8
352September 11, 1995 was the real beginning of the Monday Night Wars as it was the day that Raw and Nitro went head-to-head for the first time. The belief among many was that there was a finite number of wrestling fans, and that if the two shows aired on the same day at the same time the audience would split, with a portion continuing to watch Raw and another portion choosing to watch Nitro. 
353But that’s not what happened.
354Instead, Raw and Nitro did 2.2 and 2.5 ratings respectively. Not only were more people watching pro wrestling on Monday nights than at any point in the past several years, but Nitro, the upstart television show encroaching on WWF’s established Monday night territory, actually won the head-to-head ratings battle. Furthermore, although Turner had only authorized one hour live, he’d actually given the company two hours of programming. A Monday Nitro replay drew a 0.9 rating. In other words, despite Raw having established a very successful foothold on Monday nights, the very first time the companies battled it out Nitro was seen by significantly more viewers.
355LESSON NOT LEARNED: One important point that was completely ignored fifteen years later when TNA Impact Wrestling tried to go head-to-head with Raw is that it’s not like this WCW audience sprung up out of nowhere strictly due to the fact that wrestling was going head-to-head on Monday nights. In fact, WCW had several successful weekend shows at the time, and in fact on the week of September 11, 1995, WCW Saturday Night had done a 2.3 rating and WCW Main Event a 2.0, numbers that destroyed WWF weekend programming. Impact had nothing approaching these numbers when they decided to run head-to-head with Raw in early 2011, nor did they have anything approaching WCW’s level of talent or financial resources. Perhaps most importantly, WWE wasn’t asleep at the wheel in 2011 like WWF was in 1995. 
356In the beginning, both WWF and WCW had completely different mindsets about what it meant to go head-to-head. McMahon’s WWF had traditionally built a bubble around itself, not acknowledging non-WWF promotions, champions, wrestlers, etc., with only very rare exceptions (the most notable being when “The Real World Champion Ric Flair” jumped to WWF in 1991, but even then there was no acknowledgement of the NWA, WCW, etc.). Although they were now going head-to-head with WCW on Monday nights, they decided to operate as if they were not going head-to-head, there was no competition, and that it was business as usual. 
357Eric Bischoff, on the other hand, was out for blood. Since the September 11 Raw show was a taped show where Shawn Michaels beat Sid, Eric flat-out revealed to the Nitro audience that you shouldn’t bother turning the channel because Raw was taped and Shawn Michaels “beats the big guy with a superkick” that wouldn’t have earned him a green belt at the local karate school. He talked about how Lex Luger had jumped ship from WWF nine days earlier and that he was tired of competing in the bush leagues and wanted to be where the big boys played. While there had been bitter head-to-head territorial wrestling wars in the past, nothing like this had ever been done on national television before. And this was only the beginning. Bischoff installed a monitor under his announcing desk so that when the two shows went head-to-head live, he could actually watch Raw, see what was happening, and book Nitro changes on the fly.
358Four days after the first-ever head-to-head meeting, WCW fired one of their performers who had been on the DL with a torn triceps. The Hogan clique hadn’t been a big fan of this guy, because he had a high-paying deal that they felt was unjustified; he was a good worker but didn’t have any particular special charisma. His name was Steve Austin.
359In hindsight, September 1995 was one of the most pivotal months in the entire history of pro wrestling, as three things happened that helped change the course of the business forever. Nitro debuted, which ultimately led to the Monday Night Wars and the greatest worldwide boom period in wrestling history. WCW also fired the performer who, more than any other, was ultimately responsible for the rebirth of the WWF, the turnaround in the wrestling war, and the creation of Vince McMahon as a certified billionaire with to-head, there was no competition, and that it was business as usual. 
360Eric Bischoff, on the other hand, was out for blood. Since the September 11 Raw show was a taped show where Shawn Michaels beat Sid, Eric flat-out revealed to the Nitro audience that you shouldn’t bother turning the channel because Raw was taped and Shawn Michaels “beats the big guy with a superkick” that wouldn’t have earned him a green belt at the local karate school. He talked about how Lex Luger had jumped ship from WWF nine days earlier and that he was tired of competing in the bush leagues and wanted to be where the big boys played. While there had been bitter head-to-head territorial wrestling wars in the past, nothing like this had ever been done on national television before. And this was only the beginning. Bischoff installed a monitor under his announcing desk so that when the two shows went head-to-head live, he could actually watch Raw, see what was happening, and book Nitro changes on the fly.
361Four days after the first-ever head-to-head meeting, WCW fired one of their performers who had been on the DL with a torn triceps. The Hogan clique hadn’t been a big fan of this guy, because he had a high-paying deal that they felt was unjustified; he was a good worker but didn’t have any particular special charisma. His name was Steve Austin.
362In hindsight, September 1995 was one of the most pivotal months in the entire history of pro wrestling, as three things happened that helped change the course of the business forever. Nitro debuted, which ultimately led to the Monday Night Wars and the greatest worldwide boom period in wrestling history. WCW also fired the performer who, more than any other, was ultimately responsible for the rebirth of the WWF, the turnaround in the wrestling war, and the creation of Vince McMahon as a certified billionaire with his wrestling company was a joke and he should be embarrassed and ashamed and shut it down.
363Watts, it should be noted, lasted three weeks before calling it quits. Vince had told Watts he would have creative control and wouldn’t be overruled on his decisions. Vince proceeded to immediately overrule him, and that was all she wrote.
364Going into October 1995, Raw and Nitro were at a dead heat. Forgotten in history is the fact that, at least for a while, WWF was airing a Raw replay on Thursday nights. Adding in the rating for that show, Raw was being watched by more people, but it was an unfair head-to-head comparison. Ultimately the replay was dropped, because at the end of the day the only numbers that anyone really cared about were those head-to-head on Monday, and the feeling was that by eliminating the Thursday show it would convince people to watch on Mondays instead. Over the next fifteen years, as Raw became the flagship show in professional wrestling, they never aired a full-length replay out of fear that it would erode the audience. In the ’00s and ’10s they aired Raw on Saturday mornings, which was only one hour, and their Hulu feed of the show was also edited down to ninety minutes from the original three hour airing.
365Ratings remained head-to-head throughout October despite WCW booking an angle where a mummy debuted, bursting forth from a giant block of ice in a Nitro main-event segment. It helped that on the other channel, Diesel, the WWF champion, was being booed unmercifully despite McMahon’s efforts to make him the new 1980s-style Hulk Hogan babyface champion.
366Speaking of Hulk Hogan, he lost his WCW title at the Halloween Havoc PPV in a match with a young newcomer named Paul Wight. Wight, who was named the Giant, was a legitimate near-seven-footer who, at the start of his career, was billed as the son of Andre the Giant. This was his first-ever match on national television, and what a debut it was. Hogan was leaving to film a movie, so they needed to get the title off of him, but he was Hulk Hogan and the idea that he would lose clean or put someone over was preposterous. So the stipulations for the match (kind of, more later) was that the belt could change hands via DQ, which is exactly what happened after interference from Jimmy Hart. The match itself was set up with an angle earlier in the show that we are not making up. The PPV took place at the Cobo Arena in Detroit, Michigan. Prior to the Randy Savage versus Lex Luger semi-main, Hogan and Giant had a MONSTER TRUCK BATTLE on the roof of the building. It is believed the idea was that they would have a sumo match in these gigantic, and we mean GIGANTIC, monster trucks. Of course, it’s pro wrestling, so they ultimately got out of the trucks, started fighting, and in the melee the Giant—get ready—was PUSHED OFF COBO HALL, falling to his apparent death. One would assume this would have resulted in no main-event wrestling match taking place. But one would be incorrect in that assumption. In fact, Giant came out for his match with Hogan none the worse for wear. You see, although Cobo Hall was planted smack-dab in the middle of a cement parking lot surrounding it on all sides, the claim was that Giant had fallen off the roof INTO LAKE MICHIGAN, and thus he survived and made it back inside twenty minutes later for his match. You’d think if you were going to book an angle so preposterous you’d at least make sure Giant came to the ring sopping wet, but no, he was dry. Then they had their match. After it was over, the guy in the mummy outfit ran in. This man, Ron Reis, was called the Yeti, which Tony Shiavone pronounced “YET-AY!” for some reason. A yeti, for those unaware, is an abominable snowman, the Bigfoot of the Himalayas. Why he was dressed up as a mummy is anyone’s guess. He then proceeded—and if you think this visual is preposterous, we’re telling you that the real thing was even more ridiculous than your imagination suggests—to bearhug Hogan from behind while Giant simultaneously bearhugged him from the front. They double-humped him. Don’t blame us—we’re just reporting the facts. That’s what happened. Hogan was left in a heap, understandably. And the Giant won the title.
367
368Sting and the Giant would become friends in WCW during the nWo era. We like to think that perhaps Sting rescued the big guy from Lake Michigan. [GEORGE NAPOLITANO]
369
370At least until the next week on Nitro when it was ruled that he was no longer the champion: the storyline was that Hart, who had turned on Hogan, had put a stipulation in the contract that if Hogan lost via DQ he lost the title, therefore Giant was to get the WCW title. But WCW’s storyline (and real-life) attorney Nick Lambros claimed WCW wasn’t recognizing this stipulation. However, instead of recognizing Hogan as champion again, he just said the belt was vacant pending an upcoming World War III PPV battle royal. Although the storyline was that WCW never recognized the title change, every single title history in existence plus wrestling lore lists Giant as winning the title in his first-ever match. Not that any of this matters much. Randy Savage ended up winning the title in the battle royal.
371December was notable for being the first time that either company booked a television overrun period. Nitro ran Savage versus Luger for the title on December 4 and the show ran ten minutes past the top of the hour. Because a rating always grows during a match, and because you’re invariably going to get a bump due to people tuning in to see whatever show is scheduled to air next, you can inflate your rating with an overrun. Nitro was up 0.2 as a result, tying their record 2.6 rating and beating Raw (although barely, as viewership for both shows was creeping up). From that point forward, Nitro booked an overrun virtually every week. Overruns became an accepted part of Monday night pro wrestling to the point that WWE still does an overrun today despite Raw having zero head-to-head wrestling competition and the show already being three hours long going in.
372While most would consider what happened on December 18, 1995 just another shocking angle in the Monday Night Wars, in reality it was another pivotal day in the history of pro wrestling. On Nitro, Debrah Miceli, who had been working in WWF as Alundra Blayze and was, in fact, their Women’s champion, showed up on Nitro with her title belt, tossed it in a garbage can live on air, and said that was what she thought of the WWF and their championship belt. She said Nitro’s tag line was that this was where the big boys played, but as of today it was also where the big girls played. Vince McMahon was shocked. Why he was shocked is anyone’s guess given that her contract had expired a week earlier and they hadn’t bothered to take the title off of her. The move led to a bitter lawsuit between the two sides that ultimately played into Vince McMahon’s decision-making during the Montreal Screwjob years later, a night that changed pro wrestling forever.
373“I was under contract [with WCW] and was told to do what I had to do, and if not, you’re fired and would have no income coming in,” Miceli noted. “Eric Bischoff told me that I had to put the WWF Women’s title in the trash on television or that was it … it was put down as if it was totally my fault. However, people don’t want to see the other side, and that it was pure entertainment. If I was asked how I felt, and if I would have done it by my own choice, the answer would have been ‘No.’”9 
374On Raw that same night, Steve Austin debuted as The RingMaster. When people state that this was a golden era in wrestling, this is why. Nearly every Monday night had something that would have fans talking throughout the week.
375And as you can see, the battle lines had been drawn. But the war had not yet started in earnest. 
376Things were about to get a lot more interesting.
377And a lot more ugly.
378
379“You want a war? You got one!”
380—Scott Hall to Eric Bischoff, Monday Nitro, May 27, 1996
381CHAPTER
382ê ê ê TWO ê ê ê 
3831996: 
384THE WAR BEGINS
385
386From the time WCW and WWF first emerged as the two major leagues of professional wrestling, fans had debated who would win in a showdown between the two. Many knew that the whole business was in fact predetermined, but it was still fun to contemplate the awesome matchups that would take place should the two companies ever compete under one banner. In fact, many wrestling magazines seemed to stay in business by publishing at least one article detailing interpromotional “dream matches” each month. Every fan hoped to see, once and for all, which of the two organizations was truly superior.
387“From the day you first watch wrestling and see all the amazing characters, it’s natural to dream about cross-federation matches, champion versus champion,” notes legendary wrestling magazine writer Bill Apter. “When I worked for the magazines full-time we took it one step further and made the dream match seem more like a reality. Everyone loved it and that showed by the mail we used to get each time we published one.”
388So when Scott Hall appeared on Nitro for the very first time, it should have come as no shock that the fans suddenly sat up and took notice. His debut certainly was unique. In the past, promotions typically released video packages to detail a wrestler’s imminent arrival. These would establish just who the character was, what his motives were, etc., to create a “buzz” before he ever stepped foot in the ring. With Hall, however, WCW concluded that everyone knew who he was, since he had been an integral part of the WWF’s upper card for the better part of the past three years. Therefore, no packages were produced, and nothing was ever mentioned. 
389
390No, Scott Hall just showed up on Nitro one night and grabbed the promotion by the balls.
391The night was May 27, 1996, a night that, for many reasons, was a turning point in the history of wrestling. It just happened to be the week that Nitro made a huge jump, expanding from one hour to two. Since Raw ran from 9–10 p.m., Bischoff decided to run Nitro from 8–10, giving the show one full unopposed hour to build up the second hour as a must-see. Turner was happy because the show in the 8–9 slot, Thunder in Paradise (which, ironically, featured Hulk Hogan in a leading role), was doing miserable numbers. In exchange for the programming, Turner agreed to pay WCW $2 million per year for the added hour. Because attendance at WCW live events had started taking off months earlier due to a Randy Savage versus Ric Flair feud (yes, Ric Flair, who was not only unretired again, but had, shockingly, briefly won the World title twice in the prior six months and actually pinned Hulk Hogan for the first time since their feud began five years and nine million matches earlier), this additional revenue meant that the company had reached a new milestone: for the first time in history, it turned a profit. 
392
393Randy Savage and Ric Flair brought their great matches from the WWF to the WCW. The two had previously been in a World title match at WrestleMania XIII. [GEORGE NAPOLITANO]
394It was on this occasion, as Nitro expanded to fill its new time slot, that the Scott Hall deal unfolded. During the midst of a mid-card match featuring Steve Doll and “The Mauler” Mike Enos (that’s right, and for historical purposes it should be noted that, aside from Hall’s appearance, this show totally blew), Hall jumped the rail from the stands and grabbed a microphone. It looked for all the world like a completely unscripted event, and immediately fans began to think something was up—after all, here was this big WWF star invading Nitro! Those fans were even more suspicious when Hall made his way to the ring and began to speak.
395“Hey, you people know who I am. But you don’t know why I am here. Where is Billionaire Ted? Where is the Nacho Man? Where is Scheme Gene?” The mystery continued to build as Hall hunted down the announce team, including Eric Bischoff himself. “Bischoff, you got a big mouth. You started it, now we’re going to finish it!” He also mentioned that he wasn’t alone, and that he’d have a “big surprise” for all of WCW the following week. “You want a war?” Hall asked. “You got one!”
396
397
398WCW got one all right. A real-life war with the WWF that resulted in a real-life lawsuit filed by McMahon’s company on June 20. The suit cited, among other things, unfair competition (with regard to WCW’s portrayal of this as an interpromotional angle—ironic, given WWF’s portrayal of Ric Flair in 1991), trademark infringement (Hall looked and spoke too much like Razor Ramon for their tastes), unfair competition (WCW had allegedly claimed on its 900-hotline that WWF was ready to file for bankruptcy—a stretch, but this was the year in which WWF was closest to going under in its entire history), and defamation and libel (for an incident in which the power went out at Nitro and Bischoff implied that “the competition” might have had something to do with it). And this was only the latest legal volley from the McMahon side—earlier in the year he’d filed a long complaint to the FTC Bureau of Competition citing everything from alleged contract tampering to the “unprecedented” act of starting Nitro a few minutes early and ending it a few minutes late, all efforts by WCW, he believed, to kill WWF and create a monopoly over U.S. pro wrestling (ten years after McMahon largely did the same, though that fact wasn’t mentioned in the complaint). Long story short, his goal was to have Time Warner investigate WCW and the fact that it had lost over $40 million since being purchased by Turner in 1988 with the hopes that, to avoid merger headaches, everyone involved would just opt to drop the wrestling division. This would have signaled a much earlier Death of WCW. The great irony was that at the time Vince lodged his complaint, WWF was actually having somewhat of a business turnaround, having done a great buy rate for Royal Rumble and good house show business both domestically and internationally. The biggest difference between the two promotions was that Eric Bischoff was touting how WCW had turned the ratings war around. Funny, in the six weeks prior to the complaint being lodged, Raw had won three weeks and Nitro had won three weeks. In addition to that, prior to the Raw/Nitro war and Bischoff going on and on about ratings, the reality is that nobody in wrestling really cared about ratings at all, and there were very often periods, particularly in the early ’90s, where WCW’s ratings were consistently better than WWF’s. In those days,though, it didn’t matter, because business success or failure was determined by house show numbers and pay-per-view buy rates.
399The week after the June 20 lawsuit, Hall delivered on his threat as Kevin Nash, who had competed as Diesel in the WWF, made his debut. Not only was Nash a former WWF champion, he was also the man around whom McMahon had developed his most recent marketing campaign, the “New Generation,” the idea being that Nash was fresh, while the guys in WCW like Hogan and Savage were yesterday’s news. Like Hall, Nash began to berate Bischoff and WCW as a whole.
400“You’ve been out here running your mouth for six months!” Nash bellowed. “This is where the big boys play? What a joke!”
401The implication was clear: Bischoff had taken shot after shot at the WWF on Nitro, pulling stunts like announcing the results of the taped shows and mocking their top stars. Now, here were two of the WWF’s biggest names confronting Bischoff about his actions and threatening to dismantle WCW to its very core. In a stroke of what can only be described as genius, the words “WWF,” “Razor Ramon,” and “Diesel” were never mentioned. Indeed, the loudest words were unspoken. On top of all this was the irony of WCW throwing around references to the WWF’s entire series of “Billionaire Ted” parody skits. The skits, in which elderly actors played knock-offs of Hogan (“The Huckster”) and Randy Savage (“The Nacho Man”), did little more for the WWF than further stir interest in the WCW product.
402
403
404“This is where the big boys play? What a joke!” Kevin Nash would soon ride roughshod over WCW … in more ways than one. [GEORGE NAPOLITANO]
405Everything led to the Great American Bash PPV, an event so shockingly great from both in-ring and booking standpoints that many fans at the time went as far as to call it the greatest U.S. pay-per-view of all time. Right before the main event, Hall and Nash showed up again and interrupted the proceedings to a bigger reaction than almost anyone else on the show. In fact, the crowd began to chant “Diesel! Diesel!” Amazingly enough, neither man had even been named by the promotion at this point.
406After berating Bischoff once more, Hall and Nash made their demand clear: a three-on-three match for the upcoming Bash at the Beach PPV. Bischoff agreed, and Hall asked who WCW’s three men would be. Bischoff wouldn’t say, so Hall punched him in the stomach, doubled him over, and sent him into the waiting arms of Nash. Nash then lifted Bischoff high into the air and powerbombed him off the stage and through a table below.
407The crowd went absolutely crazy. Armageddon had arrived: the WWF was here, and they were taking out WCW from the very top! Before we continue, it must be said that the manner in which WCW initially booked Hall and Nash was nothing short of phenomenal. The whole idea behind drawing money in wrestling is actually pretty basic: create a match that fans want to see and, more importantly, one that they’re willing to pay to see. If fans perceive that one side has zero chance of winning, they won’t want to see the bout. After all, the outcome of such an encounter would be predetermined (which is ironic, since all pro wrestling is predetermined). It’s also crucial that the two factions are perceived as equals: if a main-eventer takes on a lower-card guy, fans will likely reject the match. When Hall and Nash made their debuts, they were treated as something very out of the ordinary; in fact, they were made to look absolutely dominant. They were a huge threat, not only to this wrestler or that wrestler, but also to the entire company of WCW as a whole.
408Never before had two men simply come into a company and acted like it was their personal playground. It was called an “attempted hostile takeover,” and by God, that’s just what it was. During matches in which they weren’t involved, the announce team would talk about them, fearing what might happen when they showed up. These “outsiders” were such a threat that not only was everyone on the alert, but at one point the announce team even had armed guards to protect their positions. It’s one thing to KO a guy in a wrestling ring—it’s another altogether to be so dominant and intimidating that security guys with GUNS are required.
409LESSON NOT LEARNED: Over the years, countless “invasions” have happened in the world of pro wrestling. These have all paled in comparison to the original WCW debuts of Hall and Nash. And the reason is almost always the same: the incoming force is treated as a true threat for a week or two, then is portrayed as the same as everyone else on the roster. For instance, they will have theme music … that sounds just like the ones heard on the show for years prior. They are given entrances that look the same. They give interviews at the same times during a show as all others. When Hall and Nash debuted, they were different, they were unique … and they were kept that way until they were more established. And once established, their music was radically different, their entrance was different, EVERYTHING was different. And they were immediately programmed with the top guys in the company. End result: they were taken very seriously, and led the company to its greatest success. 
410This was a threat WCW took very seriously. The only way to fight guys who were the top stars in the WWF was to use their own main-eventers. In fact, on the very first night that Hall showed up, none other than Sting came out to defend WCW’s honor. It made sense, as Sting was often viewed as the promotion’s franchise player. Unlike nearly everyone else in WCW, he’d never left the company and had remained true to WCW through all of its ups and downs. If anyone could block this WWF onslaught, it would be the Stinger. But he’d definitely need backup, and in this case, he got it in the form of two of WCW’s other top stars, Randy Savage and Lex Luger.
411So Team WCW was set, but leading up to Bash at the Beach, one question remained: who would Hall and Nash (now dubbed “the Outsiders”) have as their mystery partner? Indeed, one of the biggest selling points of the PPV was the chance to see just who the third guy was. Although “mystery partner” angles almost always turn out to be complete flops in wrestling, the fact that WCW had delivered two monumental surprises in the appearances of Hall and Nash convinced fans that WCW would unveil another huge name. Right up until the ring introductions, the question remained: who was the third man?
412(box) There were several schools of thought as to just who would wind up as Hall and Nash’s mystery partner, both in the minds of fans and behind the scenes. Since Hall and Nash had just jumped ship, and it appeared that McMahon was having problems holding on to his talent, one theory had yet another WWF main-eventer jumping ship: Bret Hart. And since it was known that Bret was unhappy with his current position in the WWF hierarchy, he seemed a likely third man. In reality, Bischoff wouldn’t begin negotiations with Breuntil months after the Bash, so it was never going to be him. 
413As the crowd craned their necks toward the entrance ramp, Michael Buffer made the introductions. But something wasn’t right—only Hall and Nash made their way toward the ring. The announce crew immediately cried that this was unfair, and this really said something—after all, shouldn’t the WCW announce crew have been happy that it was now a handicap match? Apparently not, as Tony Schiavone, practically in tears, screamed, “They’ve got to tell us who the third man is right now!” His announce colleague, Bobby Heenan, countered, “They know what they’re doing. They’re keeping us on the edge of our seats and making our palms sweat!” They sure were; they had the entire crowd and all those watching at home antsy about what the hell was going on.
414
415The Outsiders, Scott Hall and Kevin Nash, would help propel WCW into the stratosphere. [GEORGE NAPOLITANO]
416Gene Okerlund made his way to the ring and demanded to know where the third man was. Hall, channeling the Puerto Rican accent he had used as Razor Ramon, retorted, “You know, Scheme Gene, you know too much already. All you need to know, little man, is that he’s here and he’s ready.” Nash followed up and proclaimed: “He’s here all right, Gene, but we’re enough to handle it here right now.”
417He was right. Nash and Hall began a complete dissection of the WCW crew, knocking Luger out of the match almost immediately. This furthered speculation that perhaps Luger would reemerge as the third member. That wasn’t in the plans, however. And just in case fans at home hadn’t caught on that Nash and Hall were bad news, the announcers began to beg for a third guy to come out, so that team WCW would once again have a three-on-two advantage! They needed the help, too, as the Outsiders beat the ever-loving crap out of Sting and Savage. Note to wrestling promoters: this is how you book strong heels. Finally, Sting was able to make the tag to Savage, and the crowd went insane. One low blow later, though, Savage was once again down.
418Just as things began to look most bleak, WCW’s biggest star hit the aisle: Hulk Hogan. As he came down the ramp, the fans cheered—WCW was finally saved!
419Hogan surveyed the ring. Hall and Nash had dropped to the floor, leaving Randy Savage alone in the ring, flat on his back. Hogan looked around the ring nervously and glanced momentarily at the crowd. No doubt, Terry Bollea had serious reservations as to what his wrestling persona was about to do. For the first time in over a decade, and for the first time since he had taken the nation by storm as Hulk Hogan, he was about to become a heel.
420
421
422Was Lex Luger the third member? No. WCW had someone MUCH bigger in mind … [GEORGE NAPOLITANO]
423The third man had arrived.
424Hogan dropped the leg across Savage’s throat. Sting came back in to make the save, but was promptly thrown out. Again and again, Hogan nailed Savage, stopping only to high-five his new friends. The wrestling world had its new number-one heel. And WCW was about to take off into the stratosphere.
425Gene Okerlund hit the ring once more to find out what the hell had just happened. Hogan launched into a tirade: “Mean Gene, the first thing you need to do is to tell these people to shut up if you want to hear what I got to say. The first thing you got to realize, brother, is that this is the future of wrestling. You can call this the New World Order of wrestling, brother!” And thus the group had its name.
426What about its motives? “These two men right here came from a great big organization up north. And everybody was wondering who the third man was. Well, who knows more about that organization than me, brother? I made that organization a monster. I made people rich up there. I made the people that ran that organization rich up there, brother! And when it all came to pass, the name Hulk Hogan, the man Hulk Hogan, got bigger than the whole organization. And then Billionaire Ted, he wanted to talk turkey with Hulk Hogan. Billionaire Ted promised me movies, he promised me millions of dollars, and he promised me world-caliber matches. As far as Billionaire Ted, as far as Eric Bischoff, and as far as the whole WCW goes, I’m bored, brother!”
427Fans began to get irate and hurled trash into the ring. What began as a paper cup here or there had become a flood of garbage that washed over Hogan, Hall, and Nash. In fact, the entire area was becoming less like a wrestling ring and more like a landfill confined by ropes and turnbuckles.
428Hogan continued: “As far as I’m concerned, all the crap in this ring represents these fans out here! For two years, for two years, I held my head high! I did everything for the charities, I did everything for the kids, and the reception I got when I came out here, you fans can stick it, brother! Because if it wasn’t for Hulk Hogan, you people wouldn’t be here! If it wasn’t for Hulk Hogan, Eric Bischoff would still be selling meat from a truck in Minneapolis! And if it wasn’t for Hulk Hogan, wrestling wouldn’t be here!”
429Tony Schiavone concluded the telecast with these words: “We have seen the end of Hulkamania … Hulk Hogan, you can go to hell! Straight to hell!”
430At this point, the New World Order name was here to stay, despite commentator Larry Zbysko’s best efforts to call them the New World Odor. That Larry, he was a damn clever man. 
431The angle was a culmination of many things that had happened in both companies over the past year. For Hall and Nash, they left a company that had lost $4.4 million in the 1994–1995 fiscal year to jump to a company which had, for the first time since Turner bought them in 1988, finally turned a small profit in 1995. Hall went from an upper mid-carder to a main-eventer, and Nash went from a failed WWF champion—a guy who, while they tried to push him as the new Hulk Hogan, ended up being (up to that point) the worst-drawing champion in company history—to a tippy-top main event superstar in WCW.
432
433Goodbye red and yellow, hello black and white. Never before, or since, has a color shift meant so much in professional wrestling. [GEORGE NAPOLITANO]
434For Hogan, fans had grown bored with the goody-two-shoes image that Hogan had used for so many years. Indeed, a handful of fans had already been booing Hogan in his appearances leading up to the turn, and now they were given carte blanche to scream their lungs out against the guy. Hogan, having seen his popularity decline, was truly at a career crossroads. Being a bad guy wasn’t something he wanted to do, per se, but Bischoff had made an excellent argument: as a babyface, Hogan had worn out his welcome, but as a heel, he would be at the top of the cards once more.
435It was a good argument, but Bollea was still undecided. He had strong reservations about leaving behind what was a secure (though not as profitable as it had once been) role as wrestling’s number-one good guy. He was already starting to wane as a babyface … what if he flopped as a heel? Bad guys didn’t sell T-shirts, and they didn’t take starring roles in movies. In fact, as a heel, Hogan had never main-evented wrestling shows, either. Although none but the hardest of hardcore fans knew it, Hogan had started his national career as a heel for the World Wrestling Federation in 1979, wrestling under the tutelage of evil managers like Fred Blassie and taking on fan favorites like Andre the Giant. In fact, his first babyface turn came by accident, as he was supposed to debut for Verne Gagne’s AWA on August 9, 1981, as a heel, but for whatever reason, the fans went wild for him.
436By the middle of 1996, Hogan had few options. His WCW contract would be due after two more PPVs, and he had no leverage left. He had tried one of his usual tricks months earlier, and it had backfired. The NBA playoffs were coming up, so he left to film a movie. Of course, the playoffs wreaked havoc on Nitro’s ratings, and his plan was to come back and say the reason they were down was because he was gone. There was a flaw in his plan, however. He was gone too long, and when the playoffs ended, Nitro returned and started doing better numbers than when he’d been main-eventing every week. So, less than two weeks before the Bash, Hogan decided to take the gamble and turn heel.
437The gamble paid off. Hulk Hogan, bad guy, along with Hall and Nash, became the talk of the wrestling industry. His career was instantly rejuvenated, giving WCW a huge shot in the arm. Fans who hadn’t been following the business suddenly wanted to know just what could have caused such a catastrophic turn of events. The following night on Nitro, Hogan launched into yet another tirade, echoing his sentiments from the previous night and adding that if the fans didn’t like what he had to say, they could “stick it.”
438
439(Box) Anyone involved in wrestling—especially promoters and bookers—should take note that even when things appear to be taking off, nothing happens overnight. All the angles that WCW booked in mid-1996 certainly increased casual fan interest in the product. This interest, however, did not immediately turn the company’s fortunes around. In fact, despite all the awesome hype leading up to Bash at the Beach, the show actually did fewer buys than the same PPV the year prior (0.71 versus 0.82). Nitro ratings were up, but that was slightly deceptive, partially owing to the addition of an unopposed first hour. And house show business, legitimately up a whopping 125 percent, was the result of the Flair versus Savage feud that had started earlier in the year and had nothing to do with the nWo.
440With Hogan, Hall, and Nash running roughshod over WCW, it became apparent that the entire promotion would begin to rally together as a group to fight this invasion. The Giant—WCW World champion at the time—stepped up to the plate to defend WCW’s honor, in addition to the title. This was a major turning point in the early formation of the angle, since the Giant had been a heel right up until Hogan’s heel turn.
441And indeed it was all of WCW against the New World Order, as the invaders began to assail anyone and everyone within the company with a series of sneak attacks, spray-painting their victims with an “nWo” tag. One such attack saw the near–seven foot Kevin Nash launch five-foot-two Rey Mysterio Jr. into the side of a truck like a lawn dart. Arn Anderson of the Four Horsemen was also injured during the beatdown, showing that the nWo didn’t care who was a face or heel on the WCW side of things; all were enemies to them. Everyone, from legends like Ric Flair to opening-match guys like Brad Armstrong, stood united against the nWo’s onslaught.
442To stand up to such numbers, it was clear that Hogan, Hall, and Nash would need to bring in more members. And so came Hog Wild—an annual PPV event emanating from the Sturgis motorcycle rally. The matches took place in the middle of a field of thousands of drunken bikers, whom WCW did not charge to attend the event. In other words, the gate was zero dollars. Despite this lack of revenue, the company would hold the event over the next several years, primarily due to the fact that Eric Bischoff was such a huge motorcycle enthusiast. On this occasion, commentators Dusty Rhodes and Tony Schiavone opened the program proclaiming that WCW had stumbled upon new evidence that the nWo was growing, and that their numbers would increase by at least one man by the end of the evening.
443The show itself was rather boring and bland, aside from a women’s match featuring Madusa (Deborah Miceli, formerly known as Alundra Blayze), who had made quite a name for herself a year or so earlier when she showed up on Nitro and threw the WWF Women’s title into the garbage. On this night, Miceli took on Bull Nakano from Japan. Nakano was quite the sight, a 200-plus-pound brute of a woman with hair sticking up two feet from her forehead. She looked like the world’s most brutal Japanese porcupine. But she was a fantastic in-ring competitor, and the two had some really good matches. Miceli and Nakano had previously had a heated rivalry in the WWF when Miceli, hoping to boost the status of women’s wrestling (which had never been taken seriously in the U.S.), urged McMahon to bring in some of Japan’s top stars. McMahon, however, thought Miceli would be better served by taking on the 350-pound Rhonda Singh, whom he dubbed Bertha Faye, queen of the trailer park. Madusa was more than happy to get out of the WWF when she had the chance.
444Playing to the xenophobic nature of pro-wrestling crowds, especially those containing thousands of (likely inebriated) bikers, the Hog Wild encounter saw the two fight for the right to smash their opponent’s motorcycle. It should be noted that Bull’s manager was the diminutive walking Japanese stereotype, Sonny Onoo, who would later file a lawsuit against WCW for racial discrimination. This despite his claim that he’d ride his bike “like a kamikaze” during this match. Anyway, despite the best efforts of Nakano and Onoo—who unfortunately did not attempt a suicide mission with his Honda—Madusa got the duke and took a sledgehammer to the bike to the cheers of the crowd.
445Heading into the main event, the New World Order had yet to reveal any new members. At least not officially. During the Outsiders matchup against Sting and Luger, it looked as though Luger would get the submission victory over Hall. However, referee Nick Patrick accidentally-on-purpose clipped Luger’s knee, allowing Hall to roll him up for the pin. This would lead to a loooong angle during which Patrick would become the “official” official for the group. However, at this point, Patrick was not officially a heel, and the nWo still hadn’t bolstered its ranks.
446Again, in the main event, it looked as though Giant had things in hand, until Hogan walloped him with the title belt, leaving the big guy flat on his back for the next fifteen minutes. They must have replaced the gold with lead. Metallurgic inconsistencies aside, the win gave the nWo their first championship, and Hogan took the spot light atop the card once more. Out came longtime Hogan lackey Ed Leslie, the man of a thousand horrible gimmicks. Fans had last seen him as The Bootyman, a character who shook his ass at the camera to the delight of no one and used the high knee (get it, as in “hiney”?) as his finisher. Since the Hog Wild event fell on Hogan’s birthday, Leslie, in an effort to suck up to the Hulkster, brought out a cake. Hogan thanked Leslie, then proceeded to have the Outsiders beat the crap out of him. What an ingrate. They then proceeded to spray-paint the World title belt with the initials “nWo” as the announce squad once again cried foul.
447It was around this time that the New World Order began to air vignettes on WCW shows. These were filmed entirely in black and white and featured bizarre camera tricks and sound sampling. They looked as though someone had filmed them with a half-dozen shaky handheld cameras, all of which had faulty zoom lenses. At the end of each of these segments was a black-and-white message that simply read: “The preceding announcement has been paid for by the New World Order.” It was completely unlike anything the wrestling world had ever seen, very cutting edge, and so out there that fans immediately paid close attention.
448LESSON NOT LEARNED: As we noted previously, ratings don’t change overnight. Countless wrestlers’ main event pushes were given up on due to the fact that upper management has no patience. Look no further than the Nexxus angle in 2010. The group, consisting of Wade Barrett, Skip Sheffield (who would become Ryback), Daniel Bryan, and others, debuted in June and was pushed to main-event status, destroying Vince McMahon, Ricky Steamboat, and several other legends before entering into a feud with John Cena. Scant weeks later, the group had not only been defeated by Cena but were forced to disband. 
449Patience, Steph and Hunter. Even Eric Bischoff had it once upon a time.
450In fact, fans paid close attention to just about anything the group did at this point. They did interviews in which they’d say things that almost appeared to be shoot  (or “real-life”) comments, which no one else in the industry was doing. They interrupted matches, threatened announcers, and basically had the entire promotion on the run. More than anything, though, they did exactly what they said they’d do. They’d claim they would win belts, and then they did. They’d say they’d beat people up, and then they did. And, most importantly for the company, they were adding viewers. With the nWo invasion as the focal point of the promotion, the ratings for Nitro began to pull away from Raw, generally beating the competition by a full point. They were nearing 4.0 at the time—far and away the best ratings Nitro had ever achieved.
451Seeing that the New World Order had fans on the edges of their seats, it was decided that the time had come for them to add more members. Following an attack on his stablemates in the Dungeon of Doom, Giant came down to the ring, apparently looking for revenge against Hogan and his crew. However, in a moment that made absolutely no sense from a storyline standpoint, Giant turned on his team and joined up with the nWo (the reason this made no sense was that Davey Boy Smith was supposed to be the fourth guy, but the day he was scheduled to jump ship from the WWF, he instead re-signed a five-year contract). Even though the members of the nWo were technically the heels, fans cheered like crazy for the Giant turn, mostly because the four so-called “bad guys” were overcoming incredible odds and were on their way to destroying eight top WCW names.
452
453(ox) During the Giant’s official induction into the group, Scott Hall, acting on a goofball impulse, asked if Andre the Giant was really this Giant’s dad, referring to a pathetic angle a year earlier in which WCW had claimed that as fact. Visibly upset at Hall’s sudden ad-lib, Giant shot Hall a deadly glare and replied, “Don’t go there.” 
454
455Shortly before Giant’s turn, Ted DiBiase had shown up at Nitro, sitting in the crowd. He would eventually act as a mouthpiece of sorts for the New World Order. This storyline made a bit more sense. Furthermore, since DiBiase’s character in the WWF was that of the Million Dollar Man, it was explained that he was the benefactor who enabled the group to bring in high-priced talent and air commercials on WCW television. The group had member number five.
456Member number six turned out to be a very shocking turn, as WCW’s number-one guy turned against his company: Sting. But it wasn’t really Sting, and it was the beginning of a tremendous angle that would set the stage for the most successful PPV in WCW history. Ironically, though, the very first angle they shot in this storyline was such a turn-off for fans that approximately 700,000 people immediately switched channels.
457The angle began on the September 9, 1996, Nitro. The nWo’s familiar black limo was waiting in the parking lot as Lex Luger chased after the group. Out of the car and into the murky night came Sting, who, with the help of the rest of the group, proceeded to pummel Luger. This made little sense, as Sting had been the most vocal against the invaders and had, in fact, begged Flair and Anderson to join himself and Lex Luger to take them on in the upcoming War Games match at Fall Brawl. Team WCW seemed to be in a shambles. After all, if Sting was now on the other side, who would defend WCW’s honor at War Games?
458Aside from the War Games match, the most notable aspect of Fall Brawl 1996 was the incredible number of outstanding matches on the show.
459Not only did Chris Jericho make his WCW PPV debut against Chris Benoit in a fantastic bout, but Juventud Guerrera, Chavo Guerrero Jr., Super Calo, Rey Mysterio, and Diamond Dallas Page all had incredible outings as well. It proved to be a formula for which WCW PPVs would become known: fantastic undercard matches followed by main events featuring big names that weren’t so great as far as wrestling action was concerned. And when Sean Waltman—in the WWF as the 1-2-3 Kid—joined the nWo as Syxx (you know, because he was the real sixth member since Sting hadn’t really joined), the group found itself with a talented worker to help carry the load in their main-event matches.
460
461(box)Waltman was actually set to debut at Hog Wild after the WWF agreed to give him a release from his contract. However, WCW’s plans to debut him kept being thrown into disarray when the WWF repeatedly “forgot” to send him his release papers. Strangely, his journey back to the WWF years later would also be due to his getting stuck in the middle of a political game.
462While the main events were largely bad in the ring, it would be a mistake to say they were lacking in drama. Never mind that the drama often made absolutely no sense. Indeed, the War Games match had everyone glued to the action, with the question now reversed: who would team with Flair, Luger, and Arn to take on the nWo? The question was seemingly answered in an interview immediately prior to the War Games main event, in which the real Sting appeared before his former teammates and pleaded innocence. “All I’ve got to say is it’s not me, it wasn’t me, Lex!” It was never explained why Sting waited six days to have this talk with his pals as opposed to calling them immediately to explain that it wasn’t really him who attacked them. Luger, Anderson, and Flair didn’t believe him, and so, like total idiot babyfaces, the group headed down to ringside by themselves to take on Hall, Nash, Hogan, and their partner, who turned out to be … Sting.
463But of course, it wasn’t the real Sting, it was the imposter. The crowd picked up on that fact immediately, even though the announce crew didn’t. Minutes later, the real Sting hit the ring, and the announce crew figured it out. However, the rest of Team WCW just stood back and watched the real Sting go to work, apparently stunned by his actions. After laying out the entire nWo, he turned to Luger and yelled, “Is that proof enough for you right there?” He then proceeded to flip Luger off and leave the ring. Stunned by the real Sting’s departure, Luger fell prey to the bogus Sting, and the New World Order scored yet another win. To cap off the night, Randy Savage—another good guy who was supposed to be getting the next title shot at Hogan—was completely obliterated by the nWo, giving the impression that he had no chance.
464As for Sting, a storyline in which he felt that he had been betrayed by both WCW and the New World Order was developed. He changed his look entirely, trading in his trademark Sgt. Pepper–style ring jackets for a long black trench coat. Gone too was the spiky blonde hair and the outgoing demeanor. In their place was a silent, almost ghostly figure who closely resembled the lead character in the movie The Crow. He would hang out in the rafters and silently observe the proceedings. Each week, the commentators would question his loyalties, using such clues as the color of his makeup to indicate whether he was nWo or not. He didn’t do interviews, and he didn’t wrestle, yet he remained arguably the company’s hottest commodity.
465It should be noted that the fake Sting didn’t just appear on WCW television . . . he appeared in videogames as well! In what many argue is the best wrestling videogame ever made, the Nintendo 64 classic WCW vs. nWo World Tour, the WCW roster had Sting, while the nWo team had “Sting.” Yes, “Sting,” complete with quotation marks so players would know the difference.
466Not only did ratings soar, but events also took an almost entirely different direction. Throughout the fall, WWF and WCW became engrossed in the biggest bidding war in wrestling history over the services of Bret Hart. WCW wanted him to come in as the savior of the company for huge matches with Hogan and his cronies. The WWF did not want to lose him. Both sides made huge offers virtually unheard of in the industry: WCW put a three-year, $2.8 million contract on the table, while the WWF offered him a twenty-year deal worth an estimated $12 million total. Ultimately, he signed what he figured was going to be the last WWF contract of his active wrestling career. 
467
468Who knew punctuation could help us understand moral alignment? 
469This was not the only major signing. Hogan re-signed a lucrative three-year deal with WCW after claiming that WWF was willing to offer him $5 million per year to jump ship. Nobody really believed it except those who were in a position to call his bluff. Roddy Piper also signed a deal to come in and re-create his mid-’80s feud with Hogan. While he could barely move after having undergone hip surgery, it was a smart move by WCW since the Nitro audience skewed much older than Raw and drew an audience that remembered all these big stars from when they were younger.
470(box) During the early days of Piper’s WCW tenure, he was able to move the needle in both ratings and buy rates. The one thing he never understood, though, was the concept of a battle between the two companies. “Joe’s Bar and Grill was run better than that company, and they’ve only been open a week. WCW, the ‘war.’ I never figured it was a war. I wasn’t mad at nobody. I just come to fight the guy in the ring. But these guys, the egos got into it … I was like ‘stop!’”10 
471Sadly, Joe’s Bar & Grill could not be reached for comment. 
472And that audience was growing. On August 26, Raw was preempted for the U.S. Open tennis tournament, and Nitro, built around the Sting angle, did an unopposed 4.3 rating, by far its biggest number in history. Things were starting to happen.
473It had been five months since the beginning of the New World Order angle, and they were on an absolute tear. WCW was made to look totally inept, as Hall and Nash won the tag belts and Giant won the United States title—all in short order. At Halloween Havoc, a show with a record-setting $94,000 in first-day ticket sales, WCW put Savage up against Hogan in an effort to regain the WCW World title. But, unlike their encounters in WWF (which were phenomenal), this time the match pretty much sucked, likely due to the fact that both guys were starting to get up there in years, and it showed.
474And speaking of Father Time, he appeared in human form as “Rowdy” Roddy Piper to end the show.
475“So you’re bored, are you?” Piper began. “I’ve come 
476
477
478here to break your monotony! I am not here to represent the WCW, the NWA, the SPCA, the SOB—although I can be one SOB when I want to be! I’m just as big an icon in this sport as you are, Hogan! Do you know what bothers you? I am the only guy you’ve never been able to beat.”
479Although that wasn’t entirely true, the stage was set for Starrcade 1996: Hogan versus Piper. But before that could take place, Eric Bischoff came out on Nitro and stated that, for reasons he could not get into, the Hogan versus Piper showdown would not, in fact, take place. Quizzed by the announcers as to the reason, Bischoff stormed off the set. Bischoff claimed that despite his best efforts, Piper was not returning his phone calls or emails asking him to sign the contract to face Hogan. Something wasn’t adding up. Soon enough, Piper cornered Bischoff in the ring. The nWo then jumped Piper and revealed its newest member: none other than Bischoff himself!
480(box) There were several reasons why Bischoff became the on-screen leader of the nWo. The first, and most important, was that Raw had moved an hour earlier to an 8–9 p.m. time slot. Knowing they now had to promote a killer hour of Nitro to keep fans from tuning in to Raw, Eric’s idea was to split the show in half: hour one would be an nWo show, and hour two would be the WCW show. People were reacting more to the nWo at all the shows, so Bischoff figured nWo versus Raw would be better than WCW versus Raw. He also wanted to make sure that he was on the air doing commentary at the same time Vince McMahon was, because he took great delight in driving Vince crazy week after week from thousands of miles away. And, of course, being a TV star with the hottest heel group in wrestling sure sounded like fun. 
481Bischoff the character was given leadership in the storylines of the New World Order. From that perspective, it made sense, as who else could orchestrate all these ex-WWF guys coming in or give the invaders so much leeway to get away with things that they reasonably had no right to do? And make no mistake about it—Bischoff was excellent in his role. His smug, arrogant attitude had already alienated some wrestling fans, and he now had the opportunity to be as all-out annoying as he wanted to be.
482His first order of business was to give WCW wrestlers a chance to join the most prestigious and elite organization the wrestling industry had ever seen, via a membership drive for the New World Order. Effectively, he was telling the entire roster that they were either with them or against them. This led several WCW mid-carders—Big Bubba, Scott Norton, Michael Wallstreet, and others—to jump ship and join the heel conglomerate. It could—and will—be argued that this was the first huge mistake Bischoff made with regard to the booking of the New World Order storyline. Before, the nWo consisted of top-tier guys in the industry. Now, it was being watered down considerably as wrestlers who had been nowhere near the top of the card gained easy entry into the previously elite group.
483The next PPV, World War 3, featured an overbooked and confusing sixty-man, three-ring battle royal. On the show, Hogan and Piper had yet another confrontation in which Hogan informed the world that Piper was really just an old man with a plastic hip, going so far as to lift Piper’s kilt and show the entire world the scar from his hip-replacement surgery. After dubbing Piper “Pegleg Pete,” Hogan signed the contract for the Starrcade match, a contract that, according to storylines, Piper himself came up with. Keep that in mind; it’s important later on. Then the nWo beat the crap out of Piper once more, although this time Piper was able to regain his feet and hobble to the back on his own. The rest of the show was rather uneventful, with Giant winning the battle royal for a shot at Hogan at some undefined point in the future.
484The contract signing set up Starrcade, which had traditionally been WCW’s biggest show of the year. And, much like the PPVs that immediately preceded it, it had really good mid-card action from the usual suspects like Dean Malenko, Chris Benoit, and Eddie Guerrero. In one of the first wins for WCW since the formation of the New World Order, Lex Luger pinned the Giant after Sting snuck down to ringside and whispered something in Luger’s ear. He also left behind his now-trademark baseball bat, which Luger used to waffle the big guy and score the pin.
485The main event, of course, was the lure of the show. Despite the fact that both guys were way past their physical primes, Hogan versus Piper had tremendous appeal, especially to more casual fans of WCW. Those fans likely remembered their wars from years past—namely the first WrestleMania and the various MTV bouts they had leading up to it—so the nostalgia factor was kicking in big-time. And, to be fair, the booking leading up to the match was very strong as well, with both men playing their roles to perfection: Hogan was really beginning to peak as an insufferable bully heel, while Piper did a super job as the never-say-die babyface.
486While the build up was good, the match itself was not. It was becoming apparent to even his most ardent supporters that Piper’s best days in the ring were long past, and Hogan, despite the novelty of his being a bad guy, didn’t look much better. The two men hobbled around the ring as best they could, trading slaps like a couple of sissies. Piper finally cut loose with a comical punch-kick offense, and Hogan countered with scratches. Suffice to say this was a far cry from what fans had witnessed earlier in the evening from the superb mid-card action. The crowd fell silent following the inevitable nWo run-in, but Piper was able to get rid of the Giant and locked Hogan in a sleeper, the oldest of old-school moves. Hogan’s arm dropped three times, and referee Randy Anderson called for the bell.
487The crowd was stunned. How long had it been since someone had won a match with a sleeper hold, for God’s sake? It didn’t take long, however, before they realized that Hogan had been beaten, and they leapt to their feet. As the crowd celebrated, everyone waited for the gold to be strapped around Piper’s waist. It never happened, though, because the match was inexplicably a non-title affair. Since Piper himself came up with the contract (we told you that would be important), we hereby nominate Roddy Piper as the dumbest babyface of 1996. But we also must decry WCW for promoting a match that was clearly designed to look like a title affair. WCW had given its fans a bait and switch on their biggest show of the year; one that some would remember right to the bitter end.
488Booking aside, the show would have to be considered a complete and total success. It drew a 0.95 buy rate—higher than any other show the entire year—and it nearly doubled the buy rate of World War 3 just one month prior. The company also celebrated yet another victory in the Monday night wars, demolishing Raw by a margin of 3.51 to 1.64—an amazing accomplishment considering that on the first Monday night of the year, they had lost the battle 2.61 to 2.52.
489There was absolutely no denying that the company was on an incredible roll, delivering buy rates and ratings WCW had never seen before. Bischoff had the formula, he had the stars, and, perhaps most importantly, he had the one matchup that everyone was dying to see. And he was going to make them wait to see it for an entire year, building up not only the anticipation, but also the inevitably enormous buy rate.
490Yes, he had the whole world in his grasp, and as hard as it was to believe, 1997 was only going to get better.
491
492ê ê ê ê ê PART II
493THE RISE
494
495“Hulk has control over what he does. We don’t mind, because obviously he is doing it right. It helps us … we need help.”
496—Terry Taylor, Booking Committee Member, 1997
497CHAPTER
498ê ê ê THREE ê ê ê 
4991997: 
500THE WAITING GAME
501
502If 1996 taught Eric Bischoff anything, it was that the New World Order was the future of his company. That much was made clear from the ratings and the buy rates, both of which had skyrocketed following the launch of the angle. The numbers did not lie. Attendance was up 43 percent over 1995, gates were up 87 percent, and buy rates for PPVs—where the company made the bulk of its money—were closing in on that. In fact, the very first Nitro of 1997 drew 10,034 paid—a brand-new record—and this came a week before the Chicago show shattered that number with over 17,000 fans paying $189,206. The nWo had brought them to the Holy Land, and nowhere else would the spotlight shine brighter than this.
503No longer was WCW beneath Vince McMahon’s mighty World Wrestling Federation. No, now they were on more or less equal ground, and having come this far, there was no way they were turning back.
504Although the New World Order was a strong contingent, the fact remained that they were a bunch of bad guys. And in wrestling, bad guys are only draws if they have a strong babyface to confront them. Although the rest of WCW was often made out as a bunch of buffoons, one guy had not yet been booked to look like a total idiot: Sting. The man who had been the franchise of the company from almost the moment it became WCW, Sting was viewed by fans as the one guy within WCW who could conceivably compete with and defeat these invaders.
505To Bischoff’s credit, he knew that in order to max imize revenue from the inevitable battle between Sting and Hogan, this could be no ordinary feud (in those days, feuds generally played out over a couple of months). The plan was to make this one of the slowest-building feuds ever—a long, drawn-out affair lasting over a year. By building the feud up to December’s Starrcade, WCW’s biggest show of the year, fans would be lined up to pay to finally see Sting take down Hogan. The only remaining question was whether Bischoff would actually stick to his guns and keep Sting out of action for twelve months, or if he’d get antsy for the big payday and rush the match to pay-per-view.
506In order to allow the matchup he wanted, Bischoff felt he had to focus the company almost entirely on the New World Order. Never was Bischoff’s game plan more obvious than during the first PPV of the year, Souled Out, or to be more precise, nWo Souled Out. This show was designed to be a showcase for the group; it wasn’t promoted on-air as a WCW event, but as a New World Order event in which WCW wrestlers would show up and get their asses kicked. The idea was to see if a pay-per-view could be marketed and successfully sold solely under the New World Order name. If this could be done, it stood to reason that at some point in the future, Bischoff could begin to run more than one PPV a month, thereby doubling the revenue these events generated. It seemed well worth the gamble to give it a try.
507The show opened in a manner most bizarre, as Bischoff, Sean Waltman, Scott Hall, Kevin Nash, and the rest of the group circled the arena riding atop garbage trucks. Say what you want about him, but even the most jaded skeptic has to give Bischoff points for originality: certainly no pay-per-view in the history of pro wrestling had begun in such a manner. Even the set pieces on the show were unique. The standard bright and gaudy WCW sets were vacant, and in their place was a dark, industrial look from which it appeared no color could escape. The entrance was black, the ring apron was black, the ropes were black, and the turnbuckles were black. Aside from a few white nWo logos splashed around the arena, everything was black. In addition, the group’s trademark camera tricks were in full effect, with static blacking out the picture at random intervals. The bizarre camera angles likely had first-time viewers wondering if they were watching wrestling or an old episode of the ’60s Batman TV show. It was totally bizarre and completely different from anything else the wrestling world had ever seen. This was definitely not your ordinary, run-of-the-mill wrestling pay-per-view event. This was new; this was different. This was a New World Order pay-per-view.
508If anyone needed evidence that the nWo was starting to become severely watered down at this point, they need look no further than the nWo Souled Out PPV. Hogan, Nash, and Hall, the original nucleus trio of the group, had been joined by Waltman, DiBiase, and Bischoff shortly thereafter. Rounding out the ranks were Buff Bagwell, Scott Norton, Masahiro Chono, Mike “Virgil/Vincent” Jones, Ray Traylor, Elizabeth, a fake Sting, and about twenty other scrubs, all of whom tried to push each other out of the way in a vain attempt to occupy more of the television screen. It was almost an omen of what would come later in the year. 
509In addition to the matches, the show also featured a Miss nWo contest, as middle-aged women straddling Harley-Davidson motorcycles proclaimed their love to the New World Order. It was neither erotic nor comical, but more like what would happen if your mom had a pageant with her friends and they all said they wanted to grope Kevin Nash. Doesn’t sound like a good time, does it? The fans in the arena weren’t amused and immediately began to chant “Boring,” as Bischoff himself began to mack with the scag biker chicks onstage.
510In between his make-out sessions with the skanks, Bischoff, taking center stage on a podium above the entrance ramp, began to preach the message of the New World Order to the crowd. His statement was clear: WCW sucks. It was a familiar rallying cry, one that was repeated over and over again to the point that no one watching the show could miss it. And even if they did ignore Bischoff’s rantings, the presentation of WCW at the event would certainly sway their opinion. The WCW wrestlers who were not on the show were shown sitting in the crowd like common fans, a band of outcasts who couldn’t cut it with Bischoff’s rogue coalition. Even the handful of WCW wrestlers who participated in the show looked like losers: they had no music, no pyro, and they were introduced by a monotone voice in a very mocking manner. The nWo, meanwhile, were given grand entrances with music and lighting as the announcer declared their superiority. The point was clear: the WCW guys were pathetic, and they were no match for the New World Order.
511Despite the fact that the angle had given the promotion new life, the fact remained that the New World Order, as cool and hip as they might be, were supposed to be the bad guys in the story. All the mockery of WCW seemed to sap the very life out of the crowd, as they sat quietly throughout the majority of the show, seeming neither upset nor particularly thrilled by the outcome of any of the matches. Of course, those outcomes involved the New World Order winning almost every bout, generally with the help of evil referee Nick Patrick. The few wins WCW was able to rack up were generally due to match stipulations in which the referee didn’t come into play, such as a ladder match in which Eddie Guerrero (billed as the Mexican Jumping Bean by the ring announcer—a line that surely wouldn’t offend anyone) was able to yank down the U.S. Heavyweight belt suspended above the ring. The atrocious main event saw yet another nWo debacle, as Hulk Hogan pinned the Giant (who had joined and then left the group in the span of less than six months) following a beatdown by nearly every member of the group.
512Was the Souled Out experiment a success? In a word, no. The buy rate was a mere 0.47, the lowest since the start of the New World Order angle. The show took place in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, before a crowd of around 5,000—yet another sellout, but since the building was so small, the take was under $70,000, and a major disappointment. In short, everything was about half of what the previous pay-per-view, Starrcade 1996, had generated.
513The company decided to go back to the successful Starrcade formula for the next show, SuperBrawl 7, this time pitting Hogan against Piper in what was very clearly billed as a World title match. To promote the event, Piper was filmed in a bizarre series of vignettes in which he was locked away inside Alcatraz. Following the conclusion of the main event, fans probably wished that they too had been locked in solitary confinement.
514To be fair, however, the company had once again gone back to the blueprint they had followed to make Nitro a must-see show: they’d feature great matches prior to the blockbuster show-selling—albeit generally bad—main events. Bouts featuring men like Dean Malenko, Eddie Guererro, Sean Waltman, and Chris Jericho opened the show, bringing the fans to life. The undercard was as solid as ever, due primarily to the fact that Bischoff continued to spare no expense when it came to bringing in talent. Through raids of either the WWF, ECW, or Japan, Bischoff had brought in an amazing array of outstanding talent from around the globe. From 1996 to 1997, newcomers like Jericho, Juventud Guerrera, Rey Mysterio Jr., and countless others tore up the ring.
515WCW would need the fresh young talent, as it was slowly becoming apparent to everyone (save those in charge) that guys like Hogan and Piper just couldn’t deliver in the ring as they once could. Try as they might, the two stumbled through yet another horrible main event. This time, Piper once again appeared to win the belt, but this was overturned when Randy Savage turned his back on WCW and put Hogan’s foot under the rope, thus negating the title change. As all this was going on, Sting just watched silently from down the entrance ramp, then slowly turned and walked away. The slow burn would continue.
516Despite the bad main event, the show was able to rebound slightly from the depths to which Souled Out had taken the company, scoring a 0.75 buy rate and drawing almost $200,000 at the door from the 13,324 in attendance. It was a move in the right direction.
517WCW immediately took that money and spent it, announcing that they had just signed a huge star for Uncensored, their next PPV: Dennis Rodman. It didn’t matter that Rodman wouldn’t be able to actually wrestle on the show due to the fact that it was the middle of the NBA season. Bischoff knew that with the media covering the basketball bad boy at his every turn, WCW would get instant exposure, and a ton of it, if he could somehow sign him to do a couple of shows. It was also rumored that Vince McMahon was looking to do the 
518
519same, so it should come as no surprise that Bischoff was willing to do anything to once again stick it to Vince and the WWF. McMahon had offered the “Worm” $1 million for two dates, so Bischoff outbid him to the tune of nearly $2 million for three dates.
520Uncensored once again epitomized the company at the time, with young guys like Ultimo Dragon coming in for great matches with Mexican luchadores like Psicosis. For once, though, the main event of the evening was actually pretty good, largely due to the fact that they crammed nine guys into the ring in a three-way, which the nWo obviously won when Rodman and Savage interfered. In the storylines, this win gave Hogan’s organization the right to challenge for any title anytime they so desired. However, as the group celebrated, Sting rappelled from the ceiling, baseball bat in hand, and lay absolute waste to Nash, Hall, and Savage. As the crowd went nuts, Sting slowly raised his bat and pointed it at his target: Hogan. Finally, Hogan got into the ring, and Sting obliterated him as well. It was unquestionably the biggest response any WCW star had gotten since the birth of the New World Order, and it seemed impossible to believe that Bischoff could hold off on delivering this match on PPV for another nine months.
521The buy rate, though, showed that Bischoff was on the right track, as it wound up at just under 0.9 (which WCW trumpeted far and wide as having beaten that year’s WrestleMania, which scored a 0.77). It was apparent that Bischoff could and would hold off, as the following PPV, Spring Stampede, featured neither Sting nor Hogan. Instead, the main event was a showdown between Savage and Diamond Dallas Page. The event was largely forgettable, and largely unwatched, drawing a low 0.58 buy rate. However, even with a weak lineup, the company was still hot enough that it sold out in advance, drawing 8,356 fans paying $107,115. Indeed, selling out shows in advance was becoming a trend—a trend, ironically, that would end up hurting the company in the long run.
522To his credit, Bischoff didn’t panic and hotshot the Sting-Hogan showdown to the next show. Instead, he continued to do Nitros in which Sting would silently and methodically stalk Hogan and the New World Order from the rafters. In a business that is well known for get ting the big payday as quickly as possible, it is absolutely amazing that Bischoff stayed his course. Indeed, even after the next show, Slamboree, did a similar 0.60 buy rate, as did the follow-up to that, Great American Bash, Bischoff was resolute in his plan. In short, his was precisely the type of patience the company would not show in subsequent years—and this would eventually cost them dearly.
523By this point, business was really starting to pick up. Tickets went on sale in April for the June 9 Nitro at the Fleet Center in Boston and set a new first-day record with 10,000 sold for $170,000. House show business was also through the roof. In fact, by mid-1997 they were doing triple the business they had done in 1995. It didn’t seem to matter what anyone did; everything the company touched was turning to gold.
524(box)One of the primary reasons that WCW house show business was so hot at the time was due to the awesome work of Zane Bresloff. Bresloff not only promoted WCW events, he was also the man behind the promotion of WrestleMania III, for which the WWF claimed to have jammed 93,173 fans into the Pontiac Silverdome. Years later, Bresloff himself would admit that the actual number was 78,000. 
525The next show featuring Hogan was Bash at the Beach, which had become something of a gala event for WCW. Hogan had not only made his debut at Bash at the Beach in 1994, he’d also done the legendary heel turn to form the New World Order there in 1996. The 1997 version of the show was also going to give the fans something memorable, as Dennis Rodman would not only be present at the event, but wrestle as well. Because basketball season was over, the Worm now had the green light to actually get in the ring, and he would team up with Hogan to take on WCW mainstays Lex Luger and the Giant.
526
527Randy Savage forces DDP to feel the madness. [GEORGE NAPOLITANO]
528WCW certainly couldn’t be blamed for focusing the promotion of the event on the Rodman match, as he was all over the place in 1997. He had just won the second of three consecutive NBA World titles with Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls, he was just about to release a bestselling autobiography, Bad as I Wanna Be, and he was a constant media magnet due to his bizarre behavior both on and off the court. In short, Dennis Rodman was a hot property.
529A hot property and, because of his real athletic ability, Rodman was a surprisingly decent wrestler in his very first real match. Some even went as far as to call him the best wrestler of the four that evening. (This was not high praise; the other three in the tag match were Hogan, Giant, and Lex Luger). Hogan did most of the in-ring work, if you can call stalling for the first five minutes of the showdown “work.” After about seven minutes, Hogan finally tagged in Rodman, and the crowd held its breath to see just what the Worm would bring to the table. Rodman strutted around the ring, sunglasses on, and eventually locked up with Luger. And then it happened: he armdragged Luger! Yes, he was able to execute one of the most basic maneuvers in the history of pro wrestling. The announcers went hysterial, acting as though a successor to Frank A. Gotch himself had finally been discovered. Rodman posed for the crowd, took off his sunglasses, polished them, and then put them right back on. Fortunately for WCW, Luger was somehow able to regain his breath, and not only arm-drag Rodman twice, but also Hogan twice for good measure as well. The pro-WCW announce team celebrated, proclaiming, “Welcome to WCW, where the big boys play!”
530Hogan and Rodman weren’t foiled yet, however. Rodman once again locked up with Luger and threw him into the ropes. As Luger came toward him, Rodman—get this—leapfrogged him. Though this exact same sequence of maneuvers had been done in almost every single match of the last twenty years, the announce team nearly had a heart attack: “That’s no rookie we’re watching! He’s been tutored by the best!” Tony Schiavone even claimed that Rodman was showing, and this is a quote, “flashes of brilliance.” Despite the “brilliance” of such high-impact moves as leapfrogs and armdrags, the nWo was defeated when Luger managed to get a submission win over Hogan.
531Although the Rodman match was a total and complete fiasco from a technical wrestling standpoint, the show did a decent number: 0.78 with a $150,870 gate. It wasn’t the number WCW was hoping for, but the momentum was definitely building. The ratings for Nitro continued to move upwards as Luger’s chase for Hogan’s championship took center stage. The night after Bash at the Beach, Nitro scored a 3.5 rating. Three weeks of promotion later, a three-hour Nitro special (it was the 100th episode) scored a whopping 4.34, and the title bout, in which Luger dethroned Hogan, scored an amazing (for the time, at least) 5.2 rating. Obviously, the success of the show inspired Bischoff to present more three-hour programs in the future.
532The Luger win set the stage for the next pay-per-view, August’s Road Wild (a lawsuit filed by Harley-Davidson forced them to drop the “Hog”), the annual money pit from Sturgis, South Dakota. Not only did the event once again produce its famed zero-dollar gate, it also had to be somewhat of a disappointment, as the buy rate came in at 0.65. This was well below expectations, especially since the Luger-Hogan feud had been generating such good numbers in the Monday-night ratings.
533
534The nWo and their newest member, Dennis Rodman, celebrate their nefarious antics. [GEORGE NAPOLITANO]
535But there may have been an even more damaging effect on the company in this show, although one much less noticeable than could be computed by tallying gate receipts and buy rate numbers. This was the simple fact that, when push came to shove in big matches, the New World Order never lost. At Road Wild, this was proven during the Steiners versus Outsiders (Hall and Nash) match for the World Tag championships. The Steiners had been around WCW for years, and even though they’d had a brief run-in the WWF, they were considered true “home team” talent. The pair had been babyfaces during their entire time as a tag team, and so they, along with Sting, were seen as the saviors of the company. The number of wrestlers that fans bought as being on equal ground with the New World Order was slim, with only Luger, Sting, the Steiners, and maybe the Giant viewed as guys who could legitimately hang with Hogan and his cronies. In order for this belief to be perpetuated, however, these men eventually had to be given wins over their adversaries.
536In Luger’s case, such a win happened, albeit very briefly. The Steiners didn’t even get that much. Despite the fact that they had been chasing Hall and Nash for almost a year, they left Road Wild without the tag belts yet again. Keep in mind that not only had they been feuding with Hall and Nash all this time, there was even a vignette filmed in which the evil duo ran the Steiners’ car off a road. Rick and Scott didn’t file charges because in the wacky world of pro wrestling, the only way to get true revenge for attempted vehicular manslaughter is to take your opponent’s title belt.
537The Steiners were scheduled to take the belts, but in the end, it didn’t happen. Hall and Nash went up to Bischoff backstage at the PPV and said the frequent title changes were hurting the drawing power of the belts. Therefore, they argued, they should retain against the Steiners. Bischoff assented. The irony of all this was that Luger, who had just won the WCW title six days earlier at Nitro, didn’t get to retain, and dropped the belt instead to Hall and Nash’s good buddy Hogan. The next night on Nitro, Luger was hardly mentioned at all. This upset more than a few of the boys in the back.
538It wasn’t just Luger and the Steiners—others were being held down as well. The Four Horsemen, led by Ric Flair—the man many fans considered to be the very epitome of WCW—were also made to look bad at every opportunity. Despite having been made out as Hogan’s whipping boy since his 1994 arrival at WCW, Flair still commanded the respect of many loyal WCW fans, specifically in the Carolinas, a longtime hotbed for the company. Hogan and Nash didn’t particularly care for Flair or for the reaction he was garnering from the crowds there, so at seemingly every live Nitro that took place in the region, they would take shots at Flair and how old he was, or better yet, they’d simply leave him lying in a broken heap. To make a long story short, since Hogan, Nash, and Hall basically had total say on their characters (Hogan had complete creative control written into his contract), they made Flair look like an idiot time and time again in front of his hometown fans.
539And never did Flair or his Horsemen look more like total idiots than during the Nitro that took place on September 1, 1997. A week earlier, the Nitro in Columbia, South Carolina, had destroyed all previous ratings records (thanks in part to Raw being preempted for the U.S. Open tennis tournament), doing a 4.97 rating for a show built around area legend Arn Anderson’s announcement of retirement due to serious neck surgery. The plan for the following week was pretty straightforward. The show would be presented as a tribute to Arn, but halfway through, the nWo was going to do a skit making fun of Arn’s tremendous speech the week before. All the fans would be outraged. Then, at the end of the skit, the Horsemen would run out and clean house as Anderson stood smirking on the ramp.
540This never happened. Instead, the nWo did the parody, and there was no retaliation, as Nash got the whole Horsemen run-in nixed. Flair, outraged, refused to go out for an interview later, saying it would kill the Horsemen off even more to do so without having attacked the nWo earlier. Arn was so upset he nearly quit the company, not so much because of the content of the skit, but because of the fact that his family watching at home was devastated by it (the skit touched on Arn’s alleged alcoholism, and his reaction to this was made worse by the fact that his mother had died of the disease when he was very young).
541The parody set up Fall Brawl, which took place deep in the heart of Flair Country: Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Before a crowd of almost 12,000 rabid Horsemen fans, Flair was once again booked to take the loss, as new member Curt Hennig (who had been nominated by Arn as his Horseman replacement just weeks earlier) turned on the group and gave yet another win to the New World Order. At this point, it was beginning to appear that no one could ever compete on even ground with the nWo.
542Bischoff didn’t care about the backstage squawking of men like Flair, since business was going through the roof. Nitro, which at the beginning of the year was averaging ratings in the low threes, was suddenly and consistently in the fours. The September 8 show was a huge success, doing a 4.27 to Raw’s 2.15 (the biggest margin in history up to that point). Shows were selling out left and right (the weekend of September 4 was the first in history in which the company grossed over $1 million on house show revenue alone), and PPV buy rates were climbing. Halloween Havoc, in particular, was a massive success. Despite the fact that the show was headlined by yet another horrendous Piper-Hogan match (the third in the last nine months), it drew a gigantic 1.1 buy rate, drawing 12,457 fans, and a $297,508 gate. On the bright side, the Rey Mysterio Jr.–Eddie Guerrero mask versus title match (which Rey won, although he had been scheduled to lose until just minutes before the show started) was WCW’s best match of at least the past five years. As good as business was for that show, the next PPV, World War III, was even better, drawing 17,128 fans and $407,831 at the gate.
543Who the hell cared about wrestlers pissing and moaning when WCW was making this much jack?
544Not only were they making money, but Bischoff was about to stumble upon yet another success, one that would ensure the health of WCW for years to come: Bill Goldberg. The former Atlanta Falcon turned Power Plant trainee debuted on the August 22 Nitro in a 2:24 win over Hugh Morris. Afterwards, he simply held up a single finger, as if to say, “That’s one.” He didn’t say a word, and in fact wouldn’t for almost a full year after his debut. By the time the show was over, most had probably forgotten the match—ironic, given that he’d soon become one of the company’s most unforgettable stars.
545WCW had everything going for them, and it was about to get even better: Bischoff would soon sign the hottest free agent in the history of wrestling. And when he did, it would no doubt be the final nail in the coffin of Vince McMahon and the WWF. 
546Although Bischoff had amassed the greatest array of talent the wrestling world had ever seen, there was one guy he’d been after for years and had been unable to get: Bret Hart. Bischoff had badly wanted to bring Hart in during the summer of 1996; he knew that if he could somehow grab not only Hall and Nash but also Hart, it would truly appear that every top star from the WWF was coming to WCW. Unfortunately for Eric, McMahon was able to convince Bret to stay, and signed him to that twenty-year deal mentioned previously.
547There were a lot of questions regarding that contract, most specifically how could McMahon afford to pay it? Bischoff knew—beyond a shadow of a doubt—that the WWF was in severe financial straits; the company had lost $6 million in 1996, and things weren’t looking to improve that drastically for 1997. Pushing WCW castaways like Steve Austin and Mick Foley, who’d been unceremoniously discarded by Bischoff himself, he figured the WWF didn’t stand a chance.
548As if he needed any more proof to support his theory, the rumor mill had once again begun to rumble about problems developing between McMahon and WWF champion Hart. Those rumors were confirmed when Hart, with the blessing of McMahon himself, con
549
550next PPV, World War III, was even better, drawing 17,128 fans and $407,831 at the gate.
551Who the hell cared about wrestlers pissing and moaning when WCW was making this much jack?
552Not only were they making money, but Bischoff was about to stumble upon yet another success, one that would ensure the health of WCW for years to come: Bill Goldberg. The former Atlanta Falcon turned Power Plant trainee debuted on the August 22 Nitro in a 2:24 win over Hugh Morris. Afterwards, he simply held up a single finger, as if to say, “That’s one.” He didn’t say a word, and in fact wouldn’t for almost a full year after his debut. By the time the show was over, most had probably forgotten the match—ironic, given that he’d soon become one of the company’s most unforgettable stars.
553WCW had everything going for them, and it was about to get even better: Bischoff would soon sign the hottest free agent in the history of wrestling. And when he did, it would no doubt be the final nail in the coffin of Vince McMahon and the WWF. 
554Although Bischoff had amassed the greatest array of talent the wrestling world had ever seen, there was one guy he’d been after for years and had been unable to get: Bret Hart. Bischoff had badly wanted to bring Hart in during the summer of 1996; he knew that if he could somehow grab not only Hall and Nash but also Hart, it would truly appear that every top star from the WWF was coming to WCW. Unfortunately for Eric, McMahon was able to convince Bret to stay, and signed him to that twenty-year deal mentioned previously.
555There were a lot of questions regarding that contract, most specifically how could McMahon afford to pay it? Bischoff knew—beyond a shadow of a doubt—that the WWF was in severe financial straits; the company had lost $6 million in 1996, and things weren’t looking to improve that drastically for 1997. Pushing WCW castaways like Steve Austin and Mick Foley, who’d been unceremoniously discarded by Bischoff himself, he figured the WWF didn’t stand a chance.
556As if he needed any more proof to support his theory, the rumor mill had once again begun to rumble about problems developing between McMahon and WWF champion Hart. Those rumors were confirmed when Hart, with the blessing of McMahon himself, conrematch from ever taking place. At first, Bret exercised his creative control and refused, stating that he’d rather “blow his brains out” than lose to Shawn. One of his main gripes was that, several weeks earlier, Shawn had told both him and McMahon that he wasn’t going to do any more jobs to anyone else in the promotion, and that included Bret.
557If that was going to be Shawn’s attitude, Bret figured he’d just “return the favor” and refuse to lose to Shawn. On the Wednesday before the Montreal Survivor Series, Vince called Shawn up and once again asked if he’d lose. Shawn got to talking about it with his good buddy Hunter Hearst Helmsley (Triple H), and Hunter was appalled, arguing that Shawn would be a fool to agree to lose to a guy who was on his way over to the competition. So Shawn called Vince back and said losing the match was a no-go. As soon as Bret heard that, he said if Shawn wasn’t going to lose to him in Montreal, then he wasn’t going to lose to Shawn anywhere under any circumstances.
558A few days later, Bret changed his mind. That Friday, his lawyer sent the WWF a letter stating that Bret was willing to drop the belt to anyone in the company as long as it didn’t happen in Canada. Since his WCW contract didn’t start until December 1, there were several places where he could lose the belt, including the house shows the following week in Youngstown, Ohio, on November 13, in Pittsburgh on November 14, or at Madison Square Garden on November 15. And, he said, if Vince wanted to do it on PPV, he’d drop the belt in a four-way at the December 7 show in Springfield, Massachusetts.
559Vince noted that Bret’s WCW deal started on December 1. Bret said that wasn’t a problem, and convinced Eric to hold off on his WCW debut until December 8. Upon hearing this, Vince said fine, Bret could win via DQ (thereby not making Shawn look bad) in Montreal, then lose the belt in the four-way in December. But then Vince changed his mind again, saying word had gotten out that Bret was leaving, and it was therefore imperative that he lose the title before Nitro the night after Survivor Series. After all, Vince reasoned, even though Bret couldn’t show up on Nitro until after December 1 for legal reasons, if Bischoff went on TV and even mentioned that he’d signed away his champion, the WWF would be dead.
560Bret said he’d call Bischoff and get him to hold off on the announcement. Unfortunately, Eric was off hunting in Wyoming, and Bret couldn’t reach him. Vince suggested he drop the belt at the house show in Detroit the night before Montreal. Bret again refused, saying that the match between himself and Michaels was too big to trivialize, and that to do it right, he had to go into Montreal as the champion. If Vince wanted him to lose it later that week at a house show, he reiterated, that would be fine.
561Sunday was fast approaching, and nobody could decide on a finish, which had Bret on edge. Vince argued that it wasn’t fair for him to refuse to lose. Bret said it was fair, as Vince himself had put the creative control clause in his contract. They argued about what the “reasonable” part of “reasonable creative control” meant. Finally, just hours before the PPV, they met backstage. Vince asked Bret what he wanted to do. Bret said he wanted to leave with his head held high, and then the next day on Raw, he’d vacate the belt and, without burying the company (i.e., making Vince or the WWF look bad) in any way, he’d tell the fans that he was leaving. Vince acquiesced, and the plan was set for Shawn to lose via DQ that night when Degeneration-X (Shawn’s group) and the Hart Foundation (Bret’s group) ran in.
562During the match, Shawn put Bret in Bret’s own finishing maneuver, the sharpshooter. Bret was told beforehand that he would reverse the move, which would lead to another series of near falls. This never happened. Instead, referee Earl Hebner—a longtime close friend of Hart’s who had actually sworn on his children’s lives before the show that he wouldn’t fast-count him—simply called for the bell. The timekeeper, who wasn’t in on what was going to transpire, was initially confused about what to do. Thankfully, McMahon himself came down to ringside to offer the following helpful advice: “RING THE FUCKING BELL!” And so Shawn was now the champion, and Bret, as he’d later state countless times, was “screwed.”
563It became known as the most famous double-cross in wrestling history. Bret had been with his former employer for fourteen years, missing only two shows in that time, and he’d done everything he could to help the WWF. Callously, they’d turned their backs on him. It was a moment that would live forever in the minds of all those who saw it; a memory reinforced by the footage replayed over and over on WWF television in an effort to make fans believe that Vince had done the right thing.
564This should have helped WCW (since Bret was about to be all over both programs), and hurt the WWF, which had blatantly screwed over a very popular star. But the wrestling business is a uniquely peculiar world. As it turned out, McMahon—who really just hoped the whole story would die, having no desire to play a major on-screen role—suddenly became the biggest heel on WWF television. This ultimately led to an everyman versus everyboss feud between him and the company’s biggest babyface star, Steve Austin. This rivalry turned out to be a springboard for the company’s fortunes, which subsequently skyrocketed to the point that Vince became a certifiable billionaire.
565And what of Bret Hart? Heading into WCW with such momentum, it seemed absolutely impossible that the company could somehow screw this up. There was no question that something huge would be lined up for Bret come the next big PPV blockbuster, Starrcade.
566(box) Spoiler alert! Bret Hart, years later, would have this to say of his WCW tenure: “What does make me angry is how poor WCW used me. They couldn’t have done a worse job. And the scary thing is what they were paying me … all I can say is that it was like a lunatic asylum. I think of Eric Bischoff, who I like as a person, and I sympathize maybe with whatever he was going through … but Eric Bischoff was a lot like that ‘Wizard’ in The Wizard of Oz. He really had no idea what he was doing. They never came up with one idea for me, and any time I came up with an idea it was usually turned away. It was the most screwed up place I ever worked for.”11 
567Bischoff counters: “When Bret got to WCW, he was not the Bret Hart we had watched in the WWF. I think the incident with Vince McMahon took a tremendous toll on him. Or perhaps Bret never really felt at home in WCW.
568You can have the best-written screenplay, with the best director, the best soundtrack, the best supporting cast, and if your lead actor doesn’t feel the part, chances are that movie is never going to be what you want it to be. I think in some part, that was the problem with Bret. Regardless of how we used him, there was never the passion and the commitment to the role that could propel him.”12 
569As you read through what WCW gave Bret to work with, we will let you, the reader, decide if he was given Gone with the Wind or Ready to Rumble.
570Spoiler Alert! We may have just given that away too. 
571But prior to that event, Bischoff had something else to take care of. He decided to try doing another show entirely based around the nWo. Apparently nothing had been learned from the Souled Out fiasco in January, so serious thought was now being given to handing Nitro over to Hogan and his heel contingent. In early 1998, plans were on the drawing board for a two-hour Thursday-night show on TBS, and Bischoff’s grandiose idea was to eventually split the company so that there would be a WCW show and an nWo show, thereby making the WWF—get ready, because he really believed this—the number-three promotion in America.
572Thus, nWo Nitro got a trial run, with results that were either shockingly disastrous or shockingly predictable, depending on your viewpoint. The show opened with the nWo b-squad’s arrival and their immediate demand that the production crew tear down anything with the WCW logo on it. Every sign, every banner, even the gigantic metal “WCW” were all laid to waste. In their place were custom-designed nWo Nitro banners and set pieces. Just to show that this wasn’t designed as a one-time shot, a spiffy new video opened the show. Everyone involved was to be aligned with the New World Order, from the wrestlers to the announcers, right down to the ring crew.
573Although the entire group glad-handed each other and went on about how wonderful they all were, the night truly belonged, of course, to Hulk Hogan. The majority of nWo Nitro was less of a wrestling show than it was a celebration of the life and times of Terry Bollea, complete with a twenty-minute segment in which Bischoff gave Hogan presents like giant banners and motorcycles featuring his image. He even dropped down to one knee and placed a ring (in the shape of the WCW World title) upon his finger. It looked for all the world like he was going to propose to the Hulkster.
574Although all this posturing no doubt pleased Bischoff and Hogan, those watching at home didn’t share the love. With Starrcade (set to deliver arguably the best-promoted match in the history of the company) just days away, you’d have thought that this Nitro would have drawn incredible ratings, possibly the highest-ever for the company. Not only did that not happen, but the show actually dropped almost a full point from its average, and the original plan to air nWo Nitro on a weekly basis was permanently scrapped. The elaborate sets, the shirts, the video production—it all amounted to nothing more than a colossal waste of money.
575To Bischoff, though, it was just a failed experiment. Sure, they had lost a few bucks on the sets, and the ratings had sagged slightly. But wasn’t it worth the risk? What if it had worked? And really, what did it matter? The biggest show of the year, Starrcade, was coming up, and it was the one show that every single wrestling fan in the country was going to line up to see. Not only would Sting versus Hogan finally happen, but Bret Hart would also be making his first ever appearance on a WCW PPV as a special referee for an Eric Bischoff–Larry Zbyszko match.
576Huh?
577In a move that was puzzling to, well, everyone (including Bret himself), the hottest commodity in pro wrestling was not going to appear as an in-ring competitor, but rather, as a referee. The bout between Zbyszko and Bischoff was to determine the fate of Nitro: should Larry win, Nitro would remain under the control of WCW. If Bischoff took the bout, the world would be “rewarded” with nWo Nitro each and every week. The big question leading up to the match was whether Bret would side with the nWo or with WCW. In other words, Bret Hart, the man who was WWF champion until less than two months earlier, the man the company was paying almost $3 million a year, the man who had just competed in the most shocking and noteworthy bout in decades, was nothing more than a pawn in the never-ending WCW versus New World Order battle. It was the start of what would be a long, confusing tenure for Hart in his newfound home.
578Much of Hart’s difficulty had to do with career politicians like Hogan and Nash, who played Bischoff like a fiddle, getting out of doing jobs to protect their spots high atop the card. And when Bischoff wouldn’t cave in to their demands, they’d simply take their ball and go home. Such was the case at Starrcade, when Nash was scheduled to take on—and lose to—the Giant. However, that afternoon, Nash, suffering from indigestion, called the office and said that he seriously believed he’d had a minor heart attack. Nobody backstage believed the story, since Nash had been saying he wouldn’t lose to Giant for months, and it had become a running joke. Fans instead saw Scott Hall trash-talk the Giant; then he took a chokeslam during an interview. Yes, not only did Nash get out of doing the job, but the obvious replacement match, featuring Hall against the Giant, also didn’t take place!
579Shockingly (or not, considering the men involved backstage) almost none of the nWo members lost their matches at Starrcade. Even career scrubs like Mike “Vincent/Virgil/Whatever” Jones went over top WCW guys like the Steiners. Lex Luger, WCW champion just four months earlier, wound up on his back for a three-count in a losing effort to Buff Bagwell. It was all very strange, because this had been built up as the ultimate WCW revenge show, the show in which the New World Order would finally get their comeuppance from the good guys.
580In fact, one of the only bouts in which the nWo was defeated was in the co–main event of the evening, the Bischoff-Zbyszko contest. Yes, on the biggest PPV in the company’s entire history, Bischoff booked his match as one of the main events. To show he was a team player, however, he wound up losing when Hart decided to side with WCW, thereby saving the world from repeated viewings of nWo Nitro. And even in that match, Bischoff wasn’t pinned, nor did he submit—Bret ust kind of awarded the bout to Zbyszko due to … well, no reason in particular.
581It could, of course, be argued that all of the goofiness on the show really didn’t matter, because at the end of the day, the fans were really there to see the match WCW had been building for over a year: Sting versus Hogan. Sure, those fans may have been let down by the evening’s proceedings, and maybe they’d even lost some faith in WCW. But it didn’t matter, because now, finally, Hulk Hogan would get his ass kicked by Sting.
582However, this being Hogan, that didn’t happen.
583Hogan strutted down the ramp in his usual cocky manner, playing his air guitar and eventually ambling over to confer with Nick Patrick, the evil referee assigned to the bout. The two chatted for a moment in a manner far removed from the standard overt pantomimes of the wrestling business. In fact, it almost looked as though Hogan and Patrick were double-checking to make sure they had certain spots laid out within the match itself. Weird.
584After having descended from the rafters in a breathtaking manner for the better part of the past eighteen months, this time Sting simply walked down the aisle, stopping to glance at the crowd momentarily, then resuming his journey. He then slowly climbed into the ring. It was as if this were just another run-of-the-mill match on another run-of-the-mill show.
585Nick Patrick stood between the men and explained the rules. Hogan and Sting locked eyes, and then it happened: Hogan shoved Sting. Sting responded by slapping Hogan in the face. It was on. Hogan slowly circled Sting, and the two locked up. The crowd came to life, chanting “Hogan sucks.” It was obvious they were desperate to see the Stinger KO this arrogant asshole once and for all.
586
587Hogan and Sting would battle many times over the years, but none meant more than Starrcade ’97. [GEORGE NAPOLITANO]
588And the crowd kept waiting for that to happen. 
589And waiting. 
590And waiting.
591It never happened. In fact, Hogan began to dominate the bout, with Sting only scoring a few minor moves here and there. A headlock spot was worked for over two minutes as the life began to drain from the crowd. Hogan took Sting outside the ring and worked him over, throwing him into the guardrail and then choking him out with his boot. He threw Sting back in, cupped his hand to his ear as he had done so often in his career, and bounced off the ropes, landing his signature finishing move, the Legdrop of Doom.
592Hogan covered Sting. Patrick dropped down and started his count.
593One.
594Two.
595Three.
596Sting didn’t kick out.
597No, he did not kick out. The man who had stalked Hogan and his evil band for over a year had just failed miserably in a match one year in the making.
598Patrick raised Hogan’s arm in victory as the once-rabid crowd sat in stunned silence.
599The WCW announcers scrambled for an explanation. They claimed that Patrick had issued a fast count and that Sting hadn’t really lost. Problem was, it wasn’t a fast count. For years it has been debated what happened in this match—how can you screw up the biggest spot of your career, the pivotal fast-count in the biggest match in the history of WCW? Did Patrick just forget? Did he get a double-top-secret payoff from Hogan to do a normal count so as to not make Hogan look bad? What happened? For whatever it’s worth, Patrick’s claim was—get this—that although in hindsight it was a perfectly normal three-count, at the time he thought he was counting really fast. Yup.
600Following the phantom fast-count and the perfectly clean defeat of Sting at the hands of Hulk Hogan, Bret Hart ran down to ringside and grabbed the ring announcer. Over a muffled house mic, Bret claimed, “This isn’t going to happen again” (in reference to the infamous Montreal finish where he himself had been screwed out of the WWF title). Most in the crowd didn’t even hear what Hart had said, and they looked angry and confused. And Sting, the savior of WCW, was still flat on his back in the ring. After a brief skirmish, Hart flattened Patrick and tossed Hogan back into Sting, who had finally come back to life. Sting nailed Hogan with a Stinger splash; then he locked on his finishing maneuver, the dreaded Scorpion Deathlock. The crowd waited for Hogan’s hand to slap the mat, the so-called “tap out” that would signal his submission. It didn’t come, and instead, Bret Hart told the timekeeper to ring the bell, the story being that Hogan had said “I quit” (a fact that no microphones picked up). The belt was awarded to Sting as WCW wrestlers filled the ring in a joyous celebration.
601And as the wrestlers and the fans celebrated, so did Bischoff. All his hard work, all his patience, it had all paid off big-time. Starrcade ’97 was, without question, the biggest money-maker WCW had ever produced. 
60217,500 fans. 
603A $543,000 gate. 
604An incredible 1.9 buy rate, meaning nearly $6 million in revenue. 
605And the beginning of the end.