#50 – The End of the Monday Night Wars, March 26, 2001
We celebrate our 50th episode by reminiscing for a really, really long time about the night Vince McMahon announced he bought WCW and had won the Monday Night Wars. Thanks to Dean Stahl at headlocksandheadaches.com for the extra special cover art for this episode.
I remember the last WCW Nitro. I remember watching it… and RAW that night. I gave up a piece of ass to stay home with my gay cousin and watch it.
I never understood how Vince was able to forgive so many guys who screwed him over, but never let go of his grudge against Jarrett.
That truly is an amazing story.
And Vince has weird hangups. My new favorite is that apparently he doesn’t like wrestlers to have “jr” in their name because he didn’t like being called Vince, Jr.
Jarret held Vince up for $100,000 on his way out of WWE. If Vince didn’t pay JJ would take IC to Nitro. Because his contract expired one day before he was supposed to drop title on ppv. You can screw Vince but if you effect his pocket book it’s on
I remember being at home and catching that last show. It was crazy and fairly sad. All that history of years and years of great wrestling television dwindling down to this meager episode, ended with McMahons and a lot of gloating.
The hug between Sting and Flair after the match was a nice touch, but I’d always wished that Sting would do a last run as the surfer Sting. The Crow version worked really well when he poised himself against the NWO, but the whole thing has gone on way longer than necessary.
I still wish it were possible for a small federation to set themselves up like 1985 WCW at the Techwood Drive studio. Keep it to a small, passionate crowd and keep the production simple, but make the characters relatable and dynamic, the storylines thrilling and not overdone in either direction of sport or drama.
Not the normal case for wrestling these days, but who ever says I’m normal? 😀
I’ve honestly never liked Crow sting. And the new Joker Sting is even worse.
I’m looking forward to the new ROH tv show because I suspect it’ll feel a lot like the old Saturday Night show.
Another good episode as usual.
The Jeff Jarrett story is that he wanted his PPV bonus, royalty check, etch which were owed to him. As you know those are not sent for a while. It was not the same situation as the Warrior at Summerslam 1991 who asked to be paid a certain amount or else.
Also Steve Austin was not a huge fan of Double J due to Austin’s treatment in Memphis (as you know his dad is Jerry Jarrett who owned Memphis for years) and that he did not like how he ran the ropes. Those were a couple of reasons why you did not see a Jeff Jarrett vs. Steve Austin match in the WWF.
I’m sure you touched on the XFL, but I believe the big reason it failed is that the best games were not widely available on national tv. I’m sure the pro wrestling “stink” did not help either. Also there are lots of pro wrestling fans that are not sports fans so why try to convert them?
The league did bring the sky-cam (seen on Sunday Night football and the Super Bowl for example) along with in-game interviews. There is a really good book on the bomb that was the XFL called the Long Bomb: http://www.amazon.com/Long-Bomb-Became-Biggest-Fiasco/dp/0609609920/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1313855374&sr=1-1
Mike Awesome was Horace Hogan’s cousin, however unlike Horace (who is Hogan’s nephew), Mike Awesome was not related to Hulk Hogan.
Bam Bam Bigelow passed away in January of 2007. He like a lot of wrestlers sat at home and collected his Time Warner check and like you said he basically retired once WCW closed.
I’m sure you talked about it on the show, but a lot of the bigger WCW names stayed home and collected their Time Warner contracts and that is why most of them did not show up in WWE for about a year after WCW closed. The guys that did show up in WWE did not have those contracts and were part of WWE buying WCW.
Diamond Dallas Page did have one of those Time Warner contracts, however he decided to void the contract and try his luck in WWE a few months after WCW closed. I’m not sure if you mentioned this, but DDP liked to plan out every move in every one of his matches in WCW. I’m sure this along with Undertaker saying he could not work did not help him.
TNN was the Nashville network, than the National Network in 2000 to Spike TV in 2003. WWE was on TNN from September of 2000 to September 2005.
Triple H wore bike shorts at Summerslam 2003 due to a groin injury.
I’m sure you guys already know this, but it cost WWE more to buy ECW than it did to buy WCW.
I think it’s funny that it costed Vinnie Mac more bling to buy ECW than WCW, especially when WCW was making more green that ECW! Good for Paul E.!
It cost more to buy ECW because Vince had to pay of all of ECW’s debts. Paul E didn’t see a dime.
Guys allow me to add one thing.
We are all about the same age, and I think ONLY guys our age can remember how COOL it was to be a wrestling fan back then. Being college age during the nWo/Attitude Era was the best. You cant even explain how exciting wrestling was back then to a kid today. They wouldn’t understand. I too remember watching Raw and Nitro every Mon. night. We used to watch Nitro from 8 to 9. We would switch to WWF at 9 and watch til 11. And then switch back to Nitro for the recap show, and watch the final hour.
My college class schedule was centered entirely around wrestling Monday nights. For the first year I scheduled no classes on Monday and late classes on Tuesday, and for the other three years I made sure I never had classes or worked on Monday nights or had an early class on Tuesday.
Yep, me too. I never had night classes on Monday either, or Thursday (once Thunder came on in 1998). And Ill say it again, guys our age were so lucky, and I think honestly that ALL guys our age have the wrestling bond. Hell, listening to you and Dre talk about your friends and Monday nights sounded almost like me and my friends and OUR Monday nights. And we were in Atlanta, Ga. back then.
And also, I hate when Vince mocked the South and WCW. I also feel like you guys like to take jabs at southerners too (friendly jabs, however). But buddy, I got plenty of yankee and midwestern farmers daughters jokes aiming right back at you.
Keep up the good work friends.
Dre’s been kicked out of the Flair Chop corporate sensitivity training class twice already. It’s probably my fault for hiring Pat Patterson to teach the class.
PS- I had a pager too back then. I had this bitch named Carrie blowing it up all the time.
I’m starting to think you’re Dre’s split personality. Might need to cross-reference some IP addresses.
Nah, just his Southern counterpart!
That Tony Shaivone ending was freakin’ hilarious. He was definetly pushed as the top play by play during those Crockett years and into the Turner run with that organization. He must have had some serious dirt on Turner, becasue he was terrible.
Completely agree with you take on it being the most influential move in the business side of wresting in the history. This “Monday Night” war was raging for decades. It probably started when Vince Jr bought the company from his old man.
Vince saw the numbers that Georgia Championship Wrestling was doing on the Superstation, and went to Ted Turner (at that time, not a player in pro wrestling, definetly a player in the cable industry), and bought that famous Saturday Night slot on TBS, yadda yadda yadda…..we all know the story.
Ever since then, with the induction of Wrestlemania to compete withe the other brands such as Starrcade, and the AWA’s Superclash, those companies were at war for the American Dollar.
The Survivor Series to invade Thanksgiving and Starrcade, and then the turnabout with the Clash on the same day as Wrestlemania in back to back years. The “Battlebowl” to compete with the Royal Rumble, so on and so forth.
This war lasted 18 years, and was ended so abruptly. I am not sure which is more to blame, McMahon’s saavy to get WCW, or Bichoff’s ability to run the famed WCW, formally known as Mid Atlantic, into the ground.
Good point that the war really is more than just Monday nights. Lots of great history going back to 82/83. Wonder what Vince Sr. would’ve said if he could’ve seen it.
If Tony Shaivone had some dirt on the Crocketts, Michael Cole must REALLY have some of the McMahons!!
Announcers to me play a role on televised matches. Cheesy 80s McMahon was probably in my opinion was the worst. Having to listen to him cheer for all the faces was nausiating. My favorite was definetly The Body with Gorilla, which is everyone favorite. Gorilla, although was a great wrestler in his own day, was an outstanding play by play guy who had impeccable timing, and with his knowledge of all the medical terms for different areas of the human anatomy, I could have sworn that he was a doctor. I respected Gordon Solie as the best Brodcast Journalist of all time. He reported the issues at hand, did not create the controversy, and best of all. The wrestlers trusted him to give him those great spots. And Dre, I don’t have a problem with Caudle or David Crockett. I would take Crockett over McMahon twice on Sunday.
Loved the Tony Schiovone impression!
I too have several friends I probably would’ve never met had it not been for the mutual interest in pro wrestling.
Although I’ve never met Violent JT’s mom, I’m not surprised in the least that she didn’t concern herself with Black Cat being bitten by the family dog.
Pat Patterson impression, not so good 🙂
If you get a chance, ask Mr. Vecellio about all of Scott Steiner’s nicknames during this time period. He’d love to tell you all about them.
Jook, I too just wrote love letters to my future wife at the time. No pager for me either. If I was a drug dealer from the 80’s, maybe I would’ve had a pager then.
Trak9 touched on this already, but I heard a different story about Jeff Jarrett holding up Vince McMahon for money to lose the Intercontinental Title to Chyna. I heard instead of waiting months and months for PPV bonuses and merchendising bonuses and house show bonuses to come in, Jarrett wanted all the money he was owed in one lump sum before leaving for WCW. I heard it was in the neighborhood of $200,000.
Speaking of wrestlers dressing up in someone else’s outfit to pull a quick one on the guy they’re fueding with, I seem to remember one Convict doing that to his rival at the time in July 1999 🙂
Sorry for the abundance of inside references. This isn’t a best man speech, so inside jokes are fair game here.
I completely agree that white wrestling trunks should be discouraged.
Jimmy, here is a spoiler for you, the future of OSWP is littered with Pat Patterson impressions.
I think you are indirectly saying Dre was a drug dealer in the 80s.
I enjoy the insider references. We’ll always get the damn back up.