Who Really Killed WCW?

Written by: Kelly Johnson, Pete Quinnell & Luke Owen
Directed & Produced by: Pete Quinnell
Presented by: Luke Owen
Edited by: Rich Goodyer
Thumbnail by: Pete Quinnell
Image Sourcing by: Brandon Syres

Who Really Killed WCW?
#WCW #WrestleTalk

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[animedleys]

It was probably Rikishi, who did it for The Rock.

[SonnyK]

It's kind of funny that Jim Crocket Promotions died when Dusty and Flair and "all the boys" took full advantage of Crocket's ambition and started living it up on private jets and living like rock stars and grabbing as much money as possible and then the company tanked and Jim sold it to Turner. Then Bischoff became the next sucker to fall for it.

[a-cygnus]

Regardless of who killed WCW, Kellner is a monster. He killed so many amazing cartoons.

[shogubei]

KELLNER CANCELLED THE BATMAN ANIMATED
This man is the epidemy of evil.

[TheEvilways]

It was mainly backstage management. Then the AOL/time Warner merger.

[booyaa]

When the bubble bursted, AOL was liquidating assets like madmen. They not only sold WCW, they sold all the sports teams; the Atlanta Braves(baseball), the Hawks(basketball), the Thrashers(hockey), all the buildings they played in and other assets. Vince McMahon swooped in, bought it and then killed it.

[JeremyBearimy]

I'm not a Russo defender, but as far as leaving WWF because they were adding a show and going to WCW who were also adding a show, I believe Russo has said that the issue was that he wasn't going to get paid more for the added workload and responsibilities. Moving to WCW saw him take on more work and responsibilities, but he was also paid more to do it.

[violentbryan]

Scott Hall said it best “We made allot of money and spent WAY MORE then we made.”

[gorgusan]

Ok the most frustrating part about all that is finding out what Kellner did to my cartoons.
Anyways, excellent video!

[ShaunInce]

It's a mixture of all of them, but the AOL merger definitely affected them the most.

[Rossbo]

"And in the end, the death of WCW was blamed on...oh lets say, Moe."

[omarkennedy]

The president of time warner I assume will be the answer. Lossing their tv spot is always gonna kill your program if no one can watch easy

[MarkWhiley]

I think you did Bischoff a bit dirty in his pre-Nitro era, after he took charge from Bill Watts. He wasn't spending big at the start, he was carrying out a lot of cost saving measures including the move to Disney MGM, cutting travel costs, cutting production costs including staff, and only going after Hogan and Hart - all other wrestlers came to him, including Randy Savage who he basically got for free due to the Slim Jim deal. In fact arguably he saved the company in 1994, because Watts left it in such a bad condition.

[Aman--Wangnao]

Whoever told Tony Schiavone to spoil the Mankind vs Rock finish.

[Remmy]

No matter how many "Death of WCW" videos and docs I watch... I can NEVER get enough. Never...

[robodell]

WCW killed WCW. Allowing old guys to have creative control and not allowing young guys to breakout Scott Stiener, DDP, and Booker T Should have been Main Eventers long before they where. Guys like Konnan, Kanyon, and Buff Bagwell could easily been top guys.

[Robman]

You also have to take into account the popularity of the N64 games at the time. It can’t be stressed enough how the license of the AKI games going from WCW to WWF influenced many kids to make the switch as well, which was all right around the time that the switch over of fans started hitting

[areasevenpro]

Vince McMahon: "It was me all along!"

[acerimmer]

Before watching: it was the AOL-Time Warner merger that did WCW in. Ratings for the 2 weekly shows were still the highest of any program on either station. But AOL wanted nothing to do w/ wrasslin'.

EDIT: yup! While guys like Hogan, Bischoff, Russo really started it swirling the drain, even Turner making mistakes, it was the final merger that really killed it. Bischoff could've at least saved the brand w/ AOL cooperation. They didn't. Competition was over, WWE was alone and the product has never recovered.

[diabeticman]

This was a phenomenal video, learned a lot of stuff about WCW that I wasn’t too familiar with. Well done WrestleTalk!