There’s a new series on YouTube produced by the people who made the Dark Side of the Ring, talking about the death of WCW. Part of it revolves around the question, who? Listening to one of the Jim Cornette podcasts, I overheard Brian Last actually a different but possibly more pertinent question, “What killed WCW?” And I think that’s a better question to tackle than a mere finger pointing game which has been what’s equated in this debate.
Really, if you go back to “who/what killed WCW” it’s more about the NWA and the death of the territory system. Now, most people would still quantify that as a “who” and pointing their finger at Vince McMahon since the WWF had gobbled up the territory system. But I think there’s a bigger story here where McMahon was one of the few people in the industry to have enough foresight and ambition to nationalize pro-wrestling using TV and other means like PPV to build his product. The territory system itself might not have lived for that much longer given the role of TV and cable TV with or without pro-wrestling.
Those are pretty hefty statements but let me discuss what the territory system was in terms of a business. They were regionally managed, run with a tight knit group of people who kept out outsiders and ran on the principal that what you see in the ring is what is real. Part of that premise was to ensure that their audience would believe what they saw and the knowledge of week-to-week was limited to that locale either through controlled media like a local newspaper or TV station. And they could run a tight ship with handshake type of agreements that allowed talent to be traded to help keep the local products fresh.
Probably, the closest analogy I can bring to this situation outside of pro-wrestling is an episode of South Park where the kids get locked up inside a Western style gimmick town and the actors played their roles while within that town and while on the clock. No matter what the kids would do nor circumstance, the actors could not break out (break kayfabe) of what they were doing, even when it meant the price of their own lives in some cases. And for a gimmick like this, it works as a local show. It’s like going to some theme park where you have actors doing a Western show and falling off of buildings and talking to your kids in their personas while they’re on the lot.
However, if the same show was brought to a national level especially to a place where you have smart asses like say a New York or LA, would it still work? Would smart ass kids with their smart phones and attitudes buy into this deal? Or would it be a situation where they just wouldn’t visit because it would seem stupid and a waste of their time? Maybe those kids would prefer a different hobby like video games or games on their phone. See where I’m going with this?
And with these regional territories, the people at the top running the show weren’t exactly great business people. I think they wanted to keep a tight reign on what they knew and really didn’t understand the concept of expansion the way Vince saw things. When someone like a Crockett tried to keep up, I think he ended up running himself into debt that effectively killed what was left of the NWA. That’s where Vince really didn’t have to do too much because they would eventually do it to themselves.
In focusing on the NWA/WCW though, I don’t think it could have ever worked unless you had a very strong personality like Vince McMahon with the same level of knowledge and ambition driving it. On Jim Cornette’s podcast, Jim mentions that part of the issue (or a huge aspect) was how the wrestlers and TV people never knew how to communicate with one another. But there’s a series of complexities in that statement that go beyond simple communication (because how else has the WWF/E managed to stay in business if not become this huge all this time?)
- The kayfabe nature of wrestling from the territory made it impossible beyond a local level to work because the TV people would be forced to “smarten up” to the business. And I’m guessing that the wrestlers had zero faith nor love for TV executives so this was going to be a mutually exclusive issue
- The TV executives would only have a single paradigm to point towards when it came to successful pro-wrestling. And that model was what the WWF was doing. So as a byproduct, they would see a warped version of what was successful and try to unsuccessfully emulate it. The Ding Dongs are a case in point.
- Competing interests and agendas. The later executives that would come into WCW after Bischoff was kicked out the first time demonstrated that the TV people had zero stakes in the wrestling industry itself and probably saw their position just as another rung on the TV corporate ladder. On top of that there was little reason for them to be inherently motivated in learning about the wrestling business to make WCW a success. If anything they probably were just handed the job just like any other show to try and make work whether they wanted it or not.
- Most wrestlers probably had no desire to really deal with the TV executives and bureaucracy outside of their contracts and being seen to a broader audience.
- One of my favorite general quotes came from the deceased Bobby Heenan where he talked about how the wrestlers educated the fans rather than the TV people. So now, the fans are smarter than the TV people and wrestlers and you can see the consequences of that move play out now.
But I think it’s just that the very nature of pro-wrestling as a fake sport that was used regionally to protect the identity and secrets of what really went on made it bad to be a national product. And when you had one of the more traditional federations in the NWA trying to make that crossover without a vision nor business people to guide it then you would just get a series of start/stop situations.
Now, in contrast, the reason why the WWF/E has managed to make this situation work is because Vince’s large vision for the WWF was never in the pro-wrestling business itself. He wanted to compete against Disney, expand and cater to children (using the McDonald’s theory of advertising). The WWF/E, as I have stated on numerous occasions, for the longest time and probably even more so now, has been, since Vince took over, a marketing/advertisement company. They specialize in selling and their product is their various forms of advertisements. It’s not just the tickets nor merchandise. When the WWE talks about the “Machine” behind a pro-wrestler, they’re talking about the entire packaging. It’s effectively the “you ARE the product” philosophy.
So why would this work in TV? Because McMahon could explain dollars and that’s all the TV executives need to hear. How do we get more viewers? How do we grow for our shareholders? How are we going to expand our advertisers and attract more for your time slots? All McMahon has to do is say (like in the 80s), “Well, we primarily market our products to families and especially children who will eventually become loyal, life long viewers.” Bingo. And those pro-wrestling fans today, how many of them were influenced because of the 80s toys or cartoons to initiate them? How many are now children of parents who found a love for pro-wrestling because of the beforehand statement and wanted to make pro-wrestling into an annual event with their family?
Vince aimed at the lowest, easiest, most targetable and highly profitable audience member in children. You can talk smack about how stupid, family oriented and childish the late 8s0 up to the mid 90s were, but that created his core audience and made the WWF leap across every single wrestling entity in existence by light years. There isn’t a single promoter on this planet that has even touched 1% of what the WWF/E/McMahon had done in that time frame because they didn’t have the foresight to see what was coming through the pike rapidly.
I think WCW’s fate was inevitable regardless of the person in charge just because of what people expected from it and what it was originally designed for. I don’t think pro-wrestling is very sustainable in general just because of the kayfabe nature. To really create a successful wrestling empire you’d require someone with a real vision on the level of a Vince McMahon in the 80s and the drive to make it survive in the current environment. If WCW had survived independently in name in some fashion whether it was Bischoff supposedly buying them out before being sold to Vince or even a Tony Khan somehow acquiring the rights and trying to resurrect it, it wouldn’t have lasted. It would probably have just been another form of TNA when Hogan and Bischoff stepped in. The usual suspects would’ve come by for a big paycheck, sucked up the talent dry and then tried to do it again elsewhere until they were either immobile, permabanned or dead. But nothing would have changed because the people involved didn’t change and they didn’t seem to learn their lessons the first time it happened. It just would’ve happened quicker and probably in a more embarrassing fashion because of the smaller scale and aging bodies involved.
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