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The Rise and Fall of WCW was probably the most anticipated WWE DVD set release of the year so far. Nothing made that more evident than the fact that it was near impossible to find on the evening of its release. I was able to locate a copy this past weekend, but only after I had checked three Best Buys and a Target
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But why did it fail? I think it really comes down to guaranteeing too much money and power to talents who were in the twilight of their careers and the ever-revolving door of management.
When WCW started cherry-picking top stars from WWF (such as Hogan, Macho Man, etc) not only did they promise them more money than they were currently making, but they promised them creative control over their characters. This is a stupid thing to do. These wrestlers are then going to refuse to do jobs (loose matches) or put over younger, up-and-coming talent because they don't want to have their market value decreased. So, now, you have huge stars who you're paying top dollar for that you're pretty limited in terms of what you can do with them.
Mismanagement was a factor at both the business and the creative levels. Creatively speaking, after the introduction of the NWO and Goldberg, they never really followed up with something new and different. Nitro was literally the same show week after week for at least 2 years straight. Once WWF overhauled their product and gathered steam, it was really too late for WCW to retaliate.
From a business perspective, once business started going into the shitter, the company was hemorrhaging money, and nobody did anything about it. It was as if no one was responsible for how money was being spent. Guys like Hogan, Kevin Nash and Goldberg were being paid tens of millions of dollars to sit at home for months when they were on the outs with creative. There were also instances where they signed wrestlers to multi-year deals and then never used them. For instance, Lanny Poffo (who is Macho Man's brother, but was nothing more than a glorified jobber in WWF) was paid 6 million dollars over a 3 year period, and they never used him. Imagine being paid 6 million dollars to sit at home and drink beer.
The final nail in the coffin, however, was when AOL/Time Warner purchased the previously Turner-owned entertainment properties (TBS, TNT, CNN, etc). The new owners wanted to have nothing to do with wrestling, and thus, all of WCW's television exposure was taken away. At that point, without a TV outlet, the property was essentially worthless. Vince McMahon bought what was left of it for literally less than a million dollars.
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It got boring. Fast. Even to a kid.
So, when WCW started buying off disgruntled WWF stars and changing how they worked matches, actually having storylines play out in weekly installments, it actually made it worth following.
Too bad that there was so much financial mismanagement going on behind the scenes. And giving creative control to the former WWF stars was a mistake, you're right. Especially because it probably also bred resentment with the WCW wrestlers who DIDN'T have that control.
Interesting.
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