Great-ing Gimmicks of the Past: the Monday Night Wars
History
In 1995, Ted Turner’s WCW had fully joined the war against Vince McMahon’s WWF. WCW had signed a great deal of high level talent away from the WWF, and now made their next move — they debuted a show called WCW Monday Nitro opposite the WWF’s Monday Night Raw.
By mid-1996, Nitro was the leader in the ratings war, thanks in large part to the emergence of the New World Order. WCW was rolling and the WWF was suffering because of it.
By the end of 1997, Vince McMahon had been forced to get Bret Hart (his current champion) to open discussions with WCW about jumping due to the fact that McMahon could not honor the 20 year contract Hart had signed with the WWF the year before. (This is depicted in the movie Wrestling With Shadows, where Hart claims that McMahon told him that the WWF’s financial future was extremely dire).
After Hart jumped (the night after being “screwed” out of the WWF title by McMahon at the 1997 Survivor Series), the WWF began focusing on up-and-coming talent such as Stone Cold Steve Austin (whose popularity had exploded following the 1996 King of the Ring) and the young Rocky (Rock) Maivia, whose character turn into a cocky heel had sent his career skyrocketing. In addition to this, the WWF had also taken the opportunity to move Vince McMahon from behind the announce desk and turn him into an on-air evil boss character. The response was overwhelming. The night after Wrestlemania XIV, the WWF won the Monday night ratings war for the first time since June of 1996. Although the ratings would teeter-totter back and forth between the two companies, by 1999 the WWF was firmly in control.
This trend would continue until 2001, when WCW was sold by Time-Warner to the WWF. The WWF had won the war.
But what if things had happened differently? How could WCW or even ECW have won the wars and emerged atop the industry?
WCW
WCW had always had a habit of shooting themselves in the foot. The 1997 Starrcade, featuring Hollywood Hogan defending the WCW World title against Sting (in Sting’s first match in nearly a year) was the highest-ever grossing WCW PPV. WCW followed this up by stripping Sting of the title in less than a week, as well as the fact that after a quick note from Hogan before the match, referee Nick Patrick’s fast count (which the finish depended on) wasn’t fast.
This could have been a major turning point for WCW to continue their dominance. Sting should have won the title bout either cleanly or by the predetermined plan, and then been allowed to run with the belt for a while. This could have led to a war in WCW with Sting championing the WCW roster, and Hogan leading the disintegrating NWO. This could have led to Hall and Nash leaving to form their Wolfpac (without the NWO initials) stable nearly five months earlier. At this point we could have had Hogan battling Hall or Nash while Sting defended the title against WCW challengers.
Also, WCW needed to do something to counter the WWF’s rise in mid-1998. Giving away PPV main events on Nitro was not the answer. Putting off Goldberg/Hogan for the title until a PPV is a blunder that many have pointed out over the years.
WCW also put too much credit in banking on past feuds. They brought in the Ultimate Warrior, whose run gave them the ratings win one week and a truly atrocious PPV main event a few weeks later. Rumors were also flying that they were considering bringing in Yokozuna to renew his feud with Hogan.
Instead of banking on established (and aging) stars, WCW needed to focus on the younger up-and-comers. At the time, WCW had an incredible undercard with men like Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, and Chris Jericho just waiting for their opportunity. (After the buyout, each of these men would go on become WWF (and WWE) world champions.)
If the development of the undercard talent and maintaining hot feuds in the main event could have continued, WCW would have been in a much stronger position in 1999 and Vince Russo and Ed Ferrera (and by extent Kevin Sullivan) would not have been brought in.
Of course, by this point, many of the nails in WCW’s coffin had already been hammered in. Young stars like Chris Jericho and the Giant were gone. Benoit, Guerrero, Perry Saturn, and Dean Malenko would leave in January of 2000 after Kevin Sullivan was named head booker. If these men had been valued by the company (Jericho, for example, had a feud with Goldberg aborted because he was “too small”) we may have seen increased loyalty by them.
Going into 2000 with their upper midcard stars still with the company, WCW would have been in a much stronger place. Also, it’s entirely possible that more of the blunders that doomed the company (like David Arquette winning the World title, which only devalued the belt even more following Hogan’s win over Nash by fingerpoke months earlier) could have been avoided.
Another opportunity WCW could have seized on if the company was stronger would occur in September of 2000 as all WWF programming jumped from the USA Network (the WWF’s longtime home) to Viacom’s TNN (quickly renamed Spike TV) and UPN. This was a period of unprecedented weakness for the WWF. For the first time in years, a viewer could not turn to USA on Monday night to see Raw, while Nitro remained firmly in place on TNT.
In addition to the viewers who may have been able to locate the WWF on TNN, it is also extremely possible that a strong WCW could have continued to drive the WWF’s ratings downward. If the ratings had continued to droop, Viacom (which had none of USA’s loyalty to the company) may have begun canceling programming. If they had done so to Raw, the boost to WCW that they would receive from winning the Monday Night Wars would have been enormous. In addition, a once-burned USA would have been much less likely to take the show back.
If these factors had occurred, it’s entirely possible that WCW could have taken down the WWF. Of course, once WCW’s period of dominance had completely ended by early 1999, it was virtually impossible for them to overtake the red-hot WWF.
ECW
ECW is a much different beast. To put it in film terms, ECW had never been the “Hollywood” production that the WWF or WCW was. It was more of an independent film — operating outside the rules and glamorous production values that the other two companies could utilize.
For ECW to have won the war, firstly, the WWF and WCW would have had to destroy each other. The WWF’s ratings would have needed to collapse through 1999 and 2000 just as quickly as WCW’s were. If viewers would have been turned off by the WWF’s product as well, it is extremely likely that some of them would have found ECW in their search for televised wrestling, and some of that group could have become permanent viewers.
This could have been possible if ECW could have survived until the next wrestling bust. After all, in 1995 and early 1996 the WWF and WCW were losing viewers, ECW was airing its syndicated show and growing in notoriety.
Another mis-step for ECW was the TNN contract. From the beginning, TNN was backing out on promises made to ECW, including advertising (the only place that ECW was usually advertised was during the ECW show itself). In retrospect, TNN was quite possibly only preparing to seize the opportunity to sign a contract with the WWF a year later (which they did).
Paul Heyman would have been much better served to sign a contract with a network more along the lines of the ECW viewers. MTV may have been a better choice, but the same problems may have occurred as with TNN, as both were owned by Viacom.
Another problem was the end of the contract in 2000. ECW’s TV show was canceled in October to make way for the WWF. Vince McMahon had offered to allow ECW to stay on TNN until the end of the year, but Heyman refused. Once ECW’s primary television outlet was gone, the end was near.
This leads us to another problem. Paul Heyman himself. To be fair, Heyman has proven himself to be a wrestling genius. Time and time again, he made stars out of wrestlers that had been discarded by WCW and the WWF. Unfortunately, being a wrestling genius does not equal being a business genius.
Heyman was the be-all end-all when it came to decisions on ECW, and that was fine. The problem was that Heyman wanted to control all aspects of his company without trusting others. Vince McMahon is the be-all end-all in the WWE, but he does not control every tiny aspect of the company. He makes the big decisions and trusts the managers under him to supervise their individual departments.
Heyman’s financial acumen (or lack of) was another prime reason that ECW collapsed. If Heyman could have continued on in his management position and simply hired someone else to manage the finances, things may have been different. Instead, Heyman found himself distracted by the company’s finances and that affected his focus on writing the shows. In addition, Heyman was not only outspending the gate receipts, but he was also receiving money from Vince McMahon which was gone as soon as it arrived.
Heyman also had high demands of his wrestlers (many of whom were going unpaid toward the end). While some wrestlers (such as Taz) did give full notice and Heyman gave them respectful sendoffs, Heyman was also unwilling to compromise to keep other stars. According to the Rise and Fall of ECW DVD, when the Dudley Boyz were planning to jump to the WWF, they told Heyman that if he would give them a one dollar raise they would stay. Heyman refused.
Another blow was the fact that Mike Awesome jumped to WCW without any prior warning while still holding the ECW World title. While Heyman was able to successfully prevent WCW from devaluing the belt (unlike when Madusa had returned in 1996 and dropped the WWF women’s title in a trash can), the belt was still in danger. Taz returned from the WWF and won the belt in 2001, and then went on to be immediately squashed by Triple H soon thereafter.
If Heyman had been able to retain a stronger roster, this would never have been necessary. At the time, Heyman had former world champions such as Raven and the Sandman on the roster. In addition, fan favorite Rob Van Dam, although injured at the time, was waiting in the wings for his shot at the belt. The uninjured Tommy Dreamer, the “heart and soul of ECW,” was also waiting. Although he did take the belt from Taz about a week later, it would have been much more fitting for Dreamer to rescue the ECW belt from the evil WCW, rather than a fellow ECW icon who now worked for a competing company.
Analysis
In the end, it would have been extremely difficult for either WCW or ECW to have survived. Both suffered fatal mistakes that wound up killing the companies. Still, what would be on TV today if they had won?
WCW would have doubtless continued to use many of the veteran wrestlers such as Ric Flair and Sting. Others such as Hulk Hogan and Kevin Nash would have had to back off to allow the younger stars to shine if the company would have survived, so homegrown talent such as Benoit and Guerrero (who could not have left in January of 2000) should have found their way into the main events. In addition, the cruiserweight division would have continued to prosper as it did under Bischoff, although it still would have been likely difficult for the cruiserweights to break away from the cruiserweight stigma.
ECW’s style would have had to change. While their trademark lenient rules may have continued, they would have had to tone down their image to appeal to the masses as well as to preserve their wrestlers longer. The days of the Taipei Death Match would still be long gone, although I imagine that the shows would still have their share of blood. Still, ECW was more than just blood. After all, it had technicians like Lance Storm as well as the high-flying luchadors like Rey Misterio Jr., Psicosis, and Super Crazy. Add in the style that Japanese wrestlers like Tajiri brought to the table, and ECW could have been presenting some very interesting matches indeed.
In the end, we’ll never know exactly how the companies would have functioned because, in the end, both collapsed in 2001. This is just one person’s opinions on what might have happened. But, then again, if wrestling fans didn’t enjoy looking at What if? Scenarios, I doubt that games such as EWR and TEW would be as popular as they are.
Also, I’m opening up the comments on this one. Let me know what you thought, either by email or the topic in the forums. I’m going to be out next week, but we’ll take a look at your thoughts the first of January.
To close, in the words of Mike Nelson, have a merry Christmas, if that’s OK.
