Kevin Sullivan and the End of WCW

Reviews, Wrestling DVDs

So the guys at kayfabecommentaries.com sent me a couple of DVDs to check out, and one that really caught my attention was “Kevin Sullivan and the End Of WCW”, a two hour shoot interview conducted by Sean Oliver with the former head booker.  The interview is specifically about the period from January 2000 – March 2000 when Sullivan took over from Vince Russo and was handed the steering wheel of a car that had already gone off the cliff, which doesn’t sound too exciting on paper (and indeed the first 30 minutes or so are pretty dry stuff, going over the players and the week-by-week analysis of what was happening) but once Sullivan loosens up things really pick up.  It’s actually an interesting study of a guy caught in that situation, because even though he’s REALLY defensive about the perception that he was only pushing the older guys (which he was), he is at least confident enough to come right out and say he wanted to build up Sid for a run with Goldberg post-injury.  And if that meant everyone in the promotion had to tap out to Sid’s crappy crossface to accomplish that, so be it.  My favorite parts of the interview come at the end, when he’s really started to rant and rave, assigning blame for everything Hogan-related to “creative control” and basically saying his hands were tied by corporate suits above him.  You hear that one a lot from WCW bookers.  If only it wasn’t for Hogan, if only it wasn’t for Brad Siegel, if only we didn’t have separate bookers for the different TV shows, if only if only if only.  Not that I’m blaming Sullivan — even he admits that the ship was sinking and everyone knew it, giving him little incentive to show up to work and try.  In between complaints about the state of the company, he drops in some fascinating lessons about wrestling, almost off-handedly, and it’s worth hearing from him.  Things like the philosophy of guys lower on the card needing to do less, because if one guy doesn’t get over, then neither guy gets over.  His best line comes when talking about Nash beating Goldberg in 98, when he notes that they drew 40,000 people and a six-figure gate, and he’s betting that “most of them weren’t there to see Kevvie go over, so maybe we shouldn’t have beaten that fuckin’ guy, huh?”  He goes on to talk about how yeah, Goldberg might have had a limited shelf life with his indestructible act if he started it up again (which was the plan), but holy crap, imagine what he could do with the heel who BEAT him.  And maybe it could have been one of those whiny young guys who wanted Russo back. 

Very cool stuff, check it out at www.kayfabecommentaries.com.