Looking Back On WCW’s Worst Month

There are periods in the wrestling industry that fans always like to forget, such as World Championship Wrestling (WCW) before the New World Order (NWO), the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) in the mid-90s and anything involving The Great Khali. However, there are periods when so many things happen at one time, when the stars align (or in this case walk out), that change the course of things forever.

With Vince Russo taking over WCW from a creative standpoint in October of 1999, many were finally hoping that things would begin to turn around. Russo was believed by many to be the mastermind behind the Attitude Era. He promised change within six months. He promised higher ratings. He promised to fix the problems of the past. But walking into the New Year, there were many different problems already starting, most having to do with the main event players going into the annual Souled Out pay-per-view and the repercussions to the “backbone” of WCW the night after.

This is WCW in January 2000.

***The following news and information was found on Reddit from a user who condensed down versions of Dave Meltzer’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter for the whole month of January. The link to the January 24th edition can be found below and then just click on the dates that backtrack to read more. ***

{https://old.reddit.com/r/SquaredCircle/comments/9khlb5/wrestling_observer_rewind_jan_24_2000/}

WCW would lose its top draw Bill Goldberg due to injury after a stunt gone wrong on the December 23rd episode of Thunder. Goldberg was chasing the NWO into the parking lot and was to punch out the windows of their limousine. There was a piece of piping that was taped to Goldberg’s wrist, but in the midst of the scene, he lost the pipe and instead decided to continue forward by punching the limousine windows with his bare fist. He would shred his arms to pieces and cut several arteries that would cause him to get over 40 stitches, leading doctors to fear that he might lose his arm because of the extreme blood loss. He was estimated to be out for about four months with the injury (he actually wouldn’t return to TV until an episode of NITRO just before the Great American Bash in late June, almost six months later).

Before he was relieved of his duties in August of 1999, Eric Bischoff was pushing for Turner executives to cut NITRO back to two hours every Monday, citing that it was difficult to write three hours of television each Monday and keep the fans entertained every week (probably something WWE needs to realize today). Turner executives refused to give in to Bischoff’s request. Upon his arrival, Russo began to ask those same executives the same thing. It would finally be after Souled Out that NITRO would return to two hours every Monday, ending the three-hour run that began in January of 1998. The average rating in this case would make things better for WCW each week now because they didn’t have that low third hour bringing down the overall decent first two hours.

Ric Flair and WCW were at odds once again. Flair was originally scheduled to work the previous month’s Starrcade against Chris Benoit. However, he would refuse for multiple reasons such as there were no long-term plans for the program after the match and the biggest one was that he wanted out of his contract, anyway. Russo tried to still convince Flair to do the match by booking him to win, but the Nature Boy still refused because he felt Benoit was ready to be in the main event and losing to Flair negates that. Jeff Jarrett would end up being the one to face Benoit in that match at Starrcade while Flair tried to wait out his contract as much as possible.

After three months of Russo’s run, nothing had changed. Backstage morale was at an all-time low and ratings were still plummeting. Russo would give the “standards and practices” excuse on a regular basis to say that his ideas were being held back. Everyone in WCW was beginning to see that Vince McMahon was the one with all the ideas, not Russo all by himself.

PPV numbers were beginning to come in for Starrcade and it appeared disastrous. The show was headlined with Jarrett and Benoit for the United States Championship and Goldberg and Bret Hart for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship. Its 0.3 buyrate is the second lowest in history behind Fall Brawl the previous September.

I found multiple different reports during my research where Meltzer was speculating that the total loss for WCW was anywhere between $10-15 million which, until the year 2000 with $40 million, was the most money lost by a single wrestling company over a one calendar year-period.

Hulk Hogan had a meeting with WCW officials and agreed to return tentatively on the February 14th NITRO. RAW that evening would be pre-empted due to the annual Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show. NITRO’s rating would naturally be up due to this and a hyped Hogan return would boost them even more. The Hulkster always knew how to pick his spots and make it look like ratings increased due to his return.

Russo held a meeting for the roster before NITRO (the week of January 10th) to let everyone air any and all grievances. It ended up resulting in Kevin Nash speaking up and complaining about food in catering and the 1 p.m. call time which supposedly didn’t give the wrestlers enough time to sleep in and hit the gym in the morning.

Jeff Jarrett did an angle on the NITRO before Souled Out where he previewed his “3 Stages of Hell” match with Benoit by wrestling three veterans in the same night. Jimmy Snuka, George “The Animal” Steele and Tito Santana would all appear that night and the segment would end with Benoit and Snuka both diving on Jarrett off the top of the cage (keep this in mind for later). King Kong Bundy, Honky Tonk Man, Bob Backlund and Nick Bockwinkel all turned down offers to appear.

In the final days leading up to Souled Out, Russo would receive a phone call that Bret Hart would not be cleared to compete. He was scheduled to defend the World Heavyweight Championship against Sid Vicious. Claiming an inability to focus and bad migraines, “The Hitman” was diagnosed with a severe concussion as a result from a kick during his Starrcade match with Goldberg, as well as a hardcore match with Terry Funk on an episode of Thunder. Hart’s career would sadly come to an end as a result. The next day Jeff Jarrett, scheduled for 3 Stages of Hell with Benoit, told Russo that he would be inactive for the show as well because of a concussion that he suffered during the Jimmy Snuka splash from the top of the cage. The scheduled double main event is now nonexistent.

Russo made the decision to strip Hart of the world title and book a Royal Rumble-style match in the main event to crown a new champion. The match would see Sid Vicious enter the ring and clean out the roster until the final entrant – Tank Abbott – eliminated Sid to win the title. Russo today would claim that he intended to have Abbott drop the belt back to Sid the next night on NITRO. However, he wouldn’t see the next night.

Bill Busch, head of WCW at the time, knew that was the final straw with Russo having been second-guessing his decision to hire Russo. He was realizing that while Russo had some good ideas, he needed someone to filter the bad ones and McMahon was that man in WWE. Busch would put together a committee for this exact reason. Russo would be removed from total authority, but was asked to stay on a committee that consisted of Kevin Sullivan, J.J. Dillon, Terry Taylor and Kevin Nash (all previous bookers at one time). Russo would quit at that point, suggesting that he didn’t want to work with Sullivan.

As for the main event matches, Sid was always still in the match for the world title. Randy Savage would be contacted about coming in, but declined. Flair was pitched the idea of winning at the PPV and then dropping the title to Hogan the next night on NITRO. Flair declined. Nash was the next option, but when pitched on it, he declined by fear of alienating the roster by being on the booking committee one night and champion the next (something he should had considered when he broke Goldberg’s streak a year earlier). Finally, the decision was made to put the title on Benoit, except they didn’t realize that brewing backstage “the backbone of WCW”, as Eddie Guerrero called them, was in the process of walking out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xixRCIKtOOg

The day before Souled Out, Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, Dean Malenko, Perry Saturn, Shane Douglas, Konnan, Juventud Guerrera, Rey Mysterio and Billy Kidman went to Bill Busch and asked for Sullivan to be removed from the new booking committee or releases from their contracts. Busch asked them all to give him time and get through the PPV first. The decision stood to put the belt on Benoit largely because if he won the title, the thought would be that he would stay around for the title and the others would fall in line with Benoit.

Busch would attempt to talk to each wrestler individually to stay by promising Benoit the title, giving Kidman a United States Championship push, letting Saturn join the NWO on top of the threat of leaving a big money check on the table. WWE had interest in most of the frustrated wrestlers, but not all: Shane Douglas had issues during his previous run in WWE as evil teacher Dean Douglas and Mysterio and Juventud were believed to be viewed as too small to do anything in Vince McMahon’s eyes (Rey would join the company in 2002 and is a multi-time world champion while Juventud joined in 2005).

DESPITE ALL OF THIS DRAMA, Benoit still won the title at Souled Out. However, the storyline was left open because Sid’s foot was under the bottom rope when special referee Arn Anderson called for the bell as he tapped to the crossface. Busch, before NITRO the next night, would tell all talent who previously approached him that a compromise could be reached and suggested that Sullivan would run the syndicated Saturday night show and not have any involvement at all in regards to NITRO. All wrestlers agreed to this and all was fine for now.

But later that day, Busch would begin contacting all those same talents and inform them that they were suspended immediately with the exception of Benoit because he was world champion and claimed to have big plans in place for him. Benoit would find all this information out and chose to still walk out with his friends, telling Busch “if they are going home, then I’m going with them.” Benoit would hand referee Nick Patrick the title belt in the parking lot before meeting Eddie Guerrero, who had just shown up and found out what was happening. They quickly left and the WCW World Heavyweight Championship was now officially vacated.

OTHER NOTES FROM THE PAY PER VIEW:

Jarrett was “stripped” of the United States Title during Souled Out, but would win it back the next night. Why? Because WCW.
Nash was booked on the show to defeat Terry Funk to become Commissioner of WCW. In his defense, it appeared that this was already in the works by Russo before Nash was on the booking committee.
Ahmed Johnson debuted on the show and was known as Big T. He was in horrible shape compared to his WWE run three years earlier, which still wasn’t that impressive either. He would begin a feud with Booker T over who had the right to the letter T. Yes, this article is now sponsored by the letter T.

After those tumultuous five days in WCW, Benoit, Saturn, Malenko and Guerrero would debut on RAW on January 31st, 2000. They had been granted their unconditional releases from WCW on the condition that they would not disparage or sue WCW over anything. Konnan, Juventud, Mysterio, Kidman and Douglas would back out of signing their releases and serve their suspensions out of fear of leaving their lucrative contracts.

The World Heavyweight Championship would stay in peril for weeks afterwards, despite finding a champion to hold it. The title would be announced as vacated on the January 17th NITRO because of Sid’s foot being under the bottom rope, and of course, Benoit walking out. Sid would defeat both Harris Brothers during the January 24th episode of NITRO, giving him a title shot against Commissioner Nash that same evening. Sid would win the title to end the show. However, on the January 26th THUNDER, Nash would make Sid relinquish the title because he didn’t pin the legal Harris Brother during the handicap match. Sid won the title back again that night. He would have to pin Nash once again on the January 31st NITRO in a “rematch” to retain. Yes, I got just as confused typing all of this as you did reading it.

This month in pro wrestling is easily one of the most difficult in history. The story of a mass walk out, the release of the head of creative only three months on the job, the world title in limbo and of course, the story that WCW was walking up to death’s door at full speed. The company never had a chance to recover after losing such amazing talent. WCW would close its doors in March of 2001. January 2000 was the beginning of the worst year in professional wrestling for any one company.