Text By Jed Shaffer

What if...What if D-Generation X got into the Norfolk Scope during their attack on WCW Nitro?

Part III

(The following Re-Writing The Book is written not as a narrative story, but as an article on a wrestling website, commemorating the tenth anniversary of the D-Generation X invasion of WCW Monday Nitro, and looking back at how the event changed the wrestling landscape.)

For the three main American wrestling promotions, 1999 was a year of change. The WWF was forced to shuffle their main event picture after injuries robbed them of key performers, and their head writer fled the coop. For ECW, growing pains from their sudden, rapid expansion and a walk-out by two key wrestlers left the promotion trying to live up to their own expectations. For WCW, change seemed to come every week; new bookers, new Vice Presidents, new wrestlers, new crises.

 

As the bitter cold of winter faded away, though, and the first spring of the new millenium dawned, so did the hopes of fans of the three promotions: the WWF had new stars and was forging ahead without two of their biggest names with nary a bump. ECW was slowly but cleverly shifting their product, yet keeping a foot in that which brought them to the dance. And executives in WCW had high hopes for a creative merger of two minds to salvage the sinking WCW ship.

 

The month of April would turn the whole American wrestling industry upside-down and inside-out.

 

The road to rebirth--approaching April 2000:
Before April 2000, nobody really knew the name Robert Zicari outside of southern California. Before the summer of 1999, Zicari was known only as a pornographer, and even in that industry, he and his product were considered among the lowest, most filthy and degrading product available (and in porn, that's saying something). In the summer of '99, Zicari--better known as Rob Black--started Xtreme Pro Wrestling, a small-time indy in California that eschewed all scientific skill and workrate for sleaze and deathmatch-style violence that ECW didn't sink to even in their bingo-hall days. His shows were replete with women from his stable of adult performers, and his wrestlers were castoffs even among the indies, men destined to bleed buckets for enough money to get an extra value meal at McDonald's. In short, XPW and Rob Black served as much a function in the wrestling industry as groups like the PTC: none at all.

 

Until that April.

 

Some of the following, it should be noted, cannot or has not been verified, for one very simple reason: nobody can agree on the truth. The events of April 2000 were, remain, and unless time travel is invented and someone goes back and listens in, will likely remain a subject of conjecture, opinion and good ol' guesswork, no matter what Rob Black says.

What is known is how everything got started: April was a month circled in red for fans of all three promotions. In the WWF, the road out of WrestleMania was just as important as the road to it; typically, the post-'Mania season saw new wrestlers debut with the company (either new signees or call-ups from the developmentals), while wrestlers who stepped into the spotlight at WrestleMania looked for ways to use their momentum to catapult them up the card.

 

In ECW, April promised something huge for the promotion, as TV commercials promised a "(r)evolution" (their words) and their website, down for months and replaced with the ominous letter-from-Heyman splash page, had been replaced on March 1st with a timer counting down to their April 13th show from Los Angeles, which would also mark their return to full-time to live television after the Lolita/Francine exposure incident. Those with the inside skinny knew that this was the final transition date for ECW's long-awaited "shift in philosophy". What that amounted to was anybody's guess, though.

 

For WCW and its fans, April 10th was more then just a date. More then just a huge event. Dubbed "The Night The World Changed", April 10th would mark the first show under the Eric Bischoff/Vince Russo regime. The prior week, Nitro had taken the night off, showing a best-of show hosted by Tony Schiavone, who promised that under the new regime, the show would return to its former glory; yes, Tony flat-out admitted that Nitro sucked, but Bischoff and Russo would "restore the glory and majesty of WCW" (Tony's words). Rumors abounded about what kind of new WCW viewers would see; a new WCW logo had been unveiled, and a new set was all but certain. But the roster, announcers, the status of championships, and how they would explain this blatant rebooting was a mystery.

 

One mystery--the roster--would come into clarity during the two weeks between the last Nitro of the Sullivan regime and the relaunch: WCW executives, facing bottom-line-watching Time Warner execs who wanted the company to look as shiny as possible for the AOL merger, started cutting expenses. Aside from discontinuing the ridiculous practice of flying everyone to every event, regardless of usage, the execs took deep cuts at the roster; the sprawling multitude of luchadores that never amounted to anything got the boot. Ditto all the wrestlers, like Kevin Wacholz and Lanny Poffo, the company had signed and never used. Several openers and lower-mid-carders also saw their jobs deleted. None of this really surprised anyone; what did were the big cuts. Sid Vicious, prone to "injuries" that often found him rehabbing at softball parks across the country, was dumped. Randy Savage, a man for whom "mercurial" is an understatement, also got the boot. The bloated guaranteed money contracts were renegotiated, and those who balked were given the option of sitting at home, collecting no money and waiting for their terms to run out, or take a pay-cut. And the dead-weight contracts of Kevin Nash and Scott Hall were once and for all terminated. Sadly, while Russo and Bischoff now had license to scour the indies and secure some new (cheaper) blood for their roster, their old harvesting field, ECW, was now out of bounds.

 

Enter Rob Black and XPW.

 

The con--April 2000:

 

As soon as WCW finished their purge, the free agent market became a pirahna pond (the WWF, to no one's surprise, scooped up Kevin Nash and Scott Hall). With some money to play around with, Bischoff and Russo went shopping, only to find that many of the best up-and-comers were getting snapped up; the 2000 Super 8 winner, Christopher Daniels, signed to ECW, as did indy tag sensations Christian York and Joey Matthews and martial arts wizard Low-Ki. And the ones who weren't sewn up turned WCW down flat, either too hesitant to tie their futures to a company as turbulent as WCW, or, thanks to the good relationship ECW had cultivated with many indies, many workers were simply content to wait it out for ECW to look their way.

 

With their vision of a young versus old feud evaporating right before their eyes, Bischoff and Russo scrambled for a savior of sorts, and stumbled upon one (or so they thought) in Rob Black. To this day, nobody will comment on what transpired between the three during private, closed-door meetings, and, in fact, until April 10th rolled around, nobody outside the three of them even knew about the meetings. All that is known is that, as April 10th approached, the rumors about April 10th and the aftermath swirled like the winds of a hurricane; one rumor has the entire past 4 years--dating back to the incursion of Scott Hall in 1996--would be erased as a dream of Sting's. Some speculated a Sports Entertainment vs. Tradition feud, pitting Russo and a stable of wrestlers against Bischoff and same. And, while nobody knew it at the time, WCW had a nice little bonus secret invested in Rob Black.

 

April 10th came and went; WCW launched their reboot by simply vacating all the titles and pitting the "New Blood" (which had "youngsters" like Scott Steiner and Booker T, both of whom had been in the business long enough to not be "young" anymore) against the "Millionaire's Club", and instead of Russo vs. Bischoff, the two were aligned together, to "correct the mistake" they'd allowed to perpetuate. The entire roster was involved in the war, thus turning the entire Nitro into one amazingly cohesive storyline. The Millionaire's Club were routinely and resoundingly humiliated as they underestimated the New Blood, only to wind up on the bad side of a beating. It was alarmingly good, and despite the WWF countering with the return of Hall and Nash, Nitro's ratings actually jumped, chewing into Raw's by way more then anybody could've guessed (not enough to really scare Vince McMahon, but enough to signal a possible changing of the winds). Pundits were left scratching their heads; did WCW have a secret pocket of loyalists just waiting for the brand to be revitalized? Would it just turn out to be a one-week spike, and the next week would see ratings bottom out again?

 

Thunder would see Bischoff and Russo play their controversial ace in the hole; the overriding plot of Thunder was of the Millionaire's Club getting payback on the New Blood. By the end of the night, the crafty veterans had managed to score some convincing victories both in and out of the ring that seemed to signal that maybe the New Blood weren't ready to step up after all. As Thunder closed, the Millionaire's Club sauntered out into the parking lot, basking in the pride of their victories ... only to get the raw end of a hardcore beatdown by Kid Kaos, GQ Money, Supreme, The Messiah and several other of XPW's roster, cheered on by master thespians (if one counts group sex as an acting accomplishment) like Kristi Myst and Lizzy Borden. Rob Black shook hands with Bischoff and Russo as the XPW "wrestlers" attacked without prejudice (and sometimes, without protection, as several wrestlers were busted open hardway from their sloppy "workrate"). XPW was to be the nuclear bomb that the stiff old codgers couldn't counter, the weapon to blow them out of the water. The live crowd, although confused, reacted exactly as Bischoff and Russo hoped.

 

Except that viewers at home who changed channels over to Fox saw Kaos, Supreme, Money, Rob Black, Kristi Myst and, of all people, Shane Douglas, in the front row of Unleashed, heckling a scientifically brilliant Christopher Daniels/Steve Corino match.

The next day, TurnerSports executives were furious, and rightfully so. Thunder was pre-taped; Unleashed wasn't. The explanation was obvious. More then one person pointed out the irony of this happening to WCW, given how they'd done the same thing to the WWF with Rick Rude a few years before. But the irony of it, and the logistics of it didn't go to explain how or why this happened. To this day, there is no clear answer ... but, if one is to believe unnamed sources, gossip, the notoriously unreliable mouth of Rob Black and circumstancial evidence, then a picture can be painted.

 

Supposedly, Rob Black's deal with WCW was a per-appearance deal for XPW wrestlers and valets to have a short run on WCW to help bolster the angle. WCW never bothered to mention that they'd also be viewing the performances as auditions, and would pursue signing those who showed promise; the fact that Kid Kaos and Kristi Myst kept appearing past the termination of the angle lends credence to the rumors of the appearences being clandestine auditions. XPW was to get a fee as well, giving the promotion some extra cash.

 

Now the situation becomes murky (as if it weren't already), as the appearence of XPW on ECW television is viewed as one of three things, depending on the person: a publicity stunt cooked up by XPW to get some free publicity--all the participants, save Myst, were wearing XPW shirts. Aside from heckling the product--calling it "fake extreme", "bored-core" and screaming their promotion's initials--their appearence on TV was remarkably tame. Of course, after cameras went off, there was a verifiable incident in the parking lot of the arena between XPW and a group of ECW wrestlers, when (supposedly) GQ Money grabbed Lolita's breast and made and propositioned her. The ensuing brawl would send Supreme and GQ Money to the hospital with broken noses, a clump of hair ripped out of Myst's scalp, and find New Jack sent to jail for "pulling a shiv" that nobody could ever reproduce on Rob Black (the charges would be thrown out when none of the XPW wrestlers' stories could support one another on what happened). It was only by the efforts of Shane Douglas that the situation ended up diffused; when this got out, many assumed he might've been using XPW to lobby a job back in ECW. That Douglas got hired back into ECW a couple months later was chalked up to "coincidence" by Heyman and Douglas.

 

Another theory says it was a stunt cooked up between ECW and XPW. The fact that XPW kept getting camera time seems to support this, as does Joey Styles' referring to them even when the camera wasn't on the invaders. Add to that the fact that Heyman and Black had done business prior to Black getting into the pro wrestling business, and suddenly, the kid-gloves approach to them being on TV doesn't look so out of place. Why they would do such a thing in collusion is a mystery nobody has bothered to clear up in the ensuing years.

 

Or, the third possibility: it was a revenge stunt, financed by the WWF, to try and disrupt ECW's big relaunch show. It was widely known that Vince still wanted some kind of revenge for ECW booking Madison Square Garden; he couldn't pull stunts like he did in the 80's, such as blackmailing PPV distributors not to carry his competitors' product, and the audience was too big now for counter-programming to be effective. And, hey, nobody could say Vince wouldn't stoop to such a level; the "Billionaire Ted" skits, the entire D-X/Nitro segments and the backdoor payments for the salaries of Hall and Nash in ECW were all petty guerrilla revenge tactics, no matter how cleverly executed. Hell, read the lyrics to Vince's song "Stand Back"; the concepts of "Vince McMahon" and "petty" are practically surgically fused at the hip.

 

The truth? Well, the truth would seem to be a mixture of all three. Certainly, XPW did benefit from the appearance. And some clever snoopsters managed to dig into XPW's financials, and was able to determine that whatever payoff XPW got from WCW, their bank accounts had gotten a sudden influx of cash well beyond the WCW payment. When lawsuits stared getting filed--WCW vs. XPW, WCW vs. WWF (yes, much to the chagrin of his bosses, Bischoff went to the litigation well again), , ECW vs. XPW (the WWF reportedly were about to file when someone wisely pointed out that filing a suit based on breach of contract tacitly admitted business dealings with Black)--the picture, even though no one was talking, became hard to ignore: Rob Black had played everyone. He'd taken a payoff from WCW to ingratiate XPW into the mainstream and get his promotion an injection of cash. He'd taken Vince's money and promised to disrupt ECW's show on the same night as Thunder, then turned around and took another payoff, this one from Heyman, to downplay the disruption, get some publicity for themselves and maybe stir even a little more buzz for ECW. Eight years later, the only thing Heyman, McMahon, Russo and Bischoff can come together on is a lie, even if they're not telling the same lie.

 

Russo (from an MSN chat in 2002): "Black and his bottom-feeders were there for a one-shot. Anything else they, or anyone else tells you, they're full of shit. They took our money, screwed us like the whores they are, and snuck out the window to work for someone else. Then Bischoff files a bunch of stupid lawsuits and throws me under the bus and gets me suspended for a week while he tries to short-circuit all our long-range plans. I'll tell you what, Bischoff, Black, Heyman ... they can all burn in hell."

 

Bischoff (from a Q&A on WCW.com in July 2000): "The incident on Thursday, April 13th, 2000, with members of the Xtreme Pro Wrestling promotion was an idea solely born and pushed by Vince Russo. He wanted to bring in the smut and sickness he peddled on his former employer's show, and if things hadn't unfolded how they did, he woulda overrun WCW with that sickness. I'm almost glad they went on the other show. It got them out of our hair a lot quicker."

 

McMahon (from the McMahon DVD): "Anybody who tells you that I paid XPW to invade ECW obviously doesn't know how I operate. To think that I'd get revenge by sending some backyard wrestler rejects to sit in their front row and heckle them ... that's not revenge. Burying them in the ratings, that's revenge. Buying their company, that's revenge. The whole XPW mess? Just a bunch of nonsense dreamed up by conspiracy theory nutcases in their parents' basement."

 

Heyman (from Forever Hardcore): "McMahon is full of shit, okay? So's Russo. Bischoff might be the only one besides me who's telling the truth, and I don't trust that two-face snake as far as I can throw him. XPW screwed all of us; they screwed WCW by taking their money and making them look like idiots appearing on two shows in one night. They screwed Vince by making him look like an incompetent goon. And they screwed me. One of their thugs tried to manhandle Amy--Lolita--and they got their asses handed to them. The only good thing I got out of it was I stole Shane Douglas back after we smoothed a few things over."

 

Indeed, for all of Rob Black's creativity in playing a triple-agent, the one thing he didn't think of was that he was a small-time promoter of a garbage fed and a low-brow pornographer, trying to stick it to much larger companies. By the end of the year, legal fees would drain the coffers of XPW, killing off the promotion in November. And the two XPW performers to make the leap would end up haunted by their pasts; Kaos would stall out as a jobber in WCW before being let go, while Kristi Myst's XXX-rated past would get her fired only a couple weeks later.

 

Relaunch--Spring 2000:

 

While the XPW Con-job (as it would come to be known) made asses out of the wrestling industry, and gave wannabe smarks something to debate for years to come, the fact that the Big Three were undergoing spring relaunches (or, in the WWF's case, the post-'Mania spring freshening) was not lost on fans, pundits and internet smarks. Expectations were high for all three shows, and initially, none failed to disappoint.

 

In the WWF, Triple H became the first heel to walk out of WrestleMania main event as the victor, when Vince McMahon turned on The Rock. The feud continued through the spring, with the pair trading the belt back and forth in match after stellar match. Looming over Triple H's shoulder, however, was a most unexpected feud: Hall and Nash, who played off the ECW/WWF storyline, came in with a vengeance for being abandoned by Vince. Furthermore, they were enraged that Triple H would take in "curtain jerkers" like The New Age Outlaws into D-X (in a memorable unscripted quote that earned a lot of backstage heat, Nash commented on the Outlaws; "How did you two slop-artists make it off Shotgun? Oh, I'm sorry, you're both obviously qualified people. It musta been two other idiots who I saw feuding over an Fat Elvis impersonator."), but didn't extend the offer to Hall and Nash upon their arrival. In fact, if one criticism could be leveled at the post-'Mania WWF, it was that seemingly every angle pointed back to Triple H; there was a burgeoning love triangle with Kurt Angle and Stephanie, a part-time feud with Chris Jericho, the Big Show lobbied for his yet-unreceived rematch, and the omni-present threat of the Radicals, the stable consisting of Dean Malenko, Eddie Guerrero and Goldberg, loomed over Triple H's reign (and anyone else, for that matter).

 

One thing that didn't change, of course, was the company's content; as much as ever, sex and violence ruled the day. As a matter of fact, despite the architect of the WWF's morphing into, as WCW partisan Bob Ryder once called them, "Raw Is Porn", the WWF's content managed to up the ante even more in the new millennium. Women's wrestler Stacy Carter flashed her breasts after winning the Women's Championship on PPV, and thereafter, her entire gimmick was built around teases of nudity; this turned the entire women's division into a parade of matches designed to get women stripped down to underwear. And, just to show the company was mature, they decided to spoof the Parents' Television Council--the fed's primary nemesis over content--by creating a stable called Right To Censor, complete with wrestlers dressed like Mormon missionaries. Fans of the "edgy" WWF product lapped up t-shirts with "SUCK IT!" on them and Diva lingerie posters, but the critics were beginning to notice the fraying edges; plotlines started and stopped without notice, matches were generic punch-kick-finisher sequences, and the actual amount of in-ring content was dwarfed by vignettes and promos. Once again, the WWF's response to critics was that they just didn't "get it".

 

ECW's date with destiny, April 13th, proved to be probably the most dramatic in terms of scale. Between the countdown splash page on ECW's website, and a shift towards more scientific wrestling, fans were left puzzled as to whether the control Taz and his cohorts had won really did extend to the front office. On April 13th, they got their (kayfabe) answer, as two legendary figures in wrestling were welcomed to the ring by Paul Heyman: Ricky Steamboat and Ted DiBiase. With Heyman's help, they went on to explain that recent changes in the look and feel of the product had been done to attract investors, and that DiBiase was now a partner in ECW. Steamboat, it was explained, would act as ECW's Commissioner, enforcing some of the rules changes, which included a Code Of Honor that dictated all matches--unless otherwise noted in a "Fight Without Honor"--began and ended with handshakes, the establishment of a "Stable Rule", which forced champions with stables to keep their mates out of the match, or face title forfeiture, proper respect for authority figures and penalties for sneak attacks. The new ECW--the E now stood for Evolved--would pay homage to the old school values, while retaining its cutting-edge wrestling style, they promised, and to that effort, they also said the company would now support two championships: the ECW World Honored Championship, and the ECW World Extreme Championship, with neither title being valued more then the other (the tag titles, however, would bridge the divisions). Competitors chasing the Extreme Championship would find the Code Of Honor more lax, but would also face more extreme wrestling conditions, while the Honored Championship would be fought under stricter, more pure wrestling conditions.

 

When it came time to launch the new titles, though, ECW World and TV Champion Rob Van Dam was given a choice: he could either pursue the Television Title and forfeit the World, which would be renamed the Extreme Title, or he could keep the World and face Taz to unify the ECW World and Taz's disputed Pro Wrestling Evolved Championship, which would make the new Honored Championship. RVD would choose the World Title, and, under threat of termination, Taz faced and lost to RVD at a special April event. The Extreme Championship Tournament would also conclude at Barely Legal, with Tommy Dreamer facing off against old-school representative Steve Corino. The PPV would fade to black on the image of RVD in the ring, celebrating his championship victory alongside Tommy Dreamer, the company's first Extreme Champion.

 

The special April event caused much hullabaloo in the industry, as Heyman and Sapolsky shared the same vision: that the new ECW was a chance to snare more new viewers, and that properly executed, a "rollout event" would do just that. So, rather then present a PPV, ECW negotiated a 3-hour block of time on Fox on a Sunday night, heavily sponsored and presented with limited commercial breaks (two 10-minute breaks at the top of the second and third hours, while the live audience enjoyed performances by a band). The new rules of ECW were officially put into play, and along with matches (including the two title matches), introductory vignettes were produced to introduce the ECW stalwarts to the new viewers. Titled "ECW: The (r)Evolution Begins", and broadcasting from a sold-out Norfolk Scope in Virginia, the event proved a success in every way possible; Unleashed's ratings nudged up and May's PPV buyrates would increase, while critics and fans showered the event as a welcome breath of fresh air, showcasing wrestling in a way that neither WWF or WCW were doing anymore.

 

Behind the scenes, the changes in ECW were welcomed enthusiastically, by both the boys (some of who, like Bret Hart, had no desire to keep up with--or even compete with--wrestlers like New Jack, and vice versa) and Fox, who got a product that was both edgy, different then the competitors, and no longer sent censors into apoplexy. XPW's invasion later that night would provide a nice highlight for the more knowledgeable fan as to where ECW might've ended up had they not shifted their company philosophy, although, to some, the shift would never be acceptable. Paul Heyman would later say he believed ECW lost as many fans at it gained that night; when the ratings came back, Heyman was more then vindicated, as Unleashed's numbers grew, creeping up on Smackdown's bit by bit. As the summer continued, the company's mainstream acceptance grew on the strength of their new outlook; suddenly, ECW shirts were sharing space alongside the latest Austin 3:16 shirt. Rolling Stone ran an article about ECW, profiling how they were changing perceptions of wrestling with their product. By spring's end, there was no doubt the company's new product was a success, even amongst their peers; the ECWA, one of the longest-running indy promotions and holders of the annual Super 8 Tournament, signed on to become ECW's official developmental territory, giving the promotion first crack at the industry's best and brightest young superstars.

 

WCW's relaunch had the most stunning start, and despite the bad press Vince Russo has gotten in the years since, never let it be said he didn't write a blockbuster first chapter; be it the Austin/McMahon war, the Undertaker's evolution into the Prince Of Darkness, or the New Blood/Millionaire's Club war, Russo knew how to start a feud. Established stars like Ric Flair, DDP, Sting, Lex Luger and a yet-again-returned Hulk Hogan mixed with new stars like Mike Awesome, Scott Steiner, Booker T and Buff Bagwell. It was when his ideas got bigger then his ability that the storylines started to flounder, and the time in which the New Blood/Millionaire's Club meta-angle deteriorated set a land-speed record.

Chief among the issues of the angle's collapse was that even though Russo and Bischoff came up with the plan together, they differed on execution; Russo wanted the New Blood as faces, looked to bury the Millionaire's Club at nearly every turn, and yet scripted the New Blood with overt heelish tendencies while their enemies came off as underdog faces. Bischoff, however, knew that WCW--like the NWA before it--was a promotion with a legacy of being built around dominant heels, and wanted the New Blood to be portrayed as such. Wrestlers were often boggled as to how to portray their roles, as their position would often switch several times in one show, thanks to the two different authors moving in different directions. The effect of all of this led to the audience not giving a damn about either side, even while Bischoff and Russo force-fed the feud (in different ways) week in, week out. By April's end, there was a betting pool amongst the wrestlers about who would take his ball and go home first; Bischoff's odds ran 50-1. Russo's ran 25-1. Someone else decided to toss in a third option: both being fired.

 

That got even odds.

 

And because the two writers couldn't agree on a direction for the story or the performers, the wrestlers took it upon themselves to add their own twists. Scott Steiner became notorious for his promos, which were rambling, at times incoherant, rarely if ever resembling of the script, and usually inflammatory; one such instance had Steiner ripping into DDP's physique, when he popped off with "DDP, answer this for me; is the reason you haven't gotten your saggy bitch-tits fixed like your wife's because you won't pay for it on your knees like she did?" This caused a fistfight backstage, which earned Steiner a suspension ... with pay. Young wrestlers took unnecessary risks in order to get over (like Johnny The Bull, who thought it a fantastic idea to do a slingshot seated legdrop to the concrete floor, which netted him a broken pelvis), and some of the older wrestlers resented how they were being portrayed and no-sold at will. When Scott Steiner was booked to the WCW Title against DDP at Spring Stampede, Steiner's actions had effectively turned him heel and DDP face ... except that the script had them in opposite roles. Steiner proceeded to heel it up and hog the offense, which set DDP off, who started to shoot on the much larger Steiner; the referee ended up having to quick-count a pinfall just to end the match and call in security to break up a very legitimate fistfight.

 

Amazingly, the duo made it through April, and through May to, although by the time Slamboree rolled around, any pretense of the Millionaire's Club/New Blood feud was all but forgotten; the stable names were never mentioned, Bischoff had all but disappeared from his on-screen role. Allegiances shifted every episode; Lex Luger went from being a target of the New Blood to partnering with former member Buff Bagwell. Ric and David Flair--father and son, mind you--started off with David a "face" in the New Blood against his father, then reunited with him the next week ... then turned heel on his dad the next week. And once again, Bischoff was pulling away from his baby, leaving Russo to indulge in every flight of fancy he so desired. This included a disastrous publicity stunt with the movie Ready To Rumble, a painfully bad movie about two idiot wrestling fans (that made all wrestling fans look bad by association) on a road trip to see a wrestling show; Russo tied in the movie to the DDP/Steiner storyline and brought in the movie's star, David Arquette, to win the WCW Championship.

 

Yes, Deputy Dewey from the Scream movies joined the (now formerly) illustrious ranks of men like Ric Flair, Sting, Vader and Bret Hart. Ratings for this particular episode of Nitro cut in half the week after this disaster--yes, 50% of the audience stopped watching Nitro just because Arquette won the title. Russo would defend the switch as an attempt to get some mainstream publicity; it did. Mockingly. Bischoff, wisely, kept his name off the flaming disaster that was WCW.

 

The Great American Bash would be the duo's final curtain.

 

The main event, slated to be Steiner against Hogan for the belt, went on second. What happened afterwards is, like the XPW incident, something for which the truth will never be known. What the audience saw was Hogan come out, exchange a few words with the ref and Steiner; Hogan feinted like he would punch, then tapped Steiner in the chest, who promptly sold the devestating poke like he'd been on the business end of a wrecking ball. As the two celebrated the swerve, Vince Russo marched out to the ring, launching into a profanity-laced tirade:

 

Russo: "What I just saw, I gotta say, makes me sick to my stomach. From day one that I have been in WCW, I 've done nothing, nothing but deal with the bullshit of the politics behind that curtain. The fact of the matter is, I've got a wife, I've got three kids at home, and I really don't need this shit. But I come back every day, for the guys in that locker that week in, week out, who bust their ass for WCW the right way. I came back for the Booker T's, I came back for every single guy in MIA, I came back for Steiner, I came back for the guys behind that curtain that give a shit about this company. And let me tell you who doesn't give a shit about this company, that goddamn politician Hulk Hogan. Cause let me tell you people what happened out here in this ring tonight. All day long I'm playing politics with Hulk Hogan, because Hulk Hogan, he wants to play his creative control card. And to Hulk Hogan, that meant that tonight in the middle of this ring, when he knew it was bullshit, he beats Scotty Steiner and gets another time around with the belt. Even though I don't want it, Eric Bischoff don't want it, and you people don't want it, he wants the belt, he wants the nWo. Well guess what, Hogan got his wish, Hogan got his belt, and I promise everybody or else I'll go in the goddamn grave, you will never see that piece of shit again! But I also promise, cause I know you paid good money to come here tonight, I promise nobody is gonna be ripped off here tonight. So Hulk Hogan now has the WCW belt, and Hulk, let's refer to that as the Hulk Hogan Memorial Belt, because from here on in, that belt don't mean shit! Because there will be a new WCW belt, and as far as I'm concerned, tonight, you ain't gonna have to sit through no goddamn old folks' night. Tonight, you're gonna see two guys who been bustin' their ass for years, Scott Steiner and Booker T. You're gonna see them fight for the real WCW Championship. Hulk Hogan, you big bald son of a bitch, kiss my ass!"

 

To say the execs were angry would be like saying Godzilla was just a salamander. Hogan was threatening a lawsuit; refund demands were pouring in from audience members and people who ordered the PPV. And since ratings and buyrates were still in the toilet, even after the dream pairing, Russo and Bischoff had even less of a defense. Nobody knows what happened behind closed doors, but when the doors opened, the results spoke for themselves: Russo was turfed. Bischoff had resigned. Hogan had left the promotion and was filing a suit. Terry Taylor was now in charge of booking, and was given explicit orders:

 

Clean up the mess, while the parent company looked for a buyer.

 

The Big Two's rocky summer (and that other promotion, too)--Summer 2000:

 

The wrestling boom in 2000 seemed to grow bigger every day; both ECW and the WWF allied with the two political parties and had representatives (The Rock for the WWF, and Bret Hart for ECW) at both conventions, urging teens and young adults to get out and vote. Sports bars and restaurants like Buffalo Wild Wings and Hooters started PPV parties. Wrestlers were guest-starring on everything from Star Trek to Jeopardy's celebrity edition. Wrestling became so ubiquitous, many industry experts proclaimed the new boom bigger then the Rock 'N' Wrestling era, and couldn't forsee a collapse, even if ratings had cooled a little.

 

Except for that one company down in Atlanta.

 

The WWF entered the summer with The Rock wearing the WWF gold, finally having brought the reign of terror of Triple H to an end, but was facing threats from Chris Jericho and a dream match Goldberg. Triple H, meanwhile, had a litany of people looking for his head, including Kevin Nash, Scott Hall and Eddie Guerrero, who attempted to pick up Stephanie (which led to an odd situation that found Triple H and Kurt Angle partnering against Guerrero and Malenko). The best news, however, was that Steve Austin, the WWF's cash cow, would be ready to go in the fall.

 

However, not everything ran smoothly for the WWF; the Parents' Television Council was ramping up their war against indecency, and the WWF was a prime target, and the childish responses coming from Stamford--be it the Right To Censor, Vince's interviews blasting the PTC with righteous indignance, or the general thumbing of their noses with the "Get it?" slogan repeated ad nauseum--didn't help matters. As the pressure mounted, the backlash finally started hitting the WWF pocketbook--WalMart, the nation's biggest retailer, pulled all WWF merchandise from their shelves, citing the product had become "too lewd" for the families who shopped there.

 

But the biggest thing on the WWF's horizon would strike them to the very core, and in typical McMahon fashion, the situation was handled in such a way that McMahon's "reputation" as a business genius was cut off at the legs by his own actions. The WWF's broadcast contract with the USA Network, which had broadcast Raw since its debut, was coming to an end and needed renegotiation. Only Vince McMahon, already by this point a billionaire, decided his company--read: himself--needed more money, and proceeded to shop Raw around to other networks. The biggest interest came from Viacom; their TNN network was struggling to stay relevant with the growing popularity of CMTV making TNN duplicative, and a hot property like the WWF fit into the idea they had of how to transform the dying network into a new broadcast force. The only problem was that USA claimed they had first right of refusal when it came to renewal offers for Raw; the WWF countered this with a labyrinthine argument about broken agreements, windows of time expiring, and the contract being null and void that only the WWF's resident legal velociraptor Jerry McDevitt could argue with a straight face. NBC Universal (USA's corporate parent) sued for breach of contract; WWF counter-sued for ... well, nobody was quite able to understand what they were suing for, other then to get out of the contract. Nobody bothered to ask NBC why they'd want to hold on to a show owned by a company that most obviously wanted to run away, but then again, the problem seemed to repulse logic as if protected by a force field of absurdity.

 

In the end, the WWF got its way, signed a sickeningly expensive deal that only solidified him as the Mr. Burns to the wrestling industry's Springfield, and Raw and all the other was set to debut on The National Network (whatever that was) in September. Vince's pockets were made fatter then ever, while USA, loyal home to WWF programming for years, was left looking forward to a massive hole in their line-up and their advertising revenue.

 

Meanwhile, ECW's evolution into a hybrid of scientific wrestling and hardcore action continued to wow fans with amazing match after amazing match and storylines that started and stopped in the wrestling ring; you beat me unfairly, you have a championship I want, you disrespected me, you left me out to dry in a tag match. Even in the Extreme division (which they made sure never to label a "division", so as not to marginalize it; everyone was treated as an equal, regardless of style), the storylines were down to earth, if a little edgier in presentation (and to that end, Gabe was willing to enlist help from Raven and Tommy Dreamer, just like the other half got input from Bret). And the matches drew rave reviews; in the span of two months, ECW managed to score two five-star ratings from Dave Meltzer, one for a four-way 60-minute Iron Man match between RVD, Taz, Bret and Chris Benoit, and the other for an amazing 6-man tag between Tommy Dreamer, Sabu and Raven against Rhino, Jeff Jarrett and Steve Corino under Extreme Rules. It seemed as if nothing could threaten ECW's steamroller of success.

 

In fact, the only thing that threatened ECW's success was just that: their success. Before their explosive success, ECW had a strong core group of wrestlers that floated in and out of the main event. Thanks to the phenomenal growth, though, ECW had managed to lure a number of top-tier talent from the other two feds, and the side-effect of bringing in all the world-class talent was a massive logjam. ECW's main event talent alone featured Dreamer, Raven, Taz, Sabu, Sandman, Corino, Jarrett, Rhino, Bret, Benoit, RVD; just below them, waiting for their shot, sat Jerry Lynn, Justin Credible, Lance Storm, Chris Kanyon, Perry Saturn, Super Crazy, Yoshihiro Tajiri, New Jack, Spike Dudley, and new signee William Regal. Beneath them, there were plenty more people either coming up or in tag teams. And a logjam at the top meant a logjam in the middle, and on and on down the line. It was almost an unprecidented position to be in, to have such a dearth of talent in the upper ranks that one had to contemplate ways to solve the problem.

 

Fortunately, solutions presented themselves in the most unusual of fashions; Taz, long suffering under a problematic neck, knew his time was limited, and chose to lessen his in-ring workload to ease into retirement. Likewise, Bret Hart, an old man in a young man's company, started pulling back the reins. And ECW icons like Tommy Dreamer, Sandman and Raven all willingly took it upon themselves to work with youngsters to get them over. It didn't solve all of ECW's woes, but compared to the glut before, any relief was welcome.

 

In WCW, there was some good news (yeah, I know, shocking), although how "good" it was was disputable; the ratings had stopped their nosedive and leveled off. Of course, they were still amazingly low, and showed no signs of turning around. But, to Terry Taylor's credit, they stayed more or less level, which fulfilled the wishes of his bosses to stabilize the company while they looked for suitors to take the troubled company off their hands. Many companies were rumored to be interested, from a privately led group of investors led by Eric Bischoff, to Atsushi Onita (owner of FMW), to David McLane, the much-maligned owner/promoter of GLOW in the late 80's. Legendary Japanese promoter/star Antonio Inoki, who also fancied himself a shit-stirrer in the industry, floated a rumor that none other then Vince McMahon was looking at purchasing the failing WCW; coupled with the rumor that the settlement in the trademark infringement lawsuit over Scott Hall and Kevin Nash in 1996 included a clause that the WWF got to make the first offer should WCW come up for sale made the WWF-buying-WCW rumor grow legs. McMahon himself shot down the rumor, stating that while the prospect was intriguing, they were not interested in purchasing WCW. Another rumor (no doubt conceived by Inoki) surfaced, saying the asking price was too high for Vince's taste.

 

Meanwhile, WCW marched on, trying anything they could to find that one hot story, that one hot character, that would catch fire and revive WCW's ailing fortunes. When the decision was made to scuttle the long-running Power Plant training facility (which had produced precisely zero successful students), Taylor asked management not to throw the baby out with the bathwater and allow him to promote the students to full-time on-air positions. The group, collectively known as the Natural Born Thrillers, were as green as a plate of spinach, and most definitely not ready for some of the high-profile feuds they got shoved into (two of the group, Chuck Palumbo and Shawn Stasiak, were put in feuds against Lex Luger and Curt Hennig, where they stole the veterans' gimmicks), but Taylor could ill afford to take a pass on anything to keep the company--and his job--alive.

 

As the summer came to a close, one more name popped up as a potential buyer for WCW, but nobody could scarcely believe it: Paul Heyman and ECW. ECW was most definitely in a good way monetarily, but no one could quite believe they were that well off. For a week in the late summer, speculation ran rampant about how stars like Booker T, Scott Steiner, the Thrillers and others would fit into the ECW equation. The rumor mill damn near fell off its axis when Heyman was spotted taking a meeting in Atlanta with Time-Warner suits, but Heyman himself would shoot down the rumors on ECW's website the following day, stating the meeting was to respond to WCW's request for a "strategic alliance". Heyman would go on to explain that he declined the offer, which proposed an inter-promotional angle and a talent swap, as ECW gained absolutely nothing from WCW's proposal, and could even stand to lose out as they hitched their name and new reputation to WCW's dying husk.

 

With the partnership offer rebuked, WCW was quietly taken off the market. Taylor was given no indication from the higher-ups on what to do or what to expect, so he went about doing his best. But taking WCW off the auction block did little to calm nerves. In fact, it made things worse; with a sale, WCW might survive, and jobs might be safe. With no buyers, WCW had precisely two futures: resurrect or die. There was no need to place bets on this one in the locker room, because the odds were plainly obvious.

 

Bombshells--Autumn 2000:

 

The autumn of 2000 gave the wrestling world two bombshells, and for the first time in what seemed like forever, WCW had nothing to do with any of it. In fact, WCW spent the autumn chugging along, playing to half-full houses (or less), trying everything they could to keep their head above water.

 

The first bombshell came from the WWF, although it didn't work quite like a normal sudden blast of news would. This was, in fact, more cumulative. Stone Cold Steve Austin, missing in action for almost a year, returned in October, and began a program of tearing through the fed looking for the person or persons responsible from running him over a year prior at Survivor Series. Many saw this as a fantastic way to get one of the on-the-cusp performers like Chris Jericho, Kurt Angle, the Big Show or Test to break on through for keeps.

 

Instead, the driver turned out to be Rikishi, a portly Samoan who had become a popular midcard comedy act thanks to aligning himself with clueless, white hip-hip nimrods Scotty 2 Hotty and Grandmaster Sexay and dancing a lot. His motivation of helping the Samoan (namely, The Rock) break through to the top and stop the "great white hope" that kept the island boys down sat well with absolutely no one, since The Rock had become champion not once but several times, including three reigns before Austin went on the shelf. When WWF Creative saw the angle dying a quick death, a hasty rewrite made Triple H the mastermind behind the attack. This made more sense given the storylines running at the time of Austin's departure, but was a massive letdown when they had a dearth of other more enticing options available.

 

But the change in direction for the storyline became symptomatic of a larger problem with Austin's return: the promotion being, once again, built around Austin. The stars that had been built up over the past year, like Guerrero, Jericho, Malenko and others all suddenly found themselves crashing back down to the midcard. Kurt Angle, a pet project of Vince, looked strong unless put up against Stone Cold. The only people who were allowed to compete on Austin's level were Triple H, The Rock, Undertaker and, amazingly, Goldberg ... and only because even Austin saw the money to be made in the eventual Goldberg/Austin match. Suddenly, the mood in the locker room wasn't so sunny, despite the record numbers the company was doing; because Austin equalled money a year before, he simply must equal big money now, even though the company had built on 1999 quite nicely without him.

 

While the WWF became The Austin Show, ECW had their own bombshell announcement in the fall: they put themselves up for sale.

 

More specifically, Heyman put up 49% of the company, citing the need for both a fresh mind in the front office, and more capital in the accounts. Instantly, offers began pouring in, from other promotions both in the States and abroad, as well as private investors. Instead of going for the biggest offer, though, Heyman was shrewd, and picked the person he felt would be the greatest asset to the company, an event promoter by the name of Cary Silkin. Silkin's participation with ECW was minimal, and more described as an "investment" then a purchase; he would attend shows, sit in on creative meetings and made sure he got to know each and every member of the roster, but his day-to-day involvement in the running was minimal. It almost begged the question of why the sale even happened.

 

ECW's on-screen product, however, paid no notice to the split in ownership. Ratings and buyrates continued to be strong, and Unleashed continued to give Smackdown headaches (Thunder, by this point, had jumped to Wednesdays, where programming executives finally discovered that it wasn't the competition killing Thunder--Thunder just sucked on ice).

 

But as the year wound to a close, there would be one more bombshell to hit the wrestling world.

 

The last gasp for air--Winter 2000/2001:

 

Wrestling had always been at the heart of Ted Turner's media empire, because of a fondness in the eccentric billionaire's heart for the sport; southern rasslin' had helped his TBS SuperStation gain a national foothold. When Jim Crockett Promotions was about to go under, Turner rescued it and happily wrote checks to keep the promotion alive, even as it bled money for years. When Eric Bischoff asked for prime time TV, it was Turner who ordered his programming executives on TNT to give it a few hours on Monday nights, against the WWF's Raw. For years, Turner was the life-support system and cheerleader for WCW's continued existence.

 

The merger between internet giant AOL and multimedia super-conglomerate Time-Warner gave the world had a new mega-corporation, AOL Time Warner, which had fingers in the pies of publishing, television networks, movie studios, magazines, the internet, the recording industry, sports ... and an oddball property, a wrestling promotion that just so happened to be bleeding money. Turner, now a little fish in a huge ocean, could no longer underwrite his pet project willy-nilly. It was now someone else's property.

 

And when the suits in AOL Time Warner looked at the books and saw this appendage that was a gigantic money-hole, they wasted no time: WCW was going up for auction. And this time, there would be no reprieve. If it wasn't sold, and sold fast, WCW would wind up alongside the AWA in the graveyard of wrestling promotions that collapsed under their own hubris.

 

Immediately, a suitor stepped forward, a mysterious group of investors named Fusient Media Ventures. Heading up Fusient was none other then Eric Bischoff. And since he was the only one sniffing around, AOL Time Warner began the sale process. WCW.com acknowledged the sale, openly referring to Fusient and Bischoff as "the new owners", and featured an interview with Bischoff about how he was going to change things: no more guaranteed contracts. They'd conserve money by running smaller venues. Performers would be rewarded for better performances. They would build new stars. And cruiserweights would be pushed to the moon. AOL