1996_Project_SMW
03-17-2013, 03:29 AM
what would WCW be like if the deal with Fusient Media actually happened? well with this thread I intend to re-write history and show you my vision of what would happen.
Eric Bischoff was angry, but undaunted. Jamie Kellner, the director of television operations AOL/Time Warner, had just changed the deal that would transfer World Championship Wrestling, its archives and trademarks to Bischoff and his investors in the Fusient Media Investors group. While the company and its assets were still available, the eight hours of programming available on Turner/Time Warner broadcasting were not.
Fusient and Bischoff, who months earlier had purchased World Championship Wrestling and it’s assets in anticipation of taking WCW in a brand new direction, were left scrambling to find a television company that would be interested in showcasing their potential product.
Peter Ligouri, the director of programming at FOX networks, was all too happy to offer Fusient a television deal. Ligouri and FOX thought Nitro would be an incredible brand to add viewers to their upstart FX network. In addition, Ligouri offered Bischoff and Fusient the opportunity to air six Clash of Champions events on their network television station. The premise, similar to what Vince McMahon had done on NBC with Saturday Night’s Main Event, would guarantee that World Championship Wrestling would be appearing on a main stream network.
With WCW’s asking price no significantly lower because of the subtraction of the Turner broadcasting televisions rights, Fusient (at the urging of Bischoff) took the plunge and purchased the once proud wrestling company for pennies on the dollar.
At the time of the purchase, the WCW brand had been devalued because of a mixture of poor booking, backstage politics, and lack of support from Turner broadcasting and the rise of the WWF’s Attitude era. While WCW had once been a cutting edge wrestling product, it was now a joke that could attract viewers. Bischoff was once again forced to redefine WCW because the WWF had taken its formula and improved upon it. Sitting down with Fusient investors in Las Vegas, Nevada, Bischoff outlined his plan to relaunch the WCW brand.
In Bischoff’s mind the WCW name had been dragged through the mud for so long, it was almost unsalvageable. In order to save it, Bischoff and FOX decided to take several months to reorganize, design a new set, hire capable people to produce the new Nitro and come up with a new exciting way to change the company for the better.
The relaunch date would be set for early April, the month following Wrestlemania. The new Nitro would air on Wednesday night; not Monday. FOX and FX were initially disappointed by this choice and fought it, but Bischoff was adamant in not competing with the WWF on Monday or Thursday night. In one meeting Bischoff was blunt and honest with his new bosses and partners.
“What is the point in trying to compete with Vince, when we don’t have a product that can compete? Give me the time to make this company great again and we can talk about that later. Right now, let’s focus on being profitable.”
House shows had quit being profitable for WCW long ago. Like he did when he initially moved WCW to Universal Studios when he first took over the company in the early 90s, Bischoff convinced Fusient and FOX to film Nitro at one location for the first year.
Using his contacts at the Hard Rock Café in Las Vegas, Bischoff secured a parking garage at the Monte Carlo Casino (across the street from the Hard Rock) and began turning into a wrestling studio. With Las Vegas style pyro and production, a stable location with a steady stream of visitors and no road costs; WCW would be able to keep their production costs stable and build their brand. In addition to cutting out house shows, WCW would only run 6 major PPVs a year. The other 6 months of the year would feature free Clash of the Champions cards that could be produced in Las Vegas.
Fusient insisted that PPVs and Clash of Champions cards be done on remote locations to help grow the product’s fan base, but worked with the Monte Carlo and Hard Rock Café Vegas to come up with packages to bring fans to Sin City for a cost-friendly wrestling vacation for new and old WCW fans.
At Turner Broadcasting, Bischoff had been hampered by having to use people that weren’t familiar with pro wrestling product. He frequently was given the dregs from Turner’s other divisions (particularly sports) to produce his program.
While he learned to make the situation work, he was convinced if he could hire writers, producers and camera men that specialized in entertainment and wrestling he could make a slicker and more professional product that would appeal to a wider base. FOX and Fusient provided the money to hire the type of people he wanted and he quickly went to work finding them.
In addition, he realized he needed to hire writers and road agents that a locker room would respect and had innate knowledge of what wrestling fans wanted in their product. In order to do that he would need to rebuild many of the bridges he had burned in his initial tenure at WCW.
Over the ensuing months, Bischoff managed to hire and reconcile with ECW founder, Paul Heyman; former WCW champion, Ric Flair; Flair’s best friend, Arn Anderson; Canadian legend and former WWF champion, Bret Hart, WCW stalwart, Dusty Rhodes; noted booker and wrestler, Kevin Sullivan; former WCW lead announcer, Tony Schiavonne; and Memphis booker, Jerry Jarrett (who was contemplating starting his own wrestling company in Memphis before taking Bischoff’s offer).
With a solid booking and production team in place, Bischoff sat down and began to come up with a plan to rebuild WCW.
Bischoff felt Vince McMahon had missed the boat on Tough Enough. With reality television becoming more and more popular with shows like Survivor and The Real World, Bischoff saw a medium to attract new fans to his product.
Rather than go with a traditional wrestling format or reality television format, why couldn’t he blend the two and help create new stars?
Seeing an opportunity to use WCW’s old wrestling school, The Power Plant, Bischoff came up with an idea to scour the Indy circuit sign some up and coming stars and follow them as they trained and tried to achieve their dreams of becoming main stream pro wrestling stars.
The show, aptly named Power Plant, would be shown weekly and would hopefully help widen WCW’s appeal to mainstream viewers.
As the creative meetings went on Jerry Jarrett proposed two ideas that would radically change the look of WCW. The ideas, both of which were enthusiastically supported by Heyman and Sullivan.
The first was to abandon the traditional four-sided ring and adopt a six-sided ring. The transition, argued Jarrett, would allow wrestlers to do things that other companies couldn’t and help the product look different.
The next idea was to exchange the cruiserweight division with the term “X-Division”. According to Jarrett, the cruiserweight or Jr. Heavyweight titles had been devalued in the eyes of American fans. Instead of trying to redefine that division, he asked, why not just come out with an entirely different concept that wasn’t beholden to weight? As long as the matches were high excitement and fast-paced, it could fit in the division. With the new ring, he felt the X-Division could be a major selling point.
Despite his reservations, Bischoff ultimately relented.
Stocking the new WCW with stalwarts from the old organization, workers Heyman vouched for from ECW and young talent from the independent leagues, WCW was set to return in April. For weeks, promotional commercials featuring Ric Flair, Sting, Scott Steiner, Diamond Dallas Page and Goldberg played across FX and the FOX network to let wrestling fans know that WCW had found a new home.
Bischoff decided that to increase the new WCW’s appeal, he wanted to bring in talent from Japan and Mexico. Using his connections with Konnan and The Great Muta, Bischoff made in-roads with Triple A and New Japan Pro Wrestling.
Bischoff agreed to talent exchanges and intra-promoting on his television show. In his mind, this would bring prestige to the new WCW and add fans from across the globe. For the foreign promotions, aligning with an American promotion could get their stars over in the US.
Promotion: World Championship Wrestling
Promoter: Eric Bischoff
WCW Commissioner: Bret Hart
Ring Announcers: David Penzer and Stephen Deangelis
Referees: Mickey Jay, Jim Molineaux, John Finnegan, Charles Robinson, Nick Patrick and Bill Alfonso
TV Show 1: WCW Nitro on FX
Announcers: Tony Schiavone and Mike Tenay
Interviews: Gene Okerlund, Pamela Paulshock & Joey Styles
TV Show 2: WCW Thunder on FX
Announcers: Tony Schiavone & Scott Hudson
Interviews: Joey Styles, Pamela Paulshock & Gene Okerlund
TV Show 3: WCW Power Plant
Announcers: Mike Tenay and Scott Hudson
Interviews: Gene Okerlund
-Six times a year they also have Clash of the Champions specials that air on the FX network in place of PPV's.
PPV's for 2001:
May 6th 2001: WCW The Big Bang
June: Great American Bash
October: Halloween Havoc
December: Starrcade
WCW Champions:
WCW World Heavyweight Champion: N/A - Bischoff strips Booker T as they let Booker go from the company. on the new Nitro on FX there will be an open invitational battle royal to crown the new champ
WCW Global Heavyweight Champion: Rhino
WCW World Tag Team Champions: Chuck Palumbo & Sean O'Haire
WCW Cruiserweight Champion: Chavo Guerrero Jr
WCW Hardcore Champion: Terry Funk - Bischoff decides to invoke the 24/7 title defense rules made popular by the WWF.
WCW Cruiserweight Tag Team Champions: Billy Kidman & Rey Mysterio Jr
WCW United States Champion: Shane Douglas
Feuds for April-May 2001
Jeff Jarrett vs Rob Van Dam
Rhino vs Goldberg
Palumbo/O'Haire vs The S.A.T.
Chavo Guerrero Jr vs Low Ki
Terry Funk vs Steve Corino
Billy Kidman/Rey Mysterio Jr vs Evan Karagias/Shannon Moore
Shane Douglas vs Hulk Hogan
Lance Storm vs Justin Credible
DDP vs The Diamond Exchange
WCW Stalwarts
Jeff Jarrett
Goldberg
Shane Douglas
Diamond Dallas Page
Hulk Hogan
Natural Born Thrillers (Sean O'Haire & Chuck Palumbo)
Ric Flair
Bam Bam Bigelow
Kid Kash - he debuted in WCW on 3/19/01
Lance Storm
Kronik (Brian Adams & Bryan Clarke)
Dustin Rhodes
Sting
Norman Smiley
Evan Karagias
The Wall
Totally Buffed (Lex Luger & Buff Bagwell)
Scott Steiner
Shawn Stasiak
Mark Jindrak
Shannon Moore
The Filthy Animals (Billy Kidman, Konnan, Rey Mysterio Jr, Tygress and Torrie Wilson)
Chavo Guerrero Jr
The Diamond Exchange (Simon Diamond & Johnny Swinger)
Elix Skipper
Chris Kanyon
Mike Sanders
Hugh Morrus
ECW Invaders
Rob Van Dam
Justin Credible
Steve Corino
Jerry Lynn
Rhino
Sabu
The Sandman
New Jack
Tommy Dreamer
Hot Commodity (Kid Kash, EZ Money, Chris Hammerick, Julio Dinero & Elektra)
NJPW Talent on loan
Great Muta
The World Class Tag Team (Gedo & Jado)
Masa Chono
Taiyo Kea
Shinya Hashimoto
Gran Naniwa
Jushin Liger
Jinsei Shinzaki
Shinjiro Otani
Toshiaki Kawada
AAA Talent on loan
Cibernético
Mosco De La Merced
El Texano
Hector Garza
Heavy Metal
Latin Lover
Perro Aguayo Jr
WCW Power Plant Talent
CM Punk
Colt Cabana
Xavier
Wildcat Chris Harris
American Dragon (a masked Bryan Danielson)
The Christopher Street Connection (Buff-E & Mace)
AJ Styles
Air Paris
Tony Jones
Brian XL
Prince Nana
Kid Romeo
Mike Modest
Indy Talent brought to the main roster
Low Ki
Christopher Daniels
The Amazing Red
The S.A.T.'s (Jose Maximo & Joel Maximo)
WCW in an effort to get money to acquire talent releases the following wrestlers from their roster
Alex Wright
Big Vito
Johnny The Bull
Booker T
Lash Leroux
Jimmy Yang
Shane Helms
Ernest Miller
Mike Awesome
MI Smooth
Crowbar
The Demon
Reno
Rick Steiner
The Harris Brothers
Kaz Hayashi
Disco Inferno
Jamie Noble
Managers/Factions:
The Powers That Be: Eric Bischoff, Jeff Jarrett, Bret Hart, Kimberly Page, Simon Diamond, Johnny Swinger, Rhino & Kronik
Paul Heyman: Rob Van Dam
The Sinister Minister: Rhino, Sabu, Vampiro & Hugh Morrus
Miss Elizabeth: Totally Buffed
Kimberly Page: DDP & The Diamond Exchange
Midajah: Scott Steiner
Francine: Justin Credible
Jack Victory: Steve Corino
Eric Bischoff was angry, but undaunted. Jamie Kellner, the director of television operations AOL/Time Warner, had just changed the deal that would transfer World Championship Wrestling, its archives and trademarks to Bischoff and his investors in the Fusient Media Investors group. While the company and its assets were still available, the eight hours of programming available on Turner/Time Warner broadcasting were not.
Fusient and Bischoff, who months earlier had purchased World Championship Wrestling and it’s assets in anticipation of taking WCW in a brand new direction, were left scrambling to find a television company that would be interested in showcasing their potential product.
Peter Ligouri, the director of programming at FOX networks, was all too happy to offer Fusient a television deal. Ligouri and FOX thought Nitro would be an incredible brand to add viewers to their upstart FX network. In addition, Ligouri offered Bischoff and Fusient the opportunity to air six Clash of Champions events on their network television station. The premise, similar to what Vince McMahon had done on NBC with Saturday Night’s Main Event, would guarantee that World Championship Wrestling would be appearing on a main stream network.
With WCW’s asking price no significantly lower because of the subtraction of the Turner broadcasting televisions rights, Fusient (at the urging of Bischoff) took the plunge and purchased the once proud wrestling company for pennies on the dollar.
At the time of the purchase, the WCW brand had been devalued because of a mixture of poor booking, backstage politics, and lack of support from Turner broadcasting and the rise of the WWF’s Attitude era. While WCW had once been a cutting edge wrestling product, it was now a joke that could attract viewers. Bischoff was once again forced to redefine WCW because the WWF had taken its formula and improved upon it. Sitting down with Fusient investors in Las Vegas, Nevada, Bischoff outlined his plan to relaunch the WCW brand.
In Bischoff’s mind the WCW name had been dragged through the mud for so long, it was almost unsalvageable. In order to save it, Bischoff and FOX decided to take several months to reorganize, design a new set, hire capable people to produce the new Nitro and come up with a new exciting way to change the company for the better.
The relaunch date would be set for early April, the month following Wrestlemania. The new Nitro would air on Wednesday night; not Monday. FOX and FX were initially disappointed by this choice and fought it, but Bischoff was adamant in not competing with the WWF on Monday or Thursday night. In one meeting Bischoff was blunt and honest with his new bosses and partners.
“What is the point in trying to compete with Vince, when we don’t have a product that can compete? Give me the time to make this company great again and we can talk about that later. Right now, let’s focus on being profitable.”
House shows had quit being profitable for WCW long ago. Like he did when he initially moved WCW to Universal Studios when he first took over the company in the early 90s, Bischoff convinced Fusient and FOX to film Nitro at one location for the first year.
Using his contacts at the Hard Rock Café in Las Vegas, Bischoff secured a parking garage at the Monte Carlo Casino (across the street from the Hard Rock) and began turning into a wrestling studio. With Las Vegas style pyro and production, a stable location with a steady stream of visitors and no road costs; WCW would be able to keep their production costs stable and build their brand. In addition to cutting out house shows, WCW would only run 6 major PPVs a year. The other 6 months of the year would feature free Clash of the Champions cards that could be produced in Las Vegas.
Fusient insisted that PPVs and Clash of Champions cards be done on remote locations to help grow the product’s fan base, but worked with the Monte Carlo and Hard Rock Café Vegas to come up with packages to bring fans to Sin City for a cost-friendly wrestling vacation for new and old WCW fans.
At Turner Broadcasting, Bischoff had been hampered by having to use people that weren’t familiar with pro wrestling product. He frequently was given the dregs from Turner’s other divisions (particularly sports) to produce his program.
While he learned to make the situation work, he was convinced if he could hire writers, producers and camera men that specialized in entertainment and wrestling he could make a slicker and more professional product that would appeal to a wider base. FOX and Fusient provided the money to hire the type of people he wanted and he quickly went to work finding them.
In addition, he realized he needed to hire writers and road agents that a locker room would respect and had innate knowledge of what wrestling fans wanted in their product. In order to do that he would need to rebuild many of the bridges he had burned in his initial tenure at WCW.
Over the ensuing months, Bischoff managed to hire and reconcile with ECW founder, Paul Heyman; former WCW champion, Ric Flair; Flair’s best friend, Arn Anderson; Canadian legend and former WWF champion, Bret Hart, WCW stalwart, Dusty Rhodes; noted booker and wrestler, Kevin Sullivan; former WCW lead announcer, Tony Schiavonne; and Memphis booker, Jerry Jarrett (who was contemplating starting his own wrestling company in Memphis before taking Bischoff’s offer).
With a solid booking and production team in place, Bischoff sat down and began to come up with a plan to rebuild WCW.
Bischoff felt Vince McMahon had missed the boat on Tough Enough. With reality television becoming more and more popular with shows like Survivor and The Real World, Bischoff saw a medium to attract new fans to his product.
Rather than go with a traditional wrestling format or reality television format, why couldn’t he blend the two and help create new stars?
Seeing an opportunity to use WCW’s old wrestling school, The Power Plant, Bischoff came up with an idea to scour the Indy circuit sign some up and coming stars and follow them as they trained and tried to achieve their dreams of becoming main stream pro wrestling stars.
The show, aptly named Power Plant, would be shown weekly and would hopefully help widen WCW’s appeal to mainstream viewers.
As the creative meetings went on Jerry Jarrett proposed two ideas that would radically change the look of WCW. The ideas, both of which were enthusiastically supported by Heyman and Sullivan.
The first was to abandon the traditional four-sided ring and adopt a six-sided ring. The transition, argued Jarrett, would allow wrestlers to do things that other companies couldn’t and help the product look different.
The next idea was to exchange the cruiserweight division with the term “X-Division”. According to Jarrett, the cruiserweight or Jr. Heavyweight titles had been devalued in the eyes of American fans. Instead of trying to redefine that division, he asked, why not just come out with an entirely different concept that wasn’t beholden to weight? As long as the matches were high excitement and fast-paced, it could fit in the division. With the new ring, he felt the X-Division could be a major selling point.
Despite his reservations, Bischoff ultimately relented.
Stocking the new WCW with stalwarts from the old organization, workers Heyman vouched for from ECW and young talent from the independent leagues, WCW was set to return in April. For weeks, promotional commercials featuring Ric Flair, Sting, Scott Steiner, Diamond Dallas Page and Goldberg played across FX and the FOX network to let wrestling fans know that WCW had found a new home.
Bischoff decided that to increase the new WCW’s appeal, he wanted to bring in talent from Japan and Mexico. Using his connections with Konnan and The Great Muta, Bischoff made in-roads with Triple A and New Japan Pro Wrestling.
Bischoff agreed to talent exchanges and intra-promoting on his television show. In his mind, this would bring prestige to the new WCW and add fans from across the globe. For the foreign promotions, aligning with an American promotion could get their stars over in the US.
Promotion: World Championship Wrestling
Promoter: Eric Bischoff
WCW Commissioner: Bret Hart
Ring Announcers: David Penzer and Stephen Deangelis
Referees: Mickey Jay, Jim Molineaux, John Finnegan, Charles Robinson, Nick Patrick and Bill Alfonso
TV Show 1: WCW Nitro on FX
Announcers: Tony Schiavone and Mike Tenay
Interviews: Gene Okerlund, Pamela Paulshock & Joey Styles
TV Show 2: WCW Thunder on FX
Announcers: Tony Schiavone & Scott Hudson
Interviews: Joey Styles, Pamela Paulshock & Gene Okerlund
TV Show 3: WCW Power Plant
Announcers: Mike Tenay and Scott Hudson
Interviews: Gene Okerlund
-Six times a year they also have Clash of the Champions specials that air on the FX network in place of PPV's.
PPV's for 2001:
May 6th 2001: WCW The Big Bang
June: Great American Bash
October: Halloween Havoc
December: Starrcade
WCW Champions:
WCW World Heavyweight Champion: N/A - Bischoff strips Booker T as they let Booker go from the company. on the new Nitro on FX there will be an open invitational battle royal to crown the new champ
WCW Global Heavyweight Champion: Rhino
WCW World Tag Team Champions: Chuck Palumbo & Sean O'Haire
WCW Cruiserweight Champion: Chavo Guerrero Jr
WCW Hardcore Champion: Terry Funk - Bischoff decides to invoke the 24/7 title defense rules made popular by the WWF.
WCW Cruiserweight Tag Team Champions: Billy Kidman & Rey Mysterio Jr
WCW United States Champion: Shane Douglas
Feuds for April-May 2001
Jeff Jarrett vs Rob Van Dam
Rhino vs Goldberg
Palumbo/O'Haire vs The S.A.T.
Chavo Guerrero Jr vs Low Ki
Terry Funk vs Steve Corino
Billy Kidman/Rey Mysterio Jr vs Evan Karagias/Shannon Moore
Shane Douglas vs Hulk Hogan
Lance Storm vs Justin Credible
DDP vs The Diamond Exchange
WCW Stalwarts
Jeff Jarrett
Goldberg
Shane Douglas
Diamond Dallas Page
Hulk Hogan
Natural Born Thrillers (Sean O'Haire & Chuck Palumbo)
Ric Flair
Bam Bam Bigelow
Kid Kash - he debuted in WCW on 3/19/01
Lance Storm
Kronik (Brian Adams & Bryan Clarke)
Dustin Rhodes
Sting
Norman Smiley
Evan Karagias
The Wall
Totally Buffed (Lex Luger & Buff Bagwell)
Scott Steiner
Shawn Stasiak
Mark Jindrak
Shannon Moore
The Filthy Animals (Billy Kidman, Konnan, Rey Mysterio Jr, Tygress and Torrie Wilson)
Chavo Guerrero Jr
The Diamond Exchange (Simon Diamond & Johnny Swinger)
Elix Skipper
Chris Kanyon
Mike Sanders
Hugh Morrus
ECW Invaders
Rob Van Dam
Justin Credible
Steve Corino
Jerry Lynn
Rhino
Sabu
The Sandman
New Jack
Tommy Dreamer
Hot Commodity (Kid Kash, EZ Money, Chris Hammerick, Julio Dinero & Elektra)
NJPW Talent on loan
Great Muta
The World Class Tag Team (Gedo & Jado)
Masa Chono
Taiyo Kea
Shinya Hashimoto
Gran Naniwa
Jushin Liger
Jinsei Shinzaki
Shinjiro Otani
Toshiaki Kawada
AAA Talent on loan
Cibernético
Mosco De La Merced
El Texano
Hector Garza
Heavy Metal
Latin Lover
Perro Aguayo Jr
WCW Power Plant Talent
CM Punk
Colt Cabana
Xavier
Wildcat Chris Harris
American Dragon (a masked Bryan Danielson)
The Christopher Street Connection (Buff-E & Mace)
AJ Styles
Air Paris
Tony Jones
Brian XL
Prince Nana
Kid Romeo
Mike Modest
Indy Talent brought to the main roster
Low Ki
Christopher Daniels
The Amazing Red
The S.A.T.'s (Jose Maximo & Joel Maximo)
WCW in an effort to get money to acquire talent releases the following wrestlers from their roster
Alex Wright
Big Vito
Johnny The Bull
Booker T
Lash Leroux
Jimmy Yang
Shane Helms
Ernest Miller
Mike Awesome
MI Smooth
Crowbar
The Demon
Reno
Rick Steiner
The Harris Brothers
Kaz Hayashi
Disco Inferno
Jamie Noble
Managers/Factions:
The Powers That Be: Eric Bischoff, Jeff Jarrett, Bret Hart, Kimberly Page, Simon Diamond, Johnny Swinger, Rhino & Kronik
Paul Heyman: Rob Van Dam
The Sinister Minister: Rhino, Sabu, Vampiro & Hugh Morrus
Miss Elizabeth: Totally Buffed
Kimberly Page: DDP & The Diamond Exchange
Midajah: Scott Steiner
Francine: Justin Credible
Jack Victory: Steve Corino