TMPT Special Feature: Guy Evans on 25th Anniversary of Last WCW Nitro

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3:05for an average of 7 discounts. Multitask right now. Quote today at Progressive.com. Progressive casualty insurance company and affiliates national average 12 month savings of $744 by new customers surveyed who saved with Progressive between June 2022 and May 2023. Potential savings will vary, discounts not available in all states and situations. The upcoming presentation is a two-man power trip on wrestling podcast production. And now for something completely different. Hey, I'm all the favor. I'm in free halls of fame. For the young fans, they don't give it damn. They just give it damn about themselves and what they're hearing now. And I got no problem with those rules. I know the rules are going to end. I'm going to have you try the game that way. And when I even came off with that knee drop on the top rope and he bent me, I thought that something happened. I couldn't hear a thing. You could have heard the pin drop in the arena.

4:06It touched me so deeply that when I went in a dressing room, I really felt depressed. I'd tell you that. I'd tell you right to insane. And the parliament and I, if he wanted to get a real stream fight with me, trust me. He would lose and he knew it. You know, that's the other thing. They'd give you the power and they're like, okay, you're in charge of it. I was like, well, what? Well, you mentioned a guy like Harley-Rade. That kind of legendary status. It's obvious why people would get upset. Oh, as I'm concerned, Robert Piper was not a wrestler. He was an English good worker. If he had to go out and he'd work his way to the top and not have good friends like him bar and ass. I'm not shanning. He's not a good guy. He's just not a tough guy. So I swear to you, I don't have an ego. I don't give a crap. If that stuff is not important to me, people don't know me. They have no idea who I am. They know of me as being a fictional character that they'd drawn. People didn't understand that, you know, the guy they saw in the ring that happened to be using this real man that happened to actually be the president of the company.

5:07They really believe that that guy that they'd loved to hate was actually a pretty decent guy. And I think many people have the perception that I really was that character. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Whether you love true crime or comedy, celebrity interviews or news, you call the shots on what's in your podcast queue. And guess what? Now you can call them on your auto insurance too, with the name your price tool from Progressive. It works just the way it sounds. You tell Progressive how much you want to pay for car insurance, and they'll show you coverage options that fit your budget. Get your quote today at Progressive.com to join the over 28 million drivers who trust Progressive. Progressive casualty insurance company and affiliates price and coverage match limited by state law.

7:55This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Whether you love true crime or comedy, celebrity interviews or news, you call the shots on what's in your podcast queue. And guess what? Now you can call them on your auto insurance too, with the name your price tool from Progressive. It works just the way it sounds. You tell Progressive how much you want to pay for car insurance, and they'll show you coverage options that fit your budget. Get your quote today at Progressive.com to join the over 28 million drivers who trust Progressive. Progressive casualty insurance company and affiliates price and coverage match limited by state law. Hello, and welcome to the two main power trip of Wrestling and Rehost a JP, a job pause with me today. Very special returning guest author historian demand behind Nitro and beyond Nitro, Mr. Guy Evans. Guy, welcome back. How you doing? I'm doing great, John. Thank you so much for having me back. Now, of course, the Beyond Nitro audiobook is out, and it's the 25th anniversary of the

8:58last WCB Nitro. So let's talk first about the audiobook. Tell us about, you know, how that all went down. Yeah, I appreciate you giving me time to talk about that and having me back on the show. So as a lot of people listening to this will know last year was the publication of Beyond Nitro, which is the second book in the Nitro series. And, you know, that that book became the highest selling book we've ever had on Guy Evans books.com. Really successful launch of that book. The one thing that we were missing last year was the audiobook. And so after some, you know, technical snafus and some things to work through, we finally got it done. And it's up now on audible and Apple books. Those are the only two places you can listen to it. It's exclusive through there. It's over 13 hours in duration. And if you're wondering, you know, is it kind of covering the same ground as the first book? The clue really is in the title. It's, you know, content that's going beyond the original Nitro book, pulling out some of the things that were

10:02just touched on in the first book, and actually bringing to light a lot of new information about WCW. And a host of other subjects actually in wrestling history that sort of tie into the WCW story. So if you're someone who's interested in digesting your wrestling literature in that format, once again, you can go to audible or Apple books, just type in Beyond Nitro. And while you're at it, if you haven't listened to the first Nitro book, that is on those platforms as well. So really excited about that. And like I say, I appreciate you giving me the chance to talk about it. Yeah, no problem. So how long did it take you to do the audiobook? Just as far as recording and stuff. You know, the recording didn't take that long. I want to say maybe a few weeks. We just had some some issues in terms of editing and where exactly the audiobook would go in the end. We decided to go down the same road as the first book and make it an audible and Apple exclusive. So I think it honestly worked out extremely well and for the best in the end

11:06because that audiobook, as we're speaking, of course, it's March 26, the 25th anniversary of the last Nitro and the audiobook was just published about five or six days ago. So I think the timing couldn't have been better as far as even more of a renewed interest in WCW happening at the moment. And you know, we're off to a really good start and I encourage people to go listen to him. The craziest thing to me, besides the fact that it's been 25 years, because that's just like mind blowing to me. It's like, I thought, you know, for obviously for a while, because Bischoff's run at WCW's catch Johnny Ace in charge. Like you think Bischoff's buying in a fusion media ventures and all of a sudden WWF ends up buying WCW. When the heck did Bischoff actually find out that he wasn't the bitter? Like, was it a week before? Was it two weeks? Because he's on the Nitro the week before and he's telling the other guys to bring their boots. He does sound somber, though. So it's it's weird. It's like he's saying the guys to bring their boots. So it's like he's book in the next show. But also he's book in Steiner versus Booker T. But then also he's got like a really somber voice to say he's like depressed. Yes. Well, you know, all of the details on that

12:12are in the first Nitro book and some of the final few chapters in terms of exactly when Eric learned about the sale not going through. And if you recall and if you think about the timeline, it wasn't until the Friday the 23rd of March that it was actually made official that the WWF was going to be buying substantially all of WCWs as a company in terms of the it's most valuable assets, including of course the tape library and a lot of the the trademarks and some talent contracts and so forth. So on the on the Monday March 19th edition of Nitro as you're talking about, by that point it had been publicly disseminated and talked about in the press that the shows were being cancelled. But I suppose, you know, the the final ultimate nail in the coffin had yet not come down yet in terms of WWF ended up ending up with the company. So it's kind of a a little bit of a gray area there there. Excuse me, although, you know, in retrospect I think it was fairly inevitable and I think most people close to the situation had a sense that that

13:14was going to happen. The one interesting thing about the fusing attempted takeover which I learned subsequent to doing the first Nitro book and this was something I got from someone who had I would say intimate knowledge of that attempted transaction is the the idea of what that transaction represented for the people involved in the deal. So what I mean by that is I think sometimes as wrestling fans as people who followed the Monday Night Wars back then WCW fans, you know, we sort of sit back and think, man, what if what if that transaction had gone through? What if fusing had actually taken control of the company? You know, there would have been a rough probably two or three years at the at the very least for WCW to sort of regain their standing in the industry and there would have been a serious rebuilding phase. But man, you know, possibly somewhere down the line they could have contended again. Well, according to this person that I spoke

14:17to, you know, they characterized the opportunity as basically being like a flipping opportunity for fusions, meaning we're going to purchase this brand that's extremely damaged that really could not have been tarnished any more than it had been in the preceding sort of 18 months and we're going to look to rehabilitate it and then perhaps a couple years down the line sell this thing onto someone else. So who's to say whether or not is the WF ultimately would have ended up with WCW maybe it would have gone to another group. Maybe it would have been yet another corporation or entity that didn't understand or appreciate wrestling. All of those, of course, are hypotheticals but I did present that to Eric Bischoff in putting together this beyond nitro book and I said, you know, does this perspective sort of jive with your recollections and what your perception was at the time? And what was interesting is he really took a little bit of time to think about it and he ultimately

15:17came to the conclusion that, you know what, based on what you just told me and based on how things went at the time that does sound 100% accurate and he qualified that by saying it wouldn't have dampened his enthusiasm for the deal and even if that would have been made explicitly known at the time he still would have been on board. And, you know, motivations and plans could always have changed, of course, that's not to say they were locked into that kind of scenario but I found that to be kind of an interesting wrinkle to that whole story and again, it's one that personally I wasn't aware of in doing the first book. It is kind of like crazy if you think about it. It's like, man, you know, inside of trading, which I know as so many people have talked about now, but it's like, Stu Snyder, Brad Siegel, is there some sort of insider deal going on here with WWBF that we didn't know but obviously Bischoff didn't know about it either. Yeah, I mean, that's a subject that still generates an awful amount of speculation and conjecture today. I will say that not only did I

16:18interview Stu Snyder for the first book, he agreed to be interviewed again for the second book and I posed an additional set of questions to him relative to some of the continued speculation about his involvement. Keep in mind, he also featured in the Who Kill WCW series and make himself available for a lengthy interview there and directly answered a lot of questions pertaining to his involvement in the deal. So I think you have to give him a lot of credit for opening himself up directly for those questions and everything that I ever asked him, he answered directly. And there's some very interesting details as it relates to the WWF purchase of WCW that this book goes into in terms of yes, on paper, they acquired WCW or it's substantially all of its assets for quote pennies on the dollar. But there was also this additional commitment to purchase advertising

17:22from AOL Time Warner and that was not an insignificant amount of money, it was over 20 million dollars that they were 20.6 million dollars to be exact that they were committing to over a three-year period. And I find that to be quite significant because if you look at the total financial outlay therefore relative to the WWF in that transaction, you're talking about a figure that approaches 25 million dollars as opposed to 2.5 million dollars in cash or sometimes people will quote the figure of 4.2 million dollars when you take into account some of the other considerations involved in that deal. But their actual outlay over a period of three years ultimately was in the neighborhood of 25 million dollars. And if you wanted to get really technical, I could go into there are actually a lot of entanglements that ended up happening with them trying to get out of some WCW license agreements and things like that that ended up costing them even more for a number of years thereafter. But the point is in March of 2001 they were committing to

18:27a total cost of around 25 million dollars. So everything that I just said to you, I posed directly to Steve Snyder and said this seems very significant. What do you have to say about that and what do we make of that? And he responded to it directly and again didn't dodge the question and was very open I thought about how that came to be and people can read about that in the book. And so again it's a subject I think that will always fascinate people the way that that sale went down obviously left a bad taste in the mouth of many of the people who worked in WCW as well. You think about the idea that on a Friday afternoon essentially everyone learned at the same time seemingly out of nowhere that they were being sold to the WF with no opportunity to ask questions of their superiors or clarify exactly what was going on. So you know it was a fairly traumatic moment I think for a lot of people who worked there as certainly a turning point in their professional and personal lives and by extension I think fans

19:31also sense the same thing and it's you know again a lot of these details a lot of these nuances even even when we've had the books now and even when you've had people on the record talking about it I think you know for some people that that speculation will always continue. I love that stew is out there though you know what I mean it's not hiding from it so it kind of makes you seem like maybe it doesn't have anything to hide from or about so that's a good sign. Yeah I think it all really stems from I would say on the part of if we put ourselves in the shoes of the WCW employees at that time and the mechanism by which they learned that this was all going down the the late Friday memo that goes out you know people logging onto the WF website and seeing that apparently they've bought WCW I mean people who worked for WCW were finding that that out the same way that the fans did right so it wasn't like there was a meeting a few days in advance and hey just to let you know we don't want to spring this on you but this is probably

20:35what's going to happen we want you to be prepared for it now you know they felt like they had got worked for lack of a better term by Brad Siegel they felt like this was a swerve at the last minute and they had been misled and you know obviously that is going to foster a lot of concerns related to exactly what went on here especially when people read about the final reported figure of the transaction I think to a lot of people even though I've kind of gone into there what the deal structure actually was but just looking at it on paper that didn't make sense to a lot of people either and there were a lot of people associated with WCW saying hey if I knew that it was only going to be sold for this amount of money I could have put together a group I could have launched a bid with some investors and so on and so forth so again I you know I give people credit for answering these questions especially because we're talking about events that happened a quarter century ago we're also talking about things that in the careers of executives not that they weren't

21:39significant but they are you know one of many things that were going on in their career at that particular time one of many things when they look back on their their life in the workplace that they had to deal with because you know one of the ironic things I think about wrestling and particularly WCW at that time is ultimately a lot of the most important decisions were being made by people who had no affinity or affiliation with the wrestling business rarely right you know they were people who were involved with it on the periphery or were overseeing what was going on but it wasn't like ultimately the final decisions were being made by quote unquote wrestling people so to ask people like that to go back you know a quarter century into the past and talk about something that carries with it a lot of negative connotations as it relates to their involvement I think you do have to give them credit and then ultimately you know what I try to do is quote these people directly at length and then let the reader decide okay does this jive with my understanding of this particular subject and how trustworthy do I determine this person to be and I think that's in many

22:42cases when you're talking about people's opinions and their recollections that's that's the best you can do is to to provide everything that you have to the reader that's like the crazy thing with Brad Siegel and Bischoff like was there a I don't know like a a bad breakup or something like like like it seemed like he had the deal he went on vacation you know he's having some beers at the beach and stuff like so did Brad like work Eric or did it did something change or did Brad not like Eric did something happen there well I think the fundamental consideration inherent to all of this is something that the nitro book put out for the first time which was this condition that was inherent to the fusion deal specifically a provision that said if someone comes along and cancels this wrestling programming we're going to retain the right to

23:42program this time slot on the turn in networks for a certain period of time into the future and that was something you know prior to that book coming out anytime this subject was talked about that was never broached because quite frankly it wasn't known and you know Brian Bedol who was was one of the key people involved with the fusion effort he was the person who first alerted me to that and so you know by the time we get to this stage that you're talking about you know Jamie Kellner has come in by this particular point in time and you know when I had communication with with the late Mr. Kellner you know the subject of his discussions with Brad Siegel came up and so I know quite a bit about that I've heard what Brad Siegel has had to say about that subject as well but I think if you put yourself in the position of a Jamie Kellner at that particular point in time and this is by no means a defense of what happened because clearly I would have preferred if they didn't cancel the shows and I would have liked us to be talking about

24:46nitro that's happening this coming Monday right but that's obviously not what happened but you know he's coming in to this job in early March of 2001 and as anyone would be even though if you look into his background this was a guy who had a tremendous reputation in the TV industry and had a long and storied career as an executive but like anyone else he's coming into a new workplace a new job and I'm sure looking for some easy wins right off the bat and you're presented with okay we have this division here that at least according to our books is hemorrhaging money we have this rebranding effort that is already underway at TNT and TBS where those teams those respective teams have gone out and come up with a new vision for what those networks could be and on top of that we have this deal that is yet to be fully consummated if you like or complete where we're going to be giving over potentially control of prime time slots to this outside agency and so all this outside entity I should say so you can kind of see what the thought process would

25:52have been for someone in Jamie Kellner's position to say hold on why do I want to keep this on the air again because I'm I'm can not only do I have to go back to my people at the networks and say yeah I'm just going to ignore all the work you've done for the last six months on this rebranding thing not only am I going to spit in the face of my financial people but on top of that I'm going to put us in a position where we may lose control full control anyway over programming the time on our networks so you know once I learned all of that context and sort of put myself in the shoes of those decision makers that made a lot more sense so that is all to say that I think ultimately at the end it did have less to do with Brad Siegel than it did Jamie Kellner although of course you know those two were were very much very much you know the central part of all of those discussions at that time so we're at the 25th anniversary at the last night because of all this obviously because they sell to Vince of course so crazy looking back the Vince appears you know

26:53he kind of opens a broadcast he's like well I bought my competition and you know what I mean he's gloating and everything else just absolutely shocking to me as a fan though it's like there's a bit depressing as well yeah I think you're right actually you know when you go back even now and look at that footage it's like okay Vince is acting in his Mr. McMahon character quote unquote right but I don't know if there was that much acting involved in terms of him you know opening the broadcast and gloating about what had happened and you know from a strictly sort of business point of view you would have to say the way that they ended that simulcast was masterful in terms of him you know leveraging his issues with Ted Turner or those we know Ted was you know not a part of the picture or decision making process at the end whatsoever but at least sort of in the fictional realm you know McMahon was able to spin that into his promo he's able to further the storyline between him

27:54and Shane obviously and and able to in the same breath promote WrestleMania 17 which was coming up six days later so you'd have to say from a pure business standpoint what a genius move that was however in consideration of the history and the lineage not only would WCW but prior to that on the turn in networks you know in retrospect pretty depressing to go back and see you have this kind of touching moment in the ring with Flare and Sting and then immediately we fade to Cleveland for you know Vince walking to the ring and I know again you could come back and say well you know by by numerous accounts and this is in the nitro book as well you know Vince was personally pushing for Flare and Sting to end the broadcast that was something that was important to him and so I guess you have to give him that but you know it did sort of end with a whimper really which was unfortunate given you know where that program Nitro was at its peak to think that it

28:56all ended with a fade to a promo on Raw and then as we talk about in Beyond Nitro the last 30 seconds ever on the turn in networks in that time slot for Nitro was devoted to a WrestleMania commercial again genius business move but I see where you're coming from in terms of that being a little depressing to go back go back excuse me go back and watch and and also to think about man it's super depressing and then even to add like insult to injury when he comes out before obviously Shane makes his announcement that he bought WCW and then you know it's obviously swerve and that's leading more fuel to the fire for the WrestleMania 17 match but when he starts naming the guys you're thinking that those in my head those are the guys that he's going to be bringing in why else would he mention them and he does not bring in those guys so it's like you know some of them but not all but it's just that was like the weird part too I was like wait what the hell was that all about was that just him like testing the waters or is that just him being a dick yeah and I remember seeing that at the time and you know feeling hopeful that okay you know obviously at that

30:02time I think it was fairly well known if you were following the wrestling business closely as an outsider it was not a secret that a lot of these guys had contracts that probably would be very difficult to maneuver around as far as bringing them into the WWF at that time this is not something that was learned later on this was known in the moment that this was going to be a challenge but once you saw that happen you said all right well you know maybe they're going to break the bank and do what every wrestling fan has you know dreamed about or wanted to see for a number of years and like you said you know essentially that none of that or hardly any of that materialized and one of the things that I think is very interesting the kind of relates to what we're talking about is when you go back and you look at the viewership for those episodes of raw after nitro goes away and what happens throughout the you know the spring summer and fall of 2001 I think surely there would have been an assumption that we're going to capture a significant portion

31:06of the traditional WCW audience here because there's going to be some curiosity as to how they combine these two entities and and even if you know we don't do a good job with that they're going to watch our show anyway because what else is on the air on on Monday night as far as wrestling goes and it's a cliche to say and everyone does say it and everyone will continue to say it but the reality is that quite literally millions of those fans at that particular point in time or very close to it simply stop watching the product and you know as all wrestling fans or most wrestling fans tend to do you know inevitably there's a period at some point that you kind of come back and tune in to what's happening today and revisit some of these old times but in terms of being weekly devoted viewers of Monday night wrestling for a lot of people after March of 2001 they said okay that's I've had my fill and I'm going to move on to other things and and and so you think about that Vince Promo as you talked about portending this future where we're going to have all of

32:07these stars coming in and I think after a certain point in time you know people realize that that wasn't going to happen and by the time it did happen in many of those cases a lot of those fans had left what was it two years plus until you know Goldberg came in for example right you know by that point in time a lot of those faithful WCW fans had moved on to other things so yeah it's kind of wild to go back and watch that Promo knowing you know what you know ultimately ended up happening and the crazy thing is everyone's like oh you know it was great that you know Nash and those guys got to sit home and and collect money from Turner because they had their contract and they still take time to go to the money contract WWF didn't want to buy out here's the thing about Goldberg which is nuts WWF ended up paying him more money for less dates than they would have had they just bought his contract and it was like man how stupid is that I just was like baffled by some of it and then you come in and and Hogan becomes this huge merch seller's like well if I have a ton more money than we were planning on you know what I mean it's just it was

33:07mistake you have to mistake it's a mistake you know bitch off of course they'd have to pay and bring him in flayer like you could have brought them in and made it a hot angle instead of having a heel stonk hold Steve Austin who WWFired via FedEx be the leader of WW like mid-made notes yeah and I mean so many things happened you know when we think back to 25 years ago this week you think about the Austin heel turn happening six days later and a lot of people regard that as effectively the end of the attitude era right you of okay WCW has gone away now ECW has gone away you know the most popular baby face of that period is now has now turned heel you know in a move the I think hardly anyone would regard looking back as a success so you know the one qualifier I suppose to all of this is the kind of point out that the WCW of 2001 was a far cry from the WCW of 1998 let's say right so when we talk about these kind

34:07of like this super bowl of wrestling idea where oh you know you could have kept these two companies separate and maybe once a year WrestleMania you do WWF or WWE versus WCW I think you know the one thing that needs to be recognized is the fact that the WCW brand had been severely damaged by 2001 and relatively speaking you know very few fans were purchasing their events on pay-per-view that we've still a dedicated TV audience but those pay-per-view numbers had really fell off a cliff now having said all of that and you know this much better than I John how many times have we seen in the history of wrestling characters get a fresh coat of paint right guys that you thought okay this guy is dead in the water his career is over there's nowhere else to go you know they go to a new promotion and all of a sudden it's a new lease of life and they extend their career by number of years or even you know simply a a heel turn or a baby face turn or some kind of

35:08character change all of a sudden revitalizes them and you say you know I didn't see that coming so I say all that to say it would not have been surprising to see a scenario where had those guys come in even with all of the damage the WCW brand had suffered just that novelty of oh wow these these guys are now on WWF TV leading this WCW faction that could have been enough in and of itself to you know almost in one night repair repair a lot of that damage that had been done to the brand because you know only two or three years had really elapsed since WCW was at its peak in terms of its viewership and mainstream awareness and so on so it wasn't like you were going to have to educate this entirely new audience on what WCW was and who those those characters were so again it's it's something that people will always debate and always think about and I think it would be hard not to regard it as a catastrophic missed opportunity really and and something that could have

36:10possibly fended off the decline in wrestling's popularity for another few years had they gone about things differently it is crazy thank you because like DWO comes in and Vince is like I'm going to bring in the end of you and you're going to kill it they're going to kill my creation they were you know they were super over obviously in book and right but when they came in it was like oh my god you know so like you said fresh coat of paint it worked you know what I mean like it was they were super over I would say and I know the end WO hadn't been you know really around that group you will since 99 so it just I don't know some of those things where I feel like Vince was such an ego maniac he was never going to put anything WCW over he even hears later when he brings instinct nationally says he's like oh yeah triple it so he has to beat him because WCW has to lose WF and he's like that was you know 15 years ago he's like nope Vince and Triple H still think that like wow that's crazy what yeah I mean I remember tuning in for that staying triple H match because this was right around the time I actually started to work on the Nitro book this

37:12would a this was 2015 am I right in saying that is that when that match was yeah so that that was right around the time when I was doing the initial interviews and kind of putting together an outline of what it would be and obviously around that rough time frame is when you had WW network I think launched in 2014 and so a lot of people were getting exposed to the old WCW shows again and I remember just being taken aback at the finish of that match when you know you hear on on the announcers you hear the announcers say I'm paraphrasing here but something's of the effect of you know we saw the Monday Night Wars come to life and the right side won again you know and it's just like man this we're talking about 14 years have gone by here like and by that point again we're not talking about two or three years we're talking you know close to 15 years where yes there is going to be a substantial portion of the audience that didn't live through those those times and weren't familiar with with WCW so you know obviously you knew exactly where that

38:17direction was coming from where that line was coming from and so you know it's it's interesting to think about you know in a in a business that is you know predetermined and and make belief a lack of a better term how you know these fictional matches can come to represent something you know much bigger in the minds of some of the decision makers it's it's quite fascinating really so the actual show itself when you're looking at it obviously Panama City Beach I guess it's the boardwalk beach resort technically in Panama City Beach I didn't realize there was a dark match too gingeric beat Jason Jen didn't realize that was going on but right is that is that the correct name I don't remember being called the boardwalk beach resort yes I think it was adjacent if you want if you want to be really technical to club La Vila that's right I was going to say I always knew it as club La Vila yeah yeah yeah yeah that's right so I mean you know the thing that number one thing that comes to mind I think when I think about that that final show again looking at it

39:20differently now in retrospect having established a relationship with a lot of people who works in WCW is thinking about it through the eyes of the people on the production side I mean if you go back and you look at that who killed WCW show and listen to someone like a Neil Pruitt talking about you know the heartache essentially of that day and and what it represented in terms of these people who had been together for so long no longer working together you know what a surreal atmosphere that must have been to try to produce a wrestling show under those circumstances not knowing what your future was going to be not knowing what the future of the company was and in many ways you know very much an unusual show with Steiner and Booker T as the opener you know of course following you know Flair's promo I great and I always found it even at the time I remember thinking when Flair mentions Buff Bagwell if you remember he runs down this list of legends right he again I'd have to go back and watch it but you know we were we were the Steiner's we were staying we were

40:25Luger we were back you know and he mentioned Bagwell in there and I thought that always struck me as quite interesting that he would make that list but you know it was an interesting choice I think to open the festivities with that World Heavyweight title match or unification match I suppose you could say but a lot of unusual things that the Stasiac Bigelow match that effectively over as soon as it started and of course you know I mentioned Bagwell Luger and Bagwell originally was supposed to be on that show and they weren't and you know left the building so a lot of sort of funky things happen but yeah yeah this is a real show to think about and to go back and watch that's for sure the weird thing about Steiner too you could tell he's got the broken foot he could barely move but yet he's you know he's defending the WCW title anyway and he loses it Booker T becomes US champ and WCW World Heavyweight champion but he shouldn't even wrestle right I mean he's I mean he looked like his foot was basically hanging on by a thread yeah and if I recall you could probably

41:30tell me the actual time of the match what was it five six minutes and eleven or ten or eleven seconds I was very short a little bit over five minutes very short and until the point you know and I think Steiner had been one of those bright spots you know for WCW and the infamous year 2000 there weren't a lot of bright spots quite frankly but I think he would have been one of those guys again in an alternate universe if you think about who could have come in and represented WCW as a faction in the WWF you know the strength of his character at that time was such that you know he just used believability I mean there were people in the company who've gone on record since saying you know we weren't entirely sure how much of this was a persona is he really this this loose cannon this madman he was totally unpredictable behind the scenes and so I think what you saw in the camera sometimes was not altogether different than what you saw you know behind the curtain as well so

42:32you know if you remember and if you go back at that time there were rumors leading up to it that he wasn't going to do the favors so to speak that he wasn't thrilled about putting over the book on the last show but obviously as we saw on the final broadcast it was clean as a whistle in five minutes and and book as the new champ yeah it was one of those things where you never know with a scatty Steiner he was a pretty pretty unpredictable I've interviewed him and before I interviewed I was like you know intimidate him nervous and he was awesome so I was like oh he's sick so cuz so maybe a little bit of a persona you know a little bit of a gimmick there but but then I was talking to Mark he knows and he was saying that he literally tried to beat Steiner up like it's almost like it's a joke like to try to see if he could beat him up and he said Steiner like snapped on him beat the hell out of him and Rick had to save him so I was like oh you guess you never know where you're gonna get well you know it's huge that reminds me of a funny story I think it may be in beyond nitro actually Neil Pruitt who's one of the producers for WCW he

43:34was telling me a story about I don't know if you remember the angle where the NWO ran the Steiner's off the road quote yes so good oh with the videotape are so good yes and you know he tells a story that on the day of the shoot when they were all supposed to drive to the location to make this happen you know everyone was there but Scott Steiner and he showed up you know very late and when he did Rick basically chewed him out in front of everyone there you know Nash Hall six the production crew everyone and told him you're gonna sit in the back seat and I'm driving we're gonna go to where the shoot is now and you're gonna sit in the back seat and shut up basically so he said it was kind of an interesting sight to see you know this this mammoth of a man with his reputation even at that time uh basically get get told off by his brother and sit in the back seat he listens to the big brother yeah like he knows was telling a great story and he's like literally Rick was the only one that could convince him because he goes like he's like I might as well kill him

44:36or something I don't think he was really serious about that part but Rick's like okay okay that's enough is that he's like we like Mike that's enough that's enough and Mike was like oh my god he goes I couldn't get him off of me he's like he was just he just mulled me yeah yeah and he knows isn't I mean he knows his bigger than Scott I mean he's a big big dude so right easy just going back to um to the show though to Nitro so who from WWF is kind of running this show from WW7 telling Neil Prood and Jimmy Hart and all those guys what to do Bruce yeah you had Bruce Pritchaday you had Jerry Briscoe then you obviously had Shane McMahon who was the you know I think much earlier than we may sort of think about in our memory banks because of course we think about okay he came out at the end of the show but he was there hours before showtime and one of the stories in beyond Nitro relates to what happened when he did show up and I was kind of taken aback by this because the account that I got from a production team member was that he stepped into the ring while a lot of the guys were there before the show and the production people were surrounding the ring

45:40and he kind of raised his hands in the air and you know positioned himself and the company as the victors and made it clear to everyone how buoyant and jubilant he was about being in that position and it's kind of interesting because there are some people who talk about the address that Shane gave to the WCW crew before the show and you know some people characterize it as being very short and to the point some people characterize it as some kind of an illusion to you know numerous people remember the word merger being mentioned like we see this as a merger of two great companies you know others sort of talk about the fact that he presented himself in a very in very humble fashion but the the the production team member Scott Lansing that I'm talking about who filmed that great footage that we saw from the last nitro on the vice documentary you know he was very adamant in terms of his description of how Shane presented himself there in front of

46:46the whole crew so again that's something that prior to doing this book I wasn't aware of and it kind of makes you think about that night and the relationship between the WWF people and WCW people in a whole different way I would say. Yeah that's I mean that's got to be surreal like the competitions there not only they're there they're taking over they're giving speeches they're taking over the ring I mean just just absolutely crazy to think of like what the hell is going on here and not only that they're like putting the show together and they're still keeping some of the storyline to some of the matches that were from you know from like built up for months almost really with the that that said be cruise rate tag team tournament style versus book or tea like they're keeping some of the stuff but then they're not really going to keep anything you know what I mean it was like weird it's almost like they were oh yeah yeah we're going to keep this going we're going to do this we're going to you know finish this up the right way and and then they cannot don't keep their promises on any of that stuff. That's right and you know I think that that added to

47:46the surreal nature of the broadcast the sort of one foot in one foot out approach like are we going to be continuing these storylines moving forward or is this the is this really the end of the chapter or the end of the story you know if you remember the show had been advertised as the night of champions and based on you know Eric Bischoff's call to Nitro the previous week and some of the materials that they were putting out themselves about the show it was all kind of speculation as to well who's going to come back for this last show right because you know most of these guys obviously were still under contract at that time so are we going to get this parade of guys from the past and obviously that that didn't materialize at all and as you said they kind of quickly wrapped up some angles there were others that almost they were continuing in a way and you know I mentioned Shane McMahon a minute ago one of the things that always stood out to me about this night and I honestly don't remember if this made it into the Nitro book or not but

48:46I remember speaking to some people on the WWF side describing Stephanie McMahon being in tears on that night and her sort of you know sort of shedding the stress and anxiety of this competition for so many years and the relief of you know we finally put them out of business and so you know you pair that with the recollection that I just talked about as it relates to Shane you know this was a very cathartic moment for them where you know this threat had been existential for the WWF and even though this was really WCW on paper by this point and a far cry from what it had been in the past and you know it wasn't as Vince talked about in his promo where you know Ted Turner himself is going to have to deliver the contract to me right this this wasn't the the old setup where it was WCW you know wholly owned under Turner Broadcasting or mostly owned by Turner Broadcasting you know completely different set of circumstances but still you know very

49:50cathartic moment for the McMahon family and by proxy everyone who was close to the family as well yeah that's such a funny line like really Ted Turner like I know he's being Mr. McMahon at that point but really did he really expect that or is he just you know just messing around yeah no you know one of the things I remember talking to Bill Burke about who was the head of the TBS network on the subject of Turner and McMahon he said listen for Ted Turner he did not perceive Mr. or Vince McMahon as being anywhere close to his level right because this is a guy who yes you know extremely successful businessman in the arena of professional wrestling you know not taking anything away from that but you're talking about a certified you know media mogul in Ted Turner and someone who was really one of the most influential Americans of the 20th century and is in many ways directly responsible for the news and entertainment paradigm that we have today and so although

50:56you know I think part of the rhetoric on the part of the WWF often was to position this as a a personal vendetta it's it's Ted Turner doing everything he can to put Vince McMahon out of business you know I think again you can read about this more in the nitro book but the idea that Ted Turner was spending every waking hour thinking about Vince McMahon I wouldn't have been surprised if he barely thought about the man to be honest with you but of course the WWF did a great job of managing those perceptions and creating that idea that this was a a personal blood feud that Vince McMahon ultimately was successful in so you know the arts of managing perceptions I think is central to success and wrestling and they did it always position yourself as the underdog even though it's McMahon versus Bischoff who you know when he first started kind of like a rookie CEO if you will not see yo but a rookie president in the company and then he's billing it like oh I'm feuding with Ted Turner that's really feuding with Bischoff you know

51:56to me that he just tried to be like the underdog that's right and you know there's a reason why you know when Eric talks about Ted the subject of the famous meeting where Ted makes the dictate which as the nitro book talks about had already already been determined in private but makes it known to Eric that this is what we're going to do on Monday nights there's a reason that story comes up so often and that is other than getting phone calls from Ted on Tuesday afternoons when the ratings came in you know Bischoff was not in the room with Ted that often to talk about WCW or any other entity because Ted had nothing to do with the day-to-day running off the company you know whatsoever so you know again very different than the picture I think the WWF tried to paint and you know of course it would have been less sexy I suppose for McMahon to say well I'm really competing against this guy Eric Bischoff you know it makes him sound grander and makes the whole

53:01competition sound more grandiose when it's you know it's Ted Turner's rastling promotion against us and our little family business and you know none of that is to say that WCW didn't have of course certain very significant advantages in terms of being part of that sort of broadcasting empire we talk a lot about the disadvantages of course there were a lot of advantages that came with it as well and it's not like Ted was completely out to lunch when it came to you know what was going on but again no direct or indirect involvement in the day-to-day affairs of the company what so ever and just one data point of many to point to is the fact that as I mentioned the number of times that him and Eric were actually in the same room talking about any other stuff was you know you could probably count on one hand right definitely it's just interesting too like with the show like that they continue with the the WCW Cruiserweight tag tournament Mysterio and Kidman they basically win a three-way tag match under four minutes then they win the tag titles against Skipper and Romeo

54:07to win the vacant basically Cruiserweight tag team or to win the Cruiserweight tag that's under five minutes so it's like they're keeping stuff around but they're making it super short and just like almost like I don't know they trying to appease the WCW audience one last time or they trying to clear things up or they actually looking at these guys like oh we might actually want to use some of these guys let's do quick matches with them well I would I would say you're probably onto something and I think I would also hazard to guess a lot of this had to do with the end of the show being devoted devoted rather excuse me to the simul cast because from what I understand that was something that relatively speaking came you know quite late on the understanding that okay TNT is actually going to allow us to do this so I say all that to say that if you think about the matches that they would have set up in the prior week that would have been under the assumption that we're going to have two hours minus commercial time of course to actually put on all of these matches and then all of a sudden it's well you know most of the last 20 minutes is going to be

55:08devoted to Vince's promo and it's going to be commercial free during that time so now you're trying to fit everything in with the commercial breaks with you know Flas promo at the start video packages if you remember DDP does a you know an interview where he's thanking the fans for the whole you know WCW era and so forth so to get all of that into a condensed show I would say is probably a factor in terms of why those matches ended up being even shorter I would say yeah that's true you've thinking about the simul cast the flayer promo yes all you know all the match jordan even sheath Helms defeats chava Guerrero to retain WCW Cruiserweight title that's under five minutes all heron polombo defeated storm and awesomeness for it to maintain WCW tag titles that's like three minutes like it just felt like almost like a little bit of a test run with these guys but they but almost in line though to what raw was like a lot of those matches on raw were what two minutes five minutes like they're all pretty sure well that's very true yeah and I think you it's an interesting point that you raised because that's something that often gets forgotten about doesn't

56:09it when we think about this this era of wrestling is you know famously a lot of the content was being produced with the idea that the viewer has the remote control in hand and we don't want to give them the opportunity to switch over to either the other wrestling show or another form of programming so you know the pay per views is where you saw you know longer more drawn out matches but in terms of TV matches it was actually quite rad that you'd see a match approaching some of the match times that we see today so although looking back you know as you mentioned you sort of say why five minutes three minutes six minutes whatever it is for these different matches but to your point that's not altogether dissimilar from what the WWF was doing anyway during this time and then of course got a mention sting defeats flayer basically seven minutes 20 seconds or so it's basically under seven minutes 30 seconds but that is the only thing that kind of bishop alluded to week earlier you know the legends can't come back and bring your boots sting comes back and

57:09obviously flayer wrestles so that's kind of the only really tie into what bishop was really mentioning the week before about the legends quote-unquote returning and it wasn't to you know that's a few with the magnificent seven at the time obviously but flayer lose the sting which also is great because in a certain way in a poetic way bookmarks stinging flayer is in the first nitro so also on the last nitro yeah I always really liked the symmetry of that as you said you know the match was a prominent match on the first show and then it closes up you know nitro at the end and I don't think under the circumstance is really you could have had a more fitting end to the WCW era than have those two given who was under contract who was actually available to work and and all of the different considerations at play and you know although you go back and look at that match and obviously flayer has not been in the ring in a very long time famously wrestles in the t-shirt as he's talked about ad nauseam you know he doesn't have his typical confidence a lot of ring rust and so forth

58:12sting is coming back from a lengthy absence as well but even still just their sheer chemistry and just the magic that those two had in the ring together I think carried that match in addition just the awareness that this is the last match we're going to see in a WCW ring so I loved it I thought it was a great way to end the show and you know a truly authentic and real moment in wrestling history I would say when flayer and sting embrace at the end of that match and I know flayer has talked about in subsequent years that you know hey there was no emotion on my part right when I'm giving that promo to start the show when I'm ending things with sting I just want this to I want to get the hell out of here I want I want this to be over with but I think if you go back and you look at that footage and you pair that with some of the things other people have talked about from that night you know there's a story of flayer standing there watching McMahon's promo

59:12almost in in disbelief you know once the the simul cast begins and being you know visibly affected by what's going on I don't know if they're the actions of someone who's like completely checked out and doesn't care about what's happening um so you know I think uh truly a very sort of gripping and uh and and touching end really to not only that match but the show and the whole my true era and it just sucks like like WCB's over you actually lose that fan base and they really don't come back you know I mean like it and it's really just a bit of a bit of a short during the invasion angle they did to pop some ratings that pay-per-view pop the number then everyone saw what they were doing with WCB and that kind of sort of fade and fade and fade and get less so you really lost that audience and and you know it's just a really a sad day for wrestling when you go back it's actually like at times like a heart watch you know if when you watch that last night trail it is because you know I would say if you were to make the argument that the wrestling business

1:00:14generally speaking hasn't been the same since then I think it would be hard to kind of poke holes in that line of thinking or line of reasoning because um obviously everyone knows what happened subsequent to this in a very long period of that being effectively a monopoly in the business and what I detected was after the launch of AEW um you know some optimism certainly and um a lot of people hoping that this could be finally the next uh cycle now for the wrestling business and we're going to have a resumption of um sort of the mainstream pop popularity again of of wrestling and I think it's fair to say and I don't think I'm being harsh and saying that this that obviously didn't materialize um you know we're talking about six years going on now since uh the first episode of dynamite and I suppose you could say it's a feather in the cap possibly um of AEW is a promotion that you know they've been on the turner airways

1:01:16for that long and so on and so forth but um you know the downside of sort of highlighting your longevity as a company as it kind of puts a microscope on the fact that um you know you look at the Monday night war zero relatively short really five and a half years but there were so many impactful moments and matches and angles that happened in that time that here we are 25 years later still talking about it so the idea that you know TNA or AEW or other companies have lasted much longer it's kind of a double-edged sword there because you know have they given you a commensurate number of those magical moments over a lengthy period of time versus what we saw in the Monday night war so um I think that now things have settled down a bit and now we've kind of seen what AEW is and we've seen the new reality of WWE under TKO um I think there has been a shift in the last year or two where um a lot of people have kind of you know seen what the future is likely to hold under this

1:02:22new structure and how the fan is regarded and how um you know the the mindset I would say has shifted somewhat from what it had been in the past I think that's put even more of a spotlight on a time and wrestling history that um you know for a long as long as we're going to be around we'll probably still be talking about and you know I would have said a few years ago that I'm fairly sure that the business is not going to hit those heights again um at this point I'm you know 99.9% sure that um you know unfortunately I think that was likely uh and never say never you know that's why I'll say 99.9% uh these things do go in cycles and all it takes is yeah there could be a star around the corner that none of us even have an awareness of that could completely blow the gates open and here we are with another massive boom period and everyone's talking about wrestling again but at this present point in time there's not a lot of evidence to suggest that's going to happen so I think that makes the WCWWF days even legendary because you know

1:03:26to this point that really was uh was the peak man it's just crazy to think like wow where AEW Dynamite's been on longer than Nitro with literally not even half of the impact like it it's just a remarkable Nitro basically debuts and it's like you know the number one wrestling show pretty much and and you know it's going head to head was growing and really holding its own and the dominating for 83 weeks really two years it's really more than eight three weeks dominates for two years it just been the impact of Nitro will will just I mean live on forever you're never going to see an AEW had the chance had the opportunity had the money at the same network everything it just wasn't even even even able to sniff the Nitro and WCW yeah I mean when you go back and look at it what's really remarkable to me is you think about the amount of goodwill the AW had at the beginning that was a remarkable set of circumstances I would say where you had um the WWE in a position where the fans largely speaking were absolutely sick of the creative output they were losing hope

1:04:29that anything was going to change they knew that a lot of what they were seeing was being designed to appeal to an audience of one and they were sort of lost in the wilderness really you know almost accepting this is just what wrestling is now and you know there's no incentive for WWE to change their approach to programming and of course a lot of that had to do with the exorbitant rights fees that wrestling gets in this day and age the idea of you know we've got to put on our absolute best show because we need to drive people to the arenas or we need them to purchase the paper views in order to sustain our business you know that by by the point in time that we're talking about that had long been an outdated approach to business right they they had such a margin of error because of these TV rights fees that as long as they're roughly roughly speaking as long as they're attracting a consistent audience and not driving people away in droves which is easier to do when you're effectively a monopoly than they were going to be okay and that's to say nothing of you know the guaranteed income streams like the the Saudi deal and the WWE network

1:05:35and all these other things so I think you go back and you you sort of look at the launch of AW and say they could not have possibly been a better set of circumstances you have someone in Tony Khan who's perceived as being this is a fan who who empathizes with our desire for wrestling to be great again and someone who's going to take a completely different approach and is saying all the right things seemingly doing all of the right things of course you had this independent movement that had bubbled up in the wrestling business in the days since WCW where a lot of the stars who had you know made a name for themselves outside of WWE are now going to be all together in this new promotion and I think it's not a coincidence if you go back and look at the ratings you know for that first show 1.4 million viewers and you know a red hot crowd at least from from what I recall watching that first episode and as you mentioned being back on the turn of networks and having a lot of people who are instrumental behind the scenes in in WCW involved as well

1:06:39I think there was a real opportunity there and I think slowly but surely you know the mystique kind of went away and you know the facade you sort of cracks in the facade and now we're in a position where I think I don't think anyone is sitting there saying just give this a little bit more time in AWs going to be a real contender I think you know we're talking about years and years since anyone was thinking that at this point and you know I'm sure the promotion is going to continue probably as long as the Khan family will fund it that is to say likely you know we could do a podcast 85 years from now and I'm sure the promotion will be will be in existence but without sort of the high stakes that we had back in the 90s and the almost life or death battle that the wrestling promotions were in I'm not sure how you can manufacture that kind of intensity and can't miss TV again but but once again we always retain hope because you know in 93 94 I don't think anyone

1:07:42was anticipating oh there's a there's a boom period there's a massive wave of popularity for wrestling coming just give it a couple of years so all it takes is the right star the right person the right promotion and you know we we could be talking about some great days again we'll see good point that's for sure so let's wind it down head towards the finish here give us one last big push and plug for the Beyond Nature audiobook yes well I want to thank you John for making time for me today especially on late notice and on this anniversary um again hard to believe that it's been 25 years but it's always a pleasure to speak with you and I really appreciate that you have supported everything that I've been involved in since the beginning actually since the nitro book came out and everything that's followed and you know as I've said before what a wonderful archive of shows that that you have for anyone like myself or anyone else involved in the history of wrestling to go through so it's always a pleasure to be with you in terms of the Beyond Nitro audiobook as we're speaking it just came out

1:08:49on audible and apple books those are the only two platforms you can get the book so over 13 hours in duration so you stack that against the first nitro book which is also an audible and apple that was over 17 hours maybe 18 hours so if you haven't listened to either book you're talking about you know 30 31 hours of some really great stuff you're going to learn a lot about the WCW days that you haven't heard of before you're going to get perspectives from you know over 200 people when you take into account both of the books and and you know if anyone listening to this does have a chance to check them out I'd love to hear from you either on Twitter you can send us a message at WCW Nitro book or my email is guy Evans WCW book at gmail.com so if you do have a chance to listen to one or both of the books in audio form I'd love to hear from you and get your feedback and just look forward to speaking with you again John. Yes guys thank you always great to have

1:09:52you on love it and love this topic obviously so thank you so much for all the time really appreciate it. You're welcome thank you. This has been a John Paz power trip production in conjunction with the two-man power trip of wrestling you could follow us on Instagram and Twitter at two-man power trip you could check us out on Facebook you could subscribe on YouTube you can go to patreon.com slash tmpt empire to become a patron and also check out the website tmptempire.com and by a shirt at pro wrestling t's dot com two-man power trip where the power lies brother Ryan Reynolds here for mid mobile the message for everyone paying big wireless way too much please for the love everything goodness world stop with mint you can get premium wireless for just

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