#FiftyMatches: "WCW Is Back In Business!"

Booker T v. Buff Bagwell

WCW Championship

Monday Night Raw
July 2, 2001

"WCW is back in business!"

- Scott Hudson

It's not often that you see World Wrestling Entertainment take a backseat to another organization. In the long history of Monday Night Raw, it's happened on only two occasions I can recall. The first, was on February 24, 1997. The World Wrestling Federation brought in Extreme Championship Wrestling to help fill out an episode of Raw. At the time, ECW was promoting the first pay per view event in its history, and the two organizations had a mutual adversary in World Championship Wrestling.

Just over four years later, it was WWE on top of the professional wrestling industry. In fact, its grip was so tight it now controlled the two companies that were once its closest rivals. From the moment WWE purchased WCW in early 2001, fans were anticipating an epic battle between the two brands. They weren't the only ones. WWE was dreaming big too. Just read their news release from March 23, 2001.

The purchase of WCW creates a tag team partnership with the WWE brand that is expected to propel the sports entertainment genre to new heights. 

In keeping with the company's strategic alliance with Viacom, new WCW programming is anticipated to air on TNN in the near future. The possibility of cross-brand storylines and intrigue, however, may start as early as Monday night during WWE Raw Is War on TNN and the final performance of WCW Monday Nitro Live on Turner Network Television (TNT).

Three days later, fans had their collective minds blown when the final episode of WCW Monday Nitro went on the air.

That mention of a WCW show on TNN wasn't the blind bluster of an overly optimistic news release. WWE was serious about it. Viacom had lured Monday Night Raw over to The National Network from its longtime home on the USA Network. Less than a month after purchasing WCW, it appeared WWE was well on its way to securing a Saturday night time slot for the brand. The show was tentatively scheduled to premiere at 11 p.m. on June 9, 2001.

Unfortunately, the WCW that WWE had purchased was a mere shell of the company that had once been so dominant during the Monday Night Wars. WCW's biggest stars had lucrative, guaranteed contracts with AOL Time Warner. Most were content to sit at home collecting checks for doing nothing. Some did it for years. You can't blame them. WWE couldn't lure enough of the big WCW stars to get off their couch, and TNN got cold feet about the Saturday night time slot. WWE would have to find somewhere else to feature its new property.

By the beginning of July, there was a new idea. WWE would essentially vacate the time slot used for Monday Night Raw, and hand it over to its new WCW brand. Yes, after winning the Monday Night Wars, which nearly put it out of business, WWE was ready to at least consider giving those two hours it had fought so hard to defend to WCW.

It was a daring idea, but there would have to be a test run before the plan could proceed. That brings us to July 2, 2001 - the night Monday Night Raw was transformed into a strange sort of resurrected WCW Monday Nitro.

The popular story shared among most wrestling fans is that this match is so terrible and so loudly panned by the live audience, that WWE had no choice but to pull the plug on a self-sustaining WCW brand. The truth is, there were bigger forces at play.

This match is basically an average, live television match. The discontent from crowd is what drags it down. It's there almost immediately after the bell rings. There's the timeless "boring" chant, and even an ahead-of-its-time "this match sucks" chant. It's hard to fault the two men in the ring. What did WWE expect? It told its fans for years that WCW was an inferior product. WWE fans had seen those claims manifest themselves into reality. Of course WWE fans booed a WCW match. It's not what they wanted to see.

You do have to give some credit to Bagwell, in what turned out to be his only match in WWE. He tries to focus the crowd's unrest onto himself instead of the match itself. Before we have a chance to find out if his efforts will pay off, the match is over, courtesy of “Stone Cold” Steve Austin and Kurt Angle attacking Booker T to cause the disqualification finish. The point I'm trying to make is, there is nothing objectionable about this match other than the fact that the WWE crowd is unwilling to accept a WCW product.

It does include one guilty pleasure that I feel obligated to point out. I really enjoy listening to Scott Hudson repeatedly gush over the physical and mental attributes of Linda McMahon. I'm not arguing. It's just such an odd thing to hear during a WWE broadcast.

Looking back, it's obvious that WCW was never going to work as its own independent brand. It was not something old WCW fans could embrace, nor was it something WWE fans wanted at the time. It was a watered-down version of its final, forgettable incarnation before the WWE buyout.

Vince McMahon and company gave their new WCW a chance. They wanted it to succeed, but they learned quickly that their fans would never support it. So, the WCW performers were transformed into cowardly bad guys and the rest is disappointing professional wrestling history.

This match, like the Invasion itself, was doomed from the start.