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Post by managermike99 on Jan 14, 2021 14:48:50 GMT -5

WCW 2000

One of the biggest jumping off points from reality to fan fiction for wrestling is WCW around 2000; give or take 6 months to a year. While the seeds of destruction had slowly been laid for some time, the accelerated pace that which everything crumbled was still pretty amazing. Of course this was helped by the fact that WWF was doing good business and had much better, fresh, and edgy creative at the time.

It's always easy to be an armchair booker as you don't have the harsh critics (you are really catering to yourself and your own tastes), don't have to deal with the real world personalities and agendas, and of course have hindsight to help.

Despite all that I will be attempting to book WCW 2000, and while I may feel it will be a success, I have no illusions that I actually could have saved the company or turned things around because I'm sure I would have been eaten alive by the egos and career machinations of corporate WCW.

My WCW 2000 will occur officially starting right after Souled Out (Jan 16, 2000). I will post the actual results starting on January 1st through Souled Out to set the stage with no changes. However, there are certain things going on in the background to set the stage for January 17th that were not happening in the real world.

Specifically the following;
Bill Busch and a couple other WCW corporate types were already growing tired of Vince Russo and Ed Ferrera. They realized that giving Russo the keys to the kingdom was a mistake, and that they needed a countervailing presence. Unbelievably they were trying to go back to the well and talk Eric Bischoff into returning. While Bischoff would eventually return in real life he at first had balked. In this world Busch began to openly explore giving the book again to Kevin Sullivan (which he eventually did). However, in my alternative world he would have been trying hard to sign the dissenters, Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, Dean Malenko, Perry Saturn. In his talks with the dissenters Busch would realize that they were giving him lip service and they were WWF bound. However, they were actually supporters of Russo and did not like the idea of the book going to Sullivan, Dusty Rhodes or Kevin Nash as they believed that the middle weights would be buried. So Busch asked them who they would suggest he hire if he would not relent and keep Russo. After knocking some names back and forth it became evident to Busch that the best choice would be someone who was creative like Russo but not a current wrestler. There was one name that seemed absurd but was thrown out by the Dissenters because they didn't think he would go for it; Paul Heyman.

Heyman of course hated WCW, and for various reasons had thrown his lot in with Vince and WWF, while trying to keep his struggling ECW alive. WCW of course had been the bane of his existence hiring away many of his workers while WWF had actually helped him out with some cross promoting invasion angles and a bit of cash.

In the long run though Heyman was a business man and his association with WWF was forged when they were trailing WCW, so it was a case of mutual beneficial interests. With the writing on the wall and WCW's plunge Heyman must have known the terms of his deal with WWF would change unfavourably against him, plus he was only months away from folding ECW. A deal with WCW that would not only pay Heyman a good salary but also keep ECW afloat and not awash with red ink would appeal to him. The final piece of the puzzle to convince Heyman would be the ability to run his own show with guys he knew like the Dissenters, and not having to deal with the big egos like Hulk Hogan.

As Souled Out approached Busch was finally able to come to an agreement with Heyman. As part of that agreement would be a Six month extension for each of the dissenters. Basically it was a full years pay over six months to convince them to stay.
Looking at history Busch realized that competition between companies, the spilling over of real life into wrestling, and the big angles were what drew money. Busch was going to put in a product that had all of that.

The idea was simple; Kevin Sullivan would get the book for Nitro, and Paul Heyman would get the book for Thunder. The Dissenters would join Heyman in Thunder and other wrestlers would be free to decide which product to join (for real, it would be their decision). However, the money at Thunder would likely be smaller than Nitro but the ability to participate more, share in the gates, etc would appeal to the wrestlers who were not on the fat guaranteed contracts. A new salary and bonus structure would be put in place to get wrestlers to try and push their show to higher ratings and ad revenue. For the most part wrestlers would need to commit to one show or the other. This would extend right to the front office with a delineation of the groups in charge of advertising and promotion, so that their income and futures would be linked to the brand, not the company. The corporate layer headed by Busch would still exist to play referee, human resources, etc of course, but the entrepreneurial spirit that had vaulted WWF to the top would be cultivated in the new WCW. Busch would appoint liaisons to the shows to make sure their plans did not cross the line before airing but the secrecy would be of paramount importance. Busch would even warn both sides that there would likely be spies and loose lips in both dressing rooms so they would have to navigate how much to tell the talent in order to balance secrecy with getting buy in from the wrestlers. In that vain the actual announcement of Heyman being the man will be kept under wraps for the first few weeks from the talent and the press. It may not be the nicest thing to do but there will be people putting their names forward to be the new commissioner of Thunder in basically a worked shoot.

This was the plan put forward, and after a few weeks to think about it Paul Heyman finally agreed to terms just a couple days before Souled Out. One stipulation was that the Dissident four would have to agree to new contracts before his would take force. The 4 were presented with the new contract offers on the 15th, and as Souled Out went live they had still not agreed to terms.

The rest of the WCW were not familiar with what was about to happen, but Busch took Arn Anderson who was scheduled to be the guest referee and Sid Vicious into his confidence, telling them to make sure Sid got his foot under the ropes before submitting to the crossface. Busch told them that WCW was trying to woo Benoit into staying in WCW and this way if he did not sign his contract before Nitro than they would reverse the decision. I'm sure Sid and Arn were not impressed by this tactic but of course agreed to go along with the plan.

The next PPV Feb 20th SuperBrawl X would be a Nitro controlled show, while the following one on Mar 19th Uncensored could be a Thunder controlled show if they had their acts together by the end of February to pull off a PPV. After that we might do a co-produced PPV, we'll wait and see. As part of the concept, the shows that are producing revenue will get the perks including control of PPV's.

Booking The Shows;
I will fantasy book both Nitro and Thunder, along with the other shows and PPV's. I may even post RAW/Smackdown and ECW actual results just for context. Thunder will be a clean break and a new direction, but I will not really attempt to make Nitro "better", but will just try to continue to book it with the angles and matches that Sullivan was booking anyway. Some adjustments will be made because of wrestlers leaving for Thunder but in a short 6 month window that I am envisioning, it's unrealistic to think Sullivan and his booking crew is going to change their ways.

I would welcome all help with pointing out errors, facts, omissions, etc, as well as opinions on the shows. I will try and post previews to facilitate that with things like (oh, he was actually injured then) or, I don't think Hogan would have agreed to do that because of X, Y, Z. Paradoxically, the focus of the Thunder show will be more in ring action or at least a good mix of sports entertainment instead of constant swerves, Dusty finishes, and absurd angles yet the show write ups will focus more on the out of ring. I will not try and describe everything that goes on in the ring. We will have to assume that a Dean Malenko vs Rey Mysterio Jr match for 10 minutes is a decent show while Big Vito vs Chris Harris for 3 minutes with five run-in's is a tire fire inside a train wreck.

This will be slow. It might take me two weeks or longer to cover one week of real time. Again I only plan to do six months so that's fine, no rush.

After Six Months how successful will each show be? Who will still have jobs and who will leave on expiring contracts, and who will be fired? How will this change the direction of WCW in the future? Will the dissidents stay or will they leave for WWF anyway?

Post by managermike99 on Nov 24, 2020 11:13:03 GMT -5

Post by managermike99 on Jan 14, 2021 14:48:50 GMT -5