History of World Championship Wrestling

In March 1985, McMahon sold his TBS time slot and the "World Championship Wrestling" name to JCP under pressure from Turner.[8] The WWF and its major superstar, Hulk Hogan, however, were now the superior figures of wrestling after the success of the first WrestleMania, so the sale took place to put the company in better shape. The new WCW, which was now a combination of JCP and Championship Wrestling from Georgia, was now the top show on TBS, and Jim Crockett, Jr. became NWA President for the second time.[9]

By 1986, JCP controlled key portions of the NWA, including the traditional NWA territories in North and South Carolina, Georgia, and St. Louis, often attributed to the success of the Jim Crockett Sr. Memorial Cup, which showcased talent from various NWA territories, as well as a working cross-promotional relationship with Verne Gagne's American Wrestling Association. JCP merged its NWA territories into one group, promoting under the banner "NWA World Championship Wrestling". This sparked a feud between Crockett and Vince McMahon's WWF, and the companies attempted to outmaneuver each other to acquire key television slots. WWF's feud between Hulk Hogan and Paul Orndorff appealed to a national audience, and thus the promotion's popularity grew. Following this, Bob Geigel became the NWA President once again.[9]

In the same year, JCP also purchased Geigel's Heart of America Sports Attractions,[10] promoters of the NWA Central States territory, which owned the rights to promote wrestling shows through the states of Kansas, Missouri, and Iowa.

In 1987, JCP would enter into an agreement to control Championship Wrestling from Florida, and Universal Wrestling Federation, a former NWA territory, which covered Oklahoma, Mississippi, Arkansas, Texas and Louisiana; this helped elevate Crockett to a third tenure as NWA President. The Florida and Mid-South territories (along with those companies' rosters of wrestlers) were absorbed into WCW. JCP now owned NWA St. Louis, the Universal Wrestling Federation, Mid-Atlantic, Central States Wrestling, Championship Wrestling from Georgia and Championship Wrestling from Florida.[11]

JCP had almost accomplished its goal of creating a national promotion. Between the purchasing of several NWA territories, World Class Championship Wrestling in Texas leaving the NWA in 1986.[12] JCP was the last bastion of the NWA, and the last member with national television exposure. Although JCP and the NWA were still two separate legal entities, with Crockett as NWA President, the NWA was effectively reduced to an on-paper organization funded by Jim Crockett Promotions, and allowed JCP to use the NWA brand name for promoting.

With the large amount of capital needed to take a wrestling promotion on a national tour, the various territorial acquisitions had seriously drained JCP's coffers.[13] In 1987, JCP marketed the fifth installment of Starrcade as the NWA's answer to WrestleMania. However, the WWF promoted their first Survivor Series event on the same day. The WWF informed cable companies that if they chose to carry Starrcade, they would not be allowed to carry future WWF events.[14] The vast majority of companies showed Survivor Series (only five opted to remain loyal to their contract with Crockett, resulting in only an $80,000 profit after expenses).

In January 1988, JCP promoted Bunkhouse Stampede, and McMahon counter-programmed with the first Royal Rumble on USA Network. Both NWA events achieved low buyrates. The decision to hold these events in Chicago and New York alienated the Crockett's main fanbase in the Carolinas, hampering their drawing power for arena shows in the Southeast.[15]

In 1984, Crockett had signed Dusty Rhodes and made him the booker for World Championship Wrestling. Rhodes had a reputation for creativity and authored many of the memorable feuds and story lines of this period and gimmick matches such as WarGames. By 1988, after four years of competition with Vince McMahon and a long political struggle with champion Ric Flair, Rhodes was burnt out.[16] Fans were sick of the Dusty finish that had obliterated the once-profitable house show market. One of the last creative aspects Dusty Rhodes initiated was Clash of the Champions I on the night of WrestleMania IV. For a quarter-hour, the Ric Flair vs. Sting match gained more viewers than WrestleMania. By the end of 1988, Rhodes was booking cards seemingly at random, and planning at one point to have mid-card wrestler Rick Steiner defeat Ric Flair in a five-minute match at Starrcade for the NWA World Heavyweight Championship. In 1988, Rhodes was fired by the promotion after an angle he booked on November 26, where Road Warrior Animal pulled a spike out of his shoulder pad and jammed it in Rhodes's eye busting it wide open, despite a strict "no-blood" policy laid down by Turner after his recent purchase of the company.[17]

During the period that WCW operated with its own World Heavyweight Championship while also recognizing the NWA's world title, Flair left the WWF on good terms and returned to WCW, regaining the NWA title from Barry Windham in July 1993.[24] Immediately, the other, now smaller, member organizations of the NWA began demanding that Flair defend the title under their rules in their territories, as mandated by old NWA agreements. The title was later scheduled to be dropped by Flair to Rick Rude, a title change which was exposed by the pre-taping of matches at the Disney-MGM Studios known as the Disney tapings. The NWA board of directors, working separately from WCW, objected to the title being changed without their vote and WCW finally left the NWA for good again in September 1993. WCW still legally owned and used the actual belt which represented the NWA World Heavyweight Championship, however, and Rick Rude even defended it as the "Big Gold Belt", but they could no longer use the NWA name. The title thus became known as the WCW International World Heavyweight Championship as the World Heavyweight Championship as sanctioned by fictitious subsidiary WCW International.[31] WCW claimed that WCW International still recognized the belt as a legitimate World Championship. For a short while, there were essentially two world titles up for competition in the organization, with Sting winning the WCW International title, while Flair captured the WCW World Heavyweight Championship from Big Van Vader. The two titles were unified by Flair in a match on June 23, 1994, when the experiment was jettisoned.[32] The Big Gold Belt was then used to represent the lone world championship in the company. It was used as such until WCW's closure in 2001, and for a time in the WWF.

Beginning in 1994, Bischoff declared open war on the WWF and aggressively recruited high-profile former WWF wrestlers such as Hulk Hogan and "Macho Man" Randy Savage to work for WCW. Using Turner's monetary resources, Bischoff placed his faith in established stars with proven track records. Due to their high profiles, however, Hogan and Savage were able to demand concessions, such as multi-year, multimillion-dollar contracts and creative control over their characters. This would later become a problem during subsequent years of competition with the WWF, as other wrestlers were able to make similar demands, and contract values soared out of control. Hogan in particular was able to gain considerable influence through a friendship with Bischoff. Hogan's received $700,000 per pay-per-view appearance plus 25% of the gross revenue from the pay-per-view. He was paid this amount whether the pay-per-view was successful or not. Hogan's creative control would later prove to be a large hindrance during WCW's future success, such as during Starrcade 1997.

Nevertheless, WCW's first major pay-per-view event since Hogan's hiring, Bash at the Beach, saw the former WWF mainstay cleanly defeat Ric Flair for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship. When WCW delivered the match, the event drew a high buyrate by WCW standards due to mainstream intrigue. Despite being a critical and financial success, the feud would only result in one more match (at Halloween Havoc) and the hope for long-term effects on pay-per-view buyrates and ratings did not materialize. Turner management came to this realization when they checked up on the state of the company in mid-1995. Hence, Bischoff called Turner and requested a private meeting, which he was granted.

At their meeting in 1995, Turner asked Bischoff how WCW could conceivably compete with McMahon's WWF. Bischoff, not expecting Turner to comply, said that the only way would be a primetime slot on a weekday night, possibly up against the WWF's flagship show, Monday Night Raw. Turner granted him a live hour on TNT every Monday night against Raw, launching WCW Monday Nitro, which debuted on September 4, 1995, live from the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota.[44][45][46] The show was expanded to two live hours in May 1996 and later three in February 1998. Bischoff himself was initially the host, alongside Bobby Heenan and ex-NFL star Steve "Mongo" McMichael.

The initial broadcast of Nitro, running unopposed because of the pre-emption of Raw for US Open tennis coverage on the USA Network, featured the return of Lex Luger (who had been in the WWF since 1993) to the WCW audience.[47] Luger had just come off a moderately successful run in the WWF, and was at one time one of the company's top stars.[48] Furthermore, Luger had wrestled on a house show for the WWF in Halifax, Nova Scotia, the night before his appearance on Nitro, and thus WCW fans would be intrigued to see others possibly "jump ship". This marked the beginning of the Monday Night Wars.

Early on, Bischoff vigorously promoted his new show by giving away Raw results on Nitro, as Raw, unlike Nitro, was mostly taped in advance.[49] Bischoff took another famous jab at the WWF on December 18, 1995, when he brought reigning WWF Women's Champion Debrah Miceli (who had previously competed in WCW as Madusa) back to the promotion as her WWF character Alundra Blayze and, live on Nitro, had her publicly denounce the Blayze character and throw the WWF Women's title belt in a trash can, reclaiming her Madusa moniker in the process.[50] The WWF responded to this by creating a series of skits, which featured parodies of Ted Turner ("Billionaire Ted"), Hulk Hogan ("The Huckster"), Randy Savage ("The Nacho Man"), and interviewer "Mean Gene" Okerlund ("Scheme Gene"), which were said to infuriate Turner, thereby giving him more motivation to compete (though Turner would later admit that he wasn't offended by the skits, and instead found them funny.)

The tide began to turn in WCW's favor on Memorial Day 1996 when Scott Hall, who had wrestled in the WWF as Razor Ramon, interrupted a match by walking down through the crowd into the ring. Hall said that he and two of his associates were going to "take over." Many thought he meant Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels, who were still with WWF. Hall challenged the best WCW wrestlers to stand up and defend the company against their onslaught.[51]

The next week, Hall reappeared on Nitro and pestered the WCW announcers. The two traded blows, and in response Hall promised Sting a surprise the next week. This surprise ended up being Hall's friend and former WWF Champion Kevin Nash. Nash delivered his own speech to Bischoff, warning Bischoff, "The measuring stick just changed here...you're looking at it.", and in the weeks following Hall and Nash were collectively referred to as "The Outsiders." Both men took to showing up unexpectedly during Nitro broadcasts, usually jumping wrestlers backstage, distracting wrestlers by standing in the entranceways of arenas, or walking around in the audience. Within a couple of weeks, they announced the forthcoming appearance of a third member.

At Bash at the Beach 1996, Hall and Nash were scheduled to team with their mystery partner against Lex Luger, Randy Savage and Sting. At the onset of the match, Hall and Nash came out without a third man, telling Gene Okerlund that he was "in the building," but that they did not need him yet. Shortly into the match, a Stinger Splash resulted in Luger being crushed behind Kevin Nash, and being taken away on a stretcher, reducing the match to The Outsiders vs. Sting and Savage. Hall and Nash took control of the match when Hulk Hogan came to the ring. After standing off with The Outsiders for a moment, he suddenly leg dropped Savage, showing himself to be the Outsiders' mysterious third man. Giving an interview with Okerlund directly after the match, Hogan claimed the reason for the turn was that he was tired of fans that had turned on him. Hogan referred to a "new world organization of wrestling". The faction was soon dubbed the New World Order (nWo), beginning a feud between wrestlers loyal to WCW and the nWo. The fans in attendance were so outraged at Hogan's betrayal that they pelted the ring with debris, such as paper cups and plastic bottles, for the duration of his interview. One fan even jumped the security railing and tried to attack Hogan in the ring, but was swiftly subdued by Hall, Nash, and arena security.[52]

According to Bischoff, the original plan for the nWo was to have Sting be revealed as the third man rather than Hogan, but Hogan convinced Bischoff to make him the third man instead, with the reasoning that the third man needed to have WWF name value much like Hall and Nash did during their initial appearances as the Outsiders. Because of his tremendous success as the face of the WWF in the 1980s and early 1990s, Hogan was universally associated with the WWF and therefore was the perfect choice to lead the nWo. Hogan's heel turn at Bash at the Beach marked the first time in over 15 years that he portrayed a villainous character, and also served to revitalize his in-ring persona after his "Hulkamania" gimmick started to grow stale with WCW's audience.

Shortly after, the WWF filed a lawsuit, alleging that the nWo storyline implied that Hall and Nash were invaders sent by Vince McMahon to destroy WCW, despite the fact that Bischoff asked Nash point blank on camera at The Great American Bash, "Are you employed by the WWF?" to which Nash emphatically replied "No". Another reason for the lawsuit was the WWF claimed Scott Hall acted in a manner too similar to the character Razor Ramon which was owned by the WWF. The lawsuit dragged out for several years before being settled out of court. One of the settlement's terms was the right for the WWF to bid on WCW's properties, should they ever be up for liquidation, a settlement that would prove invaluable in the future.

Though they were an on-screen threat to WCW, the nWo would prove helpful in the early stages of the ratings war. On the September 23, 1996, episode of Nitro, with most of the WCW roster over in Japan, the group took over the entire show, including the broadcast booth and the ring announcer's role, and branded the episode as their own. The Giant served as ring announcer and Hollywood Hogan, Syxx, Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, Vincent, Ted DiBiase, and Eric Bischoff (the latter of whom was not part of the faction at the time) were at the broadcast table.

Largely due to the nWo angle, Nitro defeated Raw in ratings for 84 consecutive weeks. During this time, WCW occasionally revealed the endings to pre-taped Raw matches at the beginning of its live broadcast. Bischoff reasoned that fans who were open to switching between the two programs would be less inclined to switch to Raw if fans knew ahead of time how the matches would end.

In 1997, WCW entered its peak. The nWo began feuding with the revived babyface Four Horsemen as well as the returning WCW hero Sting. Sting had changed his gimmick when he returned to WCW television, becoming a darker, brooding character, largely based on The Crow. Sting would be in the rafters of WCW arenas watching the WCW/nWo feud, and sometimes rappel down into the ring to help WCW wrestlers fighting the nWo. The latter feud served to build up Starrcade in December. When WCW delivered the Sting vs. Hogan match for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship, the event drew WCW's largest buyrate and Bischoff was largely praised in the months leading up to this event because of his refusal to give away ("hotshot" in wrestling slang) a Sting vs. Hogan title match for free or without proper buildup.[53] Indeed, the Hogan/Sting angle endured for approximately 15 months.

Wrestling fans consider this show to be the beginning of the end for WCW, even though they were still leading the WWF in television ratings.[54] Hogan was heavily criticized for not allowing a clean finish to the match, which confused and irritated fans who had waited over a year to see Sting take down the nWo. The finish actually involved a recently introduced Bret Hart, who had refereed the preceding match between Bischoff and Larry Zbyszko for control of Nitro, coming down to the ring after Hogan had supposedly won the match. Hart alleged that referee Nick Patrick had performed a fast count on Sting and wanted to "make things right".[55] By many accounts, however, including Bischoff's in his memoir Controversy Creates Cash, the count looked like a normal count, so Hart's protestations did not make sense; replays of the three-count on later shows had the video sped up to hide this. Hart insisted that the match continue with himself as referee, in order to prevent Sting from being "screwed" like Hart had legitimately been at the Montreal Screwjob the month prior, which had ended his run with the WWF and hastened his arrival in WCW.

In essence, whereas fans were promised a classic battle between Hogan and Sting in which the latter would defeat the leader of the nWo, they were presented with a faux reverse-tide potshot at the Montreal Screwjob. The inclusion of Hart himself confused and frustrated fans even more as Hart had no part in the feud between Hogan and Sting. In the aftermath, Sting was stripped of the WCW title on January 8, 1998, on the debut episode of WCW Thunder. Hogan and Sting would face each other again for the vacant championship at SuperBrawl VIII the next month.

Starrcade represented in many ways WCW's golden opportunity to pull even further ahead of the WWF. With WCW steadily making money and firmly dominating the ratings battle, the pay-per-view could have been a devastating blow to the WWF's comeback. However, WCW alienated its fan base instead. Even though the buy rate for Starrcade was the largest WCW had ever seen for a PPV, it was the turning point in the Monday Night Wars and the WWF would soon be on the rise.

In 1998, WCW's ratings began to decline, partly due to the overuse of celebrities in pay-per-view matches, such as Dennis Rodman and Jay Leno.[65][66] WCW's credibility was also damaged by product placement, such as Rick Steiner trading barbs with Chucky in order to advertise the film Bride of Chucky.[67]

In addition, top-level stars had no motivation to excel in the ring due to their long-term contracts. WCW did not promote its younger stars to the company's top slots (a charge admitted by Bischoff). Despite having talented younger wrestlers like Chris Jericho, Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, and Rey Mysterio, Jr. on its roster, they were kept away from the main event scene.

WCW programming had started to decline in quality, leading to a loss of viewers, and the company attempted to retain their talent with high-value contracts. Talents were reportedly signed to keep them from appearing on WWF television. At one point, WCW held over 260 individual performers under guaranteed contracts, many of whom rarely appeared in its programs. During one Thunder program, only 15 of the 260 contracted wrestlers appeared on screen.

Also in 1998, Bischoff recruited The Ultimate Warrior, a former WWF star, to feud with Hogan (capitalizing on the Hogan/Warrior match at WrestleMania VI). Their October 1998 rematch at Halloween Havoc was considered as one of the worst matches in pay-per-view history,[68] and, although the feud between Warrior and Hogan leading up to the match was initially well received, interest soon dissipated after several convoluted and unrealistic segments involving the two were aired on WCW programming. Warrior also insisted on elaborate and costly apparatuses, such as a trapdoor in the ring which badly injured The British Bulldog when he landed on it awkwardly earlier in the event. Warrior would vanish from WCW shortly afterwards.[69]

According to Bischoff's autobiography Controversy Creates Cash, Time Warner increasingly micromanaged WCW, severely hindering (and occasionally overriding) Bischoff's control of the company. Time Warner initially gave him slight restrictions as to what he was and was not allowed to do with WCW. The restrictions mounted as time passed, with impending lawsuits between the WWF and WCW adding more. By the summer of 1998, he was outright ordered to alter WCW's format to a more "family-friendly" output. The forced shift in WCW's programming came while the WWF, still using its adult-oriented programming, was regularly beating WCW week after week in the ratings war. Time Warner had ordered WCW (like the other companies under Time Warner ownership) to slash their budget, putting even more strain on the company. As it was common knowledge that many executives in WCW ownership – from the Turner-owned era to the AOL Time Warner years – hated the idea of wrestling on their stations and attempted to remove the company entirely, Bischoff maintains that the restrictions and mandates placed on WCW was done in order to accomplish and accelerate the promotion's demise.

Harvey Schiller, who served as the president of Turner Sports at the time and acted as Eric Bischoff's superior, had Bischoff removed from control of the promotion on September 10, 1999, after a failed push for the 1970s rock group KISS through WCW shows and a storyline involving rapper Master P and The No Limit Soldiers backfired.[70][71][72] KISS collaborated with WCW to promote The Demon, a gimmick created in the band's image (the character was originally portrayed by Brian Adams and then by Dale Torborg); as a way of introducing The Demon, KISS closed out an episode of Nitro with a live performance of their hit song "God of Thunder", during which The Demon made his debut. The segment is widely considered to be one of the lowest-rated segments in the history of Nitro, and the Demon character quickly lost its momentum. The No Limit Soldiers stable was so negatively received that the fans began supporting The West Texas Rednecks heel stable that they were feuding with instead.[73] From September to November 1999, the promotion held a contest to find a new member of the Nitro Girls in an attempt to increase the show's ratings; however, the contest backfired and the group's members began to become involved in storylines. An announced "million-dollar contest" was later cancelled and a planned Nitro animated series was scrapped as well as the Road Wild pay-per-view event (whose spot was given to New Blood Rising).[74][75]

Vince Russo (right)

Bischoff was unexpectedly replaced by then WCW Vice President of Strategic Planning Bill Busch, who was named Senior Vice President. Busch would bring in former WWF head writer Vince Russo and his colleague Ed Ferrara.[76] Russo and Ferrera presented themselves as the brains behind the "Attitude Era", and WCW offered them lucrative contracts to jump ship in October 1999. Russo and Ferrara tried to replicate the same writing format (known as "Crash TV") they had used to revamp the WWF's creative product in the onset of the Attitude Era, but at a more accelerated pace. They also tried to push the younger WCW talents straight away, and phase out aging stars such as Hogan and Flair.

Russo and Ferrara struggled to gain approval for their ideas from WCW management, such as a "Piñata on a Pole" match between Mexican wrestlers on November 15.[77] In late 1999, Russo and Ferrera revived the nWo as nWo 2000, this time with Jeff Jarrett and Bret Hart at the helm. They next targeted WWF announcer Jim Ross with a parody character called "Oklahoma," who was played onscreen by Ferrara and would go on to win the WCW Cruiserweight Championship. Ross suffered from Bell's palsy, and the character lampooned his resultant facial defects.[78] The gimmick was very poorly received by many within the wrestling community, claiming that the character was in bad taste (and even sparking a legitimate feud between Ed Ferrara and Jim Cornette, one of Ross' close friends, that has persisted to present day).

Bad luck struck in December 1999 when Hart suffered a career-ending concussion at the hands of Goldberg,[79] who nearly ended up costing himself his career less than a week later when he sliced open a major artery in his forearm while punching through a limousine window.[80] Russo himself became an on-screen character during this period, though one whose face was never shown on camera; only his hand and the back of his chair were ever actually seen, as he called wrestlers into his office to receive their marching orders for the night. This became part of a recurring theme in Vince Russo's WCW as "worked shoots" became regular occurrences on WCW programming as a way of blurring the lines between what was legitimate and what was not.

Russo and Ferrara were suspended three months later amid rumors that they wanted to make former UFC fighter Tank Abbott the WCW World Heavyweight Champion.[81] Abbott, despite his legitimate fighting background, had little wrestling experience and had failed to connect with WCW audiences.[82] Kevin Sullivan, who had been an on/off booker over the course of several years, was appointed as the new head writer in the interim. The new writing team attempted to appease the demoralized wrestlers and fans by putting the World Heavyweight Championship on Chris Benoit at Souled Out in January 2000.[83] However, Benoit was among a group of wrestlers who expressed their intent to leave the company prior to the show because Sullivan was not particularly fond of them. Benoit, in particular, had a personal grievance with Sullivan dating back several months as a storyline with the two that involved Benoit winning the services of Sullivan's manager, Woman (Sullivan's then-wife Nancy), led to an extramarital affair that resulted in a real life relationship developing between Benoit and Woman.

Benoit, along with his similarly frustrated friends Eddie Guerrero, Dean Malenko, and Perry Saturn, among several others, voiced their grievances to Busch, who initially told them he would take Sullivan off Nitro and Thunder where they wouldn't have to work under him, only to turn around and tell them they were all being sent home except Benoit. Benoit doubled down on his stance and backed his fellow wrestlers. He handed the belt back right after winning it and he, along with Guerrero, Malenko, and Saturn, signed with the WWF the next day. The four quickly became popular in the WWF as "The Radicalz".

On February 11, 2000, 12 wrestlers, including African American wrestler Hardbody Harrison and Japanese manager Sonny Onoo launched racial discrimination lawsuits against WCW,[84][85] charging that, as a result of their ethnicities, they had not been pushed, had not been paid as well as other wrestlers and personalities, and had been given offensive gimmicks. Some speculated that the charges of racism led to African American wrestler Booker T winning the WCW Championship later that year,[86] and his real-life brother Stevie Ray being made a color commentator; Stevie Ray himself acknowledged that it may have been a factor. Onoo claimed that he had been given a disrespectful gimmick and that his final salary—$160,000—was only half of the average pay for a wrestler at that time.[87]

On January 3, 2000, Nitro was reduced to two hours in an attempt to bolster the show's aggregate ratings score, but the elimination of the show's third hour accelerated the company's ratings decline; Nitro registered a 1.8 rating for its April 3, 2000, episode, which was the second-lowest WCW television rating to date (ahead of only the 1.72 rating on April 27, 1998).

In April 2000, with ratings hitting new lows, Russo and Bischoff were reinstated by WCW, where, in another attempt to get WCW's creative product turned around, they decided to reboot WCW into a more modern, streamlined company. All angles taking place at the time were immediately dropped and all championships were vacated, effectively "restarting" WCW. Russo and Bischoff believed that this approach was the most effective way to salvage WCW's damaged product.

The first major storyline to take place in WCW following the reboot saw Bischoff and Russo form an on-screen union that stood up for the younger talent in the company (which they dubbed the New Blood)[88] in their battle against the Millionaire's Club, which consisted of the older, higher-paid, and more visible stars such as Hogan, Sting, and Diamond Dallas Page.[89] Though initially well received, the storyline quickly degenerated into yet another nWo rehash, with the heel nWo recast as the New Blood and the face WCW embodied in the Millionaire's Club. Oddly, the New Blood was disbanded before the New Blood Rising pay-per-view began.

The unorthodox and controversial storylines continued. Although neither was a trained wrestler, both Russo and actor David Arquette each won the WCW World Heavyweight Championship, the latter in order to promote the box-office flop Ready to Rumble (though Arquette was vehemently against winning the championship, believing that fans, like himself, would detest a non-wrestler winning the title). As neither looked physically capable of defeating actual wrestlers in a match, the title's credibility hit rock-bottom as a result, with David Crockett, the brother of Jim Crockett, Jr. who worked as one of WCW's backstage producers, said that WCW might as well "throw [the title] in the trash can").[90][91][92]

During this time period, Vince Russo had many behind-the-scenes conflicts with Hulk Hogan. Russo believed that Hogan's time in the spotlight was over and began using him less and less on WCW programming. Whenever Hogan did appear, he was usually relegated to essentially being a "jobber to the stars", being forced to job to other main-event wrestlers such as Sting and Goldberg, as well as to Billy Kidman, whom Russo had Hogan feud with in an attempt to elevate Kidman to main-event status; however, the feud did little for either Kidman or Hogan. When it was announced that Hogan would be facing Jeff Jarrett for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship at Bash at the Beach, the writing team informed Hogan that he would be jobbing to Jarrett once again. Hogan invoked his creative control and demanded that he win the match and the title. Russo agreed to the finish, but added that the finish would involve no wrestling at all, just Jarrett simply laying down for Hogan to pin him, which Hogan strongly disagreed with. During the actual match at the event, Jarrett indeed lied down for Hogan, with Russo physically coming down to the ring and throwing the title belt at Hogan's feet. A visibly frustrated Hogan then grabbed a microphone and broke character, saying, "Is this your idea, Russo? That's why this company is in the damn shape it's in, because of bullshit like this!" Hogan pinned Jarrett to win the match, but only moments later, Russo came back out and immediately voided Hogan's title win before delivering a shoot speech aimed at Hogan, during which he referred to Hogan as a "piece of shit" and that WCW fans would "never see [him] again", effectively firing Hogan live on pay-per-view.[93] This eventually led to Hogan filing a defamation of character lawsuit, which was dismissed in 2002.[94]

Infuriated by Russo's actions, Bischoff departed once more in July 2000. At the New Blood Rising pay-per-view on August 13, an injured Goldberg walked out of a triple threat elimination contest against Kevin Nash and Scott Steiner (violating the script of the match) and swore at Russo on his way back to the dressing room on-camera, leaving Steiner to wrestle and lose to Nash by himself. As a result of Goldberg's actions at New Blood Rising, the storyline was drastically changed to a rivalry between Steiner and Goldberg, culminating in a match at Fall Brawl in September 2000, which Steiner won. Immediately afterward, Russo informed Goldberg that if he ever lost another match from that point, he would be released from his WCW contract. In truth however, this was an opportunity for Goldberg to heal from previous injuries. Russo was gone from the promotion entirely by late 2000, leaving Terry Taylor and Johnny Ace to take over Russo's position.[95] During this time, a short-lived crossover feud began involving stars of WCW and Battle Dome.

At the Sin pay-per-view on January 14, 2001, Goldberg and his trainer DeWayne Bruce lost a tag team match to Totally Buffed (Buff Bagwell and The Total Package). This was Goldberg's final appearance for WCW before the company was purchased by the WWF. The final WCW event to be held outside the Southeast was the January 15 edition of WCW Monday Nitro from Fort Wayne, Indiana; following this event and its associated taping of WCW Thunder (which took place the same night), all future WCW events were held in the Southeast as a debt-reducing measure. In addition, most female personalities were released from the promotion by the beginning of February 2001 in an attempt to cut costs.

Meanwhile, Time Warner had bought out Turner's empire in 1996, including WCW. Turner was personally faithful to WCW regardless of whether it was losing him money because an earlier incarnation of the promotion had helped establish Turner's first television station, WTBS. However, Time Warner did not share his loyalty especially when accounts showed that WCW was losing between $12–$17 million a year at this point (and $60 million in 2000 alone), but Turner was still the single largest Time Warner shareholder, so WCW continued to operate at his behest. When AOL merged with Time Warner in 2000, Turner was effectively forced out.[96]

Although WCW tried to alleviate the strain of debt in early 2001, the financial burdens proved too much for the promotion and its new parent, AOL Time Warner. Once it gained the power to sell off WCW, AOL Time Warner looked to do so in order to cut its losses. A sale nearly occurred in late 2000 to Bischoff and a group of private investors calling themselves Fusient Media Ventures, with news reports and even Eric Bischoff declaring a deal was in place.[97] However, Fusient backed out when Turner networks head Jamie Kellner formally cancelled all WCW programming from its television networks.[98] With no network on which to air its programming, WCW was of little value to Fusient, whose offer depended on being able to continue to air WCW programming on the Turner networks, despite the fact that WCW, according to Bischoff, had received offers from Fox and NBC.[99]