WWE buying WCW and ECW...

[The One]

I was thinking about what WWE purchasing out the other companies REALLY did for them. I mean honestly, at the point where they bought them, WCW was festering and posed absolutely NO threat to them what so ever, and ECW was 100% dead. Then I started to think about what them owning the libraries did for the careers of wrestler's there, and here's what I've concluded...

Rob Van Dam became the most expensive superstar of all time.
Seriously, the only videos they showed in terms of getting someone over was RVD's stuff. Because they bought ECW, RVD had a chance to parlay that into them making One Night Stand, which eventually lead to the idea of making the brand. And all of it was only approved so that RVD could have a platform to get over without them needing to feed him a single legit main eventer.

Ric Flair went from being a sad story of a former legend, to an Icon who will never die.
When WCW died, Flair was still respected, but he had been run down on camera so much by so many people, and let's face it, he was past his prime a decade before WCW went under. His second run in WWE did more to make him who history will remember him than anything else. If WWE didn't buy out WCW, I don't think WWE would have had any interest in bringing him in, but because they had him, and let's face it, nobody is better at hyping up historical significance than WWE. Plus, with the on again off again love affair with Hogan, I think WWE has done their best to give Flair Hogan's spot as the man who took wrestling mainstream.

The brand extension.
If they didn't buy them out, they wouldn't have been overflowing with talent causing this whole mess to begin with. End of story.

So there you have it, because Vince McMahon wanted to own everything and be undisputed god of the industry, it's lead to 1 man having a second chance to get over, 1 legend becoming an icon, and one of the worst executed decisions in wrestling history.

[Hanso Amore]

Word. Its hard to remember how tarnished Flair's legacy was in 2000.

I hate the WWE for alot of things they did to ruin my favorite guys, but the way they treated Flair makes up for ALL of it.

[Jesus Shuttlesworth]

How was this a bad business decision?

[The One]

The bad decision was the Brand Extension...the fact that they managed to get RVD and Flair over based off the choice was an unexpected but very pleasantly shocking surprise.

[Xero]

I'd call the Invasion a much, MUCH bigger mess than the brand split ever was/is. At least they can get people over without THAT much roster crowding.

[Kane Knight]

It also purchased access to libraries which are in fact being used. It prevents other people from using those trademarks, and allows them to slap it on whatever. I'd imagine the nWo shirt is still a good seller, if they're still up on WWE shop.

It's also worth pointing out that there wasn't much ECW talent kept on at any time, so whether they bought ECW or not, it would be a negligible financial burden on them for the talent they absored. WCW was going down, too, and in all probability would die even if they found someone to buy them. In the wake of the demise of WCW, Vince would likely still have picked up a lot of superstars, adding to the "bloat."

The brand split also strikes me as something that would have happened anyway, whether people wanted it to or not. It gives more time off for top stars, because they're only expected on one TV taping. For a good amount of time, the number of house shows was diminished perbrand, too. Now, of course, that's changed, which adds another point...The volume of house shows, which is one of the most aggressive touring plans in recent history, is one of the things keeping WWE in the black. I'd say we can chalk that up for WWE in terms of a "win."

Do I like the outcome? Nah. But I think you're missing a large number of plusses and overplaying a lot of the minuses.

[The One]

Can't really argue with anything you've said there...except with markish comebacks like "dividing focus cause the entire product to suffer." Which admittedly is speculation at best.

[Theo Dious]

I have to agree with KK, as clusterfucktastic as the brand extension may or may not have proven, I insist that not doing the brand extension would have been much worse. At the very least, tons of guys would never have been pushed who have done reasonably well in the interim. I maintain that there would have been no Eddie Gurrerro WWE Champion and no JBL WWE champion. I also maintain that without it, there would have been no Randy Orton, no John Cena, no Batista, basically nobody new.

[Loose Cannon]

I don't mind the brand extension. I would rather only have one show personally, but I see why there is a need. Why I loved a first was the One Champion who appeared on both shows. It was such an awesome concept. Lesnar brought that Title so much value when he was doing that, even for a short period. But I see why that isn't feasible to do. I've never liked Two (or Three) World Champions though. I mean yes the NWA had a shit load of World Champions, but I don't see WWE Raw, WWE ECW and WWE Smackdown as seperate territories like it is the NWA or something.

[The Mackem]

If they kept them more seperate it wouldn't be as much of an issue. We all know it's the same company, I think they do the best they can.

[Evil Vito]

<font color=goldenrod>Yeah I LOVED the split at first because it built new people and you also rarely saw interactions between the shows, so it felt like 2 separate companies, especially early on when Raw was all about brawling and hardcore matches while SD had the cruiserweights and technical guys.

But now there's so much inter-involvement it kills the concept. Hell, now that ECW has a bigger roster I say they stop the whole SD/ECW exchange because I still consider it to be one unified brand. I couldn't bring myself to care when a SD guy got drafted to ECW or vice versa because they act as one show anyway.</font>

[parkmania]

I think that perhaps the purchasing of all the competitors caused the lack of willingness to push new talent that is now appearing.

Once WWE got all these established stars from ECW and WCW, they no longer had to make new stars for a while to keep things going. Fast forward seven years, and now few WWE writers/suits understand how to create a new star.

[Kane Knight]

I don't mind the brand extension. I would rather only have one show personally, but I see why there is a need. Why I loved a first was the One Champion who appeared on both shows. It was such an awesome concept. Lesnar brought that Title so much value when he was doing that, even for a short period. But I see why that isn't feasible to do. I've never liked Two (or Three) World Champions though. I mean yes the NWA had a shit load of World Champions, but I don't see WWE Raw, WWE ECW and WWE Smackdown as seperate territories like it is the NWA or something.

They could have been, though. In fact, if I had purchased WCW, I would have liteally kept them as a separate brand under a separate umbrella, and worked with a different team to book and write the shows. The problem is, this environment CAN'T work in WWE. Vince deliberately tanked Smackdown so that Raw would have beeter ratings for a point of NEGOTIATION.

I think that perhaps the purchasing of all the competitors caused the lack of willingness to push new talent that is now appearing.

Once WWE got all these established stars from ECW and WCW, they no longer had to make new stars for a while to keep things going. Fast forward seven years, and now few WWE writers/suits understand how to create a new star.

I suppose the fact that most of the writers have no actual experience writing wrestling is incidental?

Vince fired most of the people in the know, except for those who happened to agree with him or would say so. He hired guys from Hollywood and Nickelodeon. He's actually spent the last near-decade trying to shake the "wrestling" image. I think that has more of an effect than complacency due to lack of stars.

[parkmania]

He hired guys from Nickelodeon.

I guess that explains the Double Dare look of the GAB logo this year.

[Rob]

There is serious flaws with any arguments involving buy outs. The following statements are FACTS. Not my opinion but FACTS.

1 - WCW were taken off TV by Jamie Kellner before WWE bought them. No company was going to buy WCW without a television spot. Eric Bischoff said this was the point when he knew WWE was buying them.

2 - WWE paid $2.5 million for WCW. AOL Timer Warner rejected a bid over TEN TIMES that amount from Bischoff's group.

3 - Now this is the good one. The PPV companies don't give you the money owed for your shows for snother 3-6 months. So when WCW was sold to WWE, guess who got all that money that was owed? Yep, WWE. And the money they received was a hell of a lot more than the $4.5 million they ended up paying for the company and all the tapes. So WWE in effect GOT PAID to take WCW.

[Kane Knight]

Rob Knows. :y:

[The CyNick]

Financially it was a great move for WWE.

One of the smartest things they did was not bringing in the guys like Goldberg and Sting who had the crazy contracts. If they did that, they would have had to pay double for the guys like Rock, Hunter and Austin. By leaving those contracts with Time Warner, they didnt f-up their salary structure.

They probably left a ton of money on the table by not doing the whole invasion thing properly, but thats just one person's opinion.

At the end of the day they are still making money off the WCW brand through DVDs and 24/7 and they are using the ECW brand to build a third brand under the WWE umbrella. Now this could die very easily, but if they ever get really hot again, this could lead to a third 2 hour block on a cable station, which would be another money maker. Worst case scenario ECW is cancelled from Sci Fi and they fold the brand, oh well, they still make money off DVD/24-7.

[Rob]

I think they totally pissed millions up the wall by not taking Goldberg, Steiner, Flair and Sting immediately. Anyone else they could have done without but those 4 were the faces of WCW.

[The One]

I wasn't really arguing that it was a BAD thing, simply that in one of the most shocking moves in wrestling history, all we got out of it was Flair's legacy, RVD's history and the Brand Extension. (though I didn't know they would make the cost of purchase back by backlogged PPV sales alone, thanks for that bit of news :y: )

And for speculation sake, since we're near the topic, what would have happened if they didn't run an "Invasion" angle. Booker, DDP, and company simply gets brought into the fold, maybe have a bit of contention between "traditional WWF guys" and the "newbies" but not have it be an all out organized assault. I always thought that would have worked better for everyone...thoughts?

[Xero]

The Invasion HAD to happen on a large scale. It was a HUGE event in wrestling history. The number one company buying out their two biggest competitors is not something you run one or two storylines around.

Had they done it properly it would have been huge money and could have ran for years, taking the place of the brand split eventually. But Vince was too big of a cock to do anything but bury 80% of the Alliance and saturate it way too early with WWF stars.

[Rob]

The Invasion HAD to happen on a large scale. It was a HUGE event in wrestling history. The number one company buying out their two biggest competitors is not something you run one or two storylines around.

Had they done it properly it would have been huge money and could have ran for years, taking the place of the brand split eventually. But Vince was too big of a cock to do anything but bury 80% of the Alliance and saturate it way too early with WWF stars.

Exactly.

They could still be doing it now if it was done right.

[The One]

But why the dumb "Company vs. Company" thing? I would have rather them run where it was more a gang mentality. Everyone knew WWF bought them out. The Kids' company vs. Daddy's company thing was dumb as shit. Plus, during the InVasion that was the ONLY angle they had. If they didn't do it as two "promotions" feuding, they could have side stepped a lot of dumb shit. Austin was doing a fine job as a heel before WCW came into the picture, then to keep him heel he had to join with WCW. What if there wasn't an official WCW locker room and a WWF locker room, and instead it was just Steve Austin being a heel. I just got tired of that being the ONLY thing going on. It was like they skipped the good nWo stuff and dove headfirst into the "this is boring, but this is what we're basing the entire show on" stuff.

Obviously it would have been a huge part, but why bother with saying they were different companies. Have the WCW guys walk in, being total jackasses and acting like they earned their spot in Atlanta, they didn't need to prove themselves again here. It's still a huge group of people, still obviously an "invading gang" so to speak, but in a way it makes it more raw and threatening. That way, you didn't need to have WWE guys jump ship to give it credibility. Booker and DDP carry the Main Event portion of it, everyone else does the midcard. Too many main event WWF guys? No need for every bad guy to be on the same team and every good guy on the other. Some WWF guys (Steve Austin/Kurt Angle) get to keep being heels that aren't involved in that particular angle. As time goes on and some people get over on their own accord (RVD) let them go off and do their own thing not being a part of either traditional WWF guys or the new batch.

And before you point it "Well they need to have WCW vs. WWF otherwise it wouldn't work!!!" They dropped WCW and ECW names more or less within a couple of weeks anyway and just called it The Alliance anyway. Hell, keep the name Alliance, but don't try and make people believe it's another company all together...

[Kane Knight]

It could have been great if you just had guys brought into the WWF who were pissed off because they were WCW workers. But it could have been great if they pretended it was two companies, too. Doesn't make it any less true that they made a shitty execution. Shitty as humanly possible, me thinks.