WCW's end
 

I know that Vince bought it from Turner and they even did a segment on the last episode of Nitro where Shane acknowledges the fact that he bought the company from under Vince's nose (kayfabe).

Did they ever consider keeping Nitro as a separate brand? Did Nitro air simultaneously with RAW on Monday nights after Vince bought it? How did it all go down. A decent detailed answer shall be rewarded with my humble rep.

On the episode following shane purchase of nitro they ran a match with nitro logo's. Booker t fought buff bagwell outside the arena, where he remains to this day.

there was an effort to make WCW the second brand (how SD! and RAW now are) but the decided against it for reasons i cant remember

A little more discrete?

Also, the Nitro where Shane revealed he had "bought" WCW was the very last Nitro ever.

I was such a huge WCW mark back in the day, I remember reading 'reports' on here that WCW would be 'back soon' etc, and being really excited to see it. I'm still waiting... :(

I know there were some attempts to get Ted Turner back into funding a rival promotion (maybe TNA at the time or buy back rights to WCW) but he lost interest in wrestling due to how badly Bischoff and co messed up WCW and the sour result from the AOL-Time Warner merger.

Also remember the WWF had big plans to make Buff the #1 heel for the Nitro segments until the bigger WCW stars would arrive once their contracts ended. He ended up constantly complaining about almost everything backstage to the point the WWF just gave him the boot after 1-2 weeks.

Bagwell was so out of shape in that match with Booker T that it killed any momentum the invasion angle had. If that was a strong match, who knows what would have happened. I believe at one point, the plan was for WCW to take over Raw, and WWF would have Smackdown.

Word is that Bagwell faked an injury after a spot with the APA and had his mom call WWE Headquarters to request time off for him lol

Buff is the biggest self mark ever.

*excluding bret hart

best there is,was, and ever will be.

This is what I came here to post.

It was supposed to be Lance Storm in Bagwells place but it was decieded Buff was the bigger star of the two so they put him in the match instead. Can't remember if that was from someones shoot inteview,but the same interview said the same thing about Raw being replaced with Nitro.

Vince never ruled out keeping the WCW brand alive, but yeah, as the report said, that match on RAW between Booker T and Bagwell did not go over well with the crowd. I remember constant booing and thank goodness they had Austin interfere just to get something going in that segment. I'm glad they gave Buff the boot because he obviously didn't know that they wouldn't take his crap in the WWF like they did in WCW.

Wasnt there a match with Kronik stinking up the place too? Maybe vs. Taker and Kane...

That was during the InVasion, which was like 3 months afterwards.

To be honest, all of the guys from WCW sucked during the Invasion compared to WWE wrestlers, except Booker T, Kanyon, Storm, Awesome, and Helms.

And none of those names were actual big names, other than arguably Booker T, and he was bottom of the "big name" pot.

Kronik vs. Taker & Kane was at the September 2001 PPV (Unforgiven?) and the match was so bad that WWE wanted to send Kronik to OVW (or whatever the farm league was at the time) and one of the member refused, so they both got released I think.

Booker T and DDP were the only guys that could immediately come into WWE and main event. They turned Booker T into a comedy character and they completed buried DDP. The WWF vs. WCW feud became more of a McMahon family feud.

I remember that match.
I remember a slight build up for it. The PPV came around and I am pretty sure Kronik were never seen afterwards.

So after the match between Booker and Buff, was the whole WCW segment thingy on RAW was dead? Did they ever mention it after that night?

They did one on SmackDown! that week also, but it wasn't in the main event and it was a Cruiserweight Championship match.



Here is the WCW RAW match:

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/QyC74s5oTD8" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Here is the WCW SmackDown! match:

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/jJumiIrhdbg" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

I imagine they had other things on their mind that month.

I read it was Byran Clarke (Wrath) that said he wasn't going to OVW. I read he had a pinched nerve in his back and Kane was comming back from a staff infection and wasn't in good health. Basically, I think Undertaker was the only one that was actually ready for the match (I think Brian Adams had something wrong too) and WWE pushed for it anyways

They should have spent the extra money on some of the bigger wrestlers like Sting, Goldberg, Flair, Nash or even Steiner to get the fans slightly more interested. Nobody had cared much for the likes of Bagwell in years.

The main issues came from how poorly managed WCW the company was in the first place.

Still, some good memories. The pop for the DDP reveal was intense.

Actually, Bryan Clark refused to go to OVW, so he was immediately released. Brian Adams, meanwhile, did go to OVW, before being released a couple months later.