"WCW going belly up wasn't a one man fiasco but a team effort within the ivory towers of the CNN Center from ignorant people who did not respect the product."
I have said this many times, but WCW's biggest problem was that they didn't have anyone "in charge" that knew the business. I am not talking Dusty Rhodes, Kevin Sullivan, etc., as booker, but I am talking someone withing Turner Broadcasting that understood the product.
I have heard that Jim Herd was placed in charge when Ted Turner bought WCW and from all accounts, he was a very nice man. However, he knew nothing about wrestling. He was a TV guy. As someone who knows nothing about TV or how it is produced, I would be the last guy that should be hired to run a TV show. However, the way the WCW was run, I would be the first choice. One of my jobs is that I am charge of the umpires for youth baseball in the spring and summer. I am more than capable of training the umpires myself but I hired several others who work for me to improve the product. While I handled the business portion of the business, they did the training. WCW never got that concept.
In addition, WCW had NO IDEA what to do with talent. NWA Worldwide which eventually evolved into WCW Worldwide started appearing on my local channels in mid to late 1989. When I had better access to NWA/WCW TV, I almost stopped watching the then WWF. The in-ring product was better. However, eventually the up and coming stars like Tom Zenk, Brian Pillman, Brad Armstrong, Shane Douglas, Bobby Eaton, and Steve Austin were stuck in the middle to the bottom of the card and going absolutely nowhere. In addition to them, wrestlers like Chris Beniot, 2 Cold Scorpio, Scotty Flamingo, and even Johnny Gunn (Tom Brandi) were brought in only to almost see their "push" vanish within minutes. Eventually, they were putting over guys like Dick Slater, Greg Valentine, Erik Watts, Vinnie Vegas, Dustin Rhodes, Tex Slazenger, Shanghi Pierce, and Dan Spivey. Problem? The recently mentioned names were either at the end of their careers or extremely green.
As WCW evolved into the WWF Senior Tour in the late 90s, the trend continued. Wrestlers near the twilight of their careers should been used to help create new stars. Instead, the young stars eventually left for the WWF/E and became stars on their own. WCW was left with a bunch of expensive contracts who were told to sit at home while "new stars" were pushed. Those new stars (where the hell is Mike Sanders anyways?) had no "reference" for being a star. Who did they beat? No one other than each other. Instead of using Sting to be "the next leader" of a faction of wrestlers like Ric Flair, they sent him home and he only appeared once or twice over the last year. Soon they became a joke and long-time fans such as myself had shut off the TV and had found better things to do.
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