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The business side of wrestling will impact the on-screen product if the right decisions are made. Ted Turner was usually the primary owner for WCW with various names on the management side leading the company creatively. Names like Eric Bischoff, Vince Russo, Bill Watts and many others played a role in the decision-making for WCW.
However, some of the ideas formed by all parties led to some incredible results that helped the company develop a legacy. WCW could be discussed for the mistakes that caused the ultimate failure, but any company that passed WWE as the top dog for a short while deserves credit. The following business decisions were the best from WCW to help them become such an important company.
10 Signing Lex Luger To Appear On First Nitro In Stunning Moment
Eric Bischoff deserves credit for putting business above his personal opinion when signing Lex Luger to return in 1996. Luger broke out as a homegrown talent and decided to try WWE, but the mixed run there led to him wanting to return.
The original mindset of Bischoff was to turn down Luger since he was known for having a huge ego and left WCW in a polarizing manner. However, Sting talking Bischoff into how much Lex wanted to return led to the perfect timing of Luger’s surprise appearance on the first Nitro to make it feel like must-watch TV.
AEW having working relationships with New Japan, AAA and other promotions today give them a nice boost, but that likely was inspired by WCW. The 1990s saw WCW forming those same relationships to even run joint shows with NJPW and AAA at various points.
Eric Bischoff doubling down on this led to WCW getting a chance to sign names like Konnan, Rey Mysterio, Ultimo Dragon and Eddie Guerrero. The international talent gave WCW something that WWE lacked at the time.
8 Picking Ric Flair Over Ole Anderson
The on-screen side of wrestling was always impacted by backstage politics when Ric Flair returned after his WWE stint. Flair coming back to WCW was a major move that they badly needed after missing him during his short time in WWE.
Ole Anderson was the lead creative mind at the time and tried to end the Flair return since he felt Ric losing in his final WWE match made him worthless to WCW. Flair went over Ole’s head and told management that he would not sign if Ole was the lead booker. WCW wisely removed Ole from the role since he clashed with many other relevant wrestlers to cause too many problems.
7 Forming Relationship With The Tonight Show
WWE was the first major promotion to work for crossover appeal in pop culture, but WCW followed that plan in their own way when taking off. The Tonight Show with Jay Leno had a huge following of viewers, so it was a great business move to strike a relationship with the talk show.
Everyone remembers the polarizing Jay Leno tag match on PPV, but it helped create a lot of interest from non-wrestling fans. WCW also got to have their talent appear quite often on the Tonight Show with Leno with the occasional storyline being pushed.
6 NASCAR Presence
NASCAR was starting to take off as a very popular sport when WCW used their smarts to get involved in the marketing side there. Various cars had WCW designs with the company hoping that the unique form of co-branding would lead to new fans.
Even the New World Order had their own car with popular driver Kyle Petty joining the NWO as a funny twist. WCW making sure the cars were either designed with logos or images of their talent was a smart idea to try to get more attention with a business relationship.
5 Signing Hulk Hogan As New Face Of The Company
There is no arguing that Hulk Hogan joining WCW felt like the closest thing to a major superstar athlete leaving one team for another in free agency. WCW wasted no time making Hogan feel like the face of the company when having him debut with a ticker tape parade in Florida.
Hogan was easily the biggest name in the industry at the time and shocked the wrestling world by joining WCW since most felt he’d be a WWE lifer. WCW instantly felt like real competition for WWE, and the heel turn of Hogan was a new story that led to even more record-breaking success with the New World Order.
4 Putting Nitro Against Raw On Monday Nights
Eric Bischoff took the biggest risk that paid off for WCW when he debuted Nitro as a new show live against Raw in the same time slot on Monday Nights. The idea of splitting the wrestling audience seemed crazy to some people at the time, but it made the fans realize WCW wanted to beat WWE.
Both shows becoming true competition for the same viewers at the same time led to WCW taking off. The 83 weeks of WCW winning the ratings war over WWE likely would have never happened if not for Bischoff taking the right risk at the right time.
3 Firing Bill Watts After Tirades Of Bigotry
WCW allowed “Cowboy” Bill Watts to creatively run the company since he had a long track record in wrestling. Many wrestlers hated Watts for behaving like a bully backstage and having negative ideas for the show like banning top rope moves or wrestling outside of the ring.
However, it was the actions outside of wrestling that doomed Watts when he made some heinous comments of racism and homophobia. Turner execute and MLB legend Hank Aaron was made aware and pushed for a change. Watts getting fired led to WCW improving shortly afterwards and removing that negative cloud they had in his regime.
WCW signing Randy Savage right after Hulk Hogan felt like the perfect 1-2 punch of WWE’s greatest legends jumping ship. Hogan was obviously the bigger wrestling star, but Savage was both the second-biggest star on the market and a huge help as someone coming over with a huge sponsorship.
Slim Jim already had a great relationship with Savage and didn’t want to break that just because he left WWE. Eric Bischoff has talked about how massive of a deal it was for WCW to get the Slim Jim sponsorship with Savage as they advertised on almost every PPV and basically paid for his contract on its own.
1 Increasing PPV Schedule
WWE dictated the wrestling market after the Golden Era and called for a quarterly PPV since they only had four for a while. WCW finding more success saw them upping their PPV schedule and continuing to do it when the product started to get hot.
The shocking move to deliver twelve PPVs per year actually worked to the point where WWE copied it and followed that blueprint for years. WCW made a lot of money cashing in on more PPVs when the fans were willing to pay for a big event paying off each month’s storylines.
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