Original subtitles

[Eric] I had no idea how big it was going to be.

I didn't know what the NWO was about to become.

That leg drop was

WCW's lift off into the future.

If you want surprises, this is where you come.

Our show is live, and you never know

what's gonna happen here.

We were the #1 cable rated show forever.

The NWO!

We already knew that we were running thin.

[Laughing]

And I think it showed.

Did I like it? Fuck no!

[Konnan] Bro, 40,000 people,

and that's what you're giving them?

You can't pretend that people weren't mad.

[Bret] Idiots everywhere. It's just...

mindboggling.

[Brad] Whenever you're leading a night,

and now you're not leading a night,

there is reason for concern.

[Commentary] WCW is literally unraveling here.

[Eric] My wife, she looked at me like,

"What are you doing here?" And I said...

"I got fired."

Before our very eyes, it's falling apart.

Ted Turner hired idiots to run a billion-dollar company

and, that was his mistake.

[Overlapping voices]

You cannot sweep this under the rug!

...this is a ----ing television show.

...and I don't understand what he's doing.

The real reason men commit lies...

♪ [Extended flatlining beep] ♪

♪ [Dramatic instrumental] ♪

A lot of changes, ladies and gentlemen,

at World Championship Wrestling...

over the last 36 hours.

♪

WCW was one of many things

that I was responsible for,

and it was the thing that I liked the least.

[Match bell ringing]

Eric is not, is not there anymore.

You know, he was the glue that held it together.

I was running it at this point.

I didn't want to run it.

And I wanted somebody to run it for me.

And a little bit different...

And, Bill Busch was the guy who was sort of in place

as an interim when Eric was no longer there.

And, he was the acting COO, in a sense.

About a month after Eric had departed,

Bill Busch makes his first major move in running the

day-to-day operations of the company,

which is securing the services of the

WWF's creative team.

Busch, he called me and said,

"We've made the best hiring decision ever."

♪

He said, "We hired Vince Russo."

Bischoff was gone, and I remember Bill Busch

telling me they were gonna bring Vince Russo in.

He supposedly was some kind of...

genius, and now we've lured him from WWF,

and now we've got their genius.

When Vince Russo made the jump to WCW to run

that entire ship, I remember thinking...

Good for him, great.

This is the world of professional wrestling.

This shit happens all the time.

♪

I was excited when I heard Vince was coming in.

♪

Good. Finally, like, something new here.

I heard that he was a genius.

♪

Why would Vince Russo want to leave the WWF and come here?

♪

I had a degree in journalism, and I started freelancing

for the WWF magazine, where I started writing

maybe about two articles a month.

I would sit in while they were writing the television,

and it was so bad that I started writing

my own angles in the magazine that had

nothing to do with the TV show.

And, I get a call from Vince McMahon's assistant.

[Phone ringing]

"Vince wants to see you up in his office immediately."

It wasn't even 9 o'clock yet.

He had the WWE Raw Magazine in his hand.

And said, "This is what our

television show needs to be."

I was absolutely shocked.

It got to the point where I was the

head writer of the show.

Then I get to work with Ed Ferrara

who was a bonafide television writer!

Just- it was real.

It was real. You believed it.

There was a sense of danger, like you almost had to

watch it because you didn't know

what they were going to do next.

I was definitely influenced by what WCW was doing

at the time, without a shadow of a doubt.

We were head-to-head, and you had

a lot of people switching back and forth,

back and forth, back and forth.

So, the idea is,

you do not give them the opportunity

to change that channel,

because once they change that channel,

if something good is happening on Nitro,

they're never coming back to your show.

It's hard to argue with the objective data,

which show that the WWF actually enjoyed

a tripling of its revenues.

The television ratings went from being anemic to

skyrocketing to levels people didn't think of before.

Absolutely sold out!

The company was selling out arenas left and right.

And, Vince Russo was the head writer of

the WWF during that time frame.

...Excuse me while I kiss the sky.

The Summer Of Love...

Vince McMahon was starting another show, Smack Down,

and he had pushed me creatively

beyond my limits.

I had three small kids.

I wasn't seeing them at all.

I honestly believe I was on the verge of

a nervous breakdown.

♪

He just expected Ed and I to write a second show,

never offered any more money.

And, bro, it's like I was building such a close,

tight bond, relationship with Vince that

I started asking myself the question...

"Does this guy care about me as much as I do about him?

Or am I the cash cow that's writing his show?"

I was so burnt out, I broke down and

I cried in Vince's office, okay.

And right then and there- I went right to

my office and called my WCW connection.

He made the decision,

what's best for him and his family,

and he went after an opportunity

to go down to WCW,

and you're handed the entire book.

Write the story.

There was an awful lot of enthusiasm at that time that

this could be what's needed to give WCW

the shot in the arm that it needed.

It's a brand-new Monday Nitro!

I looked at WCW as a great challenge,

and what I saw here was I saw a whole breed

of a new blood

that was stuck somewhere in the middle

because for whatever reason,

they couldn't break that "establishment".

And listen, man, the day I walked into that locker room,

I had every mid-carder coming up to me.

I had never met them before.

Bro, I'm talking about like the Malenkos.

Benoits...

And the Konnan.

Unsettling! Here he comes back!

Juventuds and all these great people.

Man, those guys- ah, the Rey Mysterios,

Ultimo Dragons,

all those lucha guys that came in and...

pushing each other to be the best,

pushed me to another level.

We gon' turn this motha out!

Now can you dig it?

There wasn't anybody better in terms of ring skills

than the mid-carders so, you know, I think there was

more talent there than people gave them credit for.

And, I remember locking eyes

with Hogan the first time.

The red and yellow!

You gotta understand, when you're a New Yorker,

there's like a sixth sense.

Like, you just know he did not trust me, bro,

as far as he could throw me, and he was not gonna

believe one word that I said.

And I'm gonna come out and say it- and I've never

said this publicly before- no doubt in my mind

Bischoff was responsible for a little of this.

I am partially responsible for costing Eric his job.

Eric is gone, but Eric's boys,

the people that he took care of and made rich,

were not in tune with what Russo wanted.

Don't wake a sleeping giant.

I was always a fan of Vince's.

I just told him, like,

"You ain't in Kansas anymore."

Like, this ain't WWE.

1, 2, 3!

This is some fucked up shit.

[Shouting] Goldberg! Goldberg!

I had an absolute great plan, and if you go back and

watch the first 3 months, you'll see it.

And, at that time,

Jerry Springer was so hot,

so we always had that on in the background,

and what was Jerry Springer?

It was controversy with characters and storyline.

That's what the show was.

And basically, that's what we needed to do.

He hit him with a mummy!

Vince Russo's program, everything was quick.

Boom, boom, boom, boom.

I tried to stay positive, I was very hopeful.

But it definitely was a shift from a more laid back

sort of atmosphere, and it's more electrified

and, louder, faster, that sort of thing.

[Indistinct shouting]

It definitely was a shift.

[Grunting]

[Vince] I know the numbers!

The numbers are on the internet!

And in those three months, the numbers went up-

slightly- but they went up.

To me, it wasn't about wrestling at that point.

It was lots of T&A.

Woo! Alright!

[Dick] He took us in a direction that

even corporate didn't like.

Watch it, Billy.

This is family hour!

It had a little positive effect on the ratings,

but not much.

Certainly made it not advertiser friendly.

Crowbar.

[Vince] My job was to

make this show the absolute best that

I thought it could be, and to make this show

to not just please wrestling fans,

but to be appealing to an entire wrestling audience.

[Konnan] His thing was like,

we already have a wrestling audience.

Let's get the audience that isn't watching wrestling.

But bro, if you're a casual fan and you're watching

Judy Bagwell on a pole match.

...high above the ring on the forklift now!

Why would you want to watch that,

or a pinata match, or whatever?

He's got the pinata!

This is not WCW.

This is a comedy act.

...meatballs, and we're gonna do it all night.

[Booker T] I don't think it was for the fans.

It seemed like, you know,

he was entertaining himself.

Hey, boys!

[Indistinct chatter]

[Indistinct shouting]

Vince Russo was just another idiot.

He's a shit stain.

And I always thought in the back of my mind

that he was there to lead to our ultimate demise.

[Evil voice] When does our journey begin?

On the 7th night.

Maybe a good theory that Vince Russo had

decent success at WWE because Vince McMahon

was there to pick out what was good and,

keep that and throw away what was bad.

[Indistinct shouting]

And then, Vince Russo comes in and,

he doesn't have that buffer, or he doesn't have

that person telling him no.

Never do that!

[Kevin] The whole group of people in the office

thought he had gone too far down the road,

away from where WCW was.

[Vince] Listen, man, the one thing

I really started noticing was

every time I turned around, JJ Dylan,

and Kevin Sullivan were having sidebars.

And as soon as I looked at them, boom,

now the politics are rearing their ugly head.

So, Busch calls me into his office.

He said, "Vince, we're thinking of

going in a direction.

We're gonna go more into a, ah, committee,

and we want you to be part of a committee."

And bro, without missing a beat, I said, "Bill...

I got a contract.

The contract states that I am head of creative.

I am not interested in any of your committees."

I said, "So, I am going to go home,

and you guys can figure out

how you're gonna pay me."

And that was the end of it,

and I, I went home,

and they continued to pay me.

Sullivan.

I just thought it was such a complete change.

When he first left, I said,

"We're gonna get back to wrestling."

Hey guys...

Benoit, Perry Saturn,

Dean Malenko, Eddie Guerrero.

When those guys showed up at TV and

I wasn't there, the undercard...

they went absolutely ballistic, because they knew.

They went to work one day, and Vince isn't here.

They knew.

They, they knew what had happened.

They were such an intricate part of the show.

But, they weren't Nash, Hall,

Hogan, Macho Man.

They could've been.

But, they weren't.

So, in an effort to try to make it up to those guys and

calm everybody down, Sullivan made the decision

to put the belt on Benoit.

Let's get the official word if we can!

I remember at that TV taping, they asked for their release,

and Bill Busch said, "Yes, you can go."

Not realizing exactly where they were going.

It was a Monday night.

I'm sitting in the restaurant having dinner with my wife,

and on the screens, I could see that

Monday Night Raw was on.

And I see Eddie, Dean, and Chris, and Perry Saturn,

and I thought, wow, WCW have hit rock bottom.

If those guys are jumping ship, it's inevitable.

[Indistinct shouting]

And, I said to my wife,

"Knowing Turner the way I do,

how much do you want to bet they're gonna call me and

ask me to come back?"

[Commentary] I cannot believe it!

15 days after Chris Benoit wins the WCW

World Heavyweight title, he appears on

Monday Night Raw in the front row with

the heart of the WCW mid card-

Eddie Guerrero, Dean Malenko,

and Perry Saturn.

Keep in mind that those defections had been

happening the other way for the longest time.

Well, now the opposite is happening,

but it's especially damaging to WCW because

these are characters, and these are wrestlers,

who have their best years ahead of them.

It was a big deal.

When those four guys walked out- Ooh.

The silent hush heard around the world.

[Indistinct commentary] ...on top!

You knew that was big.

You knew that was a big move.

I think the office was like, "Fuck those guys," you know,

"we don't need 'em." And I was like, bro,

if they would've let Eddie, and Benoit,

and all these people...

do programs as the guys on top...

we might still be in business.

[Vince] The ratings plummeted after I left.

Sullivan's in charge...

Boom. We hit rock bottom again.

All the decisions went through me,

and I think somebody suggested bringing Eric back.

Since my relationship with Eric was always good,

and we had a successful formula that was working

when we were working together on it.

So, I think the idea of bringing Eric back,

being involved as either a consultant or whatever

he was, seemed like a good idea at the time.

So, I went back to Brad, said, "Okay, here's the deal.

Write me a new contract.

I don't want to be an employee,

because you guys are crazier now than you were

when I left. I'll, you know, report to you, nobody else."

That was my deal and, and they took it.

And, Brad said, "Do you think-

Would you mind, before we make a decision,

meet with Vince Russo and decide if you think

you can work with him."

[Vince] I never thought it would work.

But, Brad Siegel said to me-

here's what he said:

"I want you to work with Eric Bischoff."

Brad Siegel never said to me at any time,

"Eric is your boss. Eric is in charge of you.

Eric has the final say," so I don't know what

he had to say to get Eric aboard. I have no idea.

My job was to oversee Vince.

That's what I was hired to do by Brad Siegel.

My job definition was overseeing Vince Russo

and the creative process.

♪

You know, my memories of exactly what happened

are really sketchy.

But if Eric came back, I had to approve it.

[Eric] Look, I have a pretty strong opinion

about Vince, professionally.

But as a person, he's a charming guy.

And, I thought, I can make this work.

[Cheering]

What?! No way!

Vince Russo and I

have more in common than anybody knows.

When I got back to WCW,

in many respects, it was worse.

[Indistinct commentary]

#69! Oh!

The stuff! Two points!

[Off-screen] I'm gonna show you just like a couple of clips.

You're gonna be watching it, and then just any

commentary, reactions, memories, stories.

Anything that comes to mind.

What was your thoughts on this?

[Vince] But Kevin, I've gotta ask you a question.

How many brain cells

have you burnt over the years, Kevin?

I remember they were trying to drop that blood on me.

They missed like 19 times.

Now what?

[Audience screaming]

You know what? Take that clip...

and show it

after the finger poke of doom,

and then you tell me what killed WCW.

[Splattering & crowd shouting]

Look at my face.

Like, ah, you gotta be kidding me.

The New Blood strikes again!

The New Blood's symbol!

And Nash is walking slowly,

drenched in the red.

Kevin Nash in pursuit!

This was a monthly... doing,

that they did something.

Russo running out of the building!

[Eric] The company was in worse shape than it was when I left.

They are getting to their limousine.

There was no hope.

Get that damn camera out of here.

[Eric] The only way I knew how to turn that around

was to kind of force a creative reset,

and that reset involved...

the Millionaire's Club, which was the

established top-level talent....

versus the young, up-and-coming,

the young guns.

It's kind of a classic story.

The Millionaire's Club fighting for their very careers!

[Vince] Bro, that was inspired by

what has been going on in wrestling from day one.

From day one, that's the wrestling business.

And I'm, I'm a firm believer that if you're gonna create

a story, try to create one that's based on

some sense of reality.

[Vince] The Millionaire's Club at WCW were the top guys

that were making all the money.

Okay, the- you know, the Hogans, the Savages,

the Flairs, the Lugers, you know,

Sting fell in that category.

The, the New Blood were the hungry,

younger guys that were making a fraction of their salary

because they were being held down by

the Millionaire's Club.

So now they were gonna have their day in court.

Hey! Terry "The Bollster" Hogan!

Maybe!

Maybe you haven't paid attention around here!

A lot of tension at that time because,

you know, the changing of the guard,

that stuff was real too, you know.

The stuff with Hogan and the, the older guys.

You know, those guys didn't want to give up their spots.

[DDP] You're like, "We're making money"?

Yeah, cause we earned our spot, you know,

and bottom line is now we're finally making money.

[Booker] When Hogan said, you know, he's getting older,

but, "Everybody in that damn locker room's

getting older too." [Laughing] You know.

Well, yeah, Hulk Hogan's getting older,

and so is every other damn wrestler in the back too.

Day by day.

That was a real statement. That's someone who's-

who doesn't want to let it go, man.

Kevin!

I get it, I understand it, but for me...

you know, nah, I always, ah,

went as far as my talent could take me,

not my politics.

I knew there were gonna be politics,

I just never thought there were gonna be

politics to this extent.

Bro, even with all these things,

yes, I am gonna go into this to win.

I'm not gonna go to work and

go through the motions, and just waste my time.

I literally am still going to do

every single thing I possibly can do

to bring those ratings back up.

♪

"Ready To Rumble" was a major motion picture

that they were gonna do.

David Arquette was gonna be the star,

and there were gonna be multiple WCW wrestlers in it.

I like wrestling.

Are you gonna be a wrestler?

[Laughing] You caught trouble wrestling your weewee

out of your trousers to take a leak.

It's not that I have trouble.

I never really had an interest in becoming a

professional wrestler, except for the fact that

when I was a kid and I'd look up at 'em, and, and...

I'd be like, "Ah, it would be so great to be the champion,"

you know, and just, ah-

But I never really thought of

myself as a wrestler.

-The steel cage. -Steel cage! Done!

But, part of the story line in "Ready To Rumble" is that

my character, Gordie, becomes a wrestler at the end of it.

And I think that was part of the germ of the idea in

bringing me into WCW so that we could sort of

have fun with those worlds.

So, we have our production meeting,

and the match is, um...

Jeff Jarrett, Eric Bischoff,

against DDP and David Arquette.

We have a regular production meeting.

Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

Everybody leaves. I'm literally there by myself,

and Tony Schiavone comes over. And Tony says,

"Vince, do you mind if I pitch you something?"

I said, "Tony, absolutely." And I got the,

"What if...

David Arquette wins that match and becomes

WCW Heavyweight Champion?"

I call everybody back in.

"Guys, Tony pitched me this idea.

What do you think?"

Bro, 100% of the people were for it.

I don't remember how the idea generated.

We'd done other things to help promote movies, and,

and specific television shows in the past.

This was a rather elaborate way to promote the movie.

But I didn't see the harm in it.

I just laughed out aloud and...

I went, "Yeah, right, so what are we doing?"

And Eric goes, "That's what we're doing."

I go, "No, we're not."

He goes, "Yes, we are." I go, "Bro, come on.

Stop fucking with me. We're not gonna do that."

I go, "That's not a good idea."

It was like, "That's a terrible idea.

You can't do that."

[Indistinct commentary]

Speared by Arquette!

Oh, Jarrett's got the belt!

Arquette- 1, 2, 3!

What?!

[Cheering]

What, what did- What's going on here?

David Arquette won the world title!

[David] Got this huge, like, reaction

when they made me the champion.

You know, people throwing something, spitting on you,

and calling you the worst things in the world, but...

It really hit me when

I was in the locker room and,

Booker T was there, and he was getting ready.

[Laughing]

He goes, "Booker, man,

this is so great, man. I'm the world champion!

I'm the world champion!" You know, and he goes...

"How many times have you been champ, Booker?"

He's like...

"I never won it," you know.

And then he goes...

He, his, his mood totally changed.

And then I was like, "Oof, whoa, okay,"

that like, that hit me, so...

[Sharmell] It was hard to see that, you know,

you do have these guys who

pretty much have given their lives for this sport,

and then you have a Hollywood actor,

even though it's David Arquette who

we know and love, come in and win that title.

Yeah, that, that, that's a hard thing.

I would say it was just another nail in the coffin of

a company that was rapidly dying at that time.

[Booker] I thought it was a bad idea putting the

World Heavyweight Championship

on David Arquette.

I mean, movie star or not, it's just not a good play.

And when you do something like this, you go,

"Okay, where do we go from here?"

Well, people were pissed that this actor that had never

paid his dues- cause that's a big thing,

paying your dues, right?- was a world champion.

And Vince's rebuttal to that was,

"It got eyes on the product."

I don't know how well it did in the ratings, but, I go,

"Yeah, but it got people talking for the wrong reasons."

I don't think that was a good idea.

Bro, I'll never forget, the next morning after that,

I get up, I go downstairs to the front desk.

What's on the front cover of the USA Today?

That would have never, ever happened

in a million years.

And at that time, that's what we are after.

And again, bro, I'm going to say it,

I write a television show.

If you think about the importance of the world title

in wrestling, yes, it's predetermined,

but it does carry with it a huge amount of value,

and I think fans perceived this as another attempt to

get the interest back in one day rather than

building for the future.

[Eric] The wrestling audience didn't appreciate it.

In the eyes of, you know, the hardcore wrestling fan.

And I'm not dismissing them,

and I don't mean it derisively.

But, the really passionate wrestling fan felt that

it really made a mockery of the title,

to use that title in that way.

I didn't feel that way in that moment.

I was looking at the bigger opportunity,

and felt like we could sustain a couple weeks

of bad press.

I think Eric put himself in a position to where...

he stopped calling the shots, and just started being

a part of the shots that were being called.

And I think that was, perhaps, the biggest problem.

It is what it is.

I didn't stop it, let's put it that way.

I supported it.

And I participated, for God's sake.

The World Heavyweight Champion!

[Shouting & cheering]

I would do the same thing today, bro.

Without blinking an eye,

I would do the same exact thing today.

Quite frankly, I could care less.

Arquette goes out there the next day!

He doesn't want the championship!

What?! Whoa! Bro!

[Stammering] I, I, you know-

we followed that up in the story line.

What did he have it, bro, for like a week?

Hey, I think I killed out there.

Listen, Page, this has all been a big fluke,

it's been a whole lot of fun, but I don't deserve

to be the World Heavyweight Champion.

And he went out on, you know, the next day,

and he goes, "Man, I shouldn't have the title.

People like Booker T should have the title."

Tonight, I'm gonna relinquish the belt,

and give up the title. I don't deserve it.

How about that?

-These guys deserve it. -[Booing]

Maybe Booker T deserves it,

but I don't deserve it.

You know, I was like, "Wow!" You know?

So, he might have been my biggest cheerleader,

you know, he might have been the spark that lit the flame.

I started at the bottom of that company,

and I had seen these guys on television,

and now I'm in the same locker room with them,

and competing with them at the highest level.

I was doing something that I had never imagined

or dreamt of doing in a million years.

Now the axe kick!

[DDP] I knew Book was gonna be a big star.

When he was putting on grease paint one time

when he was doing G. I. Bro.

He said, "I'm here, and I'm gonna keep doing what

I'm doing, and eventually I'm gonna get there."

And I'm like, "You know what, bro, you're right,

you are." I said, "You got the best attitude ever."

Thinking about winning the world title for me

in this company, is something that

I never really thought about.

When I first came in this company, it was,

you know, it was a clique.

It was a good old boys clique, you know,

and if you wasn't in the good old boy clique,

you only went to a certain level, you know.

♪

'Cause I was Black, to be honest.

I knew how good I was.

There wasn't a doubt in my mind.

But you still wonder if the company would be

willing to accept a Black champion.

♪

He was beloved, everybody loved him.

He was so easy to work with.

He paid his dues.

Booker, like, had completely thrown in the towel of

ever thinking he was going to be a champion

because he knew the political game!

Everybody's fighting for the same spot!

And especially, bro, when you're on top,

you got everybody gunning for you.

So, when Hulk was on top, yes,

did he do everything he possibly could

to secure that spot?

Bro, 1000%.

♪

[Eric] Halloween Havoc '99 I think was

the last time Hogan appeared.

Of course, I was sent home in September of '99.

Hogan stuck around because he was

obligated and advertised.

But, without me there,

Hogan really wasn't too interested in

working in any way, shape, or form with Russo.

So, when I came back to work with Russo,

that certainly made it a lot easier.

Eric is now treating me

as I'm below him.

And I, I had had enough.

So, I called Brad Siegel.

And I said,

"Brad, if you want to make Eric head of creative,

freaking make him head of creative!"

And bro, Brad Siegel said, "No, no, no, no, no, no, no

Vince! I want YOU to write creative."

Bro, two days later was Bash At The Beach.

Bash At The Beach 2000 was really the culmination point

of the tension between Russo and what he wanted to do,

me and what I was willing to do in the role I was in,

and what Hogan was willing to do...

given that he had creative control.

I will say this up front, without a shadow of a doubt,

if there was no Eric Bischoff,

I would have had a great relationship with Hulk Hogan.

And, I don't think there ever

would have been an issue.

Hulk and I have a good idea of what we wanted to do

with his participation.

He and I are on the same page,

and Hulk Hogan has creative control,

so that's pretty much the end of any dispute

or conversation, right.

But at the same time, Vince Russo had

his ideas of what he wanted to do.

And what he was able to do was

take the original idea of Hulk and I's,

which was create some kind of scenario

where Hulk gets so frustrated, or disgusted,

or pissed off, he grabs the belt and walks out of

the building, presumably never to be seen again.

That was the plan.

[Vince] I'm saying to myself, bro, no.

You're not walking out of here with the belt.

-Now what? -I don't know, it's...

Who's laying down on this one?

But what Vince Russo did was jump in the middle part of

our plan, and decided that once Eric and Hulk

left the building- which we did,

according to script, OUR script-

Vince Russo jumped into the ring, live,

and went into business for himself and

implemented his own idea.

[Cheering]

Hey, let me tell ya who doesn't give a shit

about this company!

That God damn politician, Hulk Hogan!

I remember looking around,

talking to some of the other Nitro Girls, like...

"Is, is this what's supposed to be happening?"

Like, what's going- is this written?

What is going on?

Hulk Hogan tonight wants to play

his creative control card.

Holy shit.

This, this is...

he's shooting, you know, he's talking for real.

This is not a work.

But one thing I do want to point out.

As much as this was a work, and everybody was,

you know, in on it, when I talk about reality,

I really am this pissed off.

Hogan got his belt, and he went the hell home,

and I promise everybody or else

I'll go in the God damn grave,

you will never see that piece of shit again.

I didn't know that was coming, and...

that promo to me felt as real as it possibly can be,

as far as two people having

a venomous animosity towards each other.

The point of this promo was not to run Hogan down.

The point of it was...

we need Booker to win the belt,

and I need to make sense of

why this match is happening.

For the WCW title, two deserving guys-

Jarrett! And Booker!

Will compete for the WCW,

and they'll tear this God damn house down!

I found out about 10 minutes before I had to wrestle.

This all came as a surprise to me.

I really don't know what's going on.

Vince made the decision.

Cut that promo before I had to go out.

Man, I had so much energy.

Opportunity has knocked, and I will be damned

if I don't answer that door.

I am gonna do what I have to do tonight to take

that gold home, take it around my waist,

and taking it to the next millennium.

Now can you dig that shit?

I can. Tony, back to you.

I was ready to become the world champ.

I remember, before the bell rang I jumped up so high,

you know, and, you know, just because I was like,

"Let's get this done," you know.

[Indistinct shouting & crowd cheering]

...2! ...3!

[Cheering]

Booker T's the champ!

♪ [Triumphant] ♪

♪

It took somebody like Vince Russo,

somebody that was outside the box that pushed them

to make a decision, and then, you know,

check their conscience for a second.

I came back for the Booker Ts!

I was totally out of the loop, as far as...

what was going on with...

Vince Russo and

Hulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff.

[Vince] Bro, the next day on the internet,

everybody bought this- hook, line, and sinker.

And bro, what you got over and over and over again was,

"Finally! Somebody put Hulk Hogan in his place!"

Hulk is at home, and he's reading this,

and he's seething, and his ego is kicking in because

now it looks like this jackass, Vince Russo,

got one over on Hulk Hogan.

That's why this company's in the damn shape

it's in because of bullshit like this.

[Cheering]

My phone's just nonstop vibrating.

Hulk's phone's blowing up.

And now we're starting to hear bits and pieces

from different people about what Russo did.

And we're looking at each other like this can't,

this can't possibly be true.

Hulk Hogan, who is contractually entitled to

have final say over creative...

and yet, he throws all of that out the window and

goes into business for himself?

Tears the script up, and says,

"No, I'm gonna do it my way instead"?

We couldn't believe that that happened.

As far as Hulk was concerned, he's done.

There's going to be a lawsuit.

As far as I'm concerned, I'm done.

Regardless of who did what and who says what,

let's just look at it from the most important person

in the equation, which is the people paying money to

come and see the shows, buying the Pay Per View,

showing up to the live events.

Why would I buy into the idea that the next Pay Per View

is gonna be the biggest event ever,

or the next match is gonna be unbelievable

when it seems like every time they hype something up

some nonsense like this happens?

Ultimately, I think what this represented was the

blowing up of this new creative team that

many had predicted was inevitable.

And unfortunately, it played out,

not behind the scenes,

but in front of everyone to see.

You could talk about angles and storylines,

and this and that- the fact that I was

in a position to be able to do the right thing-

Booker T becoming the champion and

a man finally getting what he deserved and

getting through all that red tape and all the BS

was far and away my greatest moment.

Russo's stunt made it impossible for me to,

A, trust Vince Russo.

Or really the judgement of anybody else,

including Brad Siegel. Brad had a choice.

He could have sent Russo home

following Bash At The Beach.

But he didn't.

Eric and Hogan were partners in

what they wanted to do at WCW.

And, I was trying to do whatever I can do

to get it back on track.

[Cheering]

I came back to the guys behind that curtain

that give a shit about this company!

Post Bash At The Beach,

now we have another creative shake-up.

Eric goes home,

Hulk is never to be seen on WCW TV again.

And for the next 3 months we have Vince Russo and

a booking committee mapping out WCW's story lines.

So much had happened,

there had been so many attempted restarts and reboots

and changes of direction that the entire promotion

was sort of in a state of shell shock.

Once the bleeding started, it was a consistent

deterioration of WCW's business.

[Indistinct commentary & shouting]

Everything was very spontaneous,

in the moment: "What gets me excited now?"

Learn the meaning of the world discipline, ladies?

[Indistinct shouting]

He was doing a lot of segments

with himself involved.

[Indistinct commentary]

Well, he was brought in to be a writer.

And then, he'd write himself into the show.

And, write himself as one of the

main characters in the show.

This is my show!

This is my house!

And these are my people!

I'm just going to be 1000%

completely honest with you.

As far as an on-air character,

I felt that I was better than 80% of that roster.

They put so much pressure on me, bro,

that I made the mistake of saying, "You know what?

F' it. If you want ratings,

I will go out there and get ratings myself."

I almost get killed, bro.

I almost got killed.

[Crowd shouting] Oh! Whoa!

What I'm looking for tonight is ratings!

Big ratings!

And we're gonna deliver, you son of a bitch!

Like, to this day, people think that's who I am.

That's why so many people dislike me,

hate me who don't know me because

they think I'm my character.

Knock it off, know your place.

He put the belt on himself.

He became champion somehow,

which I just thought was kind of self-serving.

I can't even imagine, you know,

what brought that on except for childhood dream...

that every one of us have had.

So, I get Vince doing it.

I don't think it was a good idea.

But, I get it, and he had a lot of heat,

you know, internal and external.

[Shouting commentary]

Bro, listen, I never thought I was a wrestler.

Again, this is a television show.

All I'm trying to do is

entertain an audience.

[Indistinct commentary]

Bro, I should have never gotten in the ring.

I was really concerned about my health.

They were hurting me on purpose.

First of all, with Goldberg, he's supposed to spear me

into the entranceway.

And I told him ten times:

"Bro, I got a concussion.

Like, just please work me to the entranceway."

What does he do, bro?

He spears me right into the iron rail.

[Indistinct shouting] Whoa!

Come on, come on, man, like no question about it.

If I wanted to intentionally hurt him

he'd be underground right now.

And anyone who doesn't believe that

doesn't know anything about me.

I think so, without a doubt. Without a doubt.

And that was it, that, that spear,

that was the one that put me away, that was it.

Why am I putting my health on the line when, obviously,

nobody gives a crap about this company anymore?

Russo! I'm here!

And I'm waiting, Vince.

So, the last show that Vince Russo is credited

to have written is the October 2nd, 2000,

edition of Monday Nitro.

He gives an interview the next day on WCW Live,

lamenting everything that was going on in the company,

and then he's gone from the picture after that point.

This is Russo in 2000, baby.

Hulk Hogan...

I don't give a damn.

You think I care about Eric Bischoff?

I could give a damn.

Ratings 2.7, 1.7, 0.7.

I don't care.

Vince Russo losing his job next week,

I don't give a damn.

♪

When I see this, and I see that guy there,

it really reminds me of how much I hate the business.

I mean, I'm gonna be honest with you.

I mean, there's a lot of people that

don't like me saying that.

That's the fact of the matter.

It really brings me back to the, the damage,

emotionally, that this business did to me.

That's ab- absolute truth.

God honest truth.

And then, those same politics exist today.

♪

What is the fate of WCW?

We're talking about a company that, at its peak,

was generating in the neighborhood of $200 million

a year, and a huge part of pop culture.

It's a hit every Monday every night.

But it wasn't anymore.

It was so bad!

The bickering, the in-fighting.

We're Time-Warner.

Is it that important to own a wrestling company

that's losing money, bleeding massively?

I'll sit and watch the fucking thing sink

from my fucking house.

It didn't feel like a family anymore.

You had to look out for yourself.

What's gonna happen here? Are they gonna stick with this?

Are they not gonna stick with it?

I said, "Brad, why don't you let me explore

selling WCW while it still has some value?"

Going out!

We thought we were coming to work like a regular day.

Do you know anything?

And no one knew until that night.

Because the fate of WCW

is in my hands.