Could Chris Jericho have bought WCW?

Butch Cassidy

On the Rise and Fall documentary Chris Jericho mentions that when he found out how much WWFE had bought WCW for he said that he would've bought it as he could've afforded it. The amount WWFE paid was rumoured to be around $5million or so.

Surely Jericho couldn't have afforded this in 2001 working midcard IC title matches? If he had've though... what if?!

jaykhunter

Sure anyone with $5 million (maybe less, 2-3 million...) could've bought it. I doubt Jericho had any actual inkling to buy it himself or get together a consortium to do so.

Although I was really happy that Vince bought WCW at the time, the inVasion was a bust, and I wish someone else bought WCW. Maybe Bischoff.

Butch Cassidy

Nah I'm glad someone like Vince bought it purely for the video library being put to good use. Sure they're making a mint off of us splashing out 30quid a box set just for two or three classic NWA/WCW matches but if it had've gone to Bishoff there'd be no chance of ever seeing those!


Would Jericho have had access to that kind of money all the same? Surely if Bishoff couldn't muster up the 5mill then I doubt Jericho could've....

GTR63

5 million Dollars as a Midcarder(he was at the time anyway).You must be mad it was paying talent like that that put wcw out of the Biz, that & most the talents didn't give a damn,just like they do now Bret,Flair,Hogan,
Nash & Hall would do ANYTHING if paid enough.
I'm sure a group of Talent could have bought it (in particular guys wcw made rich Goldberg, Sting,Hogan).
But most importantly Vince wanted to say he Killed them & any other competition to his company.Sadly the Industry badly,badly needs more alternatives now.
All Tna seem to offer is (Wwe Lite from 1995-now) or ROH a company that is held back by the Marks that infest the Majority of their Live Crowd (thats the difference in drawing hundreds or Thousands to a show.Its always the same kinda crowds they draw fans who know what Dragon Gate,Chikara,NOAH & EVOLVE are).

Degag

Jericho would still have been a top earner in the company at that time even if he wasn't in the title frame. Also, when you buy a new house, do you (generally) have the ammount in cash?

I would doubt that he had that kind of money but he probably had enough collateral to raise that ammount as a loan or he could easily have gotten backers i'd say.

Ham'nd'egger

At the time WcW was being sold, Randy Savage was seriously looking to buy it and had both the capital and the backers to do it, more so to utilise the video library than anything else. Part of what put him off in the end was the complex contracts that many WcW stars had. This effectively saw them under contract to Time Warner and not WcW itself which meant that it had little in the way of big names attached to the going concern. To take them on, Savage would have needed to buy out their contacts as well we re-hiring them which was a step that looked to cost him millions.

Savage also would have been taking on a company with legal suits filed mainly against WWF that he had little hope to win unless he took on expensive lawyers. When WWF took on the WcW assets in the end, the end cost of purchase was reckoned to been around $2.5 million with a further €1.7 million dollars for the tape library; his paid price being less than Savages due to some legal costs owed being offset to WWF's favour.

Oddly enough, McMahon was virtually unable to buy WcW until they had lost their TV spots due to the terms of his Viacom deal at the time.

jaykhunter

Butch Cassidy wrote: »

Nah I'm glad someone like Vince bought it purely for the video library being put to good use.

Until i see some silvervision tagged classics or anthology sets it's not been made of good use! Plus Vince'd never pay for the stock themes, just put in something awful and generic :mad:

Butch Cassidy

Degag wrote: »

Jericho would still have been a top earner in the company at that time even if he wasn't in the title frame. Also, when you buy a new house, do you (generally) have the ammount in cash?

I would doubt that he had that kind of money but he probably had enough collateral to raise that ammount as a loan or he could easily have gotten backers i'd say.

Yeah but Bischoff could've gotten a loan/mortage or whatever after his financing fell apart.

jaykhunter wrote: »

Until i see some silvervision tagged classics or anthology sets it's not been made of good use! Plus Vince'd never pay for the stock themes, just put in something awful and generic :mad:

Silvervision tagged classics are merely DVD re-releases of videos they releases years ago pre WWF name change. They don't have any access to the WCW vault. The entrance themes and music in WCW as far as I know were included in the buyout.

I do think the WCW vault has gotten a much better treatment than it was getting before the WWE bought it because there's been dozens and dozens of classic matches that have been put on to DVD that were NEVER released on DVD and the video releases were awful with regards to availability - WCW never had a Silvervision-like licencee.

I don't want to buy full WCW PPVs on DVD because they'll be a rip off as there was so much shite it just ain't worth it. Many of the best matches have been released on DVD - like the crusierweight matches and Ric Flair's. A Sting DVD can't be too far away. *



*All this aside, yes some of the match selections on some of the DVDs have been downright odd and in other cases just really crap. The WCW/World title DVD suffers from bad match choices as does the Rise and Fall of WCW DVD but still, better than nothing and nothing is what we would've been getting had anyone else bought WCW./

Diabhal Beag

His dad was a famous hockey player too. He could have made a lot of money in his NHL years.

parker kent

Vince could have paid more if he had to, he was never going to let that opportunity slip from his grasp. It would have taken another major player entering the field to stop Vince.

Podge2k7

Didn't Bischoff agree on a price with Ted Turner, but before anything was signed he was told he wouldnt get a TV slot on the network or something like that so he pulled out?

Charisteas

Was WCW auctioned off, or just put for sale at a fixed price?

Butch Cassidy

Podge2k7 wrote: »

Didn't Bischoff agree on a price with Ted Turner, but before anything was signed he was told he wouldnt get a TV slot on the network or something like that so he pulled out?

Yeah. Bishoff claimed that the company would've only been worth 20 bucks if there was no TV deal. Awfully short sighted by him as he could've retired on releasing that video library.

Charisteas wrote: »

Was WCW auctioned off, or just put for sale at a fixed price?

I've not read any books but from the Confidential, Monday Night Wars and Rise/Fall of WCW DVDs I understand what happened was: Turner Broadcasting owned WCW of course then they merged with Time Warner and Ted and co. kept control of WCW but then Time Warner and AOL merged and they lost control of WCW and the AOL/Time Warner guys wanted to get rid of it so the feelers were put out that they wanted to shift it. Bishoff had put together a consortium to buy it but two things happened which jeopardized the deal: the TV slot for WCW wasn't included so he was only buying the equipment, rings, trademarks, library etc. and one of the backers in his consortium pulled out. WWFE then swooped and made the offer or they were offered it.

I don't think there were enough people that wanted to buy it for an auction. WWFE probably would've bidded up if there was but it would've taken all the big name guys that got filthy rich over the years to chip in and buy it and sure why would they do that when they actually hated the company and/or wrestling and only cared about making money!

Degag

Butch Cassidy wrote: »

Yeah. Bishoff claimed that the company would've only been worth 20 bucks if there was no TV deal. Awfully short sighted by him as he could've retired on releasing that video library.

Bishoff isn't exactly a poor man i'd say, but i understand your point!

Vince135792003

Podge2k7 wrote: »

Didn't Bischoff agree on a price with Ted Turner, but before anything was signed he was told he wouldnt get a TV slot on the network or something like that so he pulled out?

Without tv, WCW was absolutely worthless to Bischoff or any other outsider.

gimmick

The video library thing always made me wonder also. Surely that had to be worth something?

Ham'nd'egger

gimmick wrote: »

The video library thing always made me wonder also. Surely that had to be worth something?

In spite of what some of us would be interested in, there would be a very small fringe market for almost all of the library with the only useful stuff being certain main events or for DVD sets of specific wrestlers. Essentially it was only going to be worth something to a large promotor type or TV producer who could put it to a decent commercial use and preserve it less the cost of maintaining it.

Remember, we are talking about over 30 years of wrestling events going back to the Jim Crockett Days as well as the many unused matches and sequences that never made it to air so there is legitimately tens of thousands of hours of stuff, most of it with little or no use and many of it utter junk. For every Sting vs Flair or War Games or Horseman run in you'd have 100 matches with no real value to anybody (Say, a Rick Morton or Tommy Rich vs Trucker Norm or Tom Zenk) or obscure mid south footage; the hard bit is to get the one good Anderson bout you need to buy it all.

jaykhunter

Vince135792003 wrote: »

Without tv, WCW was absolutely worthless to Bischoff or any other outsider.

Periodically releasing their PPVs in a "Tagged Classics" or "Anthology" boxset type deal would certainly make a lot of money -- or certainly more than it cost.

Even better, you could've licensed out the name/logo etc to TNA; to promote WCW, TNA and your box set releases.

Advertising would be key.

jaykhunter

Butch Cassidy wrote: »

Silvervision tagged classics are merely DVD re-releases of videos they releases years ago pre WWF name change. They don't have any access to the WCW vault. The entrance themes and music in WCW as far as I know were included in the buyout.

It's a shame they don't, I'd consider buying them, and wanting the releases has come up more than a few times (although not on this site). There are many WCW themes that were not owned by WCW, stock themes that they rented out for use on their TV/PPVs. I don't own many WWE DVDs but WWE don't use Goldberg's WCW theme when showing his stuff from WCW. It's not owned by WCW/WWE.

I do think the WCW vault has gotten a much better treatment than it was getting before the WWE bought it because there's been dozens and dozens of classic matches that have been put on to DVD that were NEVER released on DVD and the video releases were awful with regards to availability - WCW never had a Silvervision-like licencee.

That's a fair point, i guess instead of bringing out Anthologies/Tagged Classics boxsets they'll just bring out a "Best of PPV" like they did with Starrcade. I'm more interested in PPVs since I didn't see much of WCW at the time, rather than match compilations. PPVs give a much better idea of what WCW were actually like at the time.

michael.etc...

When it comes to WCW tv stuff, I've always felt they should throw together a bunch of best of sets, like Best of 89-92, 93-96 etc... and really trim the fat. If they were simply match comps/collections, it wouldn't take a collosal effort, and they could be affordable enough, given that they are a relative niche product.

Pre 94 there was alot of utterly superb stuff amongst an amazing roster that many people won't get to see. Although alot of the later, crusierweight stuff is already covered elsewhere, there's a risk the WCW work of guys like Vader, Orndorff, Blanchard, Bulldog, Muta, Luger- at his peak, and that generation who didn't go on to bigger success in the WWE, will be overlooked in future.

Vince135792003

jaykhunter wrote: »

Periodically releasing their PPVs in a "Tagged Classics" or "Anthology" boxset type deal would certainly make a lot of money -- or certainly more than it cost.

Even better, you could've licensed out the name/logo etc to TNA; to promote WCW, TNA and your box set releases.

Advertising would be key.

It could be.

Depends how much you'd pay for it and how much advertising you'd need to do as well.

Butch Cassidy

gimmick wrote: »

The video library thing always made me wonder also. Surely that had to be worth something?

WCW had terrible coverage when it came to VHS releases and they never released anything on DVD. In the USA it might've been better but outside, well essentially the British/Irish market (which is the one distribution region) they went through loads of different distributors.

At one point I think that crowd "First Independent" released some of their events on VHS - if you're old enough to remember the First Independent logo! Then in about 1997/1998 another mail order crowd popped up selling some of the 97/98 events on video. They were very expensive and I don't think they lasted that long. Some of the tapes pop up on the auction sites now and then for crazy money and there's even one on ADverts atm I think.


The video library is of course worth something and the WWE have made money out of it. The library was only worth something to something willing to put some effort into assembling the DVDs which WWE has done.

Ric Flair, Eddie Gerrero, Rey Mysterio, Chris Benoit, Steve Austin, Mick Foley, Brian Pillman... the list is endless of wrestler's DVDs that have had WCW matches featured on them. The same goes for the Starrcade and Rise and Fall of WCW DVDs as well as various others.

Butch Cassidy

jaykhunter wrote: »

Periodically releasing their PPVs in a "Tagged Classics" or "Anthology" boxset type deal would certainly make a lot of money -- or certainly more than it cost.

Even better, you could've licensed out the name/logo etc to TNA; to promote WCW, TNA and your box set releases.

Advertising would be key.

First of all I'd love to be able to get loads of WCW stuff. I don't however want all of it, I want the good sh*t and in general they've done a decent job putting the good stuff onto the DVD compilations they've been making already. I would assume that buying each and every PPV on DVD to get all the matches would cost more than just buying the wrestler or speciality DVDs as you want.

As someone mentioned, it's only a niche that would go out buying all the DVDs of WCW shows. Many of the PPVs post '98 but the argument for WCW tagged classics style releases seems to ignore this fact.

The best of WCW in the 90s wasn't Hogan vs Piper or Hogan vs Warrior or Nash vs Goldberg. The best was the crusierweight stuff and that stuff is getting released on DVD non stop (Chris Benoit aside now:()

Butch Cassidy

michael.etc... wrote: »

When it comes to WCW tv stuff, I've always felt they should throw together a bunch of best of sets, like Best of 89-92, 93-96 etc... and really trim the fat. If they were simply match comps/collections, it wouldn't take a collosal effort, and they could be affordable enough, given that they are a relative niche product.

Pre 94 there was alot of utterly superb stuff amongst an amazing roster that many people won't get to see. Although alot of the later, crusierweight stuff is already covered elsewhere, there's a risk the WCW work of guys like Vader, Orndorff, Blanchard, Bulldog, Muta, Luger- at his peak, and that generation who didn't go on to bigger success in the WWE, will be overlooked in future.

Yeah this is the kinda stuff I'd like.

Aslo similar to the RAW Best of Series 1&2 compilation coming out a Best of Nitro or WCW Saturday could work. But as you say, there's a lot of Vader, Blanchard and I think even Rick Rude* not released.


*I can't really remember very many Rick Rude matches during his WCW run but I did see the Rude/Steamboat 30 minute Iron Man on a tape I rented from a video shop back when video shops had wrestling tapes.