End of the Monday Night Wars; WCW’s Fate Uncertain

On Friday, I received the following press release from WCW. “Effective Tuesday, March 27, WCW programming will begin a period of hiatus. During this hiatus, WCW will review its programming plans and determine the course of future WCW-branded entertainment events. More information will be released as it is made available.”

The announcement appears on the surface to incident that the pending sale of WCW to Fusient Media Ventures is dead. Back on January 11th, Fusient released a statement announcing that they have, “entered into an agreement with Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. to acquire the business of World Championship Wrestling.”

Fusient’s statement named Eric Bischoff as the president of WCW Entertainment. The sale was to take between 30 and 60 days for completion. As weeks passed, February 28th was marked as the deadline date for the transaction to be completed. When the date passed without an agreement reached, rumors starting swirling that Fusient had developed a case of cold feet towards the deal.

The deal ultimately fell through when Turner executives wouldn’t guarantee Fusient the current television times slots on TNT and TBS in the future. Without guaranteed prime time television time slots, Fusient wisely lost interest in purchasing the struggling promotion. In today’s competitive wrestling environment, a company simply must have weekly television to survive.

Despite declining ratings, “Nitro” and “Thunder” maintained ratings that are competitive with other programming on TNN and TBS. However, the Turner philosophy regarding professional wrestling has changed since former WCW owner Ted Turner relinquished control of the promotion.

Bloomberg News quoted Turner spokesman Jim Weiss, speaking on behalf of Jamie Kellner (new head of Time Warner programming) as saying, “we've come to the decision that professional wrestling in its current style is not consistent with the upscale brands we've created with TNT and the Superstation TBS, therefore we've made the decision that we're no longer going to carry professional wresting in its current style.”

With the Fusient deal virtually dead, other potential investors have a limited window of opportunity to negotiate a purchase price for WCW. If a deal is not reached soon, most insiders believe WCW will be permanently closed.

The clear winner of the Monday night wars, Vince McMahon, has again emerged as the leading candidate to purchase WCW. If WCW were to fold, McMahon could sign any of their wrestlers as free agents; however, he would not have the rights to use the name WCW if he were to do an inter-promotional or invasion angle.

Dave Meltzer, editor of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, confirmed that Eric Bischoff and Fusient had a meeting with Fox on Monday to discuss the possibly of bringing wrestling programming to the network. It’s feasible, although unlikely, that Fusient still could purchase WCW, and re-launch “Nitro” and “Thunder” on Fox, or create WCW shows under new names for Fox. If WCW hopes to get back in the “game,” time is of the essence.

Tidbits: The WWF has opened an official web site dedicated to Triple H at WWW.WWFHHH.COM … Kevin Nash is booked for John Tenta’s (Earthquake) Friday Insane Florida Wrestling show in Sanford, FL. Scott Hall, Marc and Rena Mero (Sable) are also scheduled to appear … Chyna will do another photo shoot for Playboy in the fall.

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