TLF Tackles Who Killed WCW Episode 4

And welcome to the final installment of TLF tackles Who Killed w c W, the four part miniseries on the death of World Championship Wrestling, as concluded on Vice TV. I'm here with the Boss, and we're also here with friend of the Show, Evan Husney of course from Dark Side of the Ring, Tails from the Territories, and now Who Killed w c W. Evan, Uh, it's over you popping champagne or you're going home exhausted like Eric after the deal died. I'm going fly fishing, motherfucker. Yeah. Yeah,

that's where I'm at. Yeah, right up the road from where I am right now, that's where I'll be. Uh No, I'm excited man, that it's uh, it's it's it's been a crazy turnaround. I've I think I mentioned it to you guys at one point. It's we started filming this at the end of November and here we are, Wow, you know, like at the end of June and four episodes have concluded on the air. It's quick turnaround. So this has all just been a blur. But I'm

glad. It's it's all. It's pretty much behind us. Now I can rest and onto the next but yeah, man, very very happy to be here. Thanks for having me back. Oh absolutely so episode four, JP, we finally took our measure of Brad Siegel and Stusnyder and the conspiracy theories around whether that purchase was facilitated in a way that might leave WW is the only logical buyer. I want to start with you, JP, what did

you think of Siegel and Snyder's representations on this very important front. Well, first of all, before I get into that, I do want I want to play something here because this is the thing, and I'll tell you what this really I think will we'll jive with with those who listen. I'm subscribed to cinemat Okay, just here because this was from the episode. I went to a guy by name of Peter Guber. Peter at that point in time

owned a company called Mandalay Sports and Entertainment. He's a very very very well established Hollywood guy. He said, look, I'm not interested in investing in buying WCW, but I think I know some people have made Do you remember Peter Guber? Yeah, of course I do. In fact, I recognized his name as someone that eric name drops. As soon as you said it, I literally so I remember, I was I was actually looking at something else right before that clip played, and the moment I heard Peter Guber,

it was like boom, Like I was like what. And I was like, I don't know if that's I mean, I assume it's probably common knowledge, but I didn't know that. And I'm just like thinking about all the shit that that we've talked about with him and and and John Peters and how they fucking you know, almost killed Sony pictures and stuff in Colombia. It was just almost like, you want to give it to this guy, all right, Hey, no one. I don't know. It was a few

years after after he left Sony, so I don't know. But like the uh, I mean, Brad Siegel's just an enjoyable individual to watch Nick into his eyes? Boss, What do you see behind the turtleneck in the horn rims? All right? Here, this is what I see. This is what I hear. Jamie Kellner was one of the best television executives in the business. But Jamie hated wrestling. He hated it, you know, he hated it, didn't get it, didn't want anything to do with it.

It was a pain in the ass. And we were losing so much money all the time that I think I made the suggestion to selww I don't know if he came from me or somebody suggested, and I latched onto it, and Jamie was like, Yep, get rid of this as fast as you can. I don't want anything to do with it. There is now I don't know to me seeing that, hearing that there is just just like this, there's glee underneath him saying man to me, I sensed glee as he's

like saying man like, it wasn't my wasn't my idea? I don't know if it was my idea exactly, shit, Brad. If you don't know if it was your idea, I don't know who else to ask. But now he's he'd be played it very very straight, very smooth. But he had his little wiggle words in there, which I think Evan gives us plenty to chew one. What did you think? Because you know it's funny.

We talked a lot before you guys launched the episode about how to structure it, and I was in on a couple of sessions about strategizing the approach, and this was thing where it's like you got to go there. But how much do you go there? You were wrestling with that and I think episode four you guys went in with both feet. How did that evolve? Yeah?

Well, I mean it was something just the whole idea of this, you know, uh, Cloak and Dagger conspiracy to you know, devalue the company, so wwe could buy it at a discount, you know, that type of thing. That was something I had not heard until I had read Guy Evans book. Uh, that was something that was new to me.

So and that was pretty interesting stuff. You know, obviously would be very dramatic for the series if we could get into it, and of course we wanted to make all attempts to get anybody on the record we could for this. I mean, we have to also acknowledge, you know, we're sort of burying the lead here, guys. You know, Jamie Kellner passed away.

I was just a few days ago as we're talking right now, which is just the timing on that is wild because he was somebody early on in the development of the series when we were like, Okay, who we want to talk to for the series, and you know, we were so much more interested in getting the turner guys. You know, the turner broadcasting voices more so than the wrestlers, Like that's who we're marking out for. Like, you know, we were like, we got Dick Cheata, you know

that. Yeah, you know, it was like Kevin Nash whatever, but Dick Chatter. These are guys we haven't heard before on camera on the whole poet exactly. So that's where our priority was for this entire show. And Jamie Kellner was somebody we really wanted to get on board for the series, and he was impossible to find, Like there was no contact information out there on the internet. We tried to contact, you know, representation of his

no response. I think it led to us actually sending like a FedEx letter to some address or something and we got a call back and he just had no interest. And it sounded more like just the hassle of the interview more than having interest and speaking about it. But the sense that we got was like that Jamie was like, Oh, I can't believe I'm still talking about

this so many years later. You know, That's what happens to anybody that touches wrestling, by the way, on a corporate side, like you can try to put it in the corner, but it will define you because the fans care so much more about it than any the fans of anything else you've

ever worked on. That's like, yeah, I feel like that's really especially when it comes to something that was so tragic to the wrestling fans as the sale of w CW, Like when it you know, this guy, this guy had no idea, you know, he had no idea what he was doing in terms of of of of who, of what sleeping giant he was

going to wake you know, the rest they don't. They don't forget, they don't forget, and they're and you're always you know, the crosshairs are always on you, and especially if you're it's going to be so awkward for for guys who were on this corporate level to like have this like what like

seriously, like this is well twenty plus years ago. Yeah, and like you know, you're just not going to be someone who's going to chase you down twenty five years later and be like, oh, tell me about you know, movies for guys who like movies you know or something you know or whatever. No, because it's like, as fans, we project so much of our own passion onto these stories yes, that we think that all of these players are care even you know, which they don't even care one percent

of how much we care. And they didn't take inventory of even you know, you know, like making memories around these decisions, you know, and so it's just, uh, it's just an interesting phenomenon that when you see kind of fans dissect this story after so many years and and and these players who don't have any stake or any interest in and if this stuff you know, lives or dies, you know, is that's kind of the cold hard

truth of it all. You know. It's just uh, that's why I think it's like, as we're segueing now into the conspiracy theory, it's again that's a huge part of this sort of to me, this Brad Siegel Stucks Snyder thing is like, you know, they would have to well, at least, you know, Brad Siegel would have to care enough, you know, in order to pull something like this out, you know, off which if you really look at the things that Brad Siegel was overseeing at that time,

uh, you know, wrestling is just one of many things that he was overseeing, and I just don't think he would have given it that sort of time of day, you know, in order to try and I think honestly, at that time, you're moving at the speed of light and you know, no matter if it sinks or you know, swims. Okay, great, what else we got, you know type thing? So how did it work in terms of chronology? Did you get Brad first and that helped get Stew or did both say yes in a vacuum? Was it the other

way around? God, I'm trying to remember if you remember, yeah, I mean exactly, no, I think it's I think it was around the same time. I know that, Like, we wanted to address right the conspiracy theory in the show because it is fascinating, and especially because there was record of it at the time. You know, Bob Ryder, who did the WCW dot com live show, had made reference to it, you know, on the WCW website, So it was something that people were talking about

at the time. So we wanted to definitely address it. And I think it was just we you know, Brad Stiegl was an obvious choice to to be a voice in the show, and I think we reached out to Stew with the intention of, you know, seeing what he had to say. On this and I think we got we got through to him and he was more than happy to sit down for an interview. He was very keen to do it. He was very keen to set the record straight on the story.

I know, that's maybe I would probably say that's one of the main reasons why he participated. So this this isn't something where you sit down and he's surprised to get this line of questioning. He came in almost with with that as top of mind. Wow. Definitely, definitely, yeah, because we because we had asked him about it. You know, we we do we do pre interviews. We talked to people on the phone, you know,

to kind of hear what they have to say. When we do this on you know, dark Side as well, you know, just hearing what you know, just kind of asking a bunch of questions and sort of you know, hearing stories from people so we can kind of pre plan what we're going to talk about on the day of the interview. And yeah, he was very keen to sort of you know, talk about and so that was like, great, so this is this is going to be awesome and yeah,

and so that's what that's what that's what happened. It's great. Well, it's so clutched that you got both of them, because it would have been very hard to throw shade at one or the other, you know, if the other wasn't there. Uh, you run into that problem enough. With W. C. W. Kellner as an example. You know, he'll never sit for anything, but everyone so everyone points at him, and you have to wonder, does everyone point at him because they know he's not

going to say anything? Same thing with Hulk Cogan. You know everybody knows Hulk's not going to sit, so a lot of people point to Hulk, right right, it's who's point what with a single finger to the chest. I didn't dude, I didn't do anything. Bro. I was gone, Brother, I was gone way after this, way before this, dude. Yeah, well, clearly the contract wasn't though they were still sending you letters

telling you to show up for greed. And if you don't want to show up, why did you cash three million dollars worth of checks in the end of two thousand that we sent to you for paper we're talking about, I mean we're talking you know that was contractual obligation. Dude. That's orvery clear. Evan did you sit with Kevin for this Kevin Nash, Yes, okay, So what was take us through handing him the iPad with Brad Siegel?

Because he turns that around and says, this is what killed w c W. Let me just say you know that that that's probably the most safe for television version of Oh boy, what you see. He was very upset because because we did play him some other stuff that that Brad had said. Uh, we didn't really use it in the show, but we use it in the opening of the show when he calls wrestler's pathological liars. If you remember

that, Oh yeah, everyone, everyone let latch right that. Yeah, yeah, I mean yeah, and so I like, like, you know, Kevin took a lot of that very personally and and and just yeah, he was not happy at all, uh and in reacting to Brad's stuff. But yeah, that was a moment for sure. Did and did you play him? Was it sort of like a highlight reel like I'm treating playing the whole interview with Bratt? I don't know how long it was, but no, trying to get an idea of like what really would have set him off?

Do you think it was the pathological liars thing of all the things you showed him. That and the actual clip that you see, you know, right, which takes no responsibility. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and and and a couple of other things. I think he'd mentioned something about how, you know, the talent was the most to blame. I'm paraphrasing. I don't remember it exactly the quote, but yeah, yeah, Kevin was was you know, Yeah, he was not happy about that. Oh that's really

yeah. What's the I don't know, JP, did you recognize the b roll as they started talking about conspiracies? What movie is that in black and white? Actually I didn't know what movie that was? What what? What? What film clips did you guys use for that? That's a good point. It's a good question. Oh man, I can't remember off the top of my head. But you know, there's a ton of this type conspiracy

theory into like a b roll database or something. No, well, there's there's just a ton of like those classic film noirs that that are in the public domain, Like there's DOA. I think d A is one of them, which is a great film. If you've never seen it, it's great. Well, now it qualifies for under the cinemat because it was on a wrestling related show, so that's great. Yeah, DOA is really cool and

so yeah, so what it was. I think it was kind of an Errol Morris influence again of just like we had no idea how we were going to bring coverage to that part of the story, right because we're not doing reenactments. I mean, this is the show has It does have some I don't know if you've noticed, but the big bang poster and sitting on the desk. Yeah, I was going to ask you about that. That's about

the only recree sort of element. I was like, did they really find b roll of someone who said cell w CW on a yellow legal pad on their desk? No, that that was my That was me and we Yeah it was. It was so much fun. We had so much fun.

We had like this this broadcast camera from the nineties. Uh that that that we got a hold of, just big chunky camera and we brought it into a small studio and we shot all those little those little stuff like because you know, because we do use stock footage in the show, you know, we wanted to lean into stock footage and like public domain film noir clips like that you see. But we also wanted to kind of create our own stock

footage. That was the that was the sort of you know, creative, you know, approach to it. So we so so that cell W CW thing, and like all the N sixty four stuff you see or anytime someone's changing the channels or there's shots of the WWF magazines, like, all that stuff was shot with just like this chunky nineties camera and it was so much

fun. So it's not a filter. And and and maybe the coolest thing we did is for all the AOL stuff with the with the fan message board typing stuff, right, we actually got an iMac you know from the era and uh, you know the big chunky you know color colors blue or orange, orange. Yeah, we got one of those things. And I couldn't believe. It's like, okay, this works, it's working, but we need to get a video file of the AOL startup logo screen onto it.

So we actually called a friend who rendered a video in dyvics for us, and we were able to load it onto that iMac and actually shoot it practically. So that was a lot of fun. That was just so much fun. All that kind of stuff was just oh, that was the best that's amazing. He's a lapsed fan wrestling podcast with Jack N. Carno m Jpsoro, a lapsed fan wrestling podcast. Yeah, it was. It was a very good idea to include the N sixty four. I mean we've talked about

this at nauseum over the years on the show JP. I mean, that's what made WCW the hot thing of ninety seven and ninety six. If you want to count WW versus the world. It wasn't just the angle at the nWo angle and Hogan turning heel. That was, you know, probably seventy eighty percent of it. It was also that you could follow on and play the best wrestling game that had ever come out with all these wrestlers yep and so many, and also just the incredible gameplay, you know, just like

you know, gameplay that revolutionized the whole the whole wrestling video game. For Yeah. That is that is that you evan having pizza with your friends over? Is that like your personal memory there a little bit? Yeah, for sure. I I definitely had sleepovers with friends, uh playing that game, and we would stick a tape into like into my VCR and record our N

sixty four. You know, matches on Revenge and make our own little pay per views, and and we were able to like somehow get audio into it to have like commentary too, so we so those exist somewhere, who knows where, But yeah, that was a huge part of my childhood. I

actually my my lapsed fan and sort of journey, you know. I was a you know, a fan in the late eighties, early nineties hul Comania, yep, and then I got back into wrestling because of the first N sixty four WCW game, the World Tour WCWNW, Yeah, the World Tour. So it's a huge part of everything. So I knew it had to be a huge part of the show, and we took it a little far.

I mean there's some cheeky moments in there for sure, like right before Eric Bischoff gets fired, you see Brett Hart put the sharp shooter on him

in the game, you know, so we had fun with it. But I think that's the tone of the show, and that's that's what was so cool about this whole project was just that we got to have like fun, you know, and we got to like just you know, have a different tone and you know, lean into more humor and just play with a lot of different tools, and it was it was a lot of fun interesting, you know, the way it kind of ended up shaking out. Episode one

is like who is Eric? How did Eric come to power? Episode two, Eric rides the wave and then crashes and gets fired and looks out on the wilderness in Wyoming and the begin Vince Russo in episode three comes in, crashes and he's walking around his neighborhood in Colorado. At the end, I presume, and you know, there's been people saying, you know, you will lean too much into Bishoff, you lean too much into Russo in terms of, like, you know, kind of softballing their role in the demise.

They sat for the interview. Their absolute musts for the series. They were that, you know, how have you felt about the feedback in terms of how much emphasis you've placed on Eric and Russo in terms of, like,

you know, a cult of personality sort of approached each episode. Yeah, I mean, well, to me, it's in making anything like this a four part series, a doc series, especially trying to make something that you know has a broad appeal to non wrestling fans, you know, something that like I always say, like I want our shows to be something my aunt can watch and of course privoted as I would. You know, you have to have a main character, and you have to have you have to

and Eric is the main character. Like, yes, there's all this history of pre Eric and everything, but really, you know what's interesting about this story, and especially to someone who's not a fan, is is the rise

and fall of WCW. You know, in its prime, you have have taking something that's a distant second, a very lower tier product, and then somehow catching this lightning bolt and it becoming this phenomenal cultural phenomenon I think is accurate to describe, and then seeing it burn out, you know, super fast, you know. So for me, it's like Eric is that character that brings us through all of this, you know, And I don't know,

I don't see it that way. I think that's a little bit of a jaded fan or someone who's very close to the material looking at it, because I do think that he does. You know, Eric has his version of the story, of course, but I do think we see him take a lot of responsibility and in his own way for things, you know, when he when you know, when he talks about the chronic bad finish,

syndrome. He's talking about, you know, being a green lighting and okaying the David Arquette title change and actually being a physical player in the match and things like that. But I think one thing we wanted to show with this series that I think is underappreciated is this idea of and I can relate to this a lot, is uh just you know, managing the wrestling side of the business is one thing. The talent booking, making the right creative decisions,

you know, and all that stuff is one thing. But also just the what you're up against in terms of the corporate environment that this company has to exist in, which is kind of weird, like that you get this weird, colorful, wild, exotic world of wrestling that's like you know, you know, that's like bumping elbows with this very corporate, you know, stock driven, money driven, you know, corporate, giant, broadcasting conglomerate.

Right. So, and like I said, I can relate to it because there's so much that happens in that environment where random people get hired, random people get fired, Decisions are made arbitrarily and you have no control over them, and there's no it doesn't make any logical sense, you know, in terms of somebody comes in, they're a marketing executive and they have an idea and they want to put their stamp on something, and it's a political

sort of you know environment, And we've definitely experienced that just on a smaller scale with our shows and dealing with you know, network types and the like. So we wanted to sort of show that experience and the fact that too, like just to put it into perspective, aw has been around now for five years, right, five years? I mean, you know in this WCW show, we're really talking about two and a half years ish, you know, Yeah, of time, and just think that's just a short amount

of time for all of this to transpire. You're moving at the speed of light, and so many decisions you have to make on a daily basis, and they're not all winners. And I'm sure in hindsight twenty twenty you would have done a million things differently. And I feel the same way I would

too if I could. And some of the things that we've done, or when we don't get things right or when there's problems, So you left with anything after four episodes here, might as well talk the question in here where it was like, man, we should have explored that more we had good tape on this element of the WCW collapse story or not. I mean, you know, don't force anything but anything stick with you. No, I mean, I don't think there's anything that we got on tape that we didn't

get or that we didn't put in the show. I mean, you guys tell me maybe we'll do a podcast about it as somebody, Oh, look at that. That worked just as I expected. Jaw that everyone just saw

how the sausage is made. Continue. But this is what I will say, and this goes back to how this whole project came together, is it was this whole the idea to do this was born out of speaking of podcasts, was this idea of like a company wanting to develop a podcast series with us, Oh I to do like a Dark Side of the Ring spin off on a podcast, but they would be more like radio documentaries, right likes what's a story that's too big for your show that we would do over the

course of like ten episodes. And we've always been we've always been hearing from fans like, oh, we want you guys to do the death of WCW. And it's always been too big of a story for Dark Side, even two episodes or whatever. So we started to develop it as a podcast, and then you know, seven Bucks wanted to team wanted to team up with us again, and Vice wanted to work with all of us, and so

we were trying to come up with the new ideas. We had a bunch of different ideas on the table, and one was like, hey, what if we just did the WCW story as a mini series? But then I was thinking about it as a longer project than four episodes, and I I wish I could go back to answer your question and maybe try and push a little harder for more episodes, I think, because and this is boring.

I hope it's not too boring, but is like, you know, when you have like ten episodes the Dark Side of the Ring, and you have a budget and you create a budget for him, you can spread out all these costs over ten episodes, right, You're you're more efficient with your money, and it's and you can get a lot done. Four episodes really constricts everything because all the four episodes are carrying the cost of the whole show, and it is so it only allowed us to interview I think, I think

it's eighteen people. It's how many people are in the show, and that proved to be not enough. I think, I mean, and that's one thing always goes through my mind, people like why didn't they talk to X Y Z. Usually the person didn't want to do it, like in Jamie Kellner's case or Haul Cogan's case. But also you just you don't have unlimited resources. You have to you have to pick the interview subjects that are going to be the best bang for your buck, right, people who aren't just

going to speak to a little corner of the story. Which is why I was. I was happy to see you got stew Snyder because he really functions as just that piece. You don't even see him into the last episode. But that was that was worth it, that was worth leaning into, even if it was just a one beat sort of guy. Yeah, yeah, you don't. You can only have so many of those. So the whole

thing is a puzzle. It's a whole it's a puzzle. In the beginning, you got like, whatever it is, eighteen shooting days, how are you going to make it work? You know, and you got to make sure all the schedules line up. Sometimes it's a schedule reason. Someone's not in the show and we have to shoot it in this time period or else it's not going to make it in because the whole thing is a conveyor belt

of production, you know. So but that being said, if I could go back in time, maybe you would have pushed for six episodes, and I think we probably could have you know, expanded it a little more. But again, we were we were just moving so fast trying to make this. But I'm very happy with it. I'm very happy with how it came

out. I think it's very fun, it's very entertaining, and again, like maybe to the to all the WCW scholars, it's not I think the episode four is going to deliver on, you know, stuff that they may not have heard before. But I think it may not be the super satisfying to the ultra WCW scholar. But I think to anybody who's got a casual interest in any of this, I think they're going to find it fun. And someone who does zero knowledge of this I think is definitely going to be

you know, entertained and intrigued by it. So that was the idea. JP. It tricks me. That's kind of the bitch about WCW. We've covered it at length over the years. We did the Starcade memorial tour, all the Starcades in order. It's just short enough that the existence of the company in particular, like Evan was saying, the Boom years, is just short enough to trick yourself into thinking that you can cover it all because it's

just three years. But those three years, as we've discovered, I mean, how many more times, JP do we have to go eight hours on a show that we thought was inconsequential. But it's so it's so true. I mean, these you find out more and more, especially with WCW, more than anything else you see. You see literally how each each show or each moment each day, YEP is like a cog in the wheel of that kind of destruction. Each rating, each rating you know has Yeah, it's

like consequence. It feels like it does. It really does. Now. I got to ask Evan a question, though, Were you there? Did you go to did you interview Bischoff? Were you there for that? Yes? I was there for We did three days in total. I was there for the first two. I was not there for the third one. It was at his house. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I need I needed an exact description of what his house looks like. I had actually been there, I think twice before, because we've had him on the show Dark Side.

Yeah, and I mean it's amazing. You know, what can I say? It's uh, it's in this unbelievably picturesque part of you know, Cody Wyoming, all of the all of the backgrounds you see in the show or that's it, and it's gorgeous. You know. He has this turn of the century western bar, you know, maybe it's even earlier. It's like, you know, eighteen hundreds, maybe mid to late eighteen hundreds, like an old saloon bar that you see in the background of the shot.

And then as his his whole house was built around that. You know, he built his entire house around that. And it's super cool. And you know there isn't hardly any wrestling shit anywhere, of course, of course, of course. And yeah, he seems to be, you know, living a great life. You know, he's got an awesome dog, his wife's great and you know it's beautiful there. So did he go did you go hunting with him at all? No? Did not do that, didn't have

did he serve you freshly hunted game meet at all like the carnivore. No no, no, no, all right, all right, well yeah, we have this this like fantasy like idea, this like fantastical idea of like what is his his? Like Western life is like eighty day life. And it's there. Man, you guys get it. You get him. Look out into the sunset. He's a lapsed fan wrestling podcast with Jack and MJP soo. He's a lapsed fan wrestling podcast. I'm want to ask you Evan

about the nitro footage. Oh yeah, this is super cool. We were gonna ask Guy Evans about this. We're not out of time, but I figured you could probably enter it for us. You identify the w CW cameraman that had this this footage, but you know, take us through because as you know about us, we are we are completely obsessed with found footage like

this. So tell me everything. It makes episode four really great, I think, yeah, I mean okay, So when we did the I wasn't there for this, but when when we had filmed the interview with Neil Pruitt, we had heard one of he Neil had mentioned to our producer Howard, who's been the Dark sid Unheard podcast. He told Howard that there was a guy out there, Scott Lansing, who had all of this never before seen

footage. We didn't know how much, how long, or what it was, but it was just kind of this idea that he has footage that's been shot, you know, backstage at during the Last Nitro in Panama City. And so I was like, guys, we got to get on this asap. And it took a while for us to make the connection through Neil with Scott, but once we did, we got an understanding of what the magnitude of this was. And it's actually three days worth of footage because it's it's

all this stuff that he shot. In the days leading up to the Last Nightro. They did some like ah, I think it's like an MTV thing. They did like some parties like leading up to the like over the weekend before Monday. Yeah, they would do the spring breakout events. Yeah,

whatever they call it. It's all the spring break stuff. And and that there was interviews with wrestlers like Canyon and you know, Bill DeMott and Booker t and uh, there was like footage of like like like like the thing that really made me be like, okay, guys, we got to like make this deal like tomorrow. Is when they told me there was footage of Shane McMahon in the ring in the daytime, and I was like, what, Yeah, he had that turtleneck on it three in the afternoon in Panama

City, Florida. Jesus, Yeah, like what. But I just always in my head. I don't know why, but I always assumed that like Shane like you know, landed in the in the jet, you know, like ten minutes before they went on the air. You know. That's what was in my head. So just kind of was like, whoa, this

is crazy. So then we were able to make a deal with Scott and all the footage was was sent to me and I went through every single frame of it myself and it was awesome and just making my own selects, finding the little nuggets, you know within would you? How could you? How? How difficult was that process? Like looking through all that stuff and and this this incredible never seen footage of this monumental night or or even event in

wrestling, and like, how could you? I mean, obviously there was obviously some some crap in there, I'm sure, but everything so valuable yeah, okay. So here's the thing about it. It was amazing and it took me about a week to get through all of it. But here's the thing. It's not footage that as amazing as it is, it's it's not footage that sort of can tell its own story. You know. It needs

like a voiceover. Yeah, yes, it needs someone to really narrate it or to tie it all together to make it really like watchable and as amazing as I'm making it sound. And unfortunately, this footage came to us after we had filmed all the interviews, so we weren't able to show the footage to any anybody like we like, we couldn't show it to Conan or we couldn't show it to Booker T and be like, hey, look at this, you know, and have them react to it, because of course we

would have if the timing had been different. So it really was this thing that came in late in the game and it just like jammed our heads and changed everything where we're like, oh my god, what are we gonna do? You know, we got to work this in somehow, But I do think there's something that could be made and maybe we'll look at maybe we'll look into this as some tangential side thing that we do where it is narrated or something, or we can look through it and how many hours do you reckon?

It? Is a lot. It's a lot. I don't know, ten four, maybe three, maybe no, maybe eight to ten maybe, oh yeah, maybe, I don't know. It's a lot of b roll. There's a lot of b roll. There's a lot of like you know, there's a lot of interviews, like a lot of a lot of the run time is in with people who some of what you see in the in the episode four, and there's just like kind of this fly on the wall

b roll. There's lots of great little moments, lots of like you know, verite of the wrestlers at catering, and you know, yeah, there's a lot of it, you know, but it's not like again, it's not it you have to have. It doesn't really speak to you unless you're you know, you have someone walking you through it. Kind of could you tell always being SERVEI catering in the footage mister frame by frame, let's put him to the test. I want the standard deaf. So yeah, that's

true, that's true. Good point. It's probably just chicken breast. Anyway, I love the one where Shane Helms wrapped something around his neck like he's gonna hang himself. That's fucking great. Yeah, there's like lots of like little Easter egg moments in there, and and some and there was more. There was other great stuff that just didn't make the cut, you know, and but there, Yeah, there there's some awesome stuff in there. I'm

trying to think of something off the top of my head. I mean, one of the things that really hit home for me in looking through the footage and listening of the interviews was, you know, there's like interviews with a lot of just the the crew, the people behind the scenes, the like technical crew that have been you know, working for this company for some of them over a couple of decades. Yeah, that's that's the perspective. This

guy who took this footage is coming from like his colleagues. Not that he's not so much about the wrestlers he talks to him, but it's about these collegial, full time people who've been holding cameras for WCW for like, yes,

thirty years, I mean twenty fifteen whatever. Yeah, there's actually an interview with a guy can't remember his name right now, but he was like the he was the package editor, you know, he's in the broadcast truck like cutting the cutting, like the video promos for the matches and stuff, and so just talking to people like that, like what's it been like working

for this company? You get this whole He paints a picture of it being this a family on the road, you know, that's been traveling week after week and doing this on that that comes through when Neil Prue it chokes up by the way, it's like wow, oh yea of all the people to get choked up at the death of WCW, it's a guy who, you know, you would think would just consider it a workaday job, you know,

on a production, but he like, that's that's WCW. Who are Those are the people that were there through all the bullshit exactly and and and those are the people that like are making all this really possible, you know? And uh so, yeah, there's interviews with like, you know, production designers, make up people, all this stuff, and you get this family. This this just you know, tangible like they're they're on the road.

They're like the brothers and sisters of w CW and then I just caught like a shot very quick b roles in the show, but it's a little

too short for you to notice. But there's like a during you know, backstage during Panama City, there's a little like uh uh likes poster board mounted on the wall, and it's like crudely written, like like sharpie writing, and it says like, uh, please stay in touch, like we have to stay in touch, like please write your phone number on this on this board, you know, and it's just like wow, you know, because one of the things that's also underappreciated about the last Nitro and just how everything

went down is, you know, a few days before the show, people knew WW. You know, most people knew WW was going to buy this thing, but they didn't know what was going to happen. Like they didn't know is WW going to keep this thing going? Are we going to just you know, maybe take a little break and we'll be back and Nitro and just you know, WW is gonna own us, but there's still going to be a Nitro or are they going to fold us into this company or nobody

was told anything. So there's this very tangible sense of uncertainty and Uh, like a like a thick atmosphere of uncertainty that's just very palpable on that footage, and uh, it was just so cool to see and like, wow, I mean really it really makes the series to me in a lot of ways to be able to like unveil something like that, you know that just that just I don't even know what the series would be without it, to be honest with you, Yeah, really had some of the most tantalizing stuff

and the promo to hook people on the series, and you see gaved it to the end, which was a stroke of brilliant. So did you guys try to talk to Brian Badal at all? He's somebody that we've heard from in the past on documentaries about this. Did Did he say, no, I'm interested if maybe he's had enough of revisiting this. No, honestly, Honestly, the honest truth is he was on the list. We had this big list. Oh yeah, you know, I remember, I remember helping

populate it. Yeah, we had a list of names and we were given the number of shooting days and it was just a puzzle piece, a puzzle to make it all work, and just we just we Brian had to unfortunately be cut. I don't I don't know if we I'm not sure if we talked to him or not, but it was just like, yeah, we just don't have a we don't have a spot for him right now. Yeah, you know, yeah, well when you get Brad Sigel, that's that's

big. I mean, you know you had tried to get Brad Sigel for We've probably talked about this before, for bashing each two thousand, because he's a big player in the Hogan Russel lawsuit and he was not interested. So that must have felt like, uh, you know, it was it was that it was part that he was not interested, in part that he didn't have a strong memory of any of it. Yeah, according to him,

well he doesn't remember if he suggested selling WCW or not. So remember I may have made the suggestion, or I may have latched onto someone else's suggestion. It's it's only fair of him to to make that. Make that clarification. There's another one. I know you guys put it in, probably with a little smirk because you know it's it's great stuff where he's he doesn't remember how much he allotted to WCW for a quote unquote rights fee. But but

he knows that it wasn't a lot he doesn't, you know. He kind of gets to these points, I feel like, and at least the clips you guys included in the Dock where he's about to kind of admit that he could give a fuck about what happened to his w Matt. Maybe that's not fair, but he like he hesitates it, very interesting moments, pregnant, pauses almost he's unfortunately kind of you know, finds himself as the heel of the show. Yeah, yeah, you know, he is kind of fortunately

put in that position. However, I will say that I do want I welcome his opinion, like his perspective on this whole thing. I think it's a very sobering take because again, like we, you know, we started out this pod, we were sort of talking about how as wrestling fans, you know, we we we project onto these decisions and these time periods as it's as as if it's the most important thing that ever happened in the history of mankind, you know. So for him, he's bringing he brings it

way down to earth, you know, And I do appreciate that. But also he does take some responsibility by the end in episode four, he's you know, he's he's he's pretty much saying like, you know, hey, you know, I couldn't help find that idea. I wasn't that guy,

you know, and I wish we could have done things differently. And you know, he was sad about it at a certain point, which I wouldn't expect him to say that, even even halfheartedly, you know, yes, and you know, sometimes that's just the way things go, you know, and and and oh, you know, the line that really resonated with me for episode four is Stu Snyder when he's sort of clearing the air on the conspiracy and he says, you know, because he knows Turner, he knows

the environment over there because he had worked there, but just sort of saying that there was no strong advocate for w CW in those final that final year there who was sticking up for it, you know, because Eric, remember he's not a he's not an employee. He is a consultant at this time, and there was nobody there who had a vision and who was going to

stick up and fight the battles. And honestly, I'm trying to put I'm trying to like imagine if I had been fired from Dark side of the Ring, and there wasn't somebody like myself or Jason who would stick, who would fight all the battles that we have to fight, right you know, I it would be you would be seeing the most you know, you you would be seeing a completely different show, you know. And that's such an underappreciated element of this whole story, is like how things would have been different,

you know, had Eric not lost his passion for for for WCW. I think that is something that comes clear through episode two at the end as well, is he just has no fucks left to give. He's like, well, these guys turn their back on me. I don't care anymore. And I think that showed and that's a problem, you know. And I think when you don't have somebody who's going to fight these battles, then then all of the corporate masterminds are going to take over and it's going to become homogenized

and it's gonna it's not gonna it's not gonna work. And you know, coincident with that nineteen ninety eight Eric Bischoff time period is also a lot of attempts to do something that, you know, to get the ratings momentum back from WWF that just didn't work. I mean, yes, you know, you talk about the Jay Leno angle, you talk about uh, you know, Warrior bringing in Warrior and what an unmitigated disaster that ended up being. You talk about him challenging Vince to a fight in person in a real show

of desperation. Harvey Schuler has said that Bishoff by the end of ninety eight was actually proposing to float a rumor that he had died or disappeared in a plane crash. Yeah, that was something that unfortunately was one of the one of the things to get cut. Now that you mentioned things that weren't in the show, that's one of them. That was one thing that I still kind of am a little sad is not in the show because it was in there for a while. Uh when how did he feel it? Just out

of curiosity? Was he? Because to me, that's like almost like a cry for help, Like when that's what we're coming up with, you know, it's it's it is and and and to me it was a very like,

uh, yeah, it was dramatic. But one of the reasons why we cut it at the last minute was because it just never came to fruition, and it was a little unsatisfying, Yeah, just dramatically so uh but but basically, yeah, he had floated the idea that he, you know, because Eric was a known pilot and that you know, one of his private planes, he was going to get into a crash and and and and and be killed and and he wanted to go as so far as to try and get CNN to cover it, you know, oh my god, like

this had actually happened, and so then it would be reported on the news. But then of course all these like you know, if if anyone found out and all this stuff, like all it just would be a disaster. And so it didn't get it didn't get farther than just a loose, uh kind of off the cuff idea. But because how is that gonna stunt?

How is that kind of a stunt gonna like you get you get like five seconds of it, five seconds of of of like note of notoriety, and then it's over like after well, it's such a weird misremembering, unless I'm misremembering. I thought it was because he just wanted to be out of the like uh like out of the spotlight. The limelight and didn't want to. I don't know he saw, if I remember correctly, he saw a moment where he returned, like you know that moment of like what if someone came

back from the dead on a wrestling show. Oh, you're right, that's what it was. But it's right, there's a problem, you know, the probably traded company. Like if you say the truth that the top executive of a part of this publicly traded company is dead, it's it's like when Vince blew up in the limo. I was conflating it with that. I was conflating it with because Vince just kind of wanted to be off air,

Right, wasn't that what that was? Or yeah, there was, Yeah, there was a plan to do the funeral and everything, and then Chris Monro happened, and my god, right, he's a lapsed fan wrestling podcast with Jack and and Jpi Soro. He's a lapsed fan wrestling podcast. My god, what a time. You're saying you wouldn't have tuned in Monday, boss if you heard over the weekend that Bishoff went missing in a plane. No, no, I definitely would have no question. My point is,

what do you do after that? Like you you've you've basically put all your ear It's like the Archete title change in one basket. You put all your eggs in one basket to like get a rating, and then after that nobody watches again. Yeah, the longer term stuff, that's that's that's interesting. There's a lot of things in ninety eight, and again you can include it anywhere near all of them where it's like, Okay, there they are trying. It's it's it's it's a little charitable to say he stopped trying. He

just failed. No one gave a shit about any of the ideas they were coming up with, or at least the ideas that they could get across the transom and get onto television through all the filters of the Hogan Contract and all that shit, right, and and the and and and the ironic part, or you know, is is that you know, they they'd always kind of gone back to the well to try to to try to make something that had already worked work again, which is a very sort of common, uh,

you know, bad move. But but you know they had all the talent in the world too, you know. And and I think, as Conan says, very eloquently in the in the last episode here talking about how I think if that, if if the mid card was able to mix with the top guys, Yeah, he says it. No, yeah, I mean you would have that would have been that would have been incredible if as we've been doing this, we've been talking about that. You know, it's like

they just didn't have another gear after the nWo. It's not that they made the mistake of trying too many times. It's that they simply didn't have any other idea that would have drawn a rating that they could execute with the talent. And he goes, they had to manage if they even had the creativity

to come up with it in the first place. But you get into a situation where a Brad Siegel gets the reins and he's leaning in to the same idea people from Russo and men Bischoff that sort of delivered the company to this. You know, a lot of fingers to point. It's an age old TV thing. You know, when one thing works, you just do more, you know, and and that is a classic move, you know, and it's it never really works. You know, people don't learn the lesson

from that one. Why do you think Teddy Turner sat for an interview. I was fascinated by that. I mean, he's there. He speaks a lot about the merger, which is really interesting, but he doesn't know anything abou wrestling, but he kind of knows his dad as a heart for it.

Yeah, what about that. Yeah, when when we were going through the the prep stages for the for this and looking at all the research and figuring out how we were gonna tell this story again, it's like, you know, ted Turner's never really sat for an interview or talked about WCW in a very long time, and he's such a huge part of this story.

You know, he's not only there would be no WCW without him, but also he's this character where you know, he's sort of insulating and protecting this property in his portfolio that everybody else doesn't want to have to be associated with. But then, of course, once he gets removed from power, it's kind of you know, it's, uh, it's it's free game for anybody

to try and take it down. Yeah. So he's an important figure in this whole story and we wanted some representation from from him, and we'd heard over the years that his health had been in decline and so kind of taking a page out of our own book when when we did the Black Saturday episode and and and same happened with Ole Anderson. He was not in interview shape that we were like, well, you know his maybe his son could uh oh yeah, he was crazy. He was great, and he sort of

proxied for him. And so it was kind of the same approach where it's like, you know, maybe maybe maybe you know Ted has a family member who knows enough about this. And and Teddy is interesting because he he you know, he worked for Turner Broadcasting. I believe he actually also did work for w CW at one point, so you know, he he he was

a part of the company. And yeah, I think it's good to get you know, he's not in there a lot, but I think that what he brings to it is again another sort of sarrogate perspective of Ted and talk about how you did get who you thought to get, who you couldn't get, who you had to pass on. I'm sure you were surprised as anybody to see the nature Boy himself after episode one, but like, you're not

going to talk to me. Everybody in the world knows that he was not happy with you guys on the plane ride from Hell, but he wanted to be on the show. I how do you deal with that? How do you react to it? I guess is really the question? I mean, yeah, good question, I mean yeah, it again, it was, it was, It was a tricky thing. I honestly thought there'd be no way in hell that he would want to do it. Number one. And then second of all, it was just again looking at the looking at trying

to create and look, I mean, Rick Flair is WCW. You know, he's the face. Him and Staying are like the two big icons of the entire company. But again, I just felt like, after we had, you know, gone through the research and gone through Guy's book and going through how we're going to break this story down in four episodes, and specifically not as a history of w CW. This isn't This isn't the complete history

of the company. This is a sort of, if you will, a essay or a look at a very specific element of the story of WCW. Rick Flair is not, to me somebody that that shows up that's synonymous with its downfall, you know, And I sort of felt like and maybe I'm wrong about that, but that was my gut at the time, and especially again going back to the seventeen or eighteen shooting days we had, Rick Flair may have may have cost three or four shooting days, you know, let's

be real. Yeah, sure, you know, it just it just didn't seem like, uh, it just would have been hard and like all these interviews have to work for four episodes, you know. So and honestly, I just didn't think that there was any way in hell he would have wanted to do it. You know. Yes, of course, what I've heard through the grapevine, the things that is that you know, he said about me and you know, never wanting to you know, work with us, and all this, I just only assume to that, you know. And

so but yeah, who knows. Maybe maybe if things would have things could have gone differently too. I don't know. It was again, everything was moving so fast, and I also I also wanted to create this show to not just be the top guys too, you know. And obviously Hogan was someone we were really chasing for this because he's he is synonymous, you know, with these parts of you know, his name comes up a lot.

Well, the contract and of course, the star, the all you know, the finger poke a doom, the Goldberg match, the Sting match which put him over. It's a problem exactly what are we going to talk about? I did well, you know, I did well. They asked me to do, brother, I didn't. I didn't question creative and then you

know, looks the company sinks to it's not my fault. Yeah, So it's like, you know, there's somebody who's checking all the boxes in terms of all the parts of the story we know that are going to make the air. So that was something, you know, he was he was really we were really trying to chase him. I thought for a while there had him, and then he ultimately passed, and I was like, oh that hurts. Pretty bummed, Yeah I was. I was bummed because this is

your best shot. You know, you've got Dwayne involved. It's like, yeah, Eric, and yeah, I thought that for a minute, because that's what I envisioned, you know, I'd envisioned that obviously this was going to include Hulk from the beginning, and and so and I expected more maybe

you have it and just didn't frame it this way. I expected more finger pull pointing at Hulk than there was really but the exception of like Bash of the Beach two thousand, when you get there, there really wasn't a lot of talk of like, no matter how you know, no matter what we wanted to do, if Hulk Hogan's program isn't the money drawing program WCW is really nothing because you're not going to get it's not gonna the good vibes won't

cascade down the card like it did when he turned heel and lit the place on fire. If he's not there, and then you know, the money he commands just to be on a show, you got to pay him even if he even if you don't book him on the pay per view. Come to find out, as the contract came out, you know, I expected there are a lot more of that. And yeah, I could see that. I could see there being kind of a also a finer point being put on, like the idea of you know, Hogan is what was needed to

sway the you know, just to even be competitive totally. You know, and here's a guy who comes in and and and we got him. But all of the things we agreed to and all the things that we're we're doing is to swing the immediate and I think Dick Cheatham does say that. I think maybe in the fourth episode, I think is one of he says, you know, all these deals and things we agreed to help the swing swing the immediate, but in the long term they were not good for us.

And Siegel says too, you know, he says, it's the cast of characters that was w CW that made it impossible. And that's probably part and parcel of his remark about pathological liars, because when he did dip his toe into like how to actually get into the into the guts of a wrestling company and try to figure out what it takes on, he was just like, no, no, thanks, holding his nose like this is not this is

not the personality type that I find myself having any success working with. And he's right, by the way, it's yeah, no, and it's it's very hard to find anyone who can speak both languages. I feel like, yeah, you know, yeah, that's why b Cheetah is such a godsend because he happens to be a self described mark. He loves wrestling. You

know, it's cool. You know what's cool about him is one thing that we didn't get to include in the show because I also didn't want to retread like too much of the Monday Night Wars beats that we've all heard, but the like DX invasion. H during the DX invasion, he was actually the one that opened the garage door and like he he was the one that wanted to was really campaigning to let them into the building. Well, he saw them and CNN Center and is from his office. He's talked about this and

he went down there and took pictures with him. He has like pictures's mugging with the d X guys. Yeah, the coolest thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's awesome. That's pretty wild. So all right, well we have to do it. Who killed WCW. We asked everybody on the pod. We've had go Hoove, entude, Guerra, I agree. Finally somebody said it. Oh man, Oh isn't it weird. I don't have an answer for this. It feels like, oh, that's that's to be

expected. I should have an answer for this. Remember in the beginning, it was like maybe we should frame it where like each episode is blame him, blame him. Yeah, like this whole episode is about whether Kevin Nash killed w c W. No One, no, one pointed at him, by the way, which can in the series totally skipped over his disastrous nineteen ninety nine booking run. But but you know, all the power to him

one thing that wasn't there at one point. Yes, yeah, I mean, I mean honestly, like you know, when I see people saying Jamie Kellner, you know, because he's Yes, he's the one that actually physically pulled the plug. But it was already on life support. You know, it was already a vegetable. Yeah, he's a guy that wasn't there that suddenly was. And so if you have to point to like that that specific

a change element, it makes sense. But I don't know, as the years have gone it it's it rings a little hollow to just blame him to Yes, exactly, he put it out of its misery, I think, and I think you know the man Obviously, the title of the show is supposed to be tongue in cheek. It's supposed to be mildly humorous because it

is a rhetorical question. It's not something that you know, there's one person you can point a finger at. However, I do think by the time, like I have to say, Turner Corporate as an entity is probably the one responsible because the seeds were sown so early on that people did not believe in this company. But then of course, hey, it took off and

it flew very close to the sun. But when Eric's out of the picture, even for all of his faults and the things that weren't executed right, you know, in that in that in nineteen ninety eight, when he left, there just was not a strong advocate there to fight against what needed to in that in that environment. So it's almost like the absence of that person is what killed WCW. I think in a lot of ways. And uh, because I just putting myself in those shoes, like I could just see

how like nobody has a stake in this anymore at that point. Eric has a steak in this company in ninety six, ninety seven, you know, and into ninety eight, but there was nobody else who like really had a passionate stake in this to to actually be good. And uh, you know, some would say Russo did, which I think in his own way he

did. It just obviously didn't work, you know, But honestly, I think I think it is I think it is the company from within that killed its own that killed you know, which I think is intriguing as a story for sure, Yeah, for sure. So lots of chew on, I don't know, sounds to me Evan if I'm gonna pull in a couple of strings here, there's there may be even more to chew on. And then the months and years to come. As it regards the great Mystery JP, we asked you at the top, where do you fall? Who killed w

C the Rock? Okay, well he's the one who pins Steve Austin and the Survivors series and the winner. Take all that. One thing about the Rock real quick, please be my guest. Things about the Rock, Well, it's just it's just funny, like you know, just seeing like a lot of people like whaty is he? And this and you know he put

himself in the show and all this stuff. I just want to say, like you know, again, like you got there's things first and foremost, nobody that we interviewed spoke like enthusiastically about anything that happened in w CW. Somebody has to put it over, and and he's somebody who volunteered to put it over. But also, like you know, this show, it's like

you know this is we're talking about WCW on broadcast television. You know, in twenty twenty four, you also got to like have some you know, to be able to put have the Rock on your television channel is definitely going to help you get the show made too. So well, yeah, that's it. I'm glad you made that point. I mean, I say what you will, but there's nobody that would have passed on him, if you

know, if offered for this series. Yeah, and and the fact that he wanted to help us out to do that in order to get the show made is like amazing. I mean that is, if you had six episodes, you could have had one about what it was like on the other curtain,

right totally and he would have been the voice of that. And anybody who went over to WWF later could have totally you know, Booker T and others could have contrasted the locker rooms and the culture and that would have been a way in I think then it would have been or this is Rocks point is we used to call it on Labs Fan at this time in WCW when

we were doing a WWF pay per view. You know, it's like quickly this is what's going on on the other channel, but it could have been something like that, but the way it shook out, he kind of has these like these small comments along the way, but he's the guy that brings it home and says it was fucking awesome, and nobody else feels like saying that towards the end. Really it's all about their personal journey. You know, the name ww rock comes out and says it was awesome, and you

need that for a show like this. Yeah, absolutely, Rad Sigel wasn't going to say it. Yeah, right, exactly. Everyone's so dejected about this, you know, because of the way things shook out, but you know, to actually still look back on it and be like, dude, like ninety six was awesome, man, you know, like after that, that shit was really cool and there was a lot of great choices that were being made. A lot of people were very inspired. There was a lot

of very interesting, you know, creative ideas coming together. It wasn't just a vision of one person. You know, you had a Neil Pruet, you had a Kevin Sullivan, You had people, you know, even Kevin Nash, who are contributing these really cool ideas and making something really special. Did it last forever? No, but it was cool and at its prime, and it's prime, and you find yourself invested in debating all the minutia of it as we talked about, because it was something. It was,

Yeah, it was. It was a phenomenon and so it wasn't like well I was about to say herb abrams, but that's also cool to you know, dissect. It's a deeper cut it is. Yeah, for no, not at all some other time. Yeah, four part Who killed the UWF I think is uh is next? Who birthed the uw YEA. We got to answer that question first. That one isn't as easy to answer on the front end like this one was. But Evan, good stuff, man, Thank you so much for having us along for the ride, and UH look

forward to collaborating more in the future. Absolutely, yeah, we should definitely. I'll say it here on the record. I'll say it here. We should do an unheard of for this ay now, because I'm sure there's a lot we could do for this, and maybe it's something we should have done during the run of the show, but we can do it at some point. For here's our turn. I want to do an unheard of, just that that final nitro footage. Fine, yeah we could do that. Yeah,

I mean that could be fun. Yeah, we could figure out something for that. Yeah. Everyone listening knows who they need to turn to. Evan knows who he needs to turn to. We know who he needs to turn to. It's a beautiful thing, a beautiful alchemy. One more in the books. Who killed WCW? Well everyone can now make perhaps some more educated guests on that age old question. Evin Husky, thanks for being here. Yes, yes, thank you guys, appreciate it. Always fun and

we'll talk soon. I'm sure. It is a production of the LAPS Entertainment Group. Its content is intended for private use only. We want