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00:00In the early 90s, we couldn't attract an audience.
00:13I needed people to take WCW seriously.
00:16We needed a star.
00:18Hulk Hogan is here!
00:20You can call this the New World Order of Wrestling, brother.
00:25I don't think I'd ever seen anything as hot as the NWO.
00:28They were banned, but they were cool.
00:30It was the biggest turn in the history of wrestling.
00:33No!
00:34WCW was now beating WWF in the ratings.
00:37Have we created a monster or what?
00:40Shit's gonna hit the fan at some point, and it did.
00:43It was a company that was infested with guys that had their own agenda.
00:48Eric Bischoff, he was just a prop.
00:50Hulk Hogan was the puppet master.
00:52Once a god, always a god.
00:58You cannot sweep this on the road.
01:00This is a fucking television show.
01:02I don't understand what he's doing.
01:03The real reason men commit lies.
01:12Ladies and gentlemen, you are joined in to the world's number one professional wrestling program.
01:18By 1997, we had built so much goodwill with the audience.
01:22As a result of the NWO, we were absolutely on fire.
01:28When it rains, it pours!
01:32Twenty-three weeks straight, WCW Nitro defeated WWE.
01:36And then, all of a sudden, boom.
01:39I get a phone call.
01:45It's Harvey Schiller.
01:48He's the president of Turner Sports, and by proxy, you could say WCW.
01:53So I answered it.
01:54Hey, Harvey.
01:55How you doing?
01:56I'm good.
01:57How are you?
01:58I said, oh, I'm good.
01:59Before you hang up, I want to let you know Nitro was having so much success on TNT.
02:03Ted wants to do another primetime show for TBS.
02:07Thunder, something on the Superstation.
02:10I hung up the phone.
02:11I thought, this can't be real.
02:13They weren't happy enough with the ratings they had.
02:17They wanted to expand, not realizing you're going to weaken the Monday show.
02:23I mean, things were going so well.
02:26You're giving them such a great show on Monday night that the idea of doing another show live,
02:3248 hours after I just got done producing one,
02:37there was no way I thought it could work.
02:39But I didn't want to be the guy to tell Ted, no.
02:43That was my mistake.
02:45Tonight, we welcome you to Thunder!
02:48TBS said, sure, we'll take the show.
02:49We just don't have it in our budget.
02:51We can't pay for it.
02:53So, reluctantly, we should just pay for it on WCW's budget.
02:57That's what Ted wants.
02:59The challenge, right off the bat, audience fatigue.
03:03Because now they're seeing too much of the same talent.
03:06Who's who?
03:07I don't know.
03:08Even though we had a very deep roster, if we're going to do another show, I thought,
03:12that roster has to be substantially unique.
03:15That's why I brought Bret Hart in.
03:17Bret!
03:17I was at the top of the heap of the WWF during those days.
03:28I beat Undertaker for the title.
03:29I beat Stone Cold Steve Austin.
03:33I was a WWF guy, and I think I was a big part of the success that it had.
03:39I love Bret Hart.
03:40I love Bret Hart.
03:42I love Bret Hart.
03:43I love Bret Hart.
03:44A lot of respect for that man.
03:46Bret Hart, somebody I probably had my best matches with.
03:50I love Bret Hart.
03:51I love Bret Hart.
03:52I love Bret Hart.
03:53He was like a national hero in Canada.
03:56People respected him.
03:57People looked up to him.
03:58I emulated some of my style from Bret Hart, like my suplex.
04:03Bischoff says, what's it going to take for you to come to WCW?
04:10Bret!
04:11We got up to 2.8 million a year.
04:13Bret!
04:14So I joined WCW.
04:16Bret the Hitman Hart has arrived!
04:21The first night I walked out and I got a great reaction.
04:24I needed an anchor for that show.
04:28Bret was critical to that.
04:31But it went downhill from there.
04:41It sounds to me like you people are a little disappointed in me.
04:44They're flying me down from Calgary and then they tell me I'm off for the night.
04:49And then the next week I do the same thing again.
04:52Just sit in the dressing room and do nothing.
04:55Eric, he apologized to me many times and said, I'm so sorry about how we brought you in.
05:00Everything he ever said was a lie.
05:03We already knew that we were running thin.
05:06You had Monday Night Nitro and then you had two days that you had to do house shows.
05:10It's followed by a two hour thunder.
05:13We had a Saturday show.
05:16And then you might have a pay-per-view or something in there.
05:19You're basically booking 10 hours in two days.
05:25It was impossible to have any kind of attention in detail.
05:30And I think it showed.
05:31I've never seen a human being do anything like this in my life.
05:34This has never been done in our sport.
05:36There's so many times we didn't have finishes for this or finishes for that because it was so time consuming.
05:42Vince, we're out of time.
05:43When these guys are trying to think up something new, they're gonna go to something that worked before.
05:48You know, NWO was still rocking and rolling, printing money and printing ratings.
05:53And as a result, we took the easy way out.
05:56We kept adding to the NWO.
05:58Let's create the red faction.
06:00We got some new colors going on.
06:03Let's create the Latino faction.
06:04The Latino world border.
06:06You just can't pass t-shirts out and water down the greatest show in town.
06:12You gotta wear that?
06:13There were too many people.
06:14Wasn't cool anymore.
06:15If you watched one match, you watched them all.
06:19Every show ends with a run-in.
06:21There's about 20 guys running in there.
06:23And I'm going, why am I running in?
06:25Nothing made sense from one suite to the next.
06:29And the fans discussed a thumbs-down.
06:32Unbelievable.
06:34Creating momentum is really, really hard.
06:38The only thing harder than creating momentum is maintaining momentum.
06:42Thanks for having me here, Mr. President-Elect.
06:45We'd lost our momentum.
06:48And we find ourselves in a rebuild mode.
06:51April 13th of 1998, something significant happened, which was Roar beating Nitro for the first time in the ratings for 22 months.
07:01Whenever you're leading a night, and now you're not leading a night, there's reason for concern.
07:07As WCW and Monday Nitro became a huge primetime hit, those numbers exploded because it wasn't just men, 18 and 34.
07:19It now became families.
07:21So my eye was on Goldberg.
07:28I was born with something.
07:32I'm fucking 6'3", 280 pounds.
07:35I could go from zero to 100 and 100 to zero in 60 seconds.
07:41But what the business didn't have was something that I wanted to fill the void with.
07:46And that's the beauty of the character that we came up with.
07:50I am the fucking character.
07:53I am Goldberg.
07:55I don't think there ever had been an athlete, a star, a performer, a professional wrestling that rose as quickly as Goldberg.
08:20Bill Goldberg, he was on a rocket ship from day one.
08:27A professional wrestler was never anything I aspired to be.
08:32My entire life existence was to play football.
08:35I don't know if you know who this guy is, but I've got the picture.
08:38I know all about him, Bill Goldberg, former Georgia Bulldog and Atlanta Falcons.
08:45I was never the best football player by any stretch of the imagination.
08:48I got hurt, tore my abdomen off of my pelvis in 94.
08:53I had no idea what I was going to do the rest of my life.
08:56I was depressed as shit.
08:58When I finally seriously considered becoming a professional wrestler, I had to come up with something where I felt as though I was continually building upon what I had built.
09:11You strive to be the biggest baddest dude on the field.
09:15I gave him the short black boots, black tights.
09:19Combination slam, one, two, three.
09:22He didn't talk.
09:24You absolutely manhandled him tonight.
09:28Sir, I've got to get a little bit more than that.
09:30Mike Tyson, black boots, black shorts.
09:34Didn't need to talk. Just come down and do that.
09:38He might bite your fucking ear off, or he might knock you out with an uppercut.
09:43You don't know what's going to happen.
09:45Hey, you got to watch this guy, Goldberg.
09:47He's a time bomb, just ready to explode.
09:49Maybe that's why it worked.
09:51The crowd was reacting to him like a superstar.
09:54Listen to this reception.
09:57I was like, holy crap.
09:59Oh, my God!
10:01One, two, and three!
10:03People were chanting his name, Goldberg, Goldberg.
10:10They pushed him like crazy.
10:12There's never been a push, anything like it, anywhere.
10:15Let's just put him out there and have him squash people.
10:17He kept doing it, doing it, doing it.
10:19People kept loving it, loving it, loving it.
10:21Oh, my God!
10:22Why would you mess with that?
10:23No!
10:24There were a lot of people jealous of me.
10:27God!
10:28He spared Nash!
10:29Bill was a fan.
10:30Bill was a mark.
10:31Bill was a football player.
10:33Someone should have taught him or pulled him aside and said,
10:35Hey, Bill, you do know that this is pretend, right?
10:38No!
10:39He didn't.
10:40This is a fucking television show.
10:45I know when you tackle somebody, you think it's real.
10:49But the person getting fucking potatoed in the corner's had enough.
10:53I feel bad about it.
10:56But as long as the intent is not there, it's not my fault.
11:02You can't blame me.
11:03Jesus Christ, dude.
11:04Like, get some skills.
11:06A lot of jealousy.
11:08This guy hasn't paid his dues, and Goldberg doesn't love this like we do.
11:12You know?
11:13They can all kiss my ass.
11:15I'll take that criticism on the way up because I'm still that guy.
11:20And you guys tried every frickin' thing you could do for me not to be that guy.
11:25And who prevailed?
11:30Please welcome Goldberg!
11:34I felt that Goldberg was really the phenomena that could bring advertisers
11:41and all the other stuff that they're buying or they're consuming.
11:48The kids loved Goldberg.
11:50They loved that character.
11:51And they loved the fact that he was undefeated.
11:54All anyone ever wanted to talk about was Goldberg, Goldberg, Goldberg.
12:00So I'm in L.A. one day, and I get a phone call from Hulk.
12:04I got an idea.
12:05I'm gonna wrestle Goldberg, Georgia Dome.
12:08We're gonna put them over clean.
12:10The time is right.
12:11This is the time.
12:12Let's do this.
12:13The throw is on the air!
12:16From the professional wrestling captain of the world, Atlanta, Georgia!
12:21Bill Goldberg was a hometown hero.
12:23There he is.
12:24And here comes the eruption.
12:27Bigger than before.
12:29Guys from the Falcons were there.
12:31You know, former teammates.
12:32It felt like the Super Bowl.
12:34I mean, we sold out the Georgia Dome.
12:3624,000 tickets, man.
12:38That place was packed.
12:39It was electric.
12:40It was Nitro.
12:41This is the biggest one.
12:43That heightened sense of anticipation.
12:45Let the match begin.
12:4710 million people in the United States, between Monday Night Raw and Nitro,
12:52were zeroed in on professional wrestling.
12:55Mind-blowing.
12:57That really was the height of WCW.
13:06That was the coolest shit ever.
13:08The feeling that I got when I heard the crowd after I received the belt.
13:14Thank you!
13:15Thank you!
13:16We've got a new anyway champion of the world!
13:21Nothing like it.
13:23It was just the coolest moment.
13:26Okay, why is this not on a pay-per-view?
13:29It's like, man, we could have made a lot more money.
13:31We'd have kept it off TV for a while.
13:33One of the things that I was criticized for was that I was putting pay-per-view quality matches on free TV.
13:38WCW is getting higher ratings than anything else in the company.
13:44This is the hottest product we've got.
13:47It didn't always advertise into the highest value that you could get for ad dollars.
13:51The disconnect between the advertising dollars and the size of the audience for wrestling became an issue.
14:00One of the forces working against ad revenue was our ad.
14:05People wouldn't sell wrestling.
14:07They don't like it and they want to get rid of it.
14:09There was such pressure on Eric with opposition, not only of the corporate, but also the people that reported to him.
14:16I mean, he had no friends.
14:18We're going to take your paycheck.
14:20We're going to take your job.
14:22There was always a hint of ulterior motive, which at the end of the day could maybe mean the destruction of your company.
14:32I don't know.
14:35All right, here we go, ladies and gentlemen.
14:40His debut.
14:41Rookie.
14:43Now, there's going to be the man right there.
14:45That's blue chain right there.
14:46In the world of professional wrestling, any kind of fresh take on something is challenging to do.
14:51Back then, I was still opening match.
14:54Unbelievable.
14:55Agility.
14:56Yes, sir.
14:57What a way to make your debut.
14:59Before the show ended, I was already back in my hotel room watching Nitro.
15:02I just wanted to see where they were doing things differently and figure out how we could do something like that.
15:09Or possibly even better.
15:11When you're getting your ass kicked week over week over week, which was our company, you're going to say, hey, fuck this.
15:22What do we need to do?
15:24Welcome to WWF Raw!
15:27WWE's answer to NWO was the Attitude Era.
15:33Stop it!
15:35It's a toss to now!
15:37It's a toss to now!
15:38And here we go!
15:39Okay.
15:40First of all, I refer to it as the Nitro Era because the Attitude Era was nothing more than a replication of the Nitro format.
15:50They were going after the same audience that I recognized as being underserved.
15:56Okay.
15:57We're in a fight.
15:58We've been dominating that fight.
16:00But this guy's coming back.
16:02It wasn't like we were hurting.
16:04They were just getting stronger.
16:06I mean, 98 was a record revenue year.
16:09But all of a sudden, none of that mattered anymore.
16:15And that affected WCW in ways that I didn't anticipate.
16:23I was introduced to a different kind of corporate structure with regard to WCW.
16:29In July of 1998, I was sitting in a meeting with 10 or 12 other people, much higher in the food chain than I am, telling me how I was going to operate WCW and change our target demographic that we had built an entire business upon.
16:51He said, no, we want kids and families.
16:54What you really need for success is the people who are coming in on the outside.
16:57But there was a discussion about, you know, could they do it without being as lewd as WWE?
17:06Vince McMahon and the WWE decided, let's do what Eric's doing and let's do it better than them.
17:13Oh, my God, he's on fire!
17:15That's exactly what they did.
17:16What a good day for him, yeah.
17:18Ted Turner was very strict about things on the show that couldn't be done.
17:22Vince was quite happy to do all of that.
17:24We will have less references to our enormous genitalia.
17:29They took it into the gutter.
17:30Doesn't matter.
17:31It worked.
17:32They have Jenna Jameson on their show.
17:34Our rebuttal is, we'll give the guy an NWO shirt.
17:39I guess there's a new member now, huh?
17:41Everything we can possibly do to combat WWF, they're taken away from us.
17:48Shut up, you idiot!
17:49We were being mandated to change the nature of the way we were producing our show.
17:54To go back to doing what we were doing when we couldn't even be a distant number two?
18:00I had taken the business out of the dumpster and turned it into a success story.
18:05Now, all of a sudden, standards of practice is about to tell me what I can and can't do.
18:12Forget that.
18:13If push comes to shove, I'm just gonna fight all this until it gets to Ted's desk.
18:18And then it's gonna be me and this guy.
18:20And we'll see who wins.
18:21Like a wrestling match.
18:22You heard the man himself, Ted Turner.
18:26When you're winning and you're the guy, it's a lot of fun.
18:30And when you're losing, not so much fun.
18:33And it was hard on him at times, man.
18:35You could see it.
18:36Eric was always a really positive person.
18:39Really positive.
18:41And all of a sudden, it shifted to negative.
18:44Don't show anything unless we tell you to show it.
18:47I found myself fighting with departments of Turner Broadcasting that I'd never heard of before.
18:53It took a lot out of me.
18:56One afternoon, I was in my office and I was just out of gas.
18:59And Kevin came into my office.
19:01And he just, he was having such a hard time banging heads with everybody on everything.
19:09And Kevin offered.
19:10He said, boss, why don't you just let me take over the book.
19:13Temporary.
19:14Get your feet back underneath you.
19:16Let me take this pressure off of you.
19:18The head booker was the one determining whether the concepts for each week's show actually made air or not.
19:24I think it's been fairly well acknowledged that Kevin Nash, you know, had been instrumental in being a huge part of the creative process.
19:31There were other people I could have handed it off to, but I had confidence in Kevin's instincts.
19:36So that's how it started.
19:38I said, I'll help you.
19:39I should have said, let's go to a strip club.
19:42There's a big difference between being part of a group that throws ideas out and being the guy that says, I know you don't want to do this, but this is what you're going to do.
19:54Especially if you yourself are a talent.
19:58It was a bad situation, but it was the best case scenario.
20:02It's quite simple.
20:03If you don't run with the pack, you're hunted by it.
20:07Once you have the monkeys run in the zoo, you're in trouble.
20:12And that's exactly what was happening.
20:14Woo!
20:15He listened to all the guys that didn't have the best interest of the company in mind.
20:20I don't think that's debatable.
20:22It's not just about being the biggest, strongest.
20:26It's about whose ass they kiss.
20:29Sooner or later, someone will beat Goldberg.
20:33I didn't have any problem with Bill.
20:35I was happy that he was getting pushed.
20:38But he's had the belt too long.
20:41He was still really green and had no idea what he was doing.
20:46Goldberg hit the post!
20:47Not only does he keep hurting all the wrestlers that he works with, but he keeps hurting himself.
20:52I'm wrestling Scott Hall, and I screw a spot up.
20:56Oh!
20:57Scott Hall went down hard!
20:59And he's laying on the ground, and he looks up at me, and he goes,
21:01Yo, man, what are you doing?
21:04And my reaction was, I don't fucking know what I'm doing.
21:10You're live on television, you're in front of your fans.
21:13I was scared shitless when I screwed that up, because I didn't know what was next.
21:17I didn't know what to do.
21:19If you can't do that, you can't be the fucking top guy.
21:24That's when I really realized.
21:28There was a lot of shit going on, and it wasn't all for Facebook.
21:32Two!
21:33Three!
21:34So that's when I started really smarting it up to him.
21:37This document will represent the beating of these two men at Star Tade.
21:42And this man wants him in the ring, doesn't he? Look at that!
21:45Oh, doesn't he?
21:46Yeah, I learned the good, bad, and the evil very quickly.
21:50I was jumping into shark-infested waters.
21:55To say the least.
21:59You and the world can stop this man!
22:07Common fact, wrestling 101, babyface always draws more money chasing the belt than having the belt.
22:21Still undefeated here at WCW.
22:24Assault enough slams, Goldberg.
22:28It was a padded stat.
22:30Who cares?
22:31We gave the people what they wanted.
22:33We've got to take him in a different direction in order for him to grow.
22:37I never got tired of watching Mike Tyson come out and annihilate people.
22:41So with the Ray creative, there's ways to keep things going.
22:44That's what you do.
22:46You chase with the babyface.
22:49And when he fucking gets it, you take it right fucking back.
22:53Because that's where the money is.
22:57Kevin was a politician.
22:59There's nobody I've ever met that is a top talent that is not a politician.
23:03It's a job prerequisite.
23:06Just look at it on the surface.
23:09From a pure physicality point of view.
23:13The way we had built Bill Goldberg up to be this indestructible man-eating monster.
23:19Who on that roster looked like they could possibly beat that monster?
23:24Goldberg's a move away from continuing the streak.
23:28And Kevin Nash standing at nearly seven foot, 6'10", whatever he is.
23:32Probably at that time, 340, 350 pounds.
23:37It was believable.
23:39And he kicked away.
23:41What I needed was somebody who could tell a story with a finish.
23:47The finish I wanted was beat him one, two, three.
23:52Like the same way he was winning.
23:54Took Nash off of his feet.
23:55Clean.
23:56But they thought that he needed something more to lose.
24:02What was that?
24:03That's one of those cases of police shoes.
24:04It's like a stunt gun.
24:05Yeah, no.
24:06That was a mistake.
24:07You watch that match back.
24:08When I powerbomb him.
24:09Oh, no.
24:10Wait a minute.
24:11He...
24:12Oh, Jack Knight powerbomb.
24:13I'm over as fuck.
24:26Look at this, fans.
24:27One, two, three.
24:28The streak is over.
24:29And we have a new world champion.
24:30The streak is over.
24:32Did I like it? Fuck no.
24:33Did I question it?
24:34Yeah, everybody questioned it.
24:35But I don't control that shit.
24:36I go out and I do my job.
24:37I think it was quite clear that there was no real plan in terms of where does the Goldberg character go from here.
24:53And so the follower left a bad taste in people's minds.
24:55I'm gonna try tonight to right the wrongs that happened at Star King.
25:01Me and you, Goldberg, in Atlanta, for the belt.
25:05You have to imagine being in the audience on that night.
25:09It's January.
25:11There's an incredible atmosphere.
25:13But at the same time, a taped edition of Raw was happening on the other station.
25:17There was gonna be a title change on that show.
25:19A system of guys right here tonight on Raw plus the first Nitro of 1999.
25:25It's the Rock! Mankind! The Championship!
25:28Ladies and gentlemen, we set the stage for the biggest rematch in professional wrestling history!
25:33The WCW had to remind viewers that this is where the real action is.
25:36I say, fuck this. I'll fight Goldberg again.
25:41But that ends up taking a rather bizarre turn and devolving into a situation in which Hollywood Hogan comes back into the mix and challenges Nash to a match.
25:53After tonight, when I beat Kevin Nash, when I retire with a world heavyweight title, you can just call me Hollywood the Big Bad Wolf!
26:06We were creating this illusion of a conflict between Hulk Hogan and Kevin Nash.
26:13And we built it up like it was gonna be the match of ages in the NWO to determine the fate of the organization.
26:19Hogan got to the ring and he looked all serious.
26:22Kevin Nash came to the ring and looked like he wanted to eat Hulk Hogan for lunch.
26:26And they get close together. They're almost chest-to-chest, nose-to-nose.
26:33And then...
26:35What was that about?
26:38What's going on here?
26:41What's going on here?
26:43One, two, three. Oh, yeah. It looked like a finish.
26:46But it was contrived by the NWO, right, to keep the belt in the family.
26:52That's ultimately what it was all about.
26:54Get back in the saddle, baby!
26:56When that happened, me and a lot of wrestlers were like, what the fuck is this?
27:05Wrestling fans around the world were saying that's exactly when WCW started to go downhill.
27:10That's dirt sheet material.
27:12You know why people hate that so much?
27:15Because it got them.
27:17Look at the crowd.
27:19They don't know what the fuck they've seen.
27:22People expected to see something and they felt like they got fucked.
27:27WCW had chronic bad finish disease.
27:31Sometimes just a good, clean finish is the best thing.
27:36That same night, Mick Foley was going to be wrestling The Rock.
27:40As I often had with Nitro and became famous for.
27:44Giving away their finishes.
27:45Starting my show two minutes before they started their show.
27:48I thought, why not go back to the well and give them a reason not to watch Rock and Mick?
27:56We understand that Mick Foley, who wrestled here one time as Cat and Jack,
28:01is going to win their world title.
28:03That fucking Eric Bischoff.
28:06He just spoiled the match.
28:08He took a shot.
28:10A big chunk of WCW Nitro's audience went, really?
28:15That's going on over there?
28:16I'm going too.
28:18And they left.
28:20So it backfired in a huge way.
28:24Two big moves in one night.
28:29Figure poke a doom and crap it all over Rock and Mick.
28:35Neither one of them worked very well.
28:39We got a little lucky that night.
28:43We had a great match, me and Mick.
28:46That was a real defining moment.
28:49This feels pretty damn good.
28:53There was, I mean, there was a lot of mistakes, you know, but my check didn't change.
28:59The infighting, the jealousy, who is Eric going to listen to, all that started to disintegrate something that was so cool and hot.
29:11We were our own worst enemies.
29:14It was bad enough the Turner executives didn't want us.
29:17We did ourselves no favors.
29:27Now, a discussion about cable television programming.
29:30Can I go to wrestling for a second?
29:33Does it bother you a little bit that wrestling is so popular?
29:38I didn't know that was the promise of cable.
29:43Four years ago, I went to a wrestling event and as you were going on the highway, you were basically seeing people in pickup trucks, you know, going.
29:52A month ago, I went to a WCW Monday Nitro event.
29:57There were 40,000 people sold out in one hour and all I'm seeing are families going.
30:03So, we're not embarrassed by it at all.
30:07When you're a single organization, you do one thing, which is professional wrestling.
30:13It's very different than when you're a company like Time Warner and you've got a lot of businesses that have to get sorted out.
30:21You're going to have people who kind of look at this and go, is this classy enough for our networks?
30:26How is that going to rub off on our brand?
30:30Well, wrestling may be a good product for some, but we are, after all, the world's leader in news and entertainment.
30:36And that was the rationale. We just don't like it.
30:40The fact that WCW became successful was really frustrating for a lot of people.
30:47It was not part of the plan.
30:49It never was part of the plan.
30:51You know, the average person would go, well, why would anybody care?
30:54And I'll tell you why.
30:55Because WCW occupied prime time beachfront property on TNT.
31:01There were a lot of people that wanted that prime time real estate and were frustrated at our success because we got it.
31:07There were so many demands from different places and a lot of answering to shareholders that have expectations.
31:16And WCW got caught up in that.
31:21Well, the revenue challenges were simple.
31:23One of the goals of Turner Broadcasting was to enhance the bottom line of various divisions that they wanted to hold onto.
31:33Let's take some of their debt and move it over here.
31:35So they reallocated the guts out of my budget so that money could be moved over to other divisions.
31:41It made their bottom line look that much better.
31:44We'll recognize all those earnings at TBS.
31:48And because they do business with WCW, we're going to move some of those losses over here.
31:53So WCW's books look a little worse because we want it to go away anyway.
31:58You could have probably made it profitable if WCW charged a boatload of money for carrying wrestling to TNT and to TBS.
32:09But because we wanted TNT and TBS to be much more profitable, the license fee we paid was very low.
32:19And that was, you know, not my decision.
32:24They didn't care if they had to sacrifice WCW.
32:28That's kind of what they wanted to do all along anyway.
32:31There were people deconstructing WCW from a budgetary perspective right underneath everybody else's noses.
32:40The reason we became so successful is what, in retrospect, looked like bad deals.
32:45The no-cut contracts, creative controls, and all those things were necessary to swing the immediate tide over.
32:52I guess you'd like me to sign that, wouldn't you, huh?
32:55Everybody was making seven figures plus.
32:59You see this?
33:00People know how much this guy's getting.
33:02They want to know why they're not getting as much.
33:04Just drew their money and did nothing.
33:06Oh, you work here?
33:07Oh, you've been collecting money for a year sitting on your ass.
33:11For sakes?
33:12I can only imagine how much money went out.
33:15Like, they got what?
33:17ATM, Eric.
33:19The inference was, well, Eric has access to Ted Turner's money.
33:24All he needs to do is write a check.
33:25He can hire anybody he wants.
33:27Like I was an ATM machine.
33:29I get to spend a billionaire's money.
33:32I got a call from Harvey Schiller.
33:34Harvey said, Eric, I need you to come up to my office.
33:37Now, Harvey very rarely summoned me to his office.
33:41Essentially, Harvey brought me in to let me know that I had been under a forensic investigation for misuse of funds.
33:52And I thought, this can't be real.
33:56Presumably, somebody had met an executive from Time Warner and laid out this crazy story.
34:05Oh, Eric, she's handing out million-dollar contracts when I left.
34:09But this individual suggested that the reason I was doing that is because those wrestlers were giving me a kickback.
34:15So Harvey proceeded to tell me how this forensic investigation proved that none of that was true.
34:24They wanted to come clean and also to let me know.
34:27It was complete bullshit.
34:30That pissed me off.
34:32I didn't quit my job.
34:33I wish I would have.
34:35That was the moment that I quit being loyal to the company.
34:40Fuck them.
34:44When I think back on my career, there would always be a little bitterness about that time period.
34:57I had so many things left unfinished in my career, things I wanted to do.
35:02To watch what WCW did with me, it was sad.
35:07They're killing me off on purpose.
35:10And they did.
35:12I've always known that sooner or later, I'd have to step in the ring with Bill Goldberg.
35:20How do you fight Bill Goldberg?
35:23He's like a gorilla, slamming guys right through the mat, running them over like a car.
35:29I would pull them aside and say, I want to teach you how to actually not hurt guys.
35:35And when I walked out to the ring with Bill that night, and I remember I really looked him in the eye and said, don't hurt me out there.
35:42You need to trust me.
35:44And it all went in one ear out the other.
35:48I really think Bill just saw me as another job guy, someone that was cannon fodder.
35:54If you're watching that match, Bill goes, watch the kick.
35:59And I'm like, watch the kick.
36:01And I don't understand what he's doing.
36:06He kicked me as hard as he could.
36:09You could see me grab my neck.
36:11I was concussed.
36:14You should protect yourself.
36:15You knew the kick was coming.
36:17Right?
36:18It was in the deal.
36:19It was never talked about or explained to me.
36:22I do this move where I kick guys in the head as hard as I can.
36:25Nobody deserves that.
36:26But it was a frickin accident.
36:28Complete accident.
36:30No, Bill, that's not an accident.
36:32That's a career-ending injury, you idiot.
36:35I somehow will myself to stand up to be run over by this imbecile.
36:41It was one of the saddest days of my life, and I knew my career was over.
36:46He never aspired to do anything else other than be that guy, and I ended that for him.
36:51I've never been so remorseful, and I have been for years.
36:54But fuck, man, I can't do anything else.
36:57Bill Goldberg was not qualified, but he's our star.
37:02They just look the other way.
37:06When you go through the type of brain injury that I went through, you're just grateful to be alive.
37:11From the very, very first second that I got here, I got screwed over and screwed over and screwed over.
37:22It was just such a lousy ending for such a great career.
37:26Ladies and gentlemen, he claims to be the best.
37:30It just shows that WCW never really appreciated or understood the talent that they had.
37:36They dropped the ball with me, and he knows it, and I know it, and fans know it.
37:41In the end, Eric Bischoff only can answer to himself.
37:48By the summer of 99, I was toast.
37:51I was frustrated, angry, demoralized, lost hope.
37:56Once you lose that, it's pretty much over, and that's where I was at.
38:00I was pretty disrespectful, intentionally, because I always thought I had Ted's support in my back pocket.
38:08And I didn't know what was going on with Ted.
38:12So in October of 1996, the Turner-Time Warner merger was finalized.
38:18And famously, Ted Turner was not receptive to the idea at first.
38:22Big huge company, a lot of money for Dad.
38:26They needed him, and he needed them, but he deluded himself.
38:30He's losing more and more control.
38:33More control goes to the bureaucrats.
38:35More control goes to the executive types.
38:39He couldn't protect Eric.
38:41He couldn't protect anybody at that point.
38:43These fans love you. We want to see more of you.
38:45That was the opportunity so many people within Turner Broadcasting wanted, and now finally had.
38:52I was out of ammunition, out of everything.
39:02It was several years before I recognized just how much freedom I had, and how unique of an opportunity I had.
39:11The freedom is what led to WCW being successful.
39:15The time I spent battling internally, it took the fun out of it for me.
39:20If it wasn't for the NWO and moi, none of you people would be here tonight.
39:27If I had to reflect back on that snapshot,
39:30the summer of 99 may have been one of the worst periods of my life, all the way across the board.
39:38September 10, 1999, I get up like any other morning.
39:40I'm on my way to work, and I get a phone call from Harvey.
39:49And Harvey said, Eric, you need to come to my office.
39:52I got to the CNN Center, went up to Harvey's office, and he said, Eric, you need to go home.
40:00I said, well, Harvey, I'll get home in a little while, but I've got a pay-per-view on Sunday.
40:07The WCW brawl brawl of 1999.
40:10He said, not anymore.
40:17And that's when it dawned on me.
40:20And I'll be honest with you, it was a combination of confusion,
40:26because it hadn't quite sunk in, and relief.
40:30I wasn't disappointed.
40:36I didn't fight it.
40:38I was shocked.
40:40I was shocked.
40:41How many years head start had Vince had?
40:45And then he beat him for 83 straight weeks.
40:50I did it!
40:52I did it!
40:53Pretty, pretty impressive record.
40:56What do you say about Eric Bischoff?
40:58It's what you call taking the fool by the horns.
41:03What Eric did was impossible, in spite of the fact that everybody was against him.
41:09I don't know how he didn't, blowing his brains out.
41:12This is, this has got to be the most terrible circumstances for anybody to work in.
41:17I pulled into the driveway.
41:19He walks in the door, and I asked him,
41:20What are you doing here?
41:21And I sat down at the kitchen table, and I said, I got fired.
41:25I think he was a bit rattled.
41:26She said, what are you going to do?
41:28He got in his plane, you know, threw his stuff in a bag, and flew himself to Cody, Wyoming.
41:34The next day I was fishing right up the rope from where I live right now.
41:38The fishing was awesome, by the way.
41:47It was awesome that day.
41:52I'll give Eric his props.
41:54At the end of the day, it was his idea for the NWO.
41:56He did push the luchadores, he did push Goldberg.
42:01Eric put the pieces of that puzzle together.
42:04And oh, it wasn't his money, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
42:09He knew what he was doing.
42:12The moves he made by getting Hogan, Savage, Nash, and the remake of Sting.
42:18There were so many good things that he did.
42:21Wait a minute.
42:23I didn't get involved in his world.
42:25I didn't know the intricacies of the soap opera.
42:28Eric knew that.
42:30In those years that we were crushing it, Eric delivered exactly what I asked him to deliver.
42:37This is where the big boys play, huh?
42:41We ain't here to play.
42:42Hollywood at the helm.
42:44It's the NWO.
42:48No matter what you think about Eric later down the road,
42:51he really was one of those people who worked his butt off.
42:54He worked hard and he stayed at it.
42:57And he was great to work with.
43:03It is my honor and my privilege to introduce you to the man
43:06Vince Russo.
43:10He's the man behind all the storylines of WWE.
43:14Now we've got him.
43:15We've got their genius.
43:17He's using Jeff Jarrett's testicles for punching bags.
43:20His thing was, let's get the audience that isn't watching wrestling.
43:24It was lots of shock and awe.
43:27He made it not advertiser-friendly.
43:30Eric's voice were not in tune with what Russo wanted.
43:34And I've got plans for you, pal.
43:36Vince Russo, you're going to fucking hell just for that.
43:40I am the boss.
43:42Those guys didn't want to give up their spots.
43:44Yeah, because we earned our spot.
43:46It's just an end of an era.
43:48This is a television show.
43:50You want to go to a wrestling show, go to a house show.
43:53I think we're deviating from the script.
43:54What the hell is going on?
43:56Death's going to go down as one of the most infamous moments
43:58in the history of television.
44:00That's why this company's in the damn shape it's in,
44:02because of bullshit like this.
44:05The 10th Amendment
44:172.
44:18The 5th Amendment
44:223.
44:23The 4th of thecoat
44:29Jet permitir
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