McMahon was insane to kill the WCW name. It was one of countless instances where Vince put ego over business.
I don’t know if Eric Bischoff and Hulk Hogan will target WCW fans when their version of TNA comes to light. But it wouldn’t be a bad idea. Those people are out there, and the evidence shows they don’t currently watch wrestling.
Can TNA’s new Monday show duplicate Nitro? Can it reignite that intangible something, that sizzle?
I don’t know. I don’t know because I’m hard-pressed to define what made WCW special in the first place. WCW was a different kind of wrestling, a more serious, old-fashioned product. Then Hogan joined and it became WWE Lite. Then came Nitro, then came the nWo invasion and when everything clicked, WCW not only stole WWE fans who followed old favorites down the dial, it galvanized its existing fan base. They were rewarded when the little engine that could finally DID. They became die-hard super loyalists.
When Nitro disappeared, so did they. They felt let down. Most marks only watch for a limited time. But WCW’s collapse marked the expiration date for fans who would be watching wrestling RIGHT NOW…if WCW still existed.
How do you locate those fans, let alone court them? I don’t know. TNA’s growth will probably be minimal. WCW at low ebb had a much larger fan base than TNA now.
That’s probably not the intent of Bischoff and Hogan, anyway. Honestly, I don’t know what’s up their sleeve. It’s been a decade since Bischoff found himself in this position. Hogan has been mostly small potatoes since his WrestleMania 18 match vs. The Rock in 2002.
Hogan, as a nostalgia act, will get TNA some additional exposure for a bit. But can you build a wrestling promotion around a 56-year-old gimp who, like McMahon, will pick ego over business every single time?
The Internet wrestling community wants this to work. So do I. But I just don’t see how it possibly can.
