Everything You DIDN’T KNOW About WCW’s Final Days
4. Visions Of The Future And A STAGGERING Tease Of A Working Relationship
In January 2001, with the Fusient Media deal close to being finalised, defacto booker Johnny ‘Ace’ Laurinaitis appeared on Wrestling Observer Live to lay out his vision of the new WCW’s future.
He said some stuff that should have been obvious, yes, but this stuff eluded his predecessors for years. He maintained that WCW needed to get away from the non-finishes that had plagued the promotion for an eternity, and that storylines should span several months in a move away from Vince Russo’s nonsensical hot-shot booking. It’s funny; between Ace’s comments here and the moves Eric Bischoff made elsewhere, the WCW reboot chat was very reminiscent of AEW’s “everything you hate about wrestling, we’ll do the opposite” messaging of 2019.
Laurinaitis also let slip that he wanted to work with New Japan Pro Wrestling or, fascinatingly, Pro Wrestling NOAH. Jesus, can you imagine Goldberg mowing down Kenta Kobashi with a spear before Kobashi fired the f*ck up in spirit-drenched defiance?
Would have ruled.
While it’s fascinating to ponder this new pro wrestling utopia, you have to remember that people within wrestling are pure carnies that work for the audience in front of them. Laurinaitis knew that the only remaining WCW fans were those who actually liked wrestling, and believed that the promotion would one day return to its more rugged and athletic roots. These fans did not like sports entertainment - they’d have jumped over to the WWF in 1998, were that the case.
Ace knew this, and might have just told them what they wanted to hear in a bid to regain their trust. He was on Wrestling Observer Live; of course he was going to dangle some Akira Taue-shaped keys in front of those listeners. Then again, Ace also said in this January interview that he wanted to introduce a set of Cruiserweight Tag Team titles - which WCW did, right at the death, on March 18.
So perhaps the idea of Mitsuharu Misawa Vs. Sting wasn’t so far-fetched…