8. Making Their Own Top Stars
A key strategic failure in WCW was their policy on top stars. They wanted tried and tested wrestlers, so spent significant riches on acquiring Vince McMahon's WWF stars. However, what they failed to grasp, was that all glory is fleeting. Vince's top stars were ageing, they weren't the answer to making new money. They were very much old money. In the cases of Hulk Hogan and Bret Hart, Vince had realised they were old news and was already phasing them out. Yet WCW ended up paying them millions to come in and 'freshen' up Nitro. In the case of Hogan, it did add initial success, but the real success was the NWO creative, and Hogan ultimately caused severe backstage problems. In the case of Hart, he was stale and quickly became meaningless before retiring due to injury in 2000. All the while that new WWF wrestlers were emerging, new WCW wrestlers were being held down by the old timer main eventers. Rock and Austin came up in WWF and made huge money, helping to take WWF above WCW. But who came up in WCW in that period? Goldberg was the one big star, and WCW ultimately jobbed him out to Kevin Nash. The failure to make multiple new top stars, and the policy of sticking with veterans, it ended up costing WCW multi-millions. Imagine if they'd made their own Austin or Rock? Instead, they stuck with Hogan, Nash, and several other relics of the late eighties / early nineties.