12 Hot Takes On The Week In Wrestling (Jan 6)

8. The Anniversary Of The Night That Killed WCW, Part I: Butts On Seats

So we come to Monday January 4th 1999, and that evening€™s live episode of Nitro - notorious for being The Night That Killed WCW. It wasn€™t any such thing, of course - there are far too many reasons why WCW fell apart to blame on just one three hour TV broadcast, no matter how crapulent it was. I€™ve gone through them all here, if you€™ve got a spare ten minutes or so to get yourself up to speed. Go ahead. I€™ll wait for you here. *starts playing Tetris on his phone* Back again? Cool cool. No, the 4th January 1999 didn€™t kill WCW: but it did signal a turning point for many of the people watching at home, an identifiable moment where they could throw their hands up and say, €œyou know what? screw this crap.€ A lot of fuss has been made about lead announcer Tony Schiavone revealing the results of the WWF€™s taped Monday Night RAW for that evening, and telling the world that Mick Foley was about to become WWF Champion. As everyone knows, far from spoiling the outcome of the competition€™s main event, the announcement caused several hundred thousand people to turn over to see it take place. Mick Foley himself was devastated by Schiavone€™s attempt to spoil his moment - although, in fairness, the decision was made by Eric Bischoff, and Foley always seems to take little slights like this far too personally. For a Hardcore Legend„, he€™s got an incredibly thin skin. It was also a tactic that Bischoff had been using for a long time, and Eazy E had no way of knowing that it would backfire on him so spectacularly that evening. Still, in years to come people would see it as the first stumbling steps down a slippery slope. The second would come later that same evening.