A Brief History Of World Wrestling All-Stars
9. Fighting McMahon With McManus
With the loss of WCW leaving a gaping hole in the wrestling industry, the door to the wrestling business was wide open for Australian concert promoter, Andrew McManus.
McManus, who had previously presented tours from the likes of Aerosmith, Motley Crue, and KISS, had a wealth of experience in the entertainment game and was a great fit for pro wrestling. With WCW alum, Jeremy Borash, hired as booker and head of talent, the two began to put together what would soon become World Wrestling All-Stars.
Interestingly, Borash had not been McManus' first choice as booker. That honour would go to notorious wrestling personality, Vince Russo, whose success had been very much hit and miss at that point, achieving greatness in WWF yet quite the opposite in WCW. Nevertheless, Russo was unable to commit and recommended Borash as a suitable replacement, based on their time together in latter day WCW.
Borash would relocate to Australia to work directly out of McManus' offices on the Gold Coast of Queensland. McManus and his International Touring Company teamed up with legendary rock manager Doc McGhee to bring the vision to life, and the WWA Inception tour was presented in late 2001. Testing the waters in his own sunny backyard down under, the very first WWA PPV took place on 26 October in Sydney.