The Monday Night War Debate: 14 Things We Learned From Eric Bischoff & Bruce Prichard

2. The End Of The War

The question of what caused WCW's run to end and the descent to begin has Bischoff giving a litany of answers. He says some of it was his fault but a lot of it didn't have anything to do with him, that it was mainly a Ted Turner/Time-Warner issue. He says there were so many things going on at the time that led to the company's downfall. He remarks that the only reason Nitro ever existed was because of Ted Turner, and when he lost control of his own company the writing was on the wall, and the downward spiral was hard to get ahold of and largely out of their hands. Prichard says that the Austin/Vince feud was the final blow for them, and that the two had a chemistry unlike anything that's been seen before or after in the wrestling business. Jericho asks about the time Bischoff challenged Vince to a fight on PPV and what each man thought about it. Bruce says Vince just saw it as a desperate attempt while Bischoff says the at the time the ratings didn't reflect the need to be desperate. "If I'd been able to get my *ss kicked by Vince McMahon on a pay-per-view, I'd have taken that *sskicking 52 weeks a year." Bruce says that the real end of the war was the time that Vince Russo went to WCW, because at that point they lost all vision they'd ever had. Bischoff replies that he saw the end coming in 1998 but that emotionally for him it was around May of 1999. he had become completely drained and was ready to throw in the towel.