WWE's Purchase Of WCW | Moments That Changed Wrestling Forever

Vince McMahon had been waiting for March 23rd 2001 for a long time, and when Mr McMahon opened both shows with his aforementioned sermon, it wasn't just the character speaking with the confidence of a man who knew he'd get there.  There were often times where the real life person and on-screen persona were one and the same, but perhaps never more so than on the night he could use his own platform to brag about the destruction of another. As Bruce Prichard and a certain other familiar and familial face set up shop backstage at Nitro amongst the remaining wrestlers that actually turned up to Nitro's last stand (plenty of the stars noped it, despite the "Night Of Champions" billing), Vince took to the stage at Raw in Cleveland to follow Ric Flair and Sting's Nitro main event with a reveal of what he planned for his new property.

The promo, simulcast to what felt like the entirety of the wrestling world that fateful night, was multi-purpose, but couldn't pass without the former WWE gaffer sprinting through every victory lap he could justify. Eventually, he made it to the part most people were interested to hear about, and got to the point...

"You see, I had a choice to make tonight; that choice was coming here before you in Cleveland and-and quite frankly gloating, which I think I'm doing a very good job of at the moment. Or... or I could do this; instead of gloating, what I could have done was get in my plane, and assuming they have an airport there, fly down to the Redneck Riviera, Panama City Beach, Florida, and walk out there and give every WCW star a piece of my mind...nonetheless, I've opted to come before you here, as opposed to walking in the ring and lining each and every one of those stars up, every single of one of them, so I could look right in their face and say, Goldberg, Booker T, and all the rest of them..."YOU'RE FIRED!" And that's exactly what's gonna happen, because WCW is going on the shelf...WCW is BURIED! WCW will remain buried! Just like anybody here in this arena, or anyone in the world, that gets in my way. Every single one of you, when you attempt to compete with me, and that includes my son Shane, and I'm not too proud to say it, every single one of you will be buried. Just like WCW is buried".

All of this was in service of the heel Mr McMahon character ahead of the reveal of his Shane McMahon taking storyline control, which itself served as the go-home angle for the match between at the 'Show Of Shows' days later. McMahon had conducted a live test of fan interest in some of the big names (Buff Bagwell got a more positive reaction that Hulk Hogan and Lex Luger, which may have facilitated his spot in the doomed first official "WCW" match on Raw, more on that later) ultimately signing with/returning to WWE, and also insisted Ted Turner attend the WrestleMania to sign the sale documents, not least so that he could get a front row seat for McMahon battering his own son just to highlight how ruthlessly competitive he was. The famous reveal of Shane getting to the documents - and Panama City - first to claim ownership of WCW went down well with audiences on both sides of the simulcast. For one night at least, there was a sense that maybe the previously-on fire market leader could make elements of a monopoly work. 

The blind optimism evaporated in short order, not least when, in the aftermath of a critically acclaimed WrestleMania X-Seven, WWE rather arrogantly careered off the rails. The end of the creative and commercial boom wasn't down to the purchase of World Championship Wrestling, but it was one more thing officials didn't necessarily need. McMahon had forged forward with the XFL, and despite a strong start in the television rating, the momentum only trended downwards despite cheap and tawdry ways to try and fix it. Meanwhile, Stone Cold Steve Austin's heel turn was looking like a box office bomb in immediate and quite alarming fashion, regardless of what they did to the character to try and maximise the bold move. Change is wrestling is great and to be encouraged, but there was so much of it in the first half of 2001 alone that the Royal Rumble version of the company in January was unrecognisable in comparison to the King Of The Ring landscape in June.

The Shane Vs Vince of it all should have been the biggest clue that McMahon and his cronies were too inward-facing and egotistical to properly capitalise on the real opportunities in front of them. To be generous, it was a reasonable attempt to find an overlap when one story (the WCW purchase) was suddenly now much bigger than the other (idiot Son versus idiot Dad for the third or fourth time), but in reality it was subtraction by addition. The Chairman never counted subtlety as one of his strengths, and the cut to several WCW midcarders way, way up in the gods at WrestleMania before their storyline boss' match was telling - you're here to shut up and watch our stars until we tell you you can be stars yourself. 

But at some point, the only game in town was going to surely going to do just that and utilise the crew? Speculation of WCW's specific future never dipped as Spring turned to Summer, highlighting that the surreal nature of all of this was still the story. Fortuitously for a product that suddenly rather urgently needed a lift, this was too big a story for WWE to bungle...