Courtesy of Alan J. Wojcik of http://alanwojcik.com
“We took the golden goose and we chopped it’s head off.” That was the best quote of many given during the nearly two hours of KayfabeCommentaries.com’s release KEVIN SULLIVAN AND THE END OF WCW. The man known to Championship Wrestling from Florida fans knew as the Games or Task Master was a fixture in the former World Championship Wrestling going back to the days when it was run by the Carolina-based Crockett/NWA promotion. He was there when Ted Turner and his conglomerate bought the promotion in the early 90’s. He was there through the embarrssing reign of Jim Herd and the rise to power of Eric Bischoff thanks to the New World Order gimmick and the arrival of cruiserweights. More importantly he was there when things began to turn the other way in the 88 straight week butt whooping WCW gave the former World Wrestling Federation in the TV ratings. This DVD will take you through the events mentioned above; naming the power players like Bill Busch, Brad Seigel, Harvey Schiller and other WCW executives, plus the weeks lying ahead when Bischoff was forced to step aside when former WWF TV writers Vince Russo and Ed Ferrera arrived in what was then considered a mega coup.
Sullivan was in a unique situation as he was given the booking duties after WCW/AOL-Time Warner decided six weeks was enough to show Russo/Ferrera weren’t the answer to getting viewers back to the PPV buying window, TNT & TBS. He was in the best possible spot with the roster including Goldberg, Sting, Hulk Hogan, Kevin Nash, Scott Hall plus the NwO, The Giant (Big Show), Booker T, Ric Flair, Scott Steiner, Lex Luger, Sid Vicious, Terry Funk, Jeff Jarrett and the amazing cruiserweights to be mentioned in a moment at his disposal to get WCW back on top. So how the hell did it go wrong and WCW fell apart?? After the great background segment thanks to interviewer Sean Oliver, Sullivan goes through a week by week breakdown of PPV’s, Nitro and Thunder events covering the time frame Jan 16 (when the late Chris Benoit won the championship but subsquentially left with Dean Malenko, Eddie Guerrero and Perry Saturn to WWF) through March 2000 when Sullivan is pushed out thanks to scheming of Russo/Bischoff, the political backstabbbing, wrestlers going behind his back to management, wrestlers shooting on each other on live television and other squabbles you have to hear to believe. Want to know what its like to be told how to run a wrestling promotion by people who couldn’t tell you what a wristlock is, Sullivan does and he goes in-depth on booking meetings when things got real tense. I have read “the Death of WCW” and seen a shoot interview with Russo/Ferrera and this DVD interview is equal if not better thanks to Sullivan’s candor and the research of interviewer.
This excellent DVD is for sale on www.KayfabeCommentaries.com along with other releases. I will be back in the coming weeks with reviews of Shimmer, GLOW and WWE DVD’s.