Jeff Jarrett was one of the major stars in WCW when the company went out of business and was sold to the WWE. He was also one of the wrestlers humiliated by Vince McMahon, who publicly fired him on television when the announcement was made. Jarrett went on to found TNA Impact Wrestling, which remains a force in wrestling to this day.
Jarrett spoke to Real Sports about wrestling in general and he had some interesting ideas about why the WWE succeeded while WCW couldn't.
WCW was a corporate entity
Jeff Jarrett said that the WWE had one man who ran the decisions of the company in Vince McMahon.
He pointed out that Vince is a third-generation promoter and he ran the company like his own business -- even when it went public on the stock market. At the end of the day, McMahon decided what happened.
In WCW, the company was owned not by one person but by Turner Broadcasting and Time Warner. While Eric Bischoff was there to run the booking, he had to answer to the corporate heads and that caused non-wrestling people to make too many decisions -- many of those killing WCW.
What made WCW successful?
Of course, WCW was actually beating the WWE in the ratings and if they had continued in the same direction, they could have won the wrestling war and put the WWE out of business. Jeff Jarrett said that the reason that WCW did so well was two-fold.
It all started when Turner Broadcasting and Time Warner put a lot of money behind WCW. That allowed them to bring in stars like Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, Bret Hart, and more. Then, Eric Bischoff used his considerable talent to book the nWo and build the company up to a powerhouse. However, once again, corporate decisions handcuffed Bischoff and he lost control.
Vince McMahon killed WCW
Jeff Jarrett took one more chance to get a dig in at Vince McMahon while complimenting him at the same time. Jarrett said that when the corporate structure started to hurt WCW, McMahon smelled blood and attacked. He knew when the time was right and then swept in and killed WCW, finally winning the huge Monday Night War.
