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NOTES FROM BOB: LOOKING BACK AT THE CRAZIEST WEEK IN WCW HISTORY   
    
by Bob Ryder  2/21/2004 12:03:00 PM 
      
 A lot of crazy things happened over the course of the last couple of
years of WCW's existence, but when I look back at those days....I
think the craziest week in WCW history was January 10-17, 2000.

Let's take a look back at the unbelievable events that took place
behind the scenes that week.

Jeff Jarrett wrestled three times on the January 10 episode of
NITRO....matches against George Steele, Tito Santana, and Jimmy Snuka.
 The match against Snuka was a steel cage match, and it ended with
Snuka hitting Jarrett with a splash from the top of the cage followed
by a diving headbutt from the top of the cage by Chris Benoit.  This
was to set up a series of three matches between Jarrett and Benoit
scheduled for the Souled Out PPV on January 16.

The main event of the January 10 NITRO saw a match between WCW World
Heavyweight Champion Bret Hart and Kevin Nash.  The match ended with
interference from Sid Vicious, who was set to challenge Hart for the
title at Souled Out.

The composite rating for the January 10 NITRO was 3.41.

Tuesday is when everything started to fall apart.

Bret Hart had been experiencing headaches since taking a kick from
Goldberg a few weeks earlier and went to see a doctor when he returned
home on Tuesday.  The diagnosis was a serious concussion and Hart was
told he would not be able to wrestle at Souled Out.

With the PPV only a few days away, Vince Russo and his creative team
started to brainstorm on Wednesday morning to decide how to handle
Hart's injury and to decide what to do about the Souled Out main
event.

By Thursday morning, they had more problems to deal with.

Jeff Jarrett had suffered headaches and dizziness after taking the
splash from Snuka on NITRO and after a workout on Wednesday went to
see a doctor who told him that he had suffered a concussion and would
not be able to wrestle at Souled Out.

Two concussions ripped Souled Out completely apart.  Four of the main
matches on the PPV were impacted by injuries to two men.
 
Russo and his creative team scrambled to try to come up with a way to
save the PPV.  One of the ideas that was considered was to have a
battle royal to determine a new WCW World Heavyweight Champion, and to
have Tank Abbott win the belt.

On Friday afternoon Russo met with Bill Busch to talk about the
revamped plans for Souled Out.  During that meeting Busch told Russo
that he had decided to make a change in the creative direction and
that he wanted to add others, including Kevin Sullivan, to the
creative process.  Busch told Russo he would still be the head writer,
but that he would need to take more input from Sullivan and others.

Russo balked at Busch's suggestion and reminded him that he had been
promised total control of the creative process when he was hired by
Busch just three months earlier, but Busch insisted that Sullivan be
involved in the creative direction of the company and that Russo allow
others to have input in the creative direction of the company.

Russo refused, and told Busch he wouldn't have anything to do with
sharing creative power.

Word began to circulate behind the scenes that Russo was now out of
the picture completely and about an hour before WCW Live was set to go
on the air I contacted Russo at home to find out what had happened and
how we should deal with it on the show.  Russo recounted what had
happened and said he was "out".  A few minutes later I received a call
from the office telling us how to deal with the situation on WCW Live.
 We were to basically say Russo remains under contract but was
stepping aside for the time being.

At this point we were two days away from Souled Out...and had no
matches for the PPV.

That Friday night we told the WCW Live audience what had happened. 
The WCW World Heavyweight Title was declared vacant at Souled Out, but
we still didn't know who would be in the match.  The new creative team
would be meeting Saturday night, and it was decided we would have a
special episode of WCW Live broadcasting on Saturday night with
updates on the Souled Out lineup.

By Saturday night, our heads were all spinning about what had happened
during the week, but we didn't realize that the chaos was just
starting.

The decision was made to go with a match between Sid Vicious and Chris
Benoit for the title.

Sunday afternoon was one of the wildest days from a backstage
standpoint in WCW history.  Several of the wrestlers who had been
Russo allies were furious about what had taken place and planned to
confront Bill Busch about their concerns.

Busch's office was a busy place that afternoon as a continuous stream
of wrestlers went in and out.  One group that went in together was
Chris Benoit, Perry Saturn, Dean Malendo, Eddie Guerrero, Shane
Douglas, Konnan, and Rey Mysterio.  The group had banded together
because they thought they had gotten their first significant push in
WCW under Russo, but in Benoit's case it was personal.  What had
started as an angle between Benoit and Sullivan involving Sullivan's
wife Nancy had evolved into a real life situation where Nancy left
Sullivan for Benoit.  Benoit was concerned that the two men wouldn't
be able to let their real life issues stay out of the way of their
professional relationship and thought Sullivan would use his creative
stroke to harm Benoit's career.

During the meeting with Busch, the wrestlers were reassured that
everything would be ok.  Busch told them that if they wanted to leave
he would give them unconditional releases but he urged them to stick
it out and stay with WCW.  They all agreed to meet again the following
afternoon before NITRO.

Chris Benoit won the WCW World Heavyweight Title that night at Souled
Out.

That was the bright spot in a miserable week, but it didn't take long
for things to come even further unglued.

Monday afternoon Benoit and the others met twice with Busch.  The
first meeting was somewhat positive, but by the second meeting Busch
had been convinced by his inner circle that he couldn't let a group of
wrestlers tell him how to run the company so he basicall told the
group that if they didn't like the way things were being run they
could hit the door.

Unfortunately, that's what Benoit, Malenko, Saturn, and Guerrero
decided to do.

Benoit was stripped of the belt that night on NITRO with the
explanation that Vicious had his foot under the ropes the night
before, and within a few days "The Radicals" were in the WWF.

Souled Out drew a .26 buyrate.  The next PPV was SuperBrawl and the
buyrate dropped all the way to a .15.

WCW never recovered from the events that took place that week.  No
subsequent WCW PPV beat the .26 buyrate for Souled Out, and NITRO only
beat the January 10th 3.41 buyrate three times in the remainder of
it's history.

Send feedback to bryder1wrestling{at}yahoo.com


--- Internet Rex 2.29