With the dawn of the 1990's The Wrestling landscape was a much different place than it was just a few years before. Vincent K. McMahon had re-envisioned the industry and as a result many promotions around the country were laid to waste. After the dust cleared only Vince's WWF and the Ted Turner backed WCW (the former Jim Crockett's NWA territory) remained. Everyone else was considered the minor leagues and were viewed of much lesser quality then the big two.
However the 90's brought about another change. Interest in pro wrestling was beginning to wain in the early part of the decade. The novelty of the mid 80's had worn off and crowds began to slide. After the bomb of the Hulk Hogan starring movie No Holds Barred, declining attendance and viewers, and then Hulk himself leaving the WWF to go film another movie, Vince was beginning to feel the decline. After "passing the torch" to another popular star, The Ultimate Warrior, in April of 1990, House show attendance began to decline rapidly. Even when Hogan returned in August of 1990, the fans were leaving in droves. The kids of the 80's had grown up and grown tired of Hogan's routine. Television numbers declined to the point where the once mighty Saturday Night's Main Event on NBC was canceled in early 1991. The situation was made even worse in early 1992 when the Federal government began building a case against McMahon over the illegal distribution of steroids. With that accusation and the WWF under a microscope several talents left the WWF either by choice of were fired. Hogan himself left the WWF in 1992 for a full year and returned in February of 1993 much smaller. Although officially the reason for the absence was to make two movies, many fans believed it was for a much more sinister reason. And outside the Summerslam 1992 event that drew over 80,000 fans to Wembley Stadium in England, the WWF was a flop. When Hogan finally returned in early 1993 even he couldn't save the company's woes and after a world title run with few appearances on television, Hogan was let go for good in June of 1993.
Starting in early 1993 the WWF tried to freshen up it's television presentation. The Monday night Prime Time Wrestling clip show was transformed into Monday Night RAW, a one hour live show (at least for the first few weeks) that featured a faster paced and more competitive matches. Many of the old television personalities were pushed to the side to make room for new faces like radio DJ Todd Pentengill, Comedian Rob Bartlett, and even former lead announcer for WCW Jim Ross, and former WCW wrestler Stan Lane were all brought in and old favorites like Gene Oakerland, Sean Mooney, and Gorilla monsoon were given less screen time or let go fromthe company all together. This change didn't spark a lot of new interest in the product however. Attendance slid, the ratings for RAW were exactly the same for Prime Time Wrestling. In the next couple of years Vince tried to promote the "New Generation" of the WWF, with Bret Hart, Lex Luger (once a villain who was quickly turned into an American flag waving good guy after the termination of Hogan) as the top stars of the company. But outside of a few standouts most the the WWF roster were empty gimmicks designed to sell merchandise rather than characters people could relate to. Even after the acquittal of Vince McMahon in the summer of 1994 it was apparent that he and the company as a whole had lost touch with it's fan base. This point was made more evident as the programming before and after the Monday Night show was skewed to an older audience while the WWF featured safe family entrainment with little fowl language, cartoonish characters (including a clown, a trashman, a monk, amongst others) toned down violence and no blood at all, all the while marketing toys and stuffed animals for children.
Meanwhile in WCW things were going much better. After a revolving doors of head creative people and Turnr executives, and a rash of injuries and departures, 1990 was not a good year for the company. What followed was years of backstage conflict between the creative people and those in charge of the company. This turnoil came to a head when in the summer of 1991 long time star of the NWA/WCW Ric Flair left the promotion after conflicts with WCW president Jim Herd and returning booker Dusty Rhodes. Flair went on to the WWF with the world title belt with him. Several people were given the chance to run the company over the next few years until WCW landed in the lap of former AWA sales rep and low level broadcaster Eric Bischoff. One of Eric's first moves in 1993 was to start taping a majority of their programming from the MGM studios at Disneyworld to reduce spending. Although good from a financial standpoint this greatly effected the product as shows were taped 6 to 8 months in advance. The talent was less motivated to perform as their immediate futures were essentially set in stone. Not only that but results from these shows were leaked in the internet's early days and in newsletters giving away results of bigger pay per view shows months before those shows were even held. Things really hit rock bottom for the company at this point when in October of 1993 Top star and future world Champion (matches had been taped with him wearing the title) Sid Viscous stabbed Arn Anderson 40 times with a pair of scissors in a hotel in England. WCW was reluctant to fire Sid because of the taped plans, but the threat of the rest of the roster walking off a live pay per view event in November forced WCW's plans to abandon the plans.
Turner execs were putting Eric under the microscope himself and in an attempt to save his own job he brokered a deal to bring Hulk Hogan to WCW in mid 1994. Hogan's impact was immediate as he brought many of his friends from the old WWF with him. The entire direction of the company changed overnight. Ric Flair (who had returned in 1993 and made the top face of the company again after Sid was fired) was abruptly turned heel. Once the top face of the promotion, Sting was regulated to mid card feuds and even not appearing at shows at all. Although interest initially was high, this soon faded as Hogan's performances were soon the same performances against the same people (with different names) from the WWF. The buys for the pay per view events returned to their normal levels by the end of 1993. As 1994 and 1995 wore on, WCW stagnated more and more before a step, at the behest of Ted Turner himself, started making WCW competitive again.
By late 1995 WWF's Monday night RAW program was only live about once a month and was often filled with one sided undercard matches. WCW began to counter this with a live show directly opposite RAW called Monday Nitro. Nitro was live for most weeks, and featured less one sided "squash" matches and more action than the WWF's RAW. The competitive atmosphere, known as the "Monday Night Wars" sparked slow incline in interest in the product again.
Soon WCW became known by wrestlers and fans alike for being the place that offered more money and better deals for talent at the time. Not only aging stars but also current stars jumped from the WWF to WCW for the opportunity to make more money. Two of the biggest stars of the time were Scott Hall (Known in the WWF as Razor Ramon) and Kevin Nash (known as Deisel). They were introduced to WCW fans as invaders that were "starting a war". Many of their fans from the WWF jumped with them. Although they never wrestled at first, Hall and Nash would interfere in shows and appeared on almost every Nitro. Finally their WCW wrestling debut was signed for the "Bash at the Beach" show in July of 1996 where they would team with a mystery "Third Man" to take on three WCW wrestlers. After much speculation the third man turned out to be Hulk Hogan, who turned into a bad guy in one fail swoop , forming the "New World Order". The move got the fans talking and word spread to former fans and the general public sparking massive interest in wrestling again. WCW was the in thing now. Besides the NWO WCW also produced more competitive matches, a 2 hour show compared the the 1 hour RAW, edgier storylines with less cartoonish wrestlers, and even gave away the results of WWF's pretaped shows. WCW's Nitro beat WWF's RAW in the ratings constantly giving the WWF competition it had never seen before.
Away from the big two, several small wrestling promotions were spring up. The most visible was a company based out of Philidelphia that started in 1993 as a leg of the fledgling NWA. During these years however they set themselves apart from mainstream wresting. They quickly dumped the NWA afilliation and became known as Extreme Championship Wrestling, or ECW, headed up by former WCW wrestling manager Paul Heyman. Heyman's vision was totally different from what WCW or the WWF were offering with drastically more violence and blood, sexual storylines, along with great mat wrestling action and bringing in stars from Mexico and Japan. As this company grew and got more exposure through syndication, it gained the notice from both WWF and WCW alike. Vince soon started funding ECW financially to create new stars of the future (kept secret as not to destroy ECW's image of being anti establishment) and WCW was raiding talent through any means necessary. ECW soon became a breading ground for stars that the big two would use against each other.
With WCW's programming dominating the WWF, and the WWF quickly losing money hand over fist, changes had to be made. The family friendly wrestling company with the simple gimmicks and cartoon violence wasn't winning any fans anymore. Behind the scenes there was a shift in the creative end as Vince Russo and writing partner Ed Ferra emerged with more of a say in the direction of the company. However Jim Cornette, long time wrestling manager and promoter, also was a major role in the company's creative end. While Cornette stuck to the old ways of wrestling's past and tradition, Russo knew that the WWF needed an overhaul. The front runner of this new attitude was "Stone Cold" Steve Austin. Austin had been wrestling since 1990 and had been in WCW for a number of years before being fired. He spent some time in ECW before being brought into the WWF in early 1996. A few gimmick changes later and Austin was now a foul mouthed redneck from Texas and the fans were eating it up. A famous promo at the end of the 1996 "King of the Ring" event in June of 1996 launched him into stardom. Along with Austin, stars like the Undertaker, Vader, Shawn Michaels, and a returning Bret Hart were slowly starting the push for more edgier storylines. RAW shows now featured more adult language, beautiful women such as Sunny and Sable, Blood and more violence, even to the degree where on one particular episode of RAW, and injured Brian Pillman pulled a gun on Austin during an interview at his own house. The incident nearly got RAW kicked off the air, but the intentions were shown that the WWF wasn't going to lay back any longer. Eventually the WWF abandoned the format of RAW being live only once a month and switched to a 2 hour show with them being live almost every week. The matches were more competitive and the action was much heavier. The silly gimmicks of the early 90's were giving way to much more adult themed wrestlers like the Nation of Domination ( a take on the Nation of Islam), the sexually ambiguous Golddust, amongst others. However with all these changes, WCW still won the ratings war through 1996 and 1997. The 1997 installment of Wrestlemania was the lowest rated Wrestlemania in it's 13 year history. WCW was still making money with the NWO storyline (by now had ballooned to nearly half the roster and two different factions) and the emergence of Goldberg as a new star within the company.
In late 1997 however, a strange incident helped level the playing field. After losing the WWF title in early 1996 Bret Hart had taken time off as his contract expried. A bidding war broke out to secure the services of Hart and the end result was Bret being signed to a multimillion dollar contract good for 20 to the WWF. However with WCW winning the ratings war and WWF faltering badly in 1996 and 1997 it was becoming apprent the WWF could not afford to keep their end of the deal. Starting soon after Bret won the WWF title back in August of 1997 Vince began to push to have some of the money deferred for future dates when they would be more stable that Bret refused. The end result was Vince purposefully violating the contract and letting Hart negotiate with WCW. As Bret was finishing his run, backstage conflict with Shawn Michaels led to a negotiation breakdown of how Bret would lose the title. This lead to a match in early November of 1997 between Michaels and Hart where Vince personally changed the ending of the match on the spot handing the title to Michaels and booting Hart from the company in what was known as the "Montreal Incident". As word of the double cross reached the fan base interest in the fallout brought in a bigger audience from fans. Soon McMahon was positioned as the power hungry WWF President and Steve Austin was the anti establishment hero. With money being freed from no longer having to pay Bret's contract and a top level feud that people were paying attention to the WWF started running neck and neck with WCW. This culminated in Austin winning the WWF title from Shawn Michaels at Wrestlemania 14, whose ratings were 3 times what they had been the year before. The WWF had finally caught up with WCW and touched off what was known as the "Attitude Era" of the WWF from a phrase coined by a commercial the WWF produced for the Superbowl that year.
As all this was going on WCW was beginning to falter. Even though they had won the ratings war the company had amassed a growing financial debt under Eric Bischoff. WCW's programming with the NWO, false finishes and bait and switch tatics were getting stale with fans at a growing rate. What any fans thought would have been a defining moment for the company in the Starrcade 1997 world title match between Hulk Hogan and Sting, who hadn't wrestled or even spoke on tv for the last15 months instead was a confusing and nonsensical ending that disappointed many fans, and when a rematch was made for the February show many fans saw this as a grab for more money. As the WWF was making ground, WCW was slipping with a chaotic backstage scene. Not only did WCW cost itself a lot of money by giving away the biggest match they had to give in Goldberg V/S Hogan for the world title on free TV but there were other incidents like wrestlers appeared on TV intoxicated, Whole rosters would be brought to shows but only half would be used, Scripts for shows were still being worked on as shows were taking place, but the most visible incident occurred in October of 1998 when the Halloween Havoc pay per view was shut off 1 minute into the main event. This forced WCW to refund customers who had purchased the show, not only ruining the relationship with many of it's fan base but also costing the company millions of dollars it couldn't afford to lose. Then in December of 1998 and Janurary of 1999 a string of incidents that turned the tide in the WWF's favor for good. In later 1998, Kevin Nash had been given booking power within WCW. He then proceeded to position himself as the top star of the company by winning a 60 man battle royal in November in his home state of Michigan and leading to himself being the opponent for Goldberg in the 1998 installment of Starrcade. Goldberg had been a shining star in WCW as he had been marketed with an undefeated streak lasting well over a year. The Fans were enthralled as Goldberg flattened opponent after opponent sometimes in seconds and building an undefeated streak over the course of over a year. This all lead up to the match with Nash. What followed was a contrived mess of a match and Nash being the first man to beat Goldberg and made himself the world champion. 2 weeks later a rematch was promised but as had become the costum of the company at the time they did not deliver. Going head up against a pretaped RAW where Mick Foley would win the WWF title (and WCW announcer Tony Schivone making the infamous "That'll put butts in the seats" remark) fans changed the channel immediately. Meanwhile on the WCW show Goldberg was being detained by police as part of a storyline and Hulk Hogan stepped up to take his place after being away from the show for many months. The match began but soon Hogan poked Nash with one finger and Nash laid down letting Hogan pin him for the title and reforming the new NWO. This incident ,Now known as "The fingerpoke of doom" led to a permanent fall in the ratings of the Nitro show that WCW never recovered from. Soon after this incident the debt acquired by WCW was deemed to much and Eric Bishcoff was terminated from his position as the head of the company.
The WWF was going full steam during the later part of the decade. with Steve Austin, the Undertaker, his storyline brother Kane, the aforementioned Mick Foley, and the Rock all emerging as big stars that were leading the company. The WWF's programming was outselling WCW's faltering ratings and buyrates and the company was riding a high never scene before. Even with attacks from several watchdog and parental rights groups, and the tragic death of Bret Hart's brother Owen during a live Pay Per View event in may of 1999 didn't slow down the company's success. Soon WCW wrestlers were making the jump to the WWF as Vince and company were now in a position to make better offers to frustrated wrestlers who were being held back by the top stars of WCW such as Hogan, Hall, and Nash. Even with the loss of head writer Vince Russo, and Steve Austin taking a year off starting in November of 1999 for neck surgery the WWF was still wining the war hand over fist with the new stars from WCW and ECW, along with it's established top guys like Foley, the Rock, former WCW champion the Big Show, and Triple H were headling shows that were easily outselling WCW events.
As the new millennium came the Monday Night Wars had very one sided. WCW's ratings were only 1/3 to 1/2 of what they had been only a few years before. Turmoil in the creative and business end of the company lead to a number of people taking over the head creative decision to try to right the company and had failed. Vince Russo had been brought in but his ideas tended to be very chaotic and were often viewed as pale imitations of ideas he had made in the WWF. He left after only 3 months after a conflict with others in the company only to come back in early 2000 along with former WCW head Eric Bishcoff to run the company but that to failed. Russo's run as the creative head of WCW was marked with nonsensical storylines that were hard to keep track of, world title runs by not only himself but also actor David Arquette. The banishment of Hulk Hogan after a worked/shoot storyline went wrong leading to a lawsuit, several people leaving the company for the WWF and the ratings for WCW programming dropping sharply. Russo left the company in late 1999 after suffering a concussion but by that time rumors of Turner selling off WCW had begun to spring up.
At the same time the small ECW promotion had seen it's highest visibility to date. It's pay per views were being bought all over the country and it had signed a national weekly cable television deal in the late summer of 1999. However it's biggest success was also leading to it's downfall. The Television deal with the Nashville Network was very one sided. ECW was paying for the time slot and the upscale in production to continue to be aired on the network. TNN only advertised the show during the show itself and was treated more as an experiment for a later deal with the WWF. When the WWF finalized the deal to start airing RAW on the network, most thought it was the end of ECW, but with the secret money Vince was giving them, ECW was allowed to stay on the network. ECW however openly criticized TNN for their practices and the relationship was growing worse. It all came to an end in early 2001 when TNN canceled the ECW television show. After losing most of it's money in the TNN deal, and most of it's top stars to the WWF and WCW, ECW folded shortly after it's last pay per view show in January of 2001.
WCW's future was in just as much doubt at this time as well. After being bought out by computer company AOL, Ted Turner was no longer in a position of power within his own company. WCW was being offered up for sale to the right bidder. Eric Bishcoff and a group of investors entered the race along with the WWF, Southern promoter Jerry Jarrett, and a few international media outlets in a bidding war. After some reworked deals to lighten the dubt the company had amassed over the years Bishcoff came out the winner. With the sale all but official however this left an interesting situation for many of WCW's top stars who had been signed under guaranteed contracts with Time Warner. They had a choice of either sitting out the rest of their contracts and continue to get paid without wrestling during this time, or having their contracts bought out and taking paycuts for new contracts elsewhere. Many of WCW's elite chose the former. Under Bishcoff's creative influence the company was set up for the trnasition away from Time Warner. Kevin Nash, Goldberg, Sting, and other talent were taken off TV in the final months of 200 and early 2001. The cruiserweights were given more of a focus as well as young talent fresh out of WCW's wrestling school. However right before the transition was to be complete Time Warner cancelled WCW programming on their networks and Bischoff was forced to pull out of the deal a mere two weeks before it was to be finalized. Many rumors sprung up leading to the final WCW Nitro. The WWF then bought out WCW for a much lesser price than what Bischoff was offered and took control of the company for the last Nitro to air in March of 2001.
Vince McMahon had finally realized his dream of dominating the Wrestling market and put all of his competition out of business. But this is where things crashed. Although many in the WWF thought that being the monopoly would lead to increasing business, in fact it lead to just the opposite almost immediately. The RAW after Wrestlemania and a mere 2 weeks after the close of WCW, sank in the ratings lower than expected. Negotiations to bring WCW back as a separate brand with a 2 hour show on Saturday nights and there own house shows stalled for months before finally failing, leading to the one sided "invasion" storyline that was viewed as one of the biggest missed opportunities of all time in wrestling. Vince spent most of his attention away from the WWF looking after his failed football league the XFL ad the creative control was handed to his daughter Stephanie who put a lot more ephasis on her then boyfriend and future husband Triple H before he was sidelined for the better part of 6 months with a torn quad. With the invasion storyline ended in November of 2001, the WWF was left with a glut of stars aquired from ECW's closure and WCW's buyout the WWF had what was called the brand split where the Monday Raw and Thursday Smackdown shows would each have their own crew of wrestlers. The "WWF Draft" held the week after Wrestlemania 18 the same day where Steve Austin had walked out of the promotion after a dispute with the writing of the company. The brand split was marketed as competition between the new brands but fans knew better and ratings dipped. Wrestling was no longer the it thing anymore and the WWF (now renamed the WWE after being on the losing end of a lawsuit with the World Wildlife Fund) was starting to suffer. As the decade rolled on the WWE tried many different things to reignite interest but nothing seemed to work. They tried promoting new stars such as Brock Lesnar, Eddie Guerrero, Chris Benoit and other to fill the void left as the stars of the attitude era left. Even bringing in top WCW wrestlers like the NWO, Scott Stiener, and Goldberg didn't help as these stars were often booked to look inferior to the WWE stars (most noticably Triple H who beat most of the WCW top stars during this time). Eventually the decision was made to push stars like John Cena, Batista, Randy Orton and a number of others but these stars didn't bring in fans as the company once did a decade before. Ratings for the shows dipped lower and lower until they were less than 1/2 the numbers they once carried. The fans of the Attitude era had grown bored and the tragic and sudden death of Eddie Guerrero and the Murder/Suicide of Chris Benoit and his family put a dark cloud over the promotion for years, even to the point of another government investigation (that was eventually dropped).
In recent years the WWE has made a renewed push to try and establish itself an an entertainment company. Music, Movies, and Television ventures all were produced in the WWE with little success. The WWE then further alienated much of it's audience when it shifted it rating of the promotion away from the TV-14 content to the kid Friendly PG content (many say this was brought on by an impending bid at politics by Linda McMahon and a toy deal with Matell). There has been a push from smaller companies to provide alternatives to the WWE such as Jeff Jarett's TNA (founded in 2002 using many stars not picked up when WCW closed) and Deleware based Ring of Honor, but these companies have a fraction of the exposure and resources to make true competition for the WWE.
As we come to the present the monopoly that Vince always wanted has been around now for over a decade. The heights of the Attitude era now a long memory with a good portion of the audience not even been born when it was around. As Vince grows older he is slowly shifting power to his son in law Triple H, who has taken a much larger backstage role in the last few years. The WWE is working on a 24 hour network and struggling to recover it's failing films division with no method in sight.
Will things change? That's anyone's guess but as history has shown us things can change with the drop of a hat.
