The Death of WCW Review

Rating 4.00 out of 5

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Death of WCW (By RD Reynolds and Bryan Alvarez)

The Death of WCW
By RD Reynolds & Bryan Alvarez
Published by ECW Press
Released on November 1, 2004
240 Pages (Paperback)
Available in Paperback & Kindle

World Championship Wrestling was established as a company in 1988 after Ted Turner bought the territory from Jim Crockett. Power changed hands constantly, from Jim Herd to Kip Frey to Bill Watts before finally falling into Eric Bischoff's hands. He was able to get a primetime timeslot on Turner's TNT channel and the Monday Night War - perhaps the greatest period in the history of wrestling - had begun. After signing a load of former and current WWF stars (such as Hulk Hogan) and creating the New World Order (nWo), WCW gained the edge in the Monday Night War... but would they be able to keep it?

The Death of WCW is a look back at a wrestling promotion that had everything going for it, yet ended up falling apart in the end. You'll find out how WCW became the biggest wrestling promotion ever and when and why the downhill slide started which ended up engulfing the company. While the authors give their own opinion as to who it was who killed WCW (was it Eric Bischoff, Hulk Hogan, Kevin Nash or Vince Russo?), you are presented with enough information to generate your own opinion. It uses a combination of humour and hard facts to make its points. There are some great stories of incompetence which in many cases will have you shaking your head and others that will have you bursting into laughter. There's also a lot about the backstage politics which were commonplace. The book focuses on the Monday Night Wars, which was the most important period of the company's existance.

While every hardcore wrestling fan should read this book, there are a lot of lessons to be learned from what happened back around 1998-2001 that hopefully the people in charge now can pick up on. The humour in the book is much needed, as it is a truly depressing story the more you think about it. A once great company was burnt to a crisp. Then the ashes were pissed on. Make sure you read The Death of WCW and hope that this never happens again.