Former WWE executive Stuart Snyder has revealed his role in helping initiate WWE’s historic acquisition of WCW in 2001, explaining why the promotion’s extensive video library was one of the most valuable aspects of the deal.
During an appearance on Talk Is Jericho with Chris Jericho, Snyder discussed how his existing relationships with executives at Turner helped open the door for negotiations as WCW’s future became increasingly uncertain.
According to Snyder, he made the initial approach to Turner representatives to express WWE’s potential interest in acquiring the struggling promotion. “I say this without an ego. I was intimately involved in those. The genesis of that deal was watching what was happening with WCW and reaching out to the folks I knew at Turner because of my past relationships. I knew everybody there. So, reaching out and going, ‘If you ever want to do anything with WCW, I think we would be interested.’ And that started the journey, and it took a while, but ultimately we made that deal. And I think that’s what I’m most proud of, bringing that to the company.”
Snyder explained that his original vision involved maintaining WCW as a separate brand under WWE ownership rather than simply absorbing its assets.
However, he also recognized the long-term business potential of acquiring WCW’s talent contracts and extensive collection of historical wrestling footage. “Having the foresight of that video library coming into WWE … Everybody thought it was about the brand, and I wanted WCW to continue. I mean, the vision was at that time WCW would have a standalone brand. … The reason I really wanted it … on the business side, it was a matter of we could get this great talent into our camp, but also that video library was sitting there, which I knew downstream, further down the road, was going to be valuable to the company.”
Although WWE’s purchase of WCW is frequently remembered as a bargain, Snyder disputed the idea that the acquisition came without significant financial uncertainty.
He pointed out that WCW no longer had a television commitment, meaning WWE was purchasing a brand that was effectively disappearing from television alongside its remaining contracts and footage library. “Everybody has a comment about that it was so cheap. I would say it this way: I’m not sure that it was cheap. … WCW had no television commitment, so it was going off the air. So we were buying a name, contracts and a video library. That’s what we were buying. And there was uncertainty. We would have to create the new interest or the revived interest in WCW. So there was a risk on our part. But it is true, it was not at the big dollar figures that a lot of people thought it should have been sold at.”
WWE ultimately acquired WCW in March 2001, bringing an end to the Monday Night Wars and fundamentally changing the professional wrestling industry.
While plans to maintain WCW as a standalone promotion never fully materialized, its historical footage became part of WWE’s extensive wrestling archive.
For Snyder, the acquisition represented more than the purchase of a rival promotion. It was an opportunity to secure valuable talent and media assets that he believed would benefit WWE for years to come.
