AEW announcer and Senior Advisor “Good Ole’ J.R.” Jim Ross took to an episode of his “Grilling Jr” podcast to talk about a number of topics including why he thinks corporate (AOL/Time Warner) is responsible for killing WCW and not Eric Bischoff.
Ross said, “I don’t think you can lay it on one guy. You know, I don’t — I think it’s a team effort, so to speak. But I think he hit the nail on the head. The upper brass that called the shots and wrote the checks, so to speak, decided they didn’t want to play ball. And when they decided that, then it was a quick, sudden death; it was over. So I’m thinking it was a corporate thing more than anything. Because everybody’s going to try to blame individuals. You know, Bishoff gets his share of the blame. Is that justified? I don’t know that, I kind of doubt it. But now that this topic is out there, a lot of guys are coming out. Like Bret Hart’s got an opinion, and I always appreciate what he has to say. Whether I agree or don’t agree, it’s irrelevant. But I’m thinking it was a corporate thing and not one guy. I don’t think Bischoff should get all the heat for that, quite frankly. If he does, then he should get the credit for the success that it had.”
On Bishoff not having the internal support he needed:
“He did a great job there. And you know, his infrastructure didn’t support him as well as it should have, in my opinion. He did a great job. Politics got involved, egos got involved. And he had a very heavy ego company, talent-wise, that had its own opinions and way of thinking and doing things. So I’m kind of leaning toward the corporate side as the person or the people or the entity that killed it. But there’s these fundamental things that just happen that just — you shake your head, and you wonder, you know, the attention to the house shows and live events pretty well dead. There was no money there. Because as the old adage goes, WCW wasn’t giving the people what they wanted to see. It’s as simple as that.”
“And so anyhow, it’s all good stuff. And I’m glad that I got to live through most of it and be involved. It was interesting for my career. And the smartest thing I ever did was leave there. And that’s gonna sound very coarse, but it’s the truth. Going to work for Vince was the smartest thing I did in my career-wise. And I lasted at Vince’s place for many, many years and earned some success. We built a hell of a roster. I think that my biggest accomplishment in wrestling is gonna be the roster that we built going into and through the Attitude Era. That roster was dotted with Hall of Fame guys and main event talent. And they were young, and you know, Vince, let me do my work. And I hit on some of them, some of them I didn’t, but most of them came through pretty good. And we developed some great stars out of that group, that helped carry us through. It doesn’t hurt to find guys like Stone Cold, and Rock, among others, there are others. But they raised the tide. They did a great job — they were hungry and talented, and they developed. And then they put the pressure on their dancing partners, the Triple H’s of the world, Cactus Jack’s of the world, all these cats. So it was a good run, it was a good run. It worked out really well for me. And I’m glad I got a chance to explore that and be involved.”
You can check out Ross’ comments in the video below.
(H/T to 411Mania.com for transcribing the above quotes)
