The WWE had won the Monday Night Wars and purchased WCW, but it was This Day in Wrestling History 20 years ago, July 2, 2001, that saw the true death of WCW.
On RAW is WAR in Tacoma, Washington, the night’s main event was a test for the WCW wrestlers as Booker T defended the WCW World Heavyweight Championship against Buff Bagwell.
It was a 100% WCW main event with the ring apron being WCW’s, Stacey Keibler as the ring announcer, a WCW referee officiating, and Arn Anderson and Scott Hudson doing the commentary.
And it was a total flop that destroyed any chance of WCW being relaunched.
Blame to share
There are been plenty of blame to go around with most pointing the finger at Buff Bagwell and his less than inspiring effort.
To be fair, Bagwell has reportedly said Shane McMahon told him not to look into the camera as they didn’t do that in the WWE.
That was Bagwell’s gimmick to look into the camera and pose, so that definitely could’ve thrown him off for the night.
While Booker T tried his best to put on a good match, they were booed and had chants of “Boring” echo from the 20,000 fans.
It wasn’t until Kurt Angle and Steve Austin came out and beat them down that the fans became excited and started cheering.
Why?
It was a WCW main event in a WWE ring and arena with a WWE crowd. It was next to impossible for them to get over with the fans and prove themselves better or as good as the WWE wrestlers.
They never had a chance, and in many ways this could be looked at ass being purposely done since they could’ve done it the following week in Atlanta in what was WCW’s backyard.
Set up to fail
It’s hard to look at this match as anything but being purposely done to show WCW wasn’t good enough.
And when we keep in mind that no WCW wrestler won a clean match during the Invasion storyline while they lost clean it’s seems obvious WCW was meant to look inferior.
Afterall, Vince McMahon won the war and purchases them, so would making the product and talent look as good as his benefit him at that time? We don’t see it.
It’s one of those things that’s often passed over and blamed on an individual (Bagwell) rather than the powers behind the scene that set things up and decided who wins and loses.
This Day in Wrestling History marked the official end of WCW, but did it really have a legitimate chance of being relaunched? Let us know in the comments below.
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