read the death of wcw

Did you get all of this from The Death of WCW book? What/or who pressured them to produce Thunder and for what reasons? Promos being toned down? Being told how to write shows?

What lawsuits went down?
Why wasn't Bischoff allowed to compete with the Attitude Era? I think what he did other than the booking from most of '98 - '99 was good enough. Not all of it was good but it wasn't terrible. That would have been the time to start pushing the right guys, the ones who left for something better anyway. Although I'll always think guys like Guerrero, Mysterio, Benoit, Saturn, Malenko, and Jericho had it good while there.

A priority to get rid of wrestling on their networks, or wrestling in general?

Do you mind elaborating on this stuff, I haven't read the book.

I got this from a number of sources, such as Bischoff's book (which I don't have although I plan to get it, I've read some of it before). Also, interviews, references and DVDs that include former WCW employees.

Producing Thunder, the shows being toned down and them being told how to write the shows were all apart of AOL/Time Warner merger. Ted Turner always cared for wrestling, but prior to that he let whomever (Jim Herd, Eric Bischoff) run WCW without getting involved much. Bischoff had Turner involved for the better, which was how WCW was granted a timeslot against Raw and WCW made money off their television shows. In the late 90's Turner's business partners got involved for the worse. They didn't care for wrestling and wanted to run it despite that and limited knowledge about it. Turner's business partners from the early 90's didn't care for wrestling but Ted had enough power to overrule them. By the late 90's departments of the networks (such as Human Resources) and AOL/Time Warner had enough power to overrule Turner because of the merger. They wanted the language and violence toned down, along with the shows written certain ways, which explains why Scott Steiner almost got fired and why the bookers had to be careful about what was on the show. Bischoff, Russo and Sullivan expressed how difficult it was to write shows with so many restrictions and orders. A prime example is from the Kevin Sullivan End Of WCW DVD, he said how WCW were told not to use foreign objects because of the word "foreign."

To my knowledge Bischoff was against WCW Thunder but eventually gave in. Bischoff confirmed that. Vince Russo felt a similar way when WWE first started Smackdown, it was too much work.

They had discrimination lawsuits from a number of wrestlers, none being major talent. A few are Super Calo, Hector Garza, Ciclope, Damien, Sonny Onoo and Bobby Walker. Some if not all of those lawsuits may have had bogus claims because they knew they could take advantage of who oversaw WCW.

The NWO gave WCW a more serious edge that they hadn't had in years, but Bischoff wanted to go further to compete with the attitude era. He wasn't allowed to do so because of those restrictions. I don't know much about this, just heard references to it. I'm interested in what he would have done. 2 guesses are that he could have done like the attitude era and been more soap opera/shock TV oriented, or like ECW by being about wrestling with a more serious feel to it.

I agree with you that what Bischoff did was good enough. I hated the attitude era with the exception of 2000 and early 2001. WCW at least kept things simple for the most part. I also agree with you that the Radicalz, Mysterio and Jericho had great careers there. Malenko and Saturn were far more relevant in WCW. Jericho was a dominant heel often winning cleanly, and his cruiserweight title reigns are my favorite of his career. Beniot was always pushed hard and was being elevated to the main event by late 1999-early 2000. Some say he was given the world title to stay but Russo and Sullivan were pushing him there regardless. Mysterio was always pushed well and was being elevated against bigger guys by 1999. WCW had to get those guys over on their natural skills in the first place.

Reboot, restart or re-imagining is another word for remake

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