WWE loses the Monday Night War - How is the wrestling world different?

Thought I'd get some discussion and speculation going on the forum, and whilst I'm watching the Monday Night Wars on the WWE Network (for just £9.99!) I am going to ask a classic question, if WWE, not WCW, lost the Monday Night War, how would things be different?

To answer the question you can either create your own point where WWE gave up, maybe they don't change to Attitude, or you can just suggest that in 2001 WWE goes out of business for some reason.

What does Vince McMahon do?
Does Triple H, possibly married to Stephanie by this point, ever have a big wrestling career, unlikely to go to WCW so never has the career he had.
How do WCW re-write history, is the change to Attitude ridiculed?
Are characters like Steve Austin, Mankind and The Rock ever held in the same respect as they are now?
Does The Rock gain enough traction to become the huge movie star he is today
Does WCW's success following the Monday Night Wars reflect the WWE's success today or do they not expand and stay as simply a TV show?

I think the biggest factor would have been that WCW would have brought over the main WWE stars. So the invasion angle had the potential to be much better with Austin / Goldberg, Rock / Steiner, Undertaker / Sting.

But, the 2nd factor in this not working when WWE won was the overwhelming desire to crush the WCW players in all ways. And I can't help but think that Nash, Hogan, etc. would have done just that. So, a bit better, but maybe still not stellar.

I think Triple H would go across irrespective of his in-laws. And that would probably be the way they'd have killed the Invasion angle, with him and Michaels turning on the WWE stars.

The WCW story would be that they won the war by bringing wrestling to the modern day, while WWE was still doing kids TV with wrestling IRS men and dentists.

I think it would actually have resulted in a worse wrestling product because of the lack of wrestling experience running WCW and the lunatics running the asylum. A lot of WWE has not been perfect, but at least Vince has to keep trying to find ways to turn a profit. WCW would have continued to not care, living off Turner's money and if when that went (as it did) its equally possible that WCW could have crashed with it. Leaving us now with just TNA

Got to agree with Prom on this one. The reason the invasion angle failed was because all the big WCW guys like Hogan, Nash, Hall, Flair, Goldberg, Steiner, Sting et all were all on guarenteed contracts, so they didnt need to wrestle that time. The WWE guys at the time didnt have that so it would have been a much bigger spectacle.

Ted Turners country wrasslin' hootenany was poorly managed from top to bottom, even if they had somehow won I dont think they would have lasted longer than 10 years. Turner would have eventually got bored without someone to score points off of, and would have stopped investing or sold the company years ago. I think WWE winning is the best outcome long term, because it was a family company, not some guy who fancied giving it a shot.

We also probably would have guys like Ambrose, Rollins, Punk and Bryan being the massive stars that they are today.

I'd struggle to see the WWE dying like WCW died. WCW could have won the war, but I don't think the E would have died. Their leader, injured in the first war, would have bided his time to try rise again. He'd save gone crazy analysing what he saw as the weaknesses in WWE and why they were sabotaged, why they lost.

And then he'd have killed all the jews in the WWE and risen to power, but this time Germany would win the second monday night war. Herr McMahon would rule again, the stable known as the Gestapo would bury the WCW stars. Goebbels H would take control down the line.

Or, to carry on before I made this about the nazis, WWE would have come again. The younger talent that WCW would never have put over would come back to McMahon and he'd fight for more, and he'd definitely win the second battle. Turner would have lost interest when WWE went down and they'd be off the pulse by the time they came again

I find this question almost impossible to answer as following 98 and WM14 WWF followed a steady rise in profits and quality while WCW, after competing for a while basically imploded and was a joke of a promotion by the turn of the millennium, also WCW about going out of business was less about Vince and co driving them out of town than the AOL/time Warner merger and the desire by the new higher ups to no longer show wrestling at prime time (though the astonishing amount of money WCW lost in its latter years probably made that an easy decision), were it not for that it's inevitable that the war would have lasted well past 2001 and may still be going to this day.

Also I believe a WCW capable of winning the war would be almost unrecognisable from the shambles of 01, I'm guessing some of its bigger stars (with the eventual phasing out of the old nWo guard) being those who rose to prominence in the early 2000s that the WWE were slow to pick up on ala Punk, Joe, Styles and others who formed the bedrock of TNA and ROH in the post wars era, though given pressure of a genuine competitor like WCW it's possible WWE may not have slept on those names as they went through the 'Randy Orton clone' phase of the mid 2000s and the wrestling landscape as a whole could be radically different as the Big Two fought an endless war to acquire the talents who could make the difference to them, which in turn would radically change the face of the Indy scene of the past decade or so.

Anyways sorry to ramble on but I just can't realistically envision a world where WCW magically wins the war in 01, both companies were on such opposite courses from the late 90s onwards.

If WCW were winning the ratings wars and looking like being the big dog overall when AOL/Time Warner merge happened then they aren't stupid enough to let that go, but it didnt matter cos they werent.

It is one of the hardest of the hypotheticals, but none of them have convincing answers. What if HHH had been given that KOTR? What if Austin had never wrestled again after that piledriver? What if Woryah had stayed? What if Lesnar stayed? What if Vince had gone to jail for forcing steroids on his performers (with no suggestion he did)? Answer all that and you might find Courtney Love actually became nice in the 90s and someone had shot Liam Gallagher during the rise of Britpop.

Dolphin Ziggler wrote:I'd struggle to see the WWE dying like WCW died. WCW could have won the war, but I don't think the E would have died. Their leader, injured in the first war, would have bided his time to try rise again. He'd save gone crazy analysing what he saw as the weaknesses in WWE and why they were sabotaged, why they lost.

And then he'd have killed all the jews in the WWE and risen to power, but this time Germany would win the second monday night war. Herr McMahon would rule again, the stable known as the Gestapo would bury the WCW stars. Goebbels H would take control down the line.

Or, to carry on before I made this about the nazis, WWE would have come again. The younger talent that WCW would never have put over would come back to McMahon and he'd fight for more, and he'd definitely win the second battle. Turner would have lost interest when WWE went down and they'd be off the pulse by the time they came again

Colt cobana is Jewish isn't he?

I like this idea.

The perception of Ted Turner is a clear sign that WWE propaganda has achieved its goal.

History is written by the victors; it is extremely foolish to take it at face value.

Now now, is there anything more disgusting than a comment like that that leaves without justification?!

Id be comfortable thinking his philanthropy is nothing but the move of a rich old man, and that you don't do what he did in various forms without being a dick, yet ultimately I also doubt his cross spectrum media interests meant he had his finger on the pulse of any of them as close to McMahon and wrestling

Do you know anything about Ted Turner, Turner Broadcasting or its relationship with the wrestling industry that differs from the account given by WWE?

From what I heard Turner's autobiography has exactly 0 mentions of WCW and wrestling in general

crippledtart wrote:Do you know anything about Ted Turner, Turner Broadcasting or its relationship with the wrestling industry that differs from the account given by WWE?

Not other than snippets I have read. This still doesnt help me learn you frustrating jeb end!

Like I said, you don't necessarily have to start the discussion from 2001, that is just one possible look at it and one which is perhaps easiest to speculate from, however another question is if WCW were to win the Monday Night Wars, at what point would they have had to do things differently.

At this rate I am gonna actually turn up to the next v2 podcast meet up just to slap Gav in the face with a steak.

Crimey - The answer might be: before they started doing things wrong. Their difference to WWE was what won them the early battles, as it were (although this may just be the WWE propaganda machine, I'm now worried whether my parents really named me Chris the Crusher Wilkerson at all) they had found a formula that worked and shown that the pantomime days were somewhat dead.