Vince McMahon once believed the future of his company was in trouble.
The late nineties saw the emergence of the Monday Night War between Raw and WCW Nitro. Both companies went head to head against each other, trying to score better television viewership and rankings.
However, the inception of the ‘Attitude Era’ and stars such as Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Rock, Triple H, and many more ultimately led to WWE’s dominance and eventual victory in the war. Recently, speaking on the ‘Mr.McMahon‘ docu-series on Netflix, McMahon shared one incident when he feared for the future of his promotion.
The former chairman believed that the launch of Nitro, and its head-to-head collision with Raw was trouble, and could even put his promotion out of business.
As soon I heard they were going to go head-to-head, that was like, ‘Oooh, oh. We’re in trouble. I don’t know what’s gonna happen, but it won’t be good or it was gonna put us out of business, quite frankly.”
H/t Fightful.com
Although WCW began with a good start and defeated the Stamford-based promotion for 83 straight weeks in ratings, it was unable to harm WWE’s momentum. Eventually, WCW Nitro’s pace fell off, and WWE purchased its rival in 2001.
Mercedes Mone Calls Vince McMahon As ‘Crazy Genius’
In the latest edition of her Mone Mag newsletter, Mercedes Mone opened up on Vince McMahon and heaped praises on the former chairman. She complimented McMahon’s work in creating WWE.
“I’ll say this, as I watched, I couldn’t believe that I got to work for Vince, what a crazy genius he is, and how he really elevated wrestling to a whole stratosphere.
He created a universe fans have enjoyed for decades and still do. He made wrestling larger than life. He did it all, and he tried it all. And he failed so many times, too. Where the business is at today is all because of him and his ideas. And that’s what I really liked it.”
In other news: This WWE Champion is close to breaking a company record.