The story of WCW's final broadcast, after the final Nitro.

This is a script for a video on my YouTube channel about the final WCW broadcast. You can view the video here: https://youtu.be/0TrGV0hxc30

March 26th 2001, just a few days away from Wrestlemania 17, maybe the grandest of them all. WCW airs it's final episode of Monday Nitro, a show that for the most part, felt like a story that was ending. For most fans this would be the end of World Championship Wrestling. As Paul Heyman once predicted, there would be no WCW One Night Stand pay per view. In fact, many fans didn't make the jump to WWE, they just moved on with their lives. There actually was one final WCW broadcast that would air on March 31st 2001. It would be WCW's final and authentic goodbye.

The programme known as Worldwide has its television roots in 1975's Wide World Wrestling, a show taped from North Carolina by WCW's precursor Jim Crocket Promotions. Later to avoid confusion in the listings with ABC's Wide world of sports, the programmes name would be changed to NWA World Wide Wrestling.

The next major shift would occur in 1983, when the show would begin taping in major arenas as opposed to the old and tired small studio format, an advance that many attribute to Vince McMahon and the WWF, but Crockett did it too. In order to produce the broadcasts Crockett would purchase a mobile TV truck worth a million dollars. Around this time Jim Crockett Promotions was on the rise, but after several years of lavish spending and a lax attitude to their accounts, this wouldn't last. By 1988, the promotion that had been transporting its top talent in private jets and limousines, that had bought other companies like the UWF (not that one), was not on the brink of bankruptcy and Crockett had to sell.

The buyer would be media mogul Ted Turner, paving the way for what would become World Championship Wrestling. By 1992 his booker at the time Bill Watts of the other UWF would change the name one final time to WCW Worldwide. By this time the show would consist of extra matches from television tapings, but this would change in 93 when a television announcer with big ideas named Eric Bischoff was promoted to executive producer over more likely candidates Jim Ross and Tony Schiavone. Eric was seen as breath of fresh air following the old school ways of Bill Watts, and he wouldn't waste time in forwarding his creative vision.

Eric would take Worldwide back to the studio format but with a modern 90's twist, with shows taking place from Disney's MGM Studios in Orlando Florida,  This era was known best for the ring that would spin on a platform, as well as signs that would tell the fans who to cheer and boo, presumably because many of the audience came from the Disney parks and might not have been familiar with who the wrestlers were and who to root for. 

WCW's relationship with Disney would end in late 1996, possibly as a reaction to the increasing intensity of the product after the NWO launched earlier that year. On one occasion the NWO caused such a stir that locals in Orlando heard a commotion and called the police. This would be the same night that the NWO would brawl with WCW wrestlers, and Kevin Nash would throw Rey Mysterio like a javalin into the side of a truck.

In early 97 Worldwide would move to Universal Studios Florida, which grew a rich history of wrestling from WCW, to TNA and nowadays All Elite Wrestling and even Ring of Honor. I've already gone into more detail about wrestling from Universal Studios in another video on this channel. In 98 the format changed again, to become more of a recap show for WCW's main shows with some exclusive matches added in. This would be the format I grew up watching as Worldwide would be the most easy WCW show to find in England during their final years.

The version of the final broadcast of Worldwide that still exists on YouTube might be a local one, as it begins with an advertisement for WCW to run the Stabler Arena in Bethlehem Pennsylvania on June 27th 2001. At first I thought that this was possibly based on the ill fated idea that WCW would continue to run as a WWE owned touring brand, but plans for that were quickly scrapped. Maybe it was in the cards for Eric Bischoff's planned revamp of WCW had Fusient Media Group managed to acquire the company as he hoped. One theory that has been passed through time was that Eric's plan was for WCW to lay dormant for a couple of months, and then to relaunch with the Big Bang event on May 6th 2001.

On television it looked like the groundwork for the Big Bang might have already started to be paved, with World champion Scott Steiner taking out many of WCW's heroes in early 2001. The rumour that existed for years is that all of the babyfaces that Steiner injured in storyline would go away for long enough for fans to miss them, and they would all return at once in the newly reborn World Championship Wrestling. Eric himself denied all of this on his 83 Weeks podcast, implying that his acquisition of WCW never reached the stages of this much planning. He has confirmed that the plan was for WCW to go off the air for a couple of months and return with the Big Bang event, but that we were never close to that being a reality.

Let's now look at the final edition of Worldwide. The shows intro video didn't feature glossy footage of WCW's top stars like you might expect, but a depressing green filtered time lapse of the Worldwide set being constructed in a studio. We then cut to Worldwide's hosts Scott Hudson and Mike Tenay, and thanks to their professionalism if you weren't clued in to what was going on you might have have no idea that this would be the end. Given how they spend much of the show recapping the Greed pay per view from March 18th, and they don't say much about the final Nitro, it's clear that no-one knew what was going to happen next yet. In a recent interview with Andrew Pope, Scott Hudson said that Worldwide would normally be taped on Wednesday afternoon so air on Saturday, and they taped two endings for the final broadcast. The first ending was recorded just in case the show would be back next week, and the second would be the one that aired. The final words said on a WCW broadcast.

"And this wraps up WCW WorldWide not just for this week but...forever and a day! WCW gone, WorldWide gone, we want to thank you for joining us each and every week here on WorldWide. What a great crew we had! It's been a lot of fun...taping these shows and you can see we have a really good time! For Mike Tenay, I'm Scott Hudson, we'll see you down the road...somewhere else! Thanks for watching WorldWide!"

In a move that is not typical in wrestling, we then saw end credits over a shot, possibly the intro one in reverse, showing the set being taken down. Scott Hudson would note that it was the editors choice to include the nicknames of all the crew members. This might have been done to hint to the viewers that the crew had worked together and become close over the years.

In his sign off Scott mentioned that we would see them somewhere else, and we would, with Mike Tenay becoming the voice of TNA wrestling, and an essential backstage presence until he retired in 2016. Scott Hudson was also around in the early years of TNA as a backstage interviewer and host, gaining notoriety for explaining TNA's overcomplicated King of the Mountain match with the words "It's really quite simple..."

WCW was now, finally gone. Worldwide it's last official broadcast, but the show had a life beyond at least for a little while. Given the nature of its UK broadcasts sometimes being delayed or heavily edited, the programme lasted well into April with its final broadcast being on April 20th. From there following the WWE acquisition, early 80's and 90's episodes would air in the UK on Sky Sports as "WWE classics". It was here that I remember as a kid seeing a blond haired and blue eyed Stunning Steve Austin defending the WCW television title, miles away from his modern Stone Cold Attitude.

There is a sort of irony that this episode of Worldwide was originally broadcast the day before Wrestlemania 17. That is the night that many fans consider the end of an era. But while they are usually referring to WWF Attitude, they could be talking about the wider world of wrestling. If you weren't a WWF fan, or just wanted to watch other wrestling 2001 was not a good year. ECW and WCW were now gone, and several attempts to launch promotions would fail. Fortunately though, the following years would see the rise of an entire scene of independent promotions creating fresh new stars, many of whom are in main events to this day.

My idea for the four pillars of AEW at Double or Nothing

This is a script for my YouTube video on this topic, which you can find here: https://youtu.be/5-BnaCSwPEU

The opening segment on the March 16th episode of AEW Dynamite got people talking about who MJF would defend the title against at double or nothing. While Darby Allin was the only one of the four to appear on this weeks show, following his victory with Sting and Orange Cassidy he pointed to the Wrestlemania sign, or more accurately he longingly glared at the Double or Nothing banner hanging in the arena.

In mid 2021 towards the end of the Daily's place pandemic shows the 'four pillars' term was coined. This is a nod to the past, the four pillars of All Japan Pro Wrestling from the 90's into the 2000's who are still beloved to this day; Kenta Kobashi, Mitsuharu Misawa, Toshiaki Kawada and Akira Taue. It's also a nod to the future, with AEW's first home grown stars Jungle Boy, Darby Allin, Sammy Guevara and MJF, the latter being the current world champion. Yes I know many want Britt Baker to be the fifth pillar but she's not wrestling MJF anytime soon...

Seeing all four in the ring made people wonder what AEW has planned for Double or Nothing, AEW's anniversary event. Some assumed that we are going to see a four way match, but I personally would feel it a bit lazy if they just threw the four of them into a match based on one promo, so I had an idea of how they could do it differently. At the time of me writing this we are 10 Dynamites away from Double or Nothing, so they have a fair while to build to the event. My idea, is that they do a round robin challenge between Jungle Boy, Allin and Guevara, and the winner of that challenges MJF.

One thing Tony Khan can't be doubted on is his knowlege of wrestling history, and he likely is well aware that on March 30th 2002 Ring of Honor held a one night round robin challenge between Bryan Danielson, Low Ki and Christopher Daniels. Rather than doing it in one night though, I'd like to see Guevara, Allin and Jungle Boy wrestle each other in singles matches over three weeks. You could if you wanted have one of them earn two wins and have one challenger, but you could also call back to history. In the first round robin challenge Daniels, Low Ki and Danielson ended up in a three way tie with each man having one victory. Maybe we could see Guevara, Allin and Jungle Boy do this, and if the matches are good enough, we will have three credible challengers to MJF at Double or Nothing.

The last time AEW did a multi man World title match as best I can remember was at Double or Nothing 2021, when Kenny Omega defeated Orange Cassidy and Pac. While that match was by no means bad, it felt thrown together for the sake of having a World title match on the show. With the round robin challenge, I'm trying to find a way to have a multi man World title match where each competitor has earned a right to be in the match, and so the stakes end up higher.

Now lets look at the credibility of each of the three 'other' pillars. According to AEW's own win loss records (which aren't entirely accurate but it's what they base their booking on), Darby Allin is at an all time 78 wins and 28 losses, and for this year he is at 7 wins and one loss, that being him losing the TNT title to Samoa Joe. Jungle Boy has 87 wins in his whole AEW career, which is the third most ever behind Orange Cassidy and Jon Moxley. Jack Perry is also undefeated this year, having seven wins despite AEW's roster page claiming 4. Sammy Guevara might have the weakest claim by the numbers, with 60 career wins and more losses this year than the other two, but Sammy has had significant moments at past Double of Nothing events having been part of both Stadium Stampede matches, so it would feel like a full circle moment for him to be in the World title match.

Lets get even nerdier for those of you who are still with me, and take a look at every singles match between any of these three men in this G1 style points table. Darby comes out the winner with one win over Jungle Boy and two wins over Guevara. Sammy comes second with two wins over Darby and Jungle boy is dead last with no wins at all. You could argue that Darby got the earlier push because as Sammy pointed out, early on he was mainly Jericho's fall guy, and in the first year of AEW Jungle Boy was portrayed as a rookie who didn't get a single win for months, but would eventually go on to become the first AEW Wrestler to gain 50 wins, and also the first to compete in 100 matches. If we add MJF to the table and only look at his singles matches with all three, he has beaten all of them, even Jungle Boy twice. Could they use that to build Jack Perry's transformation from Jungle boy to Jungle man maybe?

Ultimately, what I'm trying to point out is that you could make a case for any of the three of them from various angles to get their world title shot at the anniversary event, based on how far each of the three have come since AEW started. However none of the three challengers are a proven pay per view main eventer in AEW, so work is going to have to be done over the next several weeks to make them feel like credible threats to MJF. That's especially true after MJF's performance against Bryan Danielson at Revolution. They've built up a champion, but can they build up a challenger, or even a trio of challengers? I'll be interested to see which way AEW goes on route to Double or Nothing.

The Story of ECW's David vs Goliath feud - Mike Awesome vs Spike Dudley

This is the script for a video on my YouTube channel, you can find the video version here: https://youtu.be/Wm54afrMVCo

On January 9th 2000 ECW presented Guilty as Charged from Birmingham Alabama. Long before Brock Lesnar destroyed John Cena at Summerslam 2014. Before Goldberg laid waste to the Fiend in 2020. ECW would put on one of the most one sided and vicious pay per view main events that you may have never heard of, as Mike Awesome defended the ECW World title against Little Spike Dudley.

In September of 99 at Anarchy Rulz, Awesome had defeated the outgoing champion Taz and Masato Tanaka in a three way dance to claim the ECW World title. Awesome had spent the 90's building a reputation for his hard hitting and some might argue unsafe style, and had many famously reckless bouts with Tanaka, the most famous occuring at the still fondly remembered Heatwave 1998, thought of by many fans as ECW's best pay per view ever. He would actually lose the title to his Japanese rival, but would win it back less than a week later. Before these title changes occurred however, Paul Heyman was also building a story for Awesome's PPV title match, who on the surface seemed to be an unlikely challenger. Standing at 6 foot 6, and nearly 300 pounds, Mike Awesome would defend his title against the runt of the Dudley litter, the 5 foot 8 Spike Dudley.

The fan favourite Little Spike Dudley, whose name is a pun on the drug, had gained a reputation for being 'the giant killer'. Throughout 1999 he had earned wins against much larger opponents the likes of Sal E Graziano, Mabel who would later be known as Viscera, and even future ECW Champion Rhino.

The story of this match would begin on the December 17th edition of ECW on TNN. Answering the open challenge of the Baldies, Mike Awesome charged to the ring and made quick work out of defeating Vic Grimes. After the match he and his manager Judge Jeff Jones were proclaiming that nobody could stop Awesome, when the music of Spike Dudley would play. Spike would actually get one over on Awesome, hitting him with a low blow, and his Acid Drop, which would later be known as the Dudley Dog in when he got to WWE. With Spikes challenge made clear, the match would be booked to take place at Guilty as Charged.

The build to Spikes title shot resumed on the December 31st edition of ECW on TNN, where moments after Awesome had regained the title from Tanaka, Spike Dudley would run in to try embarrass the new champion again, but would be intercepted by Jeff Jones. This would cause Spikes girlfriend, who I don't believe was ever named to run in to help Spike, only to be blasted by a vicious strike from Awesome, that would knock out her front teeth. Going into Guilty as Charged, this was a chance for us to see a more serious and focused version of Spike than we had ever seen, but the pay per view clash has to be seen to be believed.

Spike enters first, and immediately gets a member of the ring crew to assist him in surrounding the ring with tables, even staking some on other tables, letting us know that we are in for something a bit different from a normal world title match. As Awesome slides into the ring, he doesn't even get to take the World title from his waist before Spike goes on the attack. His plan completely backfires though, as from the opening bell, it takes Mike Awesome just 13 seconds to lift Spike high above his head, and throw him from the ring through one of the tables on the floor. Once Spike eventually crawls into the ring, it takes Awesome a further six seconds to throw him back out, through two more tables. I hope you can see where this is going by now. Spike does get moments of offence in, but rarely does Mike Awesome appear to be in any kind of trouble. At one point Spike hits a low blow, and an Acid Drop which would later be known as the Dudley Dog, though a table to the floor, so eventually Spikes plan kind of worked, but less than 90 seconds later, Spike is sent careening from the top rope out to the floor through another table. Mercifully, Awesome calls for a table to be set up in the ring, and Mike hits an Awesome Bomb through it for the win.

At this point you might be wondering why I chose to write, record and edit a video about this car crash of a pay per view main event, and the honest reason is that after all of these years, this match was so different from other pay per view world title matches that the memory of it stuck with me. Most of this match is frankly uncomfortable viewing, but I admire the sheer recklessness and ambition of Paul Heyman to book such a match.

Despite this, I've never once considered what the critical reception might have been at the time, so I searched for Dave Meltzer's review. He rated this match three and a half stars, more than anything else on the show including a match between Rob Van Dam and Sabu, noting how well Spike sold the beating he took. Something tells me not a lot of it was selling though. Something else that caught my eye in the same newsletter was Dave describing Mike Awesome as looking like Chyna on steroids, and thats a genuine quote that you can form your own opinion on. I respect Dave's work ethic, but not necessarily his writing...

From a business perspective, ECW was in an interesting position as they went into 2000. They recently had lost The Dudley Boyz and Taz, three of ECW's biggest stars who all went to WWE, but they had also regained Raven and Sandman, who had both left WCW not exactly looking like stars. This match felt like a risky idea, but one could argue that the strong undercard allowed Heyman to take a chance with this main event. The Alabama fans had already seen a battle between former tag partners Sabu and RVD over the television title, which Van Dam had held for 20 months at this point. The semi main event saw The Impact Players, Lance Storm and Justin Credible dethrone reluctant partners Tommy Dreamer and Raven for the tag titles, furthering Raven and Dreamers years long feud against each other. This event was had one of ECW's bigger PPV attendances, and had one of the bigger buy rates too despite so much fluctuation in the roster, so clearly ECW was doing something right.

This would not be the last time Mike Awesome and Spike Dudley would do battle though, as they would face off in a rematch on the January 28th TNN episode. This time Joey Styles and Joel Gertner on commentary were promoting Rob Van Dam as Awesome's next opponent, which would have been an epic match pitting the almost two year reigning television champion against the World champion, but sadly RVD's injury that made him have to surrender the title meant that match would never happen, as by the time Van Dam had returned Awesome was gone from the promotion.

The second match for the first half was less dramatic, but Awesome was still in control. Things change when Awesome decides to pull out a table, but Spike manages to put Awesome through it with a bulldog. This time Spike gets noticeably more offence in, but in the end Awesome hits a running powerbomb through a table and Spike is defeated again. Post match Awesome even powerbombs the referee just because he can.

Spike Dudley and Mike Awesome would have a third match on March 3rd 2000. This time Spike would enter with a chair and get the early upper hand on Awesome which would not last long. This time the story going in was that Spike had attacked Jeff Jones and put him in the hospital, and so Jones and Awesome were out for revenge. This match harkened back to the first, with Awesome launching Spike over the top rope and through a table on the floor. We clearly missed a lot though as coming back from the break Spike hits a bulldog on Awesome off the stage through a table. In each match Spike got more offence in, and even looked like he could have pinned Awesome had Jeff Jones not interfered. Spike takes three more powerbombs, and somehow slightly gets his shoulder up. Awesome then hits another bomb through a table in the corner like the last match, and gets the win.

Honestly, when I started writing this video I only knew about the Guilty as Charged match, and how brutal it was. Then I discovered a story being told over the three matches, where Spike Dudley went from being a comedy character to someone who could hold his own in a serious match. If anything watching all three of these matches back to back, you really see the development of Spike Dudley, which he sorely needed in the absence of Bubba Ray and Devon. It's almost as if Paul Heyman knew what he was doing...

Going forward Paul Heyman had big plans for Awesome as his world Champion, but they would come to a halt when Awesome defected to WCW, while still holding the ECW title. Awesome would appear on the April 10th Nitro, attacking Kevin Nash and eventually becoming a part of the New Blood faction that defined much of 2000 WCW. Paul Heyman quickly threatened legal action, knowing what Eric had previously done with another companies belt, and a compromise was made. WCW contracted Awesome would appear at one final ECW event, and lose to of all people, WWE contracted talent Taz, making for a strange meeting between the three biggest companies of the age. On the following weeks Smackdown Taz would lose fairly decisively to WWE champion Triple H in a match remembered by most as making ECW's new champion look bad, so WWE didn't come out of that situation looking like heroes.

Looking back at an Iron Man match from TNA's early years AJ Styles vs Christopher Daniels

This is a script for a video on my YouTube channel, you can find the video here: https://youtu.be/Z6BgNsAK71g

AEW is about to put on its first one hour Iron Man match this weekend, but heres a Iron Man match that maybe doesn't get the credit it deserves. It took place on February 13th 2005 at TNA's first Against All Odds pay per view, and it was a 30 plus minute bout in which AJ Styles defended the X division title against Christopher Daniels.

On of the reasons that this might not get remembered as it should is that around these years AJ Styles and Christopher Daniels were having amazing matches all over the world in various promotions. It was one of the early 'touring indie matches' that promoters would love to bring to their company because everyone was talking about it. I made a video about what a touring indie match was in the early 2000's that you can find elsewhere on this channel. This wasn't even the most famous match Styles and Daniels would be involved in in TNA, or even in 2005 as in September they would be part of the famous three way match with Samoa Joe at Unbreakable, and two sequels after that.

Lets talk a bit about how this match came to be. At Final Resolution the previous month, AJ Styles won his fourth X division title in an amazing Ultimate X match, maybe one of the better ones, beating Chris Sabin and dethroning Petey Williams, who had held the title for five months, which was a record at the time.

On the January 21st 05 edition of Impact Christopher Daniels made a unique challenge. If Styles couldn't defeat him in ten minutes, Daniels would get a shot at Styles' championship at Against All Odds. They had the match and Styles failed to beat Daniels in the time limit with the match being declared a draw. Not only did Daniels get the shot he wanted, Director of Authority Dusty Rhodes made it a 30 minute Iron Man match. This would be the first major match between these two, so the 10 minute challenge Daniels made was a way to build to the Iron Man stipulation, introducing the time aspect in their prior match and extending it to half an hour.

What makes this match so interesting to me is that the X Division style doesn't lend itself well to the pace of an Iron Man match. At the time detractors would claim that X division matches on impact more resembled a video game given how fast some of the matches were, and the sometimes lack of selling in order to whiz through matches and pop the crowds. Lets break down how these two expert wrestlers manage to balance the X division style, with the rules of the match they were in.

In the opening minute of the match Don West notes on commentary that AJ Styles has already done everything there is to accomplish in TNA, being a multiple time X division and NWA World champion. While he's saying that Styles and Daniels are engaging in a very back and forth chain wrestling exchange. There is a clear goal here, because while Daniels had held the NWA tag titles with Triple X, he hadn't won a singles title yet let alone the world title, so a goal was made early on to make Daniels seem competitive despite him not having the accolades Styles had even in early 2005.

The standard strategy for both wrestlers would normally be to take their time and pace themselves in this kind of match, but this is also an X Division match, and that gives an expectation of faster wrestling and acrobatics. The way they deal with this early on are exchanges like this series of arm drags AJ does. He hits the move quickly, then holds on to the arm for Daniels to counter, draining the first few minutes off the clock.

Daniels retreats out of the ring, only for Styles to follow with a dive. AJ then tries to dive at Daniels into the ring, but this moment of cheating allows the pace to slow back down as Styles lands ribs first on the rail. Daniels spends the next few minutes slowly picking away at AJ's ribs, and with his own arm hurting from the arm drags earlier on, both men now have a weakness to go to.

At around the 14 minute mark AJ makes a big mistake, having won a long exchange on the ropes, he attempts a 450, but Daniels gets his knees up, again going after the hurt ribs. Daniels hits his Angels Wings and wins the first fall, giving AJ an uphill battle to win.

With a 1 nil advantage Christopher Daniels begins taking his time and doing a lot of showing off for the crowd until AJ manages to come back again, hitting some bigger moves with just over 10 minutes left on the clock. This also inspired Daniels to hit bigger moves too, in order to keep his lead. Styles even hits Daniels' own Angels wings, but can't get the pin to tie the scores up. With 6 minutes left it's Daniels' turn to make a mistake, as he lifts AJ up only for Styles to counter and roll him up for the pin he needs to stay alive.

In the final few minutes Daniels starts playing dirty again, by throwing Styles into the ring post making him bleed, and going after the cut once AJ is back in the ring. He spends the next few minutes just picking at AJ who seems to be defenceless, but he is unable to get the 2-1 advantage.

With one minute left AJ starts fighting back, but Daniels out of desperation locks in a Koji clutch. With Styles about to fade, the timer runs out and the two end with one fall each.  Post match Christopher Daniels is incensed, thinking that Styles was out and he should have won, but Dusty Rhodes isn't having it, and sends him back into the ring for sudden death overtime, just like Bret and Shawn did nine years earlier. A frustrated Daniels gets back in the ring at attack AJ, but having had time to recover, he somehow has it in him to hit the Styles Clash, and win the match.

At this time in TNA's early history the monthly pay per views each had great matches like this one, and this wouldn't be the last time AJ and Daniels would meet. At Destination X the following month Christopher Daniels would finally achieve his goal of becoming X Division champion, defeating Styles as well as Ron Killings and Elix Skipper in a match known as the Ultimate X challenge. He would hold the title throughout most of 2005, losing it to you guessed it, the phenomenal one in the famous Unbreakable triple threat match.