Episode 436: 25th Anniversary of WWE Invasion

Uh, we start, I guess, with, uh, your attempt to purchase WCW.

You wrote in your book that you reached out to Brad Siegel to purchase WCW even when Vince Russo was in charge, and Siegel told you that AOL Time Warner would never sell the company.

And man, in less than a month of that conversation, he calls you back and says, "Hey, Eric."

Yeah.

"Were you serious about that?" I mean, this, this all happened very, very quickly.

Um, I know it's been a long time now, but is that the, the greatest what if for you of all? Like, what if you would've gotten a hold of WCW?

I think it probably...

It, it has to be, right? Because that, who knows? Uh, look, it could've been a disaster.

It also could, could have been one of the greatest things that, uh, that happened to, to, to me and my family and to WCW fans.

So we'll never know.

And, and I guess because of that, I, I honestly don't think about that much.

But I think in this, on this particular episode, we're gonna be thinking, or I'm gonna be thinking about a lot of things that I never really have given much thought to.

And that, that's what'll make this show fun.

So did you think it was something that you could run without AOL Time Warner? Like, the, the attractiveness of the whole opportunity was the size of the network, whether it was TBS or TNT, and that there was a relationship or a contract in place.

If you purchased the thing- 'Cause just to add context to what I'm saying here, this is not the, the typical wrestling setup.

Like Tony Khan, as we understand it, has a contract with Time Warner, but Tony owns AEW.

Vince McMahon and shareholders own WWE, and they have a contract with USA and a contract with Fox.

WCW, of course, is owned by Ted Turner.

So it's, it's all a part of this television company.

I guess the question is, with- without AOL, without Time Warner, is there any interest in doing anything with the WCW brand? I mean, all of a sudden that's a totally different conversation, right?

N- yeah.

A, a total- totally different conversation and totally different circumstances.

I had, and we discussed, we discussed this in the past, but, um, when...

And you're right.

You know, I had spoken to Brad and said, "Man, y- you, if I were you, Brad, I would sell this thing while it still has value." And of course, Brad Siegel kind of chuckled and he said, "Eric, you, this is Turner.