Shane Douglas on WHY He Sued WCW (Successfully)

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Shane Douglas on WHY He Sued WCW (Successfully!)
Clip from Franchise University with Shane Douglas episode 7
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FU to you all! ECW Legend ”The Franchise” Shane Douglas once again dons his Dean mortarboard and breaks out the trusty ”Board of Education” to beat some wrestling sense into you... verbally speaking... every Tuesday, Shane Douglas will take a deep dive into a different subject, event or performer with his trademark intelligence, expert insight and take-no-prisoners, spin-no-bullsh*t attitude.
Without Shane Douglas, there would have been no ECW World Heavyweight Championship.
It was Douglas who, on Aug. 27, 1994, won a tournament to become the new NWA Heavyweight Champion, and then threw the title down and proclaimed the death of the National Wrestling Alliance and the birth of the ECW World Heavyweight Championship.
No other competitor on the ECW roster could have pulled off such a flagrant act of defiance with the poise of the man who declared himself ”The Franchise.” Indeed, it was Douglas’ unflappable confidence, poison tongue and hair-trigger temper that made him both a captivating personality and a sports-entertainment outlier better suited for the uncensored world of Extreme Championship Wrestling.
The Franchise did not start out this way, however. Trained alongside Mick Foley by Dominic DeNucci, Douglas skateboarded into WCW as one-half of the fun-loving Dynamic Dudes alongside John ”Johnny Ace” Laurinaitis in 1989. Looking like Zack Morris with his bleached blond mullet and neon high-tops, the upstart popped over to WWE in the early ’90s and then back to WCW where he developed rapidly during a championship partnership with Ricky ”The Dragon” Steamboat.
Douglas’ breakout as a singles star came in 1993 when he abandoned his white bread good guy act as ECW’s newest villain. Dispatching his hardcore opponents with a rough, technical style - Douglas always favored belly-to-belly suplexes over barbwire bats - the Pittsburgh native became the first champion of the rebranded Extreme Championship Wrestling, and the leader of The Triple Threat. An obvious challenge to his nemesis Ric Flair and his Four Horsemen, the group’s rotating cast of characters included Bam Bam Bigelow, Chris Candido and “Primetime” Brian Lee at different times.
A brief trip to WWE in 1995 became the career lowlight for Douglas as the Dean Douglas persona (based on the fact that he was formerly a school teacher) forced upon him failed to catch on with WWE fans who saw it as a retread of The Genius. When he returned to ECW, he had an even bigger chip on his shoulder. Now with his “head cheerleader” Francine by his side, The Franchise captured both the ECW Television and ECW World Heavyweight Titles while besting Chris Jericho, Bam Bam Bigelow, Sabu and many more.
After losing the ECW World Heavyweight Title to Tazz at the Guilty as Charged pay-per-view in 1999, Douglas returned to WCW for a strong two-year run as The Franchise. He won both the United States Title and the WCW Tag Team Titles (alongside Buff Bagwell) and captained competitors like Dean Malenko and Perry Saturn in an impressive faction known as Revolution.
With extra stops in TNA as a manager and wrestler, Extreme Revolution and a mainstay of the independent scene to this day, Shane Douglas has been involved with pro wrestling at every level for 40 years.
Franchise University with Shane Douglas is part of the WSI Network.
#ShaneDouglas #Wrestling #WWE

Опубликовано:

13 окт 2024

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Комментарии : 92

@christhornycroft3686 Год назад

Shane is right. WCW despite all the bad booking was still very popular and fans had stuck with it, hoping they’d get their act together and the talent was still there to do it. The brand still meant something to a huge audience, whether it was going back to 1996 and the NWO or even further with JCP and the NWA. There were still decent things about the product. It wasn’t all awful because the roster was still excellent. It wasn’t what it had been, but it was still better than any roster in wrestling today. And the ratings were far better. WCW wasn’t sold and taken off TNT for bad ratings or not being a viable business. It was nixed because the new owners after Turner didn’t know their ass from a hole in the ground when it came to wrestling and thought it was beneath them. A good businessman doesn’t sell something they necessarily like. They sell what the public wants or needs. Ted’s mistake was who he hired to run WCW. But at least he wasn’t Tony Khan and tried to book it himself because he was a fan. WCW would have been out of business by the early 90s.

@jimbowlan5804 Год назад

Executives inside turner were trying to get rid of wcw for years but wcw survived because or Ted wcw was his passion project what killed wcw was bischoff was picking fights with turner excecutives and he has no idea Ted lost control of his own company not even turner knew those same executives then started putting loses on wcws books and framed it as a money loser and aol wanted to scrub wcw from the books bischoff had a backer too buy wcw but aol didn’t want it on its television at all

@jaydav6521 Год назад

It wasn't considered to be a viable business after it lost $80 million in two years.

@Tim85-y2q 3 дня назад

The ratings may have still been there, but WCW was hemorrhaging money.

@gongboy83 Год назад

Really enjoying this man's insight into professional wrestling.

@Allen7 Год назад

Right now the best wrestling channel along with Maven, way to go Shane Douglas, thx for all the videos!

@claybaxter3202 Год назад

Jim Cornette all the way.

@Jesusmy733 Год назад

Shane Douglas is very intelligent. He explains everything so well

@Teddy42O Год назад

The Franchise tells it like it is & i love it!!💯🤣

@brycemcneil4404 Год назад

The sad thing about the sale of WCW is that the executives that were so thirsty to get rid of it just needed to take some different steps to get it more distant, while retaining it as a property. The way they treated it as an "all or nothing" thing was ridiculous and both penny *and* pound foolish. --- In terms of Kellner's bloodlust to get rid of it...all he had to do was get it to TBS/Turner South only if he was so bound and determined to make TNT "high end." It's not like TBS was a "high end" channel in 2003...WCW still would have fit in just fine. --- If wrestlers and wrestling executives were such verboten "lowbrow" individuals, they didn't need to have them coming to see Bischoff at the CNN center. Shuttle that op off to Techwood. --- WCW"s far bigger problem as a business proposition was its expenditures. If this lawyer didn't like all these wrestlers making all of this money...the solution isn't to pay them less but *hire less of them.* And ultimately if they had to go *totally* nuclear, the answer was obviously not to sell it but shut it down. Clearly a lot of "friendly conflicts of interest" allowed Vince to snag it for the cost of half of a replacement level major league baseball player. AOLTW literally could have shut it down, paid out every contract, and do nothing but recirculate the classic content on any number of their cable channels at the time (and digital platforms later on) and come out in the black. Rather than sell it for practically nothing and have no content when it was all said and done.

@alanunseld4942 Год назад

love these wrestling videos

@creoleDJ Год назад

0:14 this is one of the many things that solidifies how the Turner corporate people thought about wrestling and why they wanted no parts of it on the programming. Everyone thumbs their noses at Bischoff & others when they say no one could’ve saved WCW but this kinda proves the point

@jimbowlan5804 Год назад

Well Ted wanted it on his tv and so that’s why it was on their tv during the Monday night wars it was once Ted lost control of tbs and aol took over that those executives won out even in its dying day it was doing better than wrestling today

@creoleDJ Год назад

@@jimbowlan5804 The “suits & ties” at the Turner offices been trying to do away with wrestling ever since the mid 80’s, when WCW was an NWA affiliate. Ted was steadfast in keeping it going but like you said, once he lost the “on-paper” leverage after the merger, it was curtains for WCW. Bischoff & Jerry Jarrett both approached Turner Networks with offers upwards of $50 million to purchase it but Turner didn’t want to budge & let WWE have it for little of nothing. Like Stevie Ray once said: Turner Networks practically gave it away

@SRPC21 Год назад

In WCW’s last 3 months it had great leadership under Jonny Ace and was becoming a well run product. It was too little too late though 😕. It would’ve been really interesting to see if he had a year what would’ve happened.

@louio Год назад

John Laurinaitis is an idiot.

@hezamachine Год назад

Diana Myers was trying to cut costs for WCW. She actually got Chris Kanyon released before the buyout.

@rondoughhowell6442 Год назад

Corporate people should never be involved with wrestling unless you are Nick Kahn

@gregorylevi1826 Год назад

Kanyon probably should have had A lawyer like Shane.

@ezstreete Год назад

@@rondoughhowell6442Not even him...

@JOBdOut Год назад

Shane kept bringing up WCW pullin a 5.6 rating.. shame is the last time they had pulled a 5.6 was August 1998. All due respect, Shane wasn't EVEN WITH WCW when that happened. The numbers were a lot closer to 2.6

@claybaxter3202 Год назад

He is a bum.

@jimbowlan5804 Год назад

Still better than most of the wrestling shows today though

@roobear78 Год назад

yeah the fact he keeps banging on about wcw being sold to time makes me think his recall is shot too seing as it was time warner who merged with aol and ted turner was phased out by that point

@walterclark3198 Год назад

Congratulations to the Franchise he got money he deserved from his ecw day's of not getting paid. I wonder how many guys didn't get paid by Paul in the early stages of Ecw.

@jimbowlan5804 Год назад

Which is strange because that’s why Vince was giving Paul money to pay his talent

@gregorylevi1826 Год назад

Actually Shane sued Heyman and won some money. 💰 🤑

@ms.carriage6867 Год назад

I do love Shanes podcast 🤗🤗🤗 although it does sound like his vocal chords are really damaged now 😵

@wa2k99 Год назад

He always sounded like that

@namelessbumpkin Год назад

I believe he said it was due to a trachea injury in the 90s.

@ms.carriage6867 Год назад

@@namelessbumpkin I genuinely don't remember his voice being that scratchy back in the 90's. Good excuse to go watch some 90's Shane matches and interviews :D

@stevewarren4813 Год назад

The higher ups hated pro wrestling and yet nothing they have brought forth has come close to the same level of viewership.

@gregorylevi1826 Год назад

*facts*

@1983jcheat Год назад

He sued and so did several Minority talents. WCW did a lot jacked up stuff. 😂

@ShredderLivesOn Год назад

Shane is unfortunately incorrect about WCW's ratings during that time. The final episode of Nitro only pulled in a 3.0, while Raw that week got a 4.7. Nitro hadn't even managed a 3 rating since September of 2000. Ironically you have to go back to September 1999 for Nitro the last time Nitro even registered a 4. Nitro hadn't got a 5 in the ratings since June of 1999. Just before the Vince Russo era that chased off many fans (myself included) from regularly following the WCW product, and in some respects even made me embarassed to admit that I used to be a WCW fan.

@thesupervisor3270 Год назад

The numbers was wrong but his point is it’s still better than what WWE and AEW is doing today so WCW should still be around

@ShredderLivesOn Год назад

@@thesupervisor3270 There were fewer channels then, and streaming and online video services didn't exist. So the ratings would have probably dropped to what we're seeing with WWE now, even if the brand had survived beyond 2001. At the same time though, WCW's biggest issues were three-fold. First was that they were a money pit, to where they only turned a profit for three years of their existence. The last two years they lost nearly $150million. Second was that the AOL/Time Warner group at that time didn't want wrestling on their networks. So even if one of the consortiums put together by Eric Bischoff or Jerry Jarrett had managed to get it for the $70million that they were reportedly looking at spending, it was worthless with no TV deal like the one that was initially agreed upon. And no major network wanted a wrestling show that wasn't the WWF. ECW found that out when they were shopping around for a new home after the WWF moved Raw to TNN. If they'd still been drawing 4s in the ratings, then perhaps a network might have been prepared to take a chance. Third is that even if AOL/Time Warner thought they could keep WCW going, or were happy enough to take the millions of dollars in losses that they had, the odds are that financial circumstances at the parent company would have eventually forced WCW's sale to the WWF. By 2002 Warner reported a loss of almost $100billion, and had to declare 'goodwill write-offs' on large chunks of their debts. AOL meanwhile saw over $200billion wiped off their share value. They had to shed a LOT of long-time Turner assets for pennies, just to reduce operating costs and raise some capital to stave off bankruptcy. WCW was doomed no matter what.

@kob456 11 месяцев назад

His point is that the numbers were still much significantly higher than today's numbers.

@thesupervisor3270 Год назад

Shane is speaking FACTS! WCW still should be around RIGHT NOW! WCW worse numbers is what WWE is drawing NOW and 5x what AEW is drawing! Looking at WWE DVD’s in the 2000s would have u thinking WCW was just trash in 99-01 which is not true! WCW still had a GREAT ROSTER in 2001. WCW had its down slide but that doesn’t mean they couldn’t comeback which ik they would have. AOL/Time Warner just fucked the fans!

@marqueswilliams345 Год назад

Always liked Shane Douglas he was the best heel in the business at one point

@joeriveracomedy Год назад

I used to contract adjacent to a retail shop. The lady manager there was pissed we made more money. I overheard her one day.

@backhandtv6611 Год назад

A 5.6 rating on my calculator is 6.7 million viewers. Wow

@sabatinofederico Год назад

Cut that rating in half. Shane was completely wrong.

@lovelyhurlin6494 Год назад

He didn't sue them, his lawyer threatened to sue and they paid him.

@johnnybeefum Год назад

yeah...misleading and inaccurate title

@kidray7818 Год назад

I still don't understand why Ted sold WCW, AEW and WWE would kill for a 5.6 rating right now

@gregorylevi1826 Год назад

He didn't, his executives sold it. That's why he threatened dude about getting rid of anything else he brought in.

@roobear78 Год назад

well shane turner merged with time warner in 1996,its aol your thinking about that sold it to vince and ted was so phased out by the time it didnt matter what he said to kellner! Also kellner was chairman and ceo of turner broadcasting not aol so ted bursting into a board meeting was corporate equvilent of a janitor bursting into a break room and chastising the cleaning grunts

@damian_cross Год назад

People just don't get how capitalism works. You are not paid by your prestige or your field or even your identity. You are paid according to the number of people available who can do what you do. If more people could headline network tv wrestling cards than become lawyers, then lawyers would make more money. It's that simple.

@ZTriggerGaming Год назад

Yes, this plus how much money your position brings in. If you are both profitable and hard to replace, you can really rake it in.

@louio Год назад

Staph! Our Government loves us and will provide the people jobs that are free of toxic behaviors and micro aggressions plus we will be provided with Universal income!!!

@killerjoe7596 Год назад

How does a wrestling organization know that it's heading for failure disaster? Answer :Shane Douglas is in it. He has failed everywhere he's gone.

@rondoughhowell6442 Год назад

Except for ECW if you want to call it a wrestling organization

@Rjensen2 Год назад

@@rondoughhowell6442Not really...they only ran a full schedule(at least 4 days a week) for a few months in 1999.

@rondoughhowell6442 Год назад

@@Rjensen2 but how much money did they make

@killerjoe7596 Год назад

@@rondoughhowell6442 I don't. ECW was a halfway house for the criminal insane. How do I know this? New Jack was in it.

@killerjoe7596 Год назад

@@rondoughhowell6442 WCW must not have been making much advertising revenue if they sold out for so little. Who were its sponsors? That's the real question.

@steveduarte7748 Год назад

Is anybody in charge? Enough said

@QuentinDude Год назад

Nitros-ratings-were-more-like-in-the-2.5-to-3.5-range-And-WWE-was-6.0-to-7.5-during-that-time..If-WCW-had-been-pulling-the-high-ratings-Shane-claimed-they-wouldnt-of-been-sold...WCW-lost-62-MILLION-dollars-in-2000-by-the-way...

@rondoughhowell6442 Год назад

Warner Bros people didn't want wrestling and try to find any reason to get rid of it regardless

@jimbowlan5804 Год назад

@rondoughhowell6442 True the turner excutive that tried to get rid of wcw when turner was in charge were still there and painted wcw as a money loser to time Werner so they were going to sell it to bischoffs backer but when they decided they didn’t want wrestling on their Chanel he backed out and Vince bought it for Pennie’s on the dollar

@rondoughhowell6442 Год назад

@@jimbowlan5804 well everything WCW was doing at that time was a Crapstorm

@kenterminateddq5311 Год назад

Has Shane sued Paul Heyman and ECW?

@rondoughhowell6442 Год назад

Heyman dad was a Lawyer and Heyman didn't have nothing which I'm sure Shane tried to sue him as smart as he is

@gregorylevi1826 Год назад

Actually he did, and forced Heyman to pay him too. That's part of the reason he's black balled.

@roccoz2231 11 месяцев назад

I grew up watching Shane, so it's sad to watch his shoot interviews getting progressively more rambling and incoherent. What is he talking about?! He went from Terry Funk to threatening to sue some random lady at WCW to Nitro getting a 5.6 rating in 2001(?!) while he was sitting home to a Time Warner board meeting to bad WCW booking. "So much confusion" is right, Shane. Jesus.

@TheBaitShopGuy Год назад

I wonder if Francine drom 90s ECW is still dressing up in tight leather dresses here in the 20's if shes still hot

@MasonBlack-lm6dd Год назад

So Shane is the real reason why WCW had a downfall lol financially it was if not the first thing wcw went bankrupt oh my goodness lol

@jonathancarlson6127 Год назад

Out of ideas and drowning in red ink.

@Parlimant_Strifey Год назад

A feminist lawyer eating the propaganda about how she thinks she is worth a lot, when lawyers are quite a common thing at the time. Hopefully she learned to stop eating that propaganda.

@tun-tunninc.6492 Год назад

Jeez. No wonder this guy's been blacklisted. 🤣🤣

@CatsClaw44 Год назад

Right, wrestling hates guys who actually stand up for themselves and apparently so do fans like you.

@briarbarbour7341 Год назад

"I turned down medical school so I'm basically a doctor" lmfao

@sassytroy8282 Год назад

Dude is smarter than your Walmart/McDonalds monkey ass!@@briarbarbour7341

@rondoughhowell6442 Год назад

@@CatsClaw44well CM Punk did the same stuff and look what happened to him

@gregorylevi1826 Год назад

No wonder? From what I heard he stood up for himself and made sure he still got paid while sitting at home.

@IMSITTINGONTHETOILET Год назад

Everbody knows CHARLES IS IN CHARGE

@rondoughhowell6442 Год назад

Bonehead 80s sitcom

@CrackCrackCracker Год назад

Even with the rating the WCW was pulling in at the time the company had its time to shine and it was settling back back business wise. Both the WWE & WCW had been hot shoting so much that it was bound to happen for one of them. The NWO ran its course and there WCW was with nothing to fill that huge void after it finally died out. Had WCW not been sold it might not have gone under but it would have settled into the second place program and business would have resumed like normal with talent jump to and from both companies.

@adamspimbly4706 Год назад

Another thing to consider is that ratings on their own don’t mean much. Tv companies at this point in time made money from adverts. You could have a show doing incredible ratings, but if companies didn’t want to advertise in it’s time slot then it’s effectively worthless. At this point in time - if I recall (I may be wrong) many advertisers simply didn’t want to be associated with wrestling or wcw. So even though the show that replaced wcw got less views, it could still make more money for the TNT/TBS

@kob456 11 месяцев назад

I don't think they would've settled as a number two. I think once they got on track and start putting on a good product, they would've became competitive again and would've been trading the #1 spot in ratings every week. WWF after 01 got stale. It's only so long they could've kept up their momentum. WCW would've regained the #1 spot again if they kept consistent with good TV.

@AllAmericanWoman1390 Год назад

to be honest though, fake fighters getting paid top dollars is kind of dumb..... it would be like a fake janitor, getting paid more than a real janitor.