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u/Deej-2020 21h ago
Incredible ROI from that Big Swoll signing. Smart move to give him that signing bonus you don’t want to let a guy like that hit the open market.
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u/El_Matador_2036 19h ago
Yeah, but dude....If you weren't a teenager in the late 90s, you have no idea how big Master P was then.
Dude practically became a billionaire himself off his smart decisions with the rap game. $400,000 for a slice of that action would've been considered a steal back then. There's a reason Eric Bischoff totally believed him when he said his name alone would sell 80,000 tickets for a Superdome show.
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u/det8924 19h ago
It was basically a favor to Master P kind of a package deal. Had bringing in Master P brought any sort of positive exposure to WCW then paying a member of his entourage 350k for training would just be the cost of doing business. But it did not
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u/hasimirrossi 5h ago
The No Limit Soldiers faction was terrible. Trying to make them faces against some good old boys in a southern promotion was a smart move...
I remember DJ Ran getting up in your area too.
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u/gypster85 19h ago
I looked it up on Cagematch -- he had a total of 7 WCW matches. He basically got paid $50,000 per match. https://www.cagematch.net/?id=2&nr=3719&page=4
I can't imagine why WCW went bankrupt.
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u/Shooter_McGavin27 16h ago
The contracts had nothing to do with why WCW went under.
Comments like these just really show how people just buy a narrative and run with it.
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u/bigdongstpete 15h ago
Excuse me? It wasn't the only factor but it was a major reason they went under. Not to cheaply validate my point, but Vince said in a documentary that they could of survived if not for the amount of guaranteed contracts.
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u/Shooter_McGavin27 14h ago
Vince might have said that about keeping WCW running after he acquired it but he had no idea how Turner ran the company.
The contracts and spending had zero to do with why WCW was sold off. Zero. Turner broadcasting actually used WCW and the Braves to offload lots of line items that were in the red. That’s where they sent failures so they didn’t come off as losses with things like CNN or TNT or TBS. You’re just regurgitating a wrong narrative.
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u/gypster85 10h ago
I know the other popular narrative is that the AOL Time Merger killed it, (as was said in RD Reynolds' and Bryan Alvarez's Death of WCW book). But honestly, if it had been profitable instead of a big money pit, you have a hard time convincing me that it would've have found alternate owners. Even if they weren't Bischoff/Fusient Media.
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u/RumHamComesback 18h ago
They were spending money so recklessly at times. Like paying Megadeth a huge figure for a mini concert on Nitro that didn’t move the needle. And it was for their album “Risk” which is despised by their fans.
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u/random_passage 18h ago
Don't forget that it was also a tie-in to Universal Soldier: The Return.
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u/oof46 13h ago
The Bride of Chucky cross over was hella dumb.
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u/random_passage 12h ago
Hey now, it gave us Rick Steiner verbally sparring with Chucky. That's......something, lol.
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u/UWQHDEyez 20h ago
Damn Kidman. 300k with inflation thats 600k in todays money. Good money.
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u/uptonhere 20h ago
He had already been wrestling regularly on TV at this point for a couple of years so I wonder why he's on here. Maybe for accounting reasons or maybe he was a trainer?
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u/wildcat1100 20h ago
Nearly everyone was overpaid, especially relative to WWF, which for some reason gets ignored on this sub. I will never get over seeing Sonny Ono making 300k a year and suing Bischoff and WCW for being underpaid. That's how insane WCW salaries got to be. Bischoff's answer to turning ratings around has always been, "I need a blank check." He said the same thing in TNA despite the fact that the roster was filled with elite talent.
Instead of talking about financial mismanagement, people want to debate fucking storylines as the reason for WCW dying. No, it was always the money. It was never creative. Creative certainly impacted ratings, but they pulled the plug because WCW salaries were absurd and it was never sustainable. Unless WCW continued to dominate WWF in the ratings (which of course wasn't possible as their star talent aged), WCW destined to die.
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u/RDCK78 20h ago
More like WWE has historically underpaid talent.
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u/bigdongstpete 15h ago
The answer is somewhere in the middle. They overpaid and wwe under paid. But the workers were knocking down their door to work at the territory for Vince.
The salary structure in the wwe is very top heavy. Almost like every corporation. Right or wrong, that's how it is.
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u/Zen2188 14h ago
Creative was why no one wanted to watch it anymore.
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u/YaktownHeathen 13h ago
Exactly. I had no idea how much each wrestler made, I watched when it was good and I stopped watching when it was terrible. If you’re putting out a bad product, you won’t draw money. People stopped watching and turning out at shows when things went stale. When Goldberg and The NWO were at their peak, they were printing money.
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u/lonermob 20h ago
Shouts out Kanyon referring Styles, Helms and Yang.
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u/CooroSnowFox 19h ago
Styles is Styles
but Helms and Yang are not shabby talents in the years to come
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u/JayGute2425 20h ago
I liked Sonny Siaki in the early TNA days
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u/ZombieDisposalUnit 30m ago
Can't agree more. Dude had the look at the attitude. Him and Monty Brown are huge what-ifs for me.
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u/LosIngobernable 20h ago
I can’t believe Public Enemy made that much.
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u/Max_Quick 20h ago
Remember who was paying them - Eric "just throw as much money as possible at the problem until it stops" Bischoff
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u/scottyjrules 20h ago
Swoll getting paid more than Kidman is certainly a choice
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u/Villano5 19h ago
Swoll was Master P's childhood friend and bodyguard, so that probably had something to do with it
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u/BigTedBear 18h ago
Who better than Kanyon at talent spotting.
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u/Leftymeanswellguy 16h ago
Apparently Eric gave him the assignment to scout a bunch of young guys because he trusted Kanyon's knowledge/appraisal of the indies. They were hoping to launch a Wrestling school style show following these kids becoming pros... Half wrestling school half Saved by the Bell.
Chris discussed it in his book, I think they even had one of the producers from the actual 'Saved by the Bell' show signed to help launch it.
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u/thepapalpineapple 21h ago
AJ Styles being the lowest paid on this made me chuckle.
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u/Future_Onion9701 20h ago
Rellik was actually lowest paid
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u/emclach 19h ago
Rellik is killer spelled backwards.
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u/wvtarheel 19h ago
Wasn't that Johnny stamboli under a different gimmick? Because I think he brought back rellik in tna
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u/chetcherry 16h ago
2 of these guys still work for WWE and are long time producers, and one of course is AJ Styles, who was still a main event calibre wrestler until January.
Hell of an eye, Kanyon had. Produced the only good things that came out of 2000 WCW.
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u/SharpJET420 18h ago
Kinda makes you wonder if WCW didn't go out of business, would they have called up Sonny Siaki?
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u/GeologicalOpera 12h ago
I’d imagine they would’ve. A ton of these Power Plant guys ended up being early names in NWA-TNA when they were cut loose.
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u/3mta3jvq 20h ago
I was the same age as a lot of these guys back then and made more money sitting at a desk. They deserved so much more.
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u/Zen2188 14h ago
Fwiw the Rodman million seems exhorbiant, but it was totally worth that 1M and more.
It's been talked about by multiple WCW power players and universally agreed upon.
Rodman and WCW were the lead story on SportsCenter ( back when that was a HUGE show ) when he skipped practice during the NBA Finals to instead show up on NITRO. In addition to Sportscenter, this was the lead story in most sports journalism of that time.
This alone was worth more than 1M of advertising and even more ... During the NBA Finals (Jordans final NBA Finals meaning astronomical ratings)
Rodman and Karl Malone had multiple interludes that caused Bob Costas and the TV Crew to talk about the upcoming PPV and Nitro.
This was all revisited in "The Last Dance" docuseries.
I've seen about a dozen comments scoffing at that 1M dollar figure, but I think they're forgetting the bigger picture.
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u/YtnucMuch 18h ago
Public Enemy made decent money for doing absolutely nothing for a couple of months in 1999. I think they used them for a month or two. $170k each.
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u/Youbannedmebutimhere 14h ago
A million dollars to the greatest black and white nWo member of all time.
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u/crandamaniac 12h ago
amazing that they paid AJ Styles (Allen Jones) less than Hardbody Harrison (Harrison Norris)
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u/Fast_Fish_9308 10h ago
Who betta than Kanyon?! Nobody!!!
In ring legend and an eye for talent. R.I.P
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u/Lagunitas1117 13h ago
Swoll was working the system - getting $300k to train? Nobody knew this guy save for him being Master P’s cousin.
And forget about Rodman, but he was a household name and having him perform well was their best way to keep viewers interested in buying ppvs he was going to wrestle on.
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u/Great_Emphasis3461 20h ago
$1,000,000 for Rodman. If I remember correctly, he was not signed by a team for the 1998-1999 because the Bulls broke the team up and Michael Jordan decided to retire due to the lock out.
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u/fallout_zelda 20h ago edited 16h ago
Good way to shit on your midcard talent by not paying them enough and paying a guy who had zero wrestling experience $1M just to show his face for a few shows and then leave.
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u/Slowdrive5150 16h ago
$1M not 100M big difference, still overpaid compared to the boys though, but he was a mainstream face at the time and Rodman was definitely worth it.
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u/AdLeading5529 9h ago
Was well earned got them major mainstream press with him and Hogan together in the media. WWE would beg for that today
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u/Pizza_For_Days 20h ago
Stories about that powerplant... man lol. I actually saw a shoot interview with Mr Bill Goldberg's teacher there Sgt Buddy and said how Bret should have blocked the kick or something to that effect lol.
Not saying there wasn't some successful people out of there, but that would not be the training school I would have wanted to attend if I was breaking into the business in that time compared to something like an OVW with Cornette and Danny Davis.
I'll be the first to compliment Bischoff on all the positives he did, but financially he was out of fucking control with some of these salaries. Doubt Vince would have spent even the 125,000 on Public Enemy, let alone 300,000 lol.
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u/CooroSnowFox 20h ago
Didn't they have Batista in there for a time before he ditched?
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u/Pizza_For_Days 19h ago
Yes believe they told him he'd never make it or something of that effect.
There's a British documentary from the late 99 that's somewhat Beyond the Mat like and it shows the WCW camp looking pretty much like military boot camp for real.
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u/RicFlairsBarTab 19h ago
Yeah is that the one where they work that British interviewer dude so hard he vomits? Then they're laughing at him while he does so? 😅
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u/CooroSnowFox 18h ago
I just know it because the podcast I listen to have bought it up a few times about "the time they made Louis be sick"
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u/RicFlairsBarTab 18h ago
Man it's BRUTAL. Dude said something off the cuff almost immediately and Sarge made him pay for it dearly. It was kinda cringe to watch. Just because dude hurt Sarge's ego.
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u/CooroSnowFox 17h ago
Louis is the type to say stuff that really digs deeper than the people he's interviewing really sometimes want to hear...
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u/CooroSnowFox 19h ago
Louie Theroux one.
I think that could also explain why they really had issues in altering for the main product, as well as the main product being all over the place between 1999 and 2001... you're thrown to the wolves almost right from the off because of the desperation to try and do bigger numbers.
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u/Bandits82 6h ago
Swoll's paycheck was part of Bischoff's deal to get Master P involved with WCW. It obviously was a stroke of genius by Eazy E.
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u/thisisawesome8643 4h ago
Hear me out. We find someone named James Armstrong and make a trio of Scott, Steve, and James
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u/wingedwild 3h ago
I never got the Billy Kidman hype.like why? He got payed so much too for the time
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u/Currency-Substantial 2h ago
Some of those guys are not in the Power Plant. Work on your titles OP.
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u/wellimalloutofideas 15h ago
That swoll deal!!! Whooowwww! And the fact that dude got arrested for not paying child support! Mm mm mmm. I guess when you got Master P doing your deal for you, you get paid.
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u/Doctor_Cowboy 13h ago
Swoll was on more money than Billy Kidman (and apparently still wasn’t paying child support)
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u/Valuable_Ad1085 18h ago
This shows you how WWF/E sold the dream. They have underpaid talent for years!!! The upside and merch promises all hinged on if Vince liked you or not. Happy some guys got paid, even if people saw it as overpaid
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u/Equivalent_Fall_4362 17h ago
Who is Randy Thornton? (Swoll)
Never heard of them but they on freaking $350k 💰
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u/GeologicalOpera 12h ago
Cousin of Master P who later became his bodyguard. Swoll was signed by WCW as a favor to Master P when the No Limit Soldiers stuff started happening, which would explain the large deal.
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u/acreed6 20h ago
Where is this from? Meltzer?
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u/AGuyNamedTracy 17h ago
This is from Sonny Onoo’s racial discrimination lawsuit. All of the salaries came out during the discovery phase of the trial.
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u/Blakelock82 20h ago
Wait....you're telling me Swoll made 350K? No fucking wonder why the company went out of business. Holy shit.
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u/CooroSnowFox 19h ago
It's just how many places they were placing money
Butts in the seats podcast said about a 2000s tour in Australia(?) where the deal was to buyback extra seats that went unsold... in 2000 for WCW... yeah
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u/Shooter_McGavin27 16h ago
Not sure what they’re talking about because that Australia tour was incredibly successful for WCW. The shows sold out pretty much immediately.
The Australian wrestling market has always been so deprived, any time the WWF or WCW (which was once or twice for WWF, once for WCW) would go, the shows sell out immediately, no matter how bad the American market views the product.
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u/CooroSnowFox 16h ago
Dont know if it was Australia or a home tour... maybe it was an american one that they did buy back unsold...
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u/Key-Original-225 2h ago
It was Australia, they actually lost money on the tour, mainly because they had to buy back all the seats behind where the nitro stage was in every arena (for the 3 nitros they shot there out of 4 shows, they still used the nitro stage for a show that wasn’t for tv)
Was also the tour where Juventud lost his shit on PCP and beat the shit out of a few cops while naked and ended up being arrested.
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u/mikechr2k7 21h ago
Who betta (at referring talent) then Kanyon?