Jim Ross shoots on why WWE didn't just buy ECW in 2001
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- Опубликовано: 27 фев 2021
- For over forty years Jim Ross has been the Voice of Wrestling. From starting as referee in the regional territories to becoming the Executive Vice President for WWE, nobody has a story quite like Jim Ross. From recruiting and hiring some of the biggest superstars in the industry to providing the soundtrack for the most important moments in wrestling history, “Good Ole JR” was there for it all. Join us every Thursday morning as Conrad Thompson grills JR like you’ve never heard before, uncut and uncensored!
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Did Conrad accidentally eat the refrigerator light bulb while midnight snacking?!?
😂
Lmfao
Conrad with the Sheamus entrance.
LMFAOOOOOOOOOO
Felllllaaaaaaaaa
He wants to be JRs geisha
Conrad has become one with the microwave light.
Haha
This is gold. LOL
🤣
Bruh I just busted out laughing!
He's ascending into godhood
Ladies and gentlemen, playing Paul bearer on this episode... Conrad!!
They dropped the ball with both ECW and WCW.. Could've been major.
Keeping WCW/ECW titles, shows and superstars airing on opposite nights of each other, could've gotten more talent and a wide variety roster, more opportunity to put young wrestlers over . New ppv events even.
Just how bad did the WWE screw this up?Makes no sense
Yeah. I never understood why they didn't keep WCW and ECW going. The possibilities were endless.
@@jimcress2058 Because TNN wasn't going to allow the WWE to do that.
@@jimcress2058 Vince didn't create wcw or ecw. His ego wasn't going to let those brands live on. Also, Vince disdained wcw for being Southern 'wrasslin, so he really buried wcw fast. He did more with ecw brand.
Try selling 'ECW' or 'Nitro' to TV executives in 2001. No-one wanted ECW on their network and WCW lost 64 million in 2000 alone. Rather save my money and air golden girls repeats - would make more business sense
Given how much they’ve made in the last 20 years, I don’t think they care.
They also brought in Spike Dudley right after ECW closed too besides Justin, Rhino, and Tajiri.
Jerry Lynn too
@Tiger Jerry Lynn wasi the Light Heavyweight Champ in the WWF in 2001
and Stevie Richards.
@@yoholmes273 Stevie was around well before.
Conrad the only dude who can shine brighter than a diamond.
I can’t believe it’s been 20 f’n years ECW has been out of business. WCW is coming up on 20 years on March 26th 2001!- February 28th 2021
For me wrestling went downhill when ECW closed.
Can't wait for that one
Wrestling died the day both went out of business, today's wrestling is god awful.
We old.
Yeah once WCW/ECW went under it took the entire wrestling world with it.
Once the attitude era in the WWE died down and entered the stagnation era, since it had no competition and effectively became a monopoly wrestling died.
Hard to see how it can come back...
I’ve always loved the idea of a WWE ECW show. I loved that they added a third show in the mix, so sad that it didn’t work out. I still go back and play sdvr08
It was a pg ecw. It was basically Tuesday night curtainjerkers smack down
@@jwrailve3615 it’s obvious it was gonna have to be toned down a bit, but it should have been where WWE tested the waters with how much they could get away with
@@Bizzle2K when they went og the product took a serious hit. It became a circus and live entertainment with robot dialogue. And the times I check on it nowadays out of curiosity they have that reigns guy as the main man and nobody ever really backed that guy
I always hated that concept. The ONLY ECW show Vince did that was ACTUALLY a legit ECW show was ECW's One Night Stand in 2005. That show had a real ECW feel to it. After 2005, it was just a washed up, watered down version of its origional self
That championship setup Conrad has is awesome.
Yeah too bad the lighting is such that there’s a big glob of white right in Conrad’s face
jim ross seems such a massive integral part of WWE and they just threw him away like he was a piece of meat in the end.
Companies are always pressured to go the young and cheap route. Also, after enough time goes by management changes and they won't necessarily respect the people hired by the old management.
20 years this Friday man time flies
rvd one of the greats of all time
you mention having seen tape on tajiri, was that before his raw match with taka michinoku in the early days of the light heavyweight division or was that footage from towards the end of ECW
Conrad was blinded by the light......revved up like a Deuce
Awesome Shoot Today JR!!😎🐐🐐
The reason I have WWE Network is for ECW and WWE from like 98 to 2008.
That's cuz your a Geek 🤓 with No taste which 1998 to 2008 says it all dip shit. Your 💯% Snow Flake❄️❄️❄️ Generation who doesn't know shit about what & when Wrestling was Good. I guarantee your a freaking AEW Fan Boy nerd 🤓 Geek 🤓 along with your Gay ECW rejects. No wonder you don't like real wrestling & are into ECW & AEW LMAO 😂 loser
@@bigkev3184 dude not cool come on man dont need to bash him cause he likes those yrs in wwe.
@@bigkev3184 lol I bet you love the big body builders from the 80s. I bet your in the closet
@@bigkev3184 bet you are a John cena lover boy Pipe down. PG lover
@@bigkev3184 what’s the point of this? Are u satisfied that your being ignorant? to this individual.
No one realizes how much those video libraries are worth! They're worth millions! Hence why the WWe network.
They're worth that now, but back then the way they monetize them today hadn't been done before..
The stories about Vince envisioning a WWE Network 20 years ago really was forward thinking.
Tajiri was so underappreciated, loved to see that guy work ! "the japanese buzzsaw" !
What a great performer Justin Credible it's quite sad how the drugs ruined his career in WWE. WWE swept in while ECW was floundering like a fish out of water and gobbled them up
ECW existed for as long as it did because WWF financially floated them to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars. When ECW filed for bankruptcy they declared owing the WWF roughly $580,000. When the WWF went to TNN they offered waiving the non compete clause to allow ECW to stay on the air for the rest of the year to allow them to continue their broadcast as they sought a new tv deal. WWF went above and beyond to keep ECW above water outside of simply buying them outright or providing an endless credit line to subsidize any amount of losses they incurred. And then when the inevitable finally happened gave Paul a job for years and hired on a chunk of their wrestlers who hadn’t already jumped ship. Any narrative that paints WWF as a predator over ECW is silly when looking at the countless ways McMahon did the opposite of snuffing them out and instead keeping them alive. The impressive thing about ECW that doesn’t get recognized often is the miracle it actually was they stuck around as long as they actually did. Pauls ability to inspire the troops is fascinating because he pulled off keeping his top stars for a length of time that accepted less money than they could make elsewhere, late paychecks, did extra duties for free, and many only left once things were so far behind they simply had to leave. For a company whose top on the books revenue year was $5.8M they lasted longer than conventional business would ever indicate they would have and that’s largely due to Paul somehow obtaining so many people who willingly acted against their own best interests to help the company.
Conrad "The Glowwarm" Thompson
I think Vince took care of Paul because he's known Paul since Paul was a kid and yeah, he knew he would be in wwe sooner or later.
After the WWF 2001 invasion wresting changed for ever
12:30 Left JR speechless lol
ECW was NJ, Phila, DE and NY. Outside my neck of the woods they didn't draw as well. Phila to NY personalities aren't always popular down South or out West.
"too big to be small too small to be big" was Paul Heymans words on his documentary if I remember correctly.
@@Snapmaw Yeah, they had a good run. Only thing they needed was a Ok video game. The two they put out were terrible.
There's a case to be made that ECW as the last big regional promotion.
I think the love people have for ECW is the same love you have for your favorite cartoon or show from your childhood. You love because it made you happy. Some people in ECW may love it because for them that was the time they had or felt that they had the most control of their character. As we hear from Kevin Nash a lot of people go to that Bret Heart school and want that control or creative freedom, instead of I want to make as much money as possible. For ECW I feel that's how it is they wanted to wrestle and create which made them happy, so they loved their time their.
And all of them have nothing to show for it unfortunately. Well except those that made it on WWE.
I never appreciated ECW until watching today's awful product, it was cult like the atmosphere, not the greatest roster but they did something different with what they had.
bret's control of his character seemed driven more by his ego than by a desire for creative freedom
A lot of the ECW guys love for their time there I think stems from two main things. The first thing is that Heyman did a masterful job of selling them and convincing them that they were the little engine that could and inspired pretty wild loyalty to the company. It’s insane to see how many of their guys stuck around even during times they weren’t getting paid and were owed sizeable money. The love Heyman inspired was huge. Second and the biggest thing I think is that Paul have guys chances when others wouldn’t. A lot of guys got their start there and may never have gotten a chance if it hadn’t been for ECW. That naturally endears you to the company when you reflect later on and recognize that had it not been for that company you may never have gotten a chance in the business. And a decent number of those guys were able to use that chance to ascend to bigger things. If you were able to make that jump you’ll be able to look back more fondly and past the bad things than someone who didn’t make that leap would. But it’s absolutely seen by many as much bigger than it ever was if we’re honest.
Go back and watch it rules
Had WWE invested in both ECW and WCW they still be in business.
Well with WCW they were a rival company that almost put WWE out of business so Vince was more than happy to let it die.
@@romulogarcia3893 Almost? 😄 They didn't even make Vince wince
If they had, they should have kept the matches going except replace the 3 letters with WWE and up the production values
@@user-hc9qv9yb9m he admitted he was scared. The WWE was ass from 95- 97 go back and watch lol It didn’t really pick up till Austin Vs HBK .
There was no saving WCW, AOL didn't want it around on their network once Ted was gone. ECW maybe but even then, they were giving ECW money, what more should they have done?
So true instead of just buying ECW tI think vince wanted to recreate ECW so he could claim it as his and he could do that cause paul worked for vince and ECW was out of business but it never took off.
Love the new face cams!
They give me a big rubbery one!
I’m sure it’s been said 1 million times but listening to these two is like listening to WCWJR speak to WWEJR
Jr is apparently a psychic medium. Talking to a ghost.
JR was like, "oh shit. I wasn't supposed to say that!"
I think the word JR was looking for was inspire bc that’s I think of when he describes these old stories from former ECW talent
Ok I know the WWE 24/7 was the original WWE Network but how Jim Ross is saying they wanted a newtork esq video archive platform seems like the WWE Network in his current state had been in development for 13 years before launching.
Ya know... I'd click on your videos a hell of a lot more often if I didn't have to hear about "Save With Conrad" every f'n time.
Oh no! I didn't know Conrad died and his ghost is continuing the podcast
The damn Marshmallow Man on the left needs to learn about camera lighting.
Which podcast episode is this clip from ?
It says it at the beginning of the video. It's from No Way Out 2001.
i cant handle hearing jr swear. this is new to me. not offended at all, just a funny occurence to me.
Could listen to him all day
ECW and WCW brands were both dead by 2001
2001 is the worst year ever.
Especially the 9/11.
NWA won’t die
@@ricolewis2949 haha
@@ricolewis2949 ric flair prime dusty
@@ricolewis2949 ⚽️🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦🇩🇪🇩🇪🇬🇷
But how did Vince know Paul was good if Vince never watched ECW?
They had a working relationship for years prior to the end of ECW. Paul was on the payroll and offering input in the 90s. He also was told by many others that he trusted of the talents that Paul had and the value he’d bring in a writing role. Bruce and Jr are examples of that.
Towards the end the only one that didn’t jump to wwf and had major drawing power was rvd but Paul couldn’t pay him
Loved ecw one night stand....Watching ecw 1993 justwatvhed holiday hell now entering 1994... never heard of ecw till 2001...a few months before it came off the air
Conrad looks like when your character in a video game goes fully good and they just start radiating light
At Vince’s insistence, we weren’t going to do anything to hurt ECW. Think about that everyone that wants to make VKM the bad guy
I'm starting a wrestling promotion I have JR as head of creative and talent take notice Tony Khan
JR was best talent relations, not creative. He built the attitude era roster.
@@danielberry4765 doesn't mean he doesn't know what sells.
He bought the assets of the company rather than the company
I think it’s long past time we retire “rumor and innuendo”, Conrad
And “Meltzer would write”
As well as “I’m thin and will live long.”
And "lot to unpack here"
I kinda figured that they wanted to buy ECW for the cost of a Subway Footlong and drink. Vinnie Mac did get WCW for a couple million (i.e. his Pocket Change). 😄
i wish this happened around 2018 to now,people buy shit wayyyy more during this internet age,i promise you some rich guy would of bought ecw if this happened today
They kinda did. I'm not sure what he got their tape library for, but I can assure it was less than the $7-8M it would've taken to buy the company outright from it's creditors.
@@Matt-cr4vv some websites say $1.7mil, and some say $2.2mil for the tape library.
Drinks shot every time Conrad mentions Meltzer.
i was there!
jr: mark...
how do they define snug? cause i always was under the impression snug was u knew it was going to be real and u dealt with it. in pro wrestling u try to be safe but u know things happen (it ain't ballet pal) so not sure how snug is defined. if it's safe how is it snug and what's the differenece between snug adn reckless?
The difference is snug is you work tight that it looks believable. I mean you know it's what it was but it still looks real. You protected the person you were working with and he protected you. Wreckless is when you are constantly hurting people by not protecting them when doing your moves.
I love good old jr ❤
I'm not going to say anything negative about Conrad.
Jr sounds like dave ramsey
I thought WWF had seen Tajiri before he was in ECW
Why would they? Brand was about worthless and was only going to get lower. When you go car shopping you don't say to yourself "I want to go over pay for a lemon!!!'
Obscenely inaccurate
@@kovax1168 How was it inaccurate? Their assets were: a Ford truck, an accounts receivable from a PPV and their video library. Vince could have paid $8M for $1.5M or so in asset value or wait and pay for the video library for likely an absurdly low amount.
During the 80s in MidSouth Wrestling JR said Shawn Michaels was going to be a star one day. Boy was he right!!!
Why does he say ‘we’ when talking about what WWE was doing?
i wonder if they had their eye on the library?
Conrad no selling the shit out of those lights!!!
12:32
The moment JR no longer needed viagra
*Blue Chew* 🔵
I always thought Dudley Boys, Tajiri, RVD and Rhyno were awesome
Is this j.r. Channel with conrrade overseeing it or is it Conrad's featuring j.r.
Who’s conrrade?
@@TL2354 in his defense he spelled it right the second time.
You know...I think all they wanted was the ECW library. Idk why I feel that way 😂😂
Because that is all they wanted. That was the only monetizable part of ECW really. But for good measure they got all of the assets, and while it failed, were able to relaunch the brand.
They wanted WCW library aswell + trademarks
Paul repayment many years of stellar storytelling
Aldo Montoya?
I really want to see Paul heynen n Jr. Sit down n talk for hours
Vince should have bought it n left it alone n let Paul run it like it was the wee ecw sucked ass old skool ecw was so sick
Frankly that wouldn’t have been a wise decision as Paul’s ECW was in huge debt while Vince’s WWE was thriving.
I personally loved the old ECW (the Anarchy Rulz 2000 got me into it), but clearly not enough people gave it a chance and called anything that wasn’t WWE awful (what happened at my school).
I think another issue with what you’ve said is that the ECW wrestlers were getting really hurt, it was frankly dangerous to do what they were doing every week instead of monthly/yearly.
I liked the ECW reboot in 2006 but it went massively downhill once it became PG.
He kinda did that when you consider he was subsidizing Heyman for years prior to the bankruptcy. Instead he waited a coupe years and got it's only valuable asset for pennies on the dollar without having to pay the creditors.
Vince could have left Paul Hayman in a hole he had no way out of
I dont watch wrestling anymore. I wish wcw and ecw were still around. Wrestling was so exciting back then with jam packed stars on all of the rosters of wwf, wcw, and ecw. now there arent many huge stars left. brock lesnar is the only larger than life superstar still wrestling occassionally. pretty sad state of wrestling. it peaked in the attitude era and its dying a very slow death ever since. i dont know anyone who watches it now. every of my friends doesnt watch it anymore.
It looks like Disney is going to buy the WWE. If not they are talking to NBC Universal or Fox. If that happens, wrestlers will finally get health insurance with their contacts!They will be treated much better!
If one of those companies decides to make them employees. No other owner of a wrestling promotion has so who knows if they would.
Ghost Conrad
ECW!!
Wonder where all his money was going? Was there just a bunch of overhead with insurance, arena rent, THE PRICE HE WAS PAYING TO GET HARDCORE TV ON SYNDICATION, and lawsuits with the record labels whose music he was using? Or was he gambling it away and putting it up his nose?
You said it right there ecw on tnn bled them dry
Is WWE looking at BloodHunter?
This guys a beast.
O fuck u must be a Hannibal fan ..
Hannibal is a shady character
Plus he has Hep C ...
Conard reached angeichod damn good god almighty
If jim ross did commentary for aew like he did wwe, aew would smoke wwe in ratings.
HES BROKEN IN HALF
BUSINESS IS ABOUT TO PICK UP
BAH GAWD
HHH YOU SOB!
STONE COLD, STONE COLD, STONE COLD,STONE COLD!!!!!
CLIMB THAT LADDER KID, MAKE YOURSELF FAMOUS!!!
i dont think anyone realizes how important for at home viewers this was. Thos way of commentary made the viewers become sucked in and made what your watching believable.
Now i realize how valuable king Lawler os bc his crew in aew dont give him a chance to say anything, especially bozo shavonni and Excalibur. If aew cant get king then they should have ross and Taz together NO ONE ELSE.
So you’re telling me that Conrad DOESN’T look like Sheamus in Japanese cosplay?
Imagine if Paul Hayman joined AEW.
Why would he???
I'm glad he hasn't yet.AEW is feeling less fresh and original with every new signing.
@@BabysitterSky You leave the Joshi girls alone!
Wearing an aew hat over his horseshoe hair
Just my opinion, but I doubt Vince is as kind to Heyman if he doesn't fear them merging with WCW if he isn't. Nothing wrong with that. It's smart business. But let's not pretend Vince did it out of the goodness of his heart.
If we're being honest, ECW was an indy company hot shotting a bunch of midcarders.
He did that well, but that's all.
ECW from 1992-1999 was the best wrestling promotion ever!
Pretty obvious Vince didn't watch ECW at all. On a weekly basis, they would verbally trash WWF (& WCW) and even referred to Vince as the owner repeatedly long before that was established on WWF television. If he had seen and heard all of that, he probably wouldn't have been so kind to ECW with loans and not wanting to hurt them with signings while they were trying to get another TV deal.
On the Paul Heyman guy dvd. Paul claims Vince loved it when they mf him on the mic.
I think Vince would do whatever benefitted Vinces bottom line.
Conrad the Friendly Ghost
Why don’t all these wrestlers just buy their own health insurance? I didn’t have insurance through a company before, so I purchased insurance on my own. It was like $300 something a month. If a regular person like me can afford that they definitely can. It’s dumb as hell to not have insurance and then have to pay out of pocket when they need healthcare. It’s way better to spend a few 100 a month on ur own, than to pay 100s every doctor visit and 1000s every hospital visit.
Health insurance for a pro wrestler would likely be astronomical.
Wrestlers dont make the money u think, only time they make money is if u work for Vince
I'm assuming the premiums for someone in a vocation like pro wrestling is much higher than $300 a month considering Everytime they work they're risking a major medical event.
It wouldn't take a decent accountant long to look at the paperwork of ECW and know that it was a bad idea to invest in something.
Especially that buffoon Paul Heyman who I heard owed a lot of wrestlers money. Want to buy that?
Conrad? More like Con Radiacion.
So sad they didn't purchase the name earlier, than we could have had the ECW Zombie much sooner, and have the Zombie and the Yetay mash it out at Wrestlemania. Seriously, Vince and his kids had no idea what to do with ECW and what it was about. Them running it would be like giving your 89 year old grandma the keys to a ZR1 Corvette, complete waste of time and pointless.
Conrad needs to get some sun.
Run in the sun
WWE knows the 40 year old virgin rasslin audience. This just must not have been popular enough with them
I will never understand why Connie thinks WM17 was so great. It was pretty good, but there have been much better WMs before and since. It's in the top 10.
Hell he isn't the only one who is like that,, personally I'll never understand the hype with the whole show outside of 1 or 2 matches
🤨 There were more than 2 good matches.
Angle vs Benoit
TLC
Triple H vs Undertaker
Austin vs Rock
Plus Vince vs Shane was entertaining with Foley, Linda, Trish and Stephanie
Oh and I almost forgot the best match Ivory vs Chyna...
Yeah it's odd. It's not as good as everybody makes out. Wrestlemania 19 was better for example
Conrad’s face looks like he came off Mt. Sinai after 40 days.
Hey, investor guy. Invest in some Amazon lighting. Pretend to care, why don’t ya!
Hey dude, fix ur lighting, unless u like looking like a ghost lol
pauöl heyman solds himself out with no back up plan shame on this to still a poor on serves for wwe !!
Be cool to see a ECW reunion or some kind of ECW take in AEW. So messed up wwe dropped the ball when acquiring those 2 companies. They'd still be able to do a WCW and ECW show weekly.
If ecw and wcw had weekly shows. Ecw ran by stephanie and wcw ran by shane.#MikeNice
Wow that was a really great deal Paul was looking for 2 sell ECW. He could have gotten 10 easy. He must have been just looking to pay off who he owed. He wasn't getting much for himself after that if he sold it.
Obviously couldn't considering there were no buyers. It wasn't worth anything when considering he couldn't get a TV deal.
Maybe a racoon ghost lol