Why WCW One Night Stand Will Never Happen

Ever since the first ECW reunion shows of 2005, fans around the world have asked if WWE would ever hold a reunion show for that other famous wrestling promotion that closed down in 2001, if we will ever see a “WCW One Night Stand” show.

Well, I’m here to tell you now - it will never happen. And here are the reasons why.

Think back over ten years ago, when the WWF began to publicly acknowledge the existence of other promotions on their televised shows and pay-per-views. Jerry Lawler’s connection with the USWA was recognised. The Smokey Mountain tag-team titles were defended on pay-per-view. A WWF team even won the NWA World tag-team titles. And, of course, ECW stars turned up on Raw for a mini invasion of sorts.

But throughout all of this, one promotion was heavily criticised, from the infamous Billionaire Ted skits, to Jim Cornette’s weekly rants, to D-Generation X’s invasion of one of their shows, the WWF took a great deal of pleasure in poking fun at World Championship Wrestling.

For years, and especially during the prime years of the Monday night war, it was virtually rammed down the throats of WWF fans that everything about WCW was inferior. It became a form of mental conditioning, brainwashing if you will. WWF fans were conditioned to think of WCW as the enemy.

WCW was buried at every opportunity, even when the WWF purchased the company, and especially during the invasion angle.

And it even continued when the invasion angle finished. While he was general manager of Raw, Eric Bischoff would be reminded by Vince McMahon on a regular basis that he ran WCW when it was losing millions.

Finally, in The Rise & Fall of ECW DVD, WCW was portrayed as the enemy who stripped ECW of their talent, while WWF was seen as a kindly benefactor who kept ECW afloat through various monetary donations.

So having brainwashed it’s fans for well of a decade, and long after the company folded, that everything to do with WCW was bad, would WWE suddenly tell us that WCW actually wasn’t that bad after all? Would they go all out to promote a reunion show on pay-per-view? I think hell is more likely to freeze over first.

But what about nostalgia, I hear you say. Nostalgia is big in the wrestling business these days. Surely nostalgia can make a WCW reunion show happen?

Not bleedin’ likely. Although wrestling fans will fondly remember the prime years of the nineties, the New World Order, Goldberg’s winning streak, the Steiner Brothers when they were the world’s greatest tag-team, and the classics between Ric Flair and Sting, they’ll also remember the massive egos, the exorbitant wages, the burial of careers, the crazy booking ideas of Vince Russo, and the fact that while the company were making massive profits in the mid-nineties, in their final full year of trading, WCW lost sixty million dollars.

You see, when we think about ECW, we think back to the great characters and wrestlers, the innovative style, and Paul Heyman’s great booking. We overlook the fact that Heyman wasn’t really a good businessman, that a number of wrestlers went without pay for months at a time, and that the company went bankrupt owing millions to various companies and individuals. The fanatical ECW fans are willing to overlook these points because of the great matches and shows that ECW produced.

So while ECW nostalgia will always be big business, especially when the promotion is re-launched next month, WCW nostalgia will never reach the same levels, and for that you can blame one man - Vincent Kennedy McMahon.