stlsaint Presents: WCW: The Subsidiary

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stlsaint
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stlsaint Presents: WCW: The Subsidiary Jan 6, 2023 4:23:50 GMT 1 Asaemon and Be the Booker like this

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Post by stlsaint on Jan 6, 2023 4:23:50 GMT 1

STL Saint Presents: WCW: The Subsidiary

For years the wrestling world has spread rumors about what happened not only during, but after the sale of WCW to WWF. WCW: The Subsidiary follows a top WCW executive as he navigates the troubled waters of a ruthless WWF owner, a struggling roster of talent, his company's poor public perception and a wrestling world that pushes against change.

Intertwined with the story of how each month came together, follow along as writer, Saint, takes you in-depth into meeting with WWF Owner Vince McMahon, Media Mogul Ted Turner, former WCW Executive VP and TNA exec. Eric Bischoff and even legendary NHL exec Lou Lamoreillo.

The Subsidiary also details the development of how wrestling’s production and presentation has changed over the past 22 years with an insight and knowledge that only a handful of people can provide. The Subsidiary is essential reading for any wrestling fan or even just a fan of television or theater. The story provides a first hand account of a producer, writer and talent manager who struggled, first to learn the job and then to maintain WCW’s position in wrestling, in a top position for over 5 years.

“A wonderfully detailed look at the rise from the ashes, WCW: The Subsidiary looks into the planning and execution of turning WCW from a small piece in the Turner Broadcasting Puzzle into a large part of the WWF and the wrestling landscape at large. Saint’s first hand account of meetings, backstage view of shows and knowledge of the inner workings not only disproves many rumors but gives more insight and news than any wrestling book has ever divulged before.”

Wade Keller, PWTorch.com Bookreview, 06/19/2021

“Reading this thing, I’m sure a great deal of it is fabrication. I mean, it’s good, don’t get me wrong. Saint definitely puts himself on a pedestal here. Some of the stuff, here, I was there for some of these meetings he describes and a number of these things are just horse sh*t. But whatever. Saint is just trying to make a buck and he’s definitely got the gift of gab.”

Eric Bischoff, 83 Weeks Podcast with Conrad Thompson, 3/22/2021

“Saint’s the man. One of my favorite people to work with. Always a straight shooter and never gave the unnecessary BS. I skimmed the book, looks good, but ya know? I don’t really “read” read. I’ll get it on tape. S#*t. Think they’ll want me to do the audiobook?”

Scott Steiner, WCWWF Podcast, 09/01/2020

“Working parallel jobs with Jake in Talent Relations, I was there for a lot of this. I don’t work for WWF anymore, and you know I don’t like to be unnecessarily disparaging. Jake paints what I would call an accurate picture of what was going on then. Especially the 2001 stuff. All of the turmoil with talents and treading those waters. I helped him. He gave me credit too, so I respect that he didn’t just say ‘I did this, I did that.’ That was a team effort and he was a major cog. No one better to give this account and I know fans have been dying to know about it. Hell of a read. I touched on some of this stuff briefly in my second book, but again, it’s not really my story to tell, per say.”

Jim Ross, Grillin’ JR with Condrad Thompson, 03/25/2021

“He’s full of sh*t. It’s all sh*t. This dude claims all these things and provides 0 proof. It’s like, why? I mean, if you’re going to build all this sh*t up, why leave when you did? Because it’s all bulls#*t. I wouldn’t be surprised if Vince gave him the option, leave or I’ll fire your ass publicly. I mean I remember when he put himself on TV at the beginning. Like, f**k you dude. That could have been anyone and you had to be the “Authority Figure” or whatever. Just put a bad taste in my mouth. I wouldn’t even bother reading his drivel. I made it through the first few chapters and he comes off like this “incredible at everything he does” monster. He was a sheepish little bitch in our talent meetings and he never took a one-on-one meeting with me, so screw him.”

Buff Bagwell, interview with PWTorch.com, 08/16/2021

“You’ll be hard pressed to find anyone to dispute any of this. He hits the nail on the head. The struggle we had, the weekly “what is going to happen next?”, the monthly “is this the last pape?” Saint was in the locker room every show trying to tell us these things then, and some of the boys were always saying “he’s working us.” Like he was making the stuff seem impossible on his end so we wouldn’t come bitch about our finish or if we were getting the belt or whatever. I mean I hope some of the boys read this and realize he was a straight up good dude who was put in over his head, especially at first, and he fixed a lot of problems before they got to us. He tried to make it so we could go town-to-town, show up at the building and wrestle and leave to do it again. In fact, there's a few things in here, that if they are true and I don’t know, I could always go back and ask around, but if they’re true.. I have even more respect that he fell on some swords for stupid stuff we did. I don’t know. I wasn’t on the Talent Relations side then and I definitely had no hand in creative. I just showed up, looked at the sheet, talked to the agent and wrestled. This book makes it look like he just put everything out there for us to just do that, and if he’s being 100% truthful, good on him.”

Jeff Jarrett, interview with POST Wrestling’s John Pollock 02/28/2021

AUTHOR'S NOTES:
Alright guys, I'm new here. I've got seven chapters already written (I had posted this elsewhere first), along with a couple complementary pieces) and will be actively writing and reviewing going forward from now.

I've had a couple of longer bookers elsewhere (including a WCW 98 thread that I did a full year on, ROH 2016, WWE 2014, NXT vs ROH) but I think this is my most ambitious idea yet.

I will try to make Thursdays the day that I post the chapters, but we will see how that all works out, as I'm not sure how I want to do it once I get into complementary pieces (which will include PPV "reviews"). I have a pretty crazy work schedule so sometimes it will be difficult.

anyways, hope you all enjoy this! Thanks!

Last Edit: Jan 6, 2023 5:14:34 GMT 1 by stlsaint

stlsaint
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stlsaint Presents: WCW: The Subsidiary Jan 12, 2023 23:30:19 GMT 1 Asaemon and Josh Spicer like this

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Post by stlsaint on Jan 12, 2023 23:30:19 GMT 1

Chapter One: This Might Be The Real Deal

March 26, 2001. You’ve heard it before. A million stories have started with that date. It has long been generally considered the “End of the Monday Night War,” and this is true to the outside world- to you non-wrestling folks. The truth is that WCW being bought by WWF created a new “war.” This war was almost as ruthless and cut-throat as the Monday Night saga pitting WWF and it’s Chairman, Vince McMahon against WCW and their senior Vice President, Eric Bischoff. The difference now was that everyone was employed by the same corporations, World Wrestling Federation Entertainment, WWFE (the publicly traded arm of Capitol Sports and Entertainment).

Much ink has been spilled about what happened immediately after Vince McMahon paid a measly 6 Million Dollars for the WCW name, media library and a handful of contracted wrestlers. I don’t think anyone is as qualified to give the rundown of events and a perspective of them as me. Who am I? Allow me to introduce myself: my name is Jake Santangelo, but everyone calls me “Saint.” I’m pretty sure that’s more of an ironic nickname, but this book isn’t about me. I was the Executive Vice President of WCW from March 26, 2001 until May 29, 2006. This role put me in charge of many things- talent acquisitions, licensing, scheduling, the booking committee. I also had a hand in several other things- advertising, ticket sales, promotional tactics, I even spent a few sleepless Monday nights trying to get catering set up for our shows- settling on Subway sandwiches and once even grilling 300 chicken breasts myself to feed a hungry talent pool.

Basically, I tried to do it all and for a while, I did it as well as anyone could have hoped or imagined. But anyways this story has a beginning, and it starts in late November 2000, when I received a surprising phone call from my former boss, Eric Bischoff, who had an interesting proposal: he was going to buy WCW, with a few millionaires and he would be the vice president, and I would head up talent relations with an opportunity to invest. I was taken aback.

“You think we can do this?” I asked a very excited Eric. Eric has always been an up-and-down personality, apt to act quickly on emotion often, but occasionally he would ponder and analyze a decision for so long, the opportunity would pass him by.

“Well, I know we can DO it. The question really is, can we do it the way it needs to be done on Turner? I think we can, but my guys are starting the process now. Ted is going to be forced to sell WCW. I just got off the phone with Harvey (Schiller), it’s happening.” Dr. Harvey Schiller was a retired Brigadier General in the United States Air Force, who had been one of Ted Turner’s right hand men and the Director of Turner Sports when I originally worked for WCW in 1997. Harvey was a straight-shooter, at least with me. “Harvey was definitely going to run the idea of AOL TimeWarner selling to us by Ted.”

“Who is us?” I added, grabbing a pen and paper. I was definitely interested but I couldn’t let Eric know that yet. If I gave him the impression I was even remotely interested, I would be stuck whether I thought we could do it or not.

“We’ve started a corporation to handle this. Fusient Media. Cool name, right?” Eric quickly spit out.

“Yeah, I like it. Who’s the money? This going to cost like 50 Million Dollars Eric. I don’t have anything to put in right now.” I quickly lied. The thought had crossed my mind that Eric had called for investment. I had been saving my whole life and lived pretty frugally. I had plenty of money to invest, but I didn’t want to contribute one cent until Eric had this plan laid out and I could properly analyze it.

I quickly tapped my thumb to the backside of my pen’s clicker, rapidly causing the tip to pop in and out of the base. “Uh, have you ever heard of ESPN Classic? I’m trying to think of what else these guys are invested in that you would know” Eric finally spit out after several moments of silence.

“Sure.” I responded. I hadn’t, but ESPN was ESPN, and everyone at least had an idea of the global reach of the first sports network.

“Well these guys, Brian and Stephen, they sold ESPN these massive classic sports libraries they had been collecting over the years, including old AWA stuff. They got PAID, man. They love wrestling, They’re great. You’ve got to meet them!” This was the Eric I had become accustomed to finally showing through. When he got excited, when he finally stopped playing coy, he would explode in quick, frantic sentences, trying to cram as much information into short bursts as possible. Eric always left pauses for questions when I was his direct subordinate, as the VP of Talent Relations in 1997, but I learned quickly that questions were for the end and the end was more effectively known as “never.”

“Ok. Let’s meet.” I didn’t know how much this statement would change my life. Knowing the inner workings of WCW from 1997, I knew this would require me to leave my job as the General Manager of the Albany River Rats and the Assistant GM of the New Jersey Devils. I hadn’t been enjoying this job as much as I had hoped. Being an assistant to Lou Lamoreillo was definitely an amazing experience, but being under such a massive name meant that I had been overlooked for the potential to be the GM of another NHL team. In fact, after hanging up with Eric, I made a call I had been planning for some time, but hadn’t pulled the trigger yet. I called Lou and told him I was stepping down from my Assistant GM position and requested to finish out the season as a scout. I really struggled with this conversation and tears welled in my eyes.

My longtime dream of being an NHL GM was at least being put on hold, but my lifelong passion of wrestling had reared its ugly head again. I started up my computer and went to the WCW website to look at the roster. “Aw jeeze,” I muttered several times as I scrolled through the list. Half of the names were stars of the 1980’s, well past their prime and the other half we’re names I had never heard before. I had just left the company in August of 1997 and I couldn’t picture a great deal of these names.

Perusing the rest of the website was a struggle. There was nothing exciting about this at all. The website was a mess and I even found myself picking up the phone to call Eric and try to un-**** my life’s latest terrible decision. “Just go to Wyoming and meet with Eric.” I repeated throughout the day.

The rest of the day I caught myself daydreaming about my WCW days in 1997. I thought about that first day in the office in Atlanta, where Eric pulled me, a lowly staff writer, aside and talked to me for 4 hours about my plan. Eric and I had hit it off immediately. “Hockey? THAT’S your dream? There is so much money right here my man!” Eric spurted out in his quick burst of energy. Seeing Eric in the office on a Wednesday was apparently rare, and he looked haggard. He was dressed in blue jeans and leather boots, and donned a slightly too large black t-shirt. He had bags under his eyes and his hair, while perfectly groomed, was showing more grey than I had ever noticed on TV.

I vividly recall looking down at my way-too-black suit and overly baggy shirt, with the checkered tie I had taken from my father’s closet and then looking back at Eric. He caught my stare. “Yeah, we don’t have to wear those clown suits. Unless we’re going upstairs. Someday, you may go up there- but not for a while.”

My scrambled brain flashed forward to 3 weeks later when I was in the meeting where Eric, Scott Sassa, the true number 2 of Turner Broadcasting, and Harvey Schiller went back and forth for 4 hours about WCW adding another show. I had already bucked authority as I sat there in my usual blue jeans, heavily worn along the thigh and knee, and t-shirt with my “band of the day” adorning the front. Burned into my brain is that I was wearing a Sex Pistols shirt when the richest man I would ever meet entered the room, surrounded by three other people, all in impeccable suits. Ted Turner was 6 feet from me as I wrote on a legal pad taking notes of Eric’s ideas for the name of the new show.

“Where we at, Scott? Harvey. Eric. Eh….” Ted Turner had nodded quickly at Harvey and Eric, and his eyes settled on me.

“Sir, Im-” I started. “That’s my number two, Ted. His name is Jake. He’s been here a month or so, but he’s sharp.” Eric cut me off. Two things had just happened. I had met the Chairman of my new company and Eric had given me a field promotion.

“Oh. How are ya?” Ted quickly spit out. He then turned back to Scott Sassa. “So? How’s this Thursday thing going?”

“Well, it seems like we’re making some progress but Eric has some major concer-” Scott started.

“It’s all good. We’re going to figure it all out- it’ll be fine.” Eric cut Scott off. I saw something in Eric I hadn’t seen before. He was exuding a nervous energy. In his way, he pushed through the nervousness by trying to quickly put information on the table that would change the subject. “We were thinking of this show being all n.W.o. We were brainstorming some names. Saint?”

I nervously looked down at the paper. I had been writing a few things Eric and the others had said, but nothing was really that great. I had doodled in the corner of the paper mostly. I stared at that piece of paper and pretended to be organizing the ideas in my brain. “Eh…” I started my eyes darting across the page. My eyes settled in the upper-right hand corner where I had crudely scribbled a lightning bolt. I had been thinking about Metallica while Eric had been going on and on about the WCW’s metal motif on Nitro. A million words rushed across my brain but I spurted out, almost accidentally, “Thunder… uh…” I went to continue.

“That’s it. That’s the name,” Turner cut me off. My heart was racing. Had this really happened?

Eric stared at me, mouth slightly open, but eyes bulging from darkened and baggy eyes.

The rest of that meeting is a blur, but I recall going back downstairs with Eric and him taking me into his office. “Well VP. Congrats. Very nicely done.” That same day, I got a major pay raise and a new office.

The next few months were a blur. I didn’t tell Eric about the first two or three calls I had gotten from the Albany team about being a scout.The pull of my hockey obsession quickly became too much to resist. I was working diligently on the Thunder project with Turner executives I had, prior to these meetings, no idea existed. The tedious work drove me away from wrestling entirely.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

“You’re what?!” Eric screamed as I told him the news. “A ****ing scout? What are they going to pay you?”

“I don-” I started

“**** it. Whatever it is, we’ll double it. I need you here. You’ve been pointman on this Thunder shit.” Eric cut me off.

“Well, that’s the thing Eric. I came here to be a writer. That’s all I wanted to do here. All this other stuff.. Honestly, I’m in way over my head. The scouting job isn’t about the pay. I want to be an NHL exec. This is, like, I don’t know. Not the same.” I must have sounded like a scolded child.

“What the ****, dude. I’m… What can I do to make you stay?” Eric said in almost a whisper and the words rushed out in a heavy breath.

Make. That was the word that ended it for me. I wanted to be there because I WANTED to be there, not because I was being forced. I tried to find the words. “I just don’t think there’s anything here for me. I want to be in the NHL.”

“Alright then. I guess I need everything on Thunder.” Eric sighed.

And with that I moved from Atlanta to Albany, New York and began scouting. The next time that stands out is being in Scranton, Pennsylvania on Thursday, January 8, 1998, and watching a replay of Thunder in my hotel room. I was refining my notes on a prospect I had just watched play earlier in the evening. My attention was so divided, I knew I would have to turn off the TV to get any work done. The fax back to Lou and his staff was due by midnight for filing, and I glanced at the clock. 11:43. The decision was an easy one. I put the paper back into my binder and grabbed the remote. I pushed the volume button forward and melted back into my true passion.

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The next thing I knew, a few days had passed and I was in Wyoming, waiting for Eric to pick me up. I had expected to be sitting in an old classic muscle car or even some old beat up farm truck. My heart fluttered a bit when I saw a black Lincoln Limousine parked along the pick up lane, with a driver holding a sign with the name “Saint” on it. This might be the real deal. Eric’s ****ing done it again.

stlsaint
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stlsaint Presents: WCW: The Subsidiary Jan 23, 2023 6:54:48 GMT 1 Asaemon likes this

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Post by stlsaint on Jan 23, 2023 6:54:48 GMT 1

Chapter Two: It’s Now or Never Fellas

“Hello?” I answered my phone with a confused tone. The 203 area code was not one I was familiar with when it came across the caller ID. I grabbed a stack of bills and shuffled through to see any accounts I may have forgotten to pay in the weeks around what had, to that point, been the most difficult 5 months of my life.

“Hey, pal.” answered a gruff growl. I knew the voice, but I paused, waiting for him to confirm my suspicions. “Vince McMahon. You’ve caused quite a commotion up here. Any chance I can have you in for a meeting?” Vince, as I would learn in the coming years, doesn’t usually make these calls. I have never asked why I got such an honor, but I was definitely intimidated.

“Uh. Sure.” I slowly responded. A million things going through my head. Was Vince McMahon calling me to his office to gloat? To beat me up? What had I done to cause him to call me? MY brain started replaying the past 4 months. Had I been over egregious towards Vince McMahon or WWF?

March 22nd 2001, I flew from my temporary residence in Las Vegas to New York’s LaGuardia Airport. Again, I was met with the limo treatment. Little did I know that I was travelling to the building that would be one (of several) bases of operations I would have for the next 5 years.

My mind wandered on the drive. I suddenly had a flashback to being in the limousine to Eric Bischoff’s residence in Wyoming.

--------------------------------------------

“How long?” I had asked the driver, sheepishly hoping a quick nap would be in order. I stared out the window into the cold December plains, snow littering the countryside as we passed. I was still scouting for the Devils, which was essentially a full time job and a half, and on the side was working on a business proposal of what I would do with the WCW brand and everything associated with it once it was purchased.

“It’s not too far, maybe 45 minutes.” Great, I thought, just long enough that I won’t be able to get to sleep and not long enough to dive into what had become 5-6 hour writing sessions working on the business plan. I leaned back in the seat, feeling the sweat on my back run up my dress shirt as I slouched down on the chair, horribly rounding my back. Even then, my brain shot to the moment Eric had told me, “we don’t have to wear those clown suits.” I couldn’t help but feel the grin come across my face. Everything was different now, but still I was nervous in anticipation of seeing Eric for the first time since I had dropped off the Thunder plans and rushed off to Albany 3 ½ years before. We had spoken on the phone several times, usually ending with a business proposal for me to think on.

We pulled up to the cabin, which is the best way to describe the residence Eric lived in. Don’t be mistaken, the cabin was massive, complete with a wrap around porch and a decent sized barn to the left. The driveway was the only part that wasn’t gravel. Eric was on the porch with a coffee cup. Eric grinned toward me, with that signature smile. He raised his cup and nodded. He then looked behind him, where I saw a single Red Bull can, dripping with condensation.

“I bet you didn’t sleep much, you never did before any meetings. I got you this…. You still drink this crap?” Eric shrugged toward me. I nodded and Eric tossed the can over the railing. “Come on, I’ll show you the office.”

I followed Eric through the house, gorgeous in every room, with a view of the long road back to the highway in front, fields to the left and right, and woods to the rear. Complete seclusion. Eric led me downstairs to a room with several mounted TVs, a few leather couches and two desks on opposite ends of the room, each equipped with PC computers, printers, fax machines and telephones. “Very nice, E” I said, my voice almost snapping as I hadn’t spoken the whole ride.

“Yeah, I figured we’d need a place to sit down and chat about this. Stephen and Brian are on the way.” I had researched them as well as I could. Stephen Greenberg and Brian Bedol had, as Eric explained, gained quite a bit of notoriety purchasing old NCAA football games and began shopping these around and found that ESPN was quite interested. Greenberg and Bedol had continued to buy, from local TV sports stations, colleges, etc, what had previously been thought of as unwanted footage. The two started their own television network, using solely this footage, the 24 hour-a-day Classic Sports Network. What quickly became apparent was that ESPN was showing an interest in events owned by Greenberg and Bedol, including the channel itself. Fairly quickly a deal was reached that made both very, very wealthy and filled their coffers to attempt to get into a business venture involving their real passion, wrestling.

(Brian Bedol, 1/2 of the money behind Fusient Media)

Though my time with the two was brief, what I gathered from our conversations was that during mid 1998, during the largest growth period of the wrestling boom, Bedol and Greenberg had reached out to Verne Gagne and inquired about purchasing or licensing the AWA/American Wrestling Association name to begin their own wrestling promotion. The two had gained enough trust from Gagne and his family that the two were able to license AWA footage that would accompany the footage already owned by ESPN. A deal couldn’t be reached between the two and Bedol and Greenberg were back on the hunt.

In later conversations with Paul Heyman, former Extreme Championship Wrestling owner and also a co-worked at WWF, the two approached him in early 1999 about buying into ECW. Heyman supposedly told Bedol and Greenberg that ECW was in good shape financially and that there was no need for their investment. Knowing all three, I would say that Bedol and Greenberg wouldn’t have liked to be as in the dark as Heyman would seem to keep those outside of his inner circle and Heyman would have absolutely hated having any input from anyone outside of his most trusted right-hand men.

The meeting with Eric, Greenberg, Bedol and myself felt like 10 minutes. It flew by so quickly that it felt like we hadn’t even scratched the surface. The truth was, we had met for close to 6 hours and all of us were exhausted.

That evening,I settled into a guest bedroom of Eric’s residence, with my notes and studied them carefully. Eric’s idea was based mostly around shutting down WCW for about 45-60 days and coming back with a Pay-Per-View in early May, called “The Big Bang.” This would be held at the Hard Rock Cafe’s parking lot in Las Vegas. Eric had already started securing an investor who would help turn the parking lot into a 5000 person arena, specifically designed for wrestling. The whole meeting it felt like Eric was playing chess and I was playing checkers. All of my ideas had been on the creative side and how to generate a large pie of cash influx, between t-shirt and other merchandising, mainly focusing on filming of house shows for DVD distribution.

Greenberg and Bedol were the money. They were definitely smart, but they didn’t say much during the meeting, but I could see the wheels turning. Bedol made some suggestions about what to do with WCW’s current slate of 7 hours of television per week. Greenberg was the tweaker. Greenberg took meticulous notes and I could see him rearranging Eric and my ideas, combining things with arrows and question marks. However, the last part of the meeting stuck in my mind the most.

“So I spoke with the attorneys this morning. The number seems to be 12. Is everyone good with us coming in around 9 and starting the negotiations there?” Bedol said, with his head down, staring at a tv format and tapping the corners with a highlighter.

Eric rubbed his chin slowly. “I mean it all comes down to what Turner is selling.”

“That includes all the rings, all office staff not signed directly to AOL TimeWarner- around 15 employees, several production trucks, a few cameras, and something like 22 contracted wrestlers. Obviously the rest of the contracts are all going to have to be negotiated. Our biggest contingency is the continuation and negotiation of new television contracts for the tv shows.” Greenberg rattled off, never looking down at his list.

I stared down at what I had written for the necessities for WCW:
Minimum 2 rings
Minimum 5 cameras
Office space and a “home base” team of 15-20 employees
Production team (at least 20 employees)
Merchandising
Permanent arena space
Touring plan
Booking committee or head writer in place 6 weeks in advance
Television
Announcing and referees
The list seemed to go on and on. But I thought this was going to cost significantly more than 12 million dollars.

“Maybe I’m missing something? Why is it so low?” I looked toward Greenberg.

Bedol took the question though, “I mean it’s not worth anything anymore. 6 months ago, I asked for the asking price and was told Ted would start listening at 100 million. Now that ratings have tanked and Ted doesn’t have power, AOL TimeWarner wants to sell everything and fast. It’s now or never fellas.”

I know I didn’t sleep a wink, but I was energized enough to power through another long day. We were buying WCW and my life was only going to get crazier.