2001: The Year Professional Wrestling Died

by Stuart Carapola

When 2001 began, there were three national wrestling companies, a weekly Monday night ratings battle, and a huge, ravenous fanbase of diehard wrestling fans. By the time the year was over, there was just one national wrestling company, fan interest had waned significantly, and the ratings began a steady decline that continues to this day. What happened? How could a business that had enjoyed unprecedented success as a pop culture phenomenon in the late 90s and early 2000s have fallen so far in the span of twelve months? How did WCW and ECW, once highly regarded pro wrestling empires, become punchlines on WWE documentaries? And how did WWE, the company that did everything right during the Monday Night Wars, wind up doing everything wrong the instant they were over? 2001: The Year Professional Wrestling Died looks at how the entire wrestling industry collapsed overnight. It chronicles the deaths of both WCW and ECW, the poorly-run InVasion angle that followed, the criminal misuse of WCW and ECW's wrestlers and legacies, and the ways in which the fallout from this catastrophic time still affect WWE and the wrestling business today.

282 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 27, 2016

Reviews

[Glen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Something of a history about the end of the Monday Night wars, where WWE had almost a monopoly on the business, and what they did with it.

It's enough to make a fan's blood boil.

[Boomer · Rating 2 out of 5]

Kindle Unlimited Read

I've admittedly read quite a bit on the demise of both WCW and ECW and perhaps my expectations were too high here but this was a disappointment. It's not the deep analysis, behind the scenes look I was hoping for. Essentially this is just a recap of PPVs like WCW's Greed and WWE's WrestleMania X7 and Invasion, along with the final Nitro and a few RAW shows with a literal description of every match. In short, nothing I couldn't find on Wikipedia. There's a paragraph or so of 'analysis' at the end of each event but that doesn't add anything. Glad I got this one on Kindle Unlimited for sure.

[Amanda Rusk · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyable

The book like most from this writer are short but enjoyable. It’s a nice dive into the world of pro wrestling during the final chapters of ECW and WCW.

[Ahmed F · Rating 1 out of 5]

Thought this was going to an in-depth analysis but it's actually just recap after recap of wrestling shows from 2001 (shows and segments I can just re-watch online anyway). Waste of money.