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Nitro: The Incredible Rise and Inevitable Collapse of Ted Turner's WCW
In April 1999, Entertainment Weekly asked its readers what many Americans were surely wondering to themselves: how did wrestling get so big?
As a consequence of the heated ratings competition between World Championship Wrestling (WCW) and the World Wrestling Federation (WWF), the spectacle had taken over Monday nights on prime-time cable television. But in a departure from the family-friendly programming produced by the last industry boom - the 1980s wave, which made household names of Hulk Hogan, 'Rowdy' Roddy Piper and Andre the Giant - the new era of wrestling combined stunning athleticism with a raunchy sex appeal, engrossing story lines and novel production techniques that reflected a changing society and its shifting values.
Once again, wrestling was a ubiquitous phenomenon - only this time, it seemed as though the fad would never end. With both WCW and WWF expanding into other forms of entertainment - movies, video games, music and the like - the potential for growth appeared to be limitless.
But with uncertainty surrounding its corporate future, and increasingly uninspired programming eroding its audience, WCW stood on the verge of collapse. Three years into a five-year plan devised by its charismatic leader - a former Blue Ribbon Foods salesman named Eric Bischoff - the company whose unexpected ascension initiated the entire boom was operating on borrowed time.
For by the end of the five-year plan, WCW ceased to exist.
But NITRO is a story about much more than WCW and the Monday Night Wars. It is a story of an era, a time in which the media and cultural landscape precipitated - and later supported - pro wrestling's mainstream popularity. It is a story of how a company made in the image of an intuitively brilliant risk-taker betrayed its original promise. It is a story of how a handful of men, each struggling with their own limitations, facilitated a public obsession that changed television forever.
And so, with the inside knowledge of a journalist, the perspective of a historian, and the passion of a fan, author Guy Evans provides a fresh look at an unfortunate inevitability - the downfall of World Championship Wrestling. Bolstered by exclusive interviews with over 120 former TBS and WCW employees, NITRO is the definitive picture of the last wrestling boom.
Featuring exclusive interviews and comments from:
Eric Bischoff, fmr. President of World Championship Wrestling;
Harvey Schiller, fmr. President of Turner Sports;
Jamie Kellner, fmr. CEO of Turner Broadcasting System;
Bill Burke, fmr. President of TBS network;
Joe Uva, fmr. President of Turner Entertainment Sales and Marketing;
Scot Safon, fmr. SVP of Marketing for TNT network;
Kevin Nash, WWE Hall of Famer and 5-time WCW world champion;
Diamond Dallas Page, WWE Hall of Famer and 3-time WCW world champion; Vince Russo, fmr. WCW writer;
Marcus 'Buff' Bagwell, fmr. WCW superstar and 5-time world tag team champion; Kevin Sullivan, fmr. WCW superstar and head booker;
Hugh Morrus, fmr. WCW superstar;
Neal Pruitt, fmr. WCW Feature Producer and voice of the nWo;
David Crockett, fmr. WCW Vice President of Production;
Dick Cheatham, fmr. Group Controller for TBS;
Alan Sharp, fmr. WCW Director of Public Relations;
Mike Weber, fmr. WCW Director of Marketing;
Rob Garner, fmr. WCW Vice President of TV Programming and Sales
Jerry Jarrett, legendary wrestling promoter and booker...
And many, many, many more!
As a consequence of the heated ratings competition between World Championship Wrestling (WCW) and the World Wrestling Federation (WWF), the spectacle had taken over Monday nights on prime-time cable television. But in a departure from the family-friendly programming produced by the last industry boom - the 1980s wave, which made household names of Hulk Hogan, 'Rowdy' Roddy Piper and Andre the Giant - the new era of wrestling combined stunning athleticism with a raunchy sex appeal, engrossing story lines and novel production techniques that reflected a changing society and its shifting values.
Once again, wrestling was a ubiquitous phenomenon - only this time, it seemed as though the fad would never end. With both WCW and WWF expanding into other forms of entertainment - movies, video games, music and the like - the potential for growth appeared to be limitless.
But with uncertainty surrounding its corporate future, and increasingly uninspired programming eroding its audience, WCW stood on the verge of collapse. Three years into a five-year plan devised by its charismatic leader - a former Blue Ribbon Foods salesman named Eric Bischoff - the company whose unexpected ascension initiated the entire boom was operating on borrowed time.
For by the end of the five-year plan, WCW ceased to exist.
But NITRO is a story about much more than WCW and the Monday Night Wars. It is a story of an era, a time in which the media and cultural landscape precipitated - and later supported - pro wrestling's mainstream popularity. It is a story of how a company made in the image of an intuitively brilliant risk-taker betrayed its original promise. It is a story of how a handful of men, each struggling with their own limitations, facilitated a public obsession that changed television forever.
And so, with the inside knowledge of a journalist, the perspective of a historian, and the passion of a fan, author Guy Evans provides a fresh look at an unfortunate inevitability - the downfall of World Championship Wrestling. Bolstered by exclusive interviews with over 120 former TBS and WCW employees, NITRO is the definitive picture of the last wrestling boom.
Featuring exclusive interviews and comments from:
Eric Bischoff, fmr. President of World Championship Wrestling;
Harvey Schiller, fmr. President of Turner Sports;
Jamie Kellner, fmr. CEO of Turner Broadcasting System;
Bill Burke, fmr. President of TBS network;
Joe Uva, fmr. President of Turner Entertainment Sales and Marketing;
Scot Safon, fmr. SVP of Marketing for TNT network;
Kevin Nash, WWE Hall of Famer and 5-time WCW world champion;
Diamond Dallas Page, WWE Hall of Famer and 3-time WCW world champion; Vince Russo, fmr. WCW writer;
Marcus 'Buff' Bagwell, fmr. WCW superstar and 5-time world tag team champion; Kevin Sullivan, fmr. WCW superstar and head booker;
Hugh Morrus, fmr. WCW superstar;
Neal Pruitt, fmr. WCW Feature Producer and voice of the nWo;
David Crockett, fmr. WCW Vice President of Production;
Dick Cheatham, fmr. Group Controller for TBS;
Alan Sharp, fmr. WCW Director of Public Relations;
Mike Weber, fmr. WCW Director of Marketing;
Rob Garner, fmr. WCW Vice President of TV Programming and Sales
Jerry Jarrett, legendary wrestling promoter and booker...
And many, many, many more!
542 pages, Hardcover
First published July 11, 2018
658 people are currently reading
1378 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 188 reviews
January 15, 2019
Since the fall of WCW and the end of WWE’s Attitude Era there have been countless books, podcasts, documentaries and shoot interviews (interviews with wrestlers out of character) about the last great boom period in professional wrestling. With his book NITRO, author Guy Evans enters an already crowded marketplace. Did he succeed in his goal of putting together what he considers the most comprehensive look at the rise and fall of Ted Turner’s World Championship Wrestling?
Yes. Absolutely.
What sets Guy’s story apart from his contemporaries is in his tireless effort to track down and interview many of the former Turner executives that surrounded WCW during this period rather than purely focusing on only the creative teams and the company’s on-screen performers. Given the wealth of material out there, he had to know he would need to bring something different to the table - so a heavy focus on the corporate of the story rather than the hopelessly inept product. One of the more interesting things to come from the interviews is that during WCWs rise from mid-1996 through to a crescendo in December 1997, Turner executives wanted no part of wrestling on their networks. If not for Ted Turner himself, it’s unlikely WCW would have seen the level of success it did.
Interviews aside, Evans had access to format and run sheets (basically the time stamps/summaries for events within the body of the show), scripts, internal emails, contracts and behind-the-scenes photos. This is pretty comprehensive stuff. He even talked to folks who worked on the WCW/nWo: Revenge video game for the Nintendo 64! You name it, Guy covers it.
One of the criticisms of the book that I had seen regarded Guy’s neutral stance when it came to some of the more questionable quotes he received from interviewees. I don’t really see a problem with that decision as you can leave those quotes as they are and let your audience come to their own conclusions based on information that is already out there. Eric Bischoff can be overly defensive when it comes to many of the problematic decisions he made as WCW boss and pointing that out to Bischoff is not going to change that. We’re over twenty years removed from the botched Hogan/Sting match at Starrcade ‘97 - I don’t think Eric cares to discuss that anymore. He even goes so far as to say, “people can believe me or not, I don’t give a shit.”
Without a doubt, Guy Evans’ NITRO is one of those special books about the wrestling industry that rarely comes around - in fact, I would go so far as to say this is one of the best wrestling books ever written. In a marketplace flooded with biographies, memoirs and retrospectives, it’s hard to stand out but the amount of work put into this book is second to none which helps put it in a class of its own.
Yes. Absolutely.
What sets Guy’s story apart from his contemporaries is in his tireless effort to track down and interview many of the former Turner executives that surrounded WCW during this period rather than purely focusing on only the creative teams and the company’s on-screen performers. Given the wealth of material out there, he had to know he would need to bring something different to the table - so a heavy focus on the corporate of the story rather than the hopelessly inept product. One of the more interesting things to come from the interviews is that during WCWs rise from mid-1996 through to a crescendo in December 1997, Turner executives wanted no part of wrestling on their networks. If not for Ted Turner himself, it’s unlikely WCW would have seen the level of success it did.
Interviews aside, Evans had access to format and run sheets (basically the time stamps/summaries for events within the body of the show), scripts, internal emails, contracts and behind-the-scenes photos. This is pretty comprehensive stuff. He even talked to folks who worked on the WCW/nWo: Revenge video game for the Nintendo 64! You name it, Guy covers it.
One of the criticisms of the book that I had seen regarded Guy’s neutral stance when it came to some of the more questionable quotes he received from interviewees. I don’t really see a problem with that decision as you can leave those quotes as they are and let your audience come to their own conclusions based on information that is already out there. Eric Bischoff can be overly defensive when it comes to many of the problematic decisions he made as WCW boss and pointing that out to Bischoff is not going to change that. We’re over twenty years removed from the botched Hogan/Sting match at Starrcade ‘97 - I don’t think Eric cares to discuss that anymore. He even goes so far as to say, “people can believe me or not, I don’t give a shit.”
Without a doubt, Guy Evans’ NITRO is one of those special books about the wrestling industry that rarely comes around - in fact, I would go so far as to say this is one of the best wrestling books ever written. In a marketplace flooded with biographies, memoirs and retrospectives, it’s hard to stand out but the amount of work put into this book is second to none which helps put it in a class of its own.
September 24, 2020
This might possibly be the greatest book on the subject of wrestling that I have ever read, and I’ve read a ton over the years. If you thought you knew everything that went down with WCW, you’re wrong, unless of course you’ve read this book. There is so much information in this book that I’ve never seen anywhere else and how deep it goes into everything that transpired with the death of WCW, it’s pretty safe to say that this book is the final word on this period of wrestling history. Superb read!
December 30, 2020
An exhaustively researched "business history" of NITRO. Never has so much work, undertaken as a labor of love, gone into such a project...the book is nearly 600 pages long, and about 75% is a combination of wrestlers and Turner executives/production people speaking on the record. Everyone knows "The Death of WCW" as the book that helped launch the "indie wrestling book" phenomenon, but this book is something else entirely...not so much funny/critical as even-handed and detailed.
April 2, 2020
A thoroughly enjoyable read, I have read several books about WCW and WWF during the times of the 'Monday Nights War'. This book was very interesting analysing WCW from a business standpoint as part of Turner.
A book that is a history of the company of WCW as opposed to the wrestling, it is mentioned how the angles worked and thrived and bombed but this isnt a book about the wrestling.
It was very interesting and I would happily read this again and I gleaned a lot of things I never knew or realised. If WCW had a filter and were more astute they would have lived and survived longer.
I never had cable during the wars so I didnt see much of WCW but I always loved watching their WCW Worldwide on Channel 5 growing up in the UK.
This book is well worth reading and I'm sure fans of wrestling would love it.
A book that is a history of the company of WCW as opposed to the wrestling, it is mentioned how the angles worked and thrived and bombed but this isnt a book about the wrestling.
It was very interesting and I would happily read this again and I gleaned a lot of things I never knew or realised. If WCW had a filter and were more astute they would have lived and survived longer.
I never had cable during the wars so I didnt see much of WCW but I always loved watching their WCW Worldwide on Channel 5 growing up in the UK.
This book is well worth reading and I'm sure fans of wrestling would love it.
June 26, 2020
Hands down thee best wrestling book I've ever read. I know this book is called Nitro so you don't need to be a genius to see its based around the WCW side of the story but the depth of information in this book really does paint a glowing picture of the situation on both sides. I like how the book isn't just quick to point out the things we already know and is impartial. I've been a wrestling fan for 30 years and there were things I found in this book that I knew nothing about and things that I thought I knew pretty much certain and after years (decades) it'd proven not to be true. The book is almost 700 pages long but I'd do it all over again. Absolutely incredible.
March 11, 2021
Nitro is the story of the creation of Monday Nitro, the spark that set the Monday Night Wars ablaze, and its downfall.
As I've said before, I'm a wrestling fan from way back. Some of my earliest memories are of watching Wrestling at the Chase on Sunday mornings after church with my dad. Aside from the occasional indie show within a reasonable driving distance, I don't watch wrestling anymore but I'm up for pretty much any wrestling book that comes along so I was glad when my wife nabbed this one for me.
I was never a huge WCW fan when I was young. Even though the in-ring action was frequently better than the WWF's, the production always looked bush league and half assed to me. When Nitro premiered, I was skeptical but pleasantly surprised.
Anyway, this book deals with the creation of Nitro, the weeks it beat WWF in the ratings, and everything in the downward spiral after that. A lot of it has already been told in documentaries and other books. This one has statements from prominent people who were involved and paints a picture of constant chaos and backstabbing behind the scenes.
That's all well and good but this is a long ass book and a lot of it deals with behind the scenes dealings at Turner. I like the business side of wrestling but this is the business side of the business side of wrestling and I didn't find the corporate stuff terribly interesting. Part of it may be that I spend my working hours in a corporate setting and don't much care to read about meetings where they discuss wrestling using inane buzzwords.
Another part of my dislike for this book was the timing. We're so far removed from the death of WCW that most of the stories have already been told over and over. Nitro adds some wrinkles but I would have been more interested ten or fifteen years ago, when the wounds were still fresh. By the end, it was like being at my high school reunion for longer than I planned on and just wanting to go home.
All that being said, I did enjoy the wrestling bits quite a bit and the downfall of Vince Russo was enjoyable / infurating. Infuriating because an asshat was given the golden ticket and proceed to wipe his ass with it and enjoyable because he failed so spectacularly. WCW fans didn't want the WWF. That's why they were WCW fans. If the suits would have grasped that, WCW might still be around today. Bischoff is also a sleaze but at least he had some grasp of what wrestling fans wanted.
Even though it's a decade and a half past it's expiration date, I still found Nitro to be a pretty good read. Three out of five stars.
As I've said before, I'm a wrestling fan from way back. Some of my earliest memories are of watching Wrestling at the Chase on Sunday mornings after church with my dad. Aside from the occasional indie show within a reasonable driving distance, I don't watch wrestling anymore but I'm up for pretty much any wrestling book that comes along so I was glad when my wife nabbed this one for me.
I was never a huge WCW fan when I was young. Even though the in-ring action was frequently better than the WWF's, the production always looked bush league and half assed to me. When Nitro premiered, I was skeptical but pleasantly surprised.
Anyway, this book deals with the creation of Nitro, the weeks it beat WWF in the ratings, and everything in the downward spiral after that. A lot of it has already been told in documentaries and other books. This one has statements from prominent people who were involved and paints a picture of constant chaos and backstabbing behind the scenes.
That's all well and good but this is a long ass book and a lot of it deals with behind the scenes dealings at Turner. I like the business side of wrestling but this is the business side of the business side of wrestling and I didn't find the corporate stuff terribly interesting. Part of it may be that I spend my working hours in a corporate setting and don't much care to read about meetings where they discuss wrestling using inane buzzwords.
Another part of my dislike for this book was the timing. We're so far removed from the death of WCW that most of the stories have already been told over and over. Nitro adds some wrinkles but I would have been more interested ten or fifteen years ago, when the wounds were still fresh. By the end, it was like being at my high school reunion for longer than I planned on and just wanting to go home.
All that being said, I did enjoy the wrestling bits quite a bit and the downfall of Vince Russo was enjoyable / infurating. Infuriating because an asshat was given the golden ticket and proceed to wipe his ass with it and enjoyable because he failed so spectacularly. WCW fans didn't want the WWF. That's why they were WCW fans. If the suits would have grasped that, WCW might still be around today. Bischoff is also a sleaze but at least he had some grasp of what wrestling fans wanted.
Even though it's a decade and a half past it's expiration date, I still found Nitro to be a pretty good read. Three out of five stars.
August 22, 2018
When I first saw that this book was coming out, my initial response was "Why?" This subject seemed like it was exhaustively covered in Death of WCW, a book I've read 4 times and know well. However, author Guy Evans has done a remarkable job in creating a new history of WCW that is in some ways even more thorough than its predecessor. There are plenty of stories in this book that even the most impassioned wrestling fan will not have heard before or know in their entirety.
Evans talks to a vast number of corporate employees from Turner and WCW to bring in fresh perspectives. My personal favorite was an accountant named Dick Cheatham, who is a quote machine and has some hilarious anecdotes. I really can't understate how entertaining this book is if you're a wrestling fan. I think I laughed more reading it than any other book.
One of the big strengths of this book is also its main weakness: the amount of access to Eric Bischoff. While having so many quotes from Bischoff is clearly a valuable get, Evans is far too reluctant to take Bischoff to task in the book for anything. It appears that Evans’s approach is simply to narrate events and then provide quotes from multiple viewpoints in order to let the reader decide. This attempt at neutrality creates an unintended imbalance on many issues though, and lets people off the hook far too easily.
For example, Evans offers one tepid sentence saying that “The Fingerpoke of Doom… combined with Goldberg’s loss to Nash at Starrcade – have often been cited as two significant errors in WCW’s booking.” He then follows this up with a six paragraph response from Bischoff about how neither of those things were all that bad in the long run, and then a two paragraph response from Kevin Nash where he makes the laughably absurd claim that ending Goldberg’s 173 win streak did not benefit him. After this, we get a few quotes from random office executives like the WCW Director of Marketing and the WCW controller about how Goldberg was very popular and maybe it wasn’t the right move, but their arguments are far less vehement than Bischoff’s or Nash’s. In my view, anyone doing a serious analysis of the end of WCW should be taking more of a stance and not simply providing a pile of quotes, especially when some of the quotes contain highly questionable positions.
Overall this is an amazing accomplishment by Evans, that even the most knowledgeable WCW fans will find new information in, and it should serve as a gold mine for wrestling retrospective podcasts in years to come.
Evans talks to a vast number of corporate employees from Turner and WCW to bring in fresh perspectives. My personal favorite was an accountant named Dick Cheatham, who is a quote machine and has some hilarious anecdotes. I really can't understate how entertaining this book is if you're a wrestling fan. I think I laughed more reading it than any other book.
One of the big strengths of this book is also its main weakness: the amount of access to Eric Bischoff. While having so many quotes from Bischoff is clearly a valuable get, Evans is far too reluctant to take Bischoff to task in the book for anything. It appears that Evans’s approach is simply to narrate events and then provide quotes from multiple viewpoints in order to let the reader decide. This attempt at neutrality creates an unintended imbalance on many issues though, and lets people off the hook far too easily.
For example, Evans offers one tepid sentence saying that “The Fingerpoke of Doom… combined with Goldberg’s loss to Nash at Starrcade – have often been cited as two significant errors in WCW’s booking.” He then follows this up with a six paragraph response from Bischoff about how neither of those things were all that bad in the long run, and then a two paragraph response from Kevin Nash where he makes the laughably absurd claim that ending Goldberg’s 173 win streak did not benefit him. After this, we get a few quotes from random office executives like the WCW Director of Marketing and the WCW controller about how Goldberg was very popular and maybe it wasn’t the right move, but their arguments are far less vehement than Bischoff’s or Nash’s. In my view, anyone doing a serious analysis of the end of WCW should be taking more of a stance and not simply providing a pile of quotes, especially when some of the quotes contain highly questionable positions.
Overall this is an amazing accomplishment by Evans, that even the most knowledgeable WCW fans will find new information in, and it should serve as a gold mine for wrestling retrospective podcasts in years to come.
October 16, 2018
This review will be quick.
This book is a MUST READ if you are or have been a wrestling fan in your life!
This book is a MUST READ if you are or have been a wrestling fan in your life!
March 20, 2024
Nitro is a fantastic, almost essential, look at WCW and it’s rise and fall. What’s so great about this is that you get a beginning to end narrative of the promotion- from its early years struggling under the banner of Turner, to its heyday with the NWO, to its dramatic and unprecedented fall. It’s truly a crazy story, and I’d recommend it to any wrestling fan.
April 26, 2020
"Who gives a fuck about KISS?"
Man, well said. If only someone in charge would have realized that 20 some years ago.
I don't know about you, but I'm always a bit suspicious when one of the glowing endorsements for the book is the main subject of the book. Overall, I kind of feel like Eric Bischoff got off easy. On one hand, yes, he's responsible for bringing wrestling back to mainstream relevance, but man, did that guy have a lot of awful booking ideas and poor financial planning.
A few things I was hoping would earn some discussion:
Ultimate Warrior's atrocious run is covered essentially in a few sentences. No word on Lanny Poffo making hundreds of thousands of dollars to not show up a single time. Nothing on how insanely overpaid Rick Steiner was, how absurd it was to give a karate instructor with zero experience a cushy gig, nothing on the insanity of The Kiss Demon experience essentially losing millions (with a live KISS performance that completely tanked in the ratings) and being featured in bizarre mid-show "main events" due to an insane contract. A Sub-Zero knockoff with months of vignettes behind him didn't earn a single word. Judy Bagwell got a big bowl of nothing. And Chucky trying to fight Rick Steiner is also nowhere to be found.
Was Rick Steiner the secret editor?!
But what is given a few pages worth of discussion? Jeremy Borash's online show. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Basically, those angles stunk worse than The Giant's singlet. It wasn't Standards and Practices that brought down WCW, as the company was drawing decent ratings in a PG-type format for a couple years prior to the boom.
The book also never addresses the simple fact that if WCW wasn't losing tens of millions and was still drawing in even the 3.0s that they likely wouldn't have been cancelled (or at least Nitro would have been shipped off to just TBS). The point seems to be more long the lines that once Time Warner/AOL merged it was only a matter of time. At the end of the day, I just don't buy it! And if I'm wrong, may I never get to witness the glory of the Alex Wright dance again.
Basically, incredibly well researched, a fun read, but with some odd oversights.
Man, well said. If only someone in charge would have realized that 20 some years ago.
I don't know about you, but I'm always a bit suspicious when one of the glowing endorsements for the book is the main subject of the book. Overall, I kind of feel like Eric Bischoff got off easy. On one hand, yes, he's responsible for bringing wrestling back to mainstream relevance, but man, did that guy have a lot of awful booking ideas and poor financial planning.
A few things I was hoping would earn some discussion:
Ultimate Warrior's atrocious run is covered essentially in a few sentences. No word on Lanny Poffo making hundreds of thousands of dollars to not show up a single time. Nothing on how insanely overpaid Rick Steiner was, how absurd it was to give a karate instructor with zero experience a cushy gig, nothing on the insanity of The Kiss Demon experience essentially losing millions (with a live KISS performance that completely tanked in the ratings) and being featured in bizarre mid-show "main events" due to an insane contract. A Sub-Zero knockoff with months of vignettes behind him didn't earn a single word. Judy Bagwell got a big bowl of nothing. And Chucky trying to fight Rick Steiner is also nowhere to be found.
Was Rick Steiner the secret editor?!
But what is given a few pages worth of discussion? Jeremy Borash's online show. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Basically, those angles stunk worse than The Giant's singlet. It wasn't Standards and Practices that brought down WCW, as the company was drawing decent ratings in a PG-type format for a couple years prior to the boom.
The book also never addresses the simple fact that if WCW wasn't losing tens of millions and was still drawing in even the 3.0s that they likely wouldn't have been cancelled (or at least Nitro would have been shipped off to just TBS). The point seems to be more long the lines that once Time Warner/AOL merged it was only a matter of time. At the end of the day, I just don't buy it! And if I'm wrong, may I never get to witness the glory of the Alex Wright dance again.
Basically, incredibly well researched, a fun read, but with some odd oversights.
April 9, 2019
The book was great! There was so much details, in what went on behind the scenes. I learn so much that i didn't know.
December 3, 2023
It's very hard to sell wrestling fans on yet another retreading of WCW's demise, but Nitro is definitely worth a look regardless. In particular, the examination of the Turner network relationship via copious amounts of interviews is very interesting, and something not typically covered in wrestling outlets.
August 19, 2025
This is THE wrestling book. I absolutely love Death of WCW and have read it many times but the sheer amount of research, interviews and genuinely incredible insights in this book make it probably the greatest account of any wrestling company in history.
Evans is an immensely skilled writer, balancing wrestling angles, backstage politics and business decisions to not just detail WCW's rise and fall, but thoroughly explain why all the key players made the decisions they did. I learned so many things from this book that I never knew before. The Hall & Nash lawsuit, the AOL/Time Warner merger, the final sale of WCW to the WWF, all are covered in staggering levels of detail with relevant quotes. There's interviews with the WCW game designers in here, ffs.
This book won't be for everyone, and if you want a more readable, humorous retelling of the WCW saga with more focus on angles and TV, read Death of WCW. But this book will surely satisfy anyone with a deep interest in how wrestling companies are ran, how TV stations choose to market them, and how egos and outsider ignorance can destroy everything as quickly as it was built. 5/5
Evans is an immensely skilled writer, balancing wrestling angles, backstage politics and business decisions to not just detail WCW's rise and fall, but thoroughly explain why all the key players made the decisions they did. I learned so many things from this book that I never knew before. The Hall & Nash lawsuit, the AOL/Time Warner merger, the final sale of WCW to the WWF, all are covered in staggering levels of detail with relevant quotes. There's interviews with the WCW game designers in here, ffs.
This book won't be for everyone, and if you want a more readable, humorous retelling of the WCW saga with more focus on angles and TV, read Death of WCW. But this book will surely satisfy anyone with a deep interest in how wrestling companies are ran, how TV stations choose to market them, and how egos and outsider ignorance can destroy everything as quickly as it was built. 5/5
August 12, 2018
This is an essential read for anyone interested in the history of professional wrestling's Monday Night Wars (and media geeks in general). The author clearly put years of time and effort into putting this volume together and it shows. Evans' work is well-researched and the interviews with Turner/Time Warner brass are quite revealing. It sometimes feels like the narrative of WCW has been in somewhat of a mocking tone since 2001, so it's good to have this "inside baseball" view on things.
My only complaint is that some of the information repeats itself later in the book, but I can understand how repeating that information helps the narrative along. This is a long, dense volume that's well worth the time. If you enjoyed RD Reynolds and Bryan Alvarez's "The Death of WCW," definitely check this one out for a less jovial view on things.
My only complaint is that some of the information repeats itself later in the book, but I can understand how repeating that information helps the narrative along. This is a long, dense volume that's well worth the time. If you enjoyed RD Reynolds and Bryan Alvarez's "The Death of WCW," definitely check this one out for a less jovial view on things.
September 29, 2024
A very approachable and comprehensive coverage of the rise and fall of WCW focusing on the Monday Night Wars.
The writing style is engaging and ordered logically.
The writer does meander, into different areas behind the scenes during some chapters, but that only enhanced the overall experience and did not detract or feel like it should be cut. This is his way of adding how they did accounting or had trouble actually getting people to sponsor adds.
The ratings are sky high, young men are wearing the merch and wrestling is the most main stream it has ever been. Now lets talk about one of the many ways they failed to or could not capitalize on it.
Weirdly Hogan Suing the company and Russo is left out of the book . The events that lead up to it detailed, but then strangely this is completely absent. From those moments Hogan is conspiciously absent. It feels like costing the company millions would be useful information on why Russo was permanently sidelined and also was like the final push to get rid of WCW.
That said this is the definitive guide to WCW Nitro.
The writing style is engaging and ordered logically.
The writer does meander, into different areas behind the scenes during some chapters, but that only enhanced the overall experience and did not detract or feel like it should be cut. This is his way of adding how they did accounting or had trouble actually getting people to sponsor adds.
The ratings are sky high, young men are wearing the merch and wrestling is the most main stream it has ever been. Now lets talk about one of the many ways they failed to or could not capitalize on it.
Weirdly Hogan Suing the company and Russo is left out of the book . The events that lead up to it detailed, but then strangely this is completely absent. From those moments Hogan is conspiciously absent. It feels like costing the company millions would be useful information on why Russo was permanently sidelined and also was like the final push to get rid of WCW.
That said this is the definitive guide to WCW Nitro.
June 18, 2020
I gave this book 1 star only because zero stars isn’t an option. Don’t be fooled by the cover, this is NOT a book about Nitro. This is NOT a book about the Monday Night Wars. This is NOT a book about wrestling. This is a book about how to mismanage and sabotage a company making millions of dollars a year. If you grew up watching wrestling and lived through the Monday Night Wars and want to relive some of that nostalgia I’d suggest reading the Death of WCW. A few major moments that helped the rise and bring the fall inside the ring and backstage are mentioned but almost no background or follow up is given. I listened to the audiobook and found myself upping the speed over and over just so I could get through it
June 29, 2020
Benefits from its focus on the TV-side of the WCW business with an emphasis on the latter. In other words this is NOT a history of the Monday Night Wars, though of course they play a part. Nor is it a history of either the televised angles or the backstage machinations of the Nitro era, though again they are not ignored. But the overall framework that WCW was first and foremost a business that struggled to address and accommodate the unusual nature of its product’s rise and then fall in prominence is fascinating in its own way. I actually think it may be more interesting to business and media readers in that way, then wrestling fans.
November 3, 2022
4 1/2 Stars. This book is very well researched, it objectively covers the experiences and views of major figures within Turner Broadcasting, WCW, and WWF/WWE. This is an excellent case study of the difficulties of blindly the business of professional wrestling with the traditional corporate culture of Time Warner. Was the amazing 2-years of WCW success due to WWF distraction from a Federal trial? Savvy leadership & promotion? And why did WCW end with a whimper? Guy Evans examines these questions.
May 22, 2022
Was fun to revisit this time period and hear in detail about the behind the scenes and corporate shenanigans that brought on the downfall of my favorite show growing up.
October 6, 2023
This was an enjoyable read!! Takes me back to yesteryear and the insanity of the Monday Night Wars. Recommended for wrasslin' fans of old :)
March 31, 2021
This was available with Amazon Unlimited so I thought "maybe I'll spend a few minutes poking through this." A couple of days later, I was done with it. This is well covered territory, but read like a contemporary current story. Really enjoyed the trip back in time.
December 19, 2025
A fascinating look at the rise and fall of WCW Nitro, complete with fantastic ancedotes and a good range of sources.
I have to admit, I found a lot of the AOL/Time Warner merger and TV rating details hard reading but I appreciate that the information is there, it's an important part of the story.
I have to admit, I found a lot of the AOL/Time Warner merger and TV rating details hard reading but I appreciate that the information is there, it's an important part of the story.
April 24, 2025
Incredibly funny in the audiobook he only deviates from his regular voice to do a dusty impression inconsistently
May 29, 2023
A more deeply researched and more incisive account of the demise of WCW than the previous standard-bearer of the genre, Bryan Alvarez & R.D. Reynolds' 2005 The Death of WCW.
Since professional wrestling as a business is predicated on deceiving, conning, and lying to the public (or "working" in the parlance) one has to be very leery of accepting any post-mortem accounts from that cohort at face-value. Of course, people who have been smart to the business for decades will not be surprised by much of what's described: Eric Bischoff's titanic ego and sleazy salesman persona, Vince Russo's delusional paranoid incompetence, the backstage politicking among the wrestlers, and so on.
But what's most essential about Guy Evans' Nitro is the attention he gives to the maneuverings within the corporate structure of, in succession, Turner Broadcasting, Time-Warner, and the merged AOL/Time-Warner. Once Ted Turner was no longer in a position to insist on WCW's place on television and to protect it, its days were numbered, as most of the executives in those corporate entities were embarrassed by the product and thought its viewers were "downscale". Unfortunately, this perception was shared by potential advertisers, and the consistent difficulty of attracting premium ad rates even while Nitro was setting cable Nielsen records was in retrospect a recurring ominous bit of foreshadowing.
In general, I'm not a fan of the modern trend of offering "trigger warnings," but anyone who was a devoted fan of Jim Crockett Promotions/NWA/WCW programming and watched Nitro all the way through to the bitter end in March of 2001 would do well to steel themselves before reading this book. As bad and traumatizing as the Vince Russo Era was back in 1999-2000, the passage of time has made it so, so, so much worse, and reading even a summary recounting of those events (both onscreen and backstage) is to be reminded of some fundamental malignance that nestles within the bosom of reality. You have been warned.
Since professional wrestling as a business is predicated on deceiving, conning, and lying to the public (or "working" in the parlance) one has to be very leery of accepting any post-mortem accounts from that cohort at face-value. Of course, people who have been smart to the business for decades will not be surprised by much of what's described: Eric Bischoff's titanic ego and sleazy salesman persona, Vince Russo's delusional paranoid incompetence, the backstage politicking among the wrestlers, and so on.
But what's most essential about Guy Evans' Nitro is the attention he gives to the maneuverings within the corporate structure of, in succession, Turner Broadcasting, Time-Warner, and the merged AOL/Time-Warner. Once Ted Turner was no longer in a position to insist on WCW's place on television and to protect it, its days were numbered, as most of the executives in those corporate entities were embarrassed by the product and thought its viewers were "downscale". Unfortunately, this perception was shared by potential advertisers, and the consistent difficulty of attracting premium ad rates even while Nitro was setting cable Nielsen records was in retrospect a recurring ominous bit of foreshadowing.
In general, I'm not a fan of the modern trend of offering "trigger warnings," but anyone who was a devoted fan of Jim Crockett Promotions/NWA/WCW programming and watched Nitro all the way through to the bitter end in March of 2001 would do well to steel themselves before reading this book. As bad and traumatizing as the Vince Russo Era was back in 1999-2000, the passage of time has made it so, so, so much worse, and reading even a summary recounting of those events (both onscreen and backstage) is to be reminded of some fundamental malignance that nestles within the bosom of reality. You have been warned.
May 4, 2023
Great Material Hampered by Poor Organization.
This book is a great resource for anyone interested in the business side of wrestling. From TV ratings, PPV buys, and financial figures, it's all the "inside baseball" you could ask for in terms for how a company was run, without being employed by it. This is a great book for the wrestling historian.
However, how all this information is layed out and presented to the reader is a little more than underwhelming and not always given in the most straightforward way.
This is underscored by the fact that the author on occasion likes to dabble in and out of a loose story driven narrative, complete with giving people in his book a novelisation as "characters" at certain points. This would be okay if it was written in that format throughout, but the book switches constantly between a historical account of how the company evolved, a narrative of the people involved, and the retrospectives of the many personalities and players on both the corporate side and wrestling side of things. All these parts are great by themselves, but the author doesn't do a good job merging all of them together.
The parts that are interesting will really suck you in and you will want you to read more. Though it can be a slog to get through parts where there are long quotes, or multiple topics covered in one chapter that don't entirely relate to each other.
Overall, it's a good book to keep on hand, but not one to read in an afternoon.
This book is a great resource for anyone interested in the business side of wrestling. From TV ratings, PPV buys, and financial figures, it's all the "inside baseball" you could ask for in terms for how a company was run, without being employed by it. This is a great book for the wrestling historian.
However, how all this information is layed out and presented to the reader is a little more than underwhelming and not always given in the most straightforward way.
This is underscored by the fact that the author on occasion likes to dabble in and out of a loose story driven narrative, complete with giving people in his book a novelisation as "characters" at certain points. This would be okay if it was written in that format throughout, but the book switches constantly between a historical account of how the company evolved, a narrative of the people involved, and the retrospectives of the many personalities and players on both the corporate side and wrestling side of things. All these parts are great by themselves, but the author doesn't do a good job merging all of them together.
The parts that are interesting will really suck you in and you will want you to read more. Though it can be a slog to get through parts where there are long quotes, or multiple topics covered in one chapter that don't entirely relate to each other.
Overall, it's a good book to keep on hand, but not one to read in an afternoon.
September 7, 2022
Just want to say this is a great book it really is. It doesn’t touch on things you don’t already know if you’re a wrestling fan, but with that out of the way there is 1 annoying constant throughout the book.
In literally every paragraph the author issues brackets when quoting people. Example being someone saying they work at Turner (broadcasting) or referring to Eric (Bischoff) or when Hulk (Hogan) came to WCW (World Championship Wrestling). The book does this constantly and it’s really not needed. Also the author explains all the wrestling jargon such as blade, heat, heel, botch and so on. I don’t think this is needed as anyone that’s picked up this book knows all of those terms, this isn’t a book you’d randomly pick up. A couple of nit picky things I know but other than that a solid look at one of the best periods for pro wrestling.
In literally every paragraph the author issues brackets when quoting people. Example being someone saying they work at Turner (broadcasting) or referring to Eric (Bischoff) or when Hulk (Hogan) came to WCW (World Championship Wrestling). The book does this constantly and it’s really not needed. Also the author explains all the wrestling jargon such as blade, heat, heel, botch and so on. I don’t think this is needed as anyone that’s picked up this book knows all of those terms, this isn’t a book you’d randomly pick up. A couple of nit picky things I know but other than that a solid look at one of the best periods for pro wrestling.
July 6, 2019
While not quite as entertaining or character-centric as "The Death of WCW", "Nitro" manages to suck in the reader with numerous after-the-fact interviews from not only wrestlers and bookers, but from the "suits" in charge. "Nitro" serves as a great reminder that in the world of professional wrestling/sports entertainment, few things are as bizarre as the truth, and the truth of how this once dominant company collapsed likely couldn't be written by the best wrestling writers alive.
February 7, 2024
I generally enjoyed this book but it definitely had its moments that really got lost in the weeds of business-Ted-Turner-talk that just bored me to tears. I recall getting about 2/3 of the way through and just kinda being ready for the book to end. It could probably be 100-150 pages shorter and still get the point across.
April 30, 2023
starts well but the second half is dominated by the business side of things -not my area of interest. However on the whole this is an interesting and thorough look at WCW
September 18, 2023
As is almost always the case, wrestling books are graded on a death-defyingly steep curve. Nitro is a really interesting and daunting project, and it I think fails its premise, but is still valuable as something really different. It focuses a lot on the corporate dealings of Ted Turner's company and the AOL-Time Warner merger. But a) that stuff is generally pretty boring and b) it doesn't go far enough into it to contort it into something interesting. Relies on too many bland and repetitive quotes from those willing to participate. The tidbits about Ted Turner's life and character were really interesting, and since the book has "Ted Turner" in the title, you would have expected a lot more biography on Turner himself. This book really could have been 1,000 pgs, which is ridiculous, but at the same time, I read this, a 566 pg. wrestling book, in a little over a week. So what are we quibbling over?
The wrestling stuff is all old-hat at this point. The Monday Night Wars have been covered. And, really, I read wrestling books to get the gossip, the dirt, the lies, the in-fighting, the insane stories, and Nitro has a decent amount of that stuff, but not nearly enough to make this one of the all-time wrestling books. I give it four stars for just how much it crams in. The Vince Russo section in the last 150 pgs. or so is the best by far.
I'd say this is better than Bryan Alvarez's The Death of WCW, the other definitive WCW book, because that book deals way too much in TV ratings and PPV buy-rates (I know wrestling was always obsessed with these figures, but it is so boring to read about), but then again, this isn't about the whole of WCW. It covers the Monday Night Wars (1997-1999) thoroughly to the bitter end. It doesn't actually cover WCW or even the Nitro beginnings in much depth. Ric Flair is barely mentioned in this book, and he isn't quoted much beyond a promo transcript, and he's Ric Flair. He is WCW. Nitro is lacking in a lot of key areas, but again, as a wrestling book, and as something different trying to cover the business and TV side of things from a bygone era (cable TV, wrestling's mainstream hayday, the WCW/WWF battles), it is worth a read for those freakish readers who are like me.
The wrestling stuff is all old-hat at this point. The Monday Night Wars have been covered. And, really, I read wrestling books to get the gossip, the dirt, the lies, the in-fighting, the insane stories, and Nitro has a decent amount of that stuff, but not nearly enough to make this one of the all-time wrestling books. I give it four stars for just how much it crams in. The Vince Russo section in the last 150 pgs. or so is the best by far.
I'd say this is better than Bryan Alvarez's The Death of WCW, the other definitive WCW book, because that book deals way too much in TV ratings and PPV buy-rates (I know wrestling was always obsessed with these figures, but it is so boring to read about), but then again, this isn't about the whole of WCW. It covers the Monday Night Wars (1997-1999) thoroughly to the bitter end. It doesn't actually cover WCW or even the Nitro beginnings in much depth. Ric Flair is barely mentioned in this book, and he isn't quoted much beyond a promo transcript, and he's Ric Flair. He is WCW. Nitro is lacking in a lot of key areas, but again, as a wrestling book, and as something different trying to cover the business and TV side of things from a bygone era (cable TV, wrestling's mainstream hayday, the WCW/WWF battles), it is worth a read for those freakish readers who are like me.
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