Originally Posted by Hollie_Louise:
“It would have been simpler to just not accept the offer as they did though wouldn't it? If it was really just to keep Bischoff away.”
Scrap what I said. I got confused. There was a story a while back that Brad Siegel wanted WWE to get WCW and added his weight to Kellner. Turns out that was rubbish.
http://www.reddit.com/r/SquaredCircl...w_the_wwf_may/
Quote:
“ Response from Meltzer
It makes for a great story.
The Bischoff group lost some of its financing and also dropped out when Kellner made the call to cancel the shows. Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of weird things and I knew of a Pittsburgh group, a New York group (Jeff Blatnick was involved in that group believe it or not) and Jarrett, who all wanted it. Bob Meyrowitz, who started UFC, spoke to me about buying it as well, but at the time he had business problems trying to save Eyada, which went down a few months later.
Ultimately, they chose the Bischoff group because it was backed by the guys who started ESPN Classics, but Kellner hated wrestling and wanted it off the air.
The B.S. is about Nitro being TNT's highest rated show. At the time, Nitro was doing just under the station's prime time average and getting well under average for ad rates. Plus, TNT itself wanted to be a high brow station and few knew it, but TNT was going to drop wrestling ASAP before Kellner.
Thunder on TBS was also doing well below average, but the station had a wrestling tradition. The plan was to keep wrestling on the station until Kellner came. Ted Turner, who knew of wrestling's cyclical ups and downs, would have fought to keep wrestling on TBS
but he had no power.
For all the talk of other suitors, TBS trusted none of their financing except for the Bischoff group and even they lost a key backer late. They'll say otherwise, and they may be correct. But all the deals were not cash up front, but based on being paid later from future profits that sounded like $20 million and $50 million but they didn't trust getting a dime, nor did they believe any of the buyers wouldn't declare bankruptcy in quick order because the company had been destroyed economically. With WWE, they knew they'd get what was promised, and, by that time, there was nobody else in the running.
WWE was the first choice to sell, but they had exclusivity with Spike. Vince went to Spike to try and get them to waive exclusivity so he could buy WCW and keep it on TBS & TNT (although not knowing TNT would have likely dropped it). Spike said we paid $28 million per year (considered way over market value at the time) for exclusive rights, so No. Vince told him that by owning both companies it would make the value of both go up but they weren't convinced.
Once Kellner made his call, the Bischoff group was under the gun to make a new TV deal. Eric had maybe two weeks to find a new home for the product because without the deal in hand and signed, his backers weren't going to spend the money to buy it, because without TV, the company was worthless. It was almost impossible to pull off. When they backed out, there was only one suitor, WWE, who got a fire sale deal.
The Siegel convincing Kellner story was bullshit. Barnett and I were friends talking regularly during this and he knew Kellner for a long time and Kellner hated wrestling. I remember calling him when I heard of the Kellner hiring and it was, "Holy shit, I'm going to be out of work,he hates wrestling."”
