If U Could Erase 1 Person From Wrestling History...?

Vince Russo

Vince Russo, without him Owen Hart wouldn't have become the Blue Blazer again so he wouldn't have been up in the scaffolds, without Russo trhere would be no Ed Ferrara so that means no disgusting Oklahoma character, also without Russo WCW's PPV business would not have been destroyed which means the company may have survived, without Russo TNA wouldn't have been constantly losing money on PPV whilst barely getting any talent over because of his idiocy so TNA could have been something special, the WWE's rise in the late 90's would have still happened most likely because the shit getting over wasn't Russo's it was the talents ability and Vince's direction, Vince said push Austin, Vince said push Rock, push Foley and so on, we probably wouldn't have been subjected to Sable's push without Russo so there's that also.

Stephanie McMahon

Honestly, HHH's marrying into the fam could be seen as the beginning of the end. Even though tv overall is doa, WWE started cracking its whip around way too much.

Someone else would be running the big national wrestling company, most likely thing is everything would have gone the same way, the territories were going down regardless of Vince due to the advancement of TV, national TV wrestling was coming one way or another and that meant the territories would try competing with each other and a lot of them were a lot less friendly than Vince, Vince's idea was beat em and buy em or vice versa, the NWA had guys whose idea was lets kill the fucker, now imagine 20+ of those guys all out to get one another, Verne supposedly tried bribing Sheik to break Hogan's leg after Hulk left the AWA, so it's not like these guys wouldn't sabotage one another like Vince did, just to you know less financially restrained degree's, Dusty would have spent Crockett bankrupt, Watt's would go under due to the oil crisis, World Class would still implode, the AWA would be seen as outdated with the influx of new wrestling shows, it would just end up being a different face behind the machine is all.

Hell Sr would have still been running the WWWF until he either sold it to his partners or passed it down to his other son, the style predominated in the US today may have become slightly different but the likes of ECW would have emerged, then their copycats, the influx of rookies opening their own schools when they barely know a wristlock from a wristwatch would have cropped up, Turner would have brought and closed WCW as he did, Heyman would bankrupt ECW at the critical junction and so on.

An idea I think would be interesting is what would wrestling be like without Eric Bischoff, I think I recall JR was also putting in for that VP job Eric got to run WCW, imagine how different things could have been if JR who learned under Bill Watts had become the new boss at WCW and was more wrestling minded than TV minded like Bischoff was add in JR's knowledge and reputation with the wrestlers, or what if Kevin Dunn was never involved in wrestling being the voice in Vince's ear for 30 years that no one likes wrestling, they aren't wrestling, they are sports entertainment *munch munch munch* bucky beaver mother fucker.

Thing is Crockett didn't lose out because of Vince he lost out due to bad management, Dusty was booking them well and they were making big money but they were chasing bigger money and not evolving their office to meet their financial strains, ultimately Crockett could have kept going, he sold the moment they realised they were losing money and they sold pretty much everything, it's said if they had kept going they could have bounced back with how their revenue was going by the time they sold, David & Jackie Crockett were apparently begging Jimmy to not sell because business had picked back up with the Bash tour.

Barnett who knows he was with WCW that entire time and didn't mean anything, from accounts he'd kind of checked out after he left Vince in 87, and some say he really wasn't as rich as he made out he was most of his career which is why he became something of a yes man when he was with WCW, if that's the case he wouldn't have had the money to front a big national push himself which is probably why he went with Vince.

Probably would have been Jarrett who hung on the longest by not making the most noise and trying to hard to make a big push to be no.1 who survived just by letting the other guys beat each other into oblivion.

Yeah but that's sort of the thing though, the national war was coming with or without Vince, so Crockett's management style and how he handled losing money was not going to be any different, Vince lost money in 95 iirc and wasn't making a lot in 94 or 96 either iirc and had WCW on his arse from 95 onwards, difference was Vince weathered the storm, Crockett didn't he bailed as soon as they lost money, and they were going to go through that even without Vince Jr around.

What helped Vince is the attitude he had the others didn't, Vince was willing to lose big to win big, everyone else was like oh shit there goes my money fuck this I quit, Vince took the gambles, if WM 1 failed Vince was done, if WM3 failed he was gonna be fucked also.

I got into wrestling in 99 so I grew up watching WWF & WCW, a little ECW, then I got into ROH, CZW for a bit in the early 00's, TNA, and stuff oh and some OVW.

I also live in England so no territories over here, at best it would have been WOS but that died when I was a kid, most of my territory watching has come from mostly compilations, so I have seen a bit of Memphis, World Class, Crockett, Mid-South, a little AWA some Florida & Portland also + Stampede & SMW.

But on the national war that's the thing though I don't think Crockett would have played too much a factor because of things, one of the reason he went $5m in the hole was because he brought out Florida, Mid South and some others maybe when he didn't need to, he did so out of respect despite the territories being dead, not a coincidence that the year after he brought those places when he didn't need to he found himself in massive debt.

Like I said I figure the guy who won out would be someone like Jarrett try to be a WWF, though with Vince not expanding as he did maybe Watts would have been able to grow past the limitations of Mid South to where the business dropping out of his home territory wouldn't have crippled him so much and he would have won out? But I do think the whole territory promoters mentality of shut it down the second it lost money would have held the obvious picks to fill that spot  Vince took back  a bit, they just weren't the types to think that far financially ahead, most likely thing would have still been Turner buying one of them and maybe even another network buying their own wrestling shows if they didn't have a WWF to compare themselves to, but they wiould have likely just quicker got us to the place we are now where everything is TV focused and bland.

One of the reason I still love wrestling despite not being too fond of the current products is because I love the shoot interviews, so I learned a lot through the hundreds of them I have watched, same with WWE's Legends of Wrestling Roundtable & Kayfabe Commentaries Back To The Territories, and their Timelines series.