If by owned, you mean they settled for cheap, ultimately futile popularity boosts by discussing irrelevant shit, then yes, WCW and Russo did own the shooting gallery. What they really owned was a temporary boost that damn near brought about the demise of the business. Everybody tuned in for the excitement of it all and to confirm dirtsheet reports, but once the dirtsheet stuff was confirmed, it gave credibility to sites like 411 and people knew their "reports" about the outcome a week in advance were true. From then on, people read the spoilers and saw, "Hmm, Triple H talks for 30 minutes, Hardyz aren't on the card, Rock has one segment. Pass. No nWo Black and White. Just Konan vs. La Parka. Red and Black Wolfpack segment. Pass."
WCW killed the anticipation for wrestling shows. Every show wouldn't be a blockbuster, but the ratings wouldn't reflect that because people had to tune in to know it sucked. Tuning in still meant revenue. Once you could see what was scheduled or what was happening, Monday Night went from Must See to "Lemme See if I Can Skip This" and then "Out of Sight, Out of Mind TV."
With that being said, think about how much better it would've been had actual storylines been developed instead of "Russo's shooting!" then random wrestlers with no storylines appeared to wrestle. Honestly, who the fuck wants to hear an employee bitching about his boss if there's nothing funny going on. "OMG! Hogan won't let me shine!" And? Shit was WOAT in the moment and WOAT looking at what happened post-AOL.
WCW killed the anticipation for wrestling shows. Every show wouldn't be a blockbuster, but the ratings wouldn't reflect that because people had to tune in to know it sucked. Tuning in still meant revenue. Once you could see what was scheduled or what was happening, Monday Night went from Must See to "Lemme See if I Can Skip This" and then "Out of Sight, Out of Mind TV."
With that being said, think about how much better it would've been had actual storylines been developed instead of "Russo's shooting!" then random wrestlers with no storylines appeared to wrestle. Honestly, who the fuck wants to hear an employee bitching about his boss if there's nothing funny going on. "OMG! Hogan won't let me shine!" And? Shit was WOAT in the moment and WOAT looking at what happened post-AOL.
