In this free preview clip of the second and final episode of our deep dive Patreon series on the sale of WCW, Kris and David take a look at WrestlingObserver.com’s ongoing coverage of the cancellation of WCW programming over the course of a few days in March 2001. This is when everything came to a head, with the Fusient Media Ventures deal just about dead and World Wrestling Federation Entertainment becoming the obvious lead suitor, and it’s fascinating to look back at. And if you want to hear what Kris found at the end of the clip? You know what you have to do.

To hear the whole show, you need to become a Between The Sheets patron at the $5/month level or higher by going to Patreon.com/BetweenTheSheets.

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Full show description:

It’s April 2021, and you know what that means: The 20th anniversary of the final episode of WCW Worldwide and thus the second and final part of our series on the sale of (the assets of) World Championship Wrestling to Vince McMahon’s World Wrestling Federation Entertainment. We pick up at the start of March, as Fusient Media Ventures' main investor pulls funding, something that only the Torch reports. From there, all hell breaks lose, and to properly capture the chaos and chronology of what happened around the newsletters' deadlines, we have notes from not just the newsletters and the trades, but also WrestlingObserver.com among other sources, including some passages from Guy Evans "Nitro" book. Everything comes to a head when Turner Broadcasting cancels all WCW programming, something that is quickly credited to incoming executive and The WB network head Jamie Kellner. But taking all of the contemporaneous reporting together paints a very specific picture, one that we did not anticipate: That Jamie Kellner was very obviously scapegoated for the cancellation of WCW programming after being maneuvered into a scenario where he had no other realistic choice...all while having to juggle Joss Whedon calling him out publicly in the middle of negotiations to renew "Buffy the Vampire Slayer."

All that and much more, including a LOT of Torch reporting that lines up nicely with what Guy Evans found, Lenita Erickson sabotaging Eric Bischoff's last-ditch meeting with Fox to try to save the Fusient deal, Linda McMahon and Stu Snyder's media call after announcing the WCW purchase, just how badly WCW's 200 employees were treated by AOL Time Warner at the end, and other topics too numerous to list here. This is one of the best shows we've ever done, and we hope you feel the same way.

Timestamps:

0:00:00 Week of 3/5/2001 (Fusient’s investor pulls funding.)

0:33:35 Week of 3/12/2001 (WCW programming is cancelled.)

1:31:47 Week of 3/19/2001 (Cancellation fallout/sale to WWFE.)

3:29:25 Week of 3/26/2001 (Final episode of Monday Nitro.)

4:38:48 Week of 4/2/2001

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