Book Review - The Death of WCW

Ever since it folded, WCW didn't get the type of obituary it deserved. Part of that, I'm sure, was because while it officially died quickly, the WWE purchase of its assets and tease of a "new" WCW kept it on life support for an unnecessarily long time. But still, the promotion never got its just due. ECW has been immortalized through this year's One Night Stand and Hardcore Homecoming shows, while WCW is barely remembered by most.

That's why I found this book so fascinating (and I know the book was release a WHILE ago, just found it here in Toronto for the first time, though). WCW is wrestling's greatest untold story. One of the biggest successes in the business and likewise, one of its biggest failures. I'm not sure if the group deserved a better death, but damned if it didn't deserve a better obituary.

R.D. Reynolds of Wrestlecrap and Bryan Alvarez of Figure 4 Weekly are both tremendous writers and are able to conjure up said obit over the course of the book. If you weren't one of the fortunate/unfortunate ones that watched WCW from its humble beginnings to its untimely demise, this is the book for you.

The authors are often hilarious in their own subtle way, giving tons of information out on attendance, buyrates, television ratings and backstage gossip. Never before has such a complete chronology been put together in one place, showing you what WCW had and what they could have been and most importantly, how they lost it.

A couple of minor criticisms. Unfortunately (for me), I had heard a lot of the stories before, probably through the Internet, the newsletters and just by generally watching the product. As well, it would have been nice to have more "outside" comments from those who were with WCW at the time. They do have some quotes from Bobby Heenan and The Shark, which is good, but to tell a truly balanced story, they needed someone who was in a position of power to say "Wait. The only reason we did that was because....". It didn't have to be Eric Bischoff, either. Surely the authors could have spoken to someone at Turner, Kevin Nash, Terry Taylor, Vince Russo... anyone who could have defended the other side.

Yet these are minor problems. This book is custom-built for wrestling historians, and there days where I think the McMahons may want to buy themselves a copy. I'd definitely recommend it.