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Vince Russo believes one key factor led to the downfall of WCW before WWE Executive Chairman Vince McMahon bought the promotion in 2001.
WCW's flagship show, Nitro, often beat WWE RAW in the television ratings between September 1995 and October 1998. The company introduced another weekly show, Thunder, in January 1998, but it was widely viewed as secondary to Nitro.
Russo was WWE's head writer before joining WCW in October 1999. On Sportskeeda's The Wrestling Outlaws, the 62-year-old said Thunder likely played a part in McMahon introducing SmackDown in 1999. He also agreed with former WCW President Eric Bischoff that WCW creating another show was a mistake.
"I'm sure it did, absolutely," Russo said, referring to SmackDown being influenced by Thunder. "The question is did that really come from the network or from Vince? That's the question. That I don't know. Was it the network looking to take advantage like Nitro did or did Vince see that model? Meanwhile, Eric will tell you to this day Thunder was the biggest mistake WCW made, and I agree with him because, bro, you're watering down the product." [6:32 – 7:03]
Watch the video above to find out Russo's opinion on McMahon debuting SmackDown a year after Thunder began.
EC3 on WCW and WWE launching separate shows
Former WWE Superstar EC3 also appeared on The Wrestling Outlaws. The 40-year-old performed on the RAW brand during his main roster run between February 2019 and April 2020.
EC3 believes it is difficult for wrestling companies to make two brands look different when the shows are being run by the same creative figurehead.
"It might have always worked if they were able to develop separate brands with different unique storytelling, characters, and things like that. But no matter what they said, whoever they put in charge was always under the same umbrella and the same two crazy eyes of Vince [McMahon] that no matter how different they tried to be, it wouldn't become different." [7:06 – 7:25]
EC3 and Russo also gave their thoughts on why Vince McMahon released a former WCW wrestler just four months after acquiring his contract in 2001.
Do you think Thunder contributed to WCW's downfall? Let us know in the comments section below.
Please credit Sportskeeda's The Wrestling Outlaws and embed the video if you use quotes from this article.
