They wanted to build business internationally which is something they hadn’t looked at and felt Davey was one of the guys who could help with that. Eric wanted to bring in Davey Boy as a tactical move. This was off the heels of the Montreal Screwjob. He decided to not have surgery and get a scope instead. Davey Boy Smith signed a deal with WCW however, when they examined him, they found he had a torn ACL that needed surgery which would have put him out 7 to 8 months.
They still had the audience because of all the time and creative from 1997. They were reaching for the remote but hadn’t made the decision they were going to change the channel. In early 98, WCW was still doing OK but the audience hadn’t quite voted. He goes on to say an executive producer at NBC told him that once the audience votes with their remote, you’ve lost them forever. An audience will be somewhat forgiving of a product for a period of time but there will come a time where they decide they don’t like the product and at that point, it’s almost impossible to get them back. He assumed once WCW got momentum, it wasn’t going away which wasn’t the case. Eric talks about how hard it is to not only get momentum but keep it going. Eric says the success they were having in 1998 was a result of the creative, marketing and promotion of things they were doing in 1997. Meltzer reported WCW business didn’t have to take a back seat to the WWE as they drew record houses on January 31st and Nitro on February 2nd. Eric talks about how the Nielsen ratings could be misleading and may not be as high as people thought it was. When Eric first came to the WCW, he never thought they would ever get to $100,000 at a house show but it became expected. WCW gates had grown averaging $101,736 per show. This ignores that the WCW was beating the WWE in ratings the year prior but nobody was paying attention. Meltzer reported that the perception of the industry was that the WWE was losing to the WCW for the first time during the Monday Night Wars. As the year wore on, it got worse and people who normally wouldn’t pressure Eric started pressuring him. Eric says he started seeing the effects AOL merger in early 1998. Additionally, WCW had back to back years of increased house show attendance of 56% and 59.1% in 19 respectively. Meltzer reported an article was written about Starrcade 97 being the most successful PPV show for WCW.
Eric says controversy was working for the WCW financially and creatively so it didn’t bother him they didn’t have a champion. Leading into Souled Out, the WCW did not have a champion. On the heels of that show, Sting got stripped of the WCW title on Thunder. Starrcade ’97 was the most profitable WCW show ever. However, because of how badly Souled Out 97 failed, the consensus was to not do it again. As bad as Souled Out 97 was, there was some room to grow and the concepts could have worked. Eric regrets they didn’t do another NWO PPV as he very rarely throws in the towel on an idea.The PPV was held on January 24th in Dayton, Ohio.On today’s show, Eric and Conrad talk about the Souled Out 1998 PPV.
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