Wrestling Observer Newsletter Update

World Championship Wrestling held a press conference on Tuesday at it's base of operations, Center Stage, in Atlanta, GA. The conference was something of a "coming out" for the company, as all of the major plays were made public with one exception. Lenny Leonard started the press conference by talking about the prolific history of World Championship Wrestling. He played a video that utilized footage from JCP, WCW, and the modern product. Leonard then introduced former Strikeforce owner, Scott Coker.

Scott spoke briefly about his run with Strikeforce and instead tried to spin a story of pro wrestling always being his true love. Well, I don't know if that's the truth or not, but that's how he's selling it. In any event he said that he hopes to building a strong pro wrestling promotion, but that his goal is not to compete with WWE - rather to be successful in providing a product that the fans enjoy. A noble gesture, that. Coker said that he was one of three owners, but held the majority of shares of the company. He said that one of the owners wishes to remain private at this time, but then introduced Jim Ross as another owner in addition to being the Director of Talent.

Jim Ross spoke at length about his history in the business, starting with Mid-South when he worked for Bill Watts. He went through JCP, WCW, and WWE before settling on the new WCW. Ross talked at length about the value of hiring strong and fresh talent to give continuous growth to the company. As an example of this, he introduced the "FCW Four." Tyler Black and Jon Moxley were dressed in their casual clothes, but Windham Rotunda and Richie Steamboat dressed up. Ross said he will continue his endeavors to find and discover talent that is out there, as opposed to relying on the "same old, same old" every week.

Coker then spoke about how he had little experience in promoting professional wrestling, and thus went to someone who had tons of it to do it for him. Coker then introduced the "Executive Director" of WCW, which ended up being Paul Heyman. Heyman said that promoting pro wrestling in 2012 was not the same as promoting in 1984, 1997, or 2011. Heyman said his goal was to push a product that kept the core roots of what wrestling is, while pushing a modern edge. Heyman then said that an integral part of that is in the match-making. He introduced Dave Lagana as "WCW's version of Joe Silva," and announcing his title as "Head Booker."

Lagana talked about how pro wrestling has always thrived on in-ring content and how fans want to see two personalities settle their differences. He said the goal of smart booking is to make the most of those conflicts with great in-ring clashes. He then announced three news matches for Starrcade: The Cross (Ares/Claudio Castagnoli) vs. Fastball Special (El Generico/Paul London) in a Tables Match (playing off the storyline that they've built up involving tables), The Briscoes & JML vs. Three Kings, and Chris Hero vs. Davey Richards. Lagana then introduced one of the men who would be main eventing the upcoming iPPV (Starrcade): Chris Jericho.

Jericho talked about his history in the business and basically played up the "veteran who wants to give back"-role he's been pushing. He put over Davey Richards as the future of professional wrestling. When he finished, Lagana brought out Alberto Dos Caras. Caras talked about being champion and what's expected of him. He made some snarky remarks to Jericho and they came close to going at it, but ended up being separated.

Finally, Scott Coker made the big announcement: WCW now owns the rights to the entire WCW video library from JCP-WCW in 2001. He capped the announcement off by replaying the video from earlier.

Overall, it was a successful press conference. There were multiple major points that came across in it without being actively talked about.

1. Scott Coker is, essentially, the money. He has little experience in pro wrestling and whether he was a fan or not means little. Strikeforce, ultimately, was an unsuccessful promotion because of his inability to effectively promote it. Further, and this will be discussed more a little later, it was mentioned to me that the only reason Vince McMahon even sold the WCW licenses (the name, PPV names, etc.) was because Vince "most likely" got good money for it and expects the company to go up in two or three years, at which point he can just re-purchase it for less than he sold it.

2. There was lots of talk behind the scenes that the only way they could pull Jim Ross from WWE was by offering him stake in the company. The big rumor is that part of his stake and his contract states that if Coker is to sell the company, he must first either make an offer to Ross or allow Ross to make him an offer. As Director of Talent, Ross has been crucial in hiring several people recently. He was asked to scour the independent scene for talent, which is different than what he was used to doing in WWE (there he scouted college athletes). The thing is, WWE had a developmental system and WCW does not, so WCW is interested in hiring untrained talent.

3. Paul Heyman being named Executive Director can mean a lot of things. He's, essentially, in charge of running the company. He's the Eric Bischoff to Scott Coker's Ted Turner. The difference is, Heyman knows what he's doing and Bischoff doesn't. That's not to say it won't explode (for either Coker or Heyman), but this would seem like a great idea at least from the onset. He's got a good vision, at the least.

4. The purchase of the video library actually took place two months ago. It happened prior to Halloween Havoc. It goes back to the idea that Vince expects to buy it all back in a few years for cheaper than he sold it. The video library is said to be a coup and will be the driving force of their online content that they're going to kickstart in 2012. Heyman is looking for people to run this portion of the company, and let's be honest, the one person who would be perfect for it might work WWE - but he's absolutely a Paul Heyman-guy. That one person would be Joey Styles, by the way. What's interesting to consider is this: for better or worse, Vince McMahon sold a lot of his property to Scott Coker so that Coker could get this promotion up in running. It was a lot of things that McMahon did not have to do. And how did Coker repay him? He took Jim Ross from him and Jim Ross, using what are genuinely underhanded tactics, signed away four talents from developmental. So you can expect, at the very least, some type of return shot from McMahon at some point. I actually got an e-mail from someone in WWE over the weekend when news of the press release broke that said, "I'm pretty sure I know what the press release is about. When you watch it or hear about it, it'll pretty much explain why Vince McMahon has been so pissed off lately."

There was no talk about a national TV show, but that is still something that is being worked on hard. The goal is to have it by mid-2012.