Alex Wright On Negotiations With WWE, Berlyn Gimmick Getting Cancelled, Monday Night Wars
Alex Wright spoke with Wrestle:List on a number of topics surrounding WCW. Here are some of the highlights:
His negotiations with WWE after WCW was bought out:
"After they bought WCW they approached me a couple of times. One time they wanted to give me a buyout of my contract, as I was one of the few wrestlers that had direct contracts with Time Warner, so WWE couldn't buy that contract. They offered me a buyout but it wasn't good so I said no and I sat out my contract. After that they approached me twice and there were talks. I was very honored that they asked me and wanted to give me the chance, but I am the kind of they guy that wants to give 100% when I'm in the ring. I knew I couldn't do that at the time because I was burnt out."
What the atmosphere was like in WCW during the Monday Night Wars:
"It was unbelievable. It was just great you know. You have to imagine at that time I was only 18-years-old so for me it was a huge thing being in the States at that young age. Being in WCW which was one of the biggest companies in the world, wrestling all the big superstars, traveling the world, being there at the best time of the business was unbelievable. The locker room was great at the beginning, when I started in '94, WCW had 25 wrestlers under contract and at the end they had 250. So in the beginning it was really cool because you got to wrestle all the guys, you get to know them, travel together and stuff like that. Over the yeast the more wrestlers that signed with WCW everyone was afraid to lose their spot. A TV show runs for 2-3 hours and only has so many spots for wrestlers. So maybe 40 guys could have a spot, but when you have 250 wrestlers under contract you can imagine how the back stage politics and backstabbing was going on after a while."
The Berlyn gimmick getting cancelled:
"It basically failed because at that time the backstage politics was really bad at WCW. Eric Bischoff was on his way out and Vince Russo was on his way in. Nobody really knew what was going on, who was going to be the boss, who wasn't going to be the boss. Vince Russo didn't want to take any ideas from wrestlers Eric Bischoff debuted. So that was the reason why. Everybody else, the wrestling sheets and the fans said it was one of the best debuts of a gimmicks for WCW and had a lot of potential. The fans really reacted well, so it was just backstage politics. I should have saved that gimmick and gone to WWE, probably would have been really popular."
Alex Wright also discussed WWE buying WCW. You can read the full interview by clicking here.
Source: Wrestle:List