The success of the Wrestlecrap book prompted Wrestlecrap curator R.D. Reynolds to cook up another book. One that would tackle the rise and fall of once-prominent wrestling promotion known as World Championship Wrestling. This time, however, he wouldn’t be alone as he would partner up with Figure 4 Weekly head Bryan Alvarez to chronicle this interesting look into what made WCW the dominant force that almost drove the World Wrestling Federation into bankruptcy before everything fell apart… hence why the book is called The Death Of WCW and not The Life Of WCW.
Everyone is going to have their own takes on what killed WCW and not everyone is going to be entirely truthful because in some cases, that would mean taking accountability for their part in the decline of what was once the WWF’s biggest rival in the professional wrestling circle. But the truth is that the death of WCW cannot be pinned on one single thing. Rather it is many little things that ultimately contributed to WCW being in the state where it could be killed off in a whim.
The Death Of WCW is a chronicle of everything that went on in WCW. Not just in terms of its final days, but also its rise to the top. Not merely a quick overview, but a hard dissection of everything that could have and eventually did go wrong with the company. Some of the stunts and ploys that WCW attempted – spending ridiculous amounts of money on failed rating ploys like KISS mini-concerts and pointless celebrity cameos – reads like something that was imagined to anyone who hasn’t seen this transpire on their televisions, but as someone who has seen more WCW in its final days than they probably should, I can tell you that a lot of this stuff did happen. And even then, there’s stuff in here that I wasn’t aware were a thing.
There are elements of humor here and there, but The Death Of WCW is less the funny book that Wrestlecrap was. It’s a deep reflection of WCW’s rise and fall that comes as much as it could within its 300+ pages. And even then, there’s a lot more to this tale that the book doesn’t (or simply couldn’t) touch upon. Nonetheless, this is probably the best book you could read on the subject at hand and I would highly recommend it to anyone looking to get a less-colored version of the WCW story than you would get from WWE publications.
dtm666 