On a recent edition of his “The ARN Show” podcast, Arn Anderson revealed why WCW stopped running television events and moved its tapings to Disney Studios in July 1993.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On WCW stopping live events and holding studio shows at Disney Studios: “Because everybody took the opportunity and made it a family vacation. You brought the family down there, and while we were doing three shows or four shows a day for any number of days, sometimes what, a week? We would be down there and we would be filming that many shows. I mean, they’re doing the parks and laying out in the sun. We get to see them for dinner at night. We get to see them for just a minute in the mornings before we would go to the studios. And there was no driving and no flying. And for the guys, it was awesome.”
On any concerns with not traveling to shows: “Well, I worry a lot about one of the things that is so important to what we do: honest, real reactions from the fans. And these weren’t necessarily wrestling fans that were coming to these shows. This was just like another ride at the park that day. They would come in for an hour, they would watch a one-hour show. They would take them out of the building, we would bring a fresh crowd in. They weren’t — they were just people. They could have been people from all around the world who had never seen a wrestling match. And I think I was worried that the reaction that we would get from them would hurt the overall show, because there’s nothing worse than piping in a bunch of screaming and yelling and booing. And you’re looking at the people sitting there and they’re not doing anything. Yeah, that’s terrible.”
On WCW stars not being worried about house show gates because of guaranteed deals: “So well, you got away with it because everybody was on guaranteed contracts. So it didn’t matter what the house was. And you were kind of — Turner was paying himself. He owned the TV station, he owned the show. He owned the wrestling company. So he was paying himself. You could get away with it that way. You couldn’t have done it if you had an outside television and you weren’t getting that revenue from the live events.”
On the importance of live events: “Great observation. And the reality is, for the cities around the country that had gotten wrestling and were used to getting a show every three months or whatever, it may be for months to months, the great cities, the Atlanta’s, the Jacksonville, Florida’s, the Greensboro’s, you know, all the great wrestling cities. You name them Chicago, Philadelphia, you know, name them. They’re not getting shows. And you cannot neglect wrestling fans. They want — the reason wrestling has never died Paul, is because the fans don’t want it dead. That’s a pure, simple fact. The reality is 5,000 to 10,000 live screaming fans is a different experience than a studio TV match.”
