On the latest episode of his “The ARN Show,” Arn Anderson recalled Bill Watts taking over WCW creative in 1992 following a successful run as the founder and booker of Mid-South Wrestling.
Watt was heavily criticized for being out of touch and not adapting to the changing times.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On Watts taking over WCW creative: “Bill was pretty much my way or the highway. But I mean, he had a wrestling background and he owned his own territory and if you didn’t draw money, you didn’t get paid. And all those old school things that were put in place back in the day when I first started, it was a lot of different rules. But when you there’s a big difference in owning the company like Bill did Mid-South Wrestling and being working for a corporate giant like he was walking into. There are some things you can’t say. There are things you can’t do. It’s a whole different ball game. The corporate side, you know of wrestling and that’s who we work for. We work for a corporation. A huge one.”
On Watts not changing with the times: “I don’t think he had any idea and you know he hadn’t evolved with the thought process of just life in general, I don’t think you know, you know when you when you’re built watching your millionaire and you’re the owner of the company and you live inside that bubble, you can say pretty much what you want. No longer is that the case. If the timing would have been different and he would have come in prior to that Pillman-Liger match, that match would have never happened. No over the top. No padding on the floor. A lot of that stuff that ended up on the floor would not have happened. They would have rethought that and went, ‘Hey, that’s concrete. A great, wanna have a trendsetting match, but I’m not going to lose my career getting creamed out there on the cement.’ It just did set it back, it dumbed down the product.”
