went out to Los Angeles and pitched it in a couple of places.
We got a lot of traction at Universal and Fox Kids Network. Molly Miles, an executive at Universal Studios at the time, knew Jason.
She ended up giving us an option to develop it. Universal Television would have been the producer, and Fox Kids Network the buyer, if you will. So we said, “Wow, this is great.” I walked out of that meeting, and I made up my mind I was leaving WCW. I was going out to Hollywood.
I could feel the energy on the street. The environment was positive and creative, a hundred and eighty degrees from the dark, pre-historic feel of Bill Watts’s WCW.
I went home and told my wife, “The good news is, I think we’ve WCW: THE EARLY DAYS
79
sold the show—it’s going to be great, it’s going to work. The bad news is, I can’t stand going to back to Bill Watts and WCW. I’m going to resign.”
She was cool with that. We started to make arrangements to move.
Out with the Old
It was just about that time a rather tasteless racial remark Bill Watts made spread around the offices at CNN. I wasn’t there, but the published reports have said that during an interview Watts gave to Mark Madden at the Pro Wrestling Torch, he made a number of comments that appeared to put down blacks or question their rights. One concerned Lester Maddux, a restaurant owner involved in a civil rights fight over whether he has to serve blacks or not.
Watts supported Maddux. Years later in his book, The Cowboy and the Cross, Watts said that while he wasn’t a racist, he felt that a restaurant owner should be able to deny service to anyone he wanted. He also claimed that his comments were misinterpreted, and that Madden sent them to Hank Aaron only because he wanted him fired.
That’s Bill Watts’s side of the story.
Turner Broadcasting was a great environment to work in because Ted Turner was an entrepreneur; Ted Turner was a visionary. He rewarded people who were like him in that respect. He appreciated people who had put it all on the line and made things happen. Con-sequently, most of the people who worked under him had that same kind of temperament.
But the one thing that Ted Turner didn’t tolerate was discrimination. Turner Broadcasting was one of the most progressive companies in terms of breaking down barriers for minorities. So when Bill Watts’s comments filtered over to the north side of the CNN Center, where all the real executives were, Bill’s days were numbered. They got rid of him rather unceremoniously and without a lot of delay.
80
CONTROVERSY CREATES CASH
Bill Shaw
Watts had been hired and fired by Bill Shaw, a very well respected, highly regarded, long-term executive with Turner Broadcasting. Besides being president of WCW, Bill was corporate vice president of administration for Turner Broadcasting. Ted Turner had added WCW to Shaw’s portfolio roughly a year before with the directions
“Sell it, shut it down, or run it.” He was determined to take another go at turning it around.
Bill came over and had a meeting with everybody in a conference center at CNN. He was very forceful, extremely professional, but very clear about where Ted Turner wanted WCW to be. Bill let everyone in the room know what he would tolerate and what he wouldn’t.
“First and foremost, this is a television company,” he told us.
“Turner Broadcasting is a television company, it is not a wrestling company. And this company is going to be run like a television company, not a wrestling company.”
When Bill said that, it made me realize that there might be a chance for WCW to turn around. If he meant what he said, there’d be no more old-time wrestling guys trying to re-create what they had back in Oklahoma in the 1970s.
His speech made me second-guess whether I wanted to leave WCW.
One of the things Bill said they were going to do was hire an executive producer. He wanted someone who understood wrestling and had a vision for the product,
We got a lot of traction at Universal and Fox Kids Network. Molly Miles, an executive at Universal Studios at the time, knew Jason.
She ended up giving us an option to develop it. Universal Television would have been the producer, and Fox Kids Network the buyer, if you will. So we said, “Wow, this is great.” I walked out of that meeting, and I made up my mind I was leaving WCW. I was going out to Hollywood.
I could feel the energy on the street. The environment was positive and creative, a hundred and eighty degrees from the dark, pre-historic feel of Bill Watts’s WCW.
I went home and told my wife, “The good news is, I think we’ve WCW: THE EARLY DAYS
79
sold the show—it’s going to be great, it’s going to work. The bad news is, I can’t stand going to back to Bill Watts and WCW. I’m going to resign.”
She was cool with that. We started to make arrangements to move.
Out with the Old
It was just about that time a rather tasteless racial remark Bill Watts made spread around the offices at CNN. I wasn’t there, but the published reports have said that during an interview Watts gave to Mark Madden at the Pro Wrestling Torch, he made a number of comments that appeared to put down blacks or question their rights. One concerned Lester Maddux, a restaurant owner involved in a civil rights fight over whether he has to serve blacks or not.
Watts supported Maddux. Years later in his book, The Cowboy and the Cross, Watts said that while he wasn’t a racist, he felt that a restaurant owner should be able to deny service to anyone he wanted. He also claimed that his comments were misinterpreted, and that Madden sent them to Hank Aaron only because he wanted him fired.
That’s Bill Watts’s side of the story.
Turner Broadcasting was a great environment to work in because Ted Turner was an entrepreneur; Ted Turner was a visionary. He rewarded people who were like him in that respect. He appreciated people who had put it all on the line and made things happen. Con-sequently, most of the people who worked under him had that same kind of temperament.
But the one thing that Ted Turner didn’t tolerate was discrimination. Turner Broadcasting was one of the most progressive companies in terms of breaking down barriers for minorities. So when Bill Watts’s comments filtered over to the north side of the CNN Center, where all the real executives were, Bill’s days were numbered. They got rid of him rather unceremoniously and without a lot of delay.
80
CONTROVERSY CREATES CASH
Bill Shaw
Watts had been hired and fired by Bill Shaw, a very well respected, highly regarded, long-term executive with Turner Broadcasting. Besides being president of WCW, Bill was corporate vice president of administration for Turner Broadcasting. Ted Turner had added WCW to Shaw’s portfolio roughly a year before with the directions
“Sell it, shut it down, or run it.” He was determined to take another go at turning it around.
Bill came over and had a meeting with everybody in a conference center at CNN. He was very forceful, extremely professional, but very clear about where Ted Turner wanted WCW to be. Bill let everyone in the room know what he would tolerate and what he wouldn’t.
“First and foremost, this is a television company,” he told us.
“Turner Broadcasting is a television company, it is not a wrestling company. And this company is going to be run like a television company, not a wrestling company.”
When Bill said that, it made me realize that there might be a chance for WCW to turn around. If he meant what he said, there’d be no more old-time wrestling guys trying to re-create what they had back in Oklahoma in the 1970s.
His speech made me second-guess whether I wanted to leave WCW.
One of the things Bill said they were going to do was hire an executive producer. He wanted someone who understood wrestling and had a vision for the product,
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