Guy Evans (Cultaholic Wrestling): "There was one source in particular who told me, this was essentially like a flipping opportunity ..."

Cultaholic Wrestling · April 1, 2026 · 27 min

Looking Back on the Final WCW Nitro with "Beyond Nitro" author Guy Evans

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Fusient Media Ventures/WCW

There was one source in particular who told me, this was essentially like a flipping opportunity for Fusient. We were looking at a brand that had been damaged... we were going to be looking to rehabilitate it and then once we had put it in a better position potentially sell this on a couple years down the road.

WCW sale to WWF

There were certain people when I spoke to them that recalled even the word 'merger' being thrown around by Shane McMahon, which may have been a figure of speech. It may have been wishful thinking on some people's part.

The large majority, if not all, of WCW's employees found out about this on a Friday afternoon before the close of business with a memo that went out essentially from Brad Siegel's office.

WCW financial state

If you look at the payroll records, which fortunately I was able to get access to, there was an opportunity coming up where in fact a lot of those talent costs were going to be drastically reduced. A lot of those deals were expiring.

Hulk Hogan biography

I've been focusing on mostly speaking to people who knew Terry [Hulk Hogan] growing up prior to his wrestling days and finding out a lot more about his upbringing and his family and his lineage.

As a tentative goal, we sort of looked at the end of 2027 as being a time where in an ideal world we could release the project [Hulk Hogan trilogy].

Final WCW Nitro

There were even people, some of the wrestlers notably on the night of the final Nitro, who were perhaps holding on to some kind of hopes that this could be an elaborate angle.

I remember Eric Bischoff saying, 'bring your boots to the last Nitro.' And we got Sting and not much else.