The classic WCW logo aged like a fine wine. A shame that some people in the company didn't know better.

The logo & set change in early 99 is probably a big part of what made me drift away from WCW as a kid. It looked really silly. They were trying to fix something that wasn't broken. That old Nitro set was a classic.

When they changed the logo and set it killed the product. If you were flipping through the channels you wouldn’t have known you were watching WCW. It killed the energy of the show.

I thought for the longest time that the 1999-2001 logo reminded me of Bill Goldberg's tattoo.

The OG WCW logo was so iconic. The new logo killed the product, that and everything else they were doing past 99

The original WCW logo was the best

It wasn't just the logo and the set, it was the different theme song to the show. The old Nitro song and intro video were so much better.

After listening to a couple of these and seeing how Eric talks about those days, I get the sense that he may be and have been a better business man than people give him credit for. Bad contracts notwithstanding, and assuming what he says is true, it’s pretty remarkable to turn that company into what it was in a few short years. As a wrestling fan at the time, this was such a fun era to watch. So many good matches and wrestlers ended up coming out of that from WCW. Pretty interesting to listen about those days as an adult now and a different viewpoint.

After they changed the logo I went to a Nitro show at Cincinnati. For some reason they got rid of their video screen so the paying audience couldn't see anything that happened backstage or what the card was. Seemed as tho they were hellbent on killing all interest in WCW.

“you wanted me to delegate, and this is the shit that they came up with?” best quote I’ve heard in a while and he is 100% right. To me, that logo change is symbolic of when things started going downhill. I know that’s not the case for real, but it’s symbolism.

That WCW logo reminds me of the dying days of WCW. The beginning of the end

I love it when Bisch isn't in character or working and instead talks about the actual business. It's really fascinating.

The new logo was absolutely horrendous.

I'm so glad this was addressed. THAT LOGO WAS TERRIBLE! I don't think I even paid it close attention because I was already off of WCW by 1999 but it was always weird to me. But, especially now that I became a designer as an adult, I am even more certain it was terrible.

The logo change was so bad it really killed wcw. The 1996- early 98 WCW energy was unmatched

They went the opposite direction of WWE’s “Then, Now, Forever” nostalgia push. They deliberately overthrew everything anyone that had grown up with them was nostalgic for, and kept “revolutionizing” themselves in weird ways until nothing was left of what made people watch. And they did it horribly.

It made it seem like they were playing catch up to the WWF after they changed to the scratch logo, so they need some kind of edgier logo too.

Could listen to Eric all day, very smart mind and clever guy, he knows the industry inside and out.

The Monday Night Wars era of WCW was really a short period in the overall history of wrestling, and now over 20 years ago. But it was really the peak of sport entertainment. I tell my kids, but they just can't fathom it because it pre-dates them.

A perfect example of fixing something that ain't broken. The WCW in Steel Letters beside the ramp was prime WCW, and it looked amazing along with the Black Ropes in the ring. Once they changed the logo it was terrible along with red ropes🤮 May as well be WWE Raw Lite

Seeing that logo just reminds me of the massive decline of WCW while WWF started breaking records and adding Smackdown, too it truly was the rise of one Empire into a Superpower while the other one started to fade. 2nd Punic Wars = WWF= Rome , WCW = Carthage as Eric Bischoff is Hannibal Barca who knew how to gain victory but not how to use it, which led to him being failed for his Zama was when Vince purchased the company.

Redesigning isn't necessarily a bad thing. But you certainly don't change it (rebrand) into something that's nearly unrecognizable from the previous logo/branding/iteration. You touch it up, add or subtract, make little changes as time goes on so that the audience follows along.

Of all the things that needed to change in WCW, the logo was dead last. I'm glad to hear Eric say this and explain why this happened, because I thought everyone in WCW had collectively lost their minds.

To me the most telling thing about the pointy logo was that even the company avoided using it on its own, instead using a much plainer and readable "WCW" lettering on things like the masthead of WCW Magazine and the last NASCAR sponsorship design. They themselves admitted that the pointy logo failed to identify the company clearly. It was just bad design.

My takeaway from this video: Eric Bischoff really, REALLY wants to be a cowboy.

It's very nice hearing Eric talk without Conrads grating voice and bullshit killing the momentum of the conversations

Until just now, I never realized that ugly logo was suppose to be the letters WCW just distorted. What a terrible design.

I still laugh at an ad being taken out in USA Today teasing the new logo for WCW and Nitro with "Looks like something a bird left on the hood of my car"

The WCW set in 1999 was just too Y2K...Millennium-ish. Everything about it was just bad, the logo itself, the huge silver logo as the entrance that was way too big for stage, the projector screens that were too small to see, and personally what I found worst of all, the sparkly black curtain that ran along the entire stage. If you looked at it, it was just too dark, too big.

I never realized that the 99 logo said WCW till a few years ago. It was an awful change, the inconic WCW logo was no more ☹️

I remember 1999-2001 ALOT of logos went to the tribal style logos. Wcw , 989 sports, x games, oakley sunglasses were alien eyes everything had to be extreme and edgy looking.

That logo was the kiss of death to wcw. Just like how I'm bent aside that Brawl for all music was the kiss of death for any project they tried like XFL

The logo change in 1999 was the start of the decline and death of WCW. I miss the previous WCW logo and the stage set, probably the best ever along side the WWF Raw is War Set

Alexander the Great conquered the known world by age 33. At age 40, Caesar (with two other men) took over Rome; his nephew Augustus started the Roman Empire at 45. Isaac Newton invented calculus and discovered the laws of motion, gravity and optics at age 25. George Washington was named Commanding General of the Continental Army age 45. Napoleon took over France at age 30 having been a hugely successful general and politician for years; and conquered Europe by age 42. Thomas Edison invented the phonograph at age 30 and the light bulb at 32. Albert Einstein did special relativity and E-mc2 at age 26. Mussolini took over Italy age 29. Stalin took power at 44. Adolf Hitler took over the Nazi Party at age 31 and Germany at age 42. In World War 2, Curtis LeMay was, starting at age 35, the commanding general of America's bombing of Germany and then the atomic bombing of Japan. Teddy Roosevelt, as Assistant Navy Secretary, planned the successful naval war against Spain at 39, was governor at 40, vice president and president at 42. Queen Elizabeth II took the throne at age 25. John F. Kennedy was elected Senator at 35 (the minimum age), then president at 42. Bill Clinton was governor at 33 and President at 46.

Took me a long time to realize it said "WCW'.

I am shocked he didn't blame Russo

New logo was terrible. I agree with Bischoff which is rare.

I absolutely hated the new Logo. Changing the logo is like changing the ring. WCW rings had an epic sound when someone performed a power move. Similar to the ring the log did not need to be changed.

Biscoff won’t get his flowers til he’s gone unfortunately . I really respect him and what he achieved in what is an extremely difficult niche business!

The WCW logo that we knew was awesome. It was simple and just right. The new logo was a disaster.

I was today years old when I realized that the new WCW logo in 1998 had WCW in the logo.

As a designer I will never know how it was signed off. You can’t read what it says, it means nothing. It must have been a nightmare to use for merchandise.

This was a case of we're trying so hard to be cool, when what was being replaced was already cool. Lots of companies, teams, brands, etc... go through that.

Sweet lord. It's been almost a quarter of a century, and this is the first time I ever realized that the letters "WCW" even existed inside that logo. I always thought it was just some odd, abstract, futuristic-looking thing. I still hate it though.

When they first went with that logo, I did not see the WCW in it. One day I was drawing it and was like.... Hold up, it actually says W C W.

That logo never worked for me brother.

I'm 35 & just realize that logo says WCW 😆...I was a WWF fan tho back in the late 90's early 2000's

That set and logo change were likely responsible for the drastic fall in rating's from early to mid 1999 5.0's to nearly 2.5

absolutely hated the logo. despised it. it signaled the beginning of the end for my WCW enjoyment watching the Monday Night Wars in real time.

You literally can flip through old nitros and if you see the original set you know the show will be good and the crowd will be hot, and if you see this one you can immediately turn it off because you know it’s going to be shit

From revenue of 24 million dollars in 1994 to 350 million in 1998...damn thats a really fast growth to a fast fall..i guess WCW is an example of the importance of not rushing a business too big too quick.

The change was unnecessary. WCW from 1995-1998 was iconic and changing the logo to that abomination is like painting a moustache on the Mona Lisa.

As dumb as it got towards the end I miss WCW. I don't watch a lot of wrestling nowadays, but I keep meaning to check out more AEW. I hear Tony Khan is a bit of a WCW mark so that's cool. I used to watch wrestling with my grandpa when I was a kid and he liked NWA/WCW.

*Hated it instantly when they made the change nearly 25yrs ago and hate it just as much today.*

In the UK WCW Thunder became free to watch on Channel 5, before then we had WCW Worldwide, which was the blue and yellow era WCW. I remember spending my adolescence watching Thunder, buying the action figures, not having a clue what that grey "cat's ass" logo was meant to be. I'm embarrassed to admit I only recently realised it said WCW. I guess it's like modern art: it looks terrible until you look at it long enough to get it.

These guys need to realize that a long story is what we want. We dont want the one sentence answers. This isn't the tonight show. We're here to learn the hostory.

That horrendous logo that debuted on April 5th, '99. If it wasn't Time Warner being the parent company in '96, the debacle at Starrcade '97, the "Finger poke of Doom" or the AOL/Warner merger, this logo was certainly the beginning of the end for _Dubya-C-Dubya_

I clearly remember not liking this change and the new opening theme right then and there. The old Rock theme with the flames was so iconic and invigorating!

As far as marketing went wcw missed a lot of opportunities i remember wanting and nwo t shirt searched stores for over a year before i found one I wanted cheap child size replica belts (not those crummy things you had to buy at a show that didnt even look like the real thing) They didnt exist untill wwf bought wcw then we got the wwf/e version wcw was my monday and thursday nights for at least 3 years But i couldnt easily buy wcw products that to me seems like a massive fail on wcw's marketing dept. I still want a a child size plastic replica of the cruiserweight world television world heavyweight and us heavyweight belts

This seems like marketing people falling for a phase at the time. A lot of companies try to change logos and it ends up falling flat and they just end up backtracking to the old logo. Tons of established global brands tried it and ended up jumping back in a panic. WCW should have but the company was such a mess that they never recovered enough to set things right.

Two underdiscussed things that hurt WCW's brand value significantly in 1999: the logo change and losing THQ as the video game developer (& moving over to the far inferior (for wrestling) EA Sports).

I was in Toronto for the first Canadian Nitro. It was the last time the old set was used. The following week WCW went deep into space. I mean real deep. All the way to Uranus! 🤣

as a kid, when the wcw and entrance changed, i thought “wow, they’re trying to be wwf”.

I remember my friends and I walking into the MGM Grand Garden Arena that night the new logo debuted on Nitro and asking ourselves "What the fuck is this?" 😂

Bischoff is looking great glad he’s focusing on health as he gets up there he’s a brilliant mind

“Marketing reported to Legal” Yeah, bad idea there. Legal’s job is to protect the organization from legal risks, not drum up interest for future sales

WCW was so important to me in middle school, so watching it die slowly for a year or so was very painful. This logo change is when I knew it was time to move on.

This was a really weak excuse. While Bischoff didn't have to create the logo, just approving anything that they gave him, is either laziness, incompetence, or indifference. Delegate means let them do the work, but then when they come back to you with crap, you tell them to do it differently. This wasn't, let's have chicken for the preshow production meal instead of beef. This was the company logo. The guy that was incharge needs to approve of it.

The original Nitro set was an absolute classic and they probably could have just touched that up a bit with a big screen above the intro build and removing the naff flames on the matts around the ring etc. That being said, the new logo was incorporated very nicely with some of the ppv logos etc, and while the tune isn't a patch on the original, I actually came to like it.

During WCWs actual time I never realized that logo was w c w... I only realized it a few years ago. I just thought it was a symbol for the company and not the actual 3 letters

If it is not broken, fix it.

If you've seen the other ones they came up with, the one they kept was the best one of the bunch let that sink in lol and Eric has a flawed understanding of delegation, it doesn't mean that you go full hands-off, Vince delegated a lot of work but still signed off on everything, that's how delegation works, doesn't mean you just give someone else full creative control, think of it like Auto-pilot, you still need to keep your hands on the steering wheel

They should have used something similar to the red WCW logo WWE briefly used in the invasion angle.

April 5th 1999 Las Vegas. I showed up seen the Star Logo and realized. WCW was done.

"That's what happens when a company grows too fast" AEW look out.

back then as a kid i knew that logo was shit and now that i'm actually in marketing, i still go "wtf was that shit?"

It was awful. Im a graphic designer and the rebrand had corporate design by committee written all over it.

Seeing the logo appear with that sound as it twists onto the screen will always remind me of my childhood staying up late to watch wcw, nothing beats the town/explosion intro though but i can see now why eric didnt like it but end of the day u cant keep the same logo forever look at raw/smackdown but recent years they suck

The set design/logo and the finger poke of doom drove me to be a bigger WWF fan sadly. The logo was ugly and the set made the production look smaller. Where the old set design was more open and made WCW look grand like the WWF. Another big problem with the set was the steepness of the ramp and the C from logo was incorporated into the ramp. Except the C was smooth metal so you constantly saw the wrestlers stepping around it so they wouldn't slip. Also what was the point of all the tiny TV screens? They weren't big enough for anyone to see properly. The next set design after this they just got lazy and had a big titan tron and stopped even bothering to have custom sets for PPVs.

Ironic they bring this up. People always ask me: “When did you quit watching WCW or why?” I always say when they changed the Nitro set and David Flair got involved - I stopped watching for good.

I was expecting "Ultimate Warrior sued us" being when I saw a clip of Halloween Havoc 99, and the logo was identical to Warrior's face paint.... Although it also resembles the Batman logo a tad bit, so not sure that Warrior had an air tight trademark on it.... Just made me curious if HH's logo was similar to Warriors face paint BEFORE he came to WCW.

As a 13 year old fan back in 99 when WCW changed the logo that's when the company died to me it just wasn't the same anymore

20+ years later and I'm still trying to make sense of that logo. Apparently it spells 'WCW'... 🤷🏽‍♂️🤷🏽‍♂️🤷🏽‍♂️

I'm surprised he didn't blame it on Greg Gagne.

Eric bischoff is a very intelligent man

I'm so glad he thinks that logo they made in the early 2000s was awful because I absolutely hated that logo. Whenever I see that logo I always affiliate it with the dark days of WCW and the end of the company because when that logo was introduced that's when everything turned to crap

It took me a while to realize it spelt out W.C.W. I hated that logo! It's as if they were admitting defeat!

I've been an illustrator and designer for 20 years, so I can immediately recognize what exactly is wrong with that version of the WCW logo, but even as a teenager in high school I saw that logo and knew it was horrible. But I always had a hunch that whoever selected that logo wasn't a designer or a creative professional, and Eric's anecdote in this video confirmed what I felt all along.

Listening to Eric here it makes sense on the growing pains. I always considered WCW a second rate company. Things always appeared rough to me, as if it was thrown together last second whenever I watched it. Now I really understand why.

It reminds me of Star Trek

I agree that logo sucks. I just assumed Russo came up with the idea to make it look "cooler" like the Scratch WWF attitude logo. But I cant tell you how much I hated that version of the WCW logo. I hated the WCW logo stage too.

I remember the first time I saw that logo, it took me a long time to realized that it says WCW. I think it was in 2004 or 2005 when I used to rant VHS wrestling tapes. 😂

I still don't understand this I had no issue with the logo at all not sure why so many people didn't like it I thought it looked ok

Oh my goodness I'm so glad Eric is talking about how bad it is. I fucking hated that thing and have no idea how anybody could have thought that was a good idea. It looked like a fucked up weather vein.

You let a lawyer run marketing?😂

Anyone notice that all of his stories is somebody else making the mistakes? He is somehow responsible for all the success, but not the other stuff.

What I liked about that logo, was that it moved opened when the wrestlers came out. That was nice. Also, I kinda liked it since that was the only logo I got to see. Now that I have seen older stuff, the thick-metallic logo before that is the best.

1998 was the final GOOD year of WCW... it struggled after that. Eric lost control and like a train without an engineer, it ran itself off the tracks

One the reasons I don't like that logo is because I mainly associate it with the Vince Russo era of WCW, which is by far my least favorite era of the company including the old ding dongs, Jim Herd days. Yeah, the Bischoff era wasn't perfect by any means. Dungeon of Doom was a bad stable and the Yeti was a stupid gimmick, Glacier's debut was terribly botched which killed the whole angle, Starrcade 97' had a trash finish, the fingerpoke of doom was a bizarrely bad booking decision, the NWO was being overused, Hogan was being protected way too much. I get it, those things sucked. But none of it comes close to the insane dumpsterfire that was WCW with Vince Russo booking it. The only good things about it were main event Scott Steiner and Booker T, all the rest was the worst possible type of wrestling diarrhea.

People put way too much in to the set and logo. The reason why WCW was bad at this time, was because the booking was shit, the NWO was done to death and while Hogan and his court were hogging the main event, they weren't creating top new stars. You had a bunch of good preliminary talent, but nobody that you could sell a PPV with. And after Bret Hart left WWE, aside from the day he showed up, nobody cared about him again. He was a crybaby.