Brian Gewirtz, one of the key writers for WWE, recently spoke about whether Vince McMahon wanted real competition after buying WCW during an interview with Sportskeeda.
Here is what the former lead writer had to say:
“I don’t know if he did. Because I think you know, after WCW went down, I think he considered all of television competition. So he wasn’t necessarily looking at it from a wrestling standpoint. I think there was a certain amount of pride in being the victor of the Monday Night Wars and getting WCW for pennies on the dollar. And I don’t think he would have shied away from it if AEW had been around, and if AEW went head to head with him. We all remember there was a brief time when TNA, Impact went head to head with Raw for a few months anyways and certainly Vince wasn’t — I don’t know if he even acknowledged it. As far as he’s concerned, it’s like, ‘That’s their show, let them worry about their show. We need to focus on our show.’
“So that was always the case and he always felt you know, as WWE strove to become know more widely accepted in the pop culture realm and to attract higher rates for their television rights and you know, advertiser fees and all that kind of thing. And not not to mention it being a publicly traded company, I think that the key was you know, ‘Let’s be number one on cable. Let’s beat everything that’s our competition. Let’s be network shows if we can. But mainly it’s really like, don’t put your focus on them, put your focus on yourself and that’s kind of what we always had in mind.”