"We thought we were going to go work for Ted Turner" - WWE veteran recalls backstage pressure in the Monday Night Wars with WCW
Mike Chioda has recalled the stress and anxiety behind the scenes at WWE during the Monday Night Wars with WCW. The WWE veteran admitted that many of those working backstage believed they would end up working for Ted Turner's promotion.
In a recent interview with Michael Morales Torres of Lucha Libre Online, the former WWE referee said the situation was concerning during that period of history.
Chioda also said there was significantly more stress on Vince McMahon and Kevin Dunn at the time. He added that McMahon watched both Monday Night RAW and WCW simultaneously to keep an eye on the competition.
"Yeah, everybody was tense and unbelievable," said Chioda. "Everybody was like, we thought we were going to go work for Ted Turner! And the network, CNN company otherwise, at some point. Which, God, I’m thinking, can they even take a referee? We took Charles (Robinson) and we took Nick Patrick, and that changed and transformed when we changed WCW into WWE, took over the wrestling business, and territories period.
"But we just did our jobs," Chioda continued. "We knew there was more stress, more or less, on Vince and Kevin Dunn, and the producers and everybody else. Because… they were following every night, on the monitors, in their offices, Vince would watch WCW and he’d have our show on, to see what they’re doing the next day, what are they going off the air with."
Mike Chioda talks WWE triumphing over WCW
Despite all the negativity surrounding WWE's battle with WCW at the time, Mike Chioda is clearly grateful the company was able to "kick out" from the struggles caused by the Monday Night Wars.
"We knew we had an awesome product, but they were getting all these guys, the nWo, getting all this stuff and getting our old school guys, it was like, come on! But we kicked out of it, that’s for sure, the company definitely kicked out," Chioda added.
Mike Chioda remains the longest-tenured WWE official in history, with a career spanning 30 years with the company before his release in 2020.