What if WWE lost the Monday Night War?
It was one of the biggest business happenings in wrestling history, and certainly, the biggest of the last twenty years: WWE defeated WCW in the Monday Night War. Not only that, but WWE bought WCW, thus not so much putting the competition out of business as sticking its flag on its enemies highest hill, with Vince McMahon and Shane McMahon appearing live to turn the final scene of Monday Nitro into nothing more than a WWE angle.
From the vantage point of seventeen and a half years later, it’s difficult to imagine the wrestling landscape had the war wound up going the other way.
But what if WWE has lost the Monday Night War?
We’ll never know for sure how wrestling history would have played out in that scenario, though the consensus is that it wasn’t far from happening, particularly before WWE’s Attitude Era really hit its stride. This article takes a look at five potential outcomes if WWE hadn’t won out in the end.
5. John Cena never reaches icon status
Today, it’s hard to imagine wrestling without its biggest star of the last fifteen years, John Cena. Cena has won more world championships than anyone not named Ric Flair, has won WrestleMania main events against guys like Triple H, Shawn Michaels, and The Rock, won two Royal Rumbles, and generally been the face of WWE, and by extension professional wrestling on the whole.
WCW was notoriously reticent to push new, homegrown stars. So, while it’s entirely feasible that Cena’s sheer drive and abilities would have gotten him a spot on the WCW roster, it’s a toss-up whether he would have ever broken out to become a main event guy, much less the defining star of his generation while veterans from yesteryear remained featured in top positions.
Cena may have had a better chance in the likely scenario that WCW itself would have closed down anyway, given the powers that be at Time Warner not seeming particularly interested in running a wrestling company. Maybe he would have come up with a top indie promotion, or new national promotion that rose up in WWE and WCW’s stead.