At this point in time fifteen years ago, World Championship Wrestling had finally closed its doors for good. TBS booted them from their networks, Vince McMahon flew in and scooped up the remains of the corpse and any talent not locked into solid Turner contracts were let go by the WWF. However, if you were a subscriber to WCW Magazine, the only acknowledgement of WCW’s demise in the final issue was a last-minute pack-in poster featuring several WCW Champions holding the Big Gold Belt (or in Flair and Vader’s case, that other design from the early 90’s):
The rest of the magazine reads as if everything is going smooth in World Championship Wrestling, even Madusa signs off her monthly column with a tease of what readers can expect next month from her. One on of the recent LAWradio shows, host John Pollock joked about how WCW screwed him out of his teenage lunch-money by not honoring his WCW Magazine subscription after the company folded. He never got a refund from Vince, he never even had the left-over months roll into a WWF RAW Magazine subscription. Apparently, if you signed up for a yearly subscription for WCW Magazine, once the promotion went under in 2001, you and Vampiro were in the same boat — fucked over by WCW.
All in all, the final issue of WCW Magazine here is a neat “What-If?” read, especially considering how Rick Steiner, Shane Helms and Dustin Rhodes all have their own special write-ups as if WCW was possibly building them up for strong 2001 runs. Unfortunately, only “Sugar” Shane Helms would be the only one with a significant weekly TV role that year and it would be for another promotion altogether.
The entire magazine scanned in its entirety here (minus the posters and irrelevant ads):
The WWF did honor my subscription to WCW magazine with a letter stating that I would get WWF magazine for the duration of my subscription. I continued to get it for 2 years after my subscription expired without paying a dime.
Good deal!
I was thinking one of the last issues had an advertisement for The Big Bang. Is that the case? I was kind of thinking it was the back cover of this issue. But, I don’t quite remember. It’s been so long!
P.S.
So awesome you scan all this in. I’m instantly a fan.
Twitter: @Ross_Wheatley
You almost nailed it — the Big Bang PPV ad was shown on the back of the previous issue, #72.
Thank you for the nice words, make sure to check out the DOWNLOADS section for easy to access scans of other magazines as well!