The Death of the Competition On March 23, 2001, the landscape of professional wrestling changed permanently. World Wrestling Federation (WWF) Chairman Vince McMahon purchased the assets of World Championship Wrestling (WCW) from AOL Time Warner. The purchase price was approximately $2.5 million for the trademarks, tape library, and select contracts—a staggering fire sale price for a company that had generated hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue just years prior. This acquisition signaled the end of the “Monday Night Wars,” a six-year ratings battle between WWF’s Raw and WCW’s Nitro . For fans, the purchase promised the ultimate payoff: a “Super Bowl” of wrestling. The audience expected to finally see “Dream Matches” that political barriers had previously made impossible: Ston

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