When WWE purchased its rival wrestling federation WCW, it was a historic turning point in the wrestling world. However, as John Layfield, also known as Bradshaw, recalls, the roster wasn’t overly worried about the transition.
Layfield was actively wrestling under his Bradshaw persona in March 2001 when this major shift occurred. As part of the deal, a number of WCW’s skilled fighters were offered contracts with WWE.
During a recent episode of the “Something to Wrestle” podcast, Layfield spoke about the sentiment among the crew during this pivotal period. He said,
“The boys loved it. You know, the competition between WWE and WCW was more between the higher-ups, because that was a zero-sum game for those guys. So when we saw those guys coming over, we thought, man this is fantastic.”
“We’ve got some incredible talent coming. Those four guys were incredible talents, you know? Two of the guys went on to become [world] champions and headline WrestleMania.”
Interestingly, despite Layfield’s positive projection, several documentaries produced by WWE tell a different tale, claiming that some athletes were apprehensive about potential loss of their place to the incoming WCW fighters.
Interesting footnote: later that same year, Bradshaw spearheaded a collection of WWE wrestlers in a battle against incoming adversaries from WCW and ECW. Their fight culminated at that year’s Survivor Series pay-per-view event.