After a great main event run with ECW, ‘The Franchise’ Shane Douglas ended up returning to World Championship Wrestling in 1999, instead of accepting Vince McMahon’s offer to return to the World Wrestling Federation.
By 1999, the WWF dominated WCW in the Monday Night Wars, but Shane still chose to go to the promotion that – at that point – was losing their viewers.
On a recent episode of his ‘Franchise University’ podcast, the former ECW World Heavyweight Champion revealed why he signed with WCW in 1999:
“I took a ton of heat in a backward kind of way when I went to WCW instead of WWF after leaving ECW in 1999. At that time, everybody saw that character of The Franchise to be much more amenable to what WWF was doing at that time than, say, WCW.
The truth be known is that WCW offered me 30 times what the WWF offered me.
So for my family’s sake, that was why I went there. Had Vince McMahon matched that or topped it, I sure as hell would have ended up back in WWF.
And at that point, I wasn’t really in a position to say no to the bigger pot of money. After leaving ECW, unfortunately, Paul Heyman had really painted me into a corner with the money I was owed.”
‘The Franchise’ Shane Douglas wrestled for the biggest pro wrestling promotions in the United States back in the day, including the World Wrestling Federation (1986, 1990-1991 & 1995), Ted Turner’s World Championship Wrestling (1989-1990, 1992-1993 & 1999-2001), Paul Heyman’s Extreme Championship Wrestling (1993-1995 & 1996-1999) and Dixie Carter’s Total Nonstop Action! (2003-2007 & 2009).
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