#1.) “That’ll put some butts in seats”
This is the only instance where WCW’s statement completely backfired. But for the sake of historical context, we’ll add this to the top of our list. In early 1999, WWF had regained momentum and the Attitude Era was at full swing. The Rock vs Mankind was the hot World title feud going on at the time and it happened to be the iconic night where Mankind won his first World Championship.
Due to the fact that the episode was taped, WCW decided to spoil the result and on live Nitro, Tony Schiavone urged fans to not even “bother” changing the channel because “Mick Foley, who wrestled here as Cactus Jack, will be winning the world title”. It was intended to prevent fans from tuning into WWF, but at the exact moment he said it, around 400,000-600,000 viewers switched channels, excited to see Mankind win the title.
It backfired in a big way, but it was an attempted statement nonetheless.
