I don't think the fall of WCW had anything to do with it. Don Smitty I don't know how long you have watched WWF but do you remember "The Barbershop" when Brutus Beefcake had The Rockers as his guests and Shawn Michaels threw Marty Jannetty through the window? They replayed that over and over and it was something extreme. Yet before the fall of WCW they were already going "Extreme" with all of these fake acts with all the chair shots and being run over by cars and all of that and not only living but fighting the same night.

ECW had it's own following and I enjoyed ECW 100x more than WWF. If ECW had stayed I think it may have been different but I don't think WCW mattered.