Nobody, and I mean nobody shills like Gene Okerlund.  He had a long history with the McMahons, but WCW threw a bunch of money at him as well as many others, so he likely would've stayed.  Only point there is that sooner or later someone was going to tighten the purse strings on WCW. Remember at one time, Panda Energy who now backs TNA, was interested in purchasing WCW. I don't think they could have afforded a lot of those astronomical salaries.