History

 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP WRESTLING 

World Championship Wrestling (WCW) was an American professional wrestling promotion founded by Ted Turner in 1988, after Turner Broadcasting System, through a subsidary named Universal Wrestling Corporation, purchased the assets of National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) territory Jim Crockett Promotions (JCP) (which had aired its programming on TBS).

For all of it's existence, WCW was one of the top two professional wrestling promotions in the United States, alongside the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE), at one point surpassing the latter in terms of popularity. After initial success through utilization of established wrestling stars of the 1980s, the company appointed Eric Bischoff to Executive Producer of Television in 1993. Under Bischoff's leadership, the company enjoyed a period of mainstream success characterized by a shift to reality-based storylines, and notable hirings of former WWF talent. WCW also gained attention for developing a popular cruiserweight division, which showcased an acrobatic, fast-paced, lucha libre-inspired style of wrestling. In 1995, WCW debuted their live flagship television weekly program, WCW Monday Nitro, and subsequently developed a ratings competition against the flagship program of the WWF, Monday Night RAW, in a period now known as the Monday Night War. From 1996 til 1998, WCW surpassed their rival program in the ratings for 83 consecutive weeks straight. 

Beginning in 1999, however, WCW endured significant losses in ratings and revenue due to creative missteps and suffered from the fallout from the 2001 merger of America Online (AOL) and Turner Broadcasting parent Time Warner (later WarnerMedia, and now known as Warner Bros/ Discovery (WBD). Soon thereafter, WCW was shut down, and the WWF purchased the assets in 2001, including it's video library, intellectual property (including the WCW logo and championships), and some wrestler contracts. The corporate subsidary, which was retained to deal with legal obligations and reverted to the Universal Wrestling Corporation name, officially became defunct in 2017. Its headquarters was originally located in CNN Tower but later was moved to it's own location in Smyrna, Georgia. 

HISTORY:

Georgia Championship Wrestling and Black Saturday (1982-1984):

Although the "World Championship Wrestling" brand name was used by promoter Jim Barnett for his Australian promotion, the first promotion in the United States to use the brand on a wide scale was Georgia Championship Wrestling (GCW). GCW, owned primarily by Jack Brisco and Jerry Brisco and booked by Ole Anderson, was the first NWA territory to gain cable television access, broadcast by Ted Turner's WTCG-TV Atlanta, the station that evolved into Superstation TBS. The show was broadcast every Saturday evening, from 6:05 PM ET to 8:05 PM ET.

After founding his own company, Titan Sports, Inc., in 1980, in 1982, Vincent K. McMahon purchased his father's Capital Wrestling Corporation (CWC) and merged it into Titan Sports, Inc. Under his leadership, the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) became the top promotion in North America and GCW devised the name "World Championship Wrestling" in an effort to compete. 

In 1982, GCW changed the name of it's Georgia Championship Wrestling television show to World Championship Wrestling since it was already starting to run shows in "neutral" territories such as Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan. These efforts helped to keep GCW competitive against Vincent K. McMahon's WWF, as both promotions had secured television deals and the WWF was trying to become a national, as opposed to regional, entity. McMahon had purchased his father's company, Capital Wrestling Corporation (CWC), a pro-wrestling territory operating mainly in the Northeast and merged it with his own company, Titan Sports, Inc. The WWF would leave the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) and create the show WWF All American Wrestling for the USA Network.

On April 9th, 1984, the Brisco brothers sold their shares of GCW, including their Saturday evening timeslot on WTBS, to Vince McMahon. The WWF would take over GCW's timeslot on July 14th, 1984, a day that would become known as "Black Saturday". WWF's gimmick-based approach, in contrast to GCW's more conflict and athleticism-driven Southern style of wrestling, was negatively received by WTBS viewers. Despite originally promising to produce live-to-tape in-studio matches from Atlanta, WWF would instead feature pre-taped matches shot in arenas around the country. This move was a major factor in Turner's decision to discontinue showing the WWF. Meanwhile, Ole Anderson, who had refused to sell his shares in GCW to the WWF, teamed with fellow holdout shareholders Fred Ward and Ralph Freed to create Championship Wrestling from Georgia. Turner quickly secured a television deal with the new promotion, as well as with Bill Watts' Mid-South Wrestling based in Oklahoma. 

Jim Crockett Promotions Moves to TBS (1985-1986):

Under pressure from Turner, in March of 1985 McMahon sold his TBS timeslot and the "World Championship Wrestling" name to Jim Crockett Promotions (JCP), owned by Jim Crockett, Jr., in a deal brokered by former GCW partner Jim Barnett. The deal grew both companies, making JCP's Charlotte-based Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling into a national promotion that became synonomous with the NWA while providing McMahon and Titan Sports with capital needed to stage the first WrestleMania supercard. The new World Championship Wrestling, which was now a combination of JCP (Mid-Atlantic Wrestling) and Championship Wrestling from Georgia, became a top rated TBS show, allowing Jim Crockett, Jr., to become NWA President for the second time. 

In 1986, Jim Crockett Promotions held the first Jim Crockett Sr. Memorial Cup, which showcased talent from various NWA territories. Bob Geigel would later become the NWA President once again, and would purchase Geigel's Heart of America Sports Attractions, promoters of the Central States territory, which owned the rights to promote wrestling shows through the states of Kansas, Missouri and Iowa. 

Going National (1987-1988):

In 1987, Jim Crockett Promotions would enter into an agreement to control Championship Wrestling from Florida, and Universal Wrestling Federation (which covered Oklahoma, Mississippi, Arkansas, Texas and Lousiana; by this time, the UWF had split from the NWA); this helped elevate Crockett to a third tenure as NWA President. The Florida and Mid-South territories (along with those companies' rosters of wrestlers) were absorbed into WCW. Jim Crockett Promotions now owned NWA St. Louis, the Universal Wrestling Federation, Mid-Atlantic, Central States Wrestling, Championship Wrestling from Georgia and Championship Wrestling from Florida as well.

Between the purchasing of several NWA territories, World Class Championship Wrestling (WCCW) in Texas leaving the NWA in 1986 (and later merging with Jerry Jarrett's Continental Wrestling Association in Memphis to create a new promotion, the United States Wrestling Association (USWA), JCP was the last NWA member with national television exposure, which at this point in time made JCP de facto synonomous with the NWA. Although JCP and the NWA were still two separate legal entities, with Crockett at NWA President, Jim Crockett Promotions was allowed to use the NWA brand for promoting. 

With the large amount of capital needed to take a wrestling promotion on a national tour, the various territorial acquisitons had drained JCP's coffers. Likewise, the WWF in the early 1980s suffered a large debt load, and it's success was hinging on the reception to it's pay-per-view eevents. In 1987, JCP marketed the fifth installment of Starrcade at the NWA's answer to the WWF's WrestleMania supercard. The WWF would counter-program with their first Survivor Series event on the same day. The WWF informed cable companies that if they chose to carry Starrcade, they would not be allowed to carry future WWF events. The vast majority of companies showed Survivor Series (only five opted to remain in contract with Crockett, resulting in only $80,000 profit after expenses). 

In January 1988, JCP promoted Bunkhouse Stampede, and McMahon counter-programmed with the first Royal Rumble event on the USA Network. Both NWA events achieved low buyrates and the decision to hold these events in Chicago and New York alienated the Crockett's main fanbase in the Carolinas, hampering their drawing power for arena shows in the Southeast. 

Dusty Rhodes As Booker And Collapse (1988):

In 1984, Crockett had signed Dusty Rhodes and made him booker for World Championship Wrestling. Rhodes had a reputation for creativity and authored many memorable feuds, storylines and gimmick matches like WarGames. Rhodes would be responsible for elevating up-and-coming wrestlers such as Sting, Ricky Steamboat, Magnum T.A., the Road Warriors (Hawk and Animal) and Nikita Koloff, among others, to superstardom. However, Rhodes would get involved in a political struggle with NWA champion Ric Flair, and by 1988, and four years of competiton with Vince McMahon, he was burned out. Rhodes' booking would be criticized for frequent non-endings to house shows, now known infamously as the "Dusty Finish". One of the last creative aspects Dusty Rhodes initiated was the Clash of the Champions, on the night of WrestleMania IV. For a quarter-hour, the Ric Flair vs. Sting match gained more viewers than WrestleMania, and the match also saw Sting become a top player for WCW. Conversely, Rhodes planned at one point to have mid-card wrestler Rick Steiner defeat Ric Flair in a five-minute match at Starrcade for the NWA World Heavyweight Championship. Rhodes would be fired by the promotion after an angle he booked on November 26th, where Road Warrior Animal pulled a spike out of his shoulder pad and jammed it in Rhodes' eye bustiing it wide open, despiite a strict "no-blood" policy laid down by Turner after his recent purchase of the company.

Founding and First Years Under Ted Turner (1988-1992):

Jim Crockett Promotons was purchased outright by Ted Turner on October 11th, 1988. Originally incoorportated by TBS as the Universal Wrestling Corporation, Turner promised fans that WCW would remain the athlete-oriented style of the NWA. The sale was completed on November 2nd, 1988, with a television taping for NWA World Championship Wrestling that very night in WCW's hometown of Atlanta, Georgia.

1989 proved to be a turnaround year for WCW, with Ric Flair as both World Champion and head booker. Flair would bring in Ricky Steamboat and Terry Funk, and his pay-per-view matches with Steamboat were financally and criticially successful. Young stars such as Sid Vicious, Sting, Scott Steiner, The Road Warriors (Animal and Hawk), Brian Pillman, The Great Muta and Lex Luger were given major storylines and championship opportunities. In March 1990, however, Flair would be fired from his role as head booker after WCW talent began to argue that Flair was booking things in his favor. One of these examples was Flair's refusal to drop the WCW World Heavyweight Championship to Lex Luger, as he had already promised to drop it to Sting, who himself had been injured earlier in the year. Despite high tatings climbed and had well-received shows, Flair would eventually be replaced by Ole Anderson as head booker.

Under Ole, WCW began to incorporate much of the gimmicks for which the WWF was better known. These stunts incluced a cross-promotion appearance of RoboCop at Capital Combat in May 1990, the Chambers of Horrors gimmick, and the Black Scorpion storyline. House shows would drop to record lows as Ole continously pushed older wrestlers who were loyal to him. Behind the scenes, WCW was becoming more autonomous and slowly started seperating itself from the NWA. They would officially split from the NWA in January 1991, and began to recognize its own WCW World Heavyweight Championship and WCW World Tag Team Championship.

Both WCW and NWA recognized Ric Flair as their World Heavyweight Champion throughout most of the first half of 1991. However, the recently installed WCW President Jim Herd, who was formerly the manager of the St. Louis TV station KPLR-TV and had also once been the regional manager of Pizza Hut, turned against Flair for various reasons. Flair would be first before The Great American Bash in July 1991 after failed contract negotiations. In the process, they officially stripped him of the WCW World Heavyweight Championship. According to Flair's autobiography, they refused to return to $25,000 deposit he had put down on the physical belt, so he kept it and brought it with him when he was hired by the WWF at the request of Vince McMahon. Flair then incorporated the belt into his gimmick, dubbing himself "The Real World's Champion". WCW later rengeoitatied the use of the NWA name as a co-promotional gimmick with New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW) and sued the WWF to stop showing Flair with the old NWA World Championship belt on its programs, claiming a trademark on the physical design of the belt. The belt was returned to WCW by Flair when Jim Herd was let go. Flair eventually recieved his deposit which with interest was over $38,000. It was brought back as the revived NWA World Heavyweight Championship. 

Meanwhile, the WCW's product fell into a decline in 1991 and 1992, under the presidency of the Herd, Ric Flair, who had conflicts with Herd, once stated that Herd "knew nothing about wrestling, other than the fact that the station he ran had a hot show" (referred to the once-popular show Wrestling at the Chase, which was broadcast by KPLR-TV while Herd was manager there). According to Flair, Herd also wanted him to drop his "Nature Boy" persona, shave his head (even though Flair's bleach blonde hair was one of his most recognizable trademarks) and adopt a Roman gladiator gimmick by the name of Spartacus in order to "change with the times". Creative committee member Kevin Sullivan was quoted as saying, "After was change Flair's gimmick, why don't we go to Yankee Stadium and change Babe Ruth's uniform number?" During contract negotiations, Flair refused to take a pay cut, be moved away from the main event position, or drop the title to Lex Luger as Herd wanted. Flair instead offered to drop the title to fellow Horseman Barry Windham. Herd's other ideas were seen by many as a poor attempt to mimic the WWF's gimmick-oriented style. Stan Hansen was so insulted by the Desperados gimmick, a stable of bumbling cowboyws, that he left WCW outright when he was asked to be a part of the group. Jim Cornette and Stan Lane would also depart from the promotion after having conflicts with Herd, thus breaking up the Midnight Express, and the Road Warriors would also leave in July 1990 because of conflicts with Herd.

Herd was finally fired in January 1992 and was succeeded by Kip Allen Frey. Frey's tenure running WCW was very brief, and he would be replaced later that year by "Cowboy" Bill Watts, who had formerly been the promoter for Mid-South Wrestling (later known as the Universal Wrestling Federation) and was the first head executive of WCW to have prior experience in the wreslting business since Jim Crockett left. Watts would controversally make top rope changes. After clashes with management over a number of issues, as well as feeling pressure from Hank Aaron over a racially sensitive piece of correspondence, and accusiations of antisemitism from Paul E. Dangerously and Scotty Flamingo (both of whom are Jewish), Watts resigned. He was subsequentely replaced by Eric Bischoff.

Final Split With The National Wrestling Alliance (1993):

During the period that WCW operated with its own World Heavyweight Championship, while also recognizing the NWA's world title, Flair left the WWF on good terms and returned to WCW, regaining the NWA title from Barry Windham in July 1993. The title was later scheduled to be dropped by Flair ot Rick Rude, a title change which was exposed by the pre-taping of matches at the Disney-MGM Studios, known as the Disney tapings. The NWA board of directors, working seperately from WCW, objected to the title being changed without their vote and WCW left the NWA for good in September 1993, even defending it as the "Big Gold Belt", but they could no longer use the NWA name. The title thus became known as the WCW International World Heavyweight Championship as the World Heavyweight Championship as sanctioned by fictious subsidary WCW International. WCW claimed that WCW International still recognized the belt as a legitamate World Championship. For a short while, there were essentially two world titles up for competition in the organization, with Sting winning th eWCW International title, while Flair captured the WCW World Heavyweight Championship from Big Van Vader. The two titles were unified by Flair in a match on June 23rd, 1994. 

The First Year Under Eric Bischoff (1993):

In February 1993, former commentator Eric Bischoff was appointed as Executive Vice President of WCW. Bischoff impressed Turner's top brass with his non-confrontational tactics and business savvy. Jim Ross, upset that a man who once answered to him was now his supervisor, requested a release from TBS executive Bill Shaw (after suggestion from Bischoff) and ended up in the WWF. Meanwhile, Dusty Rhodes and Ole Anderson were still in full creative control at this point, and WCW continued its decline under their watch. 

The infamous "Lost in Cleveland" storyline began when Cactus Jack (Mick Foley) first wrestled Big Van Vader on April 6th, 1993. Foley and Vader wanted an intense match, so they agreed that Vader would hit Cactus with a series of heavy blows to the face. WCW edited the match heavily because it was against their policies to show the heavy bleeding that resulted. Foley suffered a broken nose, a dislocated jaw and needed twenty-seven stitches, but won the match via countout. Because the title did not change hands on a countout, WCW booked a rematch. Foley, however, wanted some time off to be with his newborn daughter and get surgery to repair a knee injury. As a result, in the rematch with Vader on April 23rd, Vader removed the protective mats at ringside and power-bombed Cactus onto the exposed concrete floor, causing a legitimate concussion and causing Foley to temporarily lose sensation in his left foot and hand. While Foley was away, the angle saw Cactus Jack's absense was explained with him being was institutionalized, escaped, and devloped amnesia. Foley had wanted the injury storyline to be very serious and generate genuine symphathy for him before his return. In response to the comedy vignettes that WCW produced, Foley jokes in his autobiography that they were the brainchild of WCW executives, who regarded a surefire moneymaking feud as a problem that needed to be solved.

On July 6th, 1993, WCW began the aforementioned Disney MGM Studios tapings. In order to save money, the promotion rented out a studio located at the Disney-MGM Studios in Orlando, Florida, and proceeded to tape its syndicated television programming months before it was to air on television. Wrestlers were often forced to appear on-camera with belts the would not actually win for several more months, exposing future WCW storylines to those in attendance (most of whom were tourists who had been coached to cheer and boo on cue). Footage of Rude with the NWA title shot at these tapings had caused the controversy with the NWA discussed above. Moreover, the tapings also caused confusion in the tag team division, as they had revealed that Arn Anderson and Paul Roma were to win the WCW World Tag Team Championship from The Hollywood Blonds ("Stunning"Steve Austin and Flyin' Brian Pillman). The promotion attempted to swerve the fans at the live Beach Blast pay-per-view event in July and keep the titles on the Blonds, but the live Clash of the Champinship XXIV show was to take place in August before the already-shot footage of Anderson and Roma as tag team champions was to begin circulating in late-August. However, before the Clash event, Pillman was injured and unable to wrestle, forcing Lord Steven Regal to replace him alongside Austin. Anderson and Roma won the titles, while the Blonds were broken up permanetely. 

In 1993, Flair returned to WCW from his WWF tenure, but was constrained by a no-compete clause from his WWF contract. In response, he was given a talk-show segment on WCW's televiision shows called "A Flair for the Gold", similar to Piper's Pit segments starring "Rowdy" Roddy Piper. In a now-infamous segment of the talk show at the Clash XXIV, a "mystery partner" for the faces known as The Shockmaster (portrayed by Fred Ottman, previously known as "Typhoon" in the WWF) tripped through the wall and fell on his face, inadvertently rendering himself a joke character (despite winning some matches). Dusty Rhdoes later claimed that a 2x4 was placed at t he bottom of the wall, which had not been there on rehearsal, which caused Ottman to trip and stumble. By November of 1993, WCW decided to once again base the promotion around Ric Flair, after prospective top babyface Sid was involved in an accident with Arn Anderson that resulted in the hospitilation of both men, while on tour in England, eight weeks before Starrcade, and was fired. Flair then placed his career on the line against Big Van Vader for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship. Flair won the title at Starrcade and was once again made booker. That did not stop WCW from suffering massive financial losses in 1993, however, a staggering $23 million. 

Early Competition with the World Wrestling Federation (1994-1996):