NWA WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP WRESTLING
(NWA/WCW)
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FOR WCW-RELATED MERCHANDISE RELEASED THROUGH WWE, CHECK OUR WWE SECTION.
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FOR WCW-RELATED MERCHANDISE RELEASED THROUGH WWE, CHECK OUR WWE SECTION.
The history of WCW is irrevocably tied to the long and often convoluted history of professional wrestling in the state of Georgia.
Jim Crockett, Sr. had been promoting professional wrestling from his hometown in North Carolina since the early 1930's, and would officially incorporate as Jim Crockett Promotions in the 1950s, using the brand name of Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling and World Wide Wrestling (among others). Jim Crockett Promotions (JCP) would join the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) in 1952, with his promotional territory consisting of Virginia and the Carolinas.
As the NWA began to expand its territorial reach, Crockett's territory would similarly expand, reaching to include parts of Tennessee and West Virginia and even as far as Canada due to a co-promotional agreement with Frank Tunney's Maple Leaf Wrestling prior to Frank Tunney's death, after which Maple Leaf Wrestling would pass to Frank's son, Eddie and his nephew, Jack, who would later elect to align the promotion with the expanding WWF before eventually selling outright to them.
Upon the passing of Jim Crockett, Sr., the promotion would be run by his son, Jim Jr., who would continue to run it until its eventual sale to Ted Turner.
Professional wrestling's regional model would continue throughout the rest of the 70's, but as the 80's began, there was already a change beginning in the landscape of pro wrestling with the Mid-Atlantic territory playing a major role.
Crockett's territory would work closely over the years with the Mid-South territory (later the Universal Wrestling Federation (http://www.sfpincchicago.com/catalogue/promotions/UWF%20%28Watts%29/Wattsuwf.htmUWF after its separation from the NWA), run by future WCW President Bill Watts and Georgia Championship Wrestling (GCW) in Atlanta, owned by wrestlers Jack & Gerald Brisco, with minority interest held by wrestler Ole Anderson). This would become important as cable televison became more available and fans could see wrestling broadcast from other territories. WWF owner Vince McMahon had an idea to use the growing popularity of cable to dismantle the old-school wrestling system of territories and instead create one national promotion with the best talent in wrestling.
Although several territories had previously left the NWA, for the most part, they honoured territorial boundaries and their fellow promoters. Several wrestlers would still work with the NWA from time to time, and many individual promoters still worked closely with it, despite an official separation. This respect for the regional boundaries would inhibit growth of wrestling, especially as it related to cable television, since no promoter wanted to have wrestlers that weren't a part of his own territory appearing on a nationally viewed cable television program. It also allowed Vince McMahon to use that reluctance to cross territorial boundaries to his advantage as he began to overrun the territories.
Initially, one of the perks of being an NWA member promotion was that were any non-NWA member attempt to run a show in a member's territory, all the other territories would send all their top talent (at the NWA Board of Director's behest) to ensure that any attempts to muscle in on the member's territory would be unsuccessful. As the decade of the 60's came to a close and cable television began to be seen in more households, NWA member promotions began to take on an "every man for himself" attitude, which opened the door for the demise of the traditional territory system.
GCW was the first NWA territory to gain cable TV access (on Ted Turner's fledgling "SuperStation", WTBS), and with the expanded television viewership, Georgia Championship Wrestling changed its name to World Championship Wrestling (so as not to be perceived as too regional) in 1983, and began running shows in "neutral" NWA territories (territories not claimed by any other NWA promoter) such as Ohio and Michigan. This allowed WCW to remain competitive as the World Wrestling Federation began its own expansion out of its old northeastern territory.
The first (and possibly the most important) strike in the "wrestling war" between the NWA territories (specifically Crockett's territories) and the WWF took place on July 14, 1984, when wrestling fans around the country tuned into WTBS expecting to see broadcaster Gordon Solie and Ole Anderson hosting "World Championship Wrestling" and instead saw longtime Georgia wrestling announcer Freddie Miller introduce Vince McMahon, who gained control of the company as a result of the Brisco brothers selling McMahon their share of the promotion in exchange for jobs in the WWF, forcing out Ole Anderson. The Briscos' share of the promotion also included the timeslot on the TBS cable television network. This date has gone into infamy among longtime wrestling fans as "Black Saturday".
After gaining control of Georgia Championship Wrestling, the WWF immediately shut down the wrestling operation. Their main interest was the 3 hours of national television time on Superstation WTBS (local Atlanta channel 17), as well as eliminating their competition in the state of Georgia which also gave them Ohio, Michigan, and West Virginia markets that Georgia had been running for years. Ole Anderson quickly aligned with south Georgia promoters Fred Ward and Ralph Freed (and weeks later maverick promoter Ann Gunkle) to attempt to continue promoting wrestling shows in Georgia and elsewhere. The WWF show did not fare well in the ratings. WCW's core audience were not interested the WWF's sports-entertainment, preferring a more athletic style. Despite originally promising to produce original programming for the TBS timeslot, McMahon chose to provide only a clip show, featuring highlights from other WWF programming. In May 1985, McMahon sold the timeslot and WCW name to Jim Crockett, Jr., under pressure from Ted Turner. Ted Turner was unhappy with McMahon because Turner's original contract with Georgia Championship Wrestling included the proviso that the shows would originate from his WTBS studios. McMahon maintained that he was meeting that obligation by having the show hosted at WTBS, even though the matches were taped elsewhere. Turner was adamant that the matches actually be taped in his studios, but McMahon was not interested in bearing the huge costs of flying in talent to Atlanta every week just to produce one program. Eventually, however, McMahon acquiesced to Turner's wishes and In January 1985, the WWF began taping matches in the WTBS studios, although still using WWF wrestlers. The show was hosted by Gorilla Monsoon and Freddie Miller and featured a new set. McMahon was now actively looking for a way to get out of the WTBS contract and Turner was reportedly waiting for the opportunity to throw McMahon off the station. Turner began entertaining the idea of having another major promotion on the station. Two promotions in particular competed for the slot: Jim Crockett's Mid-Atlantic Wrestling, which had been involved with the Anderson group since they started up after Black Saturday, and Bill Watts' Mid-South Wrestling. The week immediately following "Black Saturday", the Georgia promotional group hastily put together a television taping in the studios of WMAZ-13 in Macon GA. The new show debuted on July 21, 1984 (one week after "Black Saturday") and was called “World Championship Wrestling ’84” and aired on their stations in the traditional Fred Ward markets of Columbus, Albany, and Macon GA (and perhaps a few other markets as well) and also eventually got on WGNX-46 in Atlanta. The show was hosted by longtime announcer Gordon Solie, an icon in Georgia, and a focal point for fans who protested to WTBS that Georgia Wrestling had been replaced by the WWF. Two weeks later, on Saturday August 4, as a result of the major protest from wrestling fans in Atlanta and all over the United States, the group was able to get a time slot back on Superstation WTBS, airing at the early hour of 7:35 AM on Saturday. This show was called “Championship Wrestling from Georgia", which was also the name of the new promotional company headed by Ole Anderson. This was a somewhat strange program at first, clearly thrown together in a hurry. It was taped at the same location where Jim Crockett Promotions taped their local promo inserts in Charlotte, at a small studio at the Crockett offices. The show was hosted by Gordon Solie and Ole Anderson. A small rectangular banner, familiar to Georgia fans, of a globe and the initials "NWA" (not the traditional NWA logo) was tacked to a white background behind them. The matches shown were pre-taped in the arenas at the same time Crockett taped his “Mid-Atlantic” and “World Wide Wrestling” TV shows, and the shows featured both Crockett regulars as well as Georgia regulars. Another two weeks later, on Saturday, August 18, “Championship Wrestling from Georgia” moved to a 9:05 AM Saturday time slot on TBS. The syndicated “World Championship Wrestling ‘84” had a name change to “Championship Wrestling from Georgia” on that weekend as well, but despite the same name as the WTBS show, continued to be a different live show taped at channel 13 in Macon GA. Around this same time, Crockett’s two TV shows ("Mid-Atlantic Wrestling" and "World Wide Wrestling") began being syndicated in the Fred Ward markets. It was Anderson's goal to begin taping exclusive matches for WTBS as soon as possible, and he soon arranged studio time in the traditional WTBS studios. The tapings were every other Wednesday night, and they taped two shows which would then air on the following two Saturday mornings. The first taping was on Wednesday September 5, and the first show debuted the following Saturday, September 8. The set was new, featuring a large traditional NWA logo behind the familiar podium where Gordon Solie hosted the show with Ole Anderson. This show was a collaborative effort of sorts between the Georgia group (Anderson, Ralph Freed, and Fred Ward) working with Bob Geigel (Kansas City) and Jim Crockett (Mid-Atlantic Wrestling). The first taping featured all the Georgia regulars as well as Harley Race from Central States wrestling in Kansas City, Bob Armstrong from Continental (Southeastern) Wrestling in Alabama, and Tully Blanchard from Jim Crockett Promotions in Charlotte. They immediately began heavily hyping a huge show in Baltimore MD on Oct. 11 called the “Night of Champions”, the same name the NWA group used at the historic Meadowlands show earlier that year. NWA President Bob Geigel, Fred Ward, and PWI’s Bill Apter all made appearances on the show as well. It was an exciting program for fans, and demonstrated extraordinary cooperation between several different NWA promotions who were desperately trying to regain a competitive advantage against Vince Mahon’s WWF. Meanwhile, the Macon GA tapings continued for the syndicated markets in Georgia, and continued to be a separate program from the WTBS show, although still both titled the same. On October 20, the complexion of the WTBS program began to change. An announcement was made on WTBS of a “merger” of three promotions which included Championship Wrestling from Georgia, Jim Crockett Promotions, and (surprisingly for fans) Jarrett Promotions out of Memphis. The merger storyline was in actuality a loose agreement by the three promotions to trade talent, and have combined talent featured on the national program on WTBS. On November 17, the syndicated show taped in Macon changed to a combined show of Memphis and Georgia regulars, hosted by both Lance Russell and Gordon Solie. This show aired in syndicated markets only, and did not last too long, although it's unclear when that arrangement ceased. Like many talent swapping arrangements between promoters, this one seemed to fall apart pretty quickly. Eventually, Ole Anderson’s group would be back on its own, with a show taped at WTBS studios and then aired on a delayed basis in the syndicated markets. In the early months of 1985, Anderson’s roster began to take its final form, as the company began to struggle financially. This group primarily consisted of Ole Anderson, Thunderbolt Patterson, Ron Garvin, Tommy Rich, Ron Starr, Scott Irwin, Bob Roop, Ray Candy and others including the return of Buzz Sawyer, and a brief return of Gene Anderson. Watt's would succeed in getting his hugely popular "Mid-South Wrestling" on WTBS, airing mid-afternoon on Sundays. Turner's plan was to eventually get out of the Georgia contract that McMahon now owned, giving Bill Watts the entire wrestling package and Turner hoped to get into the business of promoting wrestling events with Watts. "Mid-South Wrestling" debuted on WTBS on March 10, 1985. It was the same show that aired in the Mid-South territory, but was on a four week delay, so as not to hurt his local show in its broadcast markets. The plan was to eventually produce a separate program exclusively for WTBS. The result was that for a period of around three weeks, WTBS was airing wrestling from three different promotions: the WWF, Georgia, and Mid-South. Around the time the Mid-South show debuted, Vince McMahon secured a deal with Jim Crockett to sell the WWF's TV time slots on WTBS to Jim Crockett Promotions. The deal was reportedly brokered by the late Australian promoter Jim Barnett, a major shareholder in GCW, McMahon ally, and confidant of Ted Turner as well. Crockett reportedly paid McMahon one million dollars for the time slots. Crockett agreed to Turner's demand to tape exclusive shows from the WTBS studios, but Crockett insisted on being the exclusive promotion on Turner's station. Not only would he take the WWF's slots, but he would assume the early Saturday morning Georgia slot. The Mid-South mid-afternoon Sunday slot would be eliminated. Turner agreed, basically giving Jim Crockett the package that was originally going to go to Bill Watts. Now, just a few short weeks after McMahon had started taping live matches from the WTBS studio, the face of wrestling in Georgia was getting ready for another huge change. On Saturday, March 30, “Championship Wrestling from Georgia” came on the air as usual, except this time it was Tony Schiavone who opened the program with Ole Anderson, and it quickly became apparent to viewers that something was significantly different. The next week, April 6, 1985, Crockett Promotions debuted on the Saturday and Sunday evening time slots. That same Saturday morning, the final airing of “Championship Wrestling from Georgia” took place and the following week a Crockett show titled simply “Championship Wrestling” aired in its place. Turner honored his original agreement with Watts and the Mid-South show continued to air for the duration of their original three month contract. The final Mid-South show on WTBS aired May 26, 1985. Watts went above and beyond the call and told viewers that they should embrace the new Crockett programs and thanked viewers for watching his show while it had been on WTBS. "Mid-South Wrestling" had drawn tremendous ratings during its short run. With the acquisition of all time slots on WTBS by Jim Crockett Promotions, and with Crockett now beginning his expansion nationally, an era had come to end. The grand tradition of Georgia Wrestling as a major wrestling territory, which had died on Black Saturday but resurrected itself shortly thereafter, was now, sadly, gone for good in April of 1985. Tony Schiavone had replaced Gordon Solie as the voice of NWA wrestling on the Superstation. Solie of course continued as host of “Championship Wrestling from Florida” which he had hosted for decades. Ole Anderson became a full time wrestler once again for Jim Crockett Promotions, and would remain a familiar face to wrestling fans for many more years on Superstation WTBS. Anderson would prove to be the common thread in Georgia wrestling that linked all eras together. He was a major part of Georgia Championship Wrestling in the 1970s and early 1980s both as a wrestler and a booker, the promoter of the resurrected Georgia promotion after Black Saturday, a top star for Crockett Promotions that followed on TBS, and would be heavily involved in Turner's WCW that rose from the purchase of Jim Crockett Promotions in 1988. Anderson would continue as either a wrestler, manager, or booker until the mid-1990s. By 1986, Crockett controlled key portions of the NWA as Jim Crockett Promotions, including traditional NWA territories in The Carolinas, Georgia, and St. Louis. Crockett merged his various NWA territories into one group, and began promoting under the name "NWA World Championship Wrestling". A feud between Crockett and Vince McMahon's WWF sprang up, as both companies attempted to outmaneuver the other to acquire key TV slots. In the same year, Crockett purchased Heart of America Sports Attractions Inc, which promoted wrestling through several central states (Kansas, Missouri, and Iowa) and was known as NWA Central States, and ran a TV show called All Star Wrestling. In 1987, Crockett would purchase Florida Championship Wrestling, and Bill Watts's former Mid-South Wrestling, now renamed the Universal Wrestling Federation, covering Oklahoma, Mississippi, Arkansas, Texas and Louisiana, which was not an NWA member. These promotions and their wrestlers were absorbed into Jim Crockett Promotions. Crockett had almost accomplished his goal of creating a national federation. Between his purchasing several NWA territories, World Class Championship Wrestling leaving the NWA in 1986 (and later merging with Jerry Lawler's Championship Wrestling Alliance in Memphis to create the United States Wrestling Association), and the once highly viable Portland territory going bankrupt (it closed in 1992), he was the last bastion of the NWA, and the last member with national TV exposure. Since it was all they now saw, many people believed World Championship Wrestling was the NWA. World Championship Wrestling and the NWA were still two separate entities, though, with Crockett as NWA President, they were very much on the same page. The NWA was effectively an on paper organization funded by Crockett, and allowed Crockett to use the NWA brand name. With the large amount of capital needed to take a wrestling federation on a national tour, Crockett's territorial acquisitions had seriously drained WCW's coffers and was now in a similar situation to the WWF in the early 1980s: a large debt load, and the success or failure of a federation hinging on the success or failure of a couple of PPVs. Crockett marketed Starrcade '87 as the NWA's answer to WrestleMania, even thought Starrcade debuted a full two years prior to WrestleMania. However, Vince McMahon aired the Survivor Series pay-per-view event the same day and threatened to withhold WrestleMania IV from any pay-per-view carrier that showed Starrcade. With the large amount of revenue brought to these carriers from the first three WrestleManias, few were willing to call McMahon's bluff, leading to Starrcade receiving few buys, and Survivor Series becoming a huge success. In retaliation, in January 1988, Crockett released the Bunkhouse Stampede pay-per-view, which McMahon counter-programmed with the first Royal Rumble airing free on the USA Network. In 1985, Crockett had signed Dusty Rhodes and made him booker (matchmaker) for JCP. Rhodes had a well-deserved penchant for creativity and authored many memorable feuds and storylines of the period and gimmick matches like War Games. By 1988, after three years of trying to compete with Vince McMahon, and a political struggle with World Champion Ric Flair, Rhodes was burned out. He was unable to draw fan interest in his storylines, and the arena show market dwindled. To preserve the inexpensive network programming provided by professional wrestling, Jim Crockett Promotions was purchased outright by Turner on November 21, 1988. 1989 proved to be a turnaround year for WCW, with Ric Flair on top for most of the year both as World Champion and head booker. Flair helped bring in Ricky Steamboat and Terry Funk, and his PPV matches with both were successful financially and critically. Young stars such as Sid Vicious, Sting, Scott Steiner, The Road Warriors, Brian Pillman, The Great Muta and Lex Luger were given big storylines and championship opportunities. Behind the scenes, WCW also becoming more autonomous and slowly started separating itself from the historic NWA name. In January 1991, WCW officially split from the NWA and began to recognize its own WCW World Heavyweight Championship and WCW World Tag Team Championship. Both the WCW and the NWA recognized Ric Flair as their World Heavyweight Champion throughout most of the first half of 1991, but WCW, particularly then-company president Jim Herd, turned against Flair for various reasons and fired him just prior to the July 1991 Great American Bash PPV. In the process, they officially stripped him of the World Heavyweight Championship, and Flair jumped to the WWF. During the period that WCW operated with its own World Champion while also recognizing the NWA's world title, Flair quit the WWF and returned to WCW, regaining the title from Barry Windham in July 1993. Immediately, the other, smaller member organizations of the NWA began rightfully demanding that Flair defend the title under their rules in their territories, as mandated by NWA agreements. The title was later scheduled to be dropped by Flair to "Ravishing" Rick Rude, The NWA board of directors, working separately from WCW, objected to not being consulted on the decision, and vetoed the change, forcing WCW to finally separate with the NWA for good in September 1993. However, WCW still legally owned the physical NWA World Heavyweight Championship belt but they could no longer use the NWA name. The title thus became known as the WCW International Heavyweight Title. WCW knew that the title belt, because of its rich in-ring history and visual impact, was highly sought after and respected over in Japan and as such created a fictional subsidiary dubbed WCW International to inject some credibility back into the belt. WCW claimed that this subsidiary still recognized the belt as a legitimate World Championship. Sting eventually won the WCW International Championship and lost the belt to then-WCW World Champion Ric Flair in a unification match in May 1994. To make things more confusing, the new WCW title belt, introduced in 1991 when Flair left for the WWF, taking the belt with him (a result of his bond placed on the belt not being returned to him), was dropped and the old NWA Championship belt was revived and officially replaced it as the WCW World Heavyweight Championship. It was used as such until WCW's closure in 2001. The belt (in a slightly altered design) is still seen today in WWE as the World Heavyweight Championship, and WWE has claimed that the World Heavyweight Championship is a continuation of the World Heavyweight Championship lineage from WCW. The creative product of the company sank very noticeably in 1992 and 1993 under the presidency of Kip Frey, Jim Herd and, subsequently, Bill Watts. There were signs of gradual recovery in late 1993 when former commentator and American Wrestling Association (AWA) Eric Bischoff was appointed as Executive Vice President of WCW after originally being brought in as a secondary commentator behind Jim Ross after the AWA became defunct. Jim Herd 1988 - 1991 Kip Allen Frey 1991 - 1992 Bill Watts 1992 - 1993 Eric Bischoff 1993 - 1999Although Bischoff's first year in charge was considered unsuccessful, he would declare war on McMahon's WWF by aggressively recruiting high-profile former WWF superstars such as Hulk Hogan and "Macho Man" Randy Savage, both of whom were frustrated with their position in the WWF at the time. Using Turner's monetary resources, Bischoff placed his faith in the established stars with proven track records. Because of their high profiles, Hogan and Savage were able to demand and get several concessions not usually allowed to wrestlers at the time, such as multi-year, multimillion dollar guaranteed contracts and significant creative control (by this time, although signing a contract binding a wrestler to a certain organisation had become the norm, most contracts contained little more than that. A contract that guaranteed a certain salary, much less any kind of creative control over a wrestler's on-camera character was considered unprecedented.)
Unfortunately, as the Monday Night Wars continued, and both sides became more aggressive in their talent signings, other wrestlers were able to make similar demands, and contract values soared out of control with talent being able to make demands for larger salaries simply for not signing with the opposition, regardless of their star power or name value.
A memorable early talent signing that was left largely misused was former WCW and WWF Womens Champion, Madusa, who appeared on the live WCW Monday Nitro December 18, 1995, denounced her WWF identity as "Alundra Blayze", and then proceeded to throw the WWF Womens Championship belt (which the WWF didn't care enough to collect from Madusa after the discontinuation of the WWF Womens Division) in a trash can.
Hogan, in particular, was able to gain considerable influence through a friendship with Bischoff. Another problem Bischoff failed to consider was the fact that many WCW fans watched it as an alternative to the product of the WWF in the early 90s, and many fans saw the hiring of former WWF talent as an attempt to copy its success, as opposed to being an alternative product with an emphasis on in-ring action. WCW's first major event since Hogan's hiring, Bash at the Beach, saw the former WWF mainstay defeat Ric Flair for the WCW Championship. The two had worked for the WWF at the same time from 1991 to 1992, and a feud was teased between them, but the big-money match originally planned for WrestleMania VIII was changed due to a previous promise by McMahon to have Sid Vicious headline WrestleMania as a condition of his defection from WCW. When WCW delivered the match, the PPV drew a high buy rate by WCW standards due to mainstream intrigue and hype. Bischoff would be instrumental in launching the weekly show WCW Monday Nitro in September 1995 when Turner asked Bischoff how WCW could conceivably compete with McMahon's WWF. Bischoff, not expecting Turner to comply, said that the only way would be a primetime slot up against the WWF's flagship show, Monday Night RAW. Turner granted him a live hour on TNT every Monday night, which specifically overlapped with Raw. This format quickly expanded to two live hours in May 1996, and then later three. WCW Monday Nitro made its debut in September 1995 live from the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota, and featured the surprise appearance of then-WWF wrestler Lex Luger, who had been working on a handshake deal with WWF after his most recent contract expired. In the first head-to-head ratings the following week, Nitro managed to convincingly defeat RAW, seeing WCW beat the WWF for the first time ever. For most of Nitro's first year, the ratings battle between the two promotions were close. In the end, Nitro ended up beating RAW in the ratings for 84 straight weeks between 1996 and 1998. WWF was in a creative slump from 1995 to 1997, thus helping WCW's meteoric rise. The WWF tried in vain to fight back in early 1996 with a series of "Billionaire Ted" sketches that viciously parodied Turner (Billionaire Ted), Hogan (The Huckster), Gene Okerlund (Scheme Gene) and Savage ("Nacho Man"). These sketches were seen by some as a desperation move, as the WWF had never openly acknowledged the existence of any other wrestling company previously. Only when stars such as ex-WCW wrestler "Stone Cold" Steve Austin began to emerge, did the WWF begin to pick up steam. Siphoning off the WWF's talent and airing Nitro on Monday night was not the end of WCW's tactics to defeat the competition (a stunt McMahon himself pulled when he steamrolled over territories to monopolise the WWF, although McMahon would be the one crying "foul" this time). In the early days, as RAW was only live once every three weeks at that point, and hours of upcoming shows would be taped in one arena on one night, announcers on Nitro often gave away the results of that week's RAW to keep viewers tuned to Nitro. Much later, with the WWF firmly back on top, this tactic memorably backfired on January 4, 1999, when WCW announcer Tony Schiavone was instructed by Bischoff over his headset to announce that Mick Foley would win the WWF Championship that night on RAW. Schiavone sarcastically remarked, "that would put a lot of butts in the seats.", which it did, and caused millions of viewers to change the channel and not change it back. After WrestleMania XIV in March 1998, the WWF regained the lead in the Monday Night Wars with its new WWF "Attitude" led by rising stars "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, The Rock, Triple H and Mankind. The classic feud between McMahon (as evil company chairman Mr. McMahon) and Austin (who, ironically, had been released by Bischoff in the summer of 1995 for not being marketable) caught the imaginations of fans. The April 13, 1998 episode of RAW, headlined by a match between Austin and McMahon, marked the first time that WCW had lost the head-to-head Monday night ratings battle in the 84 weeks since 1996. WWF didn't stop there, and ratings increased dramatically in the next two years, more then ever before. Undeterred, WCW attempted to counter and launched a new Thursday TV show, WCW Thunder. One of WCW's last big genuine wins in the Monday night ratings war was on July 6, 1998, when WCW gave the long-awaited World Title match in Atlanta between Hogan and Goldberg for free on Nitro. By doing this, they indeed 'spiked' and inflated their TV ratings for a week, but flushed away millions of possible PPV dollars in the process, as the match was a clear PPV main event. On September 14, 1998, WCW won the ratings war once again with a memorable moment that featured Ric Flair's return to WCW and the reformation of the legendary Four Horsemen. Then came the infamous 'fingerpoke of doom' match with Hulk Hogan in January 1999. The World Heavyweight Championship changed hands when Hogan knocked Nash to the mat by prodding him in the chest with one finger and then pinning him, further damaging the credibility and value of the title. Also in 1998, The Ultimate Warrior was recruited by Bischoff to feud with Hogan. Their October 1998 encounter at Halloween Havoc was sub-par, and Warrior vanished soon after. In addition, no matter who was in charge, WCW did not promote younger stars to the company's top slots. Despite having many talented younger wrestlers such as Chris Jericho, Chris Benoit, Billy Kidman, Chavo Guerrero, Jr., the late Eddie Guerrero, Perry Saturn, Raven, Rey Mysterio, Jr., and Booker T (just to name a few) on its roster, they were kept away from the main event. WCW's poor talent decisions combined with the massive popularity of the new, hip and edgy WWF Attitude Era, began WCW's rapid demise. Bischoff was eventually removed from power by the Turner higher-ups on September 10, 1999, the last straws perhaps being a bizarre and mystifying push for the rock group KISS through WCW shows, as well as a KISS_branded wrestler; a storyline involving rapper Master P and The No Limit Soldiers that saw Master P last only two weeks when Bischoff inexplicably portrayed Master P and his entourage as fan favourites against the West Texas Rednecks stable in a "rap vs. country" feud to WCW's primarily southern fanbase. Bischoff was unexpectedly replaced by former WWF head writer Vince Russo and his colleague Ed Ferrera. Russo and Ferrera had been the head writers for the WWF at the beginning of the Attitude Era, subordinate only to Vince McMahon himself. WCW offered them lucrative contracts to jump ship in October 1999 in an effort to revitalize their own flagging product and weaken the product of the WWF. Russo and Ferrera tried to push the younger WCW talents straight away, and phase out aging stars such as Hogan and Flair. However, Russo was incapable of recreating the intriguing and cutting-edge TV he had produced while working for McMahon, as they struggled to gain approval for their edgy ideas from WCW management, which feared offending some of the more conservative Christian viewers in the south. In late 1999, Russo and Ferrera revived the nWo storyline, this time with Jeff Jarrett and Bret Hart at the helm. Both Russo and Ferrera were suspended just three months later Kevin Sullivan, who had been an on/off booker over the course of several years, was placed in charge in the interim. The new writing team attempted to appease the demoralized wrestlers and fans by making Chris Benoit the WCW Champion at the Souled Out PPV in January 2000. However, because of the real-life personal issues between himself and Sullivan, let alone that prior to the PPV that he and a few other wrestlers demanded their releases from the company (due to their lack of a push as well as their similar hatred for Sullivan) which all were granted. Benoit handed the belt back and left WCW. He signed with the WWF along with his similarly frustrated friends Perry Saturn, Eddie Guerrero and Dean Malenko, where they were promptly inserted into a high profile television role as "The Radicalz". In April 2000, with ratings hitting new lows, both Russo and Bischoff were reinstated by WCW. They formed an on-screen union that stood up for the younger talent in the company (which they dubbed the New Blood) in their battle against the Millionaire's Club, which consisted of the older, higher-paid, and more visible stars such as Hogan, Sting, and Diamond Dallas Page. Though initially well-received, the storyline quickly degenerated into yet another nWo rehash, with the heel nWo recast as the New Blood and the face WCW embodied in the Millionaire's Club. Other blunders included making actor David Arquette the WCW Champion in order to promote a WCW-themed movie, Russo himself winning the WCW Championship in September 2000, a June heel turn for Goldberg that greatly diminished his drawing power; and a shoot speech by Russo at Bash at the Beach 2000 aimed at Hulk Hogan which led to Hogan resigning and filing a defamation of character lawsuit against the company Bischoff vanished once more in July 2000, and Russo was gone from WCW completely by late 2000. Meanwhile, when Time Warner bought out Turner's cable empire in 1996, it also purchased WCW. Even though Turner was a big fan and faithful to the professional wrestling shows on his stations (a professional wrestling program had helped get Turner's very first TV station, WTBS, off the ground, and WCW was, in fact, the modern incarnation of the promotion that Turner had run on WTBS back in those days) regardless of whether it was losing him money, Time Warner did not share his loyalty, especially when accounts showed that WCW was losing between $12-$17 million a year because of its decline. However, Turner was still the single largest Time Warner shareholder, and WCW was supported at his behest. When AOL merged with Time Warner in 2000, Turner was effectively forced out of his own empire. The new AOL Time Warner finally had the power to auction off WCW, which they saw not only as an unnecessary drain on resources, but a low-rated, demographically undesireable show.In late 2000, Bischoff and a group of private investors, enquired about buying WCW but backed out when AOL/Time Warner programming executives refused to sell TV time with the WCW brand. With no network to air its programming, WCW was of little value to Bischoff, who was dependent on the Turner networks continuing to air WCW programming. On March 23, 2001, WCW, along with virtually all of its trademarks and archived footage dating back to the Crockett Mid-Atlantic and Georgia Championship Wrestling years, was sold to Vince McMahon through World Wrestling Federation Entertainment, Inc. for a reported $7 million, ending a promotion with a nearly seventy year history, all told, through its various incarnations, and the only promotion ever to be able to compete with the WWF on the same level, not to mention the only promotion to ever overtake the WWF (however temporary) as the number one wrestling company in the world.
The final Champions of WCW prior to its sale were:
the final match of the final broadcast of WCW Monday Nitro was Sting vs. Ric Flair. A fitting tribute to the orgranisation, as years ago at the first WCW Clash of the Champions, Ric Flair battled Sting cementing Sting's status as a rising star. Although the two had stared down each other from opposite sides of the ring for many years, there was always a mutual respect between the two top stars in WCW, and when Sting won the match, he would receive a hug from his long-time rival.
A gloating McMahon opened the last-ever episode of WCW Monday Nitro simulcast with RAW on March 26, 2001 with a self-praising speech. Despite aborted attempts to run separate WCW-branded events, the WWF only ran a handful of matches on RAW and SmackDown! under the WCW banner before merging it (on camera) with the recently-acquired ECW brand (which had just recently been sold to the WWF) as "The Alliance", putting a WWF spin on the long-awaited WCW vs. WWF feud. The WCW World Heavyweight Championship would continue to be defended in the WWF until it was merged with the WWF Championship into the WWF Undisputed Championship when Chris Jericho defeated The Rock and "Stone Cold" Steve Austin for the respective titles on December 9, 2001 at the Vengeance pay-per-view event. 6 Sam Muchnick 1963–1975 St. Louis Wrestling Club 7 Jack Adkisson (Fritz Von Erich) 1975–1976 World Class Championship Wrestling 8 Edward Gossett (Eddie Graham) 1976–1978 Championship Wrestling from Florida 9 Bob Geigel 1978–1980 Central States Wrestling 10 Jim Crockett, Jr. 1980–1982 Jim Crockett Promotions 11 Bob Geigel 1982–1985 Central States Wrestling 12 Jim Crockett, Jr. 1985–1986 Jim Crockett Promotions 13 Bob Geigel 1986–1987 Central States Wrestling 14 Jim Crockett, Jr. 1987–1991 Jim Crockett Promotions 15 Jim Herd 1991–1992 World Championship Wrestling
