History of World Championship Wrestling
Encyclopedia
The history of World Championship Wrestling
(WCW) is concerned with the American
professional wrestling promotion
that existed from 1988 to 2001. It began as a promotion affiliated with the National Wrestling Alliance
(NWA) that appeared on the national scene under the ownership of media mogul
Ted Turner
and based in Atlanta, Georgia. The name came from a wrestling television program that aired on TBS
in the 1980s, which in turn had taken the name from a previous Australia
n wrestling promotion of the 1970s.
In the 1990s, World Championship Wrestling, along with the World Wrestling Federation (WWF), was considered one of the top two wrestling promotions in the United States
. Its flagship show WCW Monday Nitro
went head-to-head with WWF Raw
in a ratings battle known as the Monday Night Wars
. However, questionable booking decisions, the increasing popularity of the WWF, interference and restrictions from Time Warner
and lackluster angles eventually led to its decline and eventual acquisition by its main competition: Vince McMahon
and the WWF.
for his Australian promotion, the first promotion in the United States
to use the World Championship Wrestling brand name (though it was never referred to as "WCW") on a wide scale was Georgia Championship Wrestling
(GCW). GCW, owned primarily by Jack Brisco
and Gerald Brisco
and booked by Ole Anderson
, was the first NWA territory to gain cable television
access.
After founding his own company, Titan Sports Inc. in 1980, in 1982, Vince K. McMahon
purchased his father's Capitol Wrestling Corporation (CWC) and merged it into Titan Sports Inc. After changing its name to the World Wrestling Federation (WWF), it 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 its television show (and thus its public face) to World Championship Wrestling since it was already starting to run shows in "neutral" territories such as Ohio
and Michigan
. These efforts helped to keep GCW competitive against the WWF, as both promotions had secured television deals and were trying to become national, as opposed to regional, entities. The change in name helped make GCW the top promotion once again, until the WWF was able to officially leave the NWA and create the show WWF All American Wrestling. The NWA, led by the President of Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling, Jim Crockett
, countered by creating Starrcade
in the fall of 1983
, thus propelling it back to the top, but Vince McMahon again regained the lead with Hulk Hogan
's dramatic world title victory at Madison Square Garden
in January 1984, as well as the creation of the television show Tuesday Night Titans
.
On April 9, 1984, the Brisco brothers sold their shares in GCW, including their prime time
slot on the TBS cable television network
, to Vince McMahon. However, GCW's core audience was not interested in the WWF's cartoonish approach, preferring a more athletic style. As a result, when GCW's faithful television viewers tuned in to TBS on July 14, 1984 and saw WWF programming instead, they were outraged and sent complaints to the network demanding the return of GCW. This day has since gone down in wrestling lore as Black Saturday
. Adding fuel to the fire was the fact that, despite originally promising to produce original programming for the TBS time slot, McMahon chose instead to provide only a clip show
for TBS featuring highlights from other WWF programming, a move which angered network head Ted Turner and was a major factor in his decision to discontinue showing the WWF on his network. Luckily for Turner, Ole Anderson had refused to sell his shares in GCW to the WWF, and he 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.
(JCP), owned by Jim Crockett, Jr.
, under pressure from Ted Turner. The WWF and its major superstar, Hulk Hogan
, however, were now the superior figures of wrestling after the success of the first WrestleMania
, so the sale took place to successfully put the company in better shape. The new WCW, which was now a combination of JCP (Mid-Atlantic Wrestling) and Championship Wrestling from Georgia, was now the top show on TBS, and Jim Crockett, Jr. became NWA President for the second time.
By 1986, Jim Crockett Promotions controlled key portions of the NWA, including the traditional NWA territories in North
and South Carolina
, Georgia
, and St. Louis
. JCP merged its NWA territories into one group, promoting under the banner "NWA World Championship Wrestling". A feud between Crockett and Vince McMahon's WWF sprang up, and the companies attempted to outmaneuver each other to acquire key television
slots. It was the WWF, however, who was able to become a hit in St. Louis (and the rest of Missouri as well), which brought trouble to the NWA Central States. The WWF was able to become a hit across the country as well, as the feud between Hulk Hogan and Paul Orndorff appealed to a large audience. Following this, Bob Geigel became the NWA President once again.
In the same year, JCP also purchased 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
.
, Mississippi
, Arkansas
, Texas
and Louisiana
), and which was not an NWA member; this helped make Crockett NWA President once again. 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.
JCP had almost accomplished its goal of creating a national promotion. Between the purchasing of several NWA territories, World Class Championship Wrestling
in Texas leaving the NWA in 1986 (and later merging with Jerry Jarrett
's Championship Wrestling Alliance in Memphis
to create the United States Wrestling Association
brand), and the once highly viable Pacific Northwest
territory, as it had been known, closing in 1992, WCW was the last bastion of the NWA, and the last member with national television exposure. Since it was all they now saw, people began to believe that WCW was the NWA. Although WCW and the NWA were still two separate entities, with Crockett as NWA President, they were very much on the same page. The NWA was effectively an on-paper organization funded by Jim Crockett Promotions, and allowed JCP to use the NWA brand name for promoting.
With the large amount of capital needed to take a wrestling promotion on a national tour, the various territorial acquisitions had seriously drained JCP's coffers. He was in a similar situation to that of 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 series of pay-per-view
events. In 1987, JCP marketed Starrcade
as the NWA's answer to WrestleMania
. However, the WWF promoted Survivor Series
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 loyal to their contract with Crockett, resulting in only an $80,000 profit after expenses).
In January 1988, JCP promoted Bunkhouse Stampede
, and McMahon counter-programmed with the first Royal Rumble
on USA Network
. Both NWA events achieved low buyrates,(tv shows don't have buyrates) and the resulting financial blow led to the beginning of the end for JCP. 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.
and made him booker for what was now WCW. Rhodes had a reputation for creativity and authored many of the memorable feuds and story lines of this period and gimmick matches like WarGames. By 1988, after three years of competition with Vince McMahon, and a long political struggle with champion Ric Flair
, Rhodes was burnt out. Fans were sick of the Dusty finish (and other non-endings for shows) that had obliterated the once-profitable house show
market. One of the last creative aspects Dusty Rhodes initiated was the first 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; the epic match also made Sting a top player for WCW. By the end of 1988, Rhodes was booking cards seemingly at random, and planning 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
. After Starrcade '88, Rhodes was fired by the promotion after an angle he booked on November 26, where Road Warrior Animal
pulled a spike out of his shoulder pad and jammed it in Rhodes's eye busting it wide open, despite a strict "no-blood" policy laid down by Turner after his recent purchase of the company.
To preserve the inexpensive network programming provided by professional wrestling, Jim Crockett Promotions was purchased outright by Turner on November 21, 1988. Originally incorporated by TBS as the Universal Wrestling Corporation, Turner promised fans that WCW would be the athlete-oriented style of the NWA.
1989 proved to be a turnaround year for WCW, with Ric Flair on top for most of the year as both World Champion and head booker. Flair helped bring in Ricky Steamboat
and Terry Funk
, and his pay-per-view matches with Steamboat were financially and critically successful. Young stars such as Sid Vicious
, Sting, Scott Steiner
, The Road Warriors
, Brian Pillman
, The Great Muta
and Lex Luger
were given major storylines and championship opportunities. 1990, however, would be an entirely different story, as Flair would be fired from being head booker in March 1990 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 title to Lex Luger, as he had already promised to drop it to Sting, who himself had been injured earlier in the year. Flair was eventually replaced by Ole Anderson.
Despite this influx of talent, WCW soon began working to gradually incorporate much of the glamour and showy gimmicks for which the WWF was better known. Virtually none of these stunts—such as the live cross-promotional appearance of RoboCop
at a pay-per-view event in 1990, the Chamber of Horrors gimmick, and the notorious Black Scorpion storyline—succeeded. In addition, house shows were also dropping to record lows after Ole continuously pushed older wrestlers who were loyal to him during the shows. Behind the scenes, WCW was 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 WCW and the NWA recognized Ric Flair (who was by now no longer the head booker) as their World Heavyweight Champion throughout most of the first half of 1991, but WCW, particularly recently-installed company president Jim Herd
, turned against Flair for various reasons and fired him 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 the $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". On a sidenote, Flair eventually received his deposit which with interest was over $38,000. WCW later renegotiated the use of the NWA name as a co-promotional gimmick with New Japan Pro Wrestling
and sued the WWF to stop showing Flair with the old NWA World Title 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 and he received his deposit back plus interest. It was brought back as the revived NWA World Heavyweight Championship
.
Meanwhile, the creative product of the company sank in 1991 and 1992 under the presidency of Jim Herd, and subsequently Bill Watts
. 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." According to Flair, Herd also wanted him to drop his entire "Nature Boy" persona, shave his head (even though Flair's bleach blonde hair was one of his most recognizable trademarks) and adopt a Rome
gladiator
gimmick by the name of Spartacus in order to "change with the times". This didn't sit too well with Flair and the committee (Committee member Kevin Sullivan
was quoted as saying, "After we change Flair's gimmick, why don't we go to Yankee Stadium
and change Babe Ruth
's uniform number?"). This backstage feud hit its breaking point when, during contract renegotiation, Flair refused to take a pay cut and be moved away from the main event position (despite the fact that he was by far the company's biggest draw). He also refused to drop the title to Lex Luger as Herd wanted. Herd accused Flair of holding up the company. Flair tried to compromise to Herd and offered to drop the title to fellow Horsemen Barry Windham, saying that Windham deserved the title.
1992 would also prove to be another bad year for WCW as well, as new booker "Cowboy" Bill Watts made top rope moves - which were common by Brian Pillman and the Steiner Brothers - illegal during wrestling matches. After clashes with management over a number of issues as well as feeling pressure from Hank Aaron over a racially sensitive piece of correspondence, he resigned. He was subsequently replaced by Eric Bischoff
.
in July 1993. Immediately, the other, now smaller, member organizations of the NWA began demanding that Flair defend the title under their rules in their territories, as mandated by old NWA agreements. The title was later scheduled to be dropped by Flair to Rick Rude
, a title change which was exposed by the Disney Tapings
(discussed in more detail below). The NWA board of directors, working separately from WCW, objected to the title being change without their vote and WCW finally left the NWA for good again in September 1993. WCW still legally owned and used the actual belt which represented the NWA World Heavyweight Championship, however, and Rick Rude even defended it as the "Big Gold Belt
", but they could no longer use the NWA name. A fictional subsidiary, dubbed WCW International, was created to inject credibility back into the belt. The title thus became known as the WCW International World Heavyweight Championship
(as the World Heavyweight Championship as sanctioned by WCW International). WCW claimed that WCW International still recognized the belt as a legitimate World Championship. For a short while, there were essentially two world titles up for competition in the organization. Sting eventually lost the WCW International Championship to WCW Champion Ric Flair in a unification
match on June 23, 1994 when the experiment was jettisoned. The Big Gold Belt was then used to represent the lone World Title in the company. It was used as such until WCW's closure in 2001, and for a time in the WWF. It was subsequently replaced with a similar belt, that is used to this day, modified with a WWE logo engraved on the top.
There were signs of gradual recovery in early 1993 when former commentator Eric Bischoff
was appointed as Executive Vice President of WCW. Bischoff, originally brought in as a secondary commentator behind Jim Ross
after the AWA folded, was desperate to give WCW a new direction and impressed Turner's top brass with his non-confrontational tactics and business savvy. Ross, upset that a man who once answered to him was now his supervisor, requested and received a release from TBS executive Bill Shaw (after suggestion from Bischoff) and ended up in the rival World Wrestling Federation
(WWF).
Bischoff's first year running the company was considered extremely unsuccessful. Dusty Rhodes and Ole Anderson were still in full creative control at this point, and under their watch WCW presented cartoonish storylines as well as seemingly pointless feuds with little or no build-up (for instance, the "Lost in Cleveland" and "Spin the Wheel, Make the Deal" angles involving Cactus Jack
and Sting respectively, as well as the "White Castle of Fear" and Beach Blast
mini-movies).
The "Lost in Cleveland" storyline began when Cactus Jack (Mick Foley
) first wrestled Vader
on April 6, 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 23, the two executed a dangerous spot to sell a storyline injury. 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, WCW ran an angle where Cactus Jack's absence was explained with a farcical comedy storyline in which he went crazy, was institutionalized, escaped, and developed amnesia. Foley had wanted the injury storyline to be very serious and generate genuine sympathy for him before his return. The comedy vignettes that WCW produced instead were so bad that 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.
In May 1993, WCW began the aforementioned Disney Tapings, a move which would grow into a major headache for them. 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 they 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 titles from the Hollywood Blonds (Steve Austin
and Brian Pillman
). The promotion had decided 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 Champions 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 September. However, before the Clash event, Pillman was injured and unable to wrestle, forcing Lord Steven Regal to replace him alongside Austin. Of course, Anderson and Roma won the titles, and the Blonds, an immensely popular tag team with fans, were inexplicably broken up permanently.
Clash of the Champions XXIV saw WCW's reputation take another hit. In 1993, Ric Flair
returned to WCW from his WWF tenure, but was constrained by a no-compete clause from his WWF contract. In response, WCW gave him a talk show
segment on its television shows called "A Flair for the Gold," in the mold of the old "Piper's Pit
" segments from 1980s WWF programming starring "Rowdy" Roddy Piper
. During a segment of the talk show at the Clash, WCW decided to introduce a "mystery partner" for the babyfaces, a masked man known as The Shockmaster
. The Shockmaster (previously known as "Typhoon" in the WWF) was supposed to crash through a fake wall and intimidate the heels. Instead, he tripped through the wall and fell on his face on live television, inadvertently rendering himself a joke character (despite winning some matches). Dusty Rhodes
later claimed that a 2x4 was placed on the bottom of the wall, which had not been there on a successful rehearsal, which caused Ottman to trip and stumble.
Late in 1993, WCW decided to once again base the promotion around Ric Flair. This was seen as more or less a necessity after prospective top babyface Sid Vicious was involved in an incident with Arn Anderson
(which resulted in hospitalization of both men) while on tour in England
four weeks before Starrcade
and was fired. 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.
and Randy Savage
to work for WCW. Using Turner's monetary resources, Bischoff placed his faith in established stars with proven track records. Due to their high profiles, however, Hogan and Savage were able to demand concessions, such as multi-year, multi-million dollar contracts and creative control over their characters. This would later become a problem during subsequent years of competition with the WWF, as other wrestlers were able to make similar demands, and contract values soared out of control. Hogan in particular was able to gain considerable influence through a friendship with Bischoff. Hogan's considerably hefty fee of $700,000 per pay-per-view appearance would cost the company dearly in future years. He was paid this amount whether the pay-per-view was successful or not. Another thing Bischoff may have failed to consider was the fact that many WCW fans (especially those who had followed the company since its NWA days) watched it as an alternative product to the WWF that focused on in-ring action as opposed to cartoonish characters and storylines. As such, these fans viewed Bischoff's signing of former WWF talent as an attempt to copy its success instead of remaining true to the idea of WCW being an alternative to the WWF.
Nevertheless, WCW's first major pay-per-view event since Hogan's hiring, Bash at the Beach, saw the former WWF mainstay cleanly defeat Ric Flair for the WCW World Heavyweight 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 to Flair/Savage and Hogan/Sid
. When WCW delivered the match, the event drew a high buyrate by WCW standards due to mainstream intrigue and hype. Despite being a critical and financial success, the glory would not last, as the Hogan/Flair feud would only result in one more match (at Halloween Havoc) and the hope for long-term effects on pay-per-view buyrates and ratings did not materialize. Turner management came to this realization when they checked up on the state of the company in mid-1995. Hence, Bischoff called Turner and requested a private meeting, which he was granted.
, which debuted on September 4, 1995 live from the Mall of America
in Bloomington, Minnesota
. At their mid-1995 meeting, 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 on a weekday night, possibly 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 later three. Bischoff himself was initially the host, alongside Bobby Heenan and ex-NFL
star Steve "Mongo" McMichael
.
The initial broadcast of Nitro, running unopposed because of the pre-emption of Raw for U.S. Open
tennis
coverage on the USA Network
, featured the return of Lex Luger
(who had been in the WWF since 1993) to the WCW audience. WCW's coup of obtaining Luger was significant for several reasons. Because Nitro was live at the time, premiering major stars on the show would signal to the fans the amount of excitement the broadcasts would contain. Also, Luger had just come off a moderately successful run in the WWF, and was at one time one of the company's top stars. Finally, because Luger had been employed with the WWF as recently as a week before his Nitro appearance, WCW fans would be intrigued to see others possibly "jump ship". The Monday Night Wars
had now officially begun.
Early on, Bischoff vigorously promoted his new show by giving away WWF Raw results on Nitro, as Raw, unlike Nitro, was then mostly taped in advance. He took another famous jab at the WWF on December 18, 1995, when he brought reigning WWF Women's Champion Debra Miceli
(who had previously competed in WCW as "Madusa") back to the promotion as her WWF character Alundra Blayze and, live on Nitro, had her publicly denounce the Blayze character and throw the WWF Women's title belt in a trash can, reclaiming her "Madusa" moniker in the process. The WWF responded to all this by creating the "Billionaire Ted" skits, which featured parodies of Ted Turner ("Billionaire Ted"), Hulk Hogan ("The Huckster"), Randy Savage ("The Nacho Man"), and WCW interviewer "Mean Gene" Okerlund
("Scheme Gene"), which were said to infuriate Turner, thereby giving him more motivation to compete. They also began picking up a bit after WrestleMania XII
, running a hot feud between WWF World champion Shawn Michaels
and former World champion Diesel
.
, who had wrestled in the WWF as Razor Ramon, interrupted a match by walking down through the crowd into the ring. He delivered his "You want a war?" speech: "You people know who I am," he began, "but you don't know why I'm here." Hall said that he and two of his associates were going to "take over." Many thought he meant Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels, then still with WWF. Hall challenged the best WCW wrestlers to stand up and defend the company against their onslaught.
The next week, Hall reappeared on Nitro and pestered the WCW announcers. Sting confronted him, and was rewarded with a toothpick in the face for his efforts. Sting retaliated by slapping Hall across the face, and in response Hall promised Sting a "little... no... BIG surprise" the next week in Wheeling, West Virginia
. This surprise ended up being Hall's good friend and former WWF World Heavyweight Champion Kevin Nash
, and in the weeks following Hall and Nash were collectively referred to as "The Outsiders." Both men took to showing up unexpectedly during Nitro broadcasts, usually jumping wrestlers backstage, distracting wrestlers by standing in the entranceways of arenas, or walking around in the audience. Within a couple of weeks, they announced the forthcoming appearance of a mysterious third member.
At Bash at the Beach
, Hall and Nash were scheduled to team with their mystery partner against Lex Luger, Randy Savage and Sting. At the onset of the match, Hall and Nash came out without a third man, telling "Mean Gene" Okerlund that he was "in the building," but that they did not need him yet. Shortly into the match, a Stinger Splash resulted in Luger being crushed behind Kevin Nash, and being taken away on a stretcher, reducing the match to The Outsiders vs. Sting and Savage. Hall and Nash took control of the match when Hulk Hogan came to the ring. After standing off with The Outsiders for a moment, he suddenly attacked Savage, showing himself to be the Outsiders' mysterious third man. Giving an interview with Okerlund directly after the match, Hogan claimed the reason for the turn was that he was tired of fans that had turned on him. Hogan labeled the new faction "the new world order
of wrestling", beginning a feud between wrestlers loyal to WCW and the nWo. The fans in attendance were so outraged at Hogan's betrayal that they pelted the ring with debris, such as paper cups and plastic bottles, for the duration of his interview. One fan even jumped the security railing and tried to attack Hogan in the ring, but was swiftly subdued by Hall, Nash, and arena security.
Shortly after, the WWF filed a lawsuit, alleging that the nWo storyline implied that Hall and Nash were invaders sent by Vince McMahon to destroy WCW, despite the fact that Bischoff asked Nash point blank on camera at The Great American Bash, "Are you employed by the WWF?" to which Nash emphatically replied "No". Another reason for the lawsuit was the WWF claimed Scott Hall acted in a manner too similar to the character Razor Ramon which was owned by the WWF. The lawsuit dragged out for several years before being settled out of court. One of the settlement's terms was the right for the WWF to bid on WCW's properties, should they ever be up for liquidation; an ironic settlement that would prove invaluable in the future.
Largely due to the nWo angle, Nitro defeated Raw for 84 consecutive weeks. During this time, WCW occasionally revealed the endings to pre-taped Raw matches at the beginning of its live broadcast. Bischoff reasoned that fans who were open to switching between the two programs would be less inclined to switch to Raw if fans knew ahead of time how the matches would end.
Four Horsemen
as well as the returning WCW hero Sting. Sting had changed his gimmick when he returned to WCW television, he became a darker, brooding character, largely based on The Crow
. Sting would be in the rafters of WCW arenas watching the WCW/nWo feud, and sometimes rappel down into the ring to help WCW wrestlers fighting the nWo. The latter feud served to build up Starrcade
in December. When WCW delivered the Sting vs. Hogan match for the WCW World Championship, the event drew WCW's largest buyrate and Bischoff was largely praised in the months leading up to this event because of his refusal to give away ("hotshot" in wrestling slang) a Sting vs. Hogan title match for free or without proper buildup. Indeed, the Hogan/Sting angle endured for approximately 15 months.
Wrestling fans consider this show to be the beginning of the end for WCW, however, even as they were dominating the WWF in the television ratings. Hogan was heavily criticized for not doing a clean finish to the match, which confused and irritated fans who had waited over a year to see Sting take down the nWo. The finish actually involved a recently-introduced Bret Hart
, who had refereed the preceding match between Bischoff and Larry Zbyszko
for control of Nitro, coming down to the ring after Hogan had supposedly won the match. Hart alleged that referee Nick Patrick
had performed a fast count on Sting and wanted to "make things right". By many accounts, however, including Eric Bischoff's in Controversy Creates Cash, the count looked like a normal count, so Hart's protestations did not make sense. Television replays of the three-count on later shows had the video sped up to hide this. Hurting the argument the most was the fact that Sting never tried to kick out while Hogan pinned him, proving even if the count was normal the pin would have happened regardless. Hart insisted that the match continue with himself as referee, in order to prevent Sting from being "screwed" like Hart had legitimately been at the Montreal Screwjob
, which had soured his ties with the WWF and hastened his leave to WCW. In essence, whereas fans were promised a classic battle between Hogan and Sting in which the latter would defeat the leader of the nWo, they were presented with a faux reverse-tide potshot at the Montreal Screwjob. The inclusion of Hart himself confused and frustrated fans even more as Hart had no part in the feud between Hogan and Sting. However, the most harming fact of the match to the fans was watching Sting stay down for a full count of three to Hogan when he was built up as the one man to end the nWo, thereby hurting their impression of him. To add insult to injury, it was decided that because of the messy finish to the rematch (on the following Monday's Nitro show which ended with Hogan, and then Sting regaining the title in the same match), Sting had to be stripped of the WCW title that he won from Hogan two weeks later. It was announced when Sting was stripped on television that they would face each other again for the vacant championship at a future pay-per-view. This was without a doubt one of the biggest main event flops in pay-per-view history, and to many, the beginning of the end for WCW.
During the period between the Montreal Screwjob and Starrcade many experts saw the PPV as WCW's golden opportunity to separate itself to a degree so far beyond the WWF that the Federation could have possibly been on its way to its own demise. The PPV was a major opportunity for WCW to make a lasting impression on WWF fans who were irate at Vince McMahon and decided to give WCW a chance. When financial reports were released the following year it revealed WCW had made a profit of over $50 million for 1997, whereas the WWF lost $6 million in revenue. Had Starrcade ended correctly WCW could have made more the following year and the WWF could have possibly continued to lose money or made just fairly more but be far behind WCW. The loss of Bret Hart to WCW was viewed as the WWF's own beginning of its end.
In short, Starrcade '97 was widely viewed as WCW's one shot at becoming the top promotion for the new millennium to come and to possibly bury the WWF, but due to the horrible finish of the most anticipated main event in its history WCW began an unprecedented decline and the WWF would live on.
When Hart was planning to leave the WWF in 1997 after signing a contract to WCW prior to the Montreal Screwjob
at the Survivor Series
, it looked as though WCW was in position to permanently eclipse the WWF, if not put them out of business. WCW appeared to possess the biggest stars in the industry, such as Hogan, Savage, Sting, Flair, Hart, Hall and Nash. In addition, the company had credible midcard stars such as Chris Jericho
, Eddie Guerrero
, Chris Benoit
and Raven
, as well as an exciting cruiserweight
division featuring high-flying international competition. However, things would not unfold as WCW had planned.
Turner sought to capitalize on WCW's momentum by launching a new Thursday night show on TBS, WCW Thunder
, in January 1998. Popular opinion was that the Screwjob and WCW's subsequent acquisition of Hart were death blows for the WWF. WCW had a golden opportunity to capture the allegiances of WWF fans who were disenchanted with the company after its poor treatment of a popular star. But according to Hart, the company failed to capitalize on his talent and momentum, and had no idea how to properly utilize him. Vince McMahon had described Hart as the kind of wrestler a promoter builds his whole company around, but WCW generally used him as a midcarder. Their biggest hope was that Hart would help create inroads in foreign markets such as his native Canada
, Germany
, and the United Kingdom
. Bischoff contends that due to the events of Montreal, Hart's passion and desire for the business was not as it was during his WWF heyday. "Montreal...had taken his toll on him," Bischoff stated in his autobiography. "It was all he talked about... constantly." In any event, Hart's WCW tenure failed to live up to expectations.
As WCW coasted with the same basic formula they had been following, McMahon set about revamping his creative approach and set in motion events that later put his company ahead of WCW for good. Under the "WWF Attitude"
moniker, he elevated rising stars Stone Cold Steve Austin
, The Rock, Triple H
and his DX group, as well as Mankind
, Vader, Kane and Ken Shamrock
. McMahon himself, after having played in a supporting role on camera as the play-by-play announcer, capitalized on the ill will he received from fans for screwing Bret Hart by turning himself into an on-screen villain. The "Mr. McMahon" heel character feuded with babyface wrestlers and used his influence to screw them out of wins and titles. The April 13, 1998 episode of Raw headlined by a match between Austin and McMahon, marked the first time that WCW lost the head-to-head Monday night ratings
battle in 84 weeks. WWF ratings began an ascent to highs previously unheard of in wrestling TV. WCW attempted to counter this by dividing the nWo into the Hogan-led heel nWo Hollywood faction and the Nash-led face nWo Wolfpac faction.
WCW's next big attempt to regain ratings supremacy was by marketing ex-NFL
player Bill Goldberg
as an invincible monster with a record-breaking winning streak. Goldberg was incredibly popular, but business still quickly fell off for WCW, especially as the list of stars ready to be destroyed by Goldberg grew shorter, not to mention the declining quality of the PPVs. One of WCW's last wins in the Monday night ratings war was on July 6, 1998, when WCW aired Goldberg's long-awaited world title victory over Hulk Hogan on free television. This significantly increased the rating for the show, but only for that week. Such a match could likely have generated millions, possibly tens of millions for WCW on pay-per-view had the angle been built up properly for a matter of months. 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
. On October 25, 1998, WCW's Halloween Havoc ran longer than the time allocated because of the last-minute addition of a tag team title
match. As a result, several thousand people lost their pay-per-view feed at 11pm during the highly- anticipated world title match between Diamond Dallas Page
and Goldberg. The following night, WCW decided to correct the fault by airing the entire match for free on Nitro and won the ratings war for the final time. This timing faux pas upset millions of viewers who had paid for the pay-per-view of whom WCW were forced to reimburse, only to have to wait to see the main event for free the next night .
At this time, Kevin Nash was in charge of booking the shows. After winning the World War 3 battle royal in November 1998, he went on to end Goldberg's winning streak and win the world title on Starrcade
one month later. Many believed it wasn't the right time for the streak to end, nor was it believed Nash should have been the one to end it.
Then came the "Fingerpoke of Doom
" match between Nash and Hogan in January 1999. The match was originally advertised as a Starrcade rematch between Nash and Goldberg. As a result, the Georgia Dome
in Atlanta
was a complete sellout, with over 40,000 people watching live expecting to see the rematch. Throughout the broadcast the announcers hyped the main event as being the "biggest match in the history of our sport" and said that "unlike the other guys, we have a real main event". Instead, Goldberg was forced to forgo his title match and was replaced by Hogan. Hogan knocked Nash to the mat by poking him in the chest with one finger and then pinning him, winning the World Heavyweight Title and further damaging the credibility of it as a result. This outcome damaged the credibility of the company as a whole, having failed to present the advertised match and using underhand tactics to sell out the arena for that night's telecast. On the same episode of Nitro, Tony Schiavone
, under direction from Bischoff, revealed that Mick Foley
won the WWF Title at a taped edition of Raw
and mocked the WWF for making what he implied was a bad business decision. Nielsen ratings indicated that over 300,000 households changed the channel to watch the victory and shifted the ratings for the night in the WWF's favor.
and Jay Leno
. Another was that WCW's credibility was damaged by product placement
, such as Rick Steiner
trading barbs with Chucky the killer doll in order to advertise the 1998 film Bride of Chucky
. Another possible reason was that the top-level stars had no motivation to excel in the ring due to their long-term contracts. WCW programming had started to decline in quality, leading to a loss of viewers, and the company reacted by throwing money at personalities, something it could ill-afford to do. Talents were reportedly signed to keep them from appearing on WWF television. At one point, WCW held over 260 individual performers under guaranteed contracts, many of whom rarely appeared in its programs. During one Thunder program, only 15 of the 260 contracted wrestlers appeared on screen.
Also in 1998, Bischoff recruited The Ultimate Warrior
, a former WWF star, to feud with Hogan (to capitalize on the Hogan/Warrior match at WrestleMania VI
). Their October 1998 "rematch" at Halloween Havoc was renowned as one of the worst matches in pay-per-view history, and Warrior vanished soon after. The Ultimate Warrior also insisted on elaborate and costly apparatuses, such as a trapdoor in the ring which badly injured The British Bulldog
when he landed on it.
According to Bischoff's autobiography Controversy Creates Ca$h
, new WCW owners Time Warner
(via acquiring Turner Broadcasting) severely hindered (and occasionally overrode) his control of the company due to micromanagement. Time Warner initially gave him slight restrictions as to what he was and was not allowed to do with WCW. The restrictions mounted as time passed, with impending lawsuits between the WWF and WCW adding more. By the summer of 1998, he was outright ordered to alter WCW's format to a more "family-friendly" output. The forced shift in WCW's programming came while the WWF, buoyed by its new "Attitude" branding and product, was regularly beating an increasingly stagnant WCW week after week in the Monday night ratings war. Also, Time Warner had ordered WCW (like the other companies under Time Warner ownership) to slash their budget, putting even more strain on the company. As it was common knowledge that many executives in WCW ownership—from the Turner-owned era to the AOL Time Warner years – hated the idea of wrestling on their stations and attempted to remove the company entirely, Bischoff maintains that the restrictions and mandates placed on WCW was done in order to accomplish and accelerate the promotion's demise.
In addition, no matter who was in charge, WCW did not promote its younger stars to the company's top slots (a charge admitted by Bischoff). Despite having talented younger wrestlers like Chris Jericho
, Chris Benoit
, Dean Malenko
, Billy Kidman, Chavo Guerrero, Jr.
, Eddie Guerrero
, Perry Saturn, Raven
, Booker T.
, and Rey Mysterio, Jr. on its roster, they were kept away from the main event scene. Of these wrestlers listed, five would go on to headline main events in WWF/E and become World Champions, something WCW bookers believed these men would never be able to sell as.
Bischoff was eventually removed from control of the promotion on September 10, 1999, after a failed push
for the 1970s rock group
KISS
through WCW shows and a storyline involving rapper Master P
and The No Limit Soldiers
. The No Limit Soldiers stable flopped so badly that the fans turned on them and began supporting the West Texas Rednecks
heel stable that they were feuding with. An announced "million-dollar contest" was later cancelled and a planned Nitro animated series was scrapped as well.
Bischoff was unexpectedly replaced by WCW accountant Bill Busch, who was named Senior Vice President. Busch would bring in former WWF head writer Vince Russo
and his colleague Ed Ferrara. Russo and Ferrera presented themselves as the brains behind the "Attitude" era, and WCW offered them lucrative contracts to jump ship in October 1999. Russo and Ferrara tried to push the younger WCW talents straight away, and phase out aging stars such as Hogan and Flair.
Russo and Ferrara struggled to gain approval for their near-the-knuckle ideas from WCW management, such as a "Piñata
on a Pole" match between Mexican
wrestlers on November 15. In late 1999, Russo and Ferrera revived the nWo storyline, this time with Jeff Jarrett
and Bret Hart
at the helm. They next targeted WWF announcer Jim Ross
with a parody character called "Oklahoma," who was played onscreen by Ferrara. Ross suffered from Bell's palsy
, and the character lampooned his resultant facial defects. Bad luck struck in December 1999 when Hart suffered a career-ending concussion at the hands of Goldberg, who severely damaged his own hand less than a week later while punching through a limousine
window in Salisbury, Maryland
as part of a storyline that was written by Russo. Russo himself became an on-screen character during this period, though one whose face was never shown on camera: only his hand and the back of his chair were ever actually seen, as he called wrestlers into his office to receive their marching orders for the night.
Russo and Ferrara were suspended three months later amid rumors that they wanted to make former UFC
fighter Tank Abbott
the WCW Champion. Abbott, despite his legitimate fighting background, had little wrestling experience and had failed to connect with WCW audiences. Bill Busch would later be removed from power and replaced at the helm by Time Warner programming executive Brad Siegel. 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 Souled Out in January 2000. However, Benoit was among a group of wrestlers who expressed their intent to leave the company prior to the show. He handed the belt back right after winning it and signed with the WWF the next day, along with his similarly frustrated friends Perry Saturn
, Eddie Guerrero
and Dean Malenko
. The four quickly became popular in the WWF as "The Radicalz
".
On February 11, 2000, 12 wrestlers, including African American
wrestler "Hardbody" Harrison Norris and Japanese
manager
Sonny Onoo launched racial discrimination
lawsuit
s against WCW, charging that, as a result of their ethnicities, they had not been pushed, had not been paid as well as other wrestlers and personalities, and had been given offensive gimmicks. Some speculated that the charges of racism led to African American wrestler Booker T. winning the WCW Championship later that year, and his brother Stevie Ray
being made a color commentator
; Stevie Ray himself acknowledged that it may have been a factor. Onoo claimed that he had been given a disrespectful gimmick and that his final salary—$
160,000—was only half of the average pay for a wrestler at that time.
Under Russo's leadership, WCW would continue to lose ratings
, and eventually dropped to 1.8 in 2000.
The unorthodox and controversial storylines continued. Although neither was a trained wrestler, Russo and actor David Arquette
each won the WCW Heavyweight Championship, the latter in order to promote the box-office flop Ready to Rumble
. As neither looked physically capable of defeating actual wrestlers in a match, the title's credibility hit rock-bottom as a result. Goldberg turned heel, but the execution was botched and served to greatly diminish his drawing power. Russo delivered a shoot speech
at Bash at the Beach 2000 aimed at Hulk Hogan, which led Hogan to resign and file a defamation of character lawsuit, which was eventually dismissed in 2002.
Infuriated by Russo's actions (which conflicted with his intentions for Bash), Bischoff departed once more in July 2000. Russo was gone from the promotion entirely by late 2000, leaving Terry Taylor
holding the reins. During this time, a short-lived crossover feud began involving stars of WCW and Battle Dome.
By the beginning of February 2001, most female personalities had been released from the promotion in an attempt to cut costs. Also as of February 2001, WCW would hold its events in Southern States
only.
had bought out Turner's empire in 1996, including WCW. Turner was personally faithful to WCW regardless of whether it was losing him money because an earlier incarnation of the promotion had helped establish Turner's first television station, WTBS. However, Time Warner did not share his loyalty especially when accounts showed that WCW was losing between $12–$17 million a year at this point (and an astonishing $60 million in 2000 alone), but Turner was still the single largest Time Warner shareholder, so WCW continued to operate at his behest. When AOL
merged with Time Warner in 2000, Turner was effectively forced out of his own empire.
Although WCW tried all it could to alleviate the strain of debt in early 2001, the financial burdens proved too heavy to bear for the promotion and its new parent, AOL Time Warner. Once it gained the power to sell off WCW, AOL Time Warner looked to unload its financial albatross. A sale nearly occurred in late 2000 to Bischoff and a group of private investors calling themselves Fusient Media Ventures, with news reports and even Eric Bischoff declaring a deal was in place. However, Fusient backed out when Turner networks head Jamie Kellner
formally cancelled all WCW programming from its television networks. With no network on which to air its programming, WCW was of little value to Fusient, whose offer depended on being able to continue to air WCW programming on the Turner networks, despite the fact that WCW, according to Bischoff in his book, had received offers from FOX and NBC.
On March 23, 2001, all of WCW's trademarks and archived video library
, as well as a select twenty-four contracts, were sold to Vince McMahon and World Wrestling Federation Entertainment, Inc. WCW was purchased for a mere $
3,000,000. Most of the main event-level stars including Flair, Goldberg, Kevin Nash, and Sting were contracted directly to parent company AOL Time Warner instead of WCW, and thus AOL Time Warner
was forced to continue to pay many of the wrestlers for years.
TNT did allow a final Nitro show to air from Panama City Beach, Florida
which had been scheduled for the following Monday on March 26. McMahon opened the last-ever episode of WCW Monday Nitro with a simulcast
with WWF Monday Night Raw, which aired from Cleveland, Ohio, with a self-praising speech. The final WCW World Heavyweight Championship match for the show and the company saw WCW United States Heavyweight Champion
Booker T
defeat Scott Steiner
to win the WCW World Heavyweight Championship
. The main event featured Sting defeating Ric Flair
with the Scorpion Deathlock as a culmination of their trademark feud, then both men embraced one another at the match's conclusion. This was a direct parallel to the very first Nitro, where Sting vs. Flair was also the main event. After the Sting/Flair match, Vince appeared on Raw to close Nitro and to declare victory over WCW. Vince's son Shane McMahon
then appeared on Nitro, declaring that it was actually he who had bought WCW. This, however, initiated The Invasion storyline that would have Shane leading the WCW invasion of the WWF, which lasted from March to November 2001 and marked the end of WCW.
Despite aborted attempts to run WCW-branded events (including a proposed Saturday night timeslot that later evolved into WWF Excess and then WWE Velocity
) the WWF only ran a handful of matches on Raw and SmackDown! under the WCW banner.
In 2004, WWE produced a DVD
called The Monday Night Wars. Two hours in length, the DVD left out a large portion of the wars, breaking off around 1997 before jumping straight to the post-WCW era of WWE. The objectivity of the DVD's content was questioned, as some believed the documentary was simply telling the WWE side of the story. On August 25, 2009, WWE released The Rise and Fall of WCW on DVD. The DVD looked back at the roots of WCW during the days of GCW and Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling, to the glory days of Monday Nitro and the nWo, and to its demise and sale to WWE. This DVD included several new interviews from Vince McMahon, Jim Crockett, Ric Flair, Dusty Rhodes, Bill Goldberg, as well as many of those responsible for running the NWA and WCW. Archive interviews were included from former WCW talent such as Hulk Hogan,and Eric Bischoff, due to their respective contracts with Total Nonstop Action Wrestling
not allowing them to provide fresh interviews for WWE.
World Championship Wrestling
World Championship Wrestling, Inc. was an American professional wrestling promotion which existed from 1988 to 2001. Based in Atlanta, Georgia, it began as a regional promotion affiliated with the National Wrestling Alliance , named Jim Crockett Promotions until November 1988, when Ted Turner and...
(WCW) is concerned with the American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
professional wrestling promotion
Professional wrestling promotion
A professional wrestling promotion is a company or business that regularly performs shows involving professional wrestling. Promotion also describes a role which entails management, advertising and logistics of running a wrestling event...
that existed from 1988 to 2001. It began as a promotion affiliated with the National Wrestling Alliance
National Wrestling Alliance
The National Wrestling Alliance is a wrestling promotion company and sanctions various NWA championships in the United States. The NWA has been in operation since 1948...
(NWA) that appeared on the national scene under the ownership of media mogul
Media proprietor
A media proprietor is a person who controls, either through personal ownership or a dominant position in any media enterprise. Those with significant control of a public company in the mass media may also be called "media moguls", "tycoons", "barons", or "bosses".The figure of the media proprietor...
Ted Turner
Ted Turner
Robert Edward "Ted" Turner III is an American media mogul and philanthropist. As a businessman, he is known as founder of the cable news network CNN, the first dedicated 24-hour cable news channel. In addition, he founded WTBS, which pioneered the superstation concept in cable television...
and based in Atlanta, Georgia. The name came from a wrestling television program that aired on TBS
Turner Broadcasting System
Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. is the Time Warner subsidiary managing the collection of cable networks and properties started and acquired by Robert Edward "Ted" Turner starting in the mid-1970s. The company has its headquarters in the CNN Center in Atlanta, Georgia. TBS, Inc...
in the 1980s, which in turn had taken the name from a previous Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n wrestling promotion of the 1970s.
In the 1990s, World Championship Wrestling, along with the World Wrestling Federation (WWF), was considered one of the top two wrestling promotions in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. Its flagship show WCW Monday Nitro
WCW Monday Nitro
WCW Monday Nitro was a weekly professional wrestling telecast produced by World Championship Wrestling, created by Ted Turner and Eric Bischoff. The show aired Monday nights on TNT, going head-to-head with the World Wrestling Federation's Monday Night Raw from September 4, 1995 to March 26, 2001...
went head-to-head with WWF Raw
WWE RAW
WWE Raw ) is a sports entertainment television program for WWE that currently airs on the USA Network in the United States...
in a ratings battle known as the Monday Night Wars
Monday Night Wars
Monday Night Wars is the common term describing the period of mainstream televised American professional wrestling from September 4, 1995, to March 26, 2001. During this time, the World Wrestling Federation's Monday Night Raw went head-to-head with World Championship Wrestling's Monday Nitro in a...
. However, questionable booking decisions, the increasing popularity of the WWF, interference and restrictions from Time Warner
Time Warner
Time Warner is one of the world's largest media companies, headquartered in the Time Warner Center in New York City. Formerly two separate companies, Warner Communications, Inc...
and lackluster angles eventually led to its decline and eventual acquisition by its main competition: Vince McMahon
Vince McMahon
Vincent Kennedy "Vince" McMahon is an American professional wrestling promoter, announcer, commentator, film producer, actor and former occasional professional wrestler. McMahon is the current Chairman, CEO and Chairman of the Executive Committee of professional wrestling promotion WWE...
and the WWF.
NWA years
Although World Championship Wrestling was a brand name used by promoter Jim BarnettJim Barnett (wrestling)
James E. Barnett was an American professional wrestling promoter, and owner of Georgia Championship Wrestling and Australia's World Championship Wrestling.-Professional wrestling career:...
for his Australian promotion, the first promotion in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
to use the World Championship Wrestling brand name (though it was never referred to as "WCW") on a wide scale was Georgia Championship Wrestling
Georgia Championship Wrestling
Georgia Championship Wrestling was a professional wrestling promotion whose self-titled TV program aired in the 1970s and 1980s on Atlanta, U.S., superstation WTBS. Though based in Atlanta, the company also ran live wrestling shows throughout its geographic "territory" of Georgia Georgia...
(GCW). GCW, owned primarily by Jack Brisco
Jack Brisco
Freddie Joe Brisco was an American professional wrestler, better known as Jack Brisco or Uvalde Slim. He performed for various territories of the National Wrestling Alliance , becoming a two-time NWA World Heavyweight Champion, and multi-time NWA Tag Team Champion with his brother Gerald Brisco...
and Gerald Brisco
Gerald Brisco
Floyd Gerald "Jerry" Brisco is a former American professional wrestler, and prior to June, 2009, worked as a road agent for WWE on its Raw brand....
and booked by Ole Anderson
Ole Anderson
Alan Robert Rogowski , better known by his ring name of Ole Anderson, is a retired professional wrestler and a promoter. He held numerous NWA World Tag Team Championships with Gene Anderson, who was portrayed as his brother...
, was the first NWA territory to gain cable television
Cable television
Cable television is a system of providing television programs to consumers via radio frequency signals transmitted to televisions through coaxial cables or digital light pulses through fixed optical fibers located on the subscriber's property, much like the over-the-air method used in traditional...
access.
After founding his own company, Titan Sports Inc. in 1980, in 1982, Vince K. McMahon
Vince McMahon
Vincent Kennedy "Vince" McMahon is an American professional wrestling promoter, announcer, commentator, film producer, actor and former occasional professional wrestler. McMahon is the current Chairman, CEO and Chairman of the Executive Committee of professional wrestling promotion WWE...
purchased his father's Capitol Wrestling Corporation (CWC) and merged it into Titan Sports Inc. After changing its name to the World Wrestling Federation (WWF), it 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 its television show (and thus its public face) to World Championship Wrestling since it was already starting to run shows in "neutral" territories such as Ohio
Ohio
Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...
and Michigan
Michigan
Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....
. These efforts helped to keep GCW competitive against the WWF, as both promotions had secured television deals and were trying to become national, as opposed to regional, entities. The change in name helped make GCW the top promotion once again, until the WWF was able to officially leave the NWA and create the show WWF All American Wrestling. The NWA, led by the President of Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling, Jim Crockett
Jim Crockett
James Allen Crockett was a professional wrestling promoter sometimes known as Jim Crockett, Sr. or to people within the business simply as "Big Jim".-Early life:...
, countered by creating Starrcade
Starrcade
Starrcade was an annual professional wrestling event held from 1983 to 2000 by the National Wrestling Alliance and later World Championship Wrestling as their flagship event equal to WWE's WrestleMania , and featured the largest feuds of the promotion...
in the fall of 1983
Starrcade (1983)
Starrcade '83: A Flair for the Gold was the first annual Starrcade professional wrestling event. It was produced under the National Wrestling Alliance banner by Jim Crockett Promotions . The event took place on November 24, 1983 at the Greensboro Coliseum in Greensboro, North Carolina and was...
, thus propelling it back to the top, but Vince McMahon again regained the lead with Hulk Hogan
Hulk Hogan
Terrance Gene "Terry" Bollea , better known by his ring name Hulk Hogan, is an American Semi-retired professional wrestler, actor, television personality, and musician currently signed to Total Nonstop Action Wrestling ....
's dramatic world title victory at Madison Square Garden
Madison Square Garden
Madison Square Garden, often abbreviated as MSG and known colloquially as The Garden, is a multi-purpose indoor arena in the New York City borough of Manhattan and located at 8th Avenue, between 31st and 33rd Streets, situated on top of Pennsylvania Station.Opened on February 11, 1968, it is the...
in January 1984, as well as the creation of the television show Tuesday Night Titans
Tuesday Night Titans
Tuesday Night Titans is a professional wrestling television program produced by the World Wrestling Federation...
.
On April 9, 1984, the Brisco brothers sold their shares in GCW, including their prime time
Prime time
Prime time or primetime is the block of broadcast programming during the middle of the evening for television programing.The term prime time is often defined in terms of a fixed time period—for example, from 19:00 to 22:00 or 20:00 to 23:00 Prime time or primetime is the block of broadcast...
slot on the TBS cable television network
Television network
A television network is a telecommunications network for distribution of television program content, whereby a central operation provides programming to many television stations or pay TV providers. Until the mid-1980s, television programming in most countries of the world was dominated by a small...
, to Vince McMahon. However, GCW's core audience was not interested in the WWF's cartoonish approach, preferring a more athletic style. As a result, when GCW's faithful television viewers tuned in to TBS on July 14, 1984 and saw WWF programming instead, they were outraged and sent complaints to the network demanding the return of GCW. This day has since gone down in wrestling lore as Black Saturday
Black Saturday (1984)
In professional wrestling, Black Saturday refers to Saturday, July 14, 1984. On that date, Vince McMahon and his World Wrestling Federation took over the Saturday night time slot on Superstation WTBS that had been home to Georgia Championship Wrestling and its flagship weekly program, World...
. Adding fuel to the fire was the fact that, despite originally promising to produce original programming for the TBS time slot, McMahon chose instead to provide only a clip show
Clip show
A clip show is an episode of a television series that consists primarily of excerpts from previous episodes. Most clip shows feature the format of a frame story in which cast members recall past events from past installments of the show, depicted with a clip of the event presented as a flashback. ...
for TBS featuring highlights from other WWF programming, a move which angered network head Ted Turner and was a major factor in his decision to discontinue showing the WWF on his network. Luckily for Turner, Ole Anderson had refused to sell his shares in GCW to the WWF, and he 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
Bill Watts
William F. "Bill" Watts is a former American professional wrestler and promoter. Watts was famous under his "Cowboy" gimmick in his wrestling career, and then as a tough, no-nonsense promoter in the Mid-South area of the United States, which grew to become the UWF.In 1992, he was the Executive...
' Mid-South Wrestling.
Jim Crockett Promotions
In March 1985, McMahon sold his TBS time slot and the "World Championship Wrestling" name to Jim Crockett PromotionsJim Crockett Promotions
Jim Crockett Promotions was a professional wrestling promotion owned by Jim Crockett, Jr. until the late 1980s. It was a member of the National Wrestling Alliance and was the forerunner to World Championship Wrestling .-Early history:...
(JCP), owned by Jim Crockett, Jr.
Jim Crockett, Jr.
Jim Crockett, Jr. is a former professional wrestling promoter. From 1973 to 1988, he owned Jim Crockett Promotions , a wrestling company affiliated with the National Wrestling Alliance...
, under pressure from Ted Turner. The WWF and its major superstar, Hulk Hogan
Hulk Hogan
Terrance Gene "Terry" Bollea , better known by his ring name Hulk Hogan, is an American Semi-retired professional wrestler, actor, television personality, and musician currently signed to Total Nonstop Action Wrestling ....
, however, were now the superior figures of wrestling after the success of the first WrestleMania
WrestleMania (1985)
WrestleMania was the first annual WrestleMania professional wrestling event produced by the World Wrestling Federation. It took place on March 31, 1985, at Madison Square Garden in New York City. The attendance for the event was 19,121 fans...
, so the sale took place to successfully put the company in better shape. The new WCW, which was now a combination of JCP (Mid-Atlantic Wrestling) and Championship Wrestling from Georgia, was now the top show on TBS, and Jim Crockett, Jr. became NWA President for the second time.
By 1986, Jim Crockett Promotions controlled key portions of the NWA, including the traditional NWA territories in North
North Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...
and South Carolina
South Carolina
South Carolina is a state in the Deep South of the United States that borders Georgia to the south, North Carolina to the north, and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. Originally part of the Province of Carolina, the Province of South Carolina was one of the 13 colonies that declared independence...
, Georgia
Georgia (U.S. state)
Georgia is a state located in the southeastern United States. It was established in 1732, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies. The state is named after King George II of Great Britain. Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788...
, and St. Louis
St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...
. JCP merged its NWA territories into one group, promoting under the banner "NWA World Championship Wrestling". A feud between Crockett and Vince McMahon's WWF sprang up, and the companies attempted to outmaneuver each other to acquire key television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
slots. It was the WWF, however, who was able to become a hit in St. Louis (and the rest of Missouri as well), which brought trouble to the NWA Central States. The WWF was able to become a hit across the country as well, as the feud between Hulk Hogan and Paul Orndorff appealed to a large audience. Following this, Bob Geigel became the NWA President once again.
In the same year, JCP also purchased Heart of America Sports Attractions
Heart of America Sports Attractions
Heart of America Sports Attractions, also known as the Midwest Wrestling Association, Central States Wrestling and the World Wrestling Alliance, was an American professional wrestling promotion that ran shows mainly in Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska and Iowa...
, promoters of the Central States territory, which owned the rights to promote wrestling shows through the states of Kansas
Kansas
Kansas is a US state located in the Midwestern United States. It is named after the Kansas River which flows through it, which in turn was named after the Kansa Native American tribe, which inhabited the area. The tribe's name is often said to mean "people of the wind" or "people of the south...
, Missouri
Missouri
Missouri is a US state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. With a 2010 population of 5,988,927, Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the nation and the fifth most populous in the Midwest. It...
and Iowa
Iowa
Iowa is a state located in the Midwestern United States, an area often referred to as the "American Heartland". It derives its name from the Ioway people, one of the many American Indian tribes that occupied the state at the time of European exploration. Iowa was a part of the French colony of New...
.
National promotion
In 1987, JCP would enter into an agreement to control Championship Wrestling from Florida (though JCP never bought that company), and Universal Wrestling Federation (which covered OklahomaOklahoma
Oklahoma is a state located in the South Central region of the United States of America. With an estimated 3,751,351 residents as of the 2010 census and a land area of 68,667 square miles , Oklahoma is the 28th most populous and 20th-largest state...
, Mississippi
Mississippi
Mississippi is a U.S. state located in the Southern United States. Jackson is the state capital and largest city. The name of the state derives from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, whose name comes from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi...
, Arkansas
Arkansas
Arkansas is a state located in the southern region of the United States. Its name is an Algonquian name of the Quapaw Indians. Arkansas shares borders with six states , and its eastern border is largely defined by the Mississippi River...
, Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
and Louisiana
Louisiana
Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...
), and which was not an NWA member; this helped make Crockett NWA President once again. 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.
JCP had almost accomplished its goal of creating a national promotion. Between the purchasing of several NWA territories, World Class Championship Wrestling
World Class Championship Wrestling
World Class Championship Wrestling ' was a regional professional wrestling promotion headquartered in Dallas and Fort Worth, Texas. Originally owned by promoter Ed McLemore, by 1966 it was run by Southwest Sports, Inc., whose president, Jack Adkisson, was better known as wrestler Fritz Von Erich...
in Texas leaving the NWA in 1986 (and later merging with Jerry Jarrett
Jerry Jarrett
Jerry W. Jarrett is an American promoter and former professional wrestler, and the father of wrestler Jeff Jarrett. He is the co-founder and former part-owner of Total Nonstop Action Wrestling...
's Championship Wrestling Alliance in Memphis
Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis is a city in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Tennessee, and the county seat of Shelby County. The city is located on the 4th Chickasaw Bluff, south of the confluence of the Wolf and Mississippi rivers....
to create the United States Wrestling Association
United States Wrestling Association
The United States Wrestling Association or USWA was a professional wrestling promotion based in Memphis, Tennessee. It was founded by former CWA owner Jerry Jarrett.-Foundation:...
brand), and the once highly viable Pacific Northwest
Pacific Northwest Wrestling
Pacific Northwest Wrestling is the common name used to refer to several different professional wrestling companies, both past and present, based in Portland, Oregon, United States. The first such company was founded by Herb Owen in 1925...
territory, as it had been known, closing in 1992, WCW was the last bastion of the NWA, and the last member with national television exposure. Since it was all they now saw, people began to believe that WCW was the NWA. Although WCW and the NWA were still two separate entities, with Crockett as NWA President, they were very much on the same page. The NWA was effectively an on-paper organization funded by Jim Crockett Promotions, and allowed JCP to use the NWA brand name for promoting.
With the large amount of capital needed to take a wrestling promotion on a national tour, the various territorial acquisitions had seriously drained JCP's coffers. He was in a similar situation to that of 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 series of pay-per-view
Pay-per-view
Pay-per-view provides a service by which a television audience can purchase events to view via private telecast. The broadcaster shows the event at the same time to everyone ordering it...
events. In 1987, JCP marketed Starrcade
Starrcade (1987)
Starrcade '87 was the fifth annual Starrcade professional wrestling event produced by Jim Crockett Promotions under the National Wrestling Alliance banner. It took place on November 26, 1987 from the UIC Pavilion in Chicago, Illinois...
as the NWA's answer to WrestleMania
WrestleMania
WrestleMania is a professional wrestling pay-per-view event, produced annually in late March or early April by WWE, a professional wrestling promotion based in Connecticut...
. However, the WWF promoted Survivor Series
Survivor Series (1987)
Survivor Series was the first Survivor Series pay-per-view event produced by the World Wrestling Federation . It took place on Thanksgiving Day, November 26, 1987 and was held at the Richfield Coliseum in Richfield, Ohio....
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 loyal to their contract with Crockett, resulting in only an $80,000 profit after expenses).
In January 1988, JCP promoted Bunkhouse Stampede
Bunkhouse Stampede
The Bunkhouse Stampede was a professional wrestling show held annually by Jim Crockett Promotions from 1985 through 1988.-Concept:In 1985, the NWA's Jim Crockett Promotions came up with a new match to increase the fans' interest in their product...
, and McMahon counter-programmed with the first Royal Rumble
Royal Rumble (1988)
Royal Rumble was the first annual Royal Rumble professional wrestling event produced by the World Wrestling Federation . It took place on January 24, 1988 at the Copps Coliseum in Hamilton, Ontario...
on USA Network
USA Network
USA Network is an American cable television channel launched in 1971. Once a minor player in basic cable, the network has steadily gained popularity because of breakout hits like Monk, Psych, Burn Notice, Royal Pains, Covert Affairs, White Collar, Monday Night RAW, Suits, and reruns of the various...
. Both NWA events achieved low buyrates,(tv shows don't have buyrates) and the resulting financial blow led to the beginning of the end for JCP. 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
In 1985, Crockett had signed Dusty RhodesDusty Rhodes (wrestler)
Virgil Riley Runnels, Jr. , better known as "The American Dream" Dusty Rhodes, is a semi-retired American professional wrestler currently working for WWE...
and made him booker for what was now WCW. Rhodes had a reputation for creativity and authored many of the memorable feuds and story lines of this period and gimmick matches like WarGames. By 1988, after three years of competition with Vince McMahon, and a long political struggle with champion Ric Flair
Ric Flair
Richard Morgan Fliehr is an American professional wrestler, better known by his ring name Ric Flair. Also known as "The Nature Boy", Flair is one of the most well-known professional wrestlers in the world....
, Rhodes was burnt out. Fans were sick of the Dusty finish (and other non-endings for shows) that had obliterated the once-profitable house show
House show
A house show is a professional wrestling show run by a major promotion that is not televised, though they can be recorded. Promotions use house shows mainly to cash in on the exposure that they and their wrestlers receive during televised events, as well as test reactions to matches, wrestlers, and...
market. One of the last creative aspects Dusty Rhodes initiated was the first Clash of the Champions, on the night of WrestleMania IV
WrestleMania IV
WrestleMania IV was the fourth annual WrestleMania professional wrestling pay-per-view event produced by the World Wrestling Federation . It took place on March 27, 1988 at the Trump Plaza in Atlantic City, New Jersey....
. For a quarter-hour, the Ric Flair vs. Sting match gained more viewers than WrestleMania; the epic match also made Sting a top player for WCW. By the end of 1988, Rhodes was booking cards seemingly at random, and planning at one point to have mid-card wrestler Rick Steiner
Rick Steiner
Robert Rechsteiner is an American professional wrestler, better known under his ring name Rick Steiner.Steiner is best known for his tenure with World Championship Wrestling, where he was an eight time World Tag Team Champion...
defeat Ric Flair in a five-minute match at Starrcade
Starrcade (1988)
Starrcade '88 was the sixth annual Starrcade professional wrestling pay-per-view event produced under the National Wrestling Alliance banner. It was the first Starrcade event produced by World Championship Wrestling , and it took place on December 26, 1988 from the Norfolk Scope in Norfolk, Virginia...
for the NWA World Heavyweight Championship
NWA World Heavyweight Championship
The National Wrestling Alliance World Heavyweight Championship is a professional wrestling world heavyweight championship in the National Wrestling Alliance. Its lineage has been traced from the first World Heavyweight Championship, which traces its lineage to Georg Hackenschmidt's 1905 title and...
. After Starrcade '88, Rhodes was fired by the promotion after an angle he booked on November 26, where Road Warrior Animal
Road Warrior Animal
Joseph Aaron "Joe" Laurinaitis is an American professional wrestler, better known by his ring names, Road Warrior Animal and Road Warrior...
pulled a spike out of his shoulder pad and jammed it in Rhodes's eye busting it wide open, despite a strict "no-blood" policy laid down by Turner after his recent purchase of the company.
WCW under Ted Turner
1989 proved to be a turnaround year for WCW, with Ric Flair on top for most of the year as both World Champion and head booker. Flair helped bring in Ricky Steamboat
Ricky Steamboat
Richard Henry Blood , better known by his ring name Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat, is a retired American professional wrestler. He is currently signed to WWE working as a road agent. He was one of the few wrestlers who stayed a babyface throughout his career...
and Terry Funk
Terry Funk
Terrence "Terry" Funk is an American professional wrestler and actor known chiefly for the hardcore wrestling style he adopted in the latter part of his career that inspired many younger wrestlers, including Mick Foley...
, and his pay-per-view matches with Steamboat were financially and critically successful. Young stars such as Sid Vicious
Sid Eudy
Sidney Raymond "Sid" Eudy is an American professional wrestler, best known as Sid Vicious in World Championship Wrestling, and as Sid Justice and Sycho Sid in the World Wrestling Federation...
, Sting, Scott Steiner
Scott Steiner
Scott Carl Rechsteiner is an American professional wrestler better known by his ring name Scott Steiner. Steiner is perhaps best known for his appearances with World Championship Wrestling alongside his older brother Rick as the Steiner Brothers and as a member of the New World Order...
, The Road Warriors
Road Warriors
The Road Warriors were a professional wrestling tag team composed of Michael "Hawk" Hegstrand and Joseph "Animal" Laurinaitis. They performed under the name "Road Warriors" in the American Wrestling Association, the National Wrestling Alliance, and World Championship Wrestling, and the name Legion...
, Brian Pillman
Brian Pillman
Brian William Pillman was an American football player and professional wrestler best known for his appearances in the World Wrestling Federation, Extreme Championship Wrestling, and World Championship Wrestling....
, The Great Muta
Keiji Mutoh
is a Japanese professional wrestler who first gained international fame in the National Wrestling Alliance. He is mostly known for his work as The Great Muta in New Japan Pro Wrestling during the 1990s, but he has also competed in United States, Puerto Rico, Mexico, and Taiwan...
and Lex Luger
Lex Luger
Lawrence Wendell "Larry" Pfohl , better known by his ring name Lex Luger, is an American former professional wrestler and football player currently working with WWE on their wellness policy...
were given major storylines and championship opportunities. 1990, however, would be an entirely different story, as Flair would be fired from being head booker in March 1990 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 title to Lex Luger, as he had already promised to drop it to Sting, who himself had been injured earlier in the year. Flair was eventually replaced by Ole Anderson.
Despite this influx of talent, WCW soon began working to gradually incorporate much of the glamour and showy gimmicks for which the WWF was better known. Virtually none of these stunts—such as the live cross-promotional appearance of RoboCop
RoboCop (character)
OCP Crime Prevention Unit 001 is a fictional Detroit cyborg police officer and protagonist from the feature film series of the same name. The character begins as a human being who is killed in the line of duty by a vicious crime gang...
at a pay-per-view event in 1990, the Chamber of Horrors gimmick, and the notorious Black Scorpion storyline—succeeded. In addition, house shows were also dropping to record lows after Ole continuously pushed older wrestlers who were loyal to him during the shows. Behind the scenes, WCW was 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
WCW World Heavyweight Championship
The World Championship Wrestling World Heavyweight Championship was a professional wrestling world heavyweight championship in World Championship Wrestling and the World Wrestling Federation . It existed within WCW between 1991 and 2001. Following the acquisition of WCW by World Wrestling...
and WCW World Tag Team Championship
WCW World Tag Team Championship
The World Championship Wrestling Tag Team Championship was a professional wrestling world tag team championship in World Championship Wrestling...
.
Both WCW and the NWA recognized Ric Flair (who was by now no longer the head booker) as their World Heavyweight Champion throughout most of the first half of 1991, but WCW, particularly recently-installed company president Jim Herd
Jim Herd
Jim Herd is a former professional wrestling executive. Herd was the Executive Vice President of World Championship Wrestling from 1988 to 1992, following Turner Broadcasting's acquisition of the NWA-affiliated Jim Crockett Promotions in 1988. His tenure however received much criticism from...
, turned against Flair for various reasons and fired him 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 the $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". On a sidenote, Flair eventually received his deposit which with interest was over $38,000. WCW later renegotiated the use of the NWA name as a co-promotional gimmick with New Japan Pro Wrestling
New Japan Pro Wrestling
is a major professional wrestling promotion in Japan, founded by Antonio Inoki in June 1972 and owned by Yuke's since 2005, when Inoki sold the promotion. Naoki Sugabayashi is the current President of the promotion and has held that position from 2007. Owing to its TV program aired on TV Asahi, it...
and sued the WWF to stop showing Flair with the old NWA World Title 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 and he received his deposit back plus interest. It was brought back as the revived NWA World Heavyweight Championship
NWA World Heavyweight Championship
The National Wrestling Alliance World Heavyweight Championship is a professional wrestling world heavyweight championship in the National Wrestling Alliance. Its lineage has been traced from the first World Heavyweight Championship, which traces its lineage to Georg Hackenschmidt's 1905 title and...
.
Meanwhile, the creative product of the company sank in 1991 and 1992 under the presidency of Jim Herd, and subsequently Bill Watts
Bill Watts
William F. "Bill" Watts is a former American professional wrestler and promoter. Watts was famous under his "Cowboy" gimmick in his wrestling career, and then as a tough, no-nonsense promoter in the Mid-South area of the United States, which grew to become the UWF.In 1992, he was the Executive...
. 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." According to Flair, Herd also wanted him to drop his entire "Nature Boy" persona, shave his head (even though Flair's bleach blonde hair was one of his most recognizable trademarks) and adopt a Rome
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
gladiator
Gladiator
A gladiator was an armed combatant who entertained audiences in the Roman Republic and Roman Empire in violent confrontations with other gladiators, wild animals, and condemned criminals. Some gladiators were volunteers who risked their legal and social standing and their lives by appearing in the...
gimmick by the name of Spartacus in order to "change with the times". This didn't sit too well with Flair and the committee (Committee member Kevin Sullivan
Kevin Sullivan (wrestler)
Kevin Francis Sullivan is an American professional wrestler and booker, perhaps best known for his role in WCW as "The Taskmaster" and his leading of the "Dungeon of Doom".-Early career:...
was quoted as saying, "After we change Flair's gimmick, why don't we go to Yankee Stadium
Yankee Stadium
Yankee Stadium was a stadium located in The Bronx in New York City, New York. It was the home ballpark of the New York Yankees from 1923 to 1973 and from 1976 to 2008. The stadium hosted 6,581 Yankees regular season home games during its 85-year history. It was also the former home of the New York...
and change Babe Ruth
Babe Ruth
George Herman Ruth, Jr. , best known as "Babe" Ruth and nicknamed "the Bambino" and "the Sultan of Swat", was an American Major League baseball player from 1914–1935...
's uniform number?"). This backstage feud hit its breaking point when, during contract renegotiation, Flair refused to take a pay cut and be moved away from the main event position (despite the fact that he was by far the company's biggest draw). He also refused to drop the title to Lex Luger as Herd wanted. Herd accused Flair of holding up the company. Flair tried to compromise to Herd and offered to drop the title to fellow Horsemen Barry Windham, saying that Windham deserved the title.
1992 would also prove to be another bad year for WCW as well, as new booker "Cowboy" Bill Watts made top rope moves - which were common by Brian Pillman and the Steiner Brothers - illegal during wrestling matches. After clashes with management over a number of issues as well as feeling pressure from Hank Aaron over a racially sensitive piece of correspondence, he resigned. He was subsequently replaced by Eric Bischoff
Eric Bischoff
Eric Aaron Bischoff is an American entrepreneur, and professional wrestling booker and on-screen personality currently signed to Total Nonstop Action Wrestling...
.
Final split with the NWA
During the period that WCW operated with its own World Heavyweight Champion, while also recognizing the NWA's world title, Flair left the WWF on good terms and returned to WCW, regaining the title from Barry WindhamBarry Windham
Barry Clinton Windham is an American semi-retired professional wrestler and the son of wrestler Blackjack Mulligan. He is best known for his appearances with the National Wrestling Alliance and World Championship Wrestling ....
in July 1993. Immediately, the other, now smaller, member organizations of the NWA began demanding that Flair defend the title under their rules in their territories, as mandated by old NWA agreements. The title was later scheduled to be dropped by Flair to Rick Rude
Richard Rood
Richard Erwin Rood , better known by his ring name "Ravishing" Rick Rude, was an American professional wrestler who performed for many promotions, including World Championship Wrestling and the World Wrestling Federation , in the 1980s and 1990s.Among other accolades, Rude was a four-time world...
, a title change which was exposed by the Disney Tapings
WCW Disney tapings
The WCW Disney tapings were a series of television tapings of professional wrestling matches conducted by World Championship Wrestling at the Disney-MGM Studios in Lake Buena Vista, Florida.-History:...
(discussed in more detail below). The NWA board of directors, working separately from WCW, objected to the title being change without their vote and WCW finally left the NWA for good again in September 1993. WCW still legally owned and used the actual belt which represented the NWA World Heavyweight Championship, however, and Rick Rude even defended it as the "Big Gold Belt
Big Gold Belt
The Big Gold Belt is a historic professional wrestling championship belt that has represented multiple world championships throughout its history. It was originally designed in 1985 by silversmith Charles Crumrine and commissioned by Jim Crockett Promotions for NWA World Heavyweight Champion Ric...
", but they could no longer use the NWA name. A fictional subsidiary, dubbed WCW International, was created to inject credibility back into the belt. The title thus became known as the WCW International World Heavyweight Championship
WCW International World Heavyweight Championship
The World Championship Wrestling International World Heavyweight Championship was a professional wrestling world heavyweight championship in World Championship Wrestling . "WCW International" referred to a fictional international subsidiary of World Championship Wrestling...
(as the World Heavyweight Championship as sanctioned by WCW International). WCW claimed that WCW International still recognized the belt as a legitimate World Championship. For a short while, there were essentially two world titles up for competition in the organization. Sting eventually lost the WCW International Championship to WCW Champion Ric Flair in a unification
Championship unification
Championship unification is the act of combining two or more separate professional wrestling championships into a single title.-History:In professional wrestling, championships may be unified to consolidate the number of championships in a given promotion, or to add legitimacy and prestige to a...
match on June 23, 1994 when the experiment was jettisoned. The Big Gold Belt was then used to represent the lone World Title in the company. It was used as such until WCW's closure in 2001, and for a time in the WWF. It was subsequently replaced with a similar belt, that is used to this day, modified with a WWE logo engraved on the top.
Eric Bischoff era
Eric Bischoff
Eric Aaron Bischoff is an American entrepreneur, and professional wrestling booker and on-screen personality currently signed to Total Nonstop Action Wrestling...
was appointed as Executive Vice President of WCW. Bischoff, originally brought in as a secondary commentator behind Jim Ross
Jim Ross
James William "Jim" Ross is a professional wrestling commentator, former professional wrestling referee, restaurateur, occasional wrestler, and former company executive of WWE, where he currently works as a commentator on the WWE Raw brand...
after the AWA folded, was desperate to give WCW a new direction and impressed Turner's top brass with his non-confrontational tactics and business savvy. Ross, upset that a man who once answered to him was now his supervisor, requested and received a release from TBS executive Bill Shaw (after suggestion from Bischoff) and ended up in the rival World Wrestling Federation
World Wrestling Entertainment
World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. is an American publicly traded, privately controlled entertainment company dealing primarily in professional wrestling, with major revenue sources also coming from film, music, product licensing, and direct product sales...
(WWF).
Bischoff's first year running the company was considered extremely unsuccessful. Dusty Rhodes and Ole Anderson were still in full creative control at this point, and under their watch WCW presented cartoonish storylines as well as seemingly pointless feuds with little or no build-up (for instance, the "Lost in Cleveland" and "Spin the Wheel, Make the Deal" angles involving Cactus Jack
Mick Foley
Michael Francis "Mick" Foley, Sr. is an American semi-retired professional wrestler, author, comedian, actor, voice actor and former color commentator. He has worked for many wrestling promotions, including WWE, WCW, ECW and TNA. He is often referred to as "The Hardcore Legend", a nickname he...
and Sting respectively, as well as the "White Castle of Fear" and Beach Blast
Beach Blast
Beach Blast was a professional wrestling pay-per-view promoted by World Championship Wrestling and held in the summers of 1992 and 1993. It was replaced by Bash at the Beach in 1994.-1992:...
mini-movies).
The "Lost in Cleveland" storyline began when Cactus Jack (Mick Foley
Mick Foley
Michael Francis "Mick" Foley, Sr. is an American semi-retired professional wrestler, author, comedian, actor, voice actor and former color commentator. He has worked for many wrestling promotions, including WWE, WCW, ECW and TNA. He is often referred to as "The Hardcore Legend", a nickname he...
) first wrestled Vader
Leon White
Leon Allen White better known by his ring names Big Van Vader or Vader, is an American semi-retired professional wrestler. White is perhaps best known for his time with New Japan Pro Wrestling, World Championship Wrestling, World Wrestling Federation and All Japan Pro Wrestling in the 1990s...
on April 6, 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 23, the two executed a dangerous spot to sell a storyline injury. 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, WCW ran an angle where Cactus Jack's absence was explained with a farcical comedy storyline in which he went crazy, was institutionalized, escaped, and developed amnesia. Foley had wanted the injury storyline to be very serious and generate genuine sympathy for him before his return. The comedy vignettes that WCW produced instead were so bad that Foley jokes in his autobiography
Have a Nice Day: A Tale of Blood and Sweatsocks
Have a Nice Day!: A Tale of Blood and Sweatsocks is an autobiography of former World Wrestling Entertainment and TNA wrestler Mick Foley. It details his life all the way from his upbringing in New York to winning the WWF Championship from The Rock in December 1998...
that they were the brainchild of WCW executives, who regarded a surefire moneymaking feud as a problem that needed to be solved.
In May 1993, WCW began the aforementioned Disney Tapings, a move which would grow into a major headache for them. In order to save money, the promotion rented out a studio located at the Disney-MGM Studios
Disney's Hollywood Studios
Disney's Hollywood Studios is a theme park at the Walt Disney World Resort. Spanning 135 acres in size, its theme is show business, drawing inspiration from the heyday of Hollywood in the 1930s and 1940s...
in Orlando, Florida
Orlando, Florida
Orlando is a city in the central region of the U.S. state of Florida. It is the county seat of Orange County, and the center of the Greater Orlando metropolitan area. According to the 2010 US Census, the city had a population of 238,300, making Orlando the 79th largest city in the United States...
, 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 they 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
Arn Anderson
Martin Anthony Lunde better known by his ring name Arn Anderson, is a former American professional wrestler and author. His career has been highlighted by his alliances with Ric Flair and various members of the wrestling stable, The Four Horsemen, in the NWA/WCW...
and Paul Roma
Paul Roma
Paul Roma is a professional wrestler who is known for his work in the World Wrestling Federation and World Championship Wrestling primarily as a tag-team wrestler alongside such partners as Jim Powers, Hercules, Arn Anderson and Paul Orndorff.-World Wrestling Federation :Paul Roma entered...
were to win the WCW World tag team titles from the Hollywood Blonds (Steve Austin
Stone Cold Steve Austin
Steve Austin , better known by his ring name "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, is an American film and television actor and retired professional wrestler...
and Brian Pillman
Brian Pillman
Brian William Pillman was an American football player and professional wrestler best known for his appearances in the World Wrestling Federation, Extreme Championship Wrestling, and World Championship Wrestling....
). The promotion had decided 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 Champions 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 September. However, before the Clash event, Pillman was injured and unable to wrestle, forcing Lord Steven Regal to replace him alongside Austin. Of course, Anderson and Roma won the titles, and the Blonds, an immensely popular tag team with fans, were inexplicably broken up permanently.
Clash of the Champions XXIV saw WCW's reputation take another hit. In 1993, Ric Flair
Ric Flair
Richard Morgan Fliehr is an American professional wrestler, better known by his ring name Ric Flair. Also known as "The Nature Boy", Flair is one of the most well-known professional wrestlers in the world....
returned to WCW from his WWF tenure, but was constrained by a no-compete clause from his WWF contract. In response, WCW gave him a talk show
Talk show
A talk show or chat show is a television program or radio program where one person discuss various topics put forth by a talk show host....
segment on its television shows called "A Flair for the Gold," in the mold of the old "Piper's Pit
Piper's Pit
Piper's Pit was an interview segment featuring Roddy Piper which was a mainstay of WWF/WWE television from 1984 to 1987, and then returned briefly in 1989. Also, Piper hosted similar segments while wrestling for other promotions in 2003 - 2011....
" segments from 1980s WWF programming starring "Rowdy" Roddy Piper
Roddy Piper
Roderick George Toombs , better known by his ring name "Rowdy" Roddy Piper, is a Canadian semi-retired professional wrestler and film actor who is currently signed to WWE. In professional wrestling, he is best known for his work with WWE...
. During a segment of the talk show at the Clash, WCW decided to introduce a "mystery partner" for the babyfaces, a masked man known as The Shockmaster
Fred Ottman
Fred Ottman is a retired American professional wrestler best known as Tugboat or Typhoon and teaming with John "Earthquake" Tenta as The Natural Disasters in the World Wrestling Federation. Ottman is also well-known for his infamous "Shockmaster" gimmick in World Championship Wrestling...
. The Shockmaster (previously known as "Typhoon" in the WWF) was supposed to crash through a fake wall and intimidate the heels. Instead, he tripped through the wall and fell on his face on live television, inadvertently rendering himself a joke character (despite winning some matches). Dusty Rhodes
Dusty Rhodes (wrestler)
Virgil Riley Runnels, Jr. , better known as "The American Dream" Dusty Rhodes, is a semi-retired American professional wrestler currently working for WWE...
later claimed that a 2x4 was placed on the bottom of the wall, which had not been there on a successful rehearsal, which caused Ottman to trip and stumble.
Late in 1993, WCW decided to once again base the promotion around Ric Flair. This was seen as more or less a necessity after prospective top babyface Sid Vicious was involved in an incident with Arn Anderson
Arn Anderson
Martin Anthony Lunde better known by his ring name Arn Anderson, is a former American professional wrestler and author. His career has been highlighted by his alliances with Ric Flair and various members of the wrestling stable, The Four Horsemen, in the NWA/WCW...
(which resulted in hospitalization of both men) while on tour in England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
four weeks before Starrcade
Starrcade (1993)
Starrcade '93: 10th Anniversary was the eleventh annual Starrcade professional wrestling pay-per-view event. It was the sixth Starrcade event produced by World Championship Wrestling , and it took place on December 27, 1993 from the Independence Arena in Charlotte, North Carolina...
and was fired. 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.
Competition with the WWF
Beginning in 1994, Bischoff declared open war on McMahon's WWF and aggressively recruited high-profile former WWF superstars such as Hulk HoganHulk Hogan
Terrance Gene "Terry" Bollea , better known by his ring name Hulk Hogan, is an American Semi-retired professional wrestler, actor, television personality, and musician currently signed to Total Nonstop Action Wrestling ....
and Randy Savage
Randy Savage
Randall Mario Poffo , better known by his ring name "Macho Man" Randy Savage, was an American professional wrestler, best known for his time with the World Wrestling Federation and World Championship Wrestling .Savage held twenty championships during his professional wrestling career and was a...
to work for WCW. Using Turner's monetary resources, Bischoff placed his faith in established stars with proven track records. Due to their high profiles, however, Hogan and Savage were able to demand concessions, such as multi-year, multi-million dollar contracts and creative control over their characters. This would later become a problem during subsequent years of competition with the WWF, as other wrestlers were able to make similar demands, and contract values soared out of control. Hogan in particular was able to gain considerable influence through a friendship with Bischoff. Hogan's considerably hefty fee of $700,000 per pay-per-view appearance would cost the company dearly in future years. He was paid this amount whether the pay-per-view was successful or not. Another thing Bischoff may have failed to consider was the fact that many WCW fans (especially those who had followed the company since its NWA days) watched it as an alternative product to the WWF that focused on in-ring action as opposed to cartoonish characters and storylines. As such, these fans viewed Bischoff's signing of former WWF talent as an attempt to copy its success instead of remaining true to the idea of WCW being an alternative to the WWF.
Nevertheless, WCW's first major pay-per-view event since Hogan's hiring, Bash at the Beach, saw the former WWF mainstay cleanly defeat Ric Flair for the WCW World Heavyweight 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
WrestleMania VIII
WrestleMania VIII was the eighth annual WrestleMania professional wrestling pay-per-view produced by the World Wrestling Federation . It took place on April 5, 1992 at the Hoosier Dome in Indianapolis, Indiana...
was changed to Flair/Savage and Hogan/Sid
Sid Eudy
Sidney Raymond "Sid" Eudy is an American professional wrestler, best known as Sid Vicious in World Championship Wrestling, and as Sid Justice and Sycho Sid in the World Wrestling Federation...
. When WCW delivered the match, the event drew a high buyrate by WCW standards due to mainstream intrigue and hype. Despite being a critical and financial success, the glory would not last, as the Hogan/Flair feud would only result in one more match (at Halloween Havoc) and the hope for long-term effects on pay-per-view buyrates and ratings did not materialize. Turner management came to this realization when they checked up on the state of the company in mid-1995. Hence, Bischoff called Turner and requested a private meeting, which he was granted.
WCW Monday Nitro and "The Monday Night Wars"
Bischoff would be instrumental in launching the weekly show WCW Monday NitroWCW Monday Nitro
WCW Monday Nitro was a weekly professional wrestling telecast produced by World Championship Wrestling, created by Ted Turner and Eric Bischoff. The show aired Monday nights on TNT, going head-to-head with the World Wrestling Federation's Monday Night Raw from September 4, 1995 to March 26, 2001...
, which debuted on September 4, 1995 live from the Mall of America
Mall of America
The Mall of America, also called MOA and the Megamall, is a shopping mall located in Bloomington, Minnesota, a suburb of the Twin Cities, in the United States. It is located southeast of the junction of Interstate 494 and Minnesota State Highway 77, north of the Minnesota River and is across the...
in Bloomington, Minnesota
Bloomington, Minnesota
Bloomington is the fifth largest city in the U.S. state of Minnesota in Hennepin County. Located on the north bank of the Minnesota River above its confluence with the Mississippi River, Bloomington lies at the heart of the southern...
. At their mid-1995 meeting, 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 on a weekday night, possibly up against the WWF's flagship show, Monday Night Raw
WWE RAW
WWE Raw ) is a sports entertainment television program for WWE that currently airs on the USA Network in the United States...
. 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 later three. Bischoff himself was initially the host, alongside Bobby Heenan and ex-NFL
National Football League
The National Football League is the highest level of professional American football in the United States, and is considered the top professional American football league in the world. It was formed by eleven teams in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association, with the league changing...
star Steve "Mongo" McMichael
Steve McMichael
-World Wrestling Federation :After the end of his NFL career, he appeared at ringside in the WWF for Lawrence Taylor at WrestleMania XI on April 2, 1995 in Hartford, Connecticut. Taylor was wrestling Bam Bam Bigelow and there were several football players at ringside to keep wrestlers from...
.
The initial broadcast of Nitro, running unopposed because of the pre-emption of Raw for U.S. Open
U.S. Open (tennis)
The US Open, formally the United States Open Tennis Championships, is a hardcourt tennis tournament which is the modern iteration of one of the oldest tennis championships in the world, the U.S. National Championship, which for men's singles was first contested in 1881...
tennis
Tennis
Tennis is a sport usually played between two players or between two teams of two players each . Each player uses a racket that is strung to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over a net into the opponent's court. Tennis is an Olympic sport and is played at all levels of society at all...
coverage on the USA Network
USA Network
USA Network is an American cable television channel launched in 1971. Once a minor player in basic cable, the network has steadily gained popularity because of breakout hits like Monk, Psych, Burn Notice, Royal Pains, Covert Affairs, White Collar, Monday Night RAW, Suits, and reruns of the various...
, featured the return of Lex Luger
Lex Luger
Lawrence Wendell "Larry" Pfohl , better known by his ring name Lex Luger, is an American former professional wrestler and football player currently working with WWE on their wellness policy...
(who had been in the WWF since 1993) to the WCW audience. WCW's coup of obtaining Luger was significant for several reasons. Because Nitro was live at the time, premiering major stars on the show would signal to the fans the amount of excitement the broadcasts would contain. Also, Luger had just come off a moderately successful run in the WWF, and was at one time one of the company's top stars. Finally, because Luger had been employed with the WWF as recently as a week before his Nitro appearance, WCW fans would be intrigued to see others possibly "jump ship". The Monday Night Wars
Monday Night Wars
Monday Night Wars is the common term describing the period of mainstream televised American professional wrestling from September 4, 1995, to March 26, 2001. During this time, the World Wrestling Federation's Monday Night Raw went head-to-head with World Championship Wrestling's Monday Nitro in a...
had now officially begun.
Early on, Bischoff vigorously promoted his new show by giving away WWF Raw results on Nitro, as Raw, unlike Nitro, was then mostly taped in advance. He took another famous jab at the WWF on December 18, 1995, when he brought reigning WWF Women's Champion Debra Miceli
Debra Miceli
Debrah Ann Miceli is a Monster truck driver and former professional wrestler. She is best known under her ring names Madusa or Alundra Blayze. Her early career was spent in the American Wrestling Association, where she held the AWA World Women's Championship one time...
(who had previously competed in WCW as "Madusa") back to the promotion as her WWF character Alundra Blayze and, live on Nitro, had her publicly denounce the Blayze character and throw the WWF Women's title belt in a trash can, reclaiming her "Madusa" moniker in the process. The WWF responded to all this by creating the "Billionaire Ted" skits, which featured parodies of Ted Turner ("Billionaire Ted"), Hulk Hogan ("The Huckster"), Randy Savage ("The Nacho Man"), and WCW interviewer "Mean Gene" Okerlund
Gene Okerlund
Eugene "Mean Gene" Okerlund is a semi-retired American professional wrestling interviewer and announcer. He is best known for his work in the World Wrestling Federation and World Championship Wrestling. He was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2006 by Hulk Hogan...
("Scheme Gene"), which were said to infuriate Turner, thereby giving him more motivation to compete. They also began picking up a bit after WrestleMania XII
WrestleMania XII
-Other on-screen talent:-External links:**...
, running a hot feud between WWF World champion Shawn Michaels
Shawn Michaels
Michael Shawn Hickenbottom , better known by his ring name Shawn Michaels, is an American television host and retired professional wrestler. He presents the Outdoor Channel show MacMillan River Adventures, and is currently signed to WWE, where he has served in an ambassadorial role since December...
and former World champion Diesel
Kevin Nash
Kevin Scott Nash is an American professional wrestler and actor. As of 2011, Nash is signed to a five year contract with WWE under their WWE Legends program and appears as part of their Raw brand roster...
.
Dominance
The tide began to turn in WCW's favor on Memorial Day 1996 when Scott HallScott Hall
Scott Hall is an American professional wrestler. He is best known for his tenure with the World Wrestling Federation in the early and mid 1990s under the ring name Razor Ramon, as well as for his period in the mid 1990s and early 2000s with World Championship Wrestling under his real name...
, who had wrestled in the WWF as Razor Ramon, interrupted a match by walking down through the crowd into the ring. He delivered his "You want a war?" speech: "You people know who I am," he began, "but you don't know why I'm here." Hall said that he and two of his associates were going to "take over." Many thought he meant Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels, then still with WWF. Hall challenged the best WCW wrestlers to stand up and defend the company against their onslaught.
The next week, Hall reappeared on Nitro and pestered the WCW announcers. Sting confronted him, and was rewarded with a toothpick in the face for his efforts. Sting retaliated by slapping Hall across the face, and in response Hall promised Sting a "little... no... BIG surprise" the next week in Wheeling, West Virginia
Wheeling, West Virginia
Wheeling is a city in Ohio and Marshall counties in the U.S. state of West Virginia; it is the county seat of Ohio County. Wheeling is the principal city of the Wheeling Metropolitan Statistical Area...
. This surprise ended up being Hall's good friend and former WWF World Heavyweight Champion Kevin Nash
Kevin Nash
Kevin Scott Nash is an American professional wrestler and actor. As of 2011, Nash is signed to a five year contract with WWE under their WWE Legends program and appears as part of their Raw brand roster...
, and in the weeks following Hall and Nash were collectively referred to as "The Outsiders." Both men took to showing up unexpectedly during Nitro broadcasts, usually jumping wrestlers backstage, distracting wrestlers by standing in the entranceways of arenas, or walking around in the audience. Within a couple of weeks, they announced the forthcoming appearance of a mysterious third member.
At Bash at the Beach
Bash at the Beach (1996)
Bash at the Beach was the third annual Bash at the Beach professional wrestling pay-per-view event produced by World Championship Wrestling . It took place on July 7, 1996 from the Ocean Center in Daytona Beach, Florida...
, Hall and Nash were scheduled to team with their mystery partner against Lex Luger, Randy Savage and Sting. At the onset of the match, Hall and Nash came out without a third man, telling "Mean Gene" Okerlund that he was "in the building," but that they did not need him yet. Shortly into the match, a Stinger Splash resulted in Luger being crushed behind Kevin Nash, and being taken away on a stretcher, reducing the match to The Outsiders vs. Sting and Savage. Hall and Nash took control of the match when Hulk Hogan came to the ring. After standing off with The Outsiders for a moment, he suddenly attacked Savage, showing himself to be the Outsiders' mysterious third man. Giving an interview with Okerlund directly after the match, Hogan claimed the reason for the turn was that he was tired of fans that had turned on him. Hogan labeled the new faction "the new world order
New World Order (professional wrestling)
The New World Order was a professional wrestling stable that originally wrestled for World Championship Wrestling . The group later appeared in the World Wrestling Federation after the purchase of WCW by the WWF...
of wrestling", beginning a feud between wrestlers loyal to WCW and the nWo. The fans in attendance were so outraged at Hogan's betrayal that they pelted the ring with debris, such as paper cups and plastic bottles, for the duration of his interview. One fan even jumped the security railing and tried to attack Hogan in the ring, but was swiftly subdued by Hall, Nash, and arena security.
Shortly after, the WWF filed a lawsuit, alleging that the nWo storyline implied that Hall and Nash were invaders sent by Vince McMahon to destroy WCW, despite the fact that Bischoff asked Nash point blank on camera at The Great American Bash, "Are you employed by the WWF?" to which Nash emphatically replied "No". Another reason for the lawsuit was the WWF claimed Scott Hall acted in a manner too similar to the character Razor Ramon which was owned by the WWF. The lawsuit dragged out for several years before being settled out of court. One of the settlement's terms was the right for the WWF to bid on WCW's properties, should they ever be up for liquidation; an ironic settlement that would prove invaluable in the future.
Largely due to the nWo angle, Nitro defeated Raw for 84 consecutive weeks. During this time, WCW occasionally revealed the endings to pre-taped Raw matches at the beginning of its live broadcast. Bischoff reasoned that fans who were open to switching between the two programs would be less inclined to switch to Raw if fans knew ahead of time how the matches would end.
Starrcade 1997
In 1997, WCW entered its peak. The nWo began feuding with the revived babyfaceFace (professional wrestling)
In professional wrestling, a babyface or face or in simple words, a fan favorite is a character who is portrayed as a heroic relative to the heel wrestlers, who are analogous to villains...
Four Horsemen
Four Horsemen (professional wrestling)
The Four Horsemen were a professional wrestling stable in the National Wrestling Alliance and later World Championship Wrestling that was disbanded in 1999. The original group featured Ric Flair, Arn and Ole Anderson, and Tully Blanchard...
as well as the returning WCW hero Sting. Sting had changed his gimmick when he returned to WCW television, he became a darker, brooding character, largely based on The Crow
The Crow (film)
The Crow is a 1994 American action film based on the 1989 comic book of the same name by James O'Barr. The film was written by David J. Schow and John Shirley, and directed by Alex Proyas...
. Sting would be in the rafters of WCW arenas watching the WCW/nWo feud, and sometimes rappel down into the ring to help WCW wrestlers fighting the nWo. The latter feud served to build up Starrcade
Starrcade (1997)
Starrcade was the fifteenth annual Starrcade professional wrestling pay-per-view event. It was the tenth Starrcade event produced by World Championship Wrestling , and it took place on December 28, 1997 from the MCI Center in Washington, D.C...
in December. When WCW delivered the Sting vs. Hogan match for the WCW World Championship, the event drew WCW's largest buyrate and Bischoff was largely praised in the months leading up to this event because of his refusal to give away ("hotshot" in wrestling slang) a Sting vs. Hogan title match for free or without proper buildup. Indeed, the Hogan/Sting angle endured for approximately 15 months.
Wrestling fans consider this show to be the beginning of the end for WCW, however, even as they were dominating the WWF in the television ratings. Hogan was heavily criticized for not doing a clean finish to the match, which confused and irritated fans who had waited over a year to see Sting take down the nWo. The finish actually involved a recently-introduced Bret Hart
Bret Hart
Bret Hart is a Canadian on-screen personality, writer, actor and Semi-retired professional wrestler. Like others in the Hart wrestling family, Hart has an amateur wrestling background, including wrestling at Ernest Manning High School and Mount Royal College...
, who had refereed the preceding match between Bischoff and Larry Zbyszko
Larry Zbyszko
Lawrence "Larry" Whistler is a professional wrestler, better known by his ring name, Larry Zbyszko. Zbyszko is perhaps best known for his feud with his mentor, wrestling legend Bruno Sammartino during the early 1980s....
for control of Nitro, coming down to the ring after Hogan had supposedly won the match. Hart alleged that referee Nick Patrick
Nick Hamilton
Joseph Nicholas "Nick" Patrick Hamilton Jr. , better known by his ring name Nick Patrick, is a professional wrestling referee. He is a former referee for World Championship Wrestling and World Wrestling Entertainment...
had performed a fast count on Sting and wanted to "make things right". By many accounts, however, including Eric Bischoff's in Controversy Creates Cash, the count looked like a normal count, so Hart's protestations did not make sense. Television replays of the three-count on later shows had the video sped up to hide this. Hurting the argument the most was the fact that Sting never tried to kick out while Hogan pinned him, proving even if the count was normal the pin would have happened regardless. Hart insisted that the match continue with himself as referee, in order to prevent Sting from being "screwed" like Hart had legitimately been at the Montreal Screwjob
Montreal Screwjob
The Montreal Screwjob was a controversial, purportedly real life professional wrestling event in which the owner of the World Wrestling Federation, Vince McMahon, double-crossed the defending WWF Champion, Bret Hart, during the main event match of the professional wrestling pay-per-view event...
, which had soured his ties with the WWF and hastened his leave to WCW. In essence, whereas fans were promised a classic battle between Hogan and Sting in which the latter would defeat the leader of the nWo, they were presented with a faux reverse-tide potshot at the Montreal Screwjob. The inclusion of Hart himself confused and frustrated fans even more as Hart had no part in the feud between Hogan and Sting. However, the most harming fact of the match to the fans was watching Sting stay down for a full count of three to Hogan when he was built up as the one man to end the nWo, thereby hurting their impression of him. To add insult to injury, it was decided that because of the messy finish to the rematch (on the following Monday's Nitro show which ended with Hogan, and then Sting regaining the title in the same match), Sting had to be stripped of the WCW title that he won from Hogan two weeks later. It was announced when Sting was stripped on television that they would face each other again for the vacant championship at a future pay-per-view. This was without a doubt one of the biggest main event flops in pay-per-view history, and to many, the beginning of the end for WCW.
During the period between the Montreal Screwjob and Starrcade many experts saw the PPV as WCW's golden opportunity to separate itself to a degree so far beyond the WWF that the Federation could have possibly been on its way to its own demise. The PPV was a major opportunity for WCW to make a lasting impression on WWF fans who were irate at Vince McMahon and decided to give WCW a chance. When financial reports were released the following year it revealed WCW had made a profit of over $50 million for 1997, whereas the WWF lost $6 million in revenue. Had Starrcade ended correctly WCW could have made more the following year and the WWF could have possibly continued to lose money or made just fairly more but be far behind WCW. The loss of Bret Hart to WCW was viewed as the WWF's own beginning of its end.
In short, Starrcade '97 was widely viewed as WCW's one shot at becoming the top promotion for the new millennium to come and to possibly bury the WWF, but due to the horrible finish of the most anticipated main event in its history WCW began an unprecedented decline and the WWF would live on.
Signs of a decline
Montreal Screwjob
The Montreal Screwjob was a controversial, purportedly real life professional wrestling event in which the owner of the World Wrestling Federation, Vince McMahon, double-crossed the defending WWF Champion, Bret Hart, during the main event match of the professional wrestling pay-per-view event...
at the Survivor Series
Survivor Series (1997)
Survivor Series was the eleventh annual Survivor Series pay-per-view professional wrestling event produced by the World Wrestling Federation. It took place on November 9, 1997 at the Molson Centre in Montreal, Quebec....
, it looked as though WCW was in position to permanently eclipse the WWF, if not put them out of business. WCW appeared to possess the biggest stars in the industry, such as Hogan, Savage, Sting, Flair, Hart, Hall and Nash. In addition, the company had credible midcard stars such as Chris Jericho
Chris Jericho
Christopher Keith Irvine , better known by his ring name Chris Jericho, is an inactive Canadian-American professional wrestler, musician, songwriter, radio personality, television host, actor, author, and dancer...
, Eddie Guerrero
Eddie Guerrero
Eduardo Gory "Eddie" Guerrero was a Mexican-American professional wrestler born into the Guerrero wrestling family. He wrestled in Mexico and Japan for several major professional wrestling promotions...
, Chris Benoit
Chris Benoit
Christopher Michael "Chris" Benoit was a Canadian professional wrestler whose career and life ended in a murder–suicide...
and Raven
Scott Levy
Scott Anthony Levy , better known by his ring name Raven, is an American professional wrestler, wrestling producer, wrestling writer, and occasional author and actor currently working for Juggalo Championship Wrestling , where he is co-holder of the JCW Tag Team Championship, as well as other...
, as well as an exciting cruiserweight
Cruiserweight (professional wrestling)
In professional wrestling, a cruiserweight is a wrestler weighing 220 lb and less, sometimes 215. The older term junior heavyweight, which was used to describe the division, is more favored in Japan, where many titles for lighter-weight competitors are called junior heavyweight titles...
division featuring high-flying international competition. However, things would not unfold as WCW had planned.
Turner sought to capitalize on WCW's momentum by launching a new Thursday night show on TBS, WCW Thunder
WCW Thunder
WCW Thunder was a professional wrestling show produced by World Championship Wrestling which aired on TBS from January 8, 1998 to March 21, 2001...
, in January 1998. Popular opinion was that the Screwjob and WCW's subsequent acquisition of Hart were death blows for the WWF. WCW had a golden opportunity to capture the allegiances of WWF fans who were disenchanted with the company after its poor treatment of a popular star. But according to Hart, the company failed to capitalize on his talent and momentum, and had no idea how to properly utilize him. Vince McMahon had described Hart as the kind of wrestler a promoter builds his whole company around, but WCW generally used him as a midcarder. Their biggest hope was that Hart would help create inroads in foreign markets such as his native Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, and the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
. Bischoff contends that due to the events of Montreal, Hart's passion and desire for the business was not as it was during his WWF heyday. "Montreal...had taken his toll on him," Bischoff stated in his autobiography. "It was all he talked about... constantly." In any event, Hart's WCW tenure failed to live up to expectations.
As WCW coasted with the same basic formula they had been following, McMahon set about revamping his creative approach and set in motion events that later put his company ahead of WCW for good. Under the "WWF Attitude"
The Attitude Era
The Attitude Era was a period in World Wrestling Federation and professional wrestling history that began as a direct result of the Monday Night Wars, a television ratings conflict between the WWF and longtime rival promotion World Championship Wrestling that lasted from 1995 to 2001...
moniker, he elevated rising stars Stone Cold Steve Austin
Stone Cold Steve Austin
Steve Austin , better known by his ring name "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, is an American film and television actor and retired professional wrestler...
, The Rock, Triple H
Triple H
Paul Michael Levesque is an American professional wrestler, professional wrestling authority figure, WWE Executive Vice President of Talent and actor, better known by his ring name Triple H, an abbreviation of the ring name, Hunter Hearst Helmsley...
and his DX group, as well as Mankind
Mick Foley
Michael Francis "Mick" Foley, Sr. is an American semi-retired professional wrestler, author, comedian, actor, voice actor and former color commentator. He has worked for many wrestling promotions, including WWE, WCW, ECW and TNA. He is often referred to as "The Hardcore Legend", a nickname he...
, Vader, Kane and Ken Shamrock
Ken Shamrock
Kenneth Wayne Shamrock is an American mixed martial arts fighter, UFC Hall of Famer and professional wrestler...
. McMahon himself, after having played in a supporting role on camera as the play-by-play announcer, capitalized on the ill will he received from fans for screwing Bret Hart by turning himself into an on-screen villain. The "Mr. McMahon" heel character feuded with babyface wrestlers and used his influence to screw them out of wins and titles. The April 13, 1998 episode of Raw headlined by a match between Austin and McMahon, marked the first time that WCW lost the head-to-head Monday night ratings
Nielsen Ratings
Nielsen ratings are the audience measurement systems developed by Nielsen Media Research, in an effort to determine the audience size and composition of television programming in the United States...
battle in 84 weeks. WWF ratings began an ascent to highs previously unheard of in wrestling TV. WCW attempted to counter this by dividing the nWo into the Hogan-led heel nWo Hollywood faction and the Nash-led face nWo Wolfpac faction.
WCW's next big attempt to regain ratings supremacy was by marketing ex-NFL
National Football League
The National Football League is the highest level of professional American football in the United States, and is considered the top professional American football league in the world. It was formed by eleven teams in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association, with the league changing...
player Bill Goldberg
Bill Goldberg
Goldberg earned a scholarship to play for the University of Georgia Bulldogs football team where he served as a defensive tackle. He was taken in the 11th round, with the 302nd overall selection, in the 1990 NFL Draft....
as an invincible monster with a record-breaking winning streak. Goldberg was incredibly popular, but business still quickly fell off for WCW, especially as the list of stars ready to be destroyed by Goldberg grew shorter, not to mention the declining quality of the PPVs. One of WCW's last wins in the Monday night ratings war was on July 6, 1998, when WCW aired Goldberg's long-awaited world title victory over Hulk Hogan on free television. This significantly increased the rating for the show, but only for that week. Such a match could likely have generated millions, possibly tens of millions for WCW on pay-per-view had the angle been built up properly for a matter of months. 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
Four Horsemen (professional wrestling)
The Four Horsemen were a professional wrestling stable in the National Wrestling Alliance and later World Championship Wrestling that was disbanded in 1999. The original group featured Ric Flair, Arn and Ole Anderson, and Tully Blanchard...
. On October 25, 1998, WCW's Halloween Havoc ran longer than the time allocated because of the last-minute addition of a tag team title
WCW World Tag Team Championship
The World Championship Wrestling Tag Team Championship was a professional wrestling world tag team championship in World Championship Wrestling...
match. As a result, several thousand people lost their pay-per-view feed at 11pm during the highly- anticipated world title match between Diamond Dallas Page
Diamond Dallas Page
Dallas Page , better known by his ring name "Diamond" Dallas Page , is an American retired professional wrestler, fitness instructor and actor...
and Goldberg. The following night, WCW decided to correct the fault by airing the entire match for free on Nitro and won the ratings war for the final time. This timing faux pas upset millions of viewers who had paid for the pay-per-view of whom WCW were forced to reimburse, only to have to wait to see the main event for free the next night .
At this time, Kevin Nash was in charge of booking the shows. After winning the World War 3 battle royal in November 1998, he went on to end Goldberg's winning streak and win the world title on Starrcade
Starrcade (1998)
Starrcade was the sixteenth annual Starrcade professional wrestling pay-per-view event. It was the eleventh Starrcade event produced by World Championship Wrestling , and it took place on December 27, 1998 from the MCI Center in Washington, D.C....
one month later. Many believed it wasn't the right time for the streak to end, nor was it believed Nash should have been the one to end it.
Then came the "Fingerpoke of Doom
Fingerpoke of Doom
The Fingerpoke of Doom is a nickname for an infamous incident in American professional wrestling that happened on January 4, 1999 at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, during a live broadcast of WCW Monday Nitro, the flagship show of World Championship Wrestling...
" match between Nash and Hogan in January 1999. The match was originally advertised as a Starrcade rematch between Nash and Goldberg. As a result, the Georgia Dome
Georgia Dome
The Georgia Dome is a domed stadium located in Atlanta, Georgia, United States, between downtown to the east and Vine City to the west. It is primarily the home stadium for the NFL Atlanta Falcons and the NCAA Division I FCS Georgia State Panthers football team. It is owned and operated by the...
in Atlanta
Atlanta, Georgia
Atlanta is the capital and most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia. According to the 2010 census, Atlanta's population is 420,003. Atlanta is the cultural and economic center of the Atlanta metropolitan area, which is home to 5,268,860 people and is the ninth largest metropolitan area in...
was a complete sellout, with over 40,000 people watching live expecting to see the rematch. Throughout the broadcast the announcers hyped the main event as being the "biggest match in the history of our sport" and said that "unlike the other guys, we have a real main event". Instead, Goldberg was forced to forgo his title match and was replaced by Hogan. Hogan knocked Nash to the mat by poking him in the chest with one finger and then pinning him, winning the World Heavyweight Title and further damaging the credibility of it as a result. This outcome damaged the credibility of the company as a whole, having failed to present the advertised match and using underhand tactics to sell out the arena for that night's telecast. On the same episode of Nitro, Tony Schiavone
Tony Schiavone
Noah Anthony "Tony" Schiavone is an American sports broadcaster. He is the play-by-play broadcaster for the Gwinnett Braves of the International League...
, under direction from Bischoff, revealed that Mick Foley
Mick Foley
Michael Francis "Mick" Foley, Sr. is an American semi-retired professional wrestler, author, comedian, actor, voice actor and former color commentator. He has worked for many wrestling promotions, including WWE, WCW, ECW and TNA. He is often referred to as "The Hardcore Legend", a nickname he...
won the WWF Title at a taped edition of Raw
WWE RAW
WWE Raw ) is a sports entertainment television program for WWE that currently airs on the USA Network in the United States...
and mocked the WWF for making what he implied was a bad business decision. Nielsen ratings indicated that over 300,000 households changed the channel to watch the victory and shifted the ratings for the night in the WWF's favor.
Decline
WCW slid into a period of extravagant overspending and creative decline; the reasons and the people responsible are still a matter of debate. One possible reason was the overuse of celebrities in pay-per-view matches, such as Dennis RodmanDennis Rodman
Dennis Keith Rodman is a retired American Hall of Fame professional basketball player of the National Basketball Association's Detroit Pistons, San Antonio Spurs, Chicago Bulls, Los Angeles Lakers and Dallas Mavericks. Born in Trenton, New Jersey, he was nicknamed "Dennis the Menace" and "The...
and Jay Leno
Jay Leno
James Douglas Muir "Jay" Leno is an American stand-up comedian and television host.From 1992 to 2009, Leno was the host of NBC's The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Beginning in September 2009, Leno started a primetime talk show, titled The Jay Leno Show, which aired weeknights at 10:00 p.m. ,...
. Another was that WCW's credibility was damaged by product placement
Product placement
Product placement, or embedded marketing, is a form of advertisement, where branded goods or services are placed in a context usually devoid of ads, such as movies, music videos, the story line of television shows, or news programs. The product placement is often not disclosed at the time that the...
, such as Rick Steiner
Rick Steiner
Robert Rechsteiner is an American professional wrestler, better known under his ring name Rick Steiner.Steiner is best known for his tenure with World Championship Wrestling, where he was an eight time World Tag Team Champion...
trading barbs with Chucky the killer doll in order to advertise the 1998 film Bride of Chucky
Bride of Chucky
Bride of Chucky is a 1998 American comedy horror film directed by Chinese director Ronny Yu. It is the fourth entry in the Child's Play series. The film stars Jennifer Tilly and Brad Dourif...
. Another possible reason was that the top-level stars had no motivation to excel in the ring due to their long-term contracts. WCW programming had started to decline in quality, leading to a loss of viewers, and the company reacted by throwing money at personalities, something it could ill-afford to do. Talents were reportedly signed to keep them from appearing on WWF television. At one point, WCW held over 260 individual performers under guaranteed contracts, many of whom rarely appeared in its programs. During one Thunder program, only 15 of the 260 contracted wrestlers appeared on screen.
Also in 1998, Bischoff recruited The Ultimate Warrior
Warrior (wrestler)
Also see Warrior .Warrior is an American retired professional wrestler who notably performed under the ring names The Ultimate Warrior and Warrior...
, a former WWF star, to feud with Hogan (to capitalize on the Hogan/Warrior match at WrestleMania VI
WrestleMania VI
WrestleMania VI was the World Wrestling Federation's sixth WrestleMania professional wrestling pay-per-view event and the first to be held outside of the U.S...
). Their October 1998 "rematch" at Halloween Havoc was renowned as one of the worst matches in pay-per-view history, and Warrior vanished soon after. The Ultimate Warrior also insisted on elaborate and costly apparatuses, such as a trapdoor in the ring which badly injured The British Bulldog
Davey Boy Smith
Davey Boy Smith was a British professional wrestler, better known as "The British Bulldog" Davey Boy Smith, who was born in Golborne in North West England, United Kingdom. Smith is known for his appearances with Stampede Wrestling, the World Wrestling Federation and World Championship Wrestling...
when he landed on it.
According to Bischoff's autobiography Controversy Creates Ca$h
Controversy Creates Cash
Controversy Creates Cash is the autobiography of professional wrestling promoter and personality Eric Bischoff, written with Jeremy Roberts. It debuted at #16 on the New York Times Best Seller list. Making it the highest ranked WWE book since To Be the Man in 2004...
, new WCW owners Time Warner
Time Warner
Time Warner is one of the world's largest media companies, headquartered in the Time Warner Center in New York City. Formerly two separate companies, Warner Communications, Inc...
(via acquiring Turner Broadcasting) severely hindered (and occasionally overrode) his control of the company due to micromanagement. Time Warner initially gave him slight restrictions as to what he was and was not allowed to do with WCW. The restrictions mounted as time passed, with impending lawsuits between the WWF and WCW adding more. By the summer of 1998, he was outright ordered to alter WCW's format to a more "family-friendly" output. The forced shift in WCW's programming came while the WWF, buoyed by its new "Attitude" branding and product, was regularly beating an increasingly stagnant WCW week after week in the Monday night ratings war. Also, Time Warner had ordered WCW (like the other companies under Time Warner ownership) to slash their budget, putting even more strain on the company. As it was common knowledge that many executives in WCW ownership—from the Turner-owned era to the AOL Time Warner years – hated the idea of wrestling on their stations and attempted to remove the company entirely, Bischoff maintains that the restrictions and mandates placed on WCW was done in order to accomplish and accelerate the promotion's demise.
In addition, no matter who was in charge, WCW did not promote its younger stars to the company's top slots (a charge admitted by Bischoff). Despite having talented younger wrestlers like Chris Jericho
Chris Jericho
Christopher Keith Irvine , better known by his ring name Chris Jericho, is an inactive Canadian-American professional wrestler, musician, songwriter, radio personality, television host, actor, author, and dancer...
, Chris Benoit
Chris Benoit
Christopher Michael "Chris" Benoit was a Canadian professional wrestler whose career and life ended in a murder–suicide...
, Dean Malenko
Dean Malenko
Dean Simon is a retired professional wrestler, better known by his ring name Dean Malenko. He is currently signed to WWE working as a road agent. He is best known for his time with Extreme Championship Wrestling , New Japan Pro Wrestling and World Championship Wrestling...
, Billy Kidman, Chavo Guerrero, Jr.
Chavo Guerrero, Jr.
Salvador "Chavo" Guerrero IV also known as Chavo Guerrero and Chavo Guerrero, Jr., is a third generation Mexican-American professional wrestler and member of the famed Guerrero wrestling family who was well known for working with World Wrestling Entertainment and World Championship Wrestling...
, Eddie Guerrero
Eddie Guerrero
Eduardo Gory "Eddie" Guerrero was a Mexican-American professional wrestler born into the Guerrero wrestling family. He wrestled in Mexico and Japan for several major professional wrestling promotions...
, Perry Saturn, Raven
Scott Levy
Scott Anthony Levy , better known by his ring name Raven, is an American professional wrestler, wrestling producer, wrestling writer, and occasional author and actor currently working for Juggalo Championship Wrestling , where he is co-holder of the JCW Tag Team Championship, as well as other...
, Booker T.
Booker Huffman
Robert Booker Tio Huffman , better known by his ring name Booker T, is a semi-retired American professional wrestler and currently signed to WWE, on its SmackDown brand, as part of the announcing team. Booker is best known for his time in both the World Wrestling Entertainment and World...
, and Rey Mysterio, Jr. on its roster, they were kept away from the main event scene. Of these wrestlers listed, five would go on to headline main events in WWF/E and become World Champions, something WCW bookers believed these men would never be able to sell as.
Bischoff was eventually removed from control of the promotion on September 10, 1999, after a failed push
Push (professional wrestling)
In professional wrestling, a push is an attempt by the booker to make the wrestler win more matches and become more popular or more reviled with the fans depending on whether they are a heel or a face...
for the 1970s rock group
Rock Band
Rock Band is a music video game developed by Harmonix Music Systems, published by MTV Games and Electronic Arts. It is the first title in the Rock Band series. The PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions were released in the United States on November 20, 2007, while the PlayStation 2 version was...
KISS
KISS (band)
Kiss is an American rock band formed in New York City in January 1973. Well-known for its members' face paint and flamboyant stage outfits, the group rose to prominence in the mid to late 1970s on the basis of their elaborate live performances, which featured fire breathing, blood spitting,...
through WCW shows and a storyline involving rapper Master P
Master P
Percy Robert Miller , better known by his stage name Master P or his business name P. Miller, is an American rapper, actor, entrepreneur, investor, and producer. He is the founder of the popular label No Limit Records, which went bankrupt and was relaunched as New No Limit Records through Koch...
and The No Limit Soldiers
No Limit Soldiers
The No Limit Soldiers were a stable in World Championship Wrestling that was created after rapper Master P signed with the company. The Soldiers feuded extensively with the West Texas Rednecks.-History:...
. The No Limit Soldiers stable flopped so badly that the fans turned on them and began supporting the West Texas Rednecks
West Texas Rednecks
The West Texas Rednecks was a professional wrestling stable and country music band in World Championship Wrestling in 1999. They are famous for recording of two songs, "Rap is Crap " and "Good Ol' Boys."-History:...
heel stable that they were feuding with. An announced "million-dollar contest" was later cancelled and a planned Nitro animated series was scrapped as well.
Vince Russo
Vince Russo
Vincent James "Vince" Russo is an American creative writer and author, well known for his work in the professional wrestling industry. He is notable for his tenure with World Wrestling Federation, World Championship Wrestling and Total Nonstop Action Wrestling...
and his colleague Ed Ferrara. Russo and Ferrera presented themselves as the brains behind the "Attitude" era, and WCW offered them lucrative contracts to jump ship in October 1999. Russo and Ferrara tried to push the younger WCW talents straight away, and phase out aging stars such as Hogan and Flair.
Russo and Ferrara struggled to gain approval for their near-the-knuckle ideas from WCW management, such as a "Piñata
Piñata
A piñata is a papier-mâché or other type of container that is decorated, filled with toys and or candy and then broken as part of a ceremony or celebration. Piñatas are most commonly associated with Mexico, but its origins are considered to be in China...
on a Pole" match between Mexican
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
wrestlers on November 15. In late 1999, Russo and Ferrera revived the nWo storyline, this time with Jeff Jarrett
Jeff Jarrett
Jeffrey Leonard Jarrett is an American professional wrestler and wrestling promoter. He is currently signed to Total Nonstop Action Wrestling , an organization he co-founded along with his father and in which he holds some stock but not total control...
and Bret Hart
Bret Hart
Bret Hart is a Canadian on-screen personality, writer, actor and Semi-retired professional wrestler. Like others in the Hart wrestling family, Hart has an amateur wrestling background, including wrestling at Ernest Manning High School and Mount Royal College...
at the helm. They next targeted WWF announcer Jim Ross
Jim Ross
James William "Jim" Ross is a professional wrestling commentator, former professional wrestling referee, restaurateur, occasional wrestler, and former company executive of WWE, where he currently works as a commentator on the WWE Raw brand...
with a parody character called "Oklahoma," who was played onscreen by Ferrara. Ross suffered from Bell's palsy
Bell's palsy
Bell's palsy is a form of facial paralysis resulting from a dysfunction of the cranial nerve VII that results in the inability to control facial muscles on the affected side. Several conditions can cause facial paralysis, e.g., brain tumor, stroke, and Lyme disease. However, if no specific cause...
, and the character lampooned his resultant facial defects. Bad luck struck in December 1999 when Hart suffered a career-ending concussion at the hands of Goldberg, who severely damaged his own hand less than a week later while punching through a limousine
Limousine
A limousine is a luxury sedan or saloon car, especially one with a lengthened wheelbase or driven by a chauffeur. The chassis of a limousine may have been extended by the manufacturer or by an independent coachbuilder. These are called "stretch" limousines and are traditionally black or white....
window in Salisbury, Maryland
Salisbury, Maryland
-Demographics:Salisbury is the principal city of the Salisbury-Ocean Pines CSA, a Combined Statistical Area that includes the Salisbury metropolitan area and the Ocean Pines micropolitan area , which had a combined population of 176,657 at the 2010 census.As of the census of 2000, there were...
as part of a storyline that was written by Russo. Russo himself became an on-screen character during this period, though one whose face was never shown on camera: only his hand and the back of his chair were ever actually seen, as he called wrestlers into his office to receive their marching orders for the night.
Russo and Ferrara were suspended three months later amid rumors that they wanted to make former UFC
Ultimate Fighting Championship
The Ultimate Fighting Championship is the largest mixed martial arts promotion company in the world that hosts most of the top-ranked fighters in the sport...
fighter Tank Abbott
David L. Abbott
David Lee Abbott is an American mixed martial arts fighter and former professional wrestler. He has described his fighting style, which he developed brawling in the bars and streets of Huntington Beach, California, as "street fighting"...
the WCW Champion. Abbott, despite his legitimate fighting background, had little wrestling experience and had failed to connect with WCW audiences. Bill Busch would later be removed from power and replaced at the helm by Time Warner programming executive Brad Siegel. Kevin Sullivan
Kevin Sullivan (wrestler)
Kevin Francis Sullivan is an American professional wrestler and booker, perhaps best known for his role in WCW as "The Taskmaster" and his leading of the "Dungeon of Doom".-Early career:...
, 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 Souled Out in January 2000. However, Benoit was among a group of wrestlers who expressed their intent to leave the company prior to the show. He handed the belt back right after winning it and signed with the WWF the next day, along with his similarly frustrated friends Perry Saturn
Perry Satullo
Perry Arthur Satullo is an American professional wrestler, better known by his ring name, Perry Saturn. Since debuting in 1990, Saturn wrestled for Extreme Championship Wrestling , World Championship Wrestling , World Wrestling Federation and Total Nonstop Action .-Early career:Satullo enlisted...
, Eddie Guerrero
Eddie Guerrero
Eduardo Gory "Eddie" Guerrero was a Mexican-American professional wrestler born into the Guerrero wrestling family. He wrestled in Mexico and Japan for several major professional wrestling promotions...
and Dean Malenko
Dean Malenko
Dean Simon is a retired professional wrestler, better known by his ring name Dean Malenko. He is currently signed to WWE working as a road agent. He is best known for his time with Extreme Championship Wrestling , New Japan Pro Wrestling and World Championship Wrestling...
. The four quickly became popular in the WWF as "The Radicalz
The Radicalz
The Radicalz were a professional wrestling stable in the World Wrestling Federation . Their members were former World Championship Wrestling performers Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, Perry Saturn and Dean Malenko. Terri Runnels later joined the group by proxy after becoming Saturn's onscreen...
".
On February 11, 2000, 12 wrestlers, including African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
wrestler "Hardbody" Harrison Norris and Japanese
Japanese people
The are an ethnic group originating in the Japanese archipelago and are the predominant ethnic group of Japan. Worldwide, approximately 130 million people are of Japanese descent; of these, approximately 127 million are residents of Japan. People of Japanese ancestry who live in other countries...
manager
Manager (professional wrestling)
In professional wrestling, a manager is a secondary character paired with a wrestler for a variety of reasons. The manager is often either a non-wrestler, an occasional wrestler, an older wrestler who has retired or is nearing retirement or, in some cases, a new wrestler who is breaking into the...
Sonny Onoo launched racial discrimination
Racism
Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...
lawsuit
Lawsuit
A lawsuit or "suit in law" is a civil action brought in a court of law in which a plaintiff, a party who claims to have incurred loss as a result of a defendant's actions, demands a legal or equitable remedy. The defendant is required to respond to the plaintiff's complaint...
s against WCW, charging that, as a result of their ethnicities, they had not been pushed, had not been paid as well as other wrestlers and personalities, and had been given offensive gimmicks. Some speculated that the charges of racism led to African American wrestler Booker T. winning the WCW Championship later that year, and his brother Stevie Ray
Lane Huffman
Lane Steven Huffman is a retired American professional wrestler who is better known as Stevie Ray. He is best known as being part of the tag team Harlem Heat with his younger brother Booker T...
being made a color commentator
Color commentator
A color commentator is a sports commentator who assists the play-by-play announcer, often by filling in any time when play is not in progress. The color analyst and main commentator will often exchange comments freely throughout the broadcast, when the play-by-play announcer is not describing the...
; Stevie Ray himself acknowledged that it may have been a factor. Onoo claimed that he had been given a disrespectful gimmick and that his final salary—$
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
160,000—was only half of the average pay for a wrestler at that time.
Under Russo's leadership, WCW would continue to lose ratings
Nielsen Ratings
Nielsen ratings are the audience measurement systems developed by Nielsen Media Research, in an effort to determine the audience size and composition of television programming in the United States...
, and eventually dropped to 1.8 in 2000.
Final year
In April 2000, with ratings hitting new lows, 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.The unorthodox and controversial storylines continued. Although neither was a trained wrestler, Russo and actor David Arquette
David Arquette
David Arquette is an American actor, film director, producer, screenwriter, fashion designer, and occasional professional wrestler. A member of the Arquette acting family, he first became known during the mid 1990s after starring in several Hollywood films, such as the Scream series, Wild Bill and...
each won the WCW Heavyweight Championship, the latter in order to promote the box-office flop Ready to Rumble
Ready to Rumble
Ready to Rumble is a 2000 American comedy film directed by Brian Robbins and written by Steven Brill, which is based on Turner Broadcasting's now defunct professional wrestling promotion, World Championship Wrestling...
. As neither looked physically capable of defeating actual wrestlers in a match, the title's credibility hit rock-bottom as a result. Goldberg turned heel, but the execution was botched and served to greatly diminish his drawing power. Russo delivered a shoot speech
Shoot (professional wrestling)
A shoot in professional wrestling is a term that refers to any unplanned, unscripted or real-life occurrence within a wrestling event. Contrary to popular belief, the name does not originate from "shooting in" for a takedown, as in amateur wrestling - rather it is a carny term shortened from...
at Bash at the Beach 2000 aimed at Hulk Hogan, which led Hogan to resign and file a defamation of character lawsuit, which was eventually dismissed in 2002.
Infuriated by Russo's actions (which conflicted with his intentions for Bash), Bischoff departed once more in July 2000. Russo was gone from the promotion entirely by late 2000, leaving Terry Taylor
Terry Taylor
Terry Taylor , is an American retired professional wrestler best known for his time in the National Wrestling Alliance, World Championship Wrestling, and the World Wrestling Federation...
holding the reins. During this time, a short-lived crossover feud began involving stars of WCW and Battle Dome.
By the beginning of February 2001, most female personalities had been released from the promotion in an attempt to cut costs. Also as of February 2001, WCW would hold its events in Southern States
Southern United States
The Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive area in the southeastern and south-central United States...
only.
Attempted Bischoff/Fusient purchase
Meanwhile, Time WarnerTime Warner
Time Warner is one of the world's largest media companies, headquartered in the Time Warner Center in New York City. Formerly two separate companies, Warner Communications, Inc...
had bought out Turner's empire in 1996, including WCW. Turner was personally faithful to WCW regardless of whether it was losing him money because an earlier incarnation of the promotion had helped establish Turner's first television station, WTBS. However, Time Warner did not share his loyalty especially when accounts showed that WCW was losing between $12–$17 million a year at this point (and an astonishing $60 million in 2000 alone), but Turner was still the single largest Time Warner shareholder, so WCW continued to operate at his behest. When AOL
AOL
AOL Inc. is an American global Internet services and media company. AOL is headquartered at 770 Broadway in New York. Founded in 1983 as Control Video Corporation, it has franchised its services to companies in several nations around the world or set up international versions of its services...
merged with Time Warner in 2000, Turner was effectively forced out of his own empire.
Although WCW tried all it could to alleviate the strain of debt in early 2001, the financial burdens proved too heavy to bear for the promotion and its new parent, AOL Time Warner. Once it gained the power to sell off WCW, AOL Time Warner looked to unload its financial albatross. A sale nearly occurred in late 2000 to Bischoff and a group of private investors calling themselves Fusient Media Ventures, with news reports and even Eric Bischoff declaring a deal was in place. However, Fusient backed out when Turner networks head Jamie Kellner
Jamie Kellner
Jamie Kellner is an American television executive. He was chairman and chief executive officer of Turner Broadcasting System, Inc., a division of Time Warner which includes TBS, TNT, and Cartoon Network. Kellner took over the post in 2001 and handed over the company to Philip Kent in 2003...
formally cancelled all WCW programming from its television networks. With no network on which to air its programming, WCW was of little value to Fusient, whose offer depended on being able to continue to air WCW programming on the Turner networks, despite the fact that WCW, according to Bischoff in his book, had received offers from FOX and NBC.
Acquisition by the World Wrestling Federation and aftermath
WWE Video Library
The WWE video library is currently the largest collection of professional wrestling videos and copyrights in the world. It is comprised not only of past and current works by WWE but the works of now defunct professional wrestling promotions dating back to the 1940s...
, as well as a select twenty-four contracts, were sold to Vince McMahon and World Wrestling Federation Entertainment, Inc. WCW was purchased for a mere $
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
3,000,000. Most of the main event-level stars including Flair, Goldberg, Kevin Nash, and Sting were contracted directly to parent company AOL Time Warner instead of WCW, and thus AOL Time Warner
Time Warner
Time Warner is one of the world's largest media companies, headquartered in the Time Warner Center in New York City. Formerly two separate companies, Warner Communications, Inc...
was forced to continue to pay many of the wrestlers for years.
TNT did allow a final Nitro show to air from Panama City Beach, Florida
Panama City Beach, Florida
Panama City Beach is a city in Bay County, Florida, United States, on the Gulf of Mexico coast. The city is often referred to under the umbrella term of "Panama City", despite being a distinct municipality from the older and larger inland Panama City to the east, making Panama City and Panama City...
which had been scheduled for the following Monday on March 26. McMahon opened the last-ever episode of WCW Monday Nitro with a simulcast
Simulcast
Simulcast, shorthand for "simultaneous broadcast", refers to programs or events broadcast across more than one medium, or more than one service on the same medium, at the same time. For example, Absolute Radio is simulcast on both AM and on satellite radio, and the BBC's Prom concerts are often...
with WWF Monday Night Raw, which aired from Cleveland, Ohio, with a self-praising speech. The final WCW World Heavyweight Championship match for the show and the company saw WCW United States Heavyweight Champion
WWE United States Championship
The WWE United States Championship is a professional wrestling championship in WWE. It was originally a National Wrestling Alliance and World Championship Wrestling championship, and is currently the secondary championship of the Raw brand....
Booker T
Booker Huffman
Robert Booker Tio Huffman , better known by his ring name Booker T, is a semi-retired American professional wrestler and currently signed to WWE, on its SmackDown brand, as part of the announcing team. Booker is best known for his time in both the World Wrestling Entertainment and World...
defeat Scott Steiner
Scott Steiner
Scott Carl Rechsteiner is an American professional wrestler better known by his ring name Scott Steiner. Steiner is perhaps best known for his appearances with World Championship Wrestling alongside his older brother Rick as the Steiner Brothers and as a member of the New World Order...
to win the WCW World Heavyweight Championship
WCW World Heavyweight Championship
The World Championship Wrestling World Heavyweight Championship was a professional wrestling world heavyweight championship in World Championship Wrestling and the World Wrestling Federation . It existed within WCW between 1991 and 2001. Following the acquisition of WCW by World Wrestling...
. The main event featured Sting defeating Ric Flair
Ric Flair
Richard Morgan Fliehr is an American professional wrestler, better known by his ring name Ric Flair. Also known as "The Nature Boy", Flair is one of the most well-known professional wrestlers in the world....
with the Scorpion Deathlock as a culmination of their trademark feud, then both men embraced one another at the match's conclusion. This was a direct parallel to the very first Nitro, where Sting vs. Flair was also the main event. After the Sting/Flair match, Vince appeared on Raw to close Nitro and to declare victory over WCW. Vince's son Shane McMahon
Shane McMahon
Shane Brandon McMahon is an American executive, currently serving as the Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of YOU On Demand. A former executive and professional wrestler for World Wrestling Entertainment , he is the son of WWE Chairman and CEO Vince McMahon and former US Senate candidate Linda...
then appeared on Nitro, declaring that it was actually he who had bought WCW. This, however, initiated The Invasion storyline that would have Shane leading the WCW invasion of the WWF, which lasted from March to November 2001 and marked the end of WCW.
Despite aborted attempts to run WCW-branded events (including a proposed Saturday night timeslot that later evolved into WWF Excess and then WWE Velocity
WWE Velocity
WWE Velocity was a professional wrestling television program produced by World Wrestling Entertainment . It replaced two syndicated WWE shows, Jakked/Metal. Once a weekly Saturday night show on Spike TV and on Sky Sports 2 in the UK on Sunday mornings, Velocity became a webcast from 2005 to 2006...
) the WWF only ran a handful of matches on Raw and SmackDown! under the WCW banner.
In 2004, WWE produced a DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
called The Monday Night Wars. Two hours in length, the DVD left out a large portion of the wars, breaking off around 1997 before jumping straight to the post-WCW era of WWE. The objectivity of the DVD's content was questioned, as some believed the documentary was simply telling the WWE side of the story. On August 25, 2009, WWE released The Rise and Fall of WCW on DVD. The DVD looked back at the roots of WCW during the days of GCW and Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling, to the glory days of Monday Nitro and the nWo, and to its demise and sale to WWE. This DVD included several new interviews from Vince McMahon, Jim Crockett, Ric Flair, Dusty Rhodes, Bill Goldberg, as well as many of those responsible for running the NWA and WCW. Archive interviews were included from former WCW talent such as Hulk Hogan,and Eric Bischoff, due to their respective contracts with Total Nonstop Action Wrestling
Total Nonstop Action Wrestling
Total Nonstop Action Wrestling is a privately held professional wrestling promotion founded by Jeff Jarrett and Jerry Jarrett. The company broadcasts its events on television and the Internet fifty two weeks a year with over a million weekly viewers on its primary television program, Impact...
not allowing them to provide fresh interviews for WWE.