World Championship Wrestling (WCW) was an 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. Prior to the launch of WCW as a separate promotion, the "World Championship Wrestling" name was used for a television program produced by NWA promotions Georgia Championship Wrestling and Jim Crockett Promotions on TBS; the name came from an Australian wrestling promotion of the 1970s.
In the 1990s, WCW, along with the World Wrestling Federation (WWF; now known as World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE)), were the top two wrestling promotions in the United States. Its flagship show WCW Monday Nitro went head-to-head with WWF Raw is War in a ratings battle known as the Monday Night Wars. However, poorly-received storylines, the increasing popularity of the WWF's Attitude Era, and restrictions from Time Warner eventually led to WCW's decline and eventual acquisition of key assets by its main competition, Vince McMahon and the WWF.
Years prior to the Turner purchase (1980s)
Georgia Championship Wrestling and Black Saturday (1982–1984) Although the "World Championship Wrestling" brand name was used by promoter Jim Barnett for his Australian promotion, the first promotion in the United States to use the brand on a wide scale was Georgia Championship Wrestling (GCW). GCW, owned primarily by Jack Brisco and Gerald Brisco and booked by Ole Anderson, was the first NWA territory to gain cable television access, broadcast by Ted Turner's WTCG-TV Atlanta, the station that evolved into Superstation TBS. The show was broadcast every Saturday evening, from 6:05 PM EST to 8:05 PM EST.
After founding his own company, Titan Sports Inc. in 1980, in 1982, Vincent K. McMahon purchased his father's Capitol Wrestling Corporation (CWC) and merged it into Titan Sports Inc. Under his leadership, the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) became the top promotion in North America, and GCW devised the name "World Championship Wrestling" in an effort to compete.
In 1982, GCW changed the name of its Georgia Championship Wrestling television show to World Championship Wrestling since it was already starting to run shows in "neutral" territories such as Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan. These efforts helped to keep GCW competitive against Vincent K. McMahon’s World Wrestling Federation, as both promotions had secured television deals and the WWF was trying to become a national, as opposed to regional, entity. McMahon had purchased his father’s company, Capitol Wrestling Corporation (CWC), a pro-wrestling territory operating mainly in the Northeast and merged it with his own company, Titan Sports Inc. The WWF would leave the National Wrestling Alliance and create the show WWF All American Wrestling for the USA Network.
On April 9, 1984, the Brisco brothers sold their shares in GCW, including their Saturday evening slot on WTBS, to Vince McMahon. The WWF would take over GCW's timeslot on July 14, 1984, a day that would be later known as "Black Saturday." WWF's gimmick-based approach, in contrast to GCW's more conflict and athleticism-driven Southern style of wrestling, was negatively received by WTBS viewers. Despite originally promising to produce live-to-tape in-studio matches from Atlanta, WWF would instead feature pre-taped matches shot in arenas around the country. This move was a major factor in Turner's decision to discontinue showing the WWF. Meanwhile, Ole Anderson, who had refused to sell his shares in GCW to the WWF, teamed with fellow holdout shareholders Fred Ward and Ralph Freed to create Championship Wrestling from Georgia. Turner quickly secured a television deal with the new promotion, as well as with Bill Watts' Mid-South Wrestling based in Oklahoma.
Jim Crockett Promotions moves to TBS (1985–1986) Under pressure from Turner, in March of 1985 McMahon sold his TBS time slot and the "World Championship Wrestling" name to Jim Crockett Promotions (JCP), owned by Jim Crockett Jr., in a deal brokered by former GCW partner Jim Barnett. The deal grew both companies, making JCP's Charlotte-based Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling into a national promotion that became synonymous with the NWA while providing McMahon and Titan Sports with capital needed to stage the first WrestleMania. The new World Championship Wrestling, which was now a combination of JCP (Mid-Atlantic Wrestling) and Championship Wrestling from Georgia, became a top rated show TBS, allowing Jim Crockett Jr. to become NWA President for the second time.
Influential wrestling magazine Pro Wrestling Illustrated and its sister publications thereafter habitually referred to JCP as "World Championship Wrestling", "WCW" and most commonly "the World Championship area" and continued to do so until early 1988 when it began referring to the company solely as the NWA, reasoning that "it has become apparent that the NWA and the World Championship area are one and the same."Ratings Analysis, Pro Wrestling Illustrated May 1988"NWA and WWF gain momentum – Is Wrestling Headed Towards A Two Party System?" Pro Wrestling Illustrated October 1987. Article contains copious examples of references to Jim Crockett Promotions as "World Championship Wrestling"/"WCW"/"the World Championship area".
In 1986, Jim Crockett Promotions held the first Jim Crockett Sr. Memorial Cup, which showcased talent from various NWA territories. Bob Geigel would later become the NWA President once again, and would purchase Geigel's Heart of America Sports Attractions, promoters of the Central States territory, which owned the rights to promote wrestling shows through the states of Kansas, Missouri, and Iowa. That year, United States Heavyweight Champion Nikita Koloff won a unification match against National Champion Wahoo McDaniel to combine the Mid Atlantic and Georgia territories' two respective top singles titles.
Going national (1987–1988) In 1987, JCP would enter into an agreement to control Championship Wrestling from Florida, and Universal Wrestling Federation (which covered Oklahoma, Mississippi, Arkansas, Texas and Louisiana; by this time, the UWF had split from the NWA); this helped elevate Crockett to a third tenure as NWA President. The Florida and Mid-South territories (along with those companies' rosters of wrestlers) were absorbed into WCW. Jim Crockett Promotions now owned NWA St. Louis, the Universal Wrestling Federation, Mid-Atlantic, Central States Wrestling, Championship Wrestling from Georgia and Championship Wrestling from Florida as well.
Between the purchasing of several NWA territories, World Class Championship Wrestling in Texas leaving the NWA in 1986 (and later merging with Jerry Jarrett's Continental Wrestling Association in Memphis to create a new promotion, the United States Wrestling Association), JCP was the last NWA member with national television exposure, which at this point in time made JCP de facto synonymous with the NWA. Although JCP and the NWA were still two separate legal entities, with Crockett as NWA President, Jim Crockett Promotions was allowed to use the NWA brand for promoting.
With the large amount of capital needed to take a wrestling promotion on a national tour, the various territorial acquisitions had drained JCP's coffers. Likewise, the WWF in the early 1980s suffered a large debt load, and its success was hinging on the reception to its pay-per-view events. In 1987, JCP marketed the fifth installment of Starrcade as the NWA's answer to the WWF's WrestleMania event. The WWF would counter-program with their first Survivor Series event on the same day. The WWF informed cable companies that if they chose to carry Starrcade, they would not be allowed to carry future WWF events. The vast majority of companies showed Survivor Series (only five opted to remain in contract with Crockett, resulting in only 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 and the decision to hold these events in Chicago and New York alienated the Crockett's main fanbase in the Carolinas, hampering their drawing power for arena shows in the Southeast.
Dusty Rhodes as booker and collapse (1988) In 1984, Crockett had signed Dusty Rhodes and made him booker for World Championship Wrestling. Rhodes had a reputation for creativity and authored many memorable feuds, storylines, and gimmick matches like WarGames. Rhodes would be responsible for elevating up-and-coming wrestlers such as Sting, Ricky Steamboat, Magnum T. A., the Road Warriors (Hawk and Animal), and Nikita Koloff, among others, to superstardom. However, Rhodes would get involved in a political struggle with NWA champion Ric Flair, and by 1988, after four years of competition with Vince McMahon, he was burned out. Rhodes' booking would be criticized for frequent non-endings to house shows, now known infamously as the "Dusty finish". One of the last creative aspects Dusty Rhodes initiated was the Clash of the Champions, on the night of WrestleMania IV. For a quarter-hour, the Ric Flair vs. Sting match gained more viewers than WrestleMania, and the match also saw Sting become a top player for WCW. Conversely, Rhodes planned at one point to have mid-card wrestler Rick Steiner defeat Ric Flair in a five-minute match at Starrcade for the NWA World Heavyweight Championship. Rhodes would be fired by the promotion after an angle he booked on November 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.
Founding and first years under Ted Turner (1988–1992)
Jim Crockett Promotions was purchased outright by Turner on October 11, 1988. Originally incorporated by TBS as the Universal Wrestling Corporation, Turner promised fans that WCW would maintain the athlete-oriented style of the NWA. The sale was completed on November 2, 1988, with a television taping of NWA World Championship Wrestling that very same date in WCW's hometown of Atlanta.
1989 proved to be a turnaround year for WCW, with Ric Flair as both World Champion and head booker. Flair would bring in Ricky Steamboat and Terry Funk, and his pay-per-view matches with Steamboat were 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. In March 1990, however, Flair would be fired as head booker after WCW talent began to argue that Flair was booking things in his favor. One of these examples was Flair's refusal to drop the WCW World title to Lex Luger, as he had already promised to drop it to Sting, who himself had been injured earlier in the year (and so honour a promise originally made by Flair to Sting backstage after their match at Clash of the Champions I in 1988). Despite high ratings climbed and had well-received shows, Flair would be eventually replaced by Ole Anderson as head booker.