World Championship Wrestling

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

Beginning from late 1998, WCW endured significant losses in ratings and revenue due to creative missteps and popularity takeover by the WWF, and suffered from the fallout of the 2001 merger of America Online (AOL) and Turner Broadcasting parent Time Warner (now Warner Bros. Discovery). Soon thereafter, WCW was shut down, and the WWF purchased select WCW assets in 2001, including its video library, intellectual property (including the WCW name and championships), and some wrestler contracts. The corporate subsidiary, which was retained to deal with legal obligations and reverted to the Universal Wrestling Corporation name, officially became defunct in 2017.

History

1982 to 1993: Origins, creation, and NWA membership

World Championship Wrestling was a television show produced by Georgia Championship Wrestling (GCW) since 1982. Jim Barnett (who had briefly owned the Australian promotion of that name) came to Atlanta in the 1970s during an internal struggle for control of GCW. Barnett ultimately became majority owner of the promotion, and began using his previous promotion's name for GCW's weekly Saturday television program in 1982. Following the events that became known as Black Saturday, in which GCW and its television program briefly came under the ownership of the WWF, the promotion was eventually purchased by Charlotte, North Carolina–based Jim Crockett Promotions (JCP), the promoter of the Mid-Atlantic territory immediately north of Georgia.

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."

By late 1988, JCP was financially struggling after further territory acquisitions. Ted Turner, the namesake principal owner of Turner Broadcasting System, formed a new subsidiary in October 1988 to acquire most of the assets of JCP. The acquisition was completed on November 2, 1988. While initially the subsidiary was incorporated as the "Universal Wrestling Corporation", following the purchase the decision was made to utilize the familiar "World Championship Wrestling" as the name for the promotion.

In July 1991, six months after the creation of the latter, the NWA World Heavyweight Championship and the WCW World Heavyweight Championship permanently ceased to be a double crown when the NWA held out for two months on endorsing the stripping of Ric Flair as champion until his arrival in the WWF that September. The NWA further declined to endorse as champion Flair's WCW's successor Lex Luger. Instead the two organisations recognised separate World championship lineages while maintaining an otherwise cordial relationship. In late Summer/early Autumn 1993, a behind-the-scenes dispute between WCW and the NWA Board of Directors over who had the right to authorize NWA World Heavyweight Championship title changes ultimately resulted in WCW formally withdrawing from the NWA and becoming a standalone wrestling promotion.

1993 to 1996: Eric Bischoff takes charge; launch of WCW Monday Nitro

In February 1993, former commentator Eric Bischoff was appointed as Executive Producer of WCW, and by 1994 he had been promoted once again to Senior Vice President, a position which gave Bischoff both creative and financial control of WCW. At this point, the promotion was struggling financially and was widely perceived within the wrestling industry to be at a low ebb. To counter this, Bischoff felt that WCW was in need of radical reform; to this end, Bischoff sought to modernise WCW and move its image away from that of a Southern-based "rasslin" company. To achieve this, Bischoff increased WCW's production values, avoided unprofitable house shows, increased the number of WCW pay-per-views (PPVs, which were profitable), decreased the number of Southern accents on commentary, and began recruiting top stars away from the World Wrestling Federation (WWF). This led to marquee names such as Hulk Hogan and "The Macho Man" Randy Savage joining WCW's ranks and helping to supplement its business.

In 1995, during a face-to-face meeting with Ted Turner, Bischoff was able to convince Turner that in order for WCW to become competitive with the WWF, WCW would require an equivalent to WWF's new flagship cable show WWF Raw, which aired on the USA Network. The meeting led to Turner greenlighting the creation of WCW Monday Nitro, which would air on TNT on the same day and in the same time slot as Raw. Nitro would debut on September 4, 1995, and directly lead into the Monday Night War era of professional wrestling, in which WCW Nitro and WWF Raw would fiercely compete to beat each other in the Nielson ratings each and every week. The struggle between the two promotions, each one attempting to produce the best television show possible each week, led to an explosion in the popularity of professional wrestling in the United States and in hindsight is widely considered a golden era.

1996 to 1998: WCW's exponential growth; Nitro defeats Raw for 83 weeks

WCW Monday Nitro proved a success for the company, which was immediately able to create a television audience of an equivalent size to WWF Raw. Between September 1995 and May 1996, Nitro and Raw regularly traded victories in the battle for the largest television audience. However, in June 1996, Nitro would begin a streak of 83 consecutive victories over Raw, initially sparked by the start of the New World Order (nWo) storyline. The start of the nWo angle saw former WWF talent Scott Hall and Kevin Nash unexpectedly leave the WWF to come to Monday Nitro on consecutive episodes, and each time insinuate that they were there on behalf of the WWF to fight a proxy war. They also alleged that they would soon be joined by a third major figure; this "third man" was eventually revealed to be Hulk Hogan at Bash at the Beach 1996. A major advantage WCW Nitro initially had over WWF Raw was that Nitro was live-to-air every week, while Raw alternated between live episodes and ones taped in advance and aired the following week. Nitro's live atmosphere enhanced segments such as the Hall and Nash debuts as it gave the show an unscripted, "anything can happen at any time" feeling to the television audience.

The start of the nWo angle, which immediately proved immensely popular and intriguing to wrestling fans, was part of a wider shift in the WCW presentation still being pursued by Eric Bischoff. As part of his overhaul of WCW, Bischoff wanted to grow WCW's audience amongst 18 to 35-year-olds. To that end, he alongside WCW's booker Kevin Sullivan began grounding WCW characters and storylines more in reality, utilising real names and darker themes in contrast to the more cartoon-like presentation which had dominated wrestling in the 1980s and early 1990s. An example of this shift in tone was seen in the transformation of top WCW star Sting over the course of 1996 following the start of the nWo angle, whose persona shifted from a colorful and cheerful clean-cut face to a dark, depressed and brooding antihero inspired by the 1994 film The Crow. Another major innovation occurring concurrently in WCW was the introduction of the Cruiserweight division, which saw the introduction of smaller, more agile and more athletic wrestlers performing fast-paced, high-flying dangerous matches on WCW shows. This added another unique element to WCW shows that helped propel their surging popularity.

The combination of a more adult-orientated presentation, live and unedited television, more reality-based storylines, new top-level talent, new and intriguing characters, and more varied in-ring action saw WCW's fortunes dramatically shift; the company went from struggling financially as late as 1995 to generating $55 million in profit in 1998. December 1997's Starrcade pay-per-view (PPV) event became the highest-grossing PPV of all time for the company, thanks in large part to the show being billed as the culmination of a year-and-a-half feud between Sting and "Hollywood" Hulk Hogan.

1998 to 2001: Leadership changes; collapse and eventual demise

1996 and 1997 had been banner years for WCW, with profits and popularity soaring. 1998 saw profits continue to rise. However, maintaining the quality of the shows became difficult, particularly after WCW's owners Time Warner Entertainment (who bought Turner Broadcasting System in 1996) ordered the creation of a second live cable WCW program WCW Thunder, to air on Thursdays on TBS starting on January 8, 1998, as well as ordering a third hour to be added to Nitro's runtime. Nonetheless, the creation of new major headline babyface stars such as Diamond Dallas Page and Goldberg were causes for optimism, making the company initially less dependent on the nWo storyline for ratings. However, beginning in Spring 1998, WCW began an angle which saw the nWo split into a heel faction, nWo Hollywood (centered around "Hollywood" Hulk Hogan), and the rival face nWo Wolfpac (consisting of stars such as Kevin Nash, Randy Savage, Sting, Lex Luger and Konnan). Speaking in hindsight in 2023, Eric Bischoff has said the angle was rushed, ill-conceived and had no long-term direction. By this point, many critics began to argue that WCW was now completely overreliant on the nWo storyline and unable to pivot to a new grand concept. Additionally, beginning in the summer of 1998, Bischoff has claimed that Time Warner Entertainment management began to increasingly micromanage WCW and meddle in its presentation. Executives at Time Warner Entertainment began to increasingly advocate that WCW should pivot to more a "family-friendly" orientation, and drop the reforms that turned around the company's fortunes.

Concurrently to WCW beginning to struggle under the weight of its own momentum, the WWF began to turn the corner on its own reforms. Having been caught flatfooted by the total reconfiguration of WCW and the success of Nitro in 1996 and 1997, by 1998 the WWF was building its own momentum. Taking most of the innovations WCW had implemented and reapplying them to their own presentation, WWF began its "Attitude Era". Building around newly emerging stars such as Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock, as well as WWF promoter Vince McMahon becoming a major on-screen character himself, the WWF finally ended Nitro's 83 weeks of ratings victories on April 13, 1998. For the next four months, Nitro and Raw would trade wins until October 26, 1998, when Nitro scored its last-ever ratings victory over Raw. The combined pressure of the WWF seizing back the ratings lead as well as WCW's own internal problem caused tension amongst both the on-screen talent and management.

By November 1998 Kevin Nash had become head booker of WCW, overseeing the creative direction of both Nitro and Thunder. Nash's tenure was fraught with unpopular decisions, such as the move that saw the popular undefeated streak of WCW Champion Goldberg ended by Nash himself, who then became champion, only for Nash to then lie down for Hollywood Hogan and reform a reunited nWo in the widely panned "Fingerpoke of Doom" angle.

Bischoff removed from power; Vince Russo and Ed Ferrara arrive

By September 1999, the rapidly declining ratings of Nitro (now half that of Raw), drastic dropoff in revenue, and the increasing antagonism between Eric Bischoff and Time Warner executives prompted the head of Turner Sports, Harvey Schiller, to relieve Bischoff of his position. Almost immediately Schiller found a duo to replace Bischoff: former head writers for Raw Vince Russo and Ed Ferrara. Russo had just weeks prior walked off the job at the WWF after a dispute with Vince McMahon over work hours, and Ed Ferrara soon followed. Russo and Ferrara were heralded at the time as the main drivers in the turnaround at WWF over the previous two years with their writing philosophy of "Crash TV", a presentation style that emphasized Soap opera style storylines, lengthier non-wrestling segments, frequent heel/face turns, an increased amount of female representation on the show, expanded storyline depth, frequent title changes, and a greater focus on developing mid-card talent.

The tenure of Russo and Ferrara at the creative helm of WCW was short-lived as Vince Russo went home following the January 10, 2000 Nitro after Brad Siegal informed him that they wanted to move to a booking committee. Russo, due to the terms in his contract, refused and went home with pay. Ferrara stayed on as a writer with the new booking committee headed by Kevin Sullivan. AOL and Time Warner had merged in January 2000 and, according to Bischoff and Russo, headquarters′ eagerness to tone down WCW had only grown more intense because of this.

Mounting frustrations amongst the talent resulted in many leaving WCW for the WWF; The Giant and Chris Jericho were the first major talent to "jump" to the WWF in 1999, but they were soon followed by many others. Chris Benoit (WCW World Heavyweight Champion at the time), Dean Malenko, Eddie Guerrero and Perry Saturn, who performed together on WCW television as "The Revolution", all collectively walked out of WCW and over to the WWF in January 2000 due to Vince Russo losing power back to Kevin Sullivan and a booking committee, an incident which resulted in a number of firings amongst WCW management. With shakeups to WCW management becoming more and more frequent, the WCW talent began to lose any sense of leadership or direction, which in turn caused them to form bickering political cliques amongst themselves.

Bischoff and Russo collaboration

In April 2000, WCW attempted to resolve its creative issues by asking Eric Bischoff to return but work alongside the returning Vince Russo as a duo. The pairing was not cohesive and frequently chafed over the direction of the company. Creatively, the year 2000 saw WCW attempt numerous publicity stunts to gain traction, such as making actor David Arquette (who then had no professional wrestling experience) the WCW World Heavyweight Champion. These moves only served to push traditional wrestling fans away from WCW. Events such as Goldberg forcing WCW World Heavyweight Champion Bret Hart into retirement following a botched move at Starrcade 1999, followed just days later by Goldberg very seriously injuring himself during an angle on Thunder, and Hollywood Hogan seemingly quitting the company live on PPV at Bash at the Beach 2000 only seemed to further a sense that the company was spiralling out of control. By July 2000 Bischoff had walked off the job.

2001: Sale to the World Wrestling Federation

In 2000, several potential buyers for WCW were rumored to show interest in the company. Ted Turner, however, did not hold influence over Time Warner before the final merger of America Online (AOL) and Time Warner in 2001, and most offers were rejected. Eric Bischoff, working with Fusient Media Ventures, made a bid to acquire the company in January 2001. One of the primary backers in the WCW deal backed out after AOL Time Warner refused to allow WCW to continue airing on its networks, leaving Fusient to take that offer off the table while it attempted to bring a new deal around.

In the meantime, Jamie Kellner was handed control over the Turner Broadcasting division in 2000, eventually succeeding Ted Turner on March 7, 2001. Along with AOL Time Warner, Kellner deemed WCW, along with Turner Sports as a whole, to be out of line with its image and saying that it "would not be favorable enough to get the 'right' advertisers to buy airtime" (even though Thunder was the highest-rated show on TBS at the time). As a result, WCW programming was cancelled on TBS and TNT. Another factor in Kellner's decision to cancel all WCW programming was the terms of the company's purchase deal with Fusient, which included giving Fusient control over time slots on TNT and TBS even if those slots did not air WCW programming. WCW's losses were then written off via purchase accounting.

The cancellation of WCW programming left the WWF free to acquire the key assets of WCW through its new subsidiary W. Acquisition Company, which was renamed WCW Inc. afterwards. AOL Time Warner sold the rights to the World Championship Wrestling name, branding, championships, video library, some wrestler contracts, and all other remaining assets to WWF for $2.5 million in March 2001. Shortly afterwards WWF paid an additional $1.8 million to cover costs to AOL Time Warner in the negotiations, bringing the final tally of WCW's sale to $4.3 million. AOL Time Warner maintained its subsidiary, which reverted to its original legal name of the Universal Wrestling Corporation (UWC), to deal with legal obligations and liabilities not acquired by the WWF. The UWC was listed as a subsidiary of Time Warner until 2017, when it was merged into Turner Broadcasting System.

Some of the WCW roster joined the WWF immediately and participated in The Invasion storyline as part of The Alliance which lasted until the end of 2001. However, many of WCW's top stars still had guaranteed contracts with UWC, and WWF chose not to buy out these contracts; most of these wrestlers chose to sit out the length of their contracts rather than breaking them in order to work for the WWF. Most would eventually find their way to WWE, although Sting remained a notable exception for almost a decade and a half. After the Invasion storyline concluded, the WWF divided their roster into two brands. Reports indicate that the WWF considered using the WCW name for one of the brands, but instead introduced Raw and SmackDown!, named after WWF's two top programs. The decision was reportedly influenced by the poor reception of a July 2001 WCW-themed match broadcast on Raw Is War where Booker T defended his WCW Championship against challenger Buff Bagwell.

Many other WCW wrestlers moved to the World Wrestling All-Stars (WWA), XWF, Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) and Ring of Honor, which were all formed after the end of WCW.