History of World Championship Wrestling

This article may be written from a fan's point of view, rather than a neutral point of view. Please clean it up to conform to a higher standard of quality, and to make it neutral in tone. (August 2021) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

World Championship Wrestling

Acronym	WCW
Founded	October 11, 1988
Defunct	March 23–26, 2001 (WCW assets sold;to the World Wrestling Federation) December 16, 2017
Style	Professional wrestling Sports entertainment
Headquarters	Atlanta, Georgia
Founder(s)	Ted Turner Jim Crockett
Parent	Universal: Turner Broadcasting System/Jim Crockett Promotions (1988–1996) Time Warner (1996–2017, as a legal entity) WCW, Inc.: WWE (WWE Libraries) (2001–present)
Formerly	Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling Georgia Championship Wrestling Jim Crockett Promotions
Website	WCW official website

World Championship Wrestling (WCW) is a defunct 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 had taken the name from an Australian wrestling promotion of the 1970s.

In the 1990s, World Championship Wrestling, along with the World Wrestling Federation (WWF), 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, lackluster storylines, the increasing popularity of the WWF's Attitude Era, interference and restrictions from Time Warner eventually led to its decline and eventual acquisition of key assets by its main competition, Vince McMahon and the WWF (now WWE).

NWA years (1982–1987)[]

Although World Championship Wrestling was a brand name used by promoter Jim Barnett for his Australian promotion,^[1] 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).^[2] GCW, owned primarily by Jack Brisco and Gerald Brisco and booked by Ole Anderson, was the first NWA territory to gain cable television access, being broadcast on Channel 17 of Ted Turner's Superstation TBS. The show was broadcast every Saturday evening, from 6:05 PM EST to 8:05 PM EST.^[3]

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.^{[citation needed]} 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, Pennsylvania 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, Jr., countered by creating Starrcade in the fall of 1983, the main event of which featured Ric Flair defeating Harley Race in a critically acclaimed steel cage match to win the NWA World Heavyweight Championship, which he would hold on nine separate occasions. The success of Starrcade would elevate Flair to superstar status; he would become the franchise player of Jim Crockett Promotions and is largely responsible for the success of JCP during the mid-to-late 1980s. The success of Starrcade would also succeed in propelling the NWA back to the top, but Vince McMahon again regained the lead with Hulk Hogan's dramatic world title victory at Madison Square Garden on January 23, 1984,^[4] 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.^[5] However, GCW's core audience was not interested in the WWF's gimmick-based approach, preferring a more athletic style. As a result, when GCW's television viewers tuned into 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.^[6] 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 based in Oklahoma.^[7]

Jim Crockett Promotions (1985–1988)[]

In March 1985, McMahon sold his TBS time slot and the "World Championship Wrestling" name to Jim Crockett Promotions (JCP),^[8] 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.^[9]

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, thanks in no small part to the success of the Jim Crockett Sr. Memorial Cup (which showcased talent from various NWA territories), as well as a working cross-promotional relationship with Verne Gagne's American Wrestling Association. JCP merged its NWA territories into one group, promoting under the banner "NWA World Championship Wrestling". This sparked a feud between Crockett and Vince McMahon's WWF, 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.^[9]

In the same year, JCP also purchased Geigel's Heart of America Sports Attractions,^[10] promoters of the Central States territory, which owned the rights to promote wrestling shows through the states of Kansas, Missouri, and Iowa.

National promotion[]

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.^[11]

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^[12] (and later merging with Jerry Jarrett's Continental Wrestling Association in Memphis to create a new promotion, the United States Wrestling Association),^[13] JCP was the last bastion of the NWA, and the last member with national television exposure. Although JCP and the NWA were still two separate legal entities, with Crockett as NWA President, the NWA was effectively reduced to 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.^[14] 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 the fifth installment of Starrcade as the NWA's answer to the WWF's WrestleMania event. However, the WWF promoted 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.^[15] 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, 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.^[16]

Dusty Rhodes[]

In 1984, Crockett had signed Dusty Rhodes and made him booker for World Championship Wrestling. Rhodes had a reputation for creativity and authored many of the memorable feuds and story lines of this period and gimmick matches like WarGames. Also, Rhodes was 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. By 1988, after four years of competition with Vince McMahon, and a long political struggle with champion Ric Flair, Rhodes was burnt out.^[17] 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 Clash of the Champions I, 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.^[18]

First years under Ted Turner (1989–1993)[]

Ted Turner.

To preserve the inexpensive network programming provided by professional wrestling, 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 be 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.^[19]

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,^[20] 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. Most in the business agreed that Sting was a much better talent than Luger. Under Flair's booking TV ratings climbed and had great PPVs. Flair was eventually replaced by Ole Anderson.^[21]

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 Capital Combat in May 1990,^[22] the Chamber of Horrors gimmick, and the notorious Black Scorpion storyline—succeeded.^[23] In addition, house shows were also dropping to record lows after Ole continuously pushed older wrestlers who were loyal to him during the shows.^[21] 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,^[24] but WCW, particularly recently installed company president Jim Herd, who was formerly the manager of the St. Louis TV station KPLR-TV and had also once been the regional manager of Pizza Hut, turned against Flair for various reasons 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.^[25] 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 the inexperienced Herd. Ric Flair, who had conflicts with Herd, once stated that Herd "knew nothing about wrestling, other than the fact that the station he ran had a hot show" (referring to the once-popular show Wrestling at the Chase. which was broadcast by KPLR-TV while Herd was manager there).^[26] 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 Roman gladiator gimmick by the name of Spartacus in order to "change with the times". This didn't sit too well with Flair and the creative 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?").^[27] 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 Horseman Barry Windham, saying that Windham deserved the title.^[28]

Herd's other ideas included the Ding Dongs (a tag team whose sole gimmick was that they were obsessed with bells), a lumberjack named Big Josh who was accompanied to the ring by dancing bears, and the Desperados, a stable of bumbling cowboys. None of these ideas were received well by the rest of WCW, as they were seen by many as a poor attempt to mimic the WWF's more gimmick-oriented style, and Stan Hansen was so insulted by the Desperados gimmick that he left WCW outright when he was asked to be part of the group. Jim Cornette and Stan Lane would also depart from the promotion after having conflicts with Herd (thus breaking up the Midnight Express, one of WCW's top tag teams), and the Road Warriors would also leave in July 1990 because of conflicts with Herd.

Herd was fired in January 1992 and was succeeded by Kip Allen Frey. Frey's tenure running WCW was brief, and he would be replaced later in the year by "Cowboy" Bill Watts, who had formerly been the promoter for Mid-South Wrestling (later known as the Universal Wrestling Federation) and was the first head executive of WCW to have prior experience in the wrestling business since Jim Crockett left.

1992 would also prove to be another bad year for WCW as well,^[29] as Watts would make top rope moves – which were commonly performed by rising stars such as Brian Pillman and the Steiner Brothers – illegal during wrestling matches.^[30] This was part of Watts' plans to take the WCW product back to 1970s standards, with poorly lit arenas and house shows in remote rural towns. This idea was not overly embraced by the rest of WCW. After clashes with management over a number of issues as well as feeling pressure from Hank Aaron over a racially sensitive piece of correspondence, as well as accusations of anti-semitism from Paul E. Dangerously and Scotty Flamingo (both of whom are Jewish), he resigned.^[31] He was subsequently replaced by Eric Bischoff.

Final split with the NWA[]

During the period that WCW operated with its own World Heavyweight Championship, while also recognizing the NWA's world title, Flair left the WWF on good terms and returned to WCW, regaining the NWA title from Barry Windham in July 1993.^[25] 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 pre-taping of matches at the Disney-MGM Studios, known as the Disney tapings. The NWA board of directors, working separately from WCW, objected to the title being changed 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. The title thus became known as the WCW International World Heavyweight Championship as the World Heavyweight Championship as sanctioned by fictitious subsidiary WCW International.^[32] 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, with Sting winning the WCW International title, while Flair captured the WCW World Heavyweight Championship from Big Van Vader. The two titles were unified by Flair in a match on June 23, 1994, when the experiment was jettisoned.^[33] The Big Gold Belt was then used to represent the lone world championship in the company. It was used as such until WCW's closure in 2001, and for a time in the WWF.

Eric Bischoff era (1993–1999)[]

Eric Bischoff.

There were signs of gradual recovery in February 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 American Wrestling Association folded, was desperate to give WCW a new direction and impressed Turner's top brass with his non-confrontational tactics and business savvy.^[34] 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 WWF.^[35]

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).^[36]

The "Lost in Cleveland" storyline began when Cactus Jack (Mick Foley) first wrestled Big Van 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.^[37] WCW edited the match heavily because it was against their policies to show the heavy bleeding that resulted.^[37] Foley suffered a broken nose, a dislocated jaw and needed twenty-seven stitches, but won the match via countout.^[37] 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.^[38] 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.^[39] 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.^[40]

On July 6, 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 ("Stunning" Steve Austin and Flyin' 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 late-August. 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.^[41]

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 (Fred Ottman, 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). Adding insult to injury was the Shockmaster’s mask, which was unmistakably a Star Wars stormtrooper helmet bedazzled in glitter and silver paint, falling off of his head.^[41] 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.^[42]

By November 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)^[43] while on tour in England eight weeks before Starrcade and was fired. Flair then placed his career on the line against Big Van Vader for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship. Flair won the title at Starrcade and was once again made booker.^[44] That did not stop WCW from suffering massive financial losses in 1993, however; a staggering $23 million.^[41]

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 Hogan and "Macho Man" 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, multimillion-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 plus 25% of the gross revenue from the pay-per-view would cost the company dearly in future years. He was paid this amount whether the pay-per-view was successful or not. Hogan's creative control would later prove to be a large hindrance during WCW's future success, such as during Starrcade 1997.

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 vs Savage and Hogan vs Sid. When WCW delivered the match, the event drew a high buyrate by WCW standards due to mainstream intrigue and hype. In December 1994, Savage would debut in WCW and competition began heating up even more between the WWF and WCW. In 1995, a new pay-per-view event called Uncensored was created and The Great American Bash, which had not aired since 1992, was revived as well.

Nitro and the "Monday Night Wars"[]

In a 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 prime-time 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, launching the weekly show WCW Monday Nitro, which debuted on September 4, 1995, live from the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota,^[45][46] which specifically overlapped with Raw.^[47] The show was expanded to two live hours in May 1996 and later three in February 1998. 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 US Open tennis coverage on the USA Network, featured the surprise return of Lex Luger (who had been in the WWF since 1993) to the WCW audience.^[48] 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.^[49] Finally, because Luger had been employed with the WWF as recently as a week before his Nitro appearance (he had, in fact, wrestled on a house show for the WWF in Halifax, Nova Scotia the night before his appearance on Nitro) 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.^[50] Bischoff took another famous jab at the WWF on December 18, 1995, when he brought reigning WWF Women's Champion Debrah 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.^[51] 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 (though Turner would later admit that he was not offended by the skits, and instead found them funny.)

Dominance (1996–1998)[]

The tide began to turn in WCW's favor on Memorial Day 1996 when Scott Hall, 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.^[52]

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 Champion Kevin Nash. Nash delivered his own speech to Bischoff, referring to WCW's slogan of "Where The Big Boys Play" with the response "We didn't come here to play," and warning Bischoff, "The measuring stick just changed here...you're looking at it.", 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 1996, 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 leg dropped 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 referred to a "new world organization of wrestling". The faction was soon dubbed the New World Order (nWo), 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.^[53]

According to Bischoff, the original plan for the nWo was to have Sting be revealed as the third man rather than Hogan, but Hogan convinced Bischoff to make him the third man instead, with the reasoning that the third man needed to have WWF name value much like Hall and Nash did during their initial appearances as the Outsiders. Because of his tremendous success as the face of the WWF in the 1980s and early 1990s, Hogan was universally associated with the WWF and therefore was the perfect choice to lead the nWo. Hogan's heel turn at Bash at the Beach marked the first time in over 15 years that he portrayed a villainous character, and also served to revitalize his in-ring persona after his "Hulkamania" gimmick started to grow stale with WCW's audience.

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; a settlement that would prove invaluable in the future.

Though an on-screen threat to the WCW promotion, the nWo would prove helpful in the early stages of the ratings war. On the September 23, 1996, episode of Nitro, with most of the WCW roster over in Japan, the group took over the entire show, including the broadcast booth and the ring announcer's role, and branded the episode as their own. The Giant was the ring announcer and Hollywood Hogan, Syxx, Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, Vincent, Ted DiBiase, and Eric Bischoff (who was not part of the faction at the time) were at the broadcast table.

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 babyface Four Horsemen as well as the returning WCW hero Sting. Sting had changed his gimmick when he returned to WCW television, becoming 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 Heavyweight 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.^[54] 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.^[55] Hogan was heavily criticized for not allowing 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".^[56] By many accounts, however, including Bischoff's in his memoir Controversy Creates Cash, the count looked like a normal count, so Hart's protestations did not make sense; replays of the three-count on later shows had the video sped up to hide this. 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 the month prior, which had ended his run with the WWF and hastened his arrival in 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. To add insult to injury, it was decided that because of the messy finish to the match and the rematch on the following Monday's Nitro, Sting was stripped of the WCW title on January 8, 1998, on the debut episode of WCW Thunder. Hogan and Sting would face each other again for the vacant championship at SuperBrawl VIII the next month.

Starrcade represented in many ways WCW's golden opportunity to pull farther ahead of the WWF and send the federation to its demise. With WCW steadily making money and firmly dominating the ratings battle, the PPV could have been a devastating blow to the WWF's comeback. However, WCW alienated its fan base instead. Even though the buy rate for Starrcade was the largest WCW had ever seen for a PPV, it was the turning point in the Monday Night Wars and the WWF would soon be on the rise.

Signs of a decline (1998–2001)[]

A television ratings comparison for the period of the Monday Night Wars.

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, Dean Malenko, and Raven, as well as an exciting cruiserweight division featuring high-flying international competition from Mexico and Japan, where the high-flying style of wrestling was popularized. 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.^[57] 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 who 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." Furthermore, Hart would suffer an injury during a match with Goldberg that forced him into retirement. 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 like Steve Austin, The Rock, Triple H and his DX group, Mankind, and Kane. After Starrcade, Sting's presence on WCW's main card would begin to fade as he became an afterthought to the split-up of the nWo. As a result, his drawing power would decrease in the coming months. Meanwhile, Austin's popularity and stardom sparked a turnaround in Monday Night Raw’s ratings as he quickly became the WWF's franchise player; ironically, it was WCW that had given Austin his first national exposure, but Bischoff did not see him as marketable and ultimately fired him in 1995. 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. Austin's feud with McMahon began to turn the tide in the WWF's favor. 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 on cable television. 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, but this was seen by many fans as a poor rehash of the WCW vs. nWo storyline of 1996–1997, with boring predictable matches and vignettes.

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. WCW marketed Goldberg as their answer to Stone Cold Steve Austin; however, Goldberg's massive popularity ultimately did little to improve WCW's flagging ratings, 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.^[58] 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 (Flair had been absent from WCW programming for a brief period prior to this due to having legitimate conflicts with Eric Bischoff) to reform the legendary Four Horsemen. Nitro ended the night with a 4.5 rating, as opposed to the 4.0 rating attained by Raw.

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 between the champions (Scott Steiner and The Giant) and the challengers (Rick Steiner and Buff Bagwell), which Rick Steiner won by himself although Bagwell abandoned him as a tag partner. 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.^[59] 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.^[60] 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.

Bill Goldberg's aforementioned undefeated streak was pivotal in WCW's efforts to compete with the WWF; within nearly a year, he had become one of WCW's most popular wrestlers and his streak became one of the company's biggest draws. Despite Goldberg's popularity, Kevin Nash, (who had maneuvered his way into being appointed WCW's head booker) set himself up to defeat Goldberg at Starrcade. Though the match itself went well, it drew criticism for how it ended; Scott Hall ran in and tased Goldberg with a cattle prod, enabling Nash to pick up the win, ending Goldberg's streak and becoming the champion. Many believed the way the match ended damaged the aura of invincibility that had been built up around Goldberg for the past year-and-a-half. Many also believed that it was not time for Goldberg's streak to end and that Nash was not the right person to end it, and that he was simply abusing his power as the booker. With Goldberg's streak over, WCW's chances to compete with the WWF dwindled.

Then came the match between Nash and Hulk Hogan on the January 4, 1999, episode of Nitro. 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 after being kayfabe arrested by the police for stalking Miss Elizabeth and was replaced by the returning Hogan, who had been absent from WCW for several months prior to this as part of an angle where he claimed to be retired from professional wrestling. Hogan faked a punch on Nash and then poked him in the chest.^[61][62] Nash oversold the poke in the chest by forcefully falling to the mat and allowing Hogan to pin him for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship. This effectively united the two separate nWo factions into a new faction, the nWo Elite. They hugged in the ring immediately afterwards until Goldberg made his way down to the ring along with Lex Luger, only to have Luger blindside him and Hall taser him with a shock stick once again, just like at Starrcade. This incident has become infamously known as the "Fingerpoke of Doom".^[63] This bait-and-switch 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.

Also, on the same episode of Nitro, play-by-play announcer Tony Schiavone, under direction from Bischoff, revealed that Mick Foley, who was portraying his popular "Mankind" character at the time, would be winning the WWF Championship on a taped edition of Raw and mocked the WWF for making what he implied was a bad business decision (sarcastically saying "huh, that's gonna put some butts in the seats"). Schiavone was alluding to the fact that like Austin, Foley had worked for WCW but left in 1994 after deciding Bischoff would never give him a prominent role in the company. 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.^[64][65]

Decline (1998–1999)[]

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 Rodman and Jay Leno.^[66][67] Also, 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.^[68]

In addition, top-level stars had no motivation to excel in the ring due to their long-term contracts. 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 (Both Eddie Guerrero and Booker T have also since been inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame for their in-ring achievements), something WCW bookers believed these men would never be able to sell as.

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 considered as one of the worst matches in pay-per-view history,^[69] and, although the feud between Warrior and Hogan leading up to the match was initially well received, interest soon dissipated after several convoluted and unrealistic segments involving the two were aired on WCW programming. 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 awkwardly earlier in the event. Warrior would vanish from WCW shortly afterwards.^[70]

According to Bischoff's autobiography Controversy Creates Cash, Time Warner increasingly micromanaged WCW, severely hindering (and occasionally overriding) Bischoff's control of the company. 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.

By late 1999, WCW began losing around five million dollars a month. Attendance, pay-per-view buys and ratings were down significantly. Harvey Schiller, who served as the president of Turner Sports at the time and acted as Eric Bischoff's superior, had Bischoff removed from control of the promotion on September 10, 1999, after several failed storylines and marketing campaigns lost WCW a considerable amount of money. These included a failed push for the 1970s rock group KISS through WCW shows, a storyline involving rapper Master P and The No Limit Soldiers, and a failed contest to find a new member of the Nitro Girls.^[71][72][73]

KISS had collaborated with WCW to promote The Demon, a gimmick created in the band's image (the character was originally portrayed by Brian Adams and then by Dale Torborg); as a way of introducing The Demon, KISS closed out an episode of Nitro with a live performance of their hit song "God of Thunder", during which The Demon made his debut. The segment is widely considered to be one of the lowest-rated segments in the history of Nitro, and the Demon character quickly lost its momentum. As part of the deal with KISS, The Demon was contractually obligated to receive a main-event match on a pay-per-view, a stipulation WCW fulfilled by having him lose to midcard wrestler The Wall in under four minutes in the fourth of 11 matches at SuperBrawl 2000, which the announcers referred to on air as a "special main event." A planned KISS-themed stable called The Warriors of KISS was scrapped when the angle was dropped.

The No Limit Soldiers were introduced as part of a music-themed angle pitting them against the country music-themed stable The West Texas Rednecks, with the whole program being an attempt by WCW to cash in on the popularity of hip hop music at the time. However, despite the fact that the No Limit Soldiers were presented as the babyfaces in the feud, WCW's mostly Southern audience rejected them and cheered the villainous, rap-hating West Texas Rednecks instead.^[74]

With Bischoff's removal, an announced "million-dollar contest" was later cancelled and a planned Nitro animated series was scrapped as well. The Road Wild pay-per-view event (a Bischoff creation) would also be discontinued.^[75][76]

Vince Russo (1999–2000)[]

Vince Russo (pictured on the right).

Bischoff was unexpectedly replaced by then WCW Vice President of Strategic Planning Bill Busch, who was named Senior Vice President. Busch would bring in former WWF head writer Vince Russo and his colleague Ed Ferrara.^[77] 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 replicate the same writing format (known as "Crash TV") they had used to revamp the WWF's creative product in the onset of the Attitude Era, but at a more accelerated pace. They also 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.^[78] In late 1999, Russo and Ferrera revived the nWo as the nWo 2000, 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 and would go on to win the WCW Cruiserweight Championship. Ross suffered from Bell's palsy, and the character lampooned his resultant facial defects.^[79] The gimmick was very poorly received by many within the wrestling community, claiming that the character was in bad taste (and even sparking a legitimate feud between Ed Ferrara and Jim Cornette, one of Ross' close friends, that has persisted to present day).

Bad luck struck in December 1999 when Hart suffered a career-ending concussion at the hands of Goldberg,^[80] who nearly ended up costing himself his career less than a week later when he sliced open a major artery in his forearm while punching through a limousine window in Salisbury, Maryland, as part of a storyline that was written by Russo.^[81] 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. This became part of a recurring theme in Vince Russo's WCW as "worked shoots" became regular occurrences on WCW programming as a way of blurring the lines between what was legitimate and what was not.

Russo and Ferrara were suspended three months later amid rumors that they wanted to make former UFC fighter Tank Abbott the WCW World Heavyweight Champion.^[82] Abbott, despite his legitimate fighting background, had little wrestling experience and had failed to connect with WCW audiences.^[83] Kevin Sullivan, who had been an on/off booker over the course of several years, was appointed as the new head writer in the interim. The new writing team attempted to appease the demoralized wrestlers and fans by putting the World Heavyweight Championship on Chris Benoit at Souled Out in January 2000.^[84] However, Benoit was among a group of wrestlers who expressed their intent to leave the company prior to the show because Sullivan was not particularly fond of them. Benoit, in particular, had a personal grievance with Sullivan dating back several months as a storyline with the two that involved Benoit winning the services of Sullivan's manager, Woman (Sullivan's then-wife Nancy), led to an extramarital affair that resulted in a real life relationship developing between Benoit and Woman.

Benoit, along with his similarly frustrated friends Eddie Guerrero, Dean Malenko, and Perry Saturn among several others, voiced their grievances to Busch, who initially told them he would take Sullivan off Nitro and Thunder where they wouldn't have to work under him, only to turn around and tell them they were all being sent home except Benoit. Benoit doubled down on his stance and backed his fellow wrestlers. He handed the belt back right after winning it and he, along with Guerrero, Malenko, and Saturn, signed with the WWF the next day. The four quickly became popular in the WWF as "The Radicalz". This loss of valuable talent led to Busch being fired as Senior Vice President; he would be replaced by Turner programming executive Brad Siegel.

On February 11, 2000, 12 wrestlers, including African American wrestler Hardbody Harrison and Japanese-American manager Sonny Onoo launched racial discrimination lawsuits against WCW,^[85][86] 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,^[87] and his real-life 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.^[88]

Under Russo's leadership, WCW would continue to lose ratings. On January 3, 2000, Nitro was reduced to two hours in an attempt to bolster the show's aggregate ratings score, but the elimination of the show's third hour accelerated the company's ratings decline; Nitro registered a 1.8 rating for its April 3, 2000 episode, which was the second lowest WCW television rating to date (ahead of only the 1.72 rating on April 27, 1998).

Final year (2000–2001)[]

In April 2000, with ratings hitting new lows, Russo and Bischoff were reinstated by WCW, where, in another attempt to get WCW's creative product turned around, they decided to reboot WCW into a more modern, streamlined company. All angles taking place at the time were immediately dropped and all championships were vacated, effectively "re-starting" WCW with a clean slate. Russo and Bischoff believed that this approach was the most effective way to salvage WCW's damaged product.

The first major storyline to take place in WCW following the reboot saw Bischoff and Russo form an on-screen union that stood up for the younger talent in the company (which they dubbed the New Blood)^[89] 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.^[90] 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. Had the reverse been done, with the New Blood as faces and Millionaire's Club as heels, the angle may have worked but many saw the casting as an attempt for sympathy towards the veterans who had already gained bad reputations behind the scenes. Oddly, the New Blood was disbanded before the New Blood Rising pay-per-view began.

The unorthodox and controversial storylines continued. Although neither was a trained wrestler, both Russo and actor David Arquette each won the WCW World Heavyweight Championship, the latter in order to promote the box-office flop Ready to Rumble (though Arquette was vehemently against winning the championship, believing that fans, like himself, would detest a non-wrestler winning the title). As neither looked physically capable of defeating actual wrestlers in a match, the title's credibility hit rock-bottom as a result (in WWE's The Rise and Fall of WCW documentary, Jim Ross said that Arquette winning the championship was a "farce" and an "embarrassment", and David Crockett, the brother of Jim Crockett, Jr. who worked as one of WCW's backstage producers, said that WCW might as well "throw [the title] in the trash can").^[91][92][93]

Goldberg turned heel for the first time in his career at The Great American Bash, but the execution of the turn was botched, and after a lackluster feud with Kevin Nash and a failed attempt to duplicate his original streak, Goldberg's drawing power was greatly diminished.

During this time period, Vince Russo had many behind-the-scenes conflicts with Hulk Hogan. Russo believed that Hogan's time in the spotlight was over and began using him less and less on WCW programming. Whenever Hogan did appear, he was usually relegated to essentially being a "jobber to the stars", being forced to job to other main-event wrestlers such as Sting and Goldberg, as well as to Billy Kidman, whom Russo had Hogan feud with in an attempt to elevate Kidman to main-event status; however, the feud did little for either Kidman or Hogan. When it was announced that Hogan would be facing Jeff Jarrett for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship at Bash at the Beach, the writing team informed Hogan that he would be jobbing to Jarrett once again. Hogan, however, invoked his creative control and demanded that he win the match and the title. Russo agreed to the finish, but added that the finish would involve no wrestling at all, just Jarrett simply laying down for Hogan to pin him, which Hogan strongly disagreed with. During the actual match at the event, Jarrett indeed lied down for Hogan, with Russo physically coming down to the ring and throwing the title belt at Hogan's feet. A visibly frustrated Hogan then grabbed a microphone and broke character, saying, "Is this your idea, Russo? That's why this company is in the damn shape it's in, because of bullshit like this!" Hogan pinned Jarrett to win the match, but only moments later, Russo came back out and immediately voided Hogan's title win before delivering a shoot speech aimed at Hogan, during which he referred to Hogan as a "piece of shit" and that WCW fans would "never see [him] again", effectively firing Hogan live on pay-per-view.^[94] This eventually led to Hogan filing a defamation of character lawsuit, which was dismissed in 2002.^[95]

Infuriated by Russo's actions (which conflicted with his intentions for Bash), Bischoff departed once more in July 2000. At the New Blood Rising pay-per-view on August 13, an injured Goldberg walked out of a triple threat elimination contest against Kevin Nash and Scott Steiner (violating the script of the match) and swore at Russo on his way back to the dressing room on-camera, leaving Steiner to wrestle and lose to Nash by himself. As a result of Goldberg's actions at New Blood Rising, the storyline was drastically changed to a rivalry between Steiner and Goldberg, culminating in a match at Fall Brawl in September 2000, which Steiner won. Immediately afterward, Russo informed Goldberg that if he ever lost another match from that point, he would be released from his WCW contract. In truth however, this was an opportunity for Goldberg to heal from previous injuries. Russo was gone from the promotion entirely by late 2000, leaving former All Japan Pro Wrestling star Johnny Ace holding the reins.^[96] During this time, a short-lived crossover feud began involving stars of WCW and Battle Dome.

At the Sin pay-per-view on January 14, 2001, Goldberg and his trainer DeWayne Bruce lost a tag team match to Totally Buffed (Buff Bagwell and The Total Package). This was Goldberg's final appearance for WCW before the company was purchased by the WWF. The final WCW event to be held outside the southern United States was the January 29 edition of WCW Monday Nitro from Baltimore, Maryland and its associated taping of WCW Thunder (which took place the same night).^[97] Following this, all future WCW events were held in the South.^[98] In addition, most female personalities were released from the promotion by the beginning of February 2001 in an attempt to cut costs.

Attempted Bischoff/Fusient purchase (2001)[]

Meanwhile, Time Warner 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 $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.^[99]

Although WCW tried to alleviate the strain of debt in early 2001, the financial burdens proved too much for the promotion and its new parent, AOL Time Warner. Once it gained the power to sell off WCW, AOL Time Warner looked to do so in order to cut its losses. 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.^[100] However, Fusient backed out when Turner networks head Jamie Kellner formally cancelled all WCW programming from its television networks.^[101] 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.^[102] Kellner believed that wrestling did not fit the demographics of either TBS or TNT and 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).^[103][104] In the book NITRO: The Incredible Rise and Inevitable Collapse of Ted Turner's WCW by Guy Evans, it is said that a key condition in WCW's purchase deal with Fusient was that Fusient wanted control over time slots on TNT and TBS networks, regardless of whether these slots would show WCW programming or not. This influenced Kellner's decision to ultimately cancel WCW programming. WCW's losses were then written-off via purchase accounting; according to Evans: "in the post-merger environment, the new conglomerate was able to 'write down' money losing operations, essentially eliminating those losses because of their irrelevancy moving forward."^[105]

Acquisition by the World Wrestling Federation and aftermath[]

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. through its subsidiary, WCW, Inc. WCW's intangible properties were purchased for $3,000,000.^[106] Most of the main event-level stars including Ric 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.^[107] The company's legal name reverted to Universal Wrestling Corporation; it would remain listed as a subsidiary of Time Warner until December 16, 2017, when it was merged into Turner Broadcasting System.

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.^[108] 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 featured. 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 initiated a storyline in which Shane led a WCW invasion of the WWF,^[109] which lasted from March to November 2001 and marked the end of WCW. The last WCW broadcast was the already-taped final episode of WCW WorldWide which aired in syndication six days after the final Nitro broadcast (one day before WrestleMania X-Seven, although several stations aired it in the early hours of the day of the event).

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. These WCW-branded matches were ill-received by the longtime WWF fans so much that on the very first WCW-brand main event between Booker T and Buff Bagwell the crowd cheered when the WWF heels Stone Cold Steve Austin and Kurt Angle ran in to jump the WCW face Booker T. This would also cause Bagwell to be fired from the WWF after only one week of employment.

In 2004, WWE Home Video released 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.^[110] 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. In 2014, WWE Network released a new documentary series, The Monday Night War: WWE vs. WCW, covering a much broader scope of the wars than the previous Monday Night Wars DVD, as well as providing more equal viewpoints for both WWE and WCW.

Further reading[]

References[]