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98-614: WWA recruited former WCW ring announcer Jeremy Borash as booker and head of talent for its shows. He also acted as ring announcer and commentator for their shows. Borash was recommended to the WWA by Vince Russo , who was not able to work with the company as originally planned. WWA focused on signing the wrestlers that did not get signed by the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) after the WWF-WCW merger. They aimed to fill

196-399: A Ladder match to win the vacant WWA International Cruiserweight Championship . Guerrera successfully defended the title against Psicosis in subsequent rematches until Psicosis defeated Guerrera to win the title on December 8, 2001. A title match was scheduled between the two at Revolution and Eddie Guerrero was added into their title match, making it a three-way match . The opening match

294-654: A ratings competition against the flagship program of the WWF, Monday Night Raw , in a period now known as the Monday Night War . From 1996 to 1998, WCW surpassed their rival program in the ratings for 83 consecutive weeks. Beginning in 1999, WCW endured significant losses in ratings and revenue due to creative missteps and suffered from the fallout from the 2001 merger of America Online (AOL) and Turner Broadcasting parent Time Warner (later WarnerMedia, now known as Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD)). Soon thereafter, WCW

392-414: A superkick on Jarrett but Jarrett avoided it and Christopher accidentally superkicked the referee. Christopher then nailed Jarrett with the chair and delivered a Hip Hop Drop and covered Jarrett for the pinfall and then a second referee came to count the pinfall but the original referee woke up and pulled him out of the ring. Both referees fought each other allowing Jarrett to try to hit Christopher with

490-405: 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

588-484: 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. In 2000, several potential buyers for WCW were rumored to show interest in

686-437: A chair but Storm avoided it and Sabu was hit with it and then Storm pinned him for the win. Sabu attacked Storm after the match by throwing a chair at him outside the ring and placed him on a table and then dived off from the video screen onto Storm through the table. After the match, Larry Zbyszko made an appearance and challenged Vince McMahon to a match and also made fun of Chris Jericho on his "Living Legend" moniker. In

784-473: A decent standard. However, the event was universally panned by the critics for being short at 2 hours overall and various matches being too short to be able to run to their full potential. The use of WCW style comic story lines also did little to endear themselves to the viewing public as a serious alternative to the WWF . Some such comic storylines involved Australian kids TV performers, The Fruits in suits (who were

882-570: 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

980-471: 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

1078-434: A match that only lasted 58 seconds. Larry Zbyszko showed up to cut a promo on Vince McMahon challenging him to a fight and talking about Chris Jericho , who was WWF Champion at the time, saying that he stole Zbyszko's "Living Legend" moniker. He mocked Jericho by accusing him of "being too short to be a world champion", despite Zbyszko actually being shorter in height than Jericho himself. Jarrett defeated Christopher in

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1176-656: A notable exception for almost a decade and a half. After the Invasion storyline concluded, the WWF divided the roster into two brands which was originally intended to revive WCW under the WWF umbrella but was instead divided into Raw and SmackDown! brands, named after two WWF's top programs at the time. Many other WCW wrestlers moved to the World Wrestling All-Stars (WWA) or the XWF and then Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) which all started after

1274-549: A parody of The Bananas in Pyjamas ), interfering in matches and former WCW joke team Lenny Lane and Lodi being allowed to compete in the semi-final after an injury forced Juventud Guerrera to withdraw. The final of the title tournament saw the Road Dogg face Jeff Jarrett. Commissioner Bret Hart was at ringside for the match and interfered on a number of occasions to prevent anyone winning the match using his sharpshooter move. In

1372-399: 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

1470-571: A quick promo and beat Disco Inferno in a two-minute match. Eddie Guerrero became the WWA International Cruiserweight Champion by defeating Juventud Guerrera and Psicosis . After the match, former ECW World Heavyweight Champion Jerry Lynn made an appearance to confront Guerrero. This was a genuine surprise, as few knew he had been released from his WWF contract before his appearance on this show. Rick Steiner and Ernest Miller defeated Lenny and Lodi in

1568-526: A reunited nWo in the widely panned " Fingerpoke of Doom " angle. 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 Ferrera . Russo had just weeks prior walked off

1666-600: A series of events that built tension and culminated in a wrestling match or series of matches. Jeff Jarrett defeated Road Dogg in the finals of the Seven Deadly Sins tournament at Inception pay-per-view in October 2001 to win the vacant WWA World Heavyweight Championship . He continued his feud with Road Dogg during the United Kingdom tour during the next two months, where Jarrett continued to retain

1764-490: A three volume series hosted by Diamond Dallas Page called The Very Best of WCW Monday Nitro . WCW's library content would be made available with the launch of WWE Network in 2014. WWE would revive several of WCW's events, including Great American Bash in 2004, Starrcade in 2017 and Halloween Havoc in 2020. WWE also utilized the Night of Champions name and theme used on the last episode of Nitro beginning in 2001, which

1862-481: A unique and popular identity by integrating and mixing wrestlers from all around the world and from vastly different wrestling styles, particularly Mexican luchadores such as Rey Misterio Jr. , Psicosis , and Juventud Guerrera , but also Japanese "Super Juniors" such as Último Dragón . North American wrestlers, such as Chris Jericho , Eddie Guerrero , Dean Malenko and Chris Benoit , who had travelled abroad to Mexico and Japan earlier in their careers and learned

1960-708: Is believed that poor ticket sales may be the true reason. The WWA toured the UK in December 2002, filming The Retribution PPV in Glasgow Scotland. The WWA title remained vacant for the first half of the tour, with it being held up to be decided at the PPV. Mike Sanders took over as commissioner for this tour and fought Joe E. Legend each night. Memorable matches on this tour included a three-way hardcore match including Sabu, Perry Saturn and Simon Diamond . Retribution

2058-607: The Road Dogg defeated Jeff Jarrett to become the first WWA World Champion. However, the title was then vacated to allow for it to be competed for during a title tournament at their first PPV, the Inception . This tournament involved 4 quarterfinals matches (one of which was a battle royal), 2 semi-finals and a final held inside a steel cage. This debut PPV was held inside a full-sized arena in Sydney and production values were of

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2156-549: 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

2254-767: The X Division . Throughout the 2000s, WWE would incorporate elements into their shows formerly associated with WCW. Former WCW Championships such as the WCW World Heavyweight Championship , the WCW United States Championship and the WCW Cruiserweight Championship would be reactivated in WWE, with their WCW lineages acknowledged. The Cruiserweight division concept was introduced to WWE in 2002 and since then has been used intermittently throughout

2352-639: The 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s, including WCW Wrestling , WCW SuperBrawl Wrestling , WCW vs. the World , WCW vs. nWo: World Tour , WCW/nWo Revenge and WCW Mayhem . WWA Revolution The Revolution was the second professional wrestling pay-per-view event produced by World Wrestling All-Stars (WWA), which took place on February 24, 2002 from the Aladdin Casino Center in Paradise, Nevada , United States . The theme song

2450-580: The 2000s, 2010s and 2020s from 2002 onwards. Some WCW mainstays such as Booker T, Eddie Guerrero, Chris Benoit and Chris Jericho were able to achieve long-term top positions within WWE by the mid to late 2000s. Similarly, promotions such as Total Nonstop Action would also make use of former WCW talent when possible and also continued the legacy of the Cruiserweight with their X-Division. WWE has since released various WCW documentaries, anthologies, and compilations, including The Rise and Fall of WCW , and

2548-671: The Australian tour in April as he left WWA to join World Wrestling Federation , resulting in Guerrero being stripped off the International Cruiserweight Championship. The title was determined in a four-man tournament between A.J. Styles, Nova, Jerry Lynn and Chuckie Chaos at Eruption. Styles won the tournament to win the vacant title. Sabu and Devon Storm continued their feud as the two competed in

2646-463: The Beach series of shows with AEW Bash at the Beach on January 15, 2020. However, a lawsuit by WWE prevented further reuse of that branding. Beginning in 2021, AEW began presenting their own version of WCW's WarGames match , held at the AEW Blood & Guts event. Who Killed WCW? , a four-part documentary series based off the downfall of WCW premiered June 6, 2024 on Vice TV . The series

2744-759: 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

2842-472: The NWA and becoming a standalone wrestling promotion. 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

2940-547: The WWA embarked on its final tour. This visited Australia and New Zealand. The Reckoning PPV was held in Auckland in front of a vocal crowd. It was the first to include replays and split screen shots. Before the PPV the decision had been made to fold the WWA, hence the titles were to be unified with the NWA and TNA titles. Chris Sabin won a four corners cruiserweight match to unify the TNA X Division and WWA Cruiserweight titles. In

3038-610: The WWA failed to consistently draw large crowds. The main event on this tour was usually Jeff Jarrett versus Road Dogg versus Scott Steiner for the title in a three-way dance. Jarrett successfully defended his title each time. On 24 February 2002, the WWA held its second PPV, The Revolution . It was the promotion's first and only event to take place in the USA. This event took place in the Aladdin Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. This

World Wrestling All-Stars - Misplaced Pages Continue

3136-489: The WWE 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 had contracts with AOL Time Warner rather than WCW itself that the WWF did not acquire, and most choose 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

3234-581: 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, and all other remaining assets aside from the talent roster and video library 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

3332-498: The WWF in January 2000, 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. In April 2000, WCW attempted to resolve its creative issues by asking Eric Bischoff to return but work alongside Vince Russo as

3430-564: 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 lay down for Hollywood Hogan and reform

3528-742: The WWF throughout 2001. The storyline began proper at the WWF Invasion pay-per-view, which received 775,000 buys and became one of the highest-grossing wrestling pay-per-views of all time. Although WWF was able to recruit many of those on the WCW roster at the time of the purchase, it was unable to secure the use of most of its top-level stars, as they were signed to long-term contracts with AOL-Time Warner rather than WCW. As such, these stars could remain inactive but still continue to be paid, and were not incentivized to join WWF until those contracts expired. It would not be until 2002 onwards that headline WCW stars such as Goldberg or Scott Steiner would join

3626-453: 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

3724-508: 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

3822-624: The X-Division was considered a direct spiritual successor to the style developed in the WCW Cruiserweight division and became influential in its own right. WWE and TNA/Impact have continued to experiment and use the Cruiserweight/X-Division concept on and off throughout the 2000s and 2010s and into the 2020s. Mid 20th Century 1970s and 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s and 2020s WCW

3920-529: The acquisition of WCW by WWF/WWE in 2001, WWE revived the Cruiserweight division in 2002 to be a feature of its Smackdown brand, with the WWE Cruiserweight Championship being deemed by the promotion to be the direct lineal successor to the WCW title. Simultaneously, the newly formed Total Nonstop Action wrestling promotion heavily featured their X Division , which did not limit participants by weight but rather by style. Nonetheless,

4018-547: The battle for the largest television audience. However, in June 1996, Nitro would begin a streak of 83 constructive 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

World Wrestling All-Stars - Misplaced Pages Continue

4116-420: The building proclaiming he would be back (Jarrett never appeared after this). It presumed this was prerecorded earlier in the week. A new Cruiserweight Champion was crowned at the show after Eddie Guerrero had returned to the WWF . A.J. Styles defeated Jerry Lynn in the tournament final to win the title. Another match of note was a cage match between Sabu and Devon Storm. Sabu won the match after leaping from

4214-696: The circuit. WCW also had a presence in NASCAR from the mid-1990s to 2000, sponsoring the #29 team in the Busch Grand National Series full-time and the #9 Melling Racing team in the Winston Cup Series part-time. In 1996, Kyle Petty 's #49 car in the Busch Grand National series was sponsored by the nWo, and Greg Sacks briefly drove a WCW-sponsored for Galaxy Motorsports. Several WCW video games were made in

4312-423: The closure of WCW, several new professional wrestling promotions would launch featuring former talent associated with WCW. The most prominent of these, Total Nonstop Action (TNA), was founded by Jeff Jarrett in 2002 and would attempt to take over WCW's market position in the mid-to-late 2000s using some former WCW stars such as Sting. TNA would also adopt their own version of the Cruiserweight division, branded as

4410-515: The commentary table and attacked him. Steiner then tossed Inferno into the ring and attacked him and applied a Steiner Recliner on Inferno. Next, Psicosis defended the International Cruiserweight Championship against Eddie Guerrero and Juventud Guerrera in a triple threat match . Psicosis tried to execute a hurricanrana to Guerrero from the top rope but Guerrero avoided it and Psicosis fell down on

4508-454: 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, Sting, Lex Luger and Konnan ). Speaking in hindsight in 2023, Eric Bischoff has said the angle

4606-512: 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

4704-496: 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. 1996 and 1997 had been banner years for WCW, with profits and popularity soaring. 1998 saw profits continue to rise. However, maintaining

4802-671: The company. At the No Way Out pay-per-view in February 2002, WWE began their own version of the new World order centered around Hogan, Nash and Hall, but later incorporating former WCW stars the Giant (now known as the Big Show) and Booker T as well as WWE talent such as Shawn Michaels . Throughout the early 2000s, many former WCW headliners found it difficult to integrate into WWE, as there continued to be legitimate tensions between

4900-457: 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

4998-505: The cruiserweight division and the talent represented therein probably had as much to do with the success of Nitro as the nWo storyline and Hulk Hogan, Scott Hall, and Kevin Nash. I don’t think people recognize it. The talent in that division not only helped Nitro consistently defeat WWE...that talent forced WWE, as much as the nWo, to change the way they were presenting the product. The Cruiserweight division would continue to directly influence North American wrestling for many decades. Following

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5096-471: The end Jarrett won the match with his trademark guitar shot and became the champion. Next the WWA toured the UK and Ireland in December 2001. This tour largely included the same line up as the Inception PPV tour. Additions to the card were former WCW World Heavyweight Champion Scott Steiner and former WWF tag team competitor Brian Christopher . Although the events drew several thousand fans at times

5194-479: The end of WCW. In the spring of 1996, WCW introduced its "Cruiserweight division", a segmented portion of the roster featuring smaller, faster and more agile wrestlers that contrasted starkly, both visually and stylistically, with their heavyweight counterparts. Although weight categories were not a new concept in wrestling or even WCW, the WCW Cruiserweight Division was quickly able to form

5292-438: The event during the weekend and this wasn't announced until the pre-show where a big red "X" and the text "NOT APPEARING" was overlaid on all images of Savage. Road Dogg, also heavily advertised for this show, did not appear either although this was not told to the fans during the pre-show. Andrew McManus opened the show with a prepared statement in his office, confirming that Savage would not be appearing. Bret Hart appeared after

5390-660: 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

5488-1267: The gap left by the demise of World Championship Wrestling and Extreme Championship Wrestling and provide an alternative to the World Wrestling Federation (now known as World Wrestling Entertainment ). Many popular former WWF and WCW wrestlers wrestled for the company during its nearly two-year existence. These included Jeff Jarrett , Road Dogg , Scott Steiner , Sting , Psicosis , Devon Storm , Juventud Guerrera , Rick Steiner , Jerry Lynn , Shane Douglas , Buff Bagwell , Lex Luger , Stevie Ray , Sabu and Disco Inferno . They also brought in relatively unknown wrestlers, many of whom went on to make names for themselves for other promotions like TNA . These included Low Ki , A.J. Styles , Christopher Daniels , Frankie Kazarian , Shark Boy , and Nathan Jones (known as "the Colossus of Boggo Road). Further big names like Kevin Nash , Scott Hall , and Randy Savage were scheduled to appear for WWA at some point but their appearances did not happen. The promotion had three in ring commissioners during its time, namely Bret Hart , Sid Vicious and Mike Sanders . The WWA held its first tour in October 2001, covering dates across Australia. During this time

5586-546: 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

5684-441: The job at the WWF after a dispute with Vince McMahon over work hours, and Ed Ferrera soon followed. Russo and Ferrera 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

5782-436: The local styles were also able to thrive in the division. The division as a whole became a showcase of a fast-paced, aerial and athletic style of wrestling which became highly influential in both the short and long term in the industry. Eric Bischoff has credited with the division as becoming a defining feature of Monday Nitro that was as fundamental to the late 1990s popularity of WCW as the New World Order faction: I think

5880-609: The main event ruined what was otherwise a decent enough match. Overall a much better show than the first one ." Adam Nedeff of 411Mania wrote "Compliment to start; as start-up promotions go, the production was mostly slick, with a good set and a technical crew that had their act together." He criticized WWA on copying each and every thing just like World Championship Wrestling . WWA held its next tour in April in its native country Australia which culminated with The Eruption pay-per-view on April 12. Bret Hart left WWA during this time and Andrew McManus replaced him with Sid Vicious as

5978-534: The main event to retain the title. In April the WWA returned to Australia for a tour and to film its third PPV, The Eruption . During this tour Nathan Jones won the WWA title after winning a 4 corners match against Jeff Jarrett , Scott Steiner and Brian Christopher. The Eruption PPV was held at the Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne, Australia. The show started with Jeff Jarrett being escorted away from

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6076-567: The main event, Sting was defeated by NWA World Heavyweight Champion Jeff Jarrett to unify the NWA and WWA World titles. World Championship Wrestling World Championship Wrestling ( WCW ) was an American professional wrestling promotion founded by Ted Turner in 1988, after Turner Broadcasting System , through a subsidiary named Universal Wrestling Corporation, purchased the assets of National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) territory Jim Crockett Promotions (JCP) (which had aired its programming on TBS ). For all of its existence, WCW

6174-458: The main events. He faced Sting for the vacant WWA title at the PPV. This match was poorly received and only lasted about 7 minutes, which largely involved Luger pacing around and avoiding wrestling. Luger won this match and became WWA Champion after an interference from Jeff Jarrett with his guitar. He lost this title to Sting a few days later at a house show in Zurich, Switzerland. In May 2003,

6272-454: The mat and Guerrero hit a frog splash on Psicosis to win the title. Jerry Lynn confronted and attacked Guerrero after the match, which led to a brawl outside the ring, resulting in Lynn hitting a piledriver to Guerrero onto the title belt. Later, Sabu took on Devon Storm in a no disqualification match . Near the end of the match, Sabu's manager Bill Alfonso attempted to hit Storm with

6370-500: The match. KroniK delivered a High Times to Walker for the win. Next, Puppet the Midget Killer took on Teo in a falls count anywhere match . Puppet got a bag of thumbtacks and opened it and dropped all the thumbtacks on the ramp and then delivered a fireman's carry facebuster to Teo onto the thumbtacks for the win. Immediately, after the match, Scott Steiner came and attacked both men and then he grabbed Disco Inferno from

6468-659: The match. Near the end of the match, Reno delivered a Roll of the Dice to Funkster but climbed the top rope instead of pinning him and Funkster took advantage by hitting a big boot and he followed that with a piledriver and a leg drop for the win. After the match, Disco Inferno joined the commentary team to provide color commentary and issued an open challenge to anyone. Next, KroniK ( Brian Adams and Bryan Clark ) took on Native Blood (The Navajo Warrior and Ghost Walker). Native Blood attacked KroniK from behind but KroniK quickly countered their attack and dominated them throughout

6566-453: The more cartoon-like presentation which had dominated wrestling in the 1980s and early 90s. 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

6664-419: 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 Universal Wrestling Corporation, 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 wrestlers joined

6762-430: The network for the first time since WCW's closure. On January 5, 2022, Dynamite moved to TNT's sibling network, TBS, marking the first time TBS has aired wrestling programming since the March 21, 2001, episode of WCW Thunder . TNT has also broadcast AEW's second show, AEW Rampage , since August 13, 2021, and added another AEW show with the June 17, 2023, debut of AEW Collision . In 2020, AEW revived WCW's Bash at

6860-515: The new Commissioner. Jeff Jarrett lost the WWA World Heavyweight Championship to Nathan Jones in a four-way match, also involving Brian Christopher and Scott Steiner on April 7. Jones then lost the title to Steiner at Eruption in a match in which Vicious served as the special outside enforcer and banned Jarrett from entering the arena. Eddie Guerrero did not wrestle any other match for the company and did not join

6958-563: The opening match as the WWA Commissioner. He announced to the live crowd that Randy Savage was not at the show and was being replaced in the main event by Brian Christopher . An amount of significant talent was arguably underutilized on the show. Former WCW World Tag Team Champions KroniK wrestled an unknown Native-American gimmick tag team called Native Blood and defeated them in less than five minutes. Former WCW World Heavyweight Champion Scott Steiner showed up, only to cut

7056-421: The other trucks is most prominent with Goldberg. Driven by to great success by Tom Meents (including Monster Jam World Finals championships both years the truck ran), after the end of the sponsorship Meents continued to run the truck as "Team Meents" in 2002 before debuting its new name Maximum Destruction in 2003. Max-D continues to compete in the series and rivals the legendary Grave Digger in popularity on

7154-574: The penultimate match, Rick Steiner and The Cat took on The West Hollywood Blondes ( Lenny Lane and Lodi ). Rick attacked Lane and then tagged in Cat, who nailed a Feliner to Lane for the win. In the main event, Jeff Jarrett defended the World Heavyweight Championship against Brian Christopher . Jarrett was distracted when he tried to attack Christopher with a chair but the referee took it away. Christopher tried to nail

7252-513: 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 Superstation 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

7350-555: The show, expanded storyline depth, frequent title changes, and a greater focus on developing mid-card talent. The tenure of Russo and Ferrera at the creative helm of WCW was short-lived; by March 2000 the pair had been suspended from their positions as their provocative and edgy angles caused constant protest from AOL Time Warner executives. 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

7448-509: 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 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

7546-523: 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

7644-399: 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 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

7742-465: The title against Dogg in subsequent title defenses. Brian Christopher and Road Dogg defeated Jarrett and Scott Steiner in tag team matches during the event with Christopher pinning Jarrett. Randy Savage was originally scheduled to be Jarrett's challenger at Revolution but he backed out of the event and Christopher replaced Savage in the main event on account of his pinfall victories over Jarrett. At Inception, Juventud Guerrera defeated Psicosis in

7840-467: The title belt but Christopher avoided it and tried to nail a piledriver. Jarrett then countered with a low blow and a Stroke on Christopher to retain the title. Revolution received mixed reviews from critics. Crazy Max staff wrote "The two cruiserweight matches were good as was the Sabu/Storm match. The midget match I also liked but the commentators really killed it. A really stupid finish to

7938-404: The top of the cage onto Devon Storm, who was laid on top of a double deck of tables. In the main event Scott Steiner defeated Nathan Jones to win the title. He would later give up the title to sign with the WWF. A further UK and European tour was planned for after this event. The WWA postponed the tour from May 2002 to November 2002, citing injuries to its major stars as the reason. However, it

8036-464: The top rope but Styles countered it with a Styles Clash . Nova then eliminated Styles by performing a superplex for the win. After the match, Commissioner Bret Hart announced that Jeff Jarrett 's originally scheduled opponent Randy Savage would not be able to compete so he would be replaced by Brian Christopher , who was originally scheduled to take on Disco Inferno . Next, The Funkster took on Reno , with Funkster impersonating Hulk Hogan in

8134-432: The two groups. Former WCW performers such as Diamond Dallas Page (who had accepted a WWF contract in 2001) were perceived to be intentionally poorly used as part of a "victory lap" by WWF. In turn, this dissuaded some WCW stars from trusting WWE; for example, Sting choose to remain out of WWE until 2014, and even when he did join, WWE was criticised using Sting to perform yet another victory lap at WrestleMania 31 . After

8232-530: 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. 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

8330-410: Was 'Revillusion', performed live at the event by American rock band Tantric , from their self-titled debut album . Eight professional wrestling matches were contested on the card. Jeff Jarrett defended the World Heavyweight Championship against Brian Christopher in the main event . Jarrett was originally scheduled to defend the title against Randy Savage , but Savage no-showed the event and

8428-428: Was a six-way elimination match between Nova , Low Ki , Shark Boy , A.J. Styles , Tony Mamaluke and Christopher Daniels . Low Ki nailed a springboard mule kick to Shark Boy for the first elimination of the match. Styles then eliminated Mamaluke by nailing a Styles Clash . Daniels then eliminated Low Ki by hitting a side slam . Daniels was next eliminated when he tried to deliver a hurricanrana to Styles from

8526-494: Was a smaller venue, which reflected upon the look and style of the show. Months before the event, initial advertisements plugged the reunion of Scott Hall and Kevin Nash . However, this did not happen due to both men signing contracts to return to the WWF. Then Randy Savage was advertised to be appearing in the main event against Jeff Jarrett for the WWA Heavyweight Championship. Savage backed out of

8624-471: 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

8722-541: Was broadcast in February 2003. The card included nine matches and two title matches (WWA and TNA), but only ran for 1 hour 45 minutes. This was fifteen minutes shorter than the house show in Newcastle the night before, which only included six matches and no title matches. This tour included an infamous dispute with a seemingly badly out of shape Lex Luger . He reportedly missed shows due to illness and refused to wrestle for more than five minutes in matches, despite being in

8820-416: Was extremely influential within professional wrestling in the 1990s and several elements innovated and introduced by WCW would continue to be used in professional wrestling decades after its closure. In the immediate aftermath of WWF's purchase of WCW, a significant portion of WCW's active roster was integrated into the WWF. These former WCW talents would be used as part of a "WCW vs WWF" storyline that ran in

8918-578: Was later known as Clash of Champions , similarly named from WCW's Clash of the Champions . In 2017, WWE held its first annual NXT WarGames event for its NXT brand , with that's year's event featuring the first WarGames match since the September 4, 2000, episode of Nitro . In 2019, new promotion All Elite Wrestling (AEW) formed a partnership with WarnerMedia to air their flagship show, AEW Dynamite , on TNT, returning professional wrestling to

9016-415: 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

9114-486: Was presented by Dwayne Johnson and featured former WCW personalities including Bill Goldberg , Eric Bischoff , Bret Hart , Booker T , Kevin Nash , amongst others. From 2000 to 2001, Monster Jam had a series of monster trucks based on wrestlers' names. These included the nWo , Sting , Nitro Machine, Madusa and Goldberg . Following the end of WCW, Debrah Miceli , the only one of the truck's namesakes to actually drive them, remained in monster trucks. The legacy of

9212-560: Was replaced by Christopher. Jarrett retained the title. Also at the event, Eddie Guerrero defeated defending champion Psicosis and Juventud Guerrera in a triple threat match to capture the International Cruiserweight Championship . WWA was established in 2001 and held five pay-per-view events between 2001 and 2003. Revolution featured professional wrestling matches that involved wrestlers from pre-existing scripted feuds, plots , and storylines that played out on WWA shows. Wrestlers portrayed heroes or villains as they followed

9310-487: 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

9408-583: 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. Its headquarters were located in Smyrna, Georgia . "World Championship Wrestling"

9506-515: 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

9604-532: 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;

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