THE INTRODUCTION
The history of World Championship Wrestling can be summarized as “chaos personified”. Born out of the efforts of Jim Crockett Promotions attempting to compete with the World Wrestling Federation on a national level and sold to Turner Broadcasting group, whose association with JCP and the NWA helped grow TBS into a television company juggernaut. The in ring product, in many people’s eyes, was superior to that of the WWF, showcasing acts such as The Four Horsemen, Sting, Ricky Steamboats and Dusty Rhodes. However, the business aspect of WCW was less than stellar, to delicately phrase it. There were people in charge who had next to none professional wrestling acumen or work within the corporate environment of Turner Broadcasting. The headaches that came along with dealing with the likes of an Ole Anderson or Bill Watts, the Turner Execs sought to move away from former wrestlers at the helm.
Enter Eric Bischoff.
Although he had a background in professional wrestling, getting his start under Verne Gagne owned AWA, Bischoff had a level of expertise in marketing and business. It was under Bischoff’s presidency, WCW saw the likes of Hulk Hogan and “Macho Man” Randy Savage join the organization, helping shed the regional feel and become a national brand. With the advent of Nitro, a live weekly television broadcast, saw astronomical ratings, delivering great action in the form of the Cruiserweight division as well as an air of unpredictability with storylines such as the new World order, an perceived invading force from WWF to destroy WCW. These factors helped WCW beat the World Wrestling Federation for 83 consecutive weeks in the ratings on Monday night. WCW was a competitive force. The only group to beat Vince McMahon at his own game.
While Eric Bischoff managed turn WCW into a profitable organization, the merger of Time Warner would further add to the dysfunction for World Championship Wrestling in the fall of 1998. Executives within the AOL/Time Warner group did not like having professional wrestling on their books, opting for more “palatable” forms of entertainment. Egos of the major stars, aided by creative control clauses, hampered the locker room morale and dynamic. These factors also aided the gap between WCW and WWF- who catapulted to a new stratosphere with “Stone Cold” Steve Austin as the World champion, Mike Tyson’s involvement at WrestleMania, and the new found “attitude- grew even wider.
By September of 1999, Eric Bischoff was removed as President of WCW. Brad Siegel, the president of Turner Entertainment, would move to hire Vince Russo and Ed Ferrera, the head writers of WWF, who had presented themselves as the reason for WWF’s turn of fortune. However, their stint as the head of creative for WCW proved to be disastrous in the eyes of many. This forced Siegel to ask Eric Bischoff to return and work with Russo in hopes of turning things around.
This failed.
Eric Bischoff could see the writing on the walls. He went to Brad Siegel to see if they would be interested in selling WCW, an idea that Siegel initially balked at because Turner Entertainment philosophy was: “we don’t sell things, we acquire them.” By late 2000, they were more receptive to the idea if Eric Bischoff could find raise the capitalize.
Eric Bischoff found his partners in the form of Brian Bedol and Steve Greenberg- Fusient Media Ventures. Bedol and Greenberg created the Classic Sports Network before selling to ESPN two years after its inception. The group managed to raise $67 Million in capital to acquire WCW. However, Turner Broadcasting Systems would kept a minority stake in the company as well as a ten year programming rights for the TBS network for the Wednesday night time slot. Fusient Media would agree to the terms, but Eric Bischoff managed to get Peter Liguori, the head of FX, to acquire the rights to broadcast Nitro on Monday Nights.
The deal was announced January 11 2001 via conference call with Bischoff and his Fuisent partners. The sale, however, would not be completed for a number of weeks because of the proper due diligence and paperwork as well as the merger of AOL and Time Warner, a deal announced in February 2000, but would not be finalized until January 2001, the very same day of the announced deal.
By March 16 2001, the deal was finalized. Fusient Media Ventures and Eric Bischoff now owned WCW. On the March 19th edition of Nitro, Eric Bischoff announced the following week’s Nitro would be dubbed “Night of Champions”. This Nitro would see Scott Steiner defending the WCW World Heavyweight championship against the WCW United States champion Booker T. This Nitro would also be the last episode on TNT. It would also be the last episode for two months before the relaunch on May 6 where they would host a pay per view called “The Big Bang”. The Night of Champions witnessed Booker T become World Heavyweight champion for a fourth time. Billy Kidman and Rey Mysterio Jr beat Kid Romeo and Elix Skipper for the WCW Cruiserweight Tag Team championships. “Sugar” Shane Helms retained the Cruiserweight title against Chavo Guerrero Jr.
WCW is now under new management. Bischoff no longer had the infinite check book of Ted Tuner. A majority of the promotions top stars, such as Goldberg, Hulk Hogan, The Outsiders, and Ric Flair were under AOL/Time Warner deals, meaning Fusient Media Ventures would have to buy out their contracts. While they had to figure out who they could and could not get, it was decided they would have one centralized location for business and tapings- Las Vegas, Nevada. They would produce television out of the Hard Rock Cafe.
Can WCW return to its former glory?
One thing is for sure…..
PHASE ONE COMMENCE
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It's clear that someone handsome and well endowed made it
