World Championship Wrestling

:There was also a World Championship Wrestling circuit in Australia from 1964 to 1978. This article is about the U.S. promotion.

In The Beginning : The NWA Years

By 1986, Jim Crockett, Jr. controlled key portions of the NWA (National Wrestling Alliance) under the name Jim Crockett Promotions, including the traditional NWA territories in The Carolinas, Georgia, and St. Louis. Crockett merged his various NWA territories into one group, and began promoting under the name "NWA World Championship Wrestling." A simmering feud between Crockett and Vince McMahon's WWF sprang up, and both companies attempted to outmaneuver the other to acquire key TV slots.

Related Topics:
1986 - Jim Crockett, Jr. - NWA - Jim Crockett Promotions - The Carolinas - Georgia - St. Louis - Vince McMahon - WWF - TV

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In the same year, he also purchased Heart of America Sports Attractions Inc (HASA), which owned the rights to promote wrestling shows through several central states (Kansas, Missouri, and Iowa). HASA was known to many fans as NWA Central States, and ran a TV show called All Star Wrestling.

Related Topics:
Heart of America Sports Attractions Inc - Kansas - Missouri - Iowa - TV show

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In 1987, Crockett's buying spree continued, with the purchase of Florida Championship Wrestling, and the Universal Wrestling Federation (which covered Oklahoma, Mississippi, Arkansas, Texas and Louisiana), which was not an NWA member. The Florida & UWF (and its wrestlers) were absorbed into Crockett Promotions.

Related Topics:
1987 - Florida Championship Wrestling - Universal Wrestling Federation - Oklahoma - Mississippi - Arkansas - Texas - Louisiana

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Crockett had almost accomplished his goal of creating a national federation. Between his purchasing several NWA territories, World Class Championship Wrestling in Texas leaving the NWA in 1986 (and later merging with Jerry Lawler's Championship Wrestling Alliance in Memphis to create the United States Wrestling Association), and the once highly viable Portland territory going bankrupt (it closed in 1992), he was the last bastion of the NWA, and the last member with national TV exposure. Since it was all they now saw, many people began to believe that World Championship Wrestling was the NWA. World Championship Wrestling and the NWA were still two separate entities, though, with Crockett as NWA President, they were very much on the same page. By this point, the NWA was effectively an on paper organization funded by Crockett, and allowed Crockett to use the NWA brand-name.

Related Topics:
World Class Championship Wrestling - Jerry Lawler - Championship Wrestling Alliance - Memphis - United States Wrestling Association - Portland

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However, it takes a large amount of capital to take a wrestling federation on a national tour, and Crockett's territorial acquisitions had seriously drained WCW's coffers. 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 couple of PPVs. Crockett marketed StarrCade '87 as the NWA's answer to WrestleMania, however neither it, nor Bunkhouse Stampede, drew enough money to keep Crockett's promotion afloat.

Related Topics:
1980s - PPVs - StarrCade - WrestleMania - Bunkhouse Stampede

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On November 21, 1988, Crockett's struggling firm was purchased outright by billionaire media mogul Ted Turner, the Atlanta-based owner of the cable TV networks TBS and TNT, among other interests. Crockett remained NWA President until 1991.

Related Topics:
November 21 - 1988 - Media mogul - Ted Turner - Atlanta - Cable TV - Networks - TBS - TNT - 1991

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Originally incorporated by TBS as the "Universal Wrestling Corporation", Turner promised the fans that WCW way would be the athlete-oriented style of NWA, as opposed to the cartoonish and simplistic exploits of the WWF.

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1989 proved to be a huge year for WCW, with Ric Flair on top for most of the year both as World Champion and also as head booker. Flair drafted in two genuine pro wrestling legends in Ricky Steamboat and Terry Funk, and his PPV matches with both were hugely successful, financially and especially critically. Young, hot stars such as Sid Vicious, Sting, Scott Steiner, The Road Warriors, Brian Pillman, The Great Muta and Lex Luger were given big storylines and equally notable championship opportunities.

Related Topics:
1989 - Ric Flair - Booker - Ricky Steamboat - Terry Funk - Sid Vicious - Sting - Scott Steiner - The Road Warriors - Brian Pillman - The Great Muta - Lex Luger

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Despite this influx of talent, WCW soon began working to gradually incorporate much of the glamor 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 a PPV event in 1990, the "Chamber of Horrors" gimmick and the notorious "Black Scorpion" storyline, succeeded. Behind the scenes, WCW also 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 stand alone, recognizing its own WCW World Heavyweight Champion and WCW World Tag Team Championships.

Related Topics:
RoboCop - 1990 - Gimmick - January

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Confusingly, both the WCW and the NWA recognized Ric Flair, by now no longer head booker, as their "World Heavyweight Champion" throughout most of the first half of 1991, but WCW, particularly recently-installed company president Jim Herd, turned against Flair for various reasons and fired him just prior to the July 1991 Great American Bash PPV. In the process, they officially stripped him of the WCW World Heavyweight Championship. However, according to Flair's autobiography, they refused to return the $30,000 deposit he had put down on the (physical) belt, so he kept it and took 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," a jab at then-WWF World Heavyweight Champion Hulk Hogan.

Related Topics:
Jim Herd - July - Great American Bash - $ - Hulk Hogan

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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 personally returned to WCW by Flair when Jim Herd was let go and he received his deposit back, and it was brought back as the revived NWA World Heavyweight Title.

Related Topics:
New Japan Pro Wrestling - NWA World Heavyweight Title

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During the brief, complex period that WCW operated with its own World Champion while also recognizing the NWA's world title, Flair quit the WWF and returned to WCW, regaining the title from Barry Windham in July 1993. Immediately, the other, now much smaller, member organizations of the NWA began rightfully 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 "Ravishing" Rick Rude, a title change which was exposed by the months-in-advance taping of WCW TV shows at Disney-owned studios in Florida. The NWA board of directors, working separately from WCW, objected to Rude, therefore forcing WCW to finally leave the NWA for good again in September 1993.

Related Topics:
Barry Windham - July - 1993 - "Ravishing" Rick Rude - Disney - Florida - September

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However, WCW still legally owned and used the actual NWA World Heavyweight Championship belt (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 Title. WCW knew that the title belt, because of its rich in-ring history and visual impact, was highly sought after and respected over in Japan and as such created a fictional subsidiary dubbed "WCW International" to inject some credibility back into the belt. WCW claimed that their subsidiary still recognized the belt as a legitimate World Title.

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Sting eventually won the WCW International Championship and lost the belt to then-WCW World Champion Ric Flair in a unification match in May 1994 when the experiment was jettisoned. To make things more confusing, the WCW title belt, as introduced in 1991, was dropped and the old NWA Championship belt was revived and officially replaced it as the WCW World Heavyweight Championship. It was used as such until WCW's closure in 2001. The belt (in a slightly altered design) is still seen today in WWE as the World Heavyweight Championship on their SmackDown! brand (previously on RAW), and WWE has claimed on various programs that the World Heavyweight Championship is a continuation of the World Heavyweight Championship lineage from WCW.

Related Topics:
WCW International Championship - Unification - May - 1994 - WCW World Heavyweight Championship - 2001 - World Heavyweight Championship - SmackDown!

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