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WCW - FAQ
When did the NWA become WCW?
It never did. NWA never changed it's name, WCW just broke away from the NWA
organization.
Before changing it's name to WCW it's name was Mid-Atlantic Championship
Wrestling and Georgia Championship Wrestling. Even though they had two names
both were owned by Jim Crockett Promotions and pretty much were the same
thing.
In late 1988 Crockett was in desperate need of money to stay alive so
instead of folding the company Jim Crockett sold it to WTBS. Soon after the
sale WTBS started moving the company away from the NWA by changing it's
titles and television shows from NWA to WCW. By early 1991 the NWA name was
completely dropped.
Who had owned the company?
Jim Crockett Promotions owned WCW from it's start until 1988. The second
owner was Ted Turner's WTBS. In 1995 Ted Turner merged his company with Time
Warner and with the deal lost control of WCW. In 2001 Time Warner was
planning a merger with AOL and wanted to get rid of all the companies that
were losing money one of which was WCW. So Time Warner put WCW for sale and
World Wrestling Federation Entertainment bought the company. The sale was
done without Ted Turner's consent.
What were the Disney Tapings?
In 1993 WCW started taping their television shows at the Disney Studios in
Orlando, Florida. Months worth of shows would be taping often giving away
pay pier view results. To keep the results from being released they would go
into the Disney World theme park and just pick out visitors who weren't even
fans. The Disney tapings last until 2000 when the show WCW Worldwide was
changed to a magazine type show.
When was the WCW bought out by the WWE (WWF)?
In March of 2001. After Ted Turner and AOL/Time Warner decided the WCW product
was lacking in ratings, attendance and overall drawing power, the company decided to sell it. Vince McMahon jumped at the advantage of "buying out
the competition" and did so giving the WWE (formerly WWF) the full copyrights to WCW tradmarks, video libraries and much more.
In addition to
getting those things the WWE ended up signing a good number of former WCW talent.
What's with all the midget jokes?
In the summer of 1993 WCW was at an all time low and needed a way to attract
fans again. So to promote Beach Blast 1993 WCW was given a one million
dollar budget to make a short commercial for the event. The mini movie
featured Sting and Davey Boy Smith being tricked onto a boat by Big Van
Vader and Sid Vicious. Thinking they had gotten on the boat an evil midget
named Cheatum appeared and detonated a bomb that blew up the boat. Vader and
Sid laughed near by thinking their opponents were blown up. Sting and Davey
Boy Smith were not on the boat of course and showed up to fight at Beach
Blast against the heels.
What happened to the WCW Television Title?
After being one of the most prestigious titles in NWA/WCW, the Television title lost value at the end of WCW's run and was scrapped a year before it's close. The last actual title change took place on October 24, 1999 when Rick Steiner beat Chris Benoit. Scott Hall was then given the title for no reason and just 8 days later he threw the title in the trash saying he didn't want it. The television title then was scrapped for a short while until Hacksaw Jim Duggan "found" the title in the trash on a February 2000 edition of Saturday Night and was made the champion and only defended it on WCW Saturday Night. After Vince Russo and Eric Bischoff were brought back into WCW in April 2000 they decided to vacant all the titles and the Television title was never mentioned again.
Where was WCW Saturday Night taped?
WCW Saturday Night was taped at Center Stage in Atlanta, Georgia. It was a
small building that only held around 1,000 fans but was easy to access for
the Atlanta based WCW.
What was the Nitro Grill?
The WCW Nitro Grill was a Time Warner owned restaurant themed on WCW in Las Vegas' Excalibur Hotel Casino. The grill opened around 1999 but was poorly attended and managed from the start and was closed in 2000.
Did WCW have a European belt?
No. It had the WCW European Cup which was won in a tournament in 1993 during
a WCW European tour in 1994. WCW mentioned Sting defending it during other
WCW European tours but it was never mentioned on WCW television in the U.S.
Who was Wildcat Willie?
Wildcat Willie was the WCW mascot from 1995 to 1999. He'd come out to the
ring and dance around in between matches on Monday Nitro and Saturday Night.
He was finally fired in 1999 after they realized that fans hated him and had
more fun throwing stuff at him than actually watching him.
It isn't actually known who Wildcat Willie was. There is a rumor that Lanny
Poffo played the role since he had a WCW contract from 1995 to 1999 and was
never seen on television. Nobody has ever confirmed the rumor though.
Was their going to be a Wrestling Jesus character?
I don't think so. In mid 2000 their was a strong rumor Vince Russo had an
idea to give Devon Storm the idea of being the Wrestling Jesus. He was too
come out and do "miracles" and be followed by "12 Disciples". It is not
known if the angle is actually true though since no one has confirmed the
rumor.
Do you think Vince McMahon has any plans on using WCW in the future seeing now that he has several of their Superstars?
I truly highly doubt it. If he was going to do it, he would have done it a while ago. In fact, it was originally the plan to operate the WCW brand under WWE ownership when Vince McMahon first purchased WCW, but the WWE failed to get the extra TV timeslot they wanted to air the WCW programming in. They later did get the timeslot, but by this time they scrapped the idea to keep running WCW under WWE ownership and thus used the timeslot for what you see now as Confidential and Velocity on Saturday nights.
I remember reading once that WCW had an anti-blood policy and people were fired because of it. My question is, Who was fired because of this and why? Also when did the anti-blood policy end?
Dustin Rhodes was fired for breaking the anti-blood policy in WCW. Rhodes and Blacktop Bully were scheduled to have a "King of the Road" match at Uncensored 1995. The match was to take place in the back of a truck and both wrestlers decided to blade themselves after WCW booker Mike Graham encouraged them to do so. All three men were fired from WCW soon after and Rhodes signed with WWF. The policy ended sometime in 1996 or 1997.
Has WWF and WCW ever had a pay per view on the same night?
No, however they have had
supercards on the same night. Back in the 1980s, the WCW (NWA at the time) would have
pay-per-view events scheduled, and the WWF would purposely schedule a PPV then on the same
night. This was the sole reason the WWF created the Survivor Series. To bump off Starrcade.
The WWF would then say that if the cable companies didn't cover their events over NWA, that
they would not allow them to air WrestleMania on their cable outlets later in the year. The
cable companies of course wanted WrestleMania, so most of them would drop the NWA PPV and
air WWF's, causing the NWA to reschedule many times. The WWF were basically trying to
monopolize PPV. Many of the first Clash of the Champions that NWA/WCW put on were on free TV
and went head to head with WrestleMania which of course was on PPV.
Who was the first United States Champion?
Harley Race was the first ever U.S. champion in 1975. A tournament was held and he defeated Johnny Weaver in the finals.
Who was the first WCW Heavyweight Champion?
When most of the NWA officially was renamed World Championship Wrestling (some of the NWA broke away and continued to exsist), Ric Flair was their first champion.
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