標籤: WCWs

Ted Turner, who helped finance one of the world’s most powerful wrestling promotions, World Championship Wrestling (WCW), has died at the age of 87.

In the 1980s, World Wrestling Federation (WWF) founder Vince McMahon had the bold idea of ​​taking his brand nationally. In the process, they revolutionized the concept of regional wrestling promotions and dominated the industry for a decade and well into the 1990s. One of the regional brands that faced financial problems due to the dominance of the WWF – now WWE – was North Carolina company Jim Crockett Promotions. Who owned a share of the NWA.

With his company in dire straits, Crockett sold his wrestling assets to rapidly rising media mogul Ted Turner. The man who turned TBS, TNT and CNN into powerhouse national television networks was a wrestling fan and wanted to continue airing in-ring content on TBS.

Turner already had a weekly show called “World Championship Wrestling”, so he took Crockett’s roster, which included wrestling icon Ric Flair, and turned WCW into a real wrestling promotion. Still, despite airing content on national TV each week, success like the WWF was not immediate.

Ted Turner helped propel WCW to the top of wrestling

So the television veteran decided to put his money where his mouth was, and when new WCW boss Eric Bischoff asked him to invest big bucks in WWF legends like Hulk Hogan and “Macho Man” Randy Savage, he did. Although this has not yet turned them into real competition for the WWF, it has given the brand far more credibility in the industry.

WCW then regained that identity and added better storylines and talent. With the help of the massively successful nWo storyline and the high-flying cruiserweights, the company became the strongest in the industry and nearly put the WWF/WWE out of business.

That growth was supported by Turner’s wealth and the mega-companies he created. This is why the WWF did parody segments about Turner, Hogan and Savage in the mid-90s and called them “Billionaire Ted”. They could sense the growing threat he was helping to create in WCW.

Along with his roles at WCW, TBS, TNT and CNN, he also owned the Atlanta Braves and Atlanta Hawks for a few decades. He died on Wednesday after battling dementia in the last years of his life.

After earning a journalism degree in 2017, Jason Burgos worked as a contributor to several sites, including MMA Sacca… More about Jason Burgos