World Championship Wrestling: Difference between revisions

[[WCW]], or '''World Championship Wrestling''', is a now-defunct [[Professional Wrestling]] promotion that operated under the corporate umbrella of Time Warner from 1988 until 2001. They're most notable for doing something that nobody else in the business had done before, or has since: namely, they beat the [[WWEWorld Wrestling Entertainment|WWF]] at their own game for (as former WCW president Eric Bischoff famously put it) 84 weeks in a row. Naturally, this success didn't come right away.

* [[Hilarious in Hindsight]]: For a period in late '96, Ultimo Dragon defended the J-Crown, a collection of cruiserweight/light heavyweight championships from various promotions unified into one collective (and [[Too Many Belts|cumbersome]]) title. At Starrcade '96, he defeated [[Dean Malenko]] and added the WCW Cruiserweight championship to the J-Crown in the only time the J-Crown collection was seen on American television. What makes this so hilarious? One of the titles that made up the J-Crown was the [[WWEWorld Wrestling Entertainment|WWF Light Heavyweight championship]] <ref>When first created, the Light Heavyweight title was defended almost exclusively in Mexico, making it a WWF title pretty much [[In Name Only]]. Over time, it made its way to Japan, where it eventually became part of the J-Crown. When the WWF got it in its head to start a dedicated cruiserweight division in late '97, they went through the books and found out they already had a perfectly good Light Heavyweight title belt they'd given out on loan for over a decade ''and had no idea where it was!'' After some searching, they tracked it to [[New Japan Pro Wrestling]] and finally got it back for their inaugural tournament.</ref>, meaning that Ultimo Dragon was a legitimate WWF championship titleholder and was legitimately defending that title on a WCW pay-per-view, ''and neither organization realized it'' until months later.

* [[Loads and Loads of Characters]]: At its height, WCW had over 240 wrestlers on its roster. Unlike most examples, though, only perhaps half of them were ever actually seen on television. This was both a deliberate plan and a grievous error on WCW's part. Part of their plan on competing with the [[WWEWorld Wrestling Entertainment|WWF]] was to buy up competing talent for the sole purpose of keeping them from signing with the competition. While some were given spots on WCW programming, most others (mostly [[C-List Fodder]]) simply got to lay back and collect paychecks while "working" under a non-compete agreement. Unfortunately for WCW, even this plan got away from them, as the sheer number of wrestlers became unmanageable on a week to week basis. At the time, wrestlers were paid on a per-show basis, whether or not they actually worked on that show. Attendance was taken by signing your own name in on a clipboard. A fair number of [[Genre Savvy]] workers, knowing full well that WCW didn't have any intention of actually using them, simply stayed at home and had friends of theirs on the roster sign in their names in their place.