World Championship Wrestling: Difference between revisions

WCW started as a regional promotion, Jim Crockett Promotions (which was affiliated with the National Wrestling Alliance, NWA). The "World Championship Wrestling" name was used in various forms by various promotions affiliated with the NWA. When Ted Turner purchased JCP, the company began using the WCW name full-time. Turner was bought out by Time Warner in 1996; WCW's association with the NWA was dissolved in 1991 (and fully ended in 1993), which resulted in the NWA's World Heavyweight Championship becoming a WCW belt, as WCW owned it (the "Big Gold Belt", as it came to be known - now WWE's World Heavyweight belt).

WCW's fortunes didn't really pick up, however, until they came up with an idea that was as simple as it was brilliant. When [[Scott Hall]] and [[Kevin Nash]] (Razor Ramon and Diesel in the WWF) defected to WCW, people wondered if they were actually under contract to WCW or if they'd been sent by the WWF to "invade" the promotion. Bischoff ran with this and labeled Hall and Nash "The Outsiders", booking it as though they were looking to destroy WCW from the inside out. But they weren't alone: leading up to the 1996 ''Bash At The Beach'' pay-per-view, Hall and Nash teased a "third member" of their group and threatened to bring a "[[New World Order]]" to the WCW. At the event, The Outsiders (and their "third man") were booked to face Lex Luger, [[Randy Savage]], and Sting, but the Outsiders chose not to reveal their third man just yet, leaving them in a 2-on-3 situation. During the match, Luger was incapacitated, leaving it as a 2-on-2 match; eventually, [[Hulk Hogan]] came out to the ring, looking as if he was going to aid Sting and Savage - [[Face Heel Turn|and then he turned on them]], helping the Outsiders beat down both men and revealing himself as the third member of the group. From this moment - and Hogan's now-famous post-match promo - was born the nWo.

** ''Everybody'' had this problem in the [[Vince Russo]] era.

* [[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 [[WWE|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.

{{quote| '''Tony Schiavone''': That's gonna put some butts in the seats!}}

* [[Incompetence, Inc.]]: This trope has always been present to some degree. But WCW from mid-1999 until the bitter end took this trope into new heights. For the year of 2000, WCW managed to lose ''$80 million''. This is what lead to WCW getting sold to main rival the WWF for about $3 million.

* [[Insistent Terminology]]: Eric Bischoff insisted on the term "Cruiserweight" instead of "Light Heavyweight" because he felt the latter made the smaller wrestlers seem less important.

** There was also a period of time which Ted Turner handed down a mandate that [[Political Correctness Gone Mad|banned the word "foreign" from being used on his network in favor of the word "international."]] As such, [[Scunthorpe Problem|foreign objects became "international objects" on WCW television]].

** Hell, they screwed up with the guy who would become ''[[The Undertaker|The Fucking Undertaker]]''. Uhm... how the hell do you do that? He was practically the image of everything people wanted in wrestling at the time!

** [[Triple H]] too. He debuted in WCW in 1994 as a generic blonde heel jobber named Terra Ryzin, then got repackaged as a snobby [[Evil Foreigner]] named Jean-Paul Levesque in a tagteam with Lord Steven Regal. In January 1995 he jumped ship to WWE after being turned down for a singles push and the rest as they say is history.

** Inverted with [[Bret Hart]]: He ''had'' caught on in the WWF--but WCW didn't have a clue what to do with him.

** There were also many who would still travel in a full-time schedule on the company's dime without working any matches. Only in 2000 did they start to only fly out any talent who were actually regularly being booked.

* [[Name's the Same]]: Australia's major wrestling promotion in the 60s and 70s was also called World Championship Wrestling. It was owned by American promoter Jim Barnett, who had a stake in the American WCW (the Georgia incarnation) before Black Saturday and was a consultant for the later Turner-owned promotion.

* [[Spotlight-Stealing Squad]]: The NWO, to the point that in the ''Nitro'' prior to ''Starrcade'' 1997, the NWO [[Hostile Show Takeover|took over the show]] and renamed it ''NWO Monday Nitro''.

* [[Springtime for Hitler]]: ''Nitro'' was originally supposed to be this, according to Matt Randazzo. The idea was, by going head-to-head, WCW would screw up so badly that Turner would be forced to pull the plug on it. It only took them seven years.

* [[Take That]]: Especially during the Monday Night Wars.

* [[Unrelated Brothers]]: Subverted with the Steiner Brothers and Harlem Heat.