In professional wrestling, Black Saturday refers to Saturday, July 14, 1984. On that date, Vince McMahon and his World Wrestling Federation (WWF) took over the Saturday night time slot on Superstation WTBS that had been home to Georgia Championship Wrestling (GCW) and its flagship weekly program, World Championship Wrestling, for twelve years.
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Georgia Championship Wrestling's first weekly television series had premiered on then-WTCG in 1972 when station owner Ted Turner purchased the rights to air the program from station WQXI. From that date, GCW's program aired for two hours (from 6-8 PM and later from 6:05 to 8:05 following the introduction of TBS' "Turner Time" in 1981) every Saturday night. In 1976, GCW became the first National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) territory to earn a national cable television contract as the soon-to-be-renamed Superstation WTBS began to be carried by various cable and satellite providers nationwide.
In 1982, Georgia Championship Wrestling renamed its weekly program World Championship Wrestling, a name the entire promotion would grow to be identified by. Jack Brisco and Gerald Brisco had major stakes in the organization while Ole Anderson was head booker and was basically in charge of operations. GCW's program was hosted by NWA announcer Gordon Solie, who also hosted programs for various other NWA affiliated promotions at the time (such as NWA Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling). World Championship Wrestling was a program featuring the "rasslin'" style of wrestling, that emphasized a more athletic product and put less emphasis on cartoonish gimmicks.
In 1983, WWF owner Vince McMahon, who promoted the cartoonish gimmicks that GCW fans were not traditionally supportive of and who several years earlier had begun to expand his promotion nationwide, took control of the other major cable television contract at the time when he purchased a Sunday morning time slot for his All American Wrestling program on the USA Network. The following year, in addition to the cable contract and his nationally syndicated offerings (WWF Championship Wrestling and WWF All-Star Wrestling), McMahon expanded further by premiering Tuesday Night Titans on USA.
Later in 1984, McMahon decided that, as part of his continued expansion, the WWF needed a second national cable outlet for its weekly programming. The only other national cable deal available at the moment was the one GCW had with TBS; should McMahon acquire this outlet, he would control all nationally-televised professional wrestling in the United States. As such, he approached Turner with an offer to buy the Saturday night GCW time slot. Turner, however, refused his offer almost immediately, and McMahon was forced to find another method to achieve his goal.
McMahon found that method shortly after his rejection by Turner. While GCW's programming had a loyal fan base and was fairly popular, things were not as great for the promotion behind the scenes. The source of the problem was Ole Anderson, who had begun to alienate his fellow owners with his booking and operation of the company. Seeing this turmoil, McMahon approached the Brisco brothers and Jim Barnett, who agreed to sell their shares in GCW to McMahon. This gave the WWF a majority stake in GCW and put it in control of the Saturday night World Championship Wrestling show.
The last World Championship Wrestling program under GCW control aired on July 7, 1984. The July 14 program opened with show co-host Freddie Miller (Gordon Solie was absent for reasons never made clear; he either resigned in protest or was terminated following the purchase, as were many other people involved with the production) introducing McMahon and welcoming the WWF to TBS. McMahon promised the GCW fans who were tuned in that they would enjoy his new program just as much.
However, unlike World Championship Wrestling, which been a weekly show from the TBS studios in Atlanta, the WWF's TBS show at first consisted solely of highlights from the WWF's USA and syndicated programming, as well as house show clips from Madison Square Garden, Boston Garden, and most of the other major arenas it did business in. This was in direct violation of a promise McMahon had made at the time of the purchase to provide original programming for TBS,[1] including having shows taped at the TBS studios. Eventually, the WWF would have in-studio squash matches on the show on an infrequent basis. During this time, the show was co-hosted by Miller and Gorilla Monsoon, with Monsoon serving as the play-by-play announcer and Miller serving as the ring announcer.
The WWF show on TBS was a ratings disaster from the start. GCW's core audience, which as mentioned before was not impressed with the WWF's approach to the wrestling business, began writing and calling TBS in droves,[2] furious over the fact that GCW was no longer airing on the station and demanding to know why. Thousands of complaints were received, many of which focused on the loss of Gordon Solie.[3] Turner himself was angered by the sinking ratings and made two decisions that would fix the ratings problem.
First, Turner made an offer to Bill Watts, a promoter who ran Mid South Wrestling out of Oklahoma, to take a Sunday afternoon time slot on TBS.[4] Turner then gave Ole Anderson's Championship Wrestling from Georgia,[2] an NWA-affiliated promotion regarded as the successor to GCW with Gordon Solie as its announcer, a weekly time slot on Saturday mornings.[5] McMahon was not happy with either of Turner's decisions, thinking his control of GCW would make the WWF the exclusive wrestling company on TBS. Whatever anger he may have felt was turned into embarrassment, as both Mid South Wrestling and Championship Wrestling from Georgia outdid the WWF in ratings.
Losing money on the deal and desperately looking for help, McMahon turned to Jim Barnett. He directed McMahon to NWA President Jim Crockett, Jr., the owner of Jim Crockett Promotions, which promoted wrestling shows in Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina. At the time, Crockett was trying to counter the WWF's national expansion by unifying the remaining NWA territories that McMahon had not driven out of business into one nationwide unit. Crockett, who had just bought out Ole Anderson's Georgia promotion, bought the World Championship Wrestling program from McMahon for $1 million (US) and returned NWA programming to TBS. This promotion would eventually become the modern World Championship Wrestling (WCW) when Turner bought the promotion from Crockett in 1988 and later withdrew it from the NWA.
Despite his failed takeover of the TBS wrestling time slot, McMahon did not have his USA Network contract or syndicated programming affected in any way. In fact, USA gave McMahon another time slot when WWF Prime Time Wrestling, a similar program to the WWF's TBS show that aired on Mondays and was a forerunner to the current Monday Night Raw, debuted early in 1985.
Due in large part to both parties' actions, McMahon and Turner began a rivalry that would continue for over a decade, which finally ended in 2001 after McMahon purchased a bankrupt WCW from AOL Time Warner, which had purchased Turner's assets in 1996.
Additionally, Turner's decision to give time slots to Bill Watts and Ole Anderson indirectly led to other wrestling organizations gaining national cable television contracts. Verne Gagne's AWA debuted on ESPN in 1985 and aired on the network until the company folded in 1991. Fritz Von Erich's World Class Championship Wrestling (WCCW) joined ESPN in 1986 and its Dallas-based successors, the United States Wrestling Association (USWA) and the Global Wrestling Federation (GWF), later occupied time slots on the network as well. In addition, Herb Abrams' UWF had a weekly program that aired on SportsChannel America. None of these companies were doing business by 1994, with the exception of the Memphis-based branch of the USWA, which folded in 1997. During these few years, Philadelphia-based Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) took over as the third-largest wrestling company in North America, behind the WWF and WCW.
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