World Championship Wrestling

World Championship Wrestling Inc., d/b/a World Championship Wrestling (WCW), is a defunct American professional wrestling promotion, historically based in Atlanta, Georgia. It began as a regional (mid-Atlantic U.S.), National Wrestling Alliance (NWA)-affiliated "territory" promotion, Jim Crockett Promotions (JCP), until November 1988, when Ted Turner (through his Turner Broadcasting System business) bought the promotion, whose struggle to compete with Vince McMahon's World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE) had left it near bankruptcy. Immediately after the buyout, the business was renamed the Universal Wrestling Corporation, and soon after as World Championship Wrestling, which had been the name of JCP's flagship television show. In its early years, WCW was buoyed by established NWA performers such as Ric Flair and Dusty Rhodes, along with emerging stars like Lex Luger, and Sting, who would go on to be dubbed "The Franchise of WCW". In the mid-1990s, WCW dramatically improved its economic performance, largely due to the promotion of Eric Bischoff to Executive Producer; the hiring of renowned WWF stars Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage, Roddy Piper, Diesel (Kevin Nash) and Razor Ramon (Scott Hall); the introduction of the Monday Nitro series on cable TV, and the resultant Monday Night Wars with the WWF's Monday Night Raw; the creative and marketing execution of the New World Order (nWo) brand/stable of wrestlers, which involved Hulk Hogan's shift from perennial fan-favorite to prominent villain; and other innovative concepts. WCW also developed a popular cruiserweight division, which showcased an acrobatic, fast-paced, lucha libre-inspired style of wrestling. Over the next several years, the promotion facilitated the main event rise of performers such as Bill Goldberg, Booker T, Diamond Dallas Page, Scott Steiner, Jeff Jarrett, Eddie Guerrero, Chris Benoit and The Giant (later Big Show in the WWF). WCW eclipsed the WWF in popularity throughout the United States for much of the latter-1990s. However, numerous financial and creative missteps led to the company losing its lead over the WWF. In 2001 selected assets were purchased by the WWF. Since then, WCW images and video footage have been widely distributed in WWE-owned media. Two separate subsidiary companies existed as immediate successors to WCW. WCW, Inc. is the WWE subsidiary established in Delaware in late 2000, initially as W. Acquisition Company, which holds the rights to the WCW video library and other intellectual property. The former WCW entity, which retained liabilities not acquired by WWF, was renamed back to the Universal Wrestling Corporation; it was listed as a subsidiary of Time Warner until 2017, when it was merged into Turner Broadcasting System.