Posted in: Sports, TV, WWE | Tagged: ted turner, wcw, wrestling

Ted Turner & WCW Left Wrestling Void That Hasn't Been Filled Since

Ted Turner, who passed away at 87, not only helped shape cable but also elevated professional wrestling into what it is today with WCW.

As TKO scrambles to gut WWE payroll these days in the company's latest exodus, there was a time when pro wrestlers struggled to make ends meet, getting horrendously overworked, weathering mounting injuries, to keep chasing their dreams. As Vince K. McMahon took over his father's company to take the WWF, now WWE, national, absorbing other promotions' talent along the way, there wasn't any major competition to deal with the McMahon juggernaut until Ted Turner purchased Jim Crockett Promotions in November 1988, where it was rebranded as WCW. For the better part of 12 years, the company made household names out of home growns like Ric Flair, Sting, Lex Luger, Dusty Rhodes, Diamond Dallas Page, Kevin Sullivan, Booker T, Bill Goldberg, and former WWF top talent like Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, Hulk Hogan, and Bret Hart would help carry the torch to battle WWF for prime time cable supremacy Mondays and Thursdays as their signature programs like WCW's Monday Nitro on TBS and Thunder on TNT against WWF's Monday Night Raw on cable's USA Network and SmackDown on broadcast's UPN. With Turner's passing on May 6th, it truly represents the end of an era.

How Ted Turner Forever Changed Pro-Wrestling with WCW and Things Haven't Been the Same Since

One thing Turner had that McMahon didn't have much of at the time: money, with WCW President Eric Bischoff regularly signing WWF talent to far more lucrative deals. In addition, there was some heavy leaning on the revolutionary storyline he borrowed from New Japan, which would become the New World Order, turning WCW into weekly wrestling gang warfare as the babyfaces "battled" the heel faction looking to "take over." How much did WCW get under McMahon's skin? Well, the desperate WWF literally produced segments mocking Turner, Hogan, and "Macho Man" Randy Savage. They also had then, WWF play-by-play commentator and VP of Talent Relations (now with AEW) Jim Ross introduce "fake" versions of Nash and Hall's former WWF personas, Diesel and Razor Ramon, played by Rick Bognar and the future Kane, Glenn Jacobs.

Unfortunately, as the "Monday Night War" progressed, things started to get stale far more in WCW, as no amount of talent purges from the WWF and much smaller ECW could overcome the diminished returns in the writing and matches. Fans started to leave in droves as WWE leaned more on its smaller core talent during the "Attitude Era," like Stone Cold Steve Austin, an established mid-carder in WCW. Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson found his voice in the heel faction, Nation of Domination, and became arguably the company's biggest homegrown talent alongside mainstays like The Undertaker and Shawn Michaels. Other emerging talent, like Kane and former WCW talent Mick Foley/Mankind, also became top talent.

While WCW still had something for everyone from the big names, talented mat technicians, and luchadores, fans ultimately soured as Bischoff decided to spoil Raw's pre-taped results that saw Foley winning the WWF Championship on Nitro, which horrendously backfired with Nitro's dramatic drop in viewership. It wasn't just the diminishing faith in the product; AOL Time Warner was also undergoing corporate reshuffling, in a financial freefall that ultimately saw it sell its assets. As Bischoff lined up a buyer for WCW, the deal fell through when AOL Time Warner canceled all the company's TV programming on TBS and TNT, and McMahon ultimately bought his rival in 2001, not long after also acquiring the assets of ECW.

Even with WWE becoming the only major wrestling promotion in the nation, their spendthrift ways cost them invaluable time as they lowballed top WCW talent from coming into the company as they decided to sit on their grandfathered AOL Time Warner deals depriving fans of a quality WWE vs WCW invasion story with piss-poor booking of former main event talent with the nWo, Scott Steiner and Sting (who joined in 2015 in a brief stint), with the exception of Booker T, Goldberg, and Rey Mysterio.

While WWE has a wealth of documentaries on what went wrong with WCW, no one can deny that pro wrestlers have improved the overall quality of their professional lives because of Turner, even if the landscape remains unbalanced. While TNA Wrestling offered that alternative since 2001, it's All Elite Wrestling that's stepped up as a clear number two since its founding in 2019 under Tony Khan. Despite not having the media influence like Turner did, the fact that it has sustained for the better part of seven years is a blessing, and adding to that, the company can clearly pay its talent where it's financially viable to sustain as a wrestler in the long term.

Could Turner have been more hands-on as an owner, like Khan is now? It's hard to say because Turner has built such a massive media empire on cable from CNN, TBS, TNT, and others to focus on, the Atlanta Braves, and much of the top WCW talent like Nash and Hogan also had the clout for booking, and it was hardly democratic. Perhaps, given the current state of the wrestling business, you need a mogul like Turner, with the resources to elevate the business to WWE's type of level of reach, and Khan's passion for booking to compete. As we're finding out, Vince McMahon has been replaced (with the equally soulless conglomerate that is TKO), but no one can replace Ted Turner and his impact on pro-wrestling. Should WWE induct him into their Hall of Fame? Definitely, but under TKO? Maybe not if they're going to stash him in the Legacy wing.

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