[Stardust]

There has never been a more meaningful, profitable, emotional, tragic or exciting time in the world of professional wrestling than the era known as the Monday Night War. Not before or since. The Monday Night War era officially started when WcW Monday Nitro began on September 5, 1995. No one thought it was going to be a very significant program, not to mention just how serious an impact it was going to make. It started out as a notch on the TNT fall schedule, and within two years, almost put the WWE (then WWF) out of business.

Not any other company in the industry had ever been a threat to the WWF, as it sat high atop the world of sports entertainment since the early 80's, when Vince McMahon inherited the company from his father. McMahon Sr. always had a working relationship with regional promotions and had always agreed to be a fair competitor. Once Vince junior took over, he raided, if not wiped out, most of the talent from those same promotions, completely against his father's wishes.

At the outset of cable television growth, professional wrestling was a factor in its success as it was cheap to produce and usually scored high ratings. Georgia Championship Wrestling, under the National Wrestling Alliance banner in the mid to late 1980's, was the # 2 promotion in the business. A distant second, but second just the same. It had a steady home on the Ted Turner owned and operated WTCG in Atlanta, which became Superstation TBS in the late 1970's. Jack and Jerry Brisco were the primary stockholders of the company, and in 1984, sold their shares to Vince McMahon. WWF programming filled that time slot which was known as "Black Saturday" and after the strong GCW fanbase refused to watch the family friendly WWF product, it went back to GCW two weeks later, but in a morning timeslot. McMahon had agreed to air originally run GCW programming for TBS, but instead chose to air a WWF clipshow. In 1985, Vince McMahon, under pressure from Ted Turner, sold the GCW shares to Jim Crockett promotions. This set in motion a rivalry between McMahon and Turner that would only increase over the next decade and a half.

The war, by definition, actually started on pay-per-view in 1987. At the time, most pay-per-view companies could only air one live program at a time, and Starrcade was scheduled for Thanksgiving of that year. McMahon's WWF decided to debut a new ppv, entitled Survivor Series, on exactly the same night. The WWF then threatened that any cable company that chose not to carry Survivor Series would not carry any WWF pay-per-views sixty days before and twenty-one days after the show. A 10-1 vote later saw the Survivor Series win out. WWF was subsequently warned by the pay per view industry to avoid such an incident again. McMahon would heed that warning, but would go up against Jim Crockett promotions again two months later, when the WWF aired the inaugural Royal Rumble free on the USA Network, up against NWA's Bunkhouse Stampede ppv. Later that year, Crockett utilized McMahon's practices against him, when they aired the very first Clash of Champions up against Wrestlemania IV. Crockett did this again the following year, against Wrestlemania V, but the Clash was not a ratings success, so they decided to not do that again...for the time being.

Throughout the 1980s, Crockett had steadily bought out other NWA-affiliated promotions in an attempt to make his organization a national one similar to the WWF. As a result, the term "NWA" became virtually synonymous with Crockett's company (JCP), based out of North Carolina. By 1988, however, Crockett's acquisition spree had severely drained his coffers, and he was forced to sell the company to Ted Turner, whose TBS aired JCP television programs. Turner renamed the company WCW after the popular former GCW show; it remained affiliated with the NWA until it seceded in 1993.

[I][I]The late 80's through the early 90's saw plenty of front office shake ups within WcW. Executive VP Jim Herd attempted to incorporate a more family friendly style to the company in an effort to compete with the WWF, who had seen nearly a decade of fortune with that very mentality. It failed miserably in WCW, as the more hardcore fanbase rejected it. Further mismanagement led to the departure of Ric Flair. There was at one time a deposit requirement for the company champions somewhere in the neighborhood of the tens of thousands of dollars. Herd and Flair constantly butted heads, and when Flair was eventually granted his release, he was not given back his deposit. Flair would soon appear in the WWF with the WCW title belt in tow. Herd was fired by the end of the year. Enter 1992, and Kip Allen Fry, a Turner exec, who replaced Herd but only for a few months. His replacement was Bill Watts, former wrestler throughout the 60's and 70's, and owner of the UWF, which was bought out by Turner in the mid to late 80's. The UWF was heralded as a company ahead of its time, what with revolutionary production values, the use of popular music for video montages, and edgy, compelling storylines as told through highly competitive often violent matches. [/I][/I]