[citation needed] These efforts helped to keep GCW competitive against Vincent K. McMahon’s World Wrestling Federation, as both promotions had secured television deals and the WWF was trying to become a national, as opposed to regional, entity.

Meanwhile, Ole Anderson, who had refused to sell his shares in GCW to the WWF, teamed with fellow holdout shareholders Fred Ward and Ralph Freed to create Championship Wrestling from Georgia.

The deal grew both companies, making JCP's Charlotte-based Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling into a national promotion that became synonymous with the NWA while providing McMahon and Titan Sports with capital needed to stage the first WrestleMania.

Rhodes would be responsible for elevating up-and-coming wrestlers such as Sting, Ricky Steamboat, Magnum T. A., the Road Warriors (Hawk and Animal), and Nikita Koloff, among others, to superstardom.

Conversely, Rhodes planned at one point to have mid-card wrestler Rick Steiner defeat Ric Flair in a five-minute match at Starrcade for the NWA World Heavyweight Championship.

Young stars such as Sid Vicious, Sting, Scott Steiner, The Road Warriors, Brian Pillman, The Great Muta and Lex Luger were given major storylines and championship opportunities.

[29] During contract renegotiation, Flair refused to take a pay cut, be moved away from the main event position, or drop the title to Lex Luger as Herd wanted.

[31] Watts would controversially make top rope moves – which were commonly performed by stars such as Brian Pillman and the Steiner Brothers – illegal during wrestling matches [32] among other changes.

After clashes with management over a number of issues, as well as feeling pressure from Hank Aaron over a racially sensitive piece of correspondence, and accusations of antisemitism from Paul E. Dangerously and Scotty Flamingo (both of whom are Jewish), Watts resigned.

[36] Jim Ross, upset that a man who once answered to him was now his supervisor, requested and received a release from TBS executive Bill Shaw (after suggestion from Bischoff) and ended up in the WWF.

Wrestlers were often forced to appear on-camera with belts they would not actually win for several more months, exposing future WCW storylines to those in attendance (most of whom were tourists who had been coached to cheer and boo on cue).

[44] By November 1993, WCW decided to once again base the promotion around Ric Flair, after prospective top babyface Sid was involved in an incident with Arn Anderson that resulted in the hospitalization of both men [45] while on tour in England, eight weeks before Starrcade, and was fired.

[43] Beginning in 1994, Bischoff aggressively recruited high-profile former stars from WWF, such as Hulk Hogan and "Macho Man" Randy Savage, using Turner's monetary resources.

The new weekly show, WCW Monday Nitro, debuted on September 4, 1995, live from the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota,[47][48] in a timeslot that specifically overlapped with Raw.

Their October 1998 rematch at Halloween Havoc was considered as one of the worst matches in pay-per-view history,[63] and, interest soon dissipated after several unrealistic segments involving the two were aired on WCW programming.

However, Goldberg was kayfabe arrested by the police for stalking Miss Elizabeth and was replaced by the returning Hogan, who had been absent from WCW for several months prior after he claimed to retire from professional wrestling.

Prior to the match, play-by-play announcer Tony Schiavone, under direction from Bischoff, revealed that Mick Foley, portraying his "Mankind" character, would be win the WWF Championship on a taped edition of Raw, sarcastically saying "huh, that's gonna put some butts in the seats".

As part of the deal with KISS, The Demon was contractually obligated to receive a main-event match on a pay-per-view, a stipulation WCW fulfilled by having him lose to midcard wrestler The Wall in under four minutes at SuperBrawl 2000.

Russo and Ferrara tried to replicate the same writing format (known as "Crash TV") they had used in the WWF, but at a more accelerated pace, and would also push the younger talents to phase out aging stars.

They next targeted WWF announcer Jim Ross with a parody character called "Oklahoma," who was played onscreen by Ferrara and would go on to win the WCW Cruiserweight Championship.

[80] The gimmick was very poorly received by many within the wrestling community, claiming that the character was in bad taste (and even sparking a legitimate feud between Ed Ferrara and Jim Cornette, one of Ross' close friends).

[81] Goldberg himself would slice open a major artery in his forearm less than a week later, while punching through a limousine window in Salisbury, Maryland, as part of a storyline that was written by Russo.

[82] Russo and Ferrara were suspended three months later amid rumors that they wanted to make former UFC fighter Tank Abbott the WCW World Heavyweight Champion.

Eddie Guerrero, Dean Malenko, and Perry Saturn among several others, voiced their grievances to Busch, who initially agreed to take Sullivan off Nitro and Thunder, only to turn around and tell them they were all being sent home except Benoit.

The first major storyline to take place following the reboot saw Bischoff and Russo form an on-screen union that stood up for the younger talent in the company (which they dubbed the New Blood)[90] in their battle against the Millionaire's Club, which consisted of the older, higher-paid, and more visible stars such as Hogan, Sting, and Diamond Dallas Page.

Although neither was a trained wrestler, both Russo and actor David Arquette each won the WCW World Heavyweight Championship, the latter in order to promote the film Ready to Rumble.

However, this was an opportunity for Goldberg to heal from previous injuries and Russo was gone from WCW entirely by late 2000, leaving former All Japan Pro Wrestling star Johnny Ace to replace him.

[108] The company's legal name reverted to Universal Wrestling Corporation; it would remain listed as a subsidiary of Time Warner until December 16, 2017, when it was merged into Turner Broadcasting System.

The main event featured Sting defeating Ric Flair with the Scorpion Deathlock as a culmination of their trademark feud, then both men embraced one another at the match's conclusion.

This DVD included several new interviews from Vince McMahon, Jim Crockett, Ric Flair, Dusty Rhodes, Bill Goldberg, as well as many of those responsible for running the NWA and WCW.