Launched in 1971 initially by Georgia Championship Wrestling, the program existed through various incarnations under different names before becoming WCW Saturday Night in 1992.

On December 25, 1971, Georgia Championship Wrestling aired its first show on WTCG, a UHF independent station in Atlanta, as a Christmas special.

Beginning in late January 1972, the promotion switched its Atlanta television outlet from its longtime home, WQXI-TV (now WXIA-TV) to WTCG.

Some wrestlers, such as Roddy Piper, believed that national expansion was Barnett's intention, but he was wary of crossing organized crime figures involved with the business.

WTBS owner Ted Turner had requested the name change in hopes of giving the wrestling programming on the Superstation a less regional scope.

April 15, 1989, marked the first episode of WCW held at Center Stage, with Jim Ross and Michael Hayes commentating (reuniting the announce team from the old Mid-South and UWF programs from 1986 to 1987).

In 1984, WWF owner Vince McMahon, hoping to expand the national reach of his Stamford, Connecticut-based company, bought a majority stake in the Georgia territory, and its WTBS time slot, for $750,000.

[6] Freddie Miller, an announcer, was the only member of the original Georgia Championship Wrestling on-air cast who did not either quit in protest or get replaced by McMahon.

Turner, angry both at the declining ratings and at McMahon's reneging on his promise of original programming for the WTBS time slot, made two moves to correct the problem.

Firstly, he offered Ole Anderson, who had refused to sell his minority interest in GCW to McMahon and instead formed a successor promotion known as Championship Wrestling from Georgia (CWG), a 7:00 a.m. time slot on Saturday mornings.

These moves upset McMahon, who had assumed that the WWF would be the sole provider of professional wrestling content on WTBS with his purchase of GCW.

Turner disagreed, citing McMahon's aforementioned breaking of his promise to provide original WWF programming for the WTBS time slot.

Eventually, McMahon cut his losses and sold the former GCW time slot to Jim Crockett Promotions (JCP) for $1 million in March 1985.

The November 5, 1988, edition of World Championship Wrestling began with "Nature Boy" Ric Flair addressing the crowd and pointing out a large group of Turner Broadcasting executives in attendance.

[12] This reflected an overhauled look and a new home studio-arena at the Center Stage Theater in Atlanta with matches taking place in Gainesville, Georgia.

The show was given a new look again in March 1994,[13] with a futuristic design with a unique entry way of slide-open doors and billowing smoke as the performers made their way to the ring.

When WCW introduced the live program Monday Nitro on TNT in September 1995, the pre-taped Saturday Night became secondary in importance.

Backstage, "Mean Gene" Okerlund would regularly promote his WCW Hotline which provided fans with insider information on recent events in the company.

[16] On April 1, 2000, WCW Saturday Night aired its final episode under its traditional format; one week later, it became a recap show and no longer featured exclusive matches.