WCW Pro | |
---|---|
Also known as | Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling NWA Pro Wrestling WCW Pro Wrestling |
Created by | Jim Crockett Promotions / World Championship Wrestling |
Starring | See World Championship Wrestling alumni |
Country of origin | United States |
Production | |
Camera setup | Multicamera setup |
Running time | 60 minutes per episode |
Original release | |
Network | Syndicated (1985–1994) TBS (1994–1998) |
Release | January 11, 1958 – September 27, 1998 |
Related | |
WCW Monday Nitro WCW Thunder WCW Saturday Night WCW WorldWide WCW Clash of the Champions |
WCW Pro is an American televised wrestling show that was presented by World Championship Wrestling (WCW). Along with WCW WorldWide , it was part of the WCW Disney tapings. The rights to WCW Pro now belong to WWE and 161 episodes of Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling are available for streaming on NBCUniversal's Peacock in the United States and the WWE Network in international markets. [1]
WCW Pro started off as Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling, [2] [3] one of two weekly syndicated wrestling programs presented by Jim Crockett Promotions (the other was World Wide Wrestling, which in its final form was named WCW WorldWide ). It started airing in 1958. [4] [5]
After the merger of JCP and Georgia Championship Wrestling, in 1986 the show was renamed NWA Pro Wrestling. It was later renamed WCW Pro Wrestling in December 1990 after Turner Broadcasting bought JCP in 1988.
In 1990, a hybrid edition of WCW Pro Wrestling began airing over WPIX in New York City and WGN-TV in Chicago; these two shows featured the same matches as the national version, but with wraparound segments localized for the specific markets inserted.
Jim Ross and Paul E. Dangerously hosted WPIX's WCW Pro New York. In late-September 1991, the New York version moved to WCBS-TV where the show aired in a late-night Saturday slot. However, after only a few weeks, the local version was dropped and WCBS-TV replaced it with the national version of the show. In April 1992, WCW Pro was replaced in New York altogether by WCW WorldWide (the show that WCW Pro New York replaced two years earlier on WPIX), which stayed on WCBS-TV for the next five years. WPXN-TV later picked up WCW Pro for its lineup, airing the show from 1996 until its cancellation.
WCW Pro Chicago was hosted by Tony Schiavone and veteran WGN sports broadcaster Jack Brickhouse. This show was also simulcast on WGN's national feed. Sometime in 1991, Brickhouse would leave commentary on the Chicago version to host his own segment on the program, "Brickhouse Bonus", and Larry Zbyszko took over Jack's old spot on commentary. WCW Pro Chicago would last until 1993.
In 1994 the show, now available on very few local stations, was added to TBS on Saturday mornings in place of WCW's ill-fated WCW Power Hour on March 12, 1994. Some stations continued to air it in syndication, however. The show title also was shortened to simply WCW Pro.
In November 1995, WCW started taping WCW Pro at the Disney/MGM Studios (and later to Universal Studios Florida) as well. Starting August 25, 1996, the show moved from its established TBS timeslot of Saturday morning at 9:05 am EST to Sunday afternoons at 5:05 pm EST, where it remained until it was canceled by TBS and replaced by WCW Thunder in January 1998. Shortly afterwards the now syndication-only WCW Pro became a weekly highlights and recap show with one or two exclusive matches a week. Scott Hudson and Larry Zbyszko hosted the in-studio segments while Lee Marshall and Mike Tenay called the matches. TBS would continue to air Thunder and Saturday Night .
In late September 1998, WCW Pro was canceled.
WCW Pro had two title changes.
Jim Crockett Promotions is a family-owned professional wrestling promotion headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, United States. Founded in 1931, the promotion emerged as a cornerstone of the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA). By the 1980s, Jim Crockett Promotions was, along with the World Wrestling Federation, one of the two largest promotions in the United States. The Crockett family sold a majority interest in the promotion to Turner Broadcasting System, resulting in the creation of World Championship Wrestling (WCW) in 1988. In 2022, Jim Crockett Promotions Inc. was restarted by Jim Crockett's son and Jim Crockett Jr's brother, David Crockett.
The Universal Wrestling Federation was a 1986 re-branding of wrestler-turned-owner Bill Watts' Mid-South Wrestling promotion. Watts' goal was to elevate his promotion from a relatively smaller, regional-level business, to a national-level rival of the World Wrestling Federation. However, Watts' business strategy quickly swung from "overnight" success to catastrophic failure, resulting in the 1987 sale of the UWF to another rival: Jim Crockett Promotions. The promotion began as an NWA territory, NWA Tri-State, founded by Leroy McGuirk in the 1950s. Tri-State/Mid-South/UWF promoted in Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi until 1987.
Richard Henry Blood Sr., better known by his ring name Ricky "the Dragon" Steamboat, is an American retired professional wrestler best known for his work with the American Wrestling Association (AWA), Jim Crockett Promotions (JCP), World Championship Wrestling (WCW), and the World Wrestling Federation. Steamboat is regarded as one of the greatest and most influential professional wrestlers of all time.
Barry Clinton Windham is an American retired professional wrestler. The son of wrestler Blackjack Mulligan, he is best known for his appearances with the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) and World Championship Wrestling (WCW).
Paul Worden Taylor III is an American retired professional wrestler better known by his ring name Terry Taylor and for his time as an in-ring performer in National Wrestling Alliance, World Championship Wrestling, and World Wrestling Federation/Entertainment. From 2003 until 2011, he worked as a road agent, trainer, interviewer and the director of talent relations in Total Nonstop Action Wrestling. Since 2012, Taylor has worked as a trainer in WWE's developmental territory, NXT.
Robert Rechsteiner is an American retired professional wrestler, better known by the ring name Rick Steiner.
Kendall Wayne Windham is an American retired professional wrestler best known for his appearances with World Championship Wrestling. He is the son of Blackjack Mulligan and the brother of Barry Windham.
The Midnight Express was the name used by several professional wrestling tag teams of changing members, usually under the management of Jim Cornette. The group started in 1980 with Dennis Condrey and Randy Rose in Southeast Championship Wrestling. In 1981 they were joined by Norvell Austin. This group disbanded in 1983, but later the same year a new version of the Midnight Express was formed in Mid-South Wrestling by teaming up Condrey and Bobby Eaton, with Cornette as their manager. After leaving Mid-South, the Midnight Express competed briefly in WCCW (Dallas) before moving on to Jim Crockett Promotions (JCP). Condrey left in 1987, and was replaced by Stan Lane. Eaton and Lane competed in JCP and WCW, where they briefly feuded with "The Original Midnight Express" of Condrey and Rose. This version of the Midnight Express disbanded in October 1990 when Cornette and Lane left WCW. In 1998, the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) teamed up Bob Holly and Bart Gunn as "The Midnight Express", who were also managed by Jim Cornette. From 2004 until 2011 various combinations of Condrey, Eaton, and Lane competed as The Midnight Express on the independent circuit.
Clash of the Champions is an American series of professional wrestling television specials that were produced by World Championship Wrestling (WCW) and Jim Crockett Promotions (JCP) in conjunction with the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA). The specials were supercards comprising pay-per-view caliber matches, similar to the World Wrestling Federation's Saturday Night's Main Event series. The Clash of the Champions shows were famous for typically not airing commercials during matches even though many of these matches lasted 20 minutes or more.
The WCW United States Tag Team Championship, originally known as the NWA United States Tag Team Championship (Mid-Atlantic version), was a professional wrestling tag team championship contested for previously in the United States]based Jim Crockett Promotions (JCP) and World Championship Wrestling (WCW) professional wrestling promotions.
George South is an American professional wrestler. In the course of his career, South has wrestled for professional wrestling promotions such as Jim Crockett Promotions, World Championship Wrestling and the World Wrestling Federation.
Georgia Championship Wrestling is an American professional wrestling promotion based in Atlanta, Georgia. The promotion was affiliated with what had been the world's top sanctioning body of championship titles for decades before, the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA), and ran live wrestling shows throughout its geographic "territory" of Georgia. The company was also known for its self-titled TV program, which aired on Atlanta-based superstation WTBS from the 1970s until 1984 when its timeslot was purchased by the World Wrestling Federation.
WCW Saturday Night is an American weekly Saturday night television show on TBS that was produced by World Championship Wrestling (WCW). Launched in 1971 initially by Georgia Championship Wrestling, the program existed through various incarnations under different names before becoming WCW Saturday Night in 1992. Although initially the anchor show of the Turner Broadcasting-backed wrestling company, the September 1995 premiere of WCW Monday Nitro airing on sister station TNT usurped the show's once preeminent position in the company, as the primary source of storyline development and pay-per-view buildup.
WCW WorldWide is an American syndicated television show that was produced by World Championship Wrestling (WCW) that aired from October 8, 1975, to March 31, 2001. At the time of its cancellation, WorldWide was the longest-running, uninterrupted weekly syndicated show of any kind on the air in the United States.
In American professional wrestling, the term Black Saturday refers to Saturday, July 14, 1984, the day when Vince McMahon's World Wrestling Federation took over the timeslot on Superstation WTBS that had been home to Georgia Championship Wrestling (GCW) and its flagship weekly program, World Championship Wrestling, for twelve years. McMahon's purchase led to a longstanding rivalry between himself and WTBS owner Ted Turner, who later bought GCW's successor on the network Jim Crockett Promotions (JCP) and formed his own company under the World Championship Wrestling (WCW) name.
WCW Main Event, originally NWA Main Event, is an American televised wrestling program of World Championship Wrestling (WCW) that aired from April 3, 1988 to January 3, 1998. For most of its run, it was the promotion's secondary show and aired on Sunday evenings on TBS. The show originally aired in 1988 as NWA Main Event. The rights to WCW Main Event now belong to WWE.
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The Great American Bash is a professional wrestling event held during the summer and has been produced by the American promotion WWE since 2004; since 2020, it has been held as an annual event for WWE's developmental brand, NXT. Created by Dusty Rhodes, the event was originally established in 1985 and was produced by the National Wrestling Alliance's (NWA) Jim Crockett Promotions (JCP). It originally aired on closed-circuit television until 1988 when it began broadcasting on pay-per-view (PPV), and later that same year, JCP was rebranded as World Championship Wrestling (WCW), which seceded from the NWA in January 1991.
World Championship Wrestling (WCW) was an American professional wrestling promotion that existed from 1988 to 2001. It began as a promotion affiliated with the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) that appeared on the national scene under the ownership of media mogul Ted Turner and based in Atlanta, Georgia. Prior to the launch of WCW as a separate promotion, the "World Championship Wrestling" name was used for a television program produced by NWA promotions Georgia Championship Wrestling and Jim Crockett Promotions on TBS; the name came from an Australian wrestling promotion of the 1970s.
The following is a historical overview television coverage provided the National Wrestling Alliance's territories. The NWA began in 1948 as a governing body for a group of independent professional wrestling promotions.