History Of WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment)
Ted Turner Gets Involved
In order to compete with the WWF, Jim Crockett had to spend more money to keep his wrestlers and saw the pay per view industry as his way to make that money. His first event was to be Starrcade 87 on Thanksgiving night. However, Vince McMahon countered with his own programming called the Survivor Series and informed cable operators they could have either his show or Crockett's, and more importantly he might withhold WrestleMania 4 from any cable operators that showed Starrcade.
Only a handful of cable operators showed the Jim Crockett PPV event. For Crockett's second PPV try, the WWF countered with a free program on the USA network called the Royal Rumble. Again Crockett was thwarted. The only shot he got on Vince in this war was when he broadcast the Clash of Champions for free against WrestleMania IV. Due in part to Vince's maneuvers, some bad business deals, and some worse booking, Crockett was going to go out of business. The only person who didn't want this to happen was Ted Turner. Wrestling was the top rated show on his network and he had a soft spot in his heart for the sport. In addition, he had a bad business deal with Vince over programming Vince showed on his network a few years back. Ted purchased the Jim Crockett's portion of the NWA and later renamed it World Championship Wrestling.
The Burst of the Wrestling Bubble
The first several years of Turner's reign of wrestling were marred by incompetence that would have put the company out of business if Ted did not let his executives know that wrestling would always be on his network.
The WWF couldn't take advantage of this because they had their own problems. In the early '90s, they were hit with both a sex scandal involving minors and a steroid trial that almost sent Vince to jail for a long time. During this time, the quality of his product suffered greatly. The only good thing to come out of this era was a new TV show called RAW that aired on Monday nights. This show was different from the other wrestling programming on TV in that the matches were competitive. In the prior eras of wrestling, the TV shows were used to showcase the stars by having them beat up scrubs.
The Monday Night War Begins
After several bad executives running WCW, Eric Bischoff took over and decided to use Turner's money to lure away wrestlers from the WWF and most importantly, he was able to sign the retired Hulk Hogan. In 1995, he started a new program called Monday Nitro which aired against Monday Night RAW on Turner's station TNT. Having control of the network allowed Bischoff to time the segments of his shows to counteract whatever the WWF was doing. In a move of brilliance, he also would give away the results of Raw (when it wasn't) live right before the WWF show would go on the air. The best the WWF mustered up to counter this were some bad parody skits involving Billionaire Ted, The Huckster & The Nacho Man. Then things got even worse for the WWF when they lost two of their biggest stars, Kevin Nash and Scott Hall. In 1996, they joined WCW and formed the New World Order with a heel Hollywood Hogan. The WWF was getting destroyed in the ratings as they countered this cutting edge programming with wrestlers with dumb gimmicks (ex: wrestling garbage man, wrestling plumber, wrestling hockey player). The WWF need to make a change fast if they wanted to survive.
In order to compete with the WWF, Jim Crockett had to spend more money to keep his wrestlers and saw the pay per view industry as his way to make that money. His first event was to be Starrcade 87 on Thanksgiving night. However, Vince McMahon countered with his own programming called the Survivor Series and informed cable operators they could have either his show or Crockett's, and more importantly he might withhold WrestleMania 4 from any cable operators that showed Starrcade.
Only a handful of cable operators showed the Jim Crockett PPV event. For Crockett's second PPV try, the WWF countered with a free program on the USA network called the Royal Rumble. Again Crockett was thwarted. The only shot he got on Vince in this war was when he broadcast the Clash of Champions for free against WrestleMania IV. Due in part to Vince's maneuvers, some bad business deals, and some worse booking, Crockett was going to go out of business. The only person who didn't want this to happen was Ted Turner. Wrestling was the top rated show on his network and he had a soft spot in his heart for the sport. In addition, he had a bad business deal with Vince over programming Vince showed on his network a few years back. Ted purchased the Jim Crockett's portion of the NWA and later renamed it World Championship Wrestling.
The Burst of the Wrestling Bubble
The first several years of Turner's reign of wrestling were marred by incompetence that would have put the company out of business if Ted did not let his executives know that wrestling would always be on his network.
The WWF couldn't take advantage of this because they had their own problems. In the early '90s, they were hit with both a sex scandal involving minors and a steroid trial that almost sent Vince to jail for a long time. During this time, the quality of his product suffered greatly. The only good thing to come out of this era was a new TV show called RAW that aired on Monday nights. This show was different from the other wrestling programming on TV in that the matches were competitive. In the prior eras of wrestling, the TV shows were used to showcase the stars by having them beat up scrubs.
The Monday Night War Begins
After several bad executives running WCW, Eric Bischoff took over and decided to use Turner's money to lure away wrestlers from the WWF and most importantly, he was able to sign the retired Hulk Hogan. In 1995, he started a new program called Monday Nitro which aired against Monday Night RAW on Turner's station TNT. Having control of the network allowed Bischoff to time the segments of his shows to counteract whatever the WWF was doing. In a move of brilliance, he also would give away the results of Raw (when it wasn't) live right before the WWF show would go on the air. The best the WWF mustered up to counter this were some bad parody skits involving Billionaire Ted, The Huckster & The Nacho Man. Then things got even worse for the WWF when they lost two of their biggest stars, Kevin Nash and Scott Hall. In 1996, they joined WCW and formed the New World Order with a heel Hollywood Hogan. The WWF was getting destroyed in the ratings as they countered this cutting edge programming with wrestlers with dumb gimmicks (ex: wrestling garbage man, wrestling plumber, wrestling hockey player). The WWF need to make a change fast if they wanted to survive.