Black Saturday | Moments That Changed Wrestling Forever
2. The Day
Corporate-level shockwaves taking place behind the scenes were one thing. Deals were done at the expensive of personal friendships, but that had been the ugly underbelly of pro wrestling and stood to stay that way for generations to come. In some respects, all that stuff was a bigger work than what went down in the ring night after night. Dirty deals were part of the game and there weren't too many relationships that couldn't eventually be healed by doing business together down the line. This wasn't necessarily case when it came to involving loyal audiences though, and Vince McMahon was about to move front-and-centre into the line of fire and find out for himself.
On July 14th 1984 at 6:05pm, WTBS' World Championship Wrestling opened with the familiar credits, obscuring the enormous differences up ahead. Iconic voice of wrestling and legendary host Gordon Solie was AWOL, and regular co-host Freddie Miller made no effort to explain why he was the one stood solo holding the microphone in front of the famous globe set. Before regular viewers had time to parse the change, Miller noted that it was a "pleasure" to welcome the World Wrestling Federation to the network, introducing Vince McMahon to the set. McMahon confidently strolled into shot all of 38 seconds into the broadcast. For the fiercely loyal wrestling fans in the market (and in the context of the time), this was like a destructive natural disaster occurring without so much as a weather warning.
Slick as ever and still deep in his early-days stuffy announcer voice, McMahon assured viewers that they'd love the new WWF-produced show just as much as their regularly scheduled programme. Which, fair enough - it's not as if he was going to suggest the show might be an awful and horrifically ill-advised replacement for the thing they loved. That, somewhat predictably though, was exactly what played out. McMahon listed off some of the wrestlers set to feature, including body guys such as Jesse Ventura, titleholders such as then-Tag Champions Adrian Adonis and Dick Murdoch, and the mammoth Big John Studd. Through either stubbornness or misguided promotional instincts, McMahon was missing the mark with every word. The usual broadcast featured weekly studio matches and promos from Atlanta, keeping the familiar slate of wrestlers literally and figuratively close to the target audience. McMahon's WTBS vision relied on instantly dated matches and clips from prior USA Network broadcasts, previously taped and unused matches from the syndicated weekend shows, and the best of what was left from WWF's regular Madison Square Garden and Boston Garden shows.
Discounting instant and inevitable viewer alienation, McMahon was also arrogantly going back on his pledge to make actual original pro wrestling for WTBS in the style of Georgia Championship Wrestling, taped just as that was from the studio. It took until the following March, weeks out from WrestleMania I, for the two sides to partially come together via Gorilla Monsoon joining up with Eddie Miller in the space station studio set known more famously for Jim Crockett-era wrestling than anything with a WWF logo on it. By this time, the network was besieged with complaints calls and letters. Fans were furious with the philosophical shift, the lack of wrestlers they'd grown to love in the territory and even the continued lack of Gordon Solie at the helm. They voted with their remotes. If protests had fallen on deaf ears, switching channels wouldn't.
Ted Turner himself moved to fix sagging numbers, firstly offering a new Sunday slot to Bill Watts' Mid-South Wrestling while picking up NWA affiliate Championship Wrestling from Georgia still ran by Ole Anderson for Saturday mornings. Notably, Solie jumped back on as host for that, making it just like old times in everything but the name. If it wasn't a pincer movement to force the hugely-disliked WWF off the Network, it scanned as one, and worked a treat when both shows comfortably smoked it in ratings and audience satisfaction. It rankled McMahon to be losing money and status, but also exclusivity - if he was a guy that liked sharing space, he wouldn't have waged war on the North American wrestling landscape in the first place.
Realising that he was running out of road and a long way from home, McMahon sold the Saturday night time slot to JCP owner Jim Crockett for a million dollars. Crockett put Championship Wrestling from Georgia into the 6:05 position, returning NWA product to where most felt it belonged - the World Championship Wrestling spot. Unwittingly at the time, this laid the groundwork for Ted Turner's eventual acquisition of World Championship Wrestling in 1988 and gradual repurposing of the WCW brand separate from the NWA. In the three years since the fallout, McMahon had just about toppled every other territory as Hulkamania and the World Wrestling Federation writ large boomed in a way no other promoter could remotely compete with. Turner's phone call to McMahon to inform him of the news went down in lore, and kicked off next grizzly chapter in McMahon's ruthless trudge towards monopolisation.