WCW Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting
Reminiscing over a time before Blue Mondays.
Once upon a time, WCW Saturday Night was the crown jewel of WCW television. In an era long before Monday Nitro was even a twinkle in Eric Bischoff’s eye, WCW was living for the weekend – 6:05 was the time and TBS was the place.
The origins of the show trace back to a period even before WCW itself, dating all the way back to 1972 under the Georgia Championship Wrestling banner. A decade later, the popular Georgia show became World Championship Wrestling and eventually morphed into WCW Saturday Night in 1992.
However, the Saturday night fixture underwent a drastic transformation in 1984, thanks to the infamous events of “Black Saturday”. In an early attempt to expand his territory across the US, Vince McMahon bought Georgia Championship Wrestling and, by proxy, the World Championship Wrestling time slot. The purchase allowed WWF TV to air in the old NWA programme space and saw the likes of The Road Warriors immediately replaced with George ‘The Animal’ Steele.
Fans were not pleased; complaints flooded in, and ratings dipped. The backlash eventually led McMahon to sell the tim eslot to Jim Crockett Promotions and saw the familiar stars of old soon return. Sadly for Crockett, the cool million he had spent purchasing the slot essentially helped fund the first WrestleMania and the success of the event ultimately put Crockett out of business.
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