1. World Championship Wrestling
Easily the biggest threat to WWE's throne was that of World Championship Wrestling, owned by billionaire mogul Ted Turner. After purchasing the promotion, Turner allowed it to sit dormant, retaining the image of a grungy southern regional promotion with ties to the NWA for years. However, in the early 1990s that all changed as WCW began signing established veteran talent and making a presence on Monday Night's. On the backs of recently departed WWE stars such as Hulk Hogan, Scott Hall, Randy Savage and Kevin Nash, WCW actually overtook WWE as the top promotion in the country for a span of two years. What was formerly viewed as a distant number two, WCW jumped into the mainstream by regularly featuring pro athletes and celebrities in an effort to gain more exposure. The ploy worked, and WCW beat WWF in the Monday night ratings war for over 80 weeks in a row. After failing to capitalize on the signing of Bret Hart, the advent of new stars, and countless other situations, the WCW show began to spiral out of control. A terrible booking committee and questionable decision led to their world championship being vacated an unprecedented eight times over the course of a year. As if that wasn't bad enough, parent company Time Warner merged with AOL, and the new company wanted nothing to do with pro wrestling. Eric Bischoff made attempts to buy the company and save it from its eventual demise, but TV time wasn't offered in the deal, effectively killing it. Vince McMahon and the WWE would swoop in and capitalize, buying WCW just prior to WrestleMania X-Seven. Although WCW would be used as a part of the Invasion storyline in 2001, little else was used from the promotion. There would be no re-branding, no reunion pay-per-view, little clamoring for fans to see a re-boot of WCW. WWE sure hasn't forgotten about it, and neither have the fans. WWE seems to release a new WCW-related DVD each year, and World Championship's presence is felt heavily on the recently launched WWE Network. Despite the permanent impact WCW made on the wrestling world, it too was ultimately swallowed whole by the WWE.