WWE's Purchase Of WCW | Moments That Changed Wrestling Forever

"Imagine that. Me...Vince McMahon..Here I am on WCW television. How can that happen? Well, there's only one way. You see, it was just a matter of time before I, Vince McMahon, bought my competition - that's right, I own WCW. Therefore, in its final broadcast tonight on TNT, I have the opportunity to address you, the WCW fans - I have an opportunity to address you, the WCW superstars. What is the fate of WCW? Well, tonight - in a special simulcast - you'll all find out, because the fate - the very fate of WCW...is in my hands".

These were the (abridged) words that opened up the final edition of WCW Monday Nitro on TNT following the news just days earlier that the then-World Wrestling Federation had acquired it wholesale. The shock of the story was still sinking in, and WWE knew they had the wrestling world waiting with baited breath for whatever was to become of the pro-wrestling landscape in the United States.

For McMahon personally, it was the completion of a mission he'd set for himself in the 1980s. It was a virtual monopolisation of mainstream pro-wrestling that confirmed that his company was once again and forever would be the market leader - "the recognised symbol of excellence" sloganeering often didn't exactly stand up to scrutiny, but now more than ever, that didn't really matter. He had a major victory to crow about...oh, and the small matter ever of a massive WrestleMania to promote...

World Championship Wrestling was a company set up to boom and bust in equal measure. Ted Turner was a man who loved pro wrestling, infamously loved the day he could tell Vince McMahon that he was now in wrestling, and kept Network executives from pulling the plug on his wrestling shows every time they even tried to get near cancelling it. Which, because of the unending paradox of its institutional failings, happened a lot between 1988 and 2001.

Booking committees came and went over the years in a fashion alien to McMahon's Stamford autocracy. Wrestlers and ex-wrestlers such as Ole Anderson, Dusty Rhodes and Ric Flair took head booker spots at various points, naturally acted with a little too much self-interest and/or stubbornness and business inevitably suffered. Ex-Pizza Hut manager Jim Herd was out of his comfort zone and hilariously out of his depth as President, and revealed as much when he pitched to turn Ric Flair into a Spartacus knock-off before firing 'The Nature Boy' and creating the scenario that sent Flair and the World Heavyweight Title belt to the World Wrestling Federation in 1991. Replacement Kip Frey was generally considered a good egg that financially rewarded wrestlers for the quality of their work, but lacked the wrestling background that was at this point an acknowledged benefit. Bill Watts had that, but was too old school and authoritarian for the early-90s era he inherited. Eric Bischoff's 1993 hiring in the top spot was shocking to many, but over the course of several years, his ambition and fervent belief that he could generate the company's first annual profit and take a run at Titan saw a turnaround in the US wrestling landscape nobody forecasted.

By the end of 1996 all the way through to mid-1998, the perennial Number Two promotion was, by every major metric, the market leader. Gates and ratings soared beyond even the highest of projections and - as importantly for the time - soared past anything the opposition could do. The New World Order storyline powered the charge, becoming the hottest thing in wrestling despite forming a month after Stone Cold Steve Austin uttered "Austin 3:16" for the first time at 1996's King Of The Ring on the other side. It took McMahon much longer to capitalise on his 'Rattlesnake' than it did Bischoff to take his organisation from the outhouse to the penthouse, but as wrestling in general experienced a second mainstream upturn in the second half of the decade, the WWF was simply better prepared to handle their growth when it came. Meanwhole in Atlanta, finances, egos and everything else spiralled horribly out of control, to the point where Bischoff was out, Vince Russo and select others came and went leaving things worse than they found them, and the decline was expedited.

Sadly for Ted, by the time the product itself was unsalvageable, the business was also untenable. He'd been removed as a power player by virtue of a doomed AOL/Time Warner merger, and new boss Jamie Kellner was neither a fan of wrestling nor the fact that the file marked "WCW" was responsible for a whopping $62.5million of company losses in the year 2000 alone. Offloading the organisation had always been the plan, and McMahon himself had expressed interest the prior Autumn. By January 2001 though, there was a reportedly done deal that would see an Eric Bischoff-led Fusient Media take the reins with a "Big Bang" pay-per-view relaunch planned for May. When Kellner cancelled Nitro and Thunder in March though, the $75million deal - leveraged on WCW having the plum TV spots - fell through. With the company publicly deemed valueless McMahon swooped in and got it for $4.2million. Paltry by comparison and likely made back in the first year of DVD sales featuring archive footage. On March 23rd 2001, visitors to WWF.com were greeted with the news. Two logos, one total bombshell. "WWF purchases WCW".

The deal was done, confirmed by shareholder announcement that explained - amongst other things - how the company's future would be underneath the umbrella of McMahon's empire. "The purchase of WCW creates a tag team partnership with the World Wrestling Federation brand that is expected to propel the sports entertainment genre to new heights...new WCW programming is anticipated to air on TNN in the near future. The possibility of cross-brand storylines and intrigue, however, may start as early as Monday night during WWF Raw Is War on TNN and the final performance of WCW Monday Nitro Live on Turner Network Television (TNT)".

Get hyped. Get fired up. Especially for Monday Night Raw, three days later on March 26th and falling just six days before WrestleMania on April 1st. This was no April Fools joke - this was the all legit, and wrestling fans were very quickly about to get a reality check on what the future of the industry looked like.