WCW WorldWide

“WCW WorldWide” was a professional wrestling series that began airing in 1975 in syndication titled “Wide World Wrestling”. The series was taped in the WRAL TV studios in Raleigh, North Carolina and produced by Jim Crockett Promotions that had its’ headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina. The show was the major series to showcase NWA (National Wrestling Alliance) talent. In 1978 the show changed its’ name to “World Wide Wrestling” because of all the confusion between the ABC TV series “Wide World of Sports”. In 1981 the series moved to tapings at the WPCQ TV studios which later changed its’ call letters to WNCW in Charlotte.

The following year David Crockett the son of Jim who had been co-hosting “Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling” became the new play-by-play announcer of World Wide. In July 1983 Jim decided the studio was to small too put on a good show so he purchased a mobile TV truck for $1 million dollars and hired his own TV crew. He began taping matches during his live arena events to air on the weekends. In 1984 Tony Schiavone became the new color commentator of the show, replacing wrestler Johnny Weaver. Tony’s previous experience was announcing for the minor league baseball team the Charlotte O’s. Crockett next sold his wrestling holdings to the Turner Broadcasting group.

In 1990 Ted Turner hired Eric Bischoff who had been doing announcing duties with the AWA (American Wrestling Association) in Minnesota. He was brought in as a combined President, General Manger and Producer and he made many changes. First he renamed the organization to WCW (World Championship Wrestling) and also the show to “WCW WorldWide” and early in 1993 he moved the arena tapings back into the studio at Disney/MGM in Orlando, Florida. The NWA (National Wrestling Alliance) in September of 1993 dropped its’ affiliation with WCW because of the infamous “Disney Tapings” fiasco. WCW next moved the TV tapings to Universal studios in Orlando. In 1998 they went back to arena tapings using the same venues that the tapings for “WCW Saturday Night” used until 2000. In November they began to show some of the best matches from previous WCW Pay-Per-Views and show clips from the past weeks 2 live shows “Monday Nitro” and “Thunder”.

In 2001 Vincent Kennedy McMahon Jr. purchased WCW from Ted Turner along with their extensive tape library and all of its’ intellectual property. Worldwide aired its’ final show in March of that year. McMahon signed most of WCW’s talent to work in his WWF (World Wrestling Federation) now known as the WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) but could not seem to pull in the big fish that he really wanted the most in “Sting”. McMahon has tried several times over the years to entice him to sign with the WWE but he continues to this day to refuse to be a part of their huge organization.