WCW Saturday Night

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WCW Saturday Night logo from 1992-1999.

WCW Saturday Night was the weekly Saturday night TV show on TBS, produced by the now-defunct World Championship Wrestling.

Contents

0.1 History
0.2 Show's decline
0.3 The End
0.4 Trivia
0.5 External links

History

The show began under that name in 1992 as the showcase of WCW's top talent, evolving from two previous wrestling programs on TBS - Georgia Championship Wrestling, which began on the station (then known as WTCG-TV) in January 1972 and ran under that name until early 1984, when it became World Championship Wrestling. On July 14, 1984 (a.k.a. Black Saturday), Vince McMahon bought the Georgia promotion, only to sell it back to Jim Crockett Promotions in mid-1985. JCP elected to have the show's name remain World Championship Wrestling. The program name would also become the promotion's name following the purchase of JCP by Ted Turner in 1988.

In addition, there was also a Sunday edition of World Championship Wrestling; however, in later years, Sunday editions became infrequent. In spring of 1988, TBS replaced with a new Sunday wrestling show called NWA Main Event.

In all of its iterations, WCW Saturday Night would normally air for two hours. During baseball season, however, it would typically air for one hour, to be immediately followed by an Atlanta Braves game. The show featured a hi-tech, futuristic design with a unique entry way of slide-open doors and billowing smoke as the performers made their way to the ring. "The Professor" Mike Tenay, Scott Hudson, and Lee Marshall commonly took the role of play-by-play announcers as well as backstage interviewers.

Episodes of WCW Saturday Night were filmed well in advance, with the exception of one live edition, which is detailed below in Trivia.

Show's decline

When WCW introduced live programs Monday Nitro and Thunder, Saturday Night became WCW's "C-show". The majority of airtime would be used to display up-and-comers and recent graduates of the WCW Power Plant (with the occasional squash match) as well recapping the major events of the other shows. The main event would often feature mid-card performers such as the current Cruiserweight Champion, World Television Champion, or U.S. Heavyweight Champion in a non-title match.

The End

In July 2000, the name of the show was changed to WCW Saturday Morning, which coincided with a change to an earlier timeslot and a new format: rather than feature new matches, Saturday Morning simply recapped the past week's Monday Nitro and Thunder. On June 24, 2000 WCW Saturday Night aired for the last time. On August 19, 2000, the last episode of Saturday Morning aired.

Trivia

Georgia Championship Wrestling and World Championship Wrestling were taped in Atlanta, Georgia, at WTBS' studios at 1050 Techwood Drive until 1989, when the taping location was moved to the Center Stage Theater, a small theater located in the CNN Center.

WCW Saturday Night had one live airing from downtown Charlotte, North Carolina, on May 27, 1995. What made this show memorable was that it started raining halfway through the show, causing the ring mat to become slippery at times.

External links

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