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00:00There have been a few moments, good, bad and ugly, in the history of this great sport that have changed
00:07wrestling forever.
00:09But one specific Saturday, all the way back in 1984, is unquestionably one of the most important and shocking.
00:17And I'm here to explain to you exactly why.
00:20So I am Gareth, you are watching What Culture Wrestling, and we're about to take a closer look at the
00:26infamous moment that was Black Saturday.
00:30The Before
00:32Wrestling on television has changed in such a way that it's near impossible to replicate the outrage of 1984 in
00:41the fragmented, disconnected and disillusioned present day.
00:45The world itself felt exponentially bigger, but frames of reference were substantially smaller without the internet or even much access
00:54to a world beyond the one outside the window or on the television screen.
00:58And like any long-standing institution, wrestling contributed to that fabric.
01:03Before, you know, Vince McMahon attempted to tear it up and re-stitch it in his own image.
01:08Georgia Championship Wrestling first appeared on Ted Turner's WTCG station, which would later become WTBS, out of Atlanta in 1972.
01:17The show rapidly became a success story, a Saturday night fixture, airing iconically at 6.05pm to a loyal and
01:25dedicated audience that were mostly content with the closed shop service.
01:29In 1976, WTBS expanded nationally as a cable superstation, with GCW becoming the first National Wrestling Alliance territory to secure
01:39such a valuable nationwide cable television contract, in an era where the NWA still had dominion over most territories across
01:46the United States.
01:47In 1982, GCW rebranded the weekly show as World Championship Wrestling, a name that soon became synonymous with the promotion
01:55itself, and would famously last beyond this entire debacle years later.
02:00The company was co-owned by brothers Jack and Gerald Briscoe and Jim Barnett, with Ole Anderson as head booker.
02:07Beloved long-time NWA announcer Gordon Soley hosted the show, giving it credibility and continuity with other NWA-affiliated broadcasts,
02:16whilst also securing it as the jewel in the Alliance's crown.
02:20It was real feeling, rugged and fiercely rooted in the kayfabe competitive elements of pro wrestling.
02:26Or to put it another way, not philosophically aligned with how Vince McMahon saw the business.
02:31Now, the story of McMahon's war on territorial pro wrestling changes, per whoever's telling it.
02:38A man desperate to one day monopolise the product on a worldwide scale for his own enormous gains?
02:44Somebody who saw wrestling as worldwide family entertainment that could be scaled beyond its somewhat parochial surrounds?
02:51Or just an evil, greedy prick with disdain for what fundamentally drove the business he bought from his father?
02:57Yeah, it's all of the above, really.
02:59And though the expansion across the 1980s was aggressive, there was really no other way to go about his business.
03:05In 83, his biggest win came thanks to the purchase of Southwest Championship Wrestling's USA Network slot on Sunday mornings.
03:13That became All-American Wrestling, and the World Wrestling Federation suddenly stood to make good on McMahon's ambition.
03:20This extended to the product itself.
03:22In 1984, the Vince-fronted Tuesday Night Titans debuted, showcasing wrestlers in a talk show setting alongside Lord Alfred Hayes.
03:31Various skits and bits typically took up the rest of the time, in what was realistically a sports entertainment transition
03:37checkpoint.
03:38TNT was unapologetically a show about wrestling, rather than simply being a wrestling show.
03:44McMahon's next move was obvious to him, if not other wrestling observers.
03:50More national cable.
03:52Georgia Championship Wrestling's aforementioned Saturday Night position wasn't an option, unless McMahon could somehow surprisingly wrestle control of it.
04:00With that, he'd have near-total dominance over the United States televised scene.
04:04But he hit an immediate wall when Turner simply refused to sell him the slot.
04:09He subsequently went around the houses, secretly negotiating with the Briscoes and Barnett to buy their steaks in GCW, and
04:17turn over control of the WTBS show to him.
04:21Ole Anderson, more on him later my friend, was deemed surplus.
04:25As was, as it turned out, most of what had made the show a staple in the first place.
04:29The final World Championship Wrestling broadcast under the old GCW management aired on July 7th, 1984, marking the end of
04:37an era in wrestling history.
04:39And the beginning of a new one that became historical, if for all the wrong reasons.
04:44The stage for Black Saturday was morbidly set.
04:47And we'll get to that after this quick question, eh?
04:50Black Saturday certainly changed wrestling forever.
04:52But what's a moment that you feel did the same?
04:55It could be a modern one, or something from decades ago, but just let me know in the comments, my
05:00friend.
05:01The Day
05:03Corporate-level shockwaves taking place behind the scenes were one thing.
05:08Deals were done at the expense of personal friendships.
05:11But that had been the ugly underbelly of pro wrestling, and stood to stay that way for generations to come.
05:16In some respects, all that stuff was a bigger work than what went down in the ring night after night.
05:21Dirty deals were part of the game, and there weren't too many relationships that couldn't eventually be healed by doing
05:27business together down the line.
05:28This wasn't necessarily the case when it came to involving loyal audiences, though.
05:33And Vince McMahon was about to move front and centre into the line of fire and find out for himself.
05:39On July 14th, 1984, at 6.05pm, WTBS World Championship Wrestling opened with the familiar credits, obscuring the enormous differences
05:49up ahead.
05:49Iconic voice of wrestling and legendary host Gordon Soley was AWOL, and regular co-host Freddie Miller made no effort
05:57to explain why he was the one stood solo holding the microphone in front of the famous Globe set.
06:03Before regular viewers had time to pass the change, Miller noted that it was a pleasure to welcome the World
06:09Wrestling Federation to the network, introducing Vince McMahon to the set.
06:13McMahon confidently strolled into shot, all of 38 seconds into the broadcast.
06:19For the fiercely loyal wrestling fans in the market, and in the context of the time, this was like a
06:23destructive natural disaster occurring without so much as a weather warning.
06:27Where the hell did that come from?
06:29Slick as ever, and still deep in his early days, stuffy announcer voice, McMahon assured viewers that they'd love the
06:35new WWF-produced show just as much as their regularly scheduled program.
06:39Which, I mean, yeah, fair enough, it's not as if he was going to suggest the show might be an
06:43awful and horrifically ill-advised replacement for the thing that they loved, that would have been insane.
06:48That, somewhat predictably though, was exactly what played out.
06:51McMahon listed off some of the wrestlers set to feature, including body guys such as Jesse Ventura, title holders such
06:58as then-tag-team champions Adrian Adonis and Dick Murdoch, and the mammoth Big John Stud.
07:04Through either stubbornness or misguided promotional instincts, McMahon was missing the mark with every word.
07:11The usual broadcasts featured weekly studio matches and promos from Atlanta, keeping the familiar slate of wrestlers literally and figuratively
07:19close to the target audience.
07:21McMahon's WTBS vision relied on instantly dated matches and clips from prior USA Network broadcasts, previously taped and unused matches
07:30from the syndicated weekend shows,
07:32and the best of what was left from WWF's regular Madison Square Garden and Boston Garden shows.
07:38Discounting instant and inevitable viewer alienation, McMahon was also arrogantly going back on his pledge to make actual original pro
07:46wrestling for WTBS in the style of Georgia Championship Wrestling, taped just as that was from the studio.
07:52Before we go any further, my friend, be sure to give that subscribe button a hit right now so you
07:56never miss one of these fantastic WhatCulture Wrestling videos.
07:59Right, back to this one.
08:00It took until the following March, weeks out from WrestleMania 1 for the two sides to partially come together, via
08:07Gorilla Monsoon joining up with Eddie Miller in the Space Station Studio set, known more famously for Jim Crockett-era
08:13wrestling than anything with the WWF logo on it.
08:16By this time, the network was besieged with complaints calls and letters.
08:20Fans were furious with the philosophical shift, the lack of wrestlers they'd grown to love in the territory, and even
08:26the continued lack of Gordon Sully at the helm.
08:29They voted with their remotes.
08:31If protests had fallen on deaf ears, switching channels would not.
08:35Ted Turner himself moved to fix sagging numbers.
08:38Firstly, offering a new Sunday slot to Bill Watts Mid-South Wrestling, while picking up NWA affiliate Championship Wrestling from
08:45Georgia, still ran by Ole Anderson, for Saturday mornings.
08:49Notably, Sully jumped back on as host for that, making it just like old times in everything but the name.
08:55If it wasn't a pincer movement to force the hugely disliked WWF off the network, well it's Skander's one, and
09:02worked a treat when both shows comfortably smoked it in ratings and audience satisfaction.
09:07It rankled McMahon to be losing money and status, but also exclusivity.
09:13If he was a guy that liked sharing space, then he wouldn't have waged war on the North American wrestling
09:18landscape in the first place, now would he?
09:20Realising that he was running out of road and a long way from home, McMahon sold the Saturday night time
09:25slot to JCP owner Jim Crockett for a million dollars.
09:28Crockett put Championship Wrestling from Georgia into the 605 position, returning NWA product to where most felt it belonged, the
09:36World Championship Wrestling spot.
09:38Unwittingly at the time, this laid the groundwork for Ted Turner's eventual acquisition of World Championship Wrestling in 1988, and
09:45gradual repurposing of the WCW brand separate from the NWA.
09:49In the three years since the fallout, McMahon had just about toppled every other territory, as Hulkamania and the World
09:55Wrestling Federation writ large boomed in a way that no other promoter could remotely compete with.
10:01Turner's phone call to McMahon to inform him of the news went down in law, and kicked off the next
10:06grisly chapter in McMahon's ruthless trudge towards monopolisation.
10:11The After
10:13The butterfly effects from every major incident in wrestling history are fun to explore, not least because the circumstances encourage
10:21chances to take bigger gambles, desperate people to do desperate things, or invariably a combination of the two.
10:28Look, there's a reason why that domino effect meme still loops on socials. The funnier the gap between the tiny
10:34moment and the huge one, well, the better the tale.
10:37This was maximalist pro wrestling in the 1980s, though. There were no such thing as tiny moments at boardroom level,
10:43and huge mostly understated just how seismic the moves were.
10:47Vince McMahon's failed attempt to steamroll the last major holdout in 1984 kicked off a chain of events that can
10:53be felt to the very day that you are watching this video right here.
10:57Consider the initial kick in the backside that he got from Ted Turner when, years after their relations soured from
11:03the WTBS days, he got the call to say he was in the wrestling business in 1988.
11:09Turner purchasing the promotion from Crockett and eventually creating the full separation between the NWA and WCW resulted in a
11:16bitter battle between a shrewd and cynical billionaire and a lunatic with aspirations of becoming one.
11:22This is easier said in hindsight than in the trenches of the early part of the 1990s, but the Monday
11:27Night Wars were simultaneously improbable and inevitable halfway through that turbulent decade.
11:33The rampaging success of a nitro-fuelled World Championship Wrestling between 1995 and 1997 had plenty to do with the
11:41resurgence of the World Wrestling Federation between 1997 and 2000.
11:45Being beholden to television had been at the roots of all of it, but the changing face of Turner's empire
11:52inadvertently became a noose around WCW's neck, as McMahon was given free reign to push boundaries and envelopes alike in
12:00order to win.
12:01By 2001, Ted Turner couldn't pull strings for the company as a money loser following a merger between AOL Time
12:08Warner the prior year and new boss Jamie Kellner cancelled WCW programming across the network.
12:14Without television coverage at the time, the property was deemed virtually valueless, and McMahon infamously bought the rights, roster, branding,
12:23back catalogue and everything else associated with the company for just over $4.2 million, money he made back a
12:30gazillion fold in DVD sales alone with a new library of matches and moments to mine.
12:36It was a good job he had that market to service long-standing fans too, because they had never been
12:41less satisfied than during the near two decades in which he held dominion over the mainstream with his monopoly.
12:47WWE's creative decline was magnified by the lack of viable opposition.
12:51And though change took longer than in the 80s and 90s, it happened in more spectacular fashion in 2019.
12:58It wasn't just the launch on TNT that resulted in nitro comparisons for All Elite Wrestling.
13:03Tony Khan was a self-confessed wrestling mega-fan, with his taste folding in much of the stuff that McMahon
13:09attempted to trample over in the 1980s,
13:12as well as World Championship Wrestling at its various critical peaks.
13:16He wanted to establish an alternative rather than an also-ran.
13:20And with WWE in such rudderless creative shape by the end of the 2010s, did so by almost using Raw
13:27and SmackDown as an example of every possible opposite.
13:30All Elite Wrestling has outlasted every major challenger brand post-1984, and will continue to do so in part thanks
13:38to a rock-solid relationship with Warner Bros. Discovery,
13:41a mass media entity that has Turner in its DNA.
13:44It was revealed in early 2026 that the network even owned a small stake in AEW.
13:49Not enough to protect against every possible obstacle, but certainly a reason for the two sides to stay on great
13:55terms.
13:55Black Saturday was, for so many fans, the darkest day, because it theoretically brought about the permanent end of a
14:02product that they loved.
14:03That proved temporary, and the ramifications of McMahon's gross misreading of the situation delayed that for another decade and a
14:11half.
14:11And that proved temporary too, even if it didn't feel that way deep into the 2000s and 2010s.
14:17Once again, McMahon's mishandlings cost him what he wanted, and the Monopoly was lost.
14:22Hopefully forever, eh?
14:23Have you enjoyed this video today, my friend?
14:25Well, keep this WhatCultureWrestling journey-er going by tapping on another episode from this series right here.
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