page_title: Monday Night Wars
section_title: 1980–1987: Cable television
hierarchical_section_title: Monday Night Wars / History / Before the War / 1980–1987: Cable television
caption_attribution_description: English: Media mogul Ted Turner at the opening ceremonies of the 2007 Jules Verne Film Festival.Español: El magnate de medios de comunicación Ted Turner en la ceremonia de apertura del Festival de Cine Julio Verne 2007.
context_page_description: The Monday Night Wars were a period of mainstream televised American professional wrestling where the World Wrestling Federation's Monday Night Raw and World Championship Wrestling's Monday Nitro were broadcast opposite each other in a battle for Nielsen ratings each week. The ratings war lasted from September 4, 1995, to March 26, 2001.
  The rating war was part of a larger overall struggle between the two companies, originating in personal animosity between WWF owner Vince McMahon and WCW owner Ted Turner. The rivalry between the companies steadily escalated throughout the 1990s to include the use of cutthroat tactics and the defections of employees between the two companies. Throughout the wars, the WWF and WCW would both adopt different concepts and narrative techniques innovated by ECW; meanwhile, both companies would establish both formal and informal partnerships with the company, with ECW performers either appearing on WWF and WCW shows while still under contract, or outright leaving ECW to work for one of the other two promotions.
context_section_description: Television had been a significant part of professional wrestling presentation in the United States for decades, but after the 1950s it had been relegated to local stations as the national networks ceased airing it. Many local programmers turned to professional wrestling as a means to fill out their schedules, as it was relatively inexpensive to produce but drew high ratings. This reinforced  the then-accepted organization of professional wrestling, which were consisted of a patchwork of territorial promotions aimed at – and broadcast to — local audiences, without a centralized, national promotion, though most territories were members of a common sanctioning body of championship titles, the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA).
  As cable television arose in the 1970s, local stations were often retransmitted to new markets as superstations. When Atlanta TV station WTCG (later WTBS) became a superstation in the late 1970s, Georgia Championship Wrestling (GCW), an NWA member which aired on the station, reached a national audience.
  The company's TV show, hosted by Gordon Solie, was recorded in one of WTBS' studios at 1050 Techwood Drive, in downtown Atlanta. Shows were taped before a small live, in-studio audience, as were most professional wrestling TV shows of that era. They featured wrestling matches, plus melodramatic monologues and inter-character confrontations, similar to the programming offered by other territories, including the Northeast-based WWF. GCW's show, which aired on Saturday evenings, was complemented by a Sunday evening edition. Jim Barnett, Jack and Gerald Brisco had major stakes in the organization, while Ole Anderson was head booker and was in charge of operations. In 1982, in order to appear less regional in scope, the TV show was renamed World Championship Wrestling, a name Barnett had used for promoting shows in Australia in the 1970s.
  In 1983, the WWF started its own cable show called WWF All American Wrestling, airing Sunday mornings on the USA Network. Later that year, the WWF debuted a second cable show, also on USA, called Tuesday Night Titans (TNT), a talk show spoof hosted by Vince McMahon (also the WWF owner) and Lord Alfred Hayes.
  While still running steadily, Barnett and the Briscos sold their entire stock in GCW (including the TV deal) to Vince McMahon, and on July 14, 1984 (otherwise known as "Black Saturday"), the WWF took over the GCW show. With this move, McMahon controlled all nationally televised wrestling in the United States. However, the WWF's show on TBS was a rating disaster, as GCW fans, disliking the cartoonish characters and storylines of the WWF, simply turned off their television sets. Two weeks after Black Saturday, TBS debuted the show of a successor promotion to GCW created by holdout shareholders, Championship Wrestling from Georgia, albeit on early Saturday mornings.
  Moreover, despite originally promising to produce original programming for the TBS time slot in Atlanta, McMahon chose instead to provide only a clip show for TBS, featuring highlights from other WWF programming as well as matches from house shows at Madison Square Garden, Boston Garden, and other major arenas. This format would eventually be the cornerstone of the WWF Prime Time Wrestling (PTW) program. In May 1985, McMahon sold the TBS time slot to another Southern-based and NWA-affiliated wrestling company, Jim Crockett Promotions (JCP), under heavy pressure from station owner Ted Turner, who was unhappy with the declining rating. This set up a rivalry between McMahon and Turner that would continue for 16 years.
  That same year, PTW replaced TNT on USA Network, which expanded to two hours the format of the WWF's WTBS program. The most-remembered Prime Time format featured Bobby Heenan and Gorilla Monsoon introducing taped matches and analyzing them afterward, with Monsoon taking a neutral/babyface position and Heenan unashamedly cheering on the heels. The chemistry between Monsoon and Heenan made this show popular with fans for many years despite the fact it was not considered one of the WWF's "primary" show
caption: Ted Turner, owner of WTBS SuperStation
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