World Championship Wrestling is purchased by Fusient Media Ventures

By 2000 World Championship Wrestling was in trouble losing money, few fans, and eventually corporate support. It looked almost certain that WCW wouldn't see 2002, but that's when Fusient Media Ventures came into the picture. Fusient Media Ventures (FMV) was an American-based venture capital group founded in 2000 by Classic Sports Network creators Brian Bedol and Steve Greenberg. Working in part with Time Warner employee and former president of WCW Eric Bischoff, FMV would be in negotiations with Time Warner throughout 2000 and by January 2001 a deal looked to have been reached, but after Head of Turner Broadcasting System (TBS) Jamie Kellner said that he would be pulling WCW off the air a key financial backer in the deal pulled out at the last second dooming the deal and opening the door for WCW to be purchased by the World Wrestling Federation (WWF now WWE) in March of the same year. 
But what if that that didn't happen. What if the backer stayed on and WCW was sold to Fusient Media Ventures? In this timeline we'll speculate on what would have happened to WCW and where FMV would have gone with the wrestling company if the deal was finalized.
== 2001 ==
On January 11, a deal between Turner Broadcasting System (TBS), AOL-Time Warner, and Fusient Media Ventures is agreed to possibly securing the purchase of the majority of World Championship Wrestling for the sum of around $75 million dollars with TBS still holding a minority stake in the company.https://www.nexttv.com/news/fusient-bails-wcw-deal-145884#:~:text=programming%20on%20Turner%20Network%20Television,Fusient%20for%20about%20%2475%20million.https://www.ign.com/articles/2001/01/11/press-release-wcw-sold-to-fusient Both sides seem to be in high spirts about the deal with CEO of FMV Brian Bedol saying "There is huge untapped potential for the franchise and with Eric Bischoff on board we will crank everything up to make the WCW franchise even bigger, better, stronger and more entertaining than anything wrestling fans have ever experienced before." and president of general entertainment networks for TBS Bradley J. Siegel saying "The Fusient management team's experience in programming, production and marketing at Classic Sports Network lends itself perfectly to the WCW business. Their entrepreneurial business-building expertise, combined with the powerhouse brands and distribution that TBS Superstation and TNT provide, will be a winning combination."
on March 18, Head of TBS Jamie Kellner announces that WCW will be pulled from Turner airwaves after the end of March. A key backer in the FMV deal almost pulls out, but doesn't after a meeting that is described as a "Miracle" by Eric Bischoff on his podcast 83 Weeks.
Despite cancelation the deal is finalized days later and made official that FMV owns the majority of WCW. A press conference is held to announce the closure of the deal with the new president of WCW Eric Bischoff stating that WCW will be going on a hiatus following their last Nitro on TNT and will be relaunching some time in April with an unnamed pay-per-view (PPV) event.
The last TNT Nitro was held on Monday, March 26. Dubbed "The Night of Champions" the show saw each champion from each division defend their titles and to end the show with the main event of Booker T (United States Heavyweight Champion) vs. Scott Steiner (WCW World Heavyweight Champion) in a Champion vs. Champion match which was Booker win and become a four time WCW World Heavyweight Champion.
In early April FMV held a press conference where they made various statements about the company, some of which announcing their new one year TV deal with the FX Network, Nitro would be filmed at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, and that they would be holding their relaunch PPV event on May 6th entitled The Big Bang.
The Big Bang was held on May 6, in front of a mostly sold out Rabobank Arena in Bakersfield, California. The show was headlined with the addition of two new commentators in former Extreme Championship Wrestling announcer Joey Styles and former WWF commentator Jerry "The King" Lawler. The Main Event of the show had a rematch between Booker T and Scott Steiner in a 2 out of 3 falls match which Scott won after assistance from his brother Rick. The reception of the show was mostly positive with many calling the Filthy Animals vs. Elix Skipper & Kid Romeo vs. 2 Count ladder match the highlight of the show.
Nitro would debut the next night on the FX Network at the 7/8 CST and would continue air in that time slot for the rest of it's time on FX. During it's time it would revolve around a few major feuds such as Booker T vs. Scott Steiner, Jeff Jarrett & Ric Flair vs. The Rhodes Family, and The InSiders vs. Sean O'Haire & Chuck Palumbo.
After defeating Booker T at back to back PPVs Scott Steiner would enter into a three month program with Diamond Dallas Page and Kevin Nash before going into a two month feud with Buff Bagwell & Lex Luger and finally entering in a feud with Jeff Jarrett & Ric Flair.
== NWO Gold ==
On December 30, during the main event of Starrcade between Jeff Jarrett and Scott Steiner for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship, Ric Flair ran down and distracted the referee of the contest long enough for Jarrett to nail Steiner with his guitar and pick up the win and become the new WCW World Heavyweight Champion. After the match Flair & Jarrett started laying their boots in on Scott until his brother Rick runs down. Rick looks like he's going to help his brother fight off Flair & Jarrett until he does an obvious wink at the pair and attacks his own brother (shades of SuperBrawl VIII). Jarrett would retrieve a can of gold spray-paint from under the ring and would spray on Scott's back "NWO." 
WCW's weekly programming would be surrounded around NWO Gold's shenanigans for the next couple of months to kick off 2002, with some major feuds being Jeff Jarrett vs. Scott Steiner and Rick Steiner vs. Scott Steiner. NWO Gold would continue to add new members throughout the first half of 2002, but would end up disbanding by years end after infighting between Jeff Jarrett and Ric Flair caused a rift within the faction with Flair winning a match to keep the NWO Gold name retiring it the next night on Nitro and with Jarrett's faction being renamed as Planet Jarrett.
== Financial Issues ==
In the March 2002 edition of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Dave Meltzer says that their was "Financial Instability in the company" and "Have continued to lose key financial support from several outside sources (during 2001)." Meltzer attributes this loss to WCW's floundering TV ratings which peeked at 2.9 in June, but have now regressed down to only pulling in 2.1-1.8 rating per Nitro.
In late March the FX network announced that they would not be extending their deal with WCW and after the end of April Nitro will be replaced with alternate programing.
In mid-April WCW announced that they had signed a new deal for Nitro to air on the USA network at 9/10 CST and would be projecting a more grounded and realistic product.
WCW debuted on the USA Network on May 6th and fans noticed an immediate drop in quality across the board (missing pyro, worse camera quality, and production botches).
Throughout 2002 WCW continued to have rumors of funding issues and even that they would shut their doors of sell their company to the WWE. Brian Bedol in an interview in 2007 stated "That was defiantly a possibility, we just couldn't compete with Raw and it seemed like the more we pushed to compete with them (WWE) the more we would just come up more and more broke."
== The Panda Energy Investment ==
By August of 2002 WCW looked to be doomed to go the way of the Dodo, but that's when they picked up an investor in Dixie Carter and her parents the owners of Panda Energy International (PEI), a Dallas-based energy company. PEI would purchase 71% of the company from TBS and Fusient Media. Dixie Carter would be named as Vice President of WCW later that month.
Nitro would receive improvements in quality and the return and debut of several talents such as Randy Savage, Ken Shamrock, and Roddy Piper as the year came to a close.
== 2003-04 ==
On February of 2003 the USA Network agreed to a extension with WCW that would go through till September of 2005.
On June of that same year WCW announced in a press statement that it was no longer "commercially viable" to continue running in the Monday night timeslot and that after the September 15, episode of Nitro they would be retiring the name Nitro in exchange for their new weekly show "Impact!" that would air on Tuesdays at the 9/10 CST timeslot.
After the debut of Impact! the ratings for WCW dropped from 1.9 to 1.5, but would start to grow back throughout 2004 with the emergence of talent like Samoa Joe, AJ Styles, and America's Most Wanted.
On March of 2004 WCW announced after a six year hiatus they would be reinstating it's Women's Championship with a weekly tournament that was won by Alexis Laree on the May 18 episode of Impact!.
On April of 2004 WCW announced that they would be leaving the Hard Rock for Soundstage 21 at Universal Studios Florida. Soundstage 21 would later be unofficially dubbed the "Impact! Zone".
On December of 2004 FMV and TBS announced that they would be selling their share of WCW to J Sports and Entertainment which was owned by wrestling promoter Jerry Jarrett and his son and WCW wrestler Jeff Jarrett. Eric Bischoff announced that he would be stepping down a president of WCW for reasons the later explained on his podcast 83 Week. "I was tired of it" said Bischoff "I had been working with wrestling for almost three decades to that point and I just didn't really want to do it anymore, and I think he (Brian Bedol) knew that too."
== 2005 ==
In early 2005 WCW announced Dixie Carter as their new president and Jeff Jarrett as vice president. 
During that time on August of 2005 WCW announced that they would be moving to Spike TV after signing a three year deal with the company to fill the wrestling void that would be left by the departing WWE show Raw. Along with the change a channels WCW debuted a new logo that was used up to 2019.
On November of 2005 WCW announced that they would be retiring their Cruiserweight Division in exchange for their new "X Division" which had the tagline that said "It's not about weight limits, it's about no limits!" allowing anyone to challenge for the title.
== 2006-09 ==
Late 2006 saw two big additions to WCW's roster such as former WWE Superstars Kurt Angle in August and Hulk Hogan in December.
In early 2007 WCW announced that they would be introducing a new belt that was revealed as the "WCW Woman's Tag Team" titles. A tournament was held on Impact! that was won by Power & Control (Awesome Kong and Jazz).
March of 2008 Spike would renew their contract with WCW though to mid 2011.
In September of 2008 WCW would hold a dual promotion event with Ring of Honor, called "WCW/RoH Supershow!" The highlight of the show being WCW's AJ Styles vs. RoH's Bryan Danielson in a thirty minute Iron Man match, which received a 4¾ stars in Dave Melzer's "Wrestling Observer." WCW/RoH Supershow's would become a regular PPV for WCW until 2011 when creative differences RoH's new owners "Sinclair Broadcast Group" & WCW couldn't be settled.
In mid 2009 WCW signed former WWE Superstars Ric Flair and Mick Foley to their roster.