WCW Saturday Night | |
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Also known as | Georgia Championship Wrestling World Championship Wrestling WCW Saturday Morning |
Genre | Professional wrestling |
Created by | Jim Crockett Promotions / World Championship Wrestling |
Starring | See World Championship Wrestling alumni |
Theme music composer | Richard Harvey ("Dynamics") |
Opening theme | "Dynamics" (1982-1987) |
Country of origin | United States |
Production | |
Camera setup | Multicamera setup |
Running time | 60 to 120 minutes per episode |
Original release | |
Network | TBS |
Release | December 25, 1971 August 19, 2000 | –
Related | |
WCW Monday Nitro WCW Thunder WCW WorldWide WCW Clash of the Champions WCW Pro | |
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WCW Saturday Night is an American weekly Saturday night television show on TBS that was produced by World Championship Wrestling (WCW). Launched in 1971 initially by Georgia Championship Wrestling, the program existed through various incarnations under different names before becoming WCW Saturday Night in 1992. Although initially the anchor show of the Turner Broadcasting-backed wrestling company, the September 1995 premiere of WCW Monday Nitro airing on sister station TNT usurped the show's once preeminent position in the company, as the primary source of storyline development and pay-per-view buildup.
The show's place in the company was further devalued by the advent of WCW Thunder in 1998, airing on TBS and providing the secondary wrestling and storyline development that WCW Saturday Night had produced in the wake of Nitro's burgeoning three-hour-long format. Once the cornerstone of the WCW wrestling empire, WCW Saturday Night ended its run in 2000 as the company struggled creatively to meet the demands of producing over six hours of new broadcast material on a weekly basis. The rights to WCW Saturday Night now belong to WWE as a result of that company's 2001 purchase of selected assets of WCW, including its video library.
Fifty-nine episodes from 1992 to 1993 under the WCW Saturday Night banner are available on the streaming service WWE Network[1][2] and Peacock.[3] Some previous episodes from 1985 to 1989 under the World Championship Wrestling banner were progressively made available in 2015 and 2016 on the WWE Network.[4]