Video Vault - Black Saturday - Fight Game Media

July 14th, 1984 is a DAY… WHICH WILL LIVE… IN INFAMY!!!!

It is called by NWA marks as “Black Saturday”. The “World Championship Wrestling” 6:05 timeslot on Saturday nights, which throughout history was under the stranglehold of primarily Georgia Championship Wrestling and the NWA, was purchased by Vince McMahon and the World Wrestling Federation as part of the WWF’s national expansion, or as some call it, takeover.

Jack Brisco and Gerald Brisco were both co-owners along with Ole Anderson before the Brisco’s sold their stock of Georgia to Vince McMahon (including the timeslot), which explains why Gerald is still seen as a “stooge” and has a job for life. This was somewhat of a “double-cross”, but hey, business is business.

Georgia Championship Wrestling was one of the cornerstones of the NWA in the late 70s and early 80s, providing a rougher, more athletic pro wrestling show rather than the WWF’s over the top steroid bodies and cartoon gimmicks.

Ironically enough, the WWF show, for perhaps the first time in company history, EPICALLY FAILED when compared to a REAL wrestling product and became a ratings disaster. The other real issue with it was that the content that McMahon provided to Turner was essentially “re-runs”, a.k.a. matches and promos that already aired in other markets in syndication or on the World Wrestling Federation’s television network.

Turner pressured Vince into selling the timeslot to Jim Crockett, who turned it over to Ole, starting “Championship Wrestling from Georgia”, not to be confused with Georgia Championship, which was dead.

It would be just a decade and a half later that Vince would own it all, but in THIS situation, he took one to the temple.

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