Championship Wrestling (Saturday Mornings)

This show was basically a third hour of World Championship Wrestling that aired Saturday mornings, traditionally at 9:35 AM, although the timeslot evolved to that time period from 7:35 AM. The show first came about when the WWF gained control of the WTBS wrestling television shows in July of 1984 through a stock acquisition. One of the principle owners of Georgia Championship Wrestling, Ole Anderson, negotiated his own one-hour timeslot at 7:35 AM on Saturday mornings called Championship Wrestling from Georgia. That show debuted August 8, 1984.

It continued to air during the WWF's tenure on TBS, but when Crockett Promotions bought McMahan's TV time on WTBS in March of 1985, they gained control of all TV slots on the station through an agreement with Ted Turner, which included Anderson's early Saturday morning show. Crockett changed the name to Championship Wrestling at that time. Over the next four years that Crockett Promotions was on TBS, the morning time slot would have many different incarnations, including a a highlights show called NWA Superbouts (began May 9, 1987) and a two-week delayed version of the syndicated NWA Pro Wrestling (began April 2, 1988), and eventually returning to the original Championship Wrestling format on Sept. 9, 1988.

 


 

World Championship Wrestling (Saturday Evenings)

This was the main wrestling program for Crockett Promotions on WTBS. For most of 1985 and 1986 the show was taped on Saturday mornings at the TBS studios on Techwood Drive in Atlanta. It traditionally aired at 6:05 PM ET, but occasionally aired at other similar timeslots.

The program had it's origins back to the early 1970s when the NWA Georgia territory wrestling promotion began airing its Atlanta show on the broadcast channel WTCG channel 17. Georgia Championship Wrestling  was a ratings juggernaut when WTCG became WTBS and went national as the nation's first "superstation" on cable television.

In 1982, the promotion changed the name of the program to World Championship Wrestling, and it kept that name until the end of the GCW era, then through the WWF era, and on into the Crockett era on TBS.

 


 

Best of  Championship Wrestling (Sunday Evenings)

Georgia Championship Wrestling's traditional Sunday evening show also had it's origins in the early 1970s. It was a one hour show that featured matches from prior weeks on Georgia Championship Wrestling (and later World Championship Wrestling.) When WTBS became so popular on nationwide cable in the late 1970s, other territorial promoters would send tapes of their wrestlers that would air on this show as well, usually featuring stars who would be appareling in Georgia in the future or booked in special appearances in Atlanta. It traditionally aired at 6:05 PM, but like the other programs occasionally started at others times.

The show maintained its name through the WWF era and into the Crockett era, eventually being replaced by World Championship Wrestling - Sunday Edition  (on September 7, 1986) and the NWA Main Event (on April 4, 1988.)

 


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