World Championship Wrestling (WCW) is a defunct American professional wrestling promotion that existed from 1988 to 2001. It began as a promotion affiliated with the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) that appeared on the national scene under the ownership of media mogul Ted Turner and based in Atlanta, Georgia. The name came from a wrestling television program that aired on TBS in the 1980s, which had taken the name from an Australian wrestling promotion of the 1970s. In the 1990s, World Championship Wrestling, along with the World Wrestling Federation (WWF; now known as World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE)), were the top two wrestling promotions in the United States. Its flagship show WCW Monday Nitro went head-to-head with WWF Raw is War in a ratings battle known as the Monday Night Wars. However, poorly-received storylines, the increasing popularity of the WWF's Attitude Era, and restrictions from Time Warner eventually led to WCW's decline and eventual acquisition of key assets by its main competition, Vince McMahon and the WWF. NWA years (1982–1987) Although the "World Championship Wrestling" brand name was used by promoter Jim Barnett for his Australian promotion, the first promotion in the United States to use the brand on a wide scale was Georgia Championship Wrestling (GCW). GCW, owned primarily by Jack Brisco and Gerald Brisco and booked by Ole Anderson, was the first NWA territory to gain cable television access, being broadcast on Channel 17 of Ted Turner's Superstation TBS. The show was broadcast every Saturday evening, from 6:05 PM EST to 8:05 PM EST. After founding his own company, Titan Sports Inc. in 1980, in 1982, Vincent K. McMahon purchased his father's Capitol Wrestling Corporation (CWC) and merged it into Titan Sports Inc. Under his leadership, the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) became the top promotion in North America, and GCW devised the name "World Championship Wrestling" in an effort to compete. In 1982, GCW changed the name of its television show to World Championship Wrestling since it was already starting to run shows in "neutral" territories such as Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan. These efforts helped to keep GCW competitive against the WWF, as both promotions had secured television deals and were trying to become national, as opposed to regional, entities. The WWF evenutally left the NWA and created the show WWF All American Wrestling. The NWA, led by the President of Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling, Jim Crockett Jr., countered by creating