January 12, 2001

Turner selling World Championship Wrestling

ATLANTA (AP) -- Turner Broadcasting Systems sold its World Championship Wrestling operation for an undisclosed amount Thursday to the founders of the Classic Sports Network, which was bought three years ago by ESPN.

Once the most popular TV wrestling brand, WCW lost an estimated $80 million last year. It has taken a beating from rival World Wrestling Federation as pay-per-view revenues and TV ratings slipped.

The losses have been too much for parent company Time Warner Inc., which is getting in shape for its planned merger with America Online Inc.. A last-ditch effort last March to revive the dying WCW by bringing back its former head Eric Bischoff failed.

Bischoff promised a total revamp, signing on former WWF writer Vince Russo, who helped make the Connecticut-based WWF a ratings winner with lurid story lines, sex appeal and profanity.

Age was widely perceived as the toughest challenge facing the WCW -- dubbed "wheelchair wrestling" by many wags. Two of its biggest stars -- balding Hulk Hogan and the "Nature Boy," Ric Flair -- are about 50 in an industry whose average fan is under 30.

"They relied on old talent that had big, big names from the '80s and they got a lot of mileage out of a lot of people a lot of us in the industry thought were too old to draw. And they drew with them," said Dave Meltzer, publisher of Wrestling Observer, in an interview last year. "But eventually the public got tired of it."

Bradley J. Siegel, president of general entertainment networks, TBS Inc., said Turner cable stations likely will continue airing WCW matches but leave programming and marketing to New York-based Fusient Media Ventures, run by Brian Bedol and Stephen Greenberg, founders of Classic Sports Network. The pair sold the network to the ESPN division of the Walt Disney Company in October 1997. It is now known as ESPN Classic.

"Wrestling fans can rest assured that we will give the WCW the adrenaline shot it needs to once again become the most exciting brand of wrestling in the world," said Bischoff, who will remain president of WCW.

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