Saturday (Night) Ringside: When Vince McMahon took over Georgia (1984-5)

 In July 1984, Vince McMahon's national expansion of the World Wrestling Federation (now WWE) swallowed up the Georgia Championship Wrestling block on WTBS on what would become known as Black Saturday. Ultimately, the National Wrestling Alliance would gain a morning slot on the station, which we've previously discussed some time back.

However, it was not fated to last. Viewer apathy from long time NWA supporters led to a decline in ratings across the country, and, coupled with the fact that McMahon would not have a guaranteed two hour show every Saturday during baseball season, led to McMahon giving the 6:05 pm (ET) slot back to the NWA after a year.

From March 1985, two weeks before the 1st Wrestlemania card, is a show with Georgia standby Mr. Wrestling II, and a few names familiar to NWA and TBS fans from previous runs in the market, such as King Kong Bundy, Nikolai Volkoff, Hulk Hogan (he was known as Sterling Golden during an earlier run in NWA-Georgia a few years earlier), Jimmy Snuka, Ken Patera, and the Iron Sheik.

Gorilla Monsoon goes it alone on commentary, with ring announcer Freddie Miller serving as co-host.

A few quick notes:

Swede Hansen & Paul "Butcher" Vachon were midcard heels in the 70's, brought back as mid-level enhancement talent, with Vachon remaining a heel. We lost Vachon a little more than a week ago.

Barry Windham and Mike Rotundo (Rotunda) would lose the tag titles to Sheik & Volkoff at Wrestlemania two weeks later. Earlier this week, it was announced that Windham & Rotundo, billed as the US Express, would join their former rivals in the WWE Hall of Fame. Both would return to the NWA before the end of the 80's. Windham becomes a 2-time Hall of Famer, as he was previously inducted as a member of the 4 Horsemen.

Sorry about the choppy video, but, hey.