The day that has gone down in infamy as the launch of Vince McMahon's absolute takeover of the professional wrestling industry, Black Saturday, changed wrestling forever.
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00:00On July 14th, 1984, millions of loyal viewers tuned into cable channel WTBS to watch its most popular program, World Championship Wrestling.
00:18But instead of a live broadcast featuring the South's most popular wrestlers,
00:24fans were shocked by the surprise appearance of New York promoter Vincent McMahon Jr.
00:31Thank you. It is indeed a pleasure to be associated with WTBS.
00:34And everybody's mouth dropped open.
00:37It did seem like the world of wrestling stopped at that time.
00:41I was watching the TV. I had no idea it was coming.
00:44Nobody knew why. You know, the fans of that promotion were furious.
00:49It was a day that would live in infamy, forever known as Black Saturday.
00:54Vince McMahon's first step toward his goal of total monopoly,
00:58he had a vision that wrestling should be national under one person.
01:03Far more than the tale of one man's ambition,
01:06Black Saturday is the story of an epic behind-the-scenes showdown between titans of the industry.
01:12They kind of hoodooed him and snuck it out from underneath him more so than him giving it up.
01:18No, he said, let's do his blood oath.
01:20The first one to break that oath was not us.
01:23My father, he gets a call. They've stolen the company.
01:26A high-stakes power play that sets Vince McMahon on the path toward building a billion-dollar wrestling empire.
01:34It was all the beginning groundwork of future warfare.
01:39Vince McMahon was a cancer during the wrestling business.
01:42Vince won. He was the best at it. He was the most vicious shark in the sea.
01:46Vince McMahon, Jr.
01:57Welcome to WrestleMedia.
01:59For over 40 years, the wrestling business has been dominated by world wrestling entertainment
02:05under the singular control of its owner and mastermind, Vince McMahon Jr.
02:09But in the early 1980s, McMahon is just beginning to stake his claim on an industry divided into regional promotions known as territories.
02:22In 1983, most wrestling fans saw Vince McMahon Jr. as the announcer of the WWF television program.
02:31Now, everybody in the wrestling business knew that Vince was Vince McMahon Sr.'s son and was the guy who had just bought the WWF, the World Wrestling Federation, from his father in 1982.
02:44Let's meet Jimmy Cornett and his dynasty of wrestlers.
02:47That's exactly right. Let's meet me. Where did you get that tie, Freddie Miller?
02:49Well, I'm Jim Cornett, and through my 40-year career in wrestling, I've been an historian.
02:54Specifically, I've studied Black Saturday and its effects on modern-day pro wrestling.
02:59When Vince McMahon Jr. bought the WWF, the business in that part of the country had almost never been stronger.
03:07Since the 1940s, regional promoters like McMahon Sr. did business through a governing body called the National War.
03:14National Wrestling Alliance.
03:16Well, the NWA, they made these bylaws and they had territorial boundaries where you got this territory and you got this territory.
03:24My name is Dave Meltzer, and I'm the editor of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, and I've been covering pro wrestling since the early 1970s.
03:30In the NWA, there was always wars and fighting and things like that.
03:34Wrestling has always been kind of like the mafia without the cement overshoes.
03:38Nobody ends up at the bottom of the river, just a few black eyes every now and then.
03:43Every year the NWA had a meeting, all the promoters came.
03:48It was like the Gambinos and the Bananos and there's the Gottis.
03:52And it was all the families that came together once a year and decided the major decisions for wrestling in the United States for the following year.
04:01The other promoters looked at Vince Jr. like an upstart kid.
04:05They didn't realize he wanted to be the Walt Disney of wrestling.
04:08They didn't understand not only the plans that he had, but the lengths that he was willing to go to, to have those plans come to fruition.
04:16While some territories showed signs of struggle, Georgia Championship Wrestling was thriving, thanks to the shrewd leadership of Jim Barnett.
04:27Barnett was one of the great minds in wrestling as a promoter.
04:31When he needed to charm people, he could charm people.
04:34And he had connections outside wrestling.
04:36If you needed to discuss something with a politician, if you needed to talk to a television executive or a station manager or a big sponsor,
04:46Barnett was the guy that they called to make the connection.
04:50Even in today's business, as off the wall as the characters are, Jim Barnett would still stand out as a very unique character.
04:59I'm Gerald Briscoe, better known as Jerry Briscoe in the wrestling circuit.
05:04Let's go see the World Tag Team Champions Jack and Jerry Briscoe in action.
05:08My brother and I became the only two people ever to hold both the Eastern Championship and the Mid-Atlantic Championship.
05:14Right, brother.
05:15They say we're wild and we're mean, we're creating a scene, we're going crazy.
05:19I got along real well and learned so much from Jim Barnett.
05:23All the other promoters were ex-wrestlers or they were loud and braggadocious.
05:29Jim always wore a beautiful suit with a tie and he had the hair slicked back and he had jewelry on.
05:35Has wrestling incurred violence?
05:37I don't think so, no. I never thought so.
05:41He was very different from a wrestling guy.
05:43I mean, he was interested in wrestling, but he's more interested in fine arts, which is kind of unique for a wrestling player.
05:48For a while, they wouldn't let Jim in the NWA until, geez, like 70, because they didn't want somebody gay in their old boys club.
05:58Behind the scenes, he was a cutthroat.
06:02He had the ability to cut your balls off and shove them down your throat and you'd thank him for it.
06:10Known as a powerful liaison to TV executives, Jim Barnett is close to media tycoon Ted Turner, who airs Georgia Championship Wrestling nationally on his cable network, WTBS.
06:24Wrestling was the first hit on cable television. It was Georgia Championship Wrestling.
06:28Turner just took his local Atlanta Channel 17 TV station and put it up on a satellite and everybody thought he was nuts.
06:34Who's going to want to watch a local Atlanta television show in San Francisco, right?
06:38There wasn't so many options for TV, so it was one of the stations you got.
06:42So you'd watch the Atlanta Braves and Annie Griffith was big.
06:44But wrestling was the biggest show on the station.
06:46You know, that was like must see.
06:48Coming up next, Georgia Championship Wrestling.
06:50All the stars of the National Wrestling Alliance
06:53Surprise!
06:54Flew into Atlanta every weekend to appear on the two-hour television program.
07:01A severe amount of punishment to the head.
07:03It was the number one TV show on cable TV. That's how hot it was.
07:08I mean, what made it so hot was the unique combination of Gordon Soley, the voice of championship wrestling.
07:14I'm Gordon Soley, your host.
07:16And the available talent. There's so many Hall of Famers on that original list of talent that it's mind-boggling that that kind of group of talent could assemble in one small territory like Georgia.
07:29I think what made it so special is it was TBS. First TV station to go all over the country.
07:36And I got to wrestle the best of the best. I mean, the cream of the crop.
07:41My name's Tommy Wildfire Rich, former NWA World Heavyweight Champion.
07:46Come on, Tommy. Thank you very much, Gordon. You don't care.
07:48It was crazy. A lot of times you sit back and watch the people and it would be as big a show watching them as it would be watching the wrestling, you know.
07:57Oh, Lord, yeah, the Georgia Peaches and the grannies love me too.
08:02I see grannies take their cane and beat Ole Anderson up with it because he's beating me up, you know.
08:07I put the TV ring up every Saturday at the TV station. It was cramped. The studio would only hold 100 people.
08:14And you packed them in like sardines to get 100 in there.
08:17Boy Scout groups, Girl Scout troops, church groups, just fans that love to come every week.
08:23My name's Bobby Simmons. I started working for ABC Booking when I was 14 years old running errands and then went to work for Georgia Championship Wrestling.
08:32We had good crowds and we did sell out a lot of arenas.
08:36The day-to-day operations are handled by matchmaker Ole Anderson.
08:40Ole Anderson.
08:42A veteran wrestler who rules Georgia Championship Wrestling with an iron fist.
08:47Ole suckered him that time.
08:49Ole was very intelligent. One of the most intelligent guys, one of the most well-spoken guys.
08:54He was loud. He was opinionated.
08:56Why don't you be quiet for about two seconds and let me talk at Facebook.
09:01But Ole was a great wrestler and he had also gotten quite a reputation as a matchmaker and a booker.
09:08Either you hate him or you love him or, well, you don't love him, but either you hate him or you like him.
09:14Let's put it, he's kind of hard to love.
09:17My name is Joe Hamilton Jr. I refereed and wrestled as Nick Patrick throughout my entire career.
09:23I stopped the match myself.
09:25To Nick Patrick Barrett.
09:27I heard Ricky Morton one time say, I don't think Ole Anderson even likes ice cream.
09:32You know, it's like, and I agree, he probably didn't, you know.
09:35He was just so old school and grouchy, but a lot of the old timers back then were like that, you know.
09:40They were being hard ass on the young guys and making them, making them learn.
09:44He was what you saw.
09:46My father was very no-nonsense.
09:49I think the guy that you saw on the screen was very much the same guy that ate breakfast with me the next morning.
09:54And I think that's really part of the reason he was successful.
09:57It was because people could believe what they were seeing.
10:00My name is Bryant Rogowski and I'm the oldest son of Ole Anderson.
10:05My father obviously spent years bumping in the ring and suffered a lot of physical injuries.
10:10And some years ago he was diagnosed with MS.
10:13And right now he's just in a state where he can't really do a lot for himself.
10:18I think he was all about business.
10:21It wasn't long into his wrestling career that he began to think about being in charge.
10:27Eventually he bought into the Georgia company.
10:30Ole isn't the only wrestler looking to increase his fortunes by getting involved in the financial side of the promotion.
10:38I started buying my stock in small increments where it built up to over 10%.
10:44And the same with my brother.
10:46In 1983, the stockholders in Georgia Championship Wrestling were the original promoter Paul Jones,
10:53A Columbus promoter Fred Ward, his son-in-law Ralph Freed, Jim Barnett's business partner Jim Oates,
10:59Jack and Jerry Briscoe, and Ole Anderson.
11:03Although Georgia Championship Wrestling is turning a profit, Ole Anderson begins to question whether all the live show earnings are being accurately reported.
11:12Wrestling had always been a very cash-heavy business and money had always probably been siphoned off the top to some degree.
11:19You know, we had to pay off the politician or we had to give some money to the commissioner or whatever it was.
11:24And I think surely there was some truth to some of that.
11:27But when my dad started to really pay attention in Georgia and realized that it wasn't only him bringing Barnett a few bucks after this show,
11:35but it was seven or eight other guys all doing the same thing,
11:38he realized that that amount of money surely couldn't all be used for those purposes.
11:44I had tremendous concerns, you know, because I was getting a dividend and I'd invested tens of thousands of dollars.
11:50We finally got Jim to expand into Michigan, Ohio and West Virginia, part of Pennsylvania.
11:56And we started selling out right and left.
11:59And I was actually doing the settlement at the shows at the time.
12:03So I personally know the amount of cash that I was taking back to Georgia.
12:08And that wasn't getting in anybody else's pocket but Mr. Barnett's.
12:15Ole was the first one, maybe the only one at the time,
12:19to question Jim Barnett.
12:22The story went around that while Barnett was in Hong Kong making his annual trip
12:28because he liked to go to Hong Kong and get all his new suits made,
12:32Ole either kicks the door in or busts the door in whether the accountant was in the office or not,
12:38but Ole got into the books.
12:40It was like Fort Knox trying to get to a box office statement
12:44because he had them on the lock and key
12:46and the people working in the office were instructed,
12:49don't let anybody in my office.
12:50It was actually padlocked.
12:51Chuck.
12:52Ole, you know, started examining the books and everything
12:55and he saw, like, Jim Barnett spending all kinds of crazy money on phone bills,
12:59$3,000 a month phone bills.
13:01And he had a personal chef and he had a personal driver.
13:05So Ole just thought that, you know, Jim was embezzling money from the company.
13:10They had a meeting of the Georgia Championship owners at a hotel south of Atlanta in a conference room.
13:17And Jim handed out the checks from the proceeds of the calendar we sold.
13:24Supposedly when Jim left, that's when Ole came in and addressed the owners.
13:31Ole had rallied the troops and gotten the majority of the other stockholders on his side.
13:44When I get to the office, Jim's doors opened.
13:49Lights on.
13:50I thought, what is this?
13:52And I heard Ole go, Bobby, come here.
13:54And Ole handed me all the checks that I had written for the proceeds of the calendar.
13:58He said, put this back in the bank.
14:01And he told me that day, he said, you don't work for Jim Barnett no more, you work for me.
14:05Ole told me, he says, I'm not out to hurt Jim, I'm not out to put him in jail, whatever that meant.
14:11He said, I think I can run this company and we're going to do it my way.
14:16He thought everything was black and white, there were no gray areas, that it was just business.
14:21You acted like business people.
14:23Well, he found out very quickly that it didn't work that way.
14:30Hell hath no fury, like Barnett scorned.
14:38After reviewing the accounts for Georgia Championship Wrestling, park owner Ole Anderson tries to convince his fellow shareholders that manager Jim Barnett is embezzling funds from the company.
14:54Ole would call me and say, well, Jim's stealing all this money.
14:57Ole, is he stealing it?
14:58Well, yeah, he's using it for his limousine.
15:00He's using it for this.
15:01And nobody approved those expenditures.
15:03And which was true, Jim would just explain it off its cost of doing business.
15:07We're having both sides of the story.
15:09Ole and Jim were not the best of friends.
15:12They were not even good partners most of the time.
15:15They were always at one another's throats.
15:18I'm Louise Cochran, formerly known as Louise Bennett and Georgia Championship Wrestling.
15:23We were in a lot of debt because Jim had promised the buildings and the TVs so much per week or per month.
15:31And it didn't matter if we didn't make money.
15:33That was a power play for Ole to move in.
15:36I think it was more just of a money power thing than a Jim is tanking us with his spending thing.
15:42My dad and Ralph, another stockholder in Georgia Championship, went downtown to Barnett's penthouse apartment.
15:50And they had a talk with him.
15:51I think my dad probably did most of the talking and explained to Barnett, my dad was going to be elected president of Georgia Championship.
15:58That's the way it's going to be.
16:00And if you don't like it, I'm going to toss you over your railing.
16:05Here you are, 285-pound monster, and you're bullying this old man.
16:11You did not want to get on the bad side of Jim Barnett because he could actively f*** with you in your wrestling career.
16:19Now, Ole has taken it to a whole new level.
16:22He didn't just no-show Barnett or stand him up or hold him up for more money for a main event or whatever.
16:27He's run him out of the company.
16:30Barnett knew that he might not be able to do anything about it then.
16:35You just know that he definitely knew he was going to do something about it eventually.
16:41While Ole reorganizes the company under his own management in early 1983, Vince McMahon has been quietly strategizing to expand his own promotion into other NWA territories.
16:55When Vince bought the company from his father, at first everything maintained a status quo.
17:01He had plans, but he didn't start putting them out front of everybody where they could tell what he was doing.
17:07But, behind the scenes, Vince Jr. has these plots in mind before even the other promoters know that he's going to do it.
17:15And the first thing that he's thinking about is television.
17:18Vince McMahon's scheme to steal the airwaves from other promoters begins by hiring an unlikely ally as his director of operations, Jim Barnett.
17:30In 1983, they have the annual meeting.
17:34All the promoters are there.
17:36Barnett comes in.
17:38So does Vince McMahon Jr.
17:40And they both give their resignations.
17:45That couldn't be good.
17:48What the f*** is going to happen?
17:50They were all blindsided, for sure.
17:53When they resign from the NWA, that would mean they're either going to get out of wrestling or they're going to run opposition.
17:59That's the only two things it can mean.
18:01And that seems to indicate that they're going to go into business for themselves, with themselves, in some other fashion.
18:08Oli smelled it.
18:10He said, okay, then the gloves are going to be off.
18:12Well, the problem was, you couldn't handle the wrestling business in 1983 and 84 like you handled it in 1953 and 54.
18:22And secondly, Vince wasn't going to play that game.
18:25He had one of the most powerful wrestling personalities of the last 30 years in his corner who knew absolutely everybody.
18:35Barnett hated Oli.
18:37Barnett also was looking at survival.
18:39He was getting up there in age, but he needed to keep working.
18:42He needed to keep that income coming in to maintain the facade that he was a millionaire.
18:48I had Bob Roop, 13-year amateur wrestler, 15-year professional wrestler, five-time Hall of Fame member.
18:56So, Vince Senior asked Oli to come up and meet with Junior and see if they could make some kind of arrangement.
19:06And Oli said, no.
19:07He said, no, absolutely not.
19:09You know, he's trying to steal my territories and stuff.
19:12There was this unspoken agreement that people honored each other's territory.
19:16I'm sure Barnett was talking to McMahon right away and starting to sabotage Georgia Championship.
19:22Things started to happen around that time that had never happened before.
19:28McMahon would go to a station that we were on.
19:32We had a show running and offer them 2,000 bucks a week to take his show.
19:38But they had to get rid of Oli's show.
19:41Nothing on paper.
19:42There was no contract.
19:43Nothing said that they had to honor a championship wrestler from Georgia.
19:47So, the station would say, okay.
19:50Next, you start losing buildings.
19:53You call to check on the building and see how ticket sales are going.
19:56They say, well, we stopped selling them.
19:58Bunch of police cars roll up outside the TV station.
20:01Take somebody away.
20:03They got an anonymous tip that he's dealing drugs.
20:06Or they're searching the guys at the airport.
20:09Things that just had never happened before that were just a constant thorn in his side and making things difficult to operate.
20:16More so than usual.
20:18Is it certain that this was all Vince McMahon Jr.'s doing?
20:21I don't think he ever had any proof and I don't know how he would.
20:24But, like I say, it was stuff that never happened until then.
20:28Vince was infiltrating everybody's territory.
20:31Vince got the USA Network time slot from Southwest Championship Wrestling.
20:38Another regional promotion out of San Antonio.
20:40Ladies and gentlemen, the Southwest Tag Team Champions.
20:43They couldn't afford the slot anymore.
20:45Vince jumped in and took it.
20:47And all American wrestling debuted on the USA Network.
20:51He would call different promoters and say, hey, I've got this cable show now.
20:55If you'll send me tapes, then I'll put your wrestlers on it and I'll get them over to a whole new audience.
21:01But the people that he was getting the tapes of and showing are people that he wanted to sign for the WWF.
21:09He gets the Junkyard Dog from Mid-South Wrestling.
21:13He gets Steamboat from the Carolinas.
21:15He got Kerry Von Erich in Dallas.
21:18He was buying out talent from other areas.
21:23You know, Hulk Hogan was on top in the AWA for Vern and all of a sudden he went to New York.
21:29Hulk Hogan shows up to win the WWF Championship from the Iron Sheik in Madison Square Garden.
21:38Now, Vince has the superhero on the top of his cards that he wants to put in every arena in the country
21:47and all over television to lead his national expansion.
21:51He knew that if you controlled television,
21:54you would control the source of distribution for all the wrestling programs and all the top wrestlers.
22:01Oh!
22:03And that's what he wanted to corner.
22:06Everything had been done a certain way and now everything was different.
22:09And Vince was public enemy number one.
22:11Some of the promoters and they're talking about him.
22:13What if we put a hit on the guy, you know?
22:15And, you know, it's a wild story.
22:17I don't doubt that it's true at all.
22:20Because, you know, like, these are bad dudes.
22:23It's just like, you know, Vince is breaking the rules.
22:26Through Barnett's calculated maneuvering, Vince has seized TV time from promotions across the country.
22:33But one remains for the taking.
22:35Georgia Championship Wrestling and its nationwide slot on WTBS.
22:40And when Barnett comes to him with a grudge against Ole Anderson,
22:45who has the widest distribution of any television program in wrestling,
22:51and Barnett says to Vince, I think I can get it for you.
22:55And that's all he needed to hear.
22:57If he could take over and control television across the country,
23:02then he could take over every territory in the country.
23:13While Vince McMahon scoops up talent in TV spots from territories across the country,
23:17Ole Anderson tries to hold Georgia Championship Wrestling together by any means necessary.
23:23Maybe Ole thought he could do everything at that point in time.
23:27But Georgia Wrestling, it still had the reputation, but the product was starting to suffer.
23:33Yeah, I think he was trying to run a business with, you know, second-tier guys.
23:38People that weren't going to draw.
23:40I mean, he'd employed just about everybody in the business at one point or another.
23:44And it was those guys who were now working for Vince and WWF and becoming his superstars,
23:50leaving my father just scratching around for leftovers.
23:53And that just wasn't going to sell tickets.
23:55Ole had changed the concept where we weren't bringing in a lot of outside talent.
24:01Our live events were not drawing the money because we weren't spending the money on the talent
24:06that we were spending on before.
24:08And the top guys quit wanting to come to our territory.
24:13And we were actually getting phone calls from some of the top talent around the country.
24:17Hey, what's going on? You better watch Ole.
24:20And not only took their word for it, but were up there on several big shows
24:24and experienced that the payoffs weren't the same.
24:28Frustrated that their investment is no longer paying dividends,
24:31the Briscoes decide Ole isn't cut out to manage the company.
24:35But in order to push out Ole, they will have to get their fellow shareholders to agree with a majority vote.
24:42We called a stockholders meeting because we were going to take over Ole's dictatorship and do it ourselves.
24:49And we flew into town and met with the lawyers.
24:52And the lawyers said, guys, you can't do this stockholders meeting.
24:55It's illegal because we didn't state a purpose.
24:57The meeting got put off, of course.
24:59So we went back to the hotel and wanted to drown our sorrows.
25:03So we were sitting in the hotel bar.
25:05And who all of a sudden showed up in this bar?
25:07It's Ole Anderson.
25:09His purpose struck us down to find out what the hell we were planning on doing.
25:13And we weren't shy.
25:15We laid out that we're here to take you out of office.
25:20You want to know how much money there is in the bank.
25:23He tells them, well, why can't you pay it out?
25:26And so I'm sure for the hundredth time he tries to explain to them how you've got to have some operating capital to run this business.
25:35You know, I've got to pay deposits on buildings.
25:38I've got to pay for advertising.
25:39I've got to buy plane tickets.
25:41Once we get another hundred thousand in the bank, then I'll write the dividend checks.
25:45Of course I want to.
25:46I'll get one too.
25:47We had done drank as much as we could drink and argued as much as we could argue.
25:54And Ole, well, I'll come up the room with you.
25:57I've got a deal for you.
25:58Okay, we'll listen to one last pitch.
26:00Ole, well, you're going to watch the Godfather.
26:03Yeah, I've got this deal with you.
26:05If you guys agree, let's do a blood off so we're all on the same page.
26:08The deal was, if anybody was going to sell stock, they had to offer it to the other shareholders
26:17in Georgia Championship Wrestling first before they could sell it to anybody else.
26:24My dad has a little pocket knife, sticks it in his head, digs it down, gets some color.
26:32They look at him like, oh my God, what's wrong with you?
26:37Only, my word means more than blood, I mean, you know, to me.
26:41I mean, if I give you my word, I'm going to live up to it.
26:43I don't need these little gimmicks to certify my honesty.
26:50Probably took him about ten minutes to convince Jack and I to do the same thing.
26:57So that was the only solution to our problem.
26:59You know, let's cut ourselves and bleed on each other.
27:02My dad was such a man of his word that if he shook your hand and said,
27:06he was going to do anything, he would do it.
27:09He just, he believed people because, you know, he would never tell a lie.
27:15As part of the blood oath agreement, the Briscoes will focus on increasing ticket sales
27:20in exchange for regular payouts.
27:22But the deal doesn't last for long.
27:25The first one to break the oath was only because he quit paying us what he agreed to pay us.
27:30So we felt that we had an open waters there to do what we wanted to do.
27:34That led a fire under us that if we stick in this situation too much longer,
27:38we're not going to have anything.
27:41Desperate to cash out, the Briscoes begin shopping their shares outside of the company,
27:46starting with Jim Barnett, who turns them down.
27:49Knowing the Briscoes are looking to sell,
27:52Barnett knows someone who wants to buy.
27:55Vince McMahon.
27:57So Vince flew us up to LaGuardia and still to this day I ribbed Vince about flying us up Coach.
28:03We met at LaGuardia Airport.
28:07He said, can you guys deliver me 51% of the territory?
28:12And I looked at him and I said, yes sir, I can.
28:16So I had to make a call to Jim Barnett.
28:19Jim Barnett knew everybody that owned a piece of Georgia.
28:23Jim Barnett knew who they liked, who they didn't like, what they were mad about,
28:27what their weak spots were, whatever the case.
28:29All Jim Barnett had to do was point Vince McMahon in the right direction,
28:34not only with the Briscoes, but anybody else.
28:36Or talk to them himself.
28:38He could make you do something you didn't want to do,
28:41and by the time he was finished, you'd think it was your idea.
28:46In the end of the negotiations and all the transactions,
28:49Vince ended up owning 67.5% of Georgia Championship Wrestling,
28:54which of course also held the contract for the television program on TBS.
28:59There was an agreement in the Articles of Incorporation
29:02that before anybody was to sell,
29:04they had to first offer it to one of the other stockholders.
29:07And he was told repeatedly by the attorneys that that was going to protect him.
29:12Well, it turned out not to be true.
29:14Behind the back of Ole Anderson, the Briscoes aligned with Jim Barnett
29:27to give Vince McMahon control of Georgia Championship Wrestling,
29:31a move that will forever reshape the industry.
29:34In March of 1984, my grandmother passed away very suddenly.
29:40My father and I go up to Minnesota, Wisconsin,
29:43and take care of their arrangements and family business.
29:45He gets a call from the office.
29:47I think it was Louise who called him.
29:49I was in my office and the door opens and Vince walks in.
29:53Good morning. I now own the company.
30:00I called Ole and told him that Vince had sold the company.
30:06I thought it was real sneaky.
30:08It's not that they did it, it's just how they did it.
30:12He and I got on a plane right away.
30:16He parked me in a hotel in Atlanta.
30:18He immediately met with the lawyers.
30:20They filed for injunctions and they fought for three or four months
30:23before it was finally all over.
30:25But he wanted to stop Vince from taking over Georgia Championship.
30:29With Ole's legal efforts to block the takeover thwarted,
30:33all that's left for him to do is concede.
30:36There was a deal in the bylaws for our corporation
30:40that said if a majority of the stockholders decide to change
30:44all the damn rules that are written up here, they can do that.
30:47And they just changed all the rules that we've been going by for years.
30:50So we lost it because Barnett was smart enough to realize
30:52that he could have done it and I didn't know.
30:54I can remember the Saturday morning TV at TBS Studios.
30:58Vince McMahon is in the building.
31:00It's the only time I've ever been in the same room as Vince McMahon to this day.
31:04But from there the fight was on.
31:06Vince was still at that point trying to talk to Ole
31:09because Vince is a guy that used to get in his own way
31:12and used to being able to talk people into anything he wants them to do.
31:15I think, you know, Vince would say,
31:17Ole, Ole, I'll give you a job.
31:18You know, I tried to tell him over and over.
31:20It's just business. It's just business.
31:22Vince says, Ole, I'd like you to meet my wife Linda.
31:26Well, my dad in a typical fashion responds, you know what?
31:30**** you and **** Linda.
31:36Despite Ole's fury, few outside the company are even aware of the change in ownership
31:42until Vince McMahon takes to the airwaves.
31:45So I go in there on this particular Saturday and there's this guy standing there with his arms folded.
31:49He's making his face.
31:50As it turns out, the man was Vincent K. McMahon.
31:58None of the talent knew anything.
32:00It was all inner office stuff.
32:02Nobody knew who sold to what or who was on what side or nothing.
32:05The camera guys and all of them, they didn't have a clue.
32:07I got a call, was told not to come to TV, that we weren't going to be taping that day.
32:13I didn't go to TV on Saturday, that Saturday, because I just got fired.
32:18Vince had a meeting with all the talent that was here.
32:21And he said, none of you have jobs anymore.
32:24He said, if we want to use you, we'll contact you.
32:27And that was it. It was over.
32:30The wrestling program on TBS had been an institution for years.
32:34Every wrestling fan that was able to get cable at that point in time
32:37was going to watch Georgia wrestling every Saturday.
32:41July 14th, 1984, they turn on World Championship Wrestling.
32:46And they didn't see Gordon Soley, they see Freddie Miller.
32:50Hello, everybody, and welcome to World Championship Wrestling.
32:53Freddie Miller introduced Vince McMahon.
32:56Here's Vince McMahon. Vince, thank you very much, Freddie.
32:59Welcome.
33:00Freddie Miller introduced Vince and just the silence of the dead airtime.
33:06You know, no crackling fan, no nothing.
33:09Let's take you now to Minneapolis and Jesse the Body Ventura.
33:13They started showing videotapes of matches from other WWF television programs
33:19and other WWF arenas and TV shoots.
33:22One of the many stars here in the World Wrestling Federation.
33:25The fans of Georgia wrestling, they practically rioted.
33:32They were just bombarding the TBS switchboards.
33:35We want our wrestling.
33:37We want our wrestling.
33:39Georgia wrestling is a lot different than Vince's wrestling.
33:42Vince brought his style down here, and I don't think they bought it
33:47or just didn't like it because it wasn't homeboys, you know.
33:51So I think that they just wasn't buying what he was selling.
33:56He didn't want the Georgia wrestling territory.
33:58All he wanted was that TV.
34:00And I'm getting excited because I'm seeing a new future starting to be made.
34:04I call it Green Saturday because it changed my fortune.
34:09But obviously a lot of fans that were fans, true fans of Georgia's championship wrestling
34:15didn't see it the same way I saw it.
34:18Ousted from the promotion he helped build, Ole makes no secret of his resentment.
34:24If Jack and Jerry had agreed with him to wait things out a few more months
34:29and then take advantage of the time when he's dealing with his mother's funeral
34:34to sell out behind his back, I think that that would have really impacted his opinion
34:40strongly for quite a while to the negative.
34:43And I was pissed at the Briscoes.
34:45And they got whatever money they got.
34:49Ole had supposedly hired an armed guard to stand there
34:52and actually do body harm to us if we tried to get in the office.
34:56Not the promoter, but Paul Dunn's the old raster.
34:59Called and said there's supposedly a hit man out on you guys.
35:02For two days be very careful where you go and who you associate with
35:06because I think it's real.
35:15Ole Anderson is on the hunt for revenge as rumors circulate
35:19about a potential plot to have the Briscoes killed.
35:22We waited the two days, nothing happened to us,
35:25and we threw at one of the biggest parties we ever thrown.
35:28Do you think he would have done that?
35:29No.
35:30First of all, he would have never got rid of the money.
35:33And stick at me, he'd have done it himself.
35:35He would have never asked anybody else to do it.
35:38He would have been glad to do it himself.
35:40The only negative way that I think it affected us is the loss of friendship
35:44and the negative things that were said about me.
35:47The threats that my brother and I got during this time frame too was phenomenal.
35:51I mean, our families were receiving phone calls.
35:54You know, we were no good, back savered.
35:57It was a very rough deal.
35:59Determined to keep the spirit of Georgia Championship Wrestling alive,
36:03Ole sells his shares and starts his own promotion.
36:07Ole was able to work out a deal.
36:09He called up Vince and said, Vince, I'm going to sell you my piece too.
36:12Which, you know, I guess, thank you Vince,
36:15because Vince could very easily have just said,
36:18okay, I'm closing up.
36:19Your shares aren't worth anything.
36:21Ole went to Ted Turner directly and he said,
36:24hey, the people want to see the Georgia Wrestling and the Georgia Wrestlers,
36:28and I've got them.
36:29Give me another time slot.
36:31And when I went to Ted Turner later on, I said,
36:34who do you think has been wearing this damn thing for the last eight, nine years?
36:38Me.
36:39So he gave Ole Saturday morning at 7.30.
36:42A very spirited crowd here today at the WTBS Sports Arena.
36:47We're very proud to bring you once again Championship Wrestling from Georgia.
36:51While Ole attempts to mount a comeback,
36:53Vince is struggling to connect with Georgia viewers.
36:56They were used to seeing a certain style
36:58and it wasn't something that they'd seen before.
37:00They didn't know who these guys were.
37:02They didn't care.
37:03They were looking for the people they knew.
37:05Vince is getting crowded out of the Saturday night time slot.
37:09Turner's on his ass.
37:10It's not doing him the good that he thought it was going to do him.
37:14This is one of the first and only Vince McMahon complete failures.
37:18Looking to offload his valuable WTBS time slot,
37:22McMahon once again turns to Jim Barnett to land a deal.
37:26Barnett finds a buyer in one of McMahon's other major competitors,
37:30Jim Crockett Promotions.
37:32How long did Vince's run last on TBS?
37:34One year.
37:35Turner was going to kick Vince off as soon as he legally could.
37:39And so Barnett opened the door to Crockett.
37:41You know, that TBS time slot, at the time it probably sounded like a great deal.
37:45Vince will sell the time slot on Saturday night on TBS to Jim Crockett Promotions
37:53and Vince McMahon would get a million dollars.
37:56And everybody becomes happy with that.
37:59So, with Barnett putting all the pieces together,
38:03Vince McMahon temporarily monopolizes cable TV wrestling in the United States
38:08but is a failure at that.
38:10So he uses that flop to make money to finance WrestleMania.
38:17Where he then started on the road to put every other promoter out of business.
38:22The wrestling extravaganza of all-time WrestleMania.
38:27All in that 80s period, that's where he got the big jump.
38:29WWE became the name brand of pro wrestling.
38:32And he's got Cyndi Lauper and he's building up WrestleMania.
38:34Hulk Hogan's getting big.
38:35And he's just shooting way past everybody else.
38:39And they don't have the outlet to compete with him.
38:44Black Saturday forever altered the trajectory of the wrestling business.
38:48Something no one understood better than Ole Anderson.
38:52It was almost like he had just cleared his desk off and scraped everything into it.
38:57Honestly, the state my father is in today, I don't know that he can hate anybody, sadly enough.
39:02But I think he held a grudge against Vince for a long time.
39:05I'm just trying to see what all I got here.
39:08Bill Watts, himself a pioneering promoter in Mid-South wrestling, writes a letter to Ole in 1987, reflecting upon the significance of Black Saturday.
39:20Dear Ole, I know actions and words once said or done cannot be recalled.
39:24You were seeing the beginning of the metamorphosis of change of the very fiber of our business, all precipitated by McMahon, in my opinion.
39:32I certainly agree his legacy will be the destruction of an industry as we know it or knew it.
39:39After the Black Saturday incident, Barnett was Vince's right-hand man, but Barnett was still more old-time wrestling, and Vince wanted to be modern.
39:51And somewhere in 87, they had a difference of opinion, and Vince let Barnett go.
39:57Jim Barnett only worked for WWF for a fraction of his long career, but his actions during the company's expansion helped solidify a new way of doing business in wrestling, the Vince McMahon way.
40:17Vince McMahon, for 40 years, he made his business based on taking TV time slots or companies out from under people, doing takeovers, buying stock, issuing stock, public offering of the WWE that made him a billionaire.
40:37But his downfall eventually came through the same way.
40:42You know, there's an old saying, what goes around comes around, and or f*** around and f*** around, pretty soon you won't be around.
40:49Well, Vince had, um, it came out in the Wall Street Journal that he had allegations of paying certain women off, you know, non-disclosure agreements for infidelities and, you know, even worse.
41:00McMahon paid a former employee $3 million to keep her quiet.
41:06You take a picture of Vincent McMahon, and that there is the reason why there is a human resources now in companies.
41:14That is the reason why.
41:16As far as revolutionizing our business, yes, he did.
41:20Is there a dark side and a bad side?
41:22Yes, there damn sure is.
41:24It was enough of an embarrassment to the company that Vince stepped down.
41:28They forced him out of the company because his son-in-law and his daughter and all these people that he's worked with and trusted were saying,
41:36Vince, you've got to go.
41:37This is not going to do the stock price any good.
41:39It's not going to do our business any good.
41:41You've got to step aside.
41:42And the thing he learned from the Georgia takeover, he still owns 80% of the company.
41:49So, after six months, then he comes back in a whirlwind of action.
41:56Let me just say that I made mistakes, obviously, you know, both personally and professionally through my 50-year career.
42:02I wound up to every single one of them and then moved on.
42:05And then announces, I'm coming back because we're going to sell this son of a bitch.
42:09And the time is right.
42:12Endeavor announcing WWE and UFC will combine to form a $21 billion global live sports and entertainment company.
42:20And that's what worries all the wrestling fans.
42:22Say what you want about Vince, at least it was the family business.
42:25He's done it for 50 years.
42:27Now, Endeavor, what mental romantic attachment do they have to the wrestling business, to its history, to keeping it alive?
42:37We're going to lose a lot of history and we're going to lose the, you know, the last vestige of what old-time professional wrestling was for 100 years.
42:47I think Black Saturday was kind of a tipping point in the wrestling business.
42:51That was the moment it started to evolve away from the wrestling business and into show business.
42:58Black Saturday in and of itself wasn't a groundbreaking moment.
43:04It was the canary in the coal mine.
43:06Vince McMahon put anywhere from hundreds to maybe thousands of wrestlers out of work.
43:12Didn't Vince make a lot of those guys millionaires though?
43:15Maybe 3% of them.
43:20The other 97% didn't get to work anymore.
43:24That's when all the change is going on and you can't go back.
43:28I mean, and that's life.
43:30Just times change, you know, and I'm just holding on to them 80s.
43:35Do you think guys like Barnett, Jack, Jerry, Briscoe, do people blame them for the demise of the territories?
43:41I don't think they blamed the Briscoes, but they definitely blamed Vince.
43:47But it was the move. It was the move to make.
43:50What killed the territories was cable television.
43:52And that would have been with Vince McMahon or without Vince McMahon.
43:54It wasn't Vince McMahon going national. It would have been Vern Gagne or Jim Crockett.
43:58And they wouldn't have done as well as Vince did.
44:01Somebody was going to be successful. Wrestling wasn't going to go away.
44:04But would they have been successful as Vince McMahon was? I'm going to say no.
44:07I'm going to say no.
44:08I'm going to say no.
44:14That's all.
44:15I'm going to say no.
44:16See you all here.
44:17I'm going to say no.
44:20That's crazy.
44:23Hey, Dick.
44:24I'm everything known as Woah.
44:25Us we've gone to that.
44:26We've been having a significant impact,
44:31Rafi.
44:33It's hardest that I bet it's done.