Welcome. My name is Will Burns and I have been a fan of professional wrestling for over 30 years. I’ve truly seen it all… or after 30 years… I think I have. Over the past five years or so, I really fell out of love with the majority of modern wrestling and in my opinion, a huge part of the business died when we lost Extreme Championship Wrestling and World Championship Wrestling in 2001.
I still get through a few hours of newer footage every week but my life revolves around professional wrestling’s past. I spend countless hours per week watching the hundreds and thousands of hours of video footage that I have acquired through the years of being a fan. Whether its old TV shows, pay-per-view mega-events, house shows, compilation videos, shoot interviews, documentaries – I watch it all.
I purchased this website in 2014 but I am just finally finding the time and inspiration to use it for the purpose I shelled out for it back then. ProjectWCW.com’s main goal is to document all my memories, all the action from the footage I own and have available to me through the various online streaming platforms.
I will take a chronological look at month by month initially starting from 1980 until 1983 where you will see our content ramp-up. The majority of footage and information I have at my disposal is from 1983. From there we will take a weekly look at all the Territories affiliated with the NWA until we blend our coverage into solely Jim Crockett Promotions and WCW until the bitter end.
So throughout this journey, you will see us provide (and this list is not exhaustive…)
- Monthly reviews of all the results and happenings (in the ring and backstage) for all the promotions involved in our project.
- From 1983 – as above but weekly reviews.
- Feature articles – taking you behind the scenes and using books, autobiographies, thousands of hours of interviews and documentaries to give you the real story outside the ring.
- Capture all the title histories and title defences.
- Profiles of wrestlers, managers, bookers, important people, promotions, venues with each having their own digital trading card to collect.
- An in-depth look at business, ratings, ticket sales to action figures, t-shirts, other merchandise and much, much more.
I feel I have great things planned to help you follow me on this journey, over the years I have upskilled in web design, graphic design, digital marketing, sports writing and journalism. I aim to use all these skills throughout the duration of our story. Here are a few tasters to some alternative major show posters/artwork I have created to coincide with our journey.
Why WCW you ask? I was born in 1981 and the majority of my age range growing up will have seen many WWF shows back then. When I went to school, the kids in the playground would talk about wrestling so I decided I needed to get in on it. Here in the UK (I’m British), I spotted something of interest called ‘Superstars of Wrestling’ on ITV in the TV Guide. So I set the VCR to record as it was shown around 1am on a Tuesday night.
I ran home the day after to watch the program and I witnessed a load of wrestlers I never heard of in the schoolyard… Sting, The Steiner Brothers, Lex Luger, Arn Anderson and Ric Flair. I was hooked. I now know I was listening to the wonderful solo commentary of Lance Russell on a program called ‘WCW International Pro’ and watching stars I immediately became a fan of. I made sure all the kids on the playground knew about the likes of Doom, Sid Vicious, Flyin’ Brian Pillman and the Z-Man the next day. Once they recorded the week after, I knew they were hooked like me.
They had an alternative to the WWF show they were watching on pay channels Sky Sports and Sky Movies, I only had WCW… well until I could lend WWF VHS tapes from them. So I am going to explain how WCW came about, the legacy it left, the legacy beforehand that helped it create a true rival to Vince McMahon’s World Wrestling Federation that became a juggernaut in the 1980’s. We will experience it all.
Thanks for reading and come with me on this magical journey, we have thousands of stories to tell, I’m sure you don’t mind that you already know the conclusion to our voyage…
PROJECT WCW 