USWA Championship Wrestling
1989-1997
The USWA was founded as an attempt to create a fourth national promotion, alongside WCW, AWA, and the WWF. The USWA was created through a merger of the Dallas based World Class Championship Wrestling and the Memphis based Championship Wrestling Association. It originally promoted shows in both Tennessee and Texas.
The Dallas promotion (formerly WCCW), which was 40 percent owned by the Von Erich family, withdrew from the USWA in September 1990 due to a revenue dispute.
Jerry Jarrett and Jerry Lawler brought the USWA back to Texas, but only on a limited basis, while the new Global Wrestling Federation was getting ready for a spring 1991 debut at the Dallas Sportatorium.
Several of the former World Class and USWA Dallas wrestlers joined the new GWF, while others from the old CWA remained with the USWA.
In 1992, the USWA began a talent exchange with the WWF, which saw Lawler sign to that federation, while several high-profile WWF stars appeared in the USWA.
The wrestling landscape changed in 1995 - the Monday night wars began, with WWF and WCW battling for cable television supremacy on Monday nights each and every week.
As for the USWA, their biggest crowds came every Monday night at the Mid South Coliseum in Memphis, Tennessee.
With a growing wrestling viewership on Monday nights that could watch pay per view-quality wrestling matches for free on television, the live attendance at the marquee events for the USWA began to dwindle.
A move to Thursday nights did not help what was becoming inevitable - the demise of the USWA.
A combination of a poor line up, sub-standard venue, lack of talent and holding the show on a Thursday night led to a show on October 3, 1996 drawing the smallest crowd in the history of Memphis wrestling: just 372 fans, paying $1,800, to the Big One Flea Market.
The future of the promotion was being questioned, following the previous week's resignation of general manager Randy Hales.
The Louisville and Nashville crowds had stayed consistent, but the Memphis crowds, which in the past had carried the promotion, had fallen over the past few months.
In October 1997, the USWA aired its final broadcast at midnight on WMC TV5 in Memphis.
Territory wrestling officially came to an end.