a media mogul, titan of industry, philanthropist, and sports pioneer. Ted Turner died Wednesday

at age 87 after an eight-year battle with Louis body dementia. Turner saved the American bison

population, preserved two million acres of land, donated $1 billion to the United Nations Foundation

when the United States was about to default,

won the 1977 America's Cup in sailing, owned the Atlanta Braves and Atlanta Hawks,

won the 1995 World Series with the former, found the Goodwill Games as a means of easing tensions between the United States and Soviet Union, created CNN, the first 24-hour

cable news channel, TBS, one of the first

superstation cable channels, and obviously TNT. He nearly went bankrupt, acquiring MGM,

but regularly shrugged off any temporary financial pitfalls standing for decades as the de facto

president of Atlanta, considering how much he did for the city.

In these circles, though, he is best known as the owner of World Championship Wrestling,

which he founded by buying the assets of the National Wrestling Alliance and Jim Crockett

promotions in 1988.

WCW immediately became the number two wrestling promotion in America behind the WWF.

But it was not until seven years after its formation.

When Monday Nitro began and Eric Bischoff was put in charge that it not only competed with,

but briefly overtook Vince McMahon's promotion.

Despite WCW's ability to build audience and gain serious market share,

it was never a financial success due to outsized

contracts, insane expenditures, and constant internal power struggles. Even though WCW created so much

content for TNT and brought in tons of pay-per-view revenue, the talent was paid so much money

and WWF was committing so many own goals that the long-term perception that WCW

...