Ted Turner, Former WCW Owner and Media Mogul, Dead at 87

Ted Turner, who had been suffering from Lewy body dementia, has died at the age of 87.

Ted Turner | IMAGO / ZUMA Press Wire

Ted Turner, the former owner of WCW and a renowned media mogul, has died at the age of 87.

Turner had been suffering from the Lewy body dementia, a brain disorder, at the time of his passing. The news was first reported in a press release from Turner Enterprises.

Turner was a media pioneer. He founded CNN, the first 24-hour news channel, which is still a prominent television network today, and even owned the Atlanta Braves and oversaw a World Series victory.

Turner also infamously got into the pro wrestling business when he purchased WCW late in 1988 from Jim Crockett Promotions. WCW was a Turner product until 2001, when it was sold to Vince McMahon, the owner of the WWE.

Though Ted Turner was only in the wrestling business for a short time, the years in which he owned WCW were transformative for the pro wrestling industry in many ways. Turner hired Eric Bischoff as the Executive Producer of WCW and tasked him with making WCW a profitable arm of his business.

To do that, Turner and Bischoff created the Nitro television show and aired it against WWE Raw in the same exact timeslot on Monday nights. This battle became known as the Monday Night Wars and it changed the wrestling business forever.

Ted Turner and WCW changed the pro wrestling business forever

Hulk Hogan arrived in WCW in 1994 | WWE

During Turner's tenure as owner of WCW and with Bischoff at the helm, the company signed a multitude of top WWE Superstars like Randy Savage, Roddy Piper, Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, and others. And the signature name that they pulled from their competition was Hulk Hogan.

Hogan joined Turner and WCW in 1994 to significant fanfare, due to his cultural popularity and the fact that the biggest star in the history of pro wrestling was leaving his home company to join a rival.

Eventually, Bischoff turned Hulk Hogan into a bad guy and ushered in the nWo faction that would kick the Attitude Era of pro wrestling into gear. The nWo was a rogue sub-group of WCW that included Hogan, Nash, Hall, and eventually many other talents. The nWo helped Turner and Bischoff finally achieve their goal and turned WCW into a moneymaker.

WCW was hot during the nWo era of the company, but it burned out quickly. When Time Warner and AOL merged, the wheels fell off the organization and eventually led to the sale of the company.

Turner is survived by his five children, 14 grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.