ted turner lost control of his networks tbs and tnt in october 1996. he still was in charge of day-to-day operations of the turner channels and wcw, but time warner had majority ownership over it, so basically any major decisions had to be approved by them. wcw began to decline in 1998 and got significantly worse after an event called the fingerpoke of doom on the first nitro of 1999. in january 2001, aol merged with time warner and ted turner was forced out of tnt, tbs and wcw. the new owners decided not to show wrestling anymore. turner still supported wrestling, but time warner didn't and in the end wcw was bought out by the world wrestling federation who shut it down.