As of the week of March 25, 2001, Vince McMahon and the World Wrestling Federation has purchased the WCW. As well, the WCW broadcasted its last Monday Nitro show on TNT on March 26, 2001. The finale involved an appearance (by satellite) of Vince McMahon who announced that he was going to shut down WCW for good. However, like a Greek play that it is, Shane McMahon (Vince's real life son) appeared at the live WCW event to announce that, in fact, he had purchased WCW out from under Vince's nose and was going to continue to run it as a competitor.
The status of the WCW involving wrestling contracts, television broadcasts, pay-per-view events and merchandising is still to be decided. There has been speculation that most of the mid-priced contracts will be picked up by the WWF/WCW, that the weekly WCW show will be moved to TNN at a different date/time, that there will be some sort of "invasion" at the WWF Wrestlemania X-7 show on April 1, 2001 by the "disgruntled" WCW employees/wrestlers, and that merchandising for the WCW will continue unabated (first by collectors looking for memorabilia, then by fans as the advertising arm of WWF takes over).