Behind the scenes, Gilbert endorsed Borden by telling a dirt sheet that Sting would be a megastar in the future. Later that year, Sting was tabbed to win the UWF Television Championship, then held by Gilbert, until Jim Crockett of the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) bought the company from Watts. Crockett's booker, Dusty Rhodes, decided to put the Television title on Taylor to set up a feud between Taylor and NWA Television Champion Nikita Koloff to unify the two titles. Rhodes used then-unknown Shane Douglas as the transitional champion from Gilbert to Taylor because Rhodes did not want to diminish Sting's growing stardom with a brief title run.