WCW Monday Nitro

First episode

The first episode of Nitro was broadcast from the Mall of America in Minneapolis, Minnesota on September 4, 1995. The featured matches on the one-hour broadcast were Brian Pillman versus Jushin Thunder Liger, Ric Flair versus WCW United States Heavyweight Champion Sting, and WCW World Heavyweight Champion Hulk Hogan taking on Big Bubba Rogers. The show was also highlighted by the return of Lex Luger to WCW after having spent the previous two plus years wrestling for the WWF, where he had been one of the promotion's top stars. Luger's appearance was particularly jarring because he had just wrestled a match for the WWF the previous evening; the match was his final contractual obligation with the company, and Luger signed with WCW the morning of his appearance. The event set the tone for Nitro's "anything can happen" atmosphere, and prefigured the similar defections of WWF wrestlers Scott Hall and Kevin Nash the following year.

The title video for the debut episode of Nitro featured multiple shots of Big Van Vader (one of four wrestlers featured, along with Hulk Hogan, Sting and Randy Savage), who parted ways with WCW following a backstage altercation with Paul Orndorff. Absent from the first episode, he had been scheduled to face Hogan for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship on the September 11 edition, but was replaced by Lex Luger, who issued a challenge to Hogan on the debut show. Vader would never perform on Nitro, and embarked on a WWF career in January 1996.

Monday Night Wars

The advent of Monday Nitro brought with it an intense rivalry between that show and the WWF's Monday Night Raw program. This rivalry is known to wrestling fans as the "Monday Night Wars". Throughout the Monday Night Wars between Eric Bischoff and Vince McMahon, Nitro was gaining on its WWF counterpart popularity-wise. Soon Nitro would surpass Raw in the TV ratings. Nitro beat Raw in the ratings for 84 consecutive weeks until Raw finally regained ground in the ratings war. At its peak, the rivalry resulted in performers on either show trading verbal insults and challenges. At one point, Eric Bischoff challenged Vince McMahon to face him in a match to be held at Slamboree 1998. McMahon never formally recognized the challenge and did not appear. Bischoff was declared the winner via countout. Although later Vince said he had already had prior engagements that had to be fulfilled or he would have come and showed Eric what he was made of.

Initial success

Initially, Nitro became popular as result of WCW's extensive roster of stars. Randy Savage and Hulk Hogan were some of the major stars signed with WCW and appearing on the Nitro program at this time. WCW's lineup of cruiserweights – smaller wrestlers known for their crowd-pleasing high-flying wrestling maneuvers – provided a strong set of setup matches for their main events. With the introduction of the New World Order, Nitro started its unprecedented run of ratings domination. With former WWF wrestlers Scott Hall, Kevin Nash and Hogan (who was now calling himself Hollywood Hogan) as rebellious heels, the company seemed to have a winning story and a great future. Since Nitro was live and Raw was often taped, Nitro was seen as far less predictable and thus more entertaining than its WWF counterpart. Initially only sixty minutes in length (as was Raw at the time), Nitro was expanded to two hours following the 1996 NBA Playoffs while Raw waited until nearly a full year later to expand to a second hour. Nitro remained a two-hour program from May 27, 1996 until January 1998, when WCW and TNT agreed to a third hour for the still-#1 wrestling program in the country.

Eric Bischoff's on-camera role

Eric Bischoff soon became the voice of Nitro and began to air Nitro a couple of minutes before Raw so he could give away the results of the WWF program so fans had no point to see the competition. Nitro would be expanded to a three-hour show, starting from the January 26, 1998 edition, unprecedented for a live, weekly wrestling program.

Raw gains ground

While Raw was taking a new approach to programming with its "WWF Attitude Era", Nitro would start producing lackluster shows with the same storylines. Hogan and the rest of the nWo almost never lost and the once elite group was now bloated in size and recruiting midcard wrestlers. The only newcomers elevated to main event status at this time were Booker T, Goldberg and Diamond Dallas Page. Goldberg's main event match with Hogan on the July 6, 1998 episode of Nitro from the Georgia Dome in Atlanta won the ratings battle from the WWF for the week, but some observers (including Vince McMahon) felt that WCW could have made millions if they saved the Goldberg/Hogan match for an eventual pay-per-view event. Despite Goldberg's title win and Page's rapid ascent into the main event picture, they still took a backseat to the nWo, which by this point had split into two warring factions and would dominate storylines for most of the summer of 1998.

The D-X/Norfolk, Virginia incident

Meanwhile, on Raw, fans were immersed in the feud between WWF owner Vince McMahon and Stone Cold Steve Austin. New talent such as Triple H and his D-Generation X faction, and later Mankind and The Rock were elevated to main event status on WWF's program. Things got so heated between the two programs that D-X was sent to Atlanta, Georgia to film a segment near Turner's headquarters for a "war" storyline that was done when both shows were in nearby areas on the same night (Raw in Hampton, Virginia and Nitro in nearby Norfolk), sending D-X to the Norfolk Scope arena which Nitro was broadcasting from and interacting with WCW fans. This eventually led to a lawsuit filed by WCW against the WWF, who had claimed that in order to fill the Norfolk Scope for Nitro, WCW had given away free tickets on the day of the program.

Changes

With Raw starting to beat Nitro in the ratings on a consistent basis, Bischoff and WCW officials attempted to use a series of "quick fixes" to regain ground in the ratings war. All these attempts would win them short-term ratings victories, but the WWF continued its steady climb to ratings dominance. Nitro's inability to create new stars was its ultimate undoing, while the WWF had invested in younger talent like Stone Cold Steve Austin, Mick Foley, The Rock, Triple H, the Hardy Boyz, Edge and Christian and Kurt Angle. WCW continued to rely on established stars like Hollywood Hogan, Ric Flair, Sting, Randy Savage, Lex Luger and The Outsiders to support ratings, causing much unease among the younger and less well known members of the roster. This was illustrated most clearly in 1999, when former WCW mid-carder Chris Jericho signed with the WWF and immediately started a feud with The Rock, when months earlier he had been told he was too small to sell tickets in WCW.

January 4, 1999 broadcast

Bischoff's "tried and true" tactic of giving away the results from taped WWF shows backfired on January 4, 1999. Mick Foley, who had wrestled for WCW during the early 1990s as Cactus Jack, won the WWF Title as Mankind on Raw. Nitro announcer Tony Schiavone sarcastically mentioned "that's gonna put some butts in the seats." The comment, however, resulted in Nitro losing the ratings battle that night. Nielsen ratings showed that several hundred thousand viewers switched channels from Nitro on TNT to Raw on the USA Network to see the title change. After Mankind won the title, many fans then switched back to Nitro, which still had five minutes of air time left. The final ratings for the night were 5.7 for Raw and 5.0 for Nitro. The next week, and for months after, many fans in the Raw audience brought signs which read, "Mick Foley put my ass in this seat!". To make matters worse for WCW, a convoluted storyline was played out over the course of the evening that eventually resulted in Hollywood Hogan returning, winning the WCW World Heavyweight Championship, and reforming the nWo.

Vince Russo and Ed Ferrara

Former WWF writers Vince Russo and Ed Ferrara were also hired to fix the company but may have increased the gap between the two Monday night programs. They attempted to make Nitro more like Raw with edgier storylines, lengthier non-wrestling segments and an increased amount of sexuality on the show. Nitro's third hour was jettisoned and the program returned to an 8-10 PM timeslot, with the first hour running unopposed and the second hour competing with the first hour of Raw. Although Russo's change made Nitro more of a streamlined program (WCW had been criticized for not featuring much wrestling in the first third of Nitro since its expansion), the loss of an entire hour of advertising revenue offset whatever benefits the change may have produced.

Bischoff would be brought back to WCW and attempted to team with Russo to fix the ills of Nitro and WCW. Part of this involved Nitro being taken off the air to reboot the program, but all this was to no avail. The once highly rated Nitro became deprived of wrestlers, with its most capable young stars signing with the WWF and its current roster of talent being constantly misused. To top it all off, Bischoff and Russo did not work well together at all, with the two constantly at each other's throats over Russo's booking style. Nitro's ratings were continuing to lose ground to Raw's and Bischoff eventually left the company in July 2000 after an incident involving Hogan and Russo. Bischoff's departure left Russo in control of everything production-related in WCW. Nitro eventually pulled to within .6 ratings points of Raw in early September. That month, Vince Russo suffered a severe concussion after being speared through a cage by Goldberg. He left WCW on extended leave to recover, but ultimately never returned. The ratings momentum was not maintained after this and Raw once again began to distance itself from Nitro. At that point, it only seemed like a matter of time before Time Warner would give up on WCW, and 2001 saw the company begin searching for a buyer.

The Night of Champions – Final broadcast

In an attempt to save WCW and Nitro, Bischoff attempted to purchase the company with a group of investors. However, although Bischoff's offer had been accepted, recently appointed Turner Broadcasting executive Jamie Kellner announced shortly after his arrival that Nitro and all WCW programming was immediately canceled on both TNT and TBS. Bischoff's group then withdrew their deal, as it was contingent on keeping WCW programming on some outlet. Instead, WCW's trademarks and certain assets (such as its video library and the contracts of 24 wrestlers), though not the company itself (which still exists as a Time Warner-owned legal entity under the name Universal Wrestling Corporation), were bought by Vince McMahon- the owner of the WWF (now WWE), its long-time competitor.

Around the time of the cancellation, WCW was preparing to make its yearly trip to Panama City, Florida for Spring break. Since the premiere of Nitro, WCW had gone to either the Boardwalk Beach Resort or Club La Vela every March to try to gain favor with adolescent and young adult viewers who might not otherwise be tuning into the program. It was announced that the upcoming March 26, 2001 episode of Nitro from Panama City was to be the finale and the show was dubbed "The Night of Champions." The show began with McMahon appearing via satellite from Gund Arena in Cleveland, Ohio, the site of that Monday's RAW is WAR broadcast on TNN. McMahon announced his purchase of WCW to the crowd and appeared in vignettes throughout the show, including one where he terminated WCW's Jeff Jarrett on air due to bad blood the two had in the past.

The show was unique in that all of WCW's major championships were defended that night and in almost all of the matches on the show, the faces won (traditionally WCW was seen as the promotion where heels were often the top stars as opposed to the WWF, where faces were often the top stars. Shawn Stasiak was the only heel to emerge victorious on the final episode of Nitro). In addition, various WCW wrestlers were interviewed giving their honest, out-of-character responses to the selling of WCW. The co-main event of the evening was WCW World Heavyweight Champion Scott Steiner taking on WCW United States Heavyweight Champion Booker T in a match with both belts on the line; Booker defeated Steiner for his fourth WCW World Championship while retaining the U.S. Championship.

Just as it had been on the initial Nitro, the final match of the final Nitro was between long-time WCW rivals Ric Flair and Sting, a match that was more informal than their usual encounters (Sting and Flair were seen smiling and nodding respectfully towards each other throughout the match). Sting won using his finishing move, the Scorpion Deathlock. After the match, the two competitors stood in the middle of the ring and embraced to show respect for one another.

The show ended with a simulcast on Raw on TNN with an appearance by Vince's son Shane McMahon on Nitro. Shane would interrupt his father's gloating over the WCW purchase to explain that Shane was the one who actually owned WCW (this was just part of the storyline, as the WWF as a whole was the true owner of what assets it acquired from WCW), as part of the set up of their match at WrestleMania X-Seven and of what would later become WWF's "Invasion" storyline. In addition to the tape library and other intellectual properties, WWF also purchased several contracts of WCW talent, keeping many of the younger stars. Four of WCW's championships found their way into the WWF; in addition to Booker T carrying both the WCW Championship (as it was renamed) and United States Championship with him into the WWF, McMahon also signed then-WCW Cruiserweight Champion Shane Helms and then-WCW Tag Team Champions Chuck Palumbo and Sean O'Haire to contracts. (The WWF scrapped the WCW Hardcore Championship, as it was officially retired immediately following the final Nitro despite no one holding it since Meng departed for the WWF in early 2001, and the WCW Cruiserweight Tag Team Championship for undisclosed reasons; although no official reason was given, Billy Kidman and Rey Mysterio, Jr. were the last champions and McMahon was only able to sign Kidman to a contract at the time.)

"The Night of Champions" was the penultimate WCW broadcast, prior to the final Worldwide on April 1.

Other notable moments

When then-WWF Women's Champion Alundra Blayze signed with WCW in 1995 (going back to her old name of "Madusa"), she brought the WWF Women's title belt with her and threw it in a trash can on the December 18, 1995 episode of Nitro (the third week that Nitro started before the top of the hour), and the title itself would become inactive for the next three years. Many cite this incident as one of the causes of the infamous Montreal Screwjob. This infamous event would be parodied by WCW on a 2000 episode of Nitro, when Scott Hall threw the WCW World Television Championship in the trash and weeks later on an episode of Saturday Night, "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan found it and claimed it.

The only wrestler to appear on both Nitro and Raw on the same night was Rick Rude. Rude was able to appear on both shows because he was not under contract with the WWF at the time, appearing on a handshake deal with McMahon on Raw – which was still pre-recorded at the time while Nitro was broadcast live.

The January 13, 1997 episode of Nitro ended with the first two minutes of the Hollywood Hogan vs. The Giant main event. Before the show went off the air, commentator Tony Schiavone announced the match was to continue during the commercial breaks of The New Adventures of Robin Hood, which premiered that night after Nitro. This resulted in the premiere episode of Robin Hood receiving high ratings due to WCW fans being lured in to watch the show for the Hogan/Giant match.

The rock band KISS appeared in August 1999, and debuted a wrestler named The Demon while performing God of Thunder. According to Dean Malenko, it was the lowest rated Nitro ever.

WWE home media and streaming

Since buying the WCW video library, WWE Home Video has included many Nitro matches and segments on some of their Superstar biography DVD sets. Episodes were also streamed on WWE Classics on Demand, as part of The Monday Night Wars feature.

While the service did show episodes of Nitro, they are often edited. Some WCW entrance theme music tracks are replaced with stock WWE music. A lot of the crowd noise is also removed on most episodes and pay-per-views. Beginning in July 2007, WWE Classics on Demand began deleting content from episodes of Nitro, as matches and some references to Chris Benoit are removed. Benoit is sometimes shown in segments where he is not the main issue of the segment. This was in light of the controversy surrounding the deaths of Benoit and his family on June 24 of that year.

In April 2009, WWE Classics went back to the first episodes that aired in September 1995. These shows alternate with the current Nitro airings (December 1997 and onwards).

A 3-disc DVD entitled The Very Best of WCW Monday Nitro was produced and released by WWE on June 7, 2011. The set is narrated by former three time WCW champion Diamond Dallas Page and highlights some of the biggest matches and moments in the history of WCW Monday Nitro. The sequel, The Best of WCW Monday Nitro Vol. 2 was released on DVD and Blu-ray February 12, 2013. Followed by the final set titled, The Very best of WCW Monday Nitro Vol. 3, which was released on August 11, 2015.

As of 2016, all 288 episodes of Nitro (September 4, 1995 – March 26, 2001) are available on demand on the WWE Network.

Commentary teams

(*) – Starting with the May 27, 1996 episode of Nitro, which came after a week off due to the NBA Playoffs on TNT, Nitro started using two broadcast teams for the show. Tony Schiavone and Larry Zbyszko would call the first hour of Nitro from ringside, and Eric Bischoff and Bobby Heenan would take over from their booth near the set at the top of the second hour. Starting in September 1996, Mike Tenay became a color commentator for both hours of Nitro, calling the first hour with Schiavone and Zbyszko and the second hour with Bischoff and Heenan. Usually Tenay would call the first hour from the broadcast booth separate from Schiavone and Zbyzsko's table at ringside, while he called the second hour with Bischoff and Heenan in the booth.

(**) – After Eric Bischoff joined the nWo and took on a more prominent on-screen authority figure role, Schiavone replaced Bischoff in the second hour of Nitro, thus making him the lone play-by-play commentator for the show. Unlike Tenay, Schiavone called the first hour from ringside and would call the second hour in the booth alongside Bobby Heenan and Mike Tenay. Schiavone did that until the broadcast table at ringside was done away with on the December 9, 1996 edition of Nitro. WCW, though, would eventually move the announcers back to ringside when the new Nitro set was debuted on April 5, 1999.

Ring announcers