WCW Monday Nitro

WCW Monday Nitro was the weekly Monday night television program, put on by the now defunct Atlanta-based World Championship Wrestling (WCW), from 1995 until 2001. It ran head to head with the WWF (now WWE) show "Monday Night Raw." The creation was a brainchild of then WCW owner Ted Turner and WCW's Vice President, Eric Bischoff. From 1996 until March of 1998 "Nitro" was the top rated wrestling program.

Throughout the Monday Night Wars between Eric Bishoff and Vince McMahon, Nitro was gaining succes as well as Raw was. Soon Nitro would surpass Raw in the ratings. Nitro beat Raw in the Ratings for approx 80 weeks until Raw finally regained the ratings war.

Nitro became hot with their all powerful roster. Randy Savage, Hulk Hogan, and Sting were some of the few. Soon the Black and White NWO was introduced and Nitro took off. With Scott Hall, Kevin Nash and Hulk Hogan as heels, the Company seemed to have a great story and a great future. It soon became a must see show where anything could happen. Since Nitro was live and Raw was taped Nitro was a better show to see. Eric Bishoff soon became the voice of Nitro and began to air a couple of minutes before Raw so he could give away the resluts of Raw so fans had no point to see the compeition.

Raw was using rebellion and adult material to challenge Nitro in the ratings. Raw was building up for a future with DX, Shawn Michaels, and putting everything they had behind a wrestler released from WCW known by the name Steve Austin.

Nitro was producing a grade C show soon due to the fact that they never changed anything. The tops guys were always at the top. The NWO almost never lost and the once elite group were recruiting mid-card wrestlers. No one was goven a chance to beat the top guys. No new stars were made during the run of the hot comodity of NWO. Only one man was given a chance to go to the top of WCW and that man was Goldberg. WCW would give high quality matches for free on the Nitro such as Hulk Hogan vs Goldberg rather than waiting for a PPV.

During the Survivor Series 97, The Montreal Screwjob saw Vince screwing Bret out of the WWF title. Bret Hart would leave to WCW. But something else happen that night. Vince McMahon was now seen as the biggest heel in the WWF. The evil billionaire would come out and wreah havoc on the show until one man did something about it and his name was Stone Cold Steve Austin.

At Wrestlemaina 14 Stone Cold Steve Austin beat Shawn Michaels For the WWF Championship. Soon Raw would gain their Top tier wrestlers in the names of Steve Austin, Mankind, The Undertaker and the NEW DX. Nitro on the other hand had the same matches over and over again and proceeded to do nothing with their newly acquired talent in Bret Hart.

Raw started to beat Nitro in the War and Bishoff was sweating. WCW tried to do quick fixes but no long term fixes. More high elite matches were given away on Nitro rather than on PPV in order to gain some wins in the War. This didnt help at all.

On the night Mick foley would win his first ever WWF Championship, The WCW announcers would give away the results saying that he would win. They would add that " Wow, that will definetly put butts in seats." The led to 500,000 viewers switching channels to watch Raw.

The Ratings war continued to increase in measure. Raw was destoying Nitro in the Ratings. 4.00 - 6.25 Raw 3.25 - 6.65 Raw

Soon Nitro would fall to Ratings in the 3's and 2's. Vince Russo was also hired to fix the company but failed such as bad as Bishoff had. Both would be brought back together to fix the company but couldn't co-exist. WCW was going down and AOL Time Warner did not like this.

Eric Bishoff wanted to buy the company raising money with his business partners. Soon Fusient Ventures would take a look at the WCW books and were terrfied. WCW was a sinking ship and backed out of their un-finalized deal. Soon Bishoff would learn that Time Warner was not giving him the time slots. "Without the slots, WCW was worth 20 bucks."- Eric Bishoff. Bishoff scrambled to find a new TV deal but to no avail. WCW was dead.

Many offered to buy the company from offers ranging from 500 million to the 2-3 million the WWE bought the company.

Monday Nitro had its season finale with Shane McMahon being the last person to be in a WCW ring. That was the end of WCW Monday Nitro.