On this week’s episode of The Pro Wrasslin’ Reflection Podcast… WCW’s first episode of Monday Nitro! The Monday Night War begins!
Big Ray, good ol’ Travis Voeltz, "The Professor" Anthony Quintana aka “Ricky Freestyle” and making his PWRP debut, Ryan K Boman join the show! We review this classic World Championship Wrestling (WCW) event!
WCW Monday Nitro, also known as Monday Nitro or simply Nitro, was a weekly professional wrestling telecast produced by World Championship Wrestling (WCW), created by Ted Turner and Eric Bischoff. The show aired Monday nights on TNT, going head-to-head with the World Wrestling Federation's (WWF now WWE) Monday Night Raw from September 4, 1995 to March 26, 2001, when WCW was purchased by the WWF. The debut of Nitro began the Monday Night Wars, a ratings battle between the WWF and WCW that lasted for almost six years and saw each company resort to cutthroat tactics to try to compete with the competition. Although comparable to Raw in popularity from the beginning, Nitro began to dominate its rival in television ratings by mid-1996, based largely on the strength of the nWo storyline, a rebellious wrestling stable that wanted to take over WCW. Nitro continued to beat Raw for 84 consecutive weeks, forcing WWF owner Vince McMahon to change the way he did business. As the nWo storyline grew stagnant, fan interest waned and Raw began to edge out Nitro in the ratings. The turning point for the organizations came during mid-April 1998 after Stone Cold Steve Austin won his first WWF Championship. From that week forward, Raw beat Nitro in the ratings by a significant amount, and WCW was never able to regain the success it once had. Besides broadcasting from various arenas and locations across the country (such as the Mall of America in suburban Minneapolis, Minnesota, from which the very first episode of Nitro was broadcast), Nitro also did special broadcasts from the Disney-MGM Studios in Orlando in 1996, and did annual Spring Break-Out episodes from Panama City Beach, Florida starting in March 1997. The rights to Nitro now belong to WWE.As of June 30, 2016, all episodes have been made available for streaming on the WWE Network. WWE has released three Best of WCW Monday Nitro DVD sets as of October 2015.
Episode information:
Name of the event: WCW Monday NITRO #1
Date: 04.09.1995
Promotion: World Championship Wrestling
Type: TV-Show
Location: Bloomington, Minnesota, USA
Arena: Mall of America
Broadcast type: Live
Broadcast date: 04.09.1995
TV station/network: TNT
TV rating: 2.9
Commentary by: Bobby Heenan, Eric Bischoff & Steve McMichael
Additional information:
WCW's Monday Nitro logo used from April 5, 1999 to March 26, 2001
Created by: Ted Turner & Eric Bischoff
Directed by Craig Leathers (1995–1999, 2001)
Rick Fansher (1999–2000) & Mike Miller (2000)
Opening theme: "Monday Night Nitro Theme" by Jonathan Elias (September 4, 1995 – March 29, 1999)
"Adrenaline V.1" by Purity (April 5, 1999 – March 26, 2001)
Country of origin United States
No. of seasons: 6
No. of episodes: 288
Production Location(s): Various locations in North America
Camera setup: Multicamera setup
Running time: 1 hour (September 4, 1995 – May 20, 1996, April 28 – May 19, 1997, April 27, April 28, May 18, 1998)
2 hours (May 27, 1996 – April 21, 1997, May 26 – July 28, 1997, August 11, 1997 – January 19, 1998, January 3 – March 27, 2000, April 10, 2000 – March 26, 2001)
3 hours (August 4, September 1, December 22, 1997, January 26 – April 20, May 4, May 11, May 25, 1998 – May 3, 1999, May 17 – December 27, 1999)
Release
Original network TNT
Picture format 480i (SDTV)
Original release September 4, 1995 – March 26, 2001
Chronology
Related shows WCW Thunder
This events match card goes as follows:
Brian Pillman vs. Jushin Liger
PASTAMANIA is running wild!
WCW U.S. Heavyweight Champion Sting vs. Ric Flair
Note: Lex Luger shows up to shock the live crowd
Scott Norton is confronted by the “Macho Man” Randy Savage
Sabu video package
Michael Wallstreet promo
WCW World Heavyweight Champion Hulk Hogan (w/Jimmy Hart) vs. Big Bubba Rogers
