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WCW Monday Nitro
WCW Monday Nitro, also known as WCW Nitro or simply Nitro, is an American professional wrestling television program that was produced by World Championship Wrestling (WCW) and broadcast weekly every Monday night on TNT in the United States from September 4, 1995 to March 26, 2001. Created by then WCW owner Ted Turner and Vice President Eric Bischoff, it was the flagship weekly show produced by the company.
Nitro featured wrestlers contracted to WCW. Besides broadcasting from various arenas and locations across the United States and Canada, such as Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota (from which the first episode was broadcast), Nitro also organized special broadcasts from the Disney-MGM Studios in Orlando in 1996; aired annual Spring Break-Out episodes from Panama City Beach, Florida or South Padre Island, Texas starting in March 1997; and filmed some episodes in Australia and the United Kingdom during the Fall of 2000.
At its peak, Nitro was the highest-rated show on primetime TV. Its premiere was notable for sparking a period of television known as the "Monday Night War": for the entirety of the show's run, Nitro went head-to-head in the ratings with the World Wrestling Federation's (WWF; now WWE) Monday Night Raw. Nitro began to dominate in ratings in 1996, based largely on the strength of the WCW's New World Order (nWo) kayfabe rebellious group. Raw began to overtake Nitro in the ratings in 1998 thanks to the WWF's revamped Attitude Era programming. In March 2001, TNT canceled the show.
The rights to WCW Monday Nitro now belong to WWE, who purchased WCW properties in 2001. The WWE has released three Best of WCW Monday Nitro DVD sets and all episodes are available for streaming on the WWE Network and Peacock. In 2025, WWE started uploading episodes to a WCW YouTube channel.
The first episode of Nitro was broadcast from the Mall of America in Bloomington, 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 had just wrestled a match for the WWF the previous evening; the match was his final contractual obligation with the WWF, and Luger signed with WCW the morning of his appearance. The event 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 Macho Man 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.
The advent of Nitro brought with it a television ratings rivalry with the WWF's Monday Night Raw, known to wrestling fans as the "Monday Night War". Throughout this period, Nitro would grow in popularity and eventually surpass Raw in the ratings for 83 consecutive weeks, beginning in June 1996.
Since Nitro was live, the show was seen as far less predictable 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 (Raw would later extend to two hours in February 1997). In January 1998, the show was extended to three hours. At its peak, the rivalry resulted in performers on either show trading verbal insults and challenges. In retaliation for a segment of Raw in which D-Generation X (DX) travelled to the Norfolk Scope arena in Norfolk where Nitro was being broadcast (WWF was nearby in Hampton, Virginia the same night), 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.
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WCW Monday Nitro
WCW Monday Nitro, also known as WCW Nitro or simply Nitro, is an American professional wrestling television program that was produced by World Championship Wrestling (WCW) and broadcast weekly every Monday night on TNT in the United States from September 4, 1995 to March 26, 2001. Created by then WCW owner Ted Turner and Vice President Eric Bischoff, it was the flagship weekly show produced by the company.
Nitro featured wrestlers contracted to WCW. Besides broadcasting from various arenas and locations across the United States and Canada, such as Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota (from which the first episode was broadcast), Nitro also organized special broadcasts from the Disney-MGM Studios in Orlando in 1996; aired annual Spring Break-Out episodes from Panama City Beach, Florida or South Padre Island, Texas starting in March 1997; and filmed some episodes in Australia and the United Kingdom during the Fall of 2000.
At its peak, Nitro was the highest-rated show on primetime TV. Its premiere was notable for sparking a period of television known as the "Monday Night War": for the entirety of the show's run, Nitro went head-to-head in the ratings with the World Wrestling Federation's (WWF; now WWE) Monday Night Raw. Nitro began to dominate in ratings in 1996, based largely on the strength of the WCW's New World Order (nWo) kayfabe rebellious group. Raw began to overtake Nitro in the ratings in 1998 thanks to the WWF's revamped Attitude Era programming. In March 2001, TNT canceled the show.
The rights to WCW Monday Nitro now belong to WWE, who purchased WCW properties in 2001. The WWE has released three Best of WCW Monday Nitro DVD sets and all episodes are available for streaming on the WWE Network and Peacock. In 2025, WWE started uploading episodes to a WCW YouTube channel.
The first episode of Nitro was broadcast from the Mall of America in Bloomington, 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 had just wrestled a match for the WWF the previous evening; the match was his final contractual obligation with the WWF, and Luger signed with WCW the morning of his appearance. The event 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 Macho Man 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.
The advent of Nitro brought with it a television ratings rivalry with the WWF's Monday Night Raw, known to wrestling fans as the "Monday Night War". Throughout this period, Nitro would grow in popularity and eventually surpass Raw in the ratings for 83 consecutive weeks, beginning in June 1996.
Since Nitro was live, the show was seen as far less predictable 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 (Raw would later extend to two hours in February 1997). In January 1998, the show was extended to three hours. At its peak, the rivalry resulted in performers on either show trading verbal insults and challenges. In retaliation for a segment of Raw in which D-Generation X (DX) travelled to the Norfolk Scope arena in Norfolk where Nitro was being broadcast (WWF was nearby in Hampton, Virginia the same night), 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.