WCW Monday Nitro
Television series | |
---|---|
German title | WCW Monday Nitro |
Original title | WCW Monday Nitro |
Country of production | United States |
original language | English (AE) |
Year (s) | 1995 to 2001 |
length | 120 minutes |
Episodes | 284 |
genre | Wrestling |
Theme music | Purity - Adrenaline V.1 |
idea |
Ted Turner Eric Bischoff |
production | Craig Leathers (1995-1999, 2001) |
First broadcast | September 4, 1995 on TNT |
Monday Nitro was a weekly wrestling promotion World Championship Wrestling show . It was broadcast every Monday evening at prime time on TNT from September 4, 1995 to March 26, 2001 .
history
First episode
The first episode of Nitro came from Minneapolis , Minnesota and was taped at the Mall of America . The highlight of this episode was that Lex Luger , who had recently been working for World Wrestling Entertainment , signed a contract with World Championship Wrestling and also appeared in this first episode.
Ratings
In mid-1996, Nitro overtook the WWF's flagship RAW for the first time and beat it in the ratings for another 84 weeks. This only changed again in April 1998 when the WWF introduced the "Attitude Era" and dominated the odds again with the feud between Vince McMahon and Stone Cold Steve Austin .
In Germany
In Germany , a few weeks after it was broadcast in the USA, Nitro was mostly broadcast on Saturday on German sports television , now Sport1 . Due to the slump in the wrestling ratings, DSF managers relocated almost every wrestling show between 1997 and 1998 to DF1's DSF Action channel . For a short time from 2001 "Nitro Classics" was broadcast on DSF, a compilation of matches from previous Nitro programs.
Last episode
The last Nitro edition took place on March 26, 2001 in Panama City Beach , Florida and was entitled "The Night of Champions". At the beginning of the episode, Vince McMahon was seen on a screen explaining that WWF had won the Monday Night War and that he would take over WCW. At the end of the episode, WWF RAW is War and WCW Monday Nitro were switched together when McMahon standing in the ring was suddenly interrupted by his son Shane McMahon . This very Shane McMahon, who was in Panama City Beach, explained to his father that he had bought WCW and not his father. This is how the "Invasion" storyline of that time crystallized.
The last match of WCW Monday Nitro was played by rivals Sting and Ric Flair .