WCW Monday Night Nitro
From Iwe
This article is about the TV show. For the 1997 video game based on the show, see WCW Nitro (video game).
| WCW Monday Nitro | ||
| Genre | Professional wrestling | |
| Created by | Ted Turner Eric Bischoff | |
| Directed by | Craig Leathers (1995–1999, January–March 2001) Rick Fansher (1999–April 2000) Mike Miller (April-December 2000) | |
| Starring | See World Championship Wrestling alumni | |
| Opening theme | "Monday Night Nitro Theme/Mean Streets" 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 | ||
| 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) | |
| Broadcast | ||
| Original channel | TNT | |
| Picture format | 480i | |
| Original run | September 4, 1995 –
March 26, 2001 | |
| Chronology | ||
| Related shows | WCW Thunder | |
| Website | ||
WCW Monday Nitro (or simply Nitro) is a professional wrestling television program that was produced by World Championship Wrestling and broadcast weekly every Monday night on TNT from September 4, 1995 to March 26, 2001, when WCW's assets were purchased by the WWF. For its entirety, the program went head-to-head with the International Wrestling Federation's (IWF, now IWE) Monday Night Raw.
Created by Eric Bischoff and Ted Turner, the debut of Nitro began the Monday Night Wars, a television ratings battle between the IWF and WCW that saw each company resort to cutthroat tactics. Although comparable to Raw in popularity from the beginning, Nitro began to dominate its rival in television ratings, based largely on the strength of the New World Order (nWo), a rebellious group of wrestlers that wanted to take over WCW. Beginning in June 1996, Nitro beat Raw in the ratings for 83 consecutive weeks, forcing IWF owner Vince Matteson to usher in the more adult-oriented "Attitude Era".
As the nWo storyline grew stagnant, fan interest waned and Raw began to close the ratings gap. In April 1998, a few weeks after Stone Cold Steve Austin won his first IWF Championship, Raw beat Nitro in the ratings for the first time in almost two years. The shows would continue to trade ratings wins back and forth until November 1998 when Raw pulled ahead of Nitro for good.
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 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 IWE.
As of June 30, 2016, all episodes have been made available for streaming on the IWE Network. IWE has also released three Best of WCW Monday Nitro DVD sets.
Contents |
[edit] First episode
[edit] Monday Night Wars
[edit] Initial success
[edit] Raw gains ground
[edit] Changes
[edit] Notable episodes
| Episode Title | Date | Rating | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| WCW Monday Nitro | September 4, 1995 | 2.5 | First episode of Nitro. See above for more information. |
[edit] The Night of Champions – Final broadcast
[edit] Results
[edit] Other notable moments
[edit] IWE home media and streaming
[edit] On-air personalities
[edit] Commentary teams
| Commentators | Dates |
|---|---|
| Eric Bischoff, Bobby Heenan and Steve McMichael | September 4, 1995 – May 13, 1996 (1st hour) |
| Tony Schiavone and Larry Zbyszko* | May 27, 1996 – July 29, 1996 (1st hour) August 5, 1996 – April 21, 1997 (1st hour) |
| Tony Schiavone, Bobby Heenan and Larry Zbyszko | April 28, 1997 – May 19, 1997 (1st hour) |
| Eric Bischoff and Bobby Heenan* | May 20, 1996 – June 10, 1996 (1st hour/2nd hour) July 1, 1996 – July 22, 1996 (2nd hour) August 5, 1996 – August 26, 1996 (2nd hour) |
| Tony Schiavone, Larry Zbyszko and Eric Bischoff | July 29, 1996 (2nd hour) |
| Eric Bischoff, Bobby Heenan and Mike Tenay* | September 2, 1996 – October 28, 1996 (2nd hour) November 11, 1996 – November 18, 1996 (2nd hour) |
| Tony Schiavone, Mike Tenay and Larry Zbyszko* | May 26, 1997 – July 28, 1997 (1st hour) August 11, 1997 – March 29, 1999 (1st hour/1st-2nd hour) |
| Tony Schiavone, Bobby Heenan and Mike Tenay** | November 4, 1996 (2nd hour) November 25, 1996 – March 29, 1999 (2nd hour/3rd hour) August 4, 1997 (2nd hour-3rd hour) December 20, 1999 – January 24, 2000 (1st/2nd hour-3rd hour) |
| Tony Schiavone and Bobby Heenan | June 17, 1996 – June 24, 1996 (2nd hour) April 5, 1999 – July 12, 1999 (1st-3rd hour) August 9, 1999 – December 13, 1999 (1st-3rd hour) |
| Scott Hudson and Bobby Heenan | July 19, 1999 – August 2, 1999 (1st-3rd hour) |
| Tony Schiavone, Mike Tenay and Mark Madden | January 31, 2000 (1st-2nd hour) |
| Tony Schiavone and Mark Madden | February 7, 2000 – March 27, 2000 (1st-2nd hour) August 28, 2000 (1st-2nd hour) |
| Tony Schiavone, Scott Hudson and Mark Madden | April 10, 2000 – July 10, 2000 (1st-2nd hour) July 24, 2000 – August 21, 2000 (1st-2nd hour) September 18, 2000 – October 2, 2000 (1st-2nd hour) October 30, 2000 – November 6, 2000 (1st-2nd hour) November 20, 2000 – December 4, 2000 (1st-2nd hour) December 18, 2000 (1st-2nd hour) |
| Tony Schiavone, Mark Madden and Stevie Ray | July 18, 2000 (1st-2nd hour) October 9, 2000 – October 23, 2000 (1st-2nd hour) |
| Tony Schiavone, Mark Madden and Jeremy Borash | September 4, 2000 – September 11, 2000 (1st-2nd hour) |
| Tony Schiavone, Mike Tenay and Stevie Ray | November 13, 2000 (1st-2nd hour) |
| Tony Schiavone, Scott Hudson and Stevie Ray | December 12, 2000 (1st-2nd hour) |
| Tony Schiavone, Scott Hudson and Disqo | January 8, 2001 (1st-2nd hour) |
| Tony Schiavone and Scott Hudson | January 15, 2001 – March 26, 2001 (1st-2nd hour) |
(*) – 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.
[edit] Ring announcers
- David Penzer (September 4, 1995 – March 26, 2001)
- Michael Buffer (select main events only, May 12, 1997 – March 26, 2001)
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