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4th Jan '13 8:01:03 PM JIKTV

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4th Jan '13 8:00:07 PM JIKTV

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->''"You want a [[MondayNightWars war]]? You've got one."''
-->--'''Wrestling/ScottHall'''

In 1995, [[Wrestling/{{WCW}} World Championship Wrestling]] was looking for a way to compete with the WWF. The method they went with was to start a weekly show on TNT designed to go head to head with [[WWERaw their rival's flagship program]]. Thus, Monday Nitro was born.

Nitro was a highly unconventional wrestling show from day one. Plot twists happened nearly every episode, and every match was designed to be on the quality level its competitors reserved for pay-per-view. Since Nitro was live, unlike Raw, which was taped at the time, the show's commentators would sometimes reveal the results of matches. This uniqueness was further compounded by the NewWorldOrder storyline, as it blurred the line between kayfabe and reality.

All of this made for a winning formula for success. Nitro outdid Raw in the ratings for 84 weeks straight, and at one time was the most watched show on cable.

However, it wouldn't last. The nWo storyline ran well beyond its welcome, and the FingerpokeOfDoom didn't help. The PPV-quality matches, while able to draw ratings, left nothing notable on PPV. The last few years were a shadow of what the show once was. {{ShockingSwerve}}s and a HeelFaceRevolvingDoor that just wouldn't stop made for a confusing show.

Eventually, WWF bought WCW. The last episode of Nitro aired in March 2001, and the end of that episode served as a lead-in for the Invasion angle.

''WCW Monday Nitro- 1995-2001''

!This show contains examples of the following tropes:
* ArcFatigue: nWo ran over a year past its welcome, and then they kept bringing it back again.
* TheBadGuyWins: Part of the reason the nWo storyline ran out of steam was because the writers forgot that the heels are eventually supposed to lose. The nWo, on the other hand, kept dominating without anyone to stop them.
* ContinuityReboot: In 2000, there was one to try and shake off the badness that had accumulated in the last few storylines. It...didn't work.
* CoolVersusAwesome: Many a main-event match was like this.
* HeelFaceRevolvingDoor
* FingerpokeOfDoom: The TropeNamer happened on Nitro.
* FleetingDemographicRule: Subverted. In [=WCW's=] later years, the creative staff went back to the well a half dozen too many times by reviving the nWo seemingly every six months and booking matches and feuds between the same cast of characters over and over again. As ''Literature/TheDeathOfWCW'' put it, as great a match as Rey Mysterio Jr. and Juventud Guerrera could be, you can only watch so many variations week after week before it gets old. One of the main reasons why [=WCW=] fell in the ratings was because the writers were dead set on running with a pat hand, keeping entire segments of the roster firmly segregated from each other in competition and not giving them the chance to compete against different opponents.
* ShockingSwerve: Abundant thanks to Wrestling/VinceRusso's booking style in later years.
* SquashMatch: '''Averted'''. The great appeal in Nitro's early years when compared to the product being put out on [[Wrestling/{{WWE}} Raw]] was that there were almost no squash matches. Every match on the card was set as being between two more-or-less equal sides that were seen as having a respectable chance of winning. Compare this to the cards being put out on Monday Night Raw circa 1995, where almost all matches except the main event featured dedicated jobbers to some degree.
* TooGoodToLast

8th Dec '12 12:30:55 PM MarkLungo

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5th Oct '12 1:45:00 PM MarkLungo

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2nd Sep '12 9:00:51 AM FELH2

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