History Wrestling / WCWMondayNitro

* {{Fanservice}}: Once the competition started making waves with the Divas and their sexy antics, WCW countered with the voluptuous[[BuxomIsBetter Major Gunns]], short-skirted [[LegFocus Miss Hancock]], and hardbodied[[AmazonianBeauty Asya]] to varying degrees of success.

In 1995, [[Wrestling/{{WCW}} World Championship Wrestling]] was looking for a way to compete with the [[Wrestling/{{WWE}} World Wrestling Federation]]. The method they went with was to start a weekly show on Creator/{{TNT}} [[note]]then just a male-skewing entertainment network, as opposed to its' start as a proto-[[Creator/TurnerClassicMovies TCM]], or its current drama-heavy lineup[[/note]] designed to go head to head with [[Wrestling/WWERaw their rival's flagship program]]. Thus, on September 4, 1995, ''WCW Monday Nitro'' aired its first episode from the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota.

* {{Fanservice}}: Once the competition started making waves with the Divas and their sexy antics, WCW countered with the voluptuous[[BuxomIsBetter Major Gunns]], short-skirted [[LegFocus Miss Hancock]], and hardbodied[[AmazonianBeauty Asya]] to varying degrees of success.

* {{Fanservice}}: Once the competition started making waves with the Divas and their sexy antics, WCW countered with [[BuxomIsBetter Major Gunns]] and [[ShesGotLegs Miss Hancock]], to varying degrees of success.

** After obtaining a memo from Turner, presumably intended for Creator/{{CNN}}, instructing them to [[PoliticalOvercorrectness use the word "international" instead of "foreign" on-air]], WCW followed suit by referring to foreign objects as "international objects."

* SpitefulSpoiler: This trope backfired in a spectacular way for Wrestling/{{WCW}}. [[Wrestling/{{WWE}} Its competition's]] [[Wrestling/WWERaw own show]] was pre-taped, and aired a few weeks later. Meanwhile, ''NITRO'', also running on Mondays, was a live show, which meant they could spoil any outcome of any fight of their opponent so their audience would pick them instead. The first ''NITRO'' of 1999 ran live from the Georgia Dome in Atlanta a week after the tapings for WWE's first ''Raw'' of the year (December 29, 1998), in front of over 40.000 people. At the end of the first hour, the show's host, Wrestling/TonySchiavone, was ordered to state to the camera that ''"(...) if you're even thinking about changing the channel to our competition, do not, because we understand that Wrestling/MickFoley (...) is going to win their world title. Ha! [[TemptingFate That's gonna put some butts in the seats, heh]]."''. What happened was that half a million watchers of ''Nitro'' instantly switched to ''Raw'' in order to see Foley, a beloved babyface, winning the big one. Meanwhile, what ''NITRO'' had to offer was... the FingerpokeOfDoom. WCW would never recover from this series of events, and the rest is history.

* BookEnds: The first and last ''Nitro'' both had Flair vs. Sting.

* SpiritualSuccessor: ''[[Wrestling/AllEliteWrestling AEW Dynamite]]'' (sometimes known as ''Wednesday Night Dynamite''), debuting on TNT in 2019, almost 2 decades after ''Nitro'' aired its last episode, picked up where WCW left off as the attempt to provide an alternative mainstream wrestling product to WWE. Although it didn't directly attempt to challenge WWE head-to-head the way Bischoff did with ''Nitro'', it ended up [[DuelingShows facing off against]] ''Wrestling/{{WWE NXT}}'' when Vince moved ''NXT'' from the WWE Network to the USA Network to compete against it[[note]]after getting flogged unmercifully for a year and a half, NXT was moved to Tuesday nights instead[[/note]]. ''Dynamite'' even features some performers who actually used to appear on ''Nitro'' back in the day, such as Wrestling/TonySchiavone, Wrestling/ChrisJericho, and Wrestling/{{Sting}}.

* SpiritualSuccessor: ''[[Wrestling/AllEliteWrestling AEW Dynamite]]'' (sometimes known as ''Wednesday Night Dynamite''), debuting on TNT in 2019, almost 2 decades after ''Nitro'' aired its last episode, picked up where WCW left off as the attempt to provide an alternative mainstream wrestling product to WWE. Although it didn't directly attempt to challenge WWE head-to-head the way Bischoff did with ''Nitro'', it ended up [[DuelingShows facing off against]] ''Wrestling/{{WWE NXT}}'' when Vince moved ''NXT'' from the WWE Network to the USA Network to compete against it[[note]]after getting flogged unmercifully for a year and a half, NXT was moved to Tuesday nights instead[[/note]]. ''Dynamite'' even features some performers who actually used to appear on ''Nitro'' back in the day, such as Wrestling/TonySchiavone and Wrestling/ChrisJericho.

* SpiritualSuccessor: ''[[Wrestling/AllEliteWrestling AEW Dynamite]]'' (sometimes known as ''Wednesday Night Dynamite''), debuting on TNT in 2019, almost 2 decades after ''Nitro'' aired its last episode, picked up where WCW left off as the attempt to provide an alternative mainstream wrestling product to WWE. Although it didn't directly attempt to challenge WWE head-to-head the way Bischoff did with ''Nitro'', it ended up [[DuelingShows facing off against]] ''Wrestling/{{WWE NXT}}'' when Vince moved ''NXT'' from the WWE Network to the USA Network to compete against it, and usually beats it. ''Dynamite'' even features some performers who actually used to appear on ''Nitro'' back in the day, such as Wrestling/TonySchiavone and Wrestling/ChrisJericho.

** After obtaining a memo from Turner, presumably intended for Creator/{{CNN}}, instructing them to [[PoliticalCorrectnessGoneMad use the word "international" instead of "foreign" on-air]], WCW followed suit by referring to foreign objects as "international objects."

However, it wouldn't last. The nWo angle ran well beyond its welcome, and the [[FingerpokeOfDoom Fingerpoke of Doom]] served to remove any sense of prestige from the title belts. Affecting WCW as a whole, the PPV-quality matches were able to draw ratings but left nothing notable to save for PPV. The last few years were a shadow of what the show once was. [[ShockingSwerve Bizarre twists]], [[{{Padding}} time-wasting filler]], and a {{heel face revolving door}} that just wouldn't stop made for an almost [[{{Camp}} Ed Woodian]] show.

Eventually, the WWF bought WCW. The last episode of ''Nitro'' aired on March 26, 2001, and the end of that episode served as a lead-in for Wrestling/TheInVasionAngle.