Monday Night Wars - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Monday Night Wars is the common term describing the period of mainstream televised American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

Professional wrestling

Professional wrestling is a mode of spectacle, combining athletics and theatrical performance.Roland Barthes, "The World of Wrestling", Mythologies, 1957 It takes the form of events, held by touring companies, which mimic a title match combat sport...

from September 4, 1995, to March 26, 2001. During this time, the World Wrestling Federation

World Wrestling Entertainment

World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. is an American publicly traded, privately controlled entertainment company dealing primarily in professional wrestling, with major revenue sources also coming from film, music, product licensing, and direct product sales...

's Monday Night Raw

WWE RAW

WWE Raw ) is a sports entertainment television program for WWE that currently airs on the USA Network in the United States...

went head-to-head with World Championship Wrestling

World Championship Wrestling

World Championship Wrestling, Inc. was an American professional wrestling promotion which existed from 1988 to 2001. Based in Atlanta, Georgia, it began as a regional promotion affiliated with the National Wrestling Alliance , named Jim Crockett Promotions until November 1988, when Ted Turner and...

's Monday Nitro

WCW Monday Nitro

WCW Monday Nitro was a weekly professional wrestling telecast produced by World Championship Wrestling, created by Ted Turner and Eric Bischoff. The show aired Monday nights on TNT, going head-to-head with the World Wrestling Federation's Monday Night Raw from September 4, 1995 to March 26, 2001...

in a battle for Nielsen ratings

Nielsen Ratings

Nielsen ratings are the audience measurement systems developed by Nielsen Media Research, in an effort to determine the audience size and composition of television programming in the United States...

each week. In the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

, it was known as the Friday Night Wars as both shows were aired at the same time on Sky Sports and TNT respectively, four days after airing in the United States.

The ratings war was part of a larger overall struggle between the two companies, which included the use of cutthroat tactics

Dirty tricks

Dirty tricks are unethical, duplicitous, slanderous or illegal tactics employed to destroy or diminish the effectiveness of political or business opponents...

and the legitimate defection

Defection

In politics, a defector is a person who gives up allegiance to one state or political entity in exchange for allegiance to another. More broadly, it involves abandoning a person, cause or doctrine to whom or to which one is bound by some tie, as of allegiance or duty.This term is also applied,...

s of several wrestlers and writers between the two companies. Extreme Championship Wrestling

Extreme Championship Wrestling

Extreme Championship Wrestling was a professional wrestling promotion that was founded in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1992 by Tod Gordon and closed when his successor, Paul Heyman, declared bankruptcy in April 2001...

, while not a party to the ratings battle, was also involved as a tertiary player. It ended with the sale of WCW by its parent company, AOL Time Warner

Time Warner

Time Warner is one of the world's largest media companies, headquartered in the Time Warner Center in New York City. Formerly two separate companies, Warner Communications, Inc...

, to World Wrestling Federation Entertainment, Inc

World Wrestling Entertainment

1980-1987: Cable television

By the early 1980s, cable television

Cable television

Cable television is a system of providing television programs to consumers via radio frequency signals transmitted to televisions through coaxial cables or digital light pulses through fixed optical fibers located on the subscriber's property, much like the over-the-air method used in traditional...

was rising and one genre of programming responsible for this was professional wrestling, which was relatively cheap to produce and scored high ratings. When Atlanta TV station WTCG (now WTBS) became a superstation

Superstation

Superstation in United States television can have several meanings. In its most precise meaning, a superstation is defined by the Federal Communications Commission as "A television broadcast station, other than a network station, licensed by the FCC that is secondarily transmitted by a satellite...

by the late 1970s, its Georgia Championship Wrestling

Georgia Championship Wrestling

Georgia Championship Wrestling was a professional wrestling promotion whose self-titled TV program aired in the 1970s and 1980s on Atlanta, U.S., superstation WTBS. Though based in Atlanta, the company also ran live wrestling shows throughout its geographic "territory" of Georgia Georgia...

(GCW) program reached a national audience. Though based in Atlanta, the company also ran live wrestling shows throughout its geographic "territory" of Georgia (the American professional wrestling industry was a patchwork of self-contained, regional and sub-regional companies – there was no single, nationwide promotion at the time). GCW was affiliated with what had been the world's top sanctioning body of championship titles

Championship (professional wrestling)

A Championship or "title" in professional wrestling is a recognition promoted by professional wrestling organizations.Championship reigns are determined by professional wrestling matches, in which competitors are involved in scripted rivalries...

for decades before, the National Wrestling Alliance

National Wrestling Alliance

The National Wrestling Alliance is a wrestling promotion company and sanctions various NWA championships in the United States. The NWA has been in operation since 1948...

(NWA).

The company's TV show, hosted by Gordon Solie

Gordon Solie

Jonard Frank Labiak , better known as Gordon Solie, was a Florida-based professional wrestling play-by-play announcer working for World Championship Wrestling...

, was recorded in one of WTBS' studios at 1050 Techwood Drive, in downtown Atlanta. Shows were taped before a small (yet enthusiastic), live, in-studio audience, as were most professional wrestling TV shows of that era. They featured wrestling matches, plus melodramatic monologues and inter-character confrontations, similar to the programming offered by other territories, including the Northeast

Northeastern United States

The Northeastern United States is a region of the United States as defined by the United States Census Bureau.-Composition:The region comprises nine states: the New England states of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont; and the Mid-Atlantic states of New...

-based WWF. GCW's show, which aired on Saturday evenings, was complemented by a Sunday evening edition. Jack

Jack Brisco

Freddie Joe Brisco was an American professional wrestler, better known as Jack Brisco or Uvalde Slim. He performed for various territories of the National Wrestling Alliance , becoming a two-time NWA World Heavyweight Champion, and multi-time NWA Tag Team Champion with his brother Gerald Brisco...

and Gerald Brisco

Gerald Brisco

Floyd Gerald "Jerry" Brisco is a former American professional wrestler, and prior to June, 2009, worked as a road agent for WWE on its Raw brand....

had major stakes in the organization, while Ole Anderson

Ole Anderson

Alan Robert Rogowski , better known by his ring name of Ole Anderson, is a retired professional wrestler and a promoter. He held numerous NWA World Tag Team Championships with Gene Anderson, who was portrayed as his brother...

was head booker and was basically in charge of operations.

In 1983, the WWF started its own cable show called WWF All American Wrestling, airing Sunday mornings on the USA Network

USA Network

USA Network is an American cable television channel launched in 1971. Once a minor player in basic cable, the network has steadily gained popularity because of breakout hits like Monk, Psych, Burn Notice, Royal Pains, Covert Affairs, White Collar, Monday Night RAW, Suits, and reruns of the various...

. Later that year, the WWF debuted a second cable show, also on USA, called Tuesday Night Titans

Tuesday Night Titans

Tuesday Night Titans is a professional wrestling television program produced by the World Wrestling Federation...

(TNT), a talk show spoof hosted by Vince McMahon

Vince McMahon

Vincent Kennedy "Vince" McMahon is an American professional wrestling promoter, announcer, commentator, film producer, actor and former occasional professional wrestler. McMahon is the current Chairman, CEO and Chairman of the Executive Committee of professional wrestling promotion WWE...

(also the WWF owner) and Lord Alfred Hayes.

While still running steadily, both Briscos sold their entire stock in GCW (including the TV deal) to Vince McMahon, and on July 14, 1984 (otherwise known as "Black Saturday"), the WWF took over the GCW slot (by this time, GCW's TV show was entitled World Championship Wrestling). With this move, McMahon controlled all nationally-televised wrestling in the United States. However, the WWF show on TBS was a ratings disaster as GCW fans, disliking the cartoonish characters and storylines of the WWF, simply turned off their television sets. Two weeks after Black Saturday, TBS debuted the show of a successor promotion to GCW created by holdout shareholders, Championship Wrestling from Georgia

Georgia Championship Wrestling

, albeit on early Saturday mornings.

Moreover, despite originally promising to produce original programming for the TBS time slot in Atlanta, McMahon chose instead to provide only a clip show for TBS, featuring highlights from other WWF programming as well as matches from house show

House show

A house show is a professional wrestling show run by a major promotion that is not televised, though they can be recorded. Promotions use house shows mainly to cash in on the exposure that they and their wrestlers receive during televised events, as well as test reactions to matches, wrestlers, and...

s at Madison Square Garden

Madison Square Garden

Madison Square Garden, often abbreviated as MSG and known colloquially as The Garden, is a multi-purpose indoor arena in the New York City borough of Manhattan and located at 8th Avenue, between 31st and 33rd Streets, situated on top of Pennsylvania Station.Opened on February 11, 1968, it is the...

, Boston Garden

Boston Garden

The Boston Garden was an arena in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. Designed by boxing promoter Tex Rickard, who also built the third iteration of New York's Madison Square Garden, it opened on November 17, 1928 as "Boston Madison Square Garden" and outlived its original namesake by some 30 years...

, and other major arenas. This format would eventually be the cornerstone of the WWF Prime Time Wrestling

WWF Prime Time Wrestling

WWF Prime Time Wrestling is a professional wrestling television program produced by the World Wrestling Federation . It aired on the USA Network from 1985-1993. A precursor to Monday Night Raw, Prime Time Wrestling was a two-hour long, weekly program that featured stars of the World Wrestling...

(PTW) program. In May 1985, McMahon sold the TBS time slot to another Southern

Southern United States

The Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive area in the southeastern and south-central United States...

-based and NWA-affiliated wrestling company, Jim Crockett Promotions

Jim Crockett Promotions

Jim Crockett Promotions was a professional wrestling promotion owned by Jim Crockett, Jr. until the late 1980s. It was a member of the National Wrestling Alliance and was the forerunner to World Championship Wrestling .-Early history:...

(JCP), under heavy pressure from Ted Turner

Ted Turner

Robert Edward "Ted" Turner III is an American media mogul and philanthropist. As a businessman, he is known as founder of the cable news network CNN, the first dedicated 24-hour cable news channel. In addition, he founded WTBS, which pioneered the superstation concept in cable television...

. This set up a rivalry between McMahon and Turner that would continue for 16 years.

That same year, PTW replaced TNT on USA Network, which expanded to two hours the format of the WWF's WTBS program. The most-remembered Prime Time format featured Bobby Heenan

Bobby Heenan

Raymond Louis "Ray" Heenan , better known as Bobby "The Brain" Heenan , is a former American professional wrestling manager and color commentator, best known for his time with the American Wrestling Association , World Championship Wrestling and the World Wrestling Federation...

and Gorilla Monsoon

Gorilla Monsoon

Robert James "Gino" Marella , better known by his ring name of Gorilla Monsoon, was an American professional wrestler, play-by-play announcer, and booker...

introducing taped matches and analyzing them afterward, with Monsoon taking a neutral/babyface

Face (professional wrestling)

In professional wrestling, a babyface or face or in simple words, a fan favorite is a character who is portrayed as a heroic relative to the heel wrestlers, who are analogous to villains...

position and Heenan unashamedly cheering on the heel

Heel (professional wrestling)

In professional wrestling, a heel is a villain character. In non-wrestling jargon, heels are the "bad guys" in professional wrestling; the term heel coming from the term take to you heels, which means to run away which heel champions tend to do to avoid losing their titles.storylines...

s. The chemistry between Monsoon and Heenan made this show popular with fans for many years despite the fact it was not considered one of the WWF's "primary" shows for most of its history, and many other wrestling programs attempted to copy this formula, with varying degrees of success.

1987–1993: Scheduling conflicts and Monday Night Raw

During a span of five months between November 1987 and March 1988, a bitter event-scheduling war broke out between Vince McMahon and Jim Crockett, Jr.

Jim Crockett, Jr.

Jim Crockett, Jr. is a former professional wrestling promoter. From 1973 to 1988, he owned Jim Crockett Promotions , a wrestling company affiliated with the National Wrestling Alliance...

, the owner of JCP. Throughout the 1980s, Crockett had steadily bought out other NWA-affiliated promotions in an attempt to make his organization a national one similar to the WWF. As a result, the term "NWA" became virtually synonymous with JCP. On Thanksgiving night 1987, McMahon's WWF aired Survivor Series

Survivor Series (1987)

Survivor Series was the first Survivor Series pay-per-view event produced by the World Wrestling Federation . It took place on Thanksgiving Day, November 26, 1987 and was held at the Richfield Coliseum in Richfield, Ohio....

on pay-per-view

Pay-per-view

Pay-per-view provides a service by which a television audience can purchase events to view via private telecast. The broadcaster shows the event at the same time to everyone ordering it...

(PPV) against the NWA's Starrcade

Starrcade (1987)

Starrcade '87 was the fifth annual Starrcade professional wrestling event produced by Jim Crockett Promotions under the National Wrestling Alliance banner. It took place on November 26, 1987 from the UIC Pavilion in Chicago, Illinois...

, which Crockett marketed as the NWA's answer to WrestleMania

WrestleMania

WrestleMania is a professional wrestling pay-per-view event, produced annually in late March or early April by WWE, a professional wrestling promotion based in Connecticut...

, despite Starrcade premiering two years prior to WrestleMania. However, many cable companies could only offer one live PPV event at a time. The WWF then threatened that any cable company that chose not to carry Survivor Series would not carry any WWF PPV events sixty days before and twenty-one days after the show. Therefore, the WWF PPV was cleared 10-1 over Starrcade, as only three cable companies opted to remain loyal to their contract with Crockett.

After this incident, the PPV industry warned McMahon not to schedule PPV events simultaneously with the NWA again. However, he was still not willing to fully cooperate with Crockett. On January 24, 1988, another scheduling conflict took place between the WWF and NWA: the NWA presented the Bunkhouse Stampede on PPV, while the WWF aired the Royal Rumble

Royal Rumble (1988)

Royal Rumble was the first annual Royal Rumble professional wrestling event produced by the World Wrestling Federation . It took place on January 24, 1988 at the Copps Coliseum in Hamilton, Ontario...

for free on the USA Network. Later that year, with the WWF's WrestleMania IV

WrestleMania IV

WrestleMania IV was the fourth annual WrestleMania professional wrestling pay-per-view event produced by the World Wrestling Federation . It took place on March 27, 1988 at the Trump Plaza in Atlantic City, New Jersey....

around the corner, Crockett decided to use McMahon's own tactics against him, developing his own PPV-caliber event and airing it for free on TBS opposite WrestleMania. The result was the Clash of Champions

Clash of the Champions

The Clash of the Champions were a series of professional wrestling television specials aired by World Championship Wrestling. The specials were supercards intended to feature pay-per-view caliber matches, similar to World Wrestling Federation's Saturday Night's Main Event.The first Clash of the...

, which was later renamed Clash of the Champions. On March 27, 1988 – the same night as WrestleMania IV – the first Clash of Champions aired. This show made Sting

Sting (wrestler)

Steven James "Steve" Borden , better known by his ring name Sting, is an American semi-retired professional wrestler, currently signed to Total Nonstop Action Wrestling...

a star after he wrestled NWA World Champion

NWA World Heavyweight Championship

The National Wrestling Alliance World Heavyweight Championship is a professional wrestling world heavyweight championship in the National Wrestling Alliance. Its lineage has been traced from the first World Heavyweight Championship, which traces its lineage to Georg Hackenschmidt's 1905 title and...

Ric Flair

Richard Morgan Fliehr is an American professional wrestler, better known by his ring name Ric Flair. Also known as "The Nature Boy", Flair is one of the most well-known professional wrestlers in the world....

to a 45-minute draw. The NWA repeated the practice again the following year, with a Clash coinciding with the WWF's WrestleMania V

WrestleMania V

WrestleMania V was the fifth annual WrestleMania professional wrestling pay-per-view event produced by the World Wrestling Federation . It took place on April 2, 1989 at the Trump Plaza in Atlantic City, New Jersey...

. Although the main event of the Clash saw NWA World Champion Ricky Steamboat

Ricky Steamboat

Richard Henry Blood , better known by his ring name Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat, is a retired American professional wrestler. He is currently signed to WWE working as a road agent. He was one of the few wrestlers who stayed a babyface throughout his career...

defeat Flair in a best-of-three-falls match that lasted for almost an hour, ratings and attendance for the event fell well below expectations compared to WrestleMania V. Thus, the practice of conflicting major events would cease for six years.

By 1988, Crockett's acquisition spree had severely drained his coffers. As a result, he was forced to sell his company to Ted Turner, whose TBS aired JCP television programs. Turner renamed the company World Championship Wrestling

World Championship Wrestling

(WCW) after the popular former GCW show; it remained affiliated with the NWA until it seceded in 1993.

As 1993 began, Prime Time Wrestling was struggling in the ratings and was cancelled by USA. The show that succeeded it, Monday Night Raw, changed how wrestling on cable TV would be presented. The WWF decided that it should use its cable time as a showcase for original matches and storylines that would serve as the major build-up to the quarterly pay-per-view broadcasts. The original Raw broke new ground in televised professional wrestling. Traditionally, wrestling shows were taped on sound stages with small audiences or at large arena shows. The Raw formula was very different than that of its predecessor, Prime Time Wrestling: instead of taped matches, with studio voice-overs and taped chat, Raw was a show shot to a live audience, with storylines unfolding as they happened. The first episode featured Yokozuna defeating Koko B. Ware, The Steiner Brothers

The Steiner Brothers

The Steiner Brothers are the professional wrestling tag team of American brothers Robert "Rick Steiner" Rechsteiner and Scott "Scott Steiner" Rechsteiner...

defeating The Executioners; WWF Intercontinental Champion Shawn Michaels

Shawn Michaels

Michael Shawn Hickenbottom , better known by his ring name Shawn Michaels, is an American television host and retired professional wrestler. He presents the Outdoor Channel show MacMillan River Adventures, and is currently signed to WWE, where he has served in an ambassadorial role since December...

defeating Max Moon; and The Undertaker defeating Damien Demento

Phil Theis

Phillip "Phil" Theis is an American former professional wrestler. He is best known for his stint in the World Wrestling Federation under the ring name Damien Demento.-Early career:...

. The show also featured an interview with Razor Ramon

Scott Hall

Scott Hall is an American professional wrestler. He is best known for his tenure with the World Wrestling Federation in the early and mid 1990s under the ring name Razor Ramon, as well as for his period in the mid 1990s and early 2000s with World Championship Wrestling under his real name...

.

Raw originated from The Grand Ballroom at Manhattan Center

Manhattan Center

The Manhattan Center building, built in 1906 and located at 311 West 34th Street in Midtown Manhattan, houses Manhattan Center Studios , its Grand Ballroom, and the Hammerstein Ballroom, one of New York City's most renowned performance venues...

Studios, a small New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

theater, and aired live each week. The combination of an intimate venue and live action proved highly successful. However, the weekly live schedule became a financial drain on the WWF, and the company began taping shows; sometimes up to a month's worth of shows were taped at a time.

1993–1994: Eric Bischoff enters WCW

In the same year as the premiere of Monday Night Raw, WCW promoted former commentator and American Wrestling Association

American Wrestling Association

The American Wrestling Association was an American professional wrestling promotion based in Minneapolis, Minnesota that ran from 1960 to 1991. It was owned and founded by Verne Gagne and Wally Karbo...

(AWA) announcer/sales associate Eric Bischoff

Eric Bischoff

Eric Aaron Bischoff is an American entrepreneur, and professional wrestling booker and on-screen personality currently signed to Total Nonstop Action Wrestling...

to the position of Executive Vice President (essentially the head of the organization). Bischoff's first year at the top of WCW was mostly a disaster. Bookers Ole Anderson and Dusty Rhodes

Dusty Rhodes (wrestler)

Virgil Riley Runnels, Jr. , better known as "The American Dream" Dusty Rhodes, is a semi-retired American professional wrestler currently working for WWE...

concocted cartoonish, unbelievable, and poorly built-up storylines (such as the "Lost in Cleveland" amnesia storyline involving Cactus Jack

Mick Foley

Michael Francis "Mick" Foley, Sr. is an American semi-retired professional wrestler, author, comedian, actor, voice actor and former color commentator. He has worked for many wrestling promotions, including WWE, WCW, ECW and TNA. He is often referred to as "The Hardcore Legend", a nickname he...

and the B-style

B movie

A B movie is a low-budget commercial motion picture that is not definitively an arthouse or pornographic film. In its original usage, during the Golden Age of Hollywood, the term more precisely identified a film intended for distribution as the less-publicized, bottom half of a double feature....

"White Castle of Fear" and beach mini-movies used to build up the SuperBrawl III and Beach Blast

Beach Blast

Beach Blast was a professional wrestling pay-per-view promoted by World Championship Wrestling and held in the summers of 1992 and 1993. It was replaced by Bash at the Beach in 1994.-1992:...

PPV events respectively). The summer of 1993 saw Ric Flair

Ric Flair

return to WCW after his WWF tenure, but since Flair was constrained by a no-compete clause from his WWF contract, WCW gave him a talk show

Talk show

A talk show or chat show is a television program or radio program where one person discuss various topics put forth by a talk show host....

segment on its television shows called A Flair for the Gold. At Slamboree 1993, WCW promised a Four Horsemen

Four Horsemen (professional wrestling)

The Four Horsemen were a professional wrestling stable in the National Wrestling Alliance and later World Championship Wrestling that was disbanded in 1999. The original group featured Ric Flair, Arn and Ole Anderson, and Tully Blanchard...

reunion, but former WWF superstar Paul Roma

Paul Roma

Paul Roma is a professional wrestler who is known for his work in the World Wrestling Federation and World Championship Wrestling primarily as a tag-team wrestler alongside such partners as Jim Powers, Hercules, Arn Anderson and Paul Orndorff.-World Wrestling Federation :Paul Roma entered...

replaced Tully Blanchard

Tully Blanchard

Tully Arthur Blanchard is a semi-retired second generation American professional wrestler. He is best known as an original member of the Four Horsemen....

, who was rumored to have failed a drug test prior to leaving the WWF. Ole Anderson was part of the group as an advisor, but made only one appearance on A Flair for the Gold.

In another infamous incident that took place during A Flair For the Gold on a live Clash of the Champions

Clash of the Champions

building up the Fall Brawl

Fall Brawl

Fall Brawl was an annual pay-per-view in World Championship Wrestling held in the month of September from 1993 through 2000. The name was derived from the fall edition of Clash of the Champions, called "Fall Brawl"...

pay-per-view, WCW decided to introduce a "mystery partner" for the babyfaces, a masked man known as The Shockmaster

Fred Ottman

Fred Ottman is a retired American professional wrestler best known as Tugboat or Typhoon and teaming with John "Earthquake" Tenta as The Natural Disasters in the World Wrestling Federation. Ottman is also well-known for his infamous "Shockmaster" gimmick in World Championship Wrestling...

. The Shockmaster (Fred Ottman, previously known as Typhoon and Tugboat in the WWF) was supposed to crash through a fake wall and intimidate the heels. Instead, he tripped through the wall, fell on live television, and briefly knocked off his helmet, rendering himself a joke character (despite winning some matches).

Also that same year, WCW began taping matches months in advance for syndicated programming like WCW WorldWide

WCW WorldWide

WCW WorldWide was a syndicated TV show produced by World Championship Wrestling.-Wide World Wrestling:The show began in 1975 , a syndicated one-hour program produced by Charlotte, North Carolina-based Jim Crockett Promotions...

from the Disney/MGM Studios

Disney's Hollywood Studios

Disney's Hollywood Studios is a theme park at the Walt Disney World Resort. Spanning 135 acres in size, its theme is show business, drawing inspiration from the heyday of Hollywood in the 1930s and 1940s...

in what would become known as the "Disney Tapings

WCW Disney tapings

The WCW Disney tapings were a series of television tapings of professional wrestling matches conducted by World Championship Wrestling at the Disney-MGM Studios in Lake Buena Vista, Florida.-History:...

". Because the footage recorded would often be shown on television months later, the tapings often exposed bookings and storylines well in advance. WCW was usually forced to have wrestlers appear with title belts before they had won them in regards to the current storyline. This was regarded as a major breach of kayfabe

Kayfabe

In professional wrestling, kayfabe is the portrayal of events within the industry as "real" or "true". Specifically, the portrayal of professional wrestling, in particular the competition and rivalries between participants, as being genuine or not of a worked nature...

at the time, and ultimately led to WCW's departure from the NWA in September 1993.

By the end of the year, WCW decided to once again base the promotion around Ric Flair. This was seen as more or less a necessity, as prospective top babyface Sid Vicious

Sid Eudy

Sidney Raymond "Sid" Eudy is an American professional wrestler, best known as Sid Vicious in World Championship Wrestling, and as Sid Justice and Sycho Sid in the World Wrestling Federation...

was involved in a legitimate altercation with fellow wrestler Arn Anderson

Arn Anderson

Martin Anthony Lunde better known by his ring name Arn Anderson, is a former American professional wrestler and author. His career has been highlighted by his alliances with Ric Flair and various members of the wrestling stable, The Four Horsemen, in the NWA/WCW...

in which Vicious attacked Anderson with a pair of scissors (both wrestlers involved were injured in the end) four weeks before Starrcade while on tour in England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, and was fired. In fact, before the Sid/Arn incident, several weeks of syndicated programming had been taped with Vicious as WCW World Heavyweight Champion

WCW World Heavyweight Championship

The World Championship Wrestling World Heavyweight Championship was a professional wrestling world heavyweight championship in World Championship Wrestling and the World Wrestling Federation . It existed within WCW between 1991 and 2001. Following the acquisition of WCW by World Wrestling...

. He had been scheduled to defeat Big Van Vader for the title at Starrcade 1993

Starrcade (1993)

Starrcade '93: 10th Anniversary was the eleventh annual Starrcade professional wrestling pay-per-view event. It was the sixth Starrcade event produced by World Championship Wrestling , and it took place on December 27, 1993 from the Independence Arena in Charlotte, North Carolina...

, and the taped footage would have begun airing in early 1994, but the program was scrapped after Sid's attack on the popular veteran Anderson. Flair won the title at Starrcade and was once again made booker.

In 1994, Bischoff declared open war on McMahon's WWF and aggressively recruited high-profile former WWF wrestlers such as Hulk Hogan

Hulk Hogan

Terrance Gene "Terry" Bollea , better known by his ring name Hulk Hogan, is an American Semi-retired professional wrestler, actor, television personality, and musician currently signed to Total Nonstop Action Wrestling ....

and Randy Savage

Randy Savage

Randall Mario Poffo , better known by his ring name "Macho Man" Randy Savage, was an American professional wrestler, best known for his time with the World Wrestling Federation and World Championship Wrestling .Savage held twenty championships during his professional wrestling career and was a...

. Using Turner's monetary resources, Bischoff placed his faith in the established stars with proven track records. Because of their high profiles, however, Hogan and Savage were able to demand and get several concessions not usually allowed to wrestlers at the time, such as multi-year, multi-million dollar guaranteed contracts and significant creative control over their characters. This would later become a problem during subsequent years of competition with the WWF, as other wrestlers were able to make similar demands, and contract values soared out of control. Hogan, in particular, was able to gain considerable influence through a friendship with Bischoff. Another thing Bischoff may have failed to consider was the fact that many WCW fans (especially those who had followed the company since its NWA days) watched it as an alternative to the product of WWF in the early 1990s that focused on in-ring action as opposed to cartoonish characters and storylines. As such, these fans viewed Bischoff's signing of former WWF talent as an attempt to copy its success instead of remaining true to the idea of WCW being an alternative to the WWF. Nevertheless, WCW's first major pay-per-view event since Hogan's hiring, Bash at the Beach, saw the former WWF mainstay cleanly defeat Ric Flair for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship. The two had worked for the WWF at the same time from 1991 to 1992, and a feud was teased between them, but the big-money match originally planned for WrestleMania VIII

WrestleMania VIII

WrestleMania VIII was the eighth annual WrestleMania professional wrestling pay-per-view produced by the World Wrestling Federation . It took place on April 5, 1992 at the Hoosier Dome in Indianapolis, Indiana...

was changed to Flair/Savage and Hogan/Sid. When WCW delivered the match, the PPV drew a high buy rate by WCW standards due to mainstream intrigue and hype. Despite being a critical and financial success, the glory would not last long as the Hogan/Flair feud was only a one-off match and the hoped-for long-term effects on PPV buy rates and ratings did not materialize.

1994: Extreme Championship Wrestling

Extreme Championship Wrestling

(ECW) had its origins in 1991 as the Tri-State Wrestling Alliance, owned by Joel Goodhart. In 1992, Goodhart sold his share of the company to his partner, Tod Gordon

Tod Gordon

Tod Gordon is the President of Carver W. Reed Co. Inc, a Philadelphia jewelry store and loan office that was established in 1860. He is also the founder of both defunct Professional wrestling promotions Eastern Championship Wrestling and Extreme Championship Wrestling...

, who renamed the promotion Eastern Championship Wrestling. When Eastern Championship Wrestling was founded, it was a member of the NWA, and "Hot Stuff" Eddie Gilbert was its head booker. After a falling-out with Gordon, Gilbert was replaced in September 1993 by Paul Heyman

Paul Heyman

Paul Heyman is an American entertainment producer, best known for his career in professional wrestling as a promoter, manager, commentator and journalist. He is also an occasional actor in film....

(known on television as Paul E. Dangerously), who had just left WCW and was looking for a new challenge. In contrast to professional wrestling of the time, which was marketed more towards families, Eastern Championship Wrestling was geared more toward adults and fans who craved a more athletic and violent wrestling product. Its eventual successor, Extreme Championship Wrestling, aimed its product at males between 18 to 35, breaking a few taboo

Taboo

A taboo is a strong social prohibition relating to any area of human activity or social custom that is sacred and or forbidden based on moral judgment, religious beliefs and or scientific consensus. Breaking the taboo is usually considered objectionable or abhorrent by society...

s in professional wrestling such as blading

Blading (professional wrestling)

In professional wrestling, blading is the practice of intentionally cutting oneself to provoke bleeding. It is also known as juicing, gigging, or drawing color. Similarly, a blade is an object used for blading, and a bladejob is a specific act of blading...

. Heyman saw ECW as the professional wrestling equivalent to the grunge

Grunge

Grunge is a subgenre of alternative rock that emerged during the mid-1980s in the American state of Washington, particularly in the Seattle area. Inspired by hardcore punk, heavy metal, and indie rock, grunge is generally characterized by heavily distorted electric guitars, contrasting song...

music movement of the early 1990s, and focused on taking the company in a new direction.

In 1994, Jim Crockett

Jim Crockett, Jr.

Jim Crockett, Jr. is a former professional wrestling promoter. From 1973 to 1988, he owned Jim Crockett Promotions , a wrestling company affiliated with the National Wrestling Alliance...

's non-compete agreement with Ted Turner, to whom he had sold WCW in 1988, expired and he decided to start promoting with the NWA again. Crockett went to Gordon and asked him to hold a tournament for the NWA's top prize, the NWA World Heavyweight Championship

NWA World Heavyweight Championship

, in ECW's home city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on August 27, 1994. NWA President Dennis Coralluzzo alleged that Crockett and Gordon were attempting to monopolize the title (akin to Crockett's actions in the 1980s), and stated Crockett did not have the NWA board's approval, which resulted in Coralluzzo personally overseeing the tournament. Gordon took offense at Coralluzzo for his power plays and began contemplating a plan to secede ECW from the NWA in a controversial and public manner that would attract attention to ECW and insult the NWA organization. Gordon and Heyman planned to have Shane Douglas

Shane Douglas

Troy Alan Martin is an American professional wrestler and promoter, better known by his ring name "The Franchise" Shane Douglas. In the course of his career, which has spanned nearly three decades, Douglas has wrestled in Extreme Championship Wrestling and World Championship Wrestling and briefly...

, who was scheduled to face 2 Cold Scorpio

2 Cold Scorpio

Charles Scaggs is an American professional wrestler, better known by his ring name 2 Cold Scorpio . Scaggs has competed in Extreme Championship Wrestling, World Championship Wrestling, World Wrestling Entertainment and Pro Wrestling Noah...

in the tournament finals, throw down the NWA World Heavyweight Championship upon winning it as an act of defiance.

Heyman pitched the plan to Douglas, noting that the only negative would be that NWA traditionalists would just see them as traitors to tradition. Additionally, there was animosity between Douglas and Coralluzzo, who had publicly criticized Douglas and advised NWA-affiliated bookers not to schedule him for shows, as he believed Douglas was a "bad risk" and had the tendency to not appear at shows he was scheduled to wrestle at. Douglas ultimately decided to go through with Gordon and Heyman's plan, inspired by his father's motto

Motto

A motto is a phrase meant to formally summarize the general motivation or intention of a social group or organization. A motto may be in any language, but Latin is the most used. The local language is usual in the mottoes of governments...

of "doing right by the people that do right by you." He threw down the NWA World Heavyweight Championship, stating that he did not want to be champion of a "dead promotion." He then raised the Eastern Championship Wrestling title and declared it to be a World Heavyweight Championship, calling it the only real world title left in professional wrestling. When recalling this event years later, Paul Heyman stated the following:

With this event, Eastern Championship Wrestling seceded from the NWA and became Extreme Championship Wrestling. The revamped promotion's unorthodox style and controversial storylines made it popular among fans in the 18- to 35-year-old male demographic. It showcased many different styles of professional wrestling, popularizing hardcore wrestling

Hardcore wrestling

Hardcore wrestling is a form of professional wrestling that eschews traditional concepts of match rules in favor of matches that take place in unusual environments, using foreign objects that are not normally permitted...

matches as well as lucha libre

Lucha libre

Lucha libre is a term used in Mexico, and other Spanish-speaking countries, for a form of professional wrestling that has developed within those countries...

and Japanese wrestling styles. ECW was promoted as counterculture

Counterculture

Counterculture is a sociological term used to describe the values and norms of behavior of a cultural group, or subculture, that run counter to those of the social mainstream of the day, the cultural equivalent of political opposition. Counterculture can also be described as a group whose behavior...

and a grittier alternative to multi-million dollar organizations such as the WWF and WCW.

1995–1996: The debut of WCW Monday Nitro

WCW Monday Nitro

premiered on September 4, 1995 as an hour-long weekly show, and Bischoff was instrumental in the launching of the show. During their mid-1995 meeting, Turner asked Bischoff how WCW could conceivably compete with McMahon's WWF. Bischoff, not expecting Turner to comply, said that the only way would be a prime-time slot on a weekday night, possibly up against WWF's flagship show, Monday Night Raw

WWE RAW

WWE Raw ) is a sports entertainment television program for WWE that currently airs on the USA Network in the United States...

. Surprisingly for Bischoff, Turner granted him one live hour on TNT every Monday night, which specifically overlapped with Raw. This format quickly expanded to two live hours in May 1996 and later three. Bischoff himself was initially the host; he handled the first hour along with Bobby Heenan

Bobby Heenan

and former NFL

National Football League

The National Football League is the highest level of professional American football in the United States, and is considered the top professional American football league in the world. It was formed by eleven teams in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association, with the league changing...

football

American football

American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...

player Steve "Mongo" McMichael

Steve McMichael

-World Wrestling Federation :After the end of his NFL career, he appeared at ringside in the WWF for Lawrence Taylor at WrestleMania XI on April 2, 1995 in Hartford, Connecticut. Taylor was wrestling Bam Bam Bigelow and there were several football players at ringside to keep wrestlers from...

, with Tony Schiavone

Tony Schiavone

Noah Anthony "Tony" Schiavone is an American sports broadcaster. He is the play-by-play broadcaster for the Gwinnett Braves of the International League...

and Larry Zbyszko

Larry Zbyszko

Lawrence "Larry" Whistler is a professional wrestler, better known by his ring name, Larry Zbyszko. Zbyszko is perhaps best known for his feud with his mentor, wrestling legend Bruno Sammartino during the early 1980s....

hosting the second. Other co-hosts included Mike Tenay

Mike Tenay

Michael William "Mike" Tenay is a professional wrestling play-by-play announcer currently employed by Total Nonstop Action Wrestling . Prior to signing with TNA in 2002, he had a notable tenure with World Championship Wrestling from 1994-2001...

(usually for matches involving cruiserweights

Cruiserweight (professional wrestling)

In professional wrestling, a cruiserweight is a wrestler weighing 220 lb and less, sometimes 215. The older term junior heavyweight, which was used to describe the division, is more favored in Japan, where many titles for lighter-weight competitors are called junior heavyweight titles...

or international stars), Scott Hudson

Scott Hudson (wrestling commentator)

Scott Hudson is a professional wrestling commentator, most notable for his work in World Championship Wrestling, starting in 1998....

, and Mark Madden

Mark Madden

Mark Madden is an American radio sports talk-show host in Pittsburgh and also a former World Championship Wrestling color commentator. -Career:...

.

The initial broadcast of Nitro also featured the return of Lex Luger

Lex Luger

Lawrence Wendell "Larry" Pfohl , better known by his ring name Lex Luger, is an American former professional wrestler and football player currently working with WWE on their wellness policy...

to WCW; Luger had worked for the company from 1987 to 1992, when it was still affiliated with the NWA, before joining the WWF the following year. WCW's coup of obtaining Luger was significant for several reasons. Because Nitro was live at the time, premiering major stars on the show would signal to the fans the amount of excitement the broadcasts would contain. Secondly, Luger had just come off a successful run in the WWF and was one of the company's top stars at one point. In fact, he had been in line to get the WWF World Title (he had had several previous title matches), and worked a WWF house show the night before. Since nobody but Bischoff and Luger's good friend Sting knew that Luger would return to WCW, the shock value generated by his appearance was enormous. Third, Luger's defection created speculation among fans as to which other big-name stars would "jump ship". Notably, Luger would be followed by former WWF Women's Champion Alundra Blayze

Debra Miceli

Debrah Ann Miceli is a Monster truck driver and former professional wrestler. She is best known under her ring names Madusa or Alundra Blayze. Her early career was spent in the American Wrestling Association, where she held the AWA World Women's Championship one time...

, who appeared with the WWF Women's championship belt on the December 18, 1995 edition of Nitro and insulted her former employers before throwing the belt in the garbage.

Raw and Nitro traded wins in the "Monday Night Wars" early on, and the rivalry quickly heated up. Nitro began airing a weekly segment entitled Where the Big Boys Play! composed of stock footage of matches featuring current WWF wrestlers who had started their careers as jobbers

Job (professional wrestling)

In professional wrestling slang, the term job describes a losing performance in a wrestling match. It is derived from the euphemism "doing one's job", which was employed to protect kayfabe. As professional wrestling is scripted, inevitably a wrestler will be required to lose to an opponent.The term...

in WCW, all of which ended in the WWF wrestler suffering a humiliating loss. Bischoff also began to give away the results of Raw matches on Nitro, as Raw was usually taped a week prior to airing. These moves prompted retaliatory tactics by the WWF; in January 1996, Raw began airing skits before and after commercial breaks entitled Billionaire Ted's Rasslin' Warroom, depicting parodies of Ted Turner

Ted Turner

("Billionaire Ted"), Hulk Hogan

Hulk Hogan

("The Huckster"), Randy Savage

Randy Savage

("The Nacho Man"), and Gene Okerlund

Gene Okerlund

Eugene "Mean Gene" Okerlund is a semi-retired American professional wrestling interviewer and announcer. He is best known for his work in the World Wrestling Federation and World Championship Wrestling. He was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2006 by Hulk Hogan...

("Scheme Gene"). While the material involving Hogan and Savage usually poked fun at their ages in relation to their younger colleagues (presenting them as geriatrics attached to oxygen tanks, for instance), the skits aimed at Turner were decidedly more inflammatory in nature and contained material that could have been considered slanderous. The sketches stopped airing on the USA Network at the request of network president Kay Koplovitz, and were ended permanently in a short presented before WrestleMania XII

WrestleMania XII

-Other on-screen talent:-External links:**...

, which killed off all the characters.

WrestleMania XII also began a brief turning point for the WWF, after which Raw would overtake Nitro for two consecutive months. The event saw the return of 1980s fan favorite Roddy Piper

Roddy Piper

Roderick George Toombs , better known by his ring name "Rowdy" Roddy Piper, is a Canadian semi-retired professional wrestler and film actor who is currently signed to WWE. In professional wrestling, he is best known for his work with WWE...

, who made a face turn to fight Goldust; Goldust's transsexual persona had been particularly displeasing to fans, and his defeat at the hands of Piper became a high point of the evening. Another 1980s fan favorite returning that evening was The Ultimate Warrior, who would go on to enjoy a brief revival in popularity. The main event – a heavily promoted match between Shawn Michaels

Shawn Michaels

and Bret Hart

Bret Hart

Bret Hart is a Canadian on-screen personality, writer, actor and Semi-retired professional wrestler. Like others in the Hart wrestling family, Hart has an amateur wrestling background, including wrestling at Ernest Manning High School and Mount Royal College...

that lasted for an entire hour – launched Michaels' popularity in addition to marking the beginning of Hart's decline with the organization, both backstage and in the ring.

1996–1997: WCW and the New World Order

However, WCW was about to gain the upper hand again and retain it for an extended period of time thanks in part to two former WWF stars. On the Memorial Day 1996 edition of Nitro, the first of those stars, Scott Hall

Scott Hall

, who had competed in the WWF as "Razor Ramon" and had just signed with WCW, interrupted a match and challenged the best WCW wrestlers to stand up and defend the company against the onslaught of Hall and his companions. Though Hall was employed by WCW, the storyline implied that he was in fact a WWF employee and that his presence represented an invasion by the rival promotion.

Two weeks later, the second WWF defector, former WWF Champion Kevin Nash

Kevin Nash

Kevin Scott Nash is an American professional wrestler and actor. As of 2011, Nash is signed to a five year contract with WWE under their WWE Legends program and appears as part of their Raw brand roster...

(who had wrestled as Diesel), appeared on Nitro. Hall and Nash were dubbed "The Outsiders," and took to showing up unexpectedly during Nitro broadcasts, usually jumping wrestlers backstage, distracting wrestlers by standing in the entranceways of arenas, or walking around in the audience. A week later, they announced the forthcoming appearance of a mysterious third member of their group.

At Bash at the Beach, Hall and Nash were scheduled to team with their mystery partner against Lex Luger, Randy Savage, and Sting. At the onset of the match, Hall and Nash came out without a third man, telling Okerlund that he was "in the building," but that they did not need him yet. Shortly into the match, a Stinger Splash resulted in Luger being crushed behind Nash and being taken away on a stretcher, turning the match into The Outsiders vs. Sting and Savage and teasing the possibility of Luger, a former WWF wrestler like Hall and Nash, being the mystery partner.

Hall and Nash were in control of the match when Hulk Hogan came to the ring. After standing off with them for a moment, he suddenly attacked Savage, showing himself to be the Outsiders' mysterious third man and thus turning heel. In a scripted post-match interview, Hogan christened his alliance with Hall and Nash as the New World Order

New World Order (professional wrestling)

The New World Order was a professional wrestling stable that originally wrestled for World Championship Wrestling . The group later appeared in the World Wrestling Federation after the purchase of WCW by the WWF...

(nWo). He appeared to break character, insulting the fans, expressing burnout due to having been a face for so long, and stating that he was tired of what he perceived as a lack of appreciation for his accomplishments. Hogan's statements inspired enough vitriol in the audience that they began to pelt the ring with debris; Okerlund broke his nose due to a thrown beer bottle, and one fan jumped the security railing and attempted to attack Hogan. However, Hall and Nash restrained the fan before arena security escorted him out of the building.

The following evening on Nitro, most of WCW's top stars gave supposed out-of-character interviews, expressing their feelings of betrayal and disillusionment with Hogan's actions. The ensuing storyline, in which the nWo waged a campaign of anarchy against WCW, blurred the lines between reality and scripted entertainment, a unique presentation that acknowledged fans' growing awareness of backstage wrestling politics and the death of kayfabe

Kayfabe

. Fans were pleased with Hogan's new gimmick, and for the next 84 consecutive weeks Nitro would beat Raw in the ratings.

At the outset of the storyline, the WWF filed a lawsuit against WCW, alleging that WCW was illegally representing the nWo as a WWF affiliate and that Hall's persona was too close to his "Razor Ramon" character (itself a parody of Al Pacino

Al Pacino

Alfredo James "Al" Pacino is an American film and stage actor and director. He is famous for playing mobsters, including Michael Corleone in The Godfather trilogy, Tony Montana in Scarface, Alphonse "Big Boy" Caprice in Dick Tracy and Carlito Brigante in Carlito's Way, though he has also appeared...

's character in Scarface), to which the WWF retained the rights. WCW countered that in June, Hall and Nash had emphatically stated on-camera that they were no longer WWF employees, and that Hall's current persona was in fact a reworking of his previous WCW character, The Diamond Stud. The lawsuit dragged on for several years, culminating in the WWF agreeing to drop the suit in exchange for the right to bid on WCW properties should they ever come up for liquidation. The settlement would both prove disastrous for WCW years later.

1996–1997: WWF struggles

Raw, and the WWF in general, was considered to be at a creative nadir before Nitro started, thus helping WCW's meteoric rise. Into the early 1990s, the WWF had continued the creative formula that had given the company such success in the 1980s: clear-cut face vs. heel storylines, colorful wrestlers with themed gimmicks, and alluring female valets who nonetheless maintained a "PG-13" level of sex appeal. Although the formula had been popular during the MTV

MTV

MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....

-fueled "rock n' wrestling" era of the 1980s, fans in the 1990s began to gravitate towards more morally ambiguous characters, wrestlers whose personas were more grounded in reality, and metafiction

Metafiction

Metafiction, also known as Romantic irony in the context of Romantic works of literature, is a type of fiction that self-consciously addresses the devices of fiction, exposing the fictional illusion...

storylines that acknowledged their awareness of backstage politics via the use of the Internet

Internet

The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...

. With the introduction of the nWo, the June 10, 1996 episode of Raw would be the last ratings victory for the WWF in nearly two years.

On the November 4, 1996 episode of Raw, the WWF aired the infamous "Pillman's Got a Gun" angle involving Stone Cold Steve Austin

Stone Cold Steve Austin

Steve Austin , better known by his ring name "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, is an American film and television actor and retired professional wrestler...

and Brian Pillman

Brian Pillman

Brian William Pillman was an American football player and professional wrestler best known for his appearances in the World Wrestling Federation, Extreme Championship Wrestling, and World Championship Wrestling....

, two former friends who were feuding with each other. In a series of vignettes broadcast from Pillman's real-life home in Newport, Kentucky

Newport, Kentucky

Newport is a city in Campbell County, Kentucky, United States, at the confluence of the Ohio and Licking rivers. The population was 15,273 at the 2010 census. Historically, it was one of four county seats of Campbell County. Newport is part of the Greater Cincinnati, Ohio Metro Area which...

, Pillman – supposedly debilitated following an attack by Austin – vowed to protect himself and his wife with the help of a group of friends should Austin appear. At the end of the evening, the final vignette depicted Austin breaking into Pillman's home, prompting Pillman to pull a 9mm Glock

Glock pistol

The Glock pistol, sometimes referred to by the manufacturer as Glock "Safe Action" Pistol, is a series of semi-automatic pistols designed and produced by Glock Ges.m.b.H., located in Deutsch-Wagram, Austria. The company's founder, engineer Gaston Glock, had no experience with firearm design or...

on Austin, and the feed being "interrupted" in the ensuing chaos, with Vince McMahon (serving as a commentator) stating that he had been informed of "a couple explosions." When the feed resumed, Austin was shown being dragged out of Pillman's house as Pillman screamed, "That son of a bitch has got this coming! Let him go! I'm going to kill that son of a bitch! Get out of the fucking way!" None of the profanity

Profanity

Profanity is a show of disrespect, or a desecration or debasement of someone or something. Profanity can take the form of words, expressions, gestures, or other social behaviors that are socially constructed or interpreted as insulting, rude, vulgar, obscene, desecrating, or other forms.The...

was censored.

The angle polarized fans and shocked the USA Network, which was not accustomed to airing a program with the profanity and level of violence presented in the vignettes. Although the WWF (and Pillman himself) were forced to issue apologies to avoid Raw being canceled for breach of contract, the ensuing discussion of the incident in the fan community generated the most attention the WWF had received since the beginning of the Monday Night Wars. This prompted the WWF creative team to begin looking into the idea of more adult-oriented storylines and characters and mimicking WCW's metafiction elements.

On February 3, 1997, Monday Night Raw changed to a two-hour format. In an attempt to break the momentum of Nitro, the WWF entered into a cross-promotional agreement with ECW. Raw commentator Jerry Lawler

Jerry Lawler

Jerry O'Neil Lawler is an American professional wrestler, wrestling commentator, musician, businessman, commercial artist and film actor, known throughout the wrestling world as Jerry "The King" Lawler. He is currently signed to WWE, working on its Raw brand as the color commentator and occasional...

insulted and "challenged" ECW on the show's February 17 episode, and in the weeks to come, several ECW wrestlers appeared on Raw in a story arc similar to the nWo storyline playing out in WCW, with the WWF pursuing the "renegade" ECW. On March 10, 1997, Raw was officially renamed Raw is War in reference to the ongoing ratings battle.

Throughout 1997, Raw began to become more and more controversial. Storyline elements included racist graffiti targeted at the Nation of Domination

Nation of Domination

The Nation of Domination was a professional wrestling stable in World Wrestling Federation from November 18, 1996 to November 28, 1998. The Rock was a 1 time Intercontinental Champion and D'Lo Brown was a 2 time European Champion while in the group.-United States Wrestling Association :The...

(a stable loosely based on the Nation of Islam

Nation of Islam

The Nation of Islam is a mainly African-American new religious movement founded in Detroit, Michigan by Wallace D. Fard Muhammad in July 1930 to improve the spiritual, mental, social, and economic condition of African-Americans in the United States of America. The movement teaches black pride and...

) and emphasizing the sexuality of valets Sunny, Sable

Rena Mero

Rena Marlette Mero Lesnar , better known as Sable, is an American model, actress, and former professional wrestler. She is primarily known for her stints in World Wrestling Entertainment....

, and Marlena

Terri Runnels

Terri Lynne Boatright Runnels is a former World Championship Wrestling and World Wrestling Federation professional wrestling manager, television host and occasional wrestler....

. These women began appearing on-camera in increasingly revealing clothing and in swimsuit and lingerie-oriented spreads in WWF's Raw magazine, a lad mag designed as an alternative to the family-friendly WWF Magazine and a competitor to the likewise family-friendly WCW Magazine.

Although these elements helped to garner the WWF more attention than it had enjoyed in the wake of the nWo storyline, the injury of Steve Austin at the SummerSlam

SummerSlam (1997)

SummerSlam was the tenth annual SummerSlam professional wrestling pay-per-view event produced by the World Wrestling Federation . It took place on August 3, 1997 at the Continental Airlines Arena in East Rutherford, New Jersey.-Background:...

pay-per-view, which put him out of action for three months, proved to be a severe blow to Raws popularity.

1997: The Montreal Screwjob

In 1997, Bret Hart, who had been one of the few consistent mainstays of the WWF throughout the 1980s and 1990s, signed a contract with the WCW. Hart, at the time the WWF champion, wanted to part ways with the WWF amicably, and had agreed to vacate the title following a farewell speech on a broadcast of Raw. Although McMahon agreed to the arrangement, he later decided to humiliate Hart on live television; without Hart's prior knowledge, McMahon arranged for Hart to appear to willfully lose his final match in the WWF at the 1997 Survivor Series

Survivor Series (1997)

Survivor Series was the eleventh annual Survivor Series pay-per-view professional wrestling event produced by the World Wrestling Federation. It took place on November 9, 1997 at the Molson Centre in Montreal, Quebec....

, to real-life rival Shawn Michaels. The incident—which took place in Hart's home country of Canada—became known as the Montreal Screwjob

Montreal Screwjob

The Montreal Screwjob was a controversial, purportedly real life professional wrestling event in which the owner of the World Wrestling Federation, Vince McMahon, double-crossed the defending WWF Champion, Bret Hart, during the main event match of the professional wrestling pay-per-view event...

, and inspired the documentary film Wrestling with Shadows. It shook WWF wrestlers' faith in their own company, resulting in a near strike the following evening; Hart himself (who assaulted McMahon in his dressing room later that evening) prevented a walk-out by asking his former coworkers not to risk their careers for his sake. Rick Rude, a wrestler who had been popular amongst both fans and his fellow wrestlers during the 1980s and who had recently made a comeback in the WWF, left the company as a result of the incident and followed Hart to the WCW. Rude would debut in the WCW on a live broadcast of Nitro to insult the WWF for its treatment of Hart the same night that he appeared on a taped edition of Raw. Hart's brother, Owen, likewise attempted to quit the WWF, citing a knee injury, but was unable to get out of his contract.

Hart's departure would ultimately turn the tide of the "Monday Night Wars." With Hart now on the WCW roster, Nitro boasted the most well-known names in wrestling; unlike the WWF, the WCW had also been aggressively promoting new talent, with up-and-coming stars such as Chris Jericho

Chris Jericho

Christopher Keith Irvine , better known by his ring name Chris Jericho, is an inactive Canadian-American professional wrestler, musician, songwriter, radio personality, television host, actor, author, and dancer...

and Eddie Guerrero

Eddie Guerrero

Eduardo Gory "Eddie" Guerrero was a Mexican-American professional wrestler born into the Guerrero wrestling family. He wrestled in Mexico and Japan for several major professional wrestling promotions...

enjoying as much attention as established performers. Additionally, the WCW had also taken advantage of the popularity of wrestling amongst Hispanic

Hispanic and Latino Americans

Hispanic or Latino Americans are Americans with origins in the Hispanic countries of Latin America or in Spain, and in general all persons in the United States who self-identify as Hispanic or Latino.1990 Census of Population and Housing: A self-designated classification for people whose origins...

, Latin American, and Asia

Asia

Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...

n fans by introducing a cruiserweight

Cruiserweight (professional wrestling)

division, largely made up of stars from Mexico

Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

, Central America

Central America

Central America is the central geographic region of the Americas. It is the southernmost, isthmian portion of the North American continent, which connects with South America on the southeast. When considered part of the unified continental model, it is considered a subcontinent...

, and Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

, who performed the acrobatically-based wrestling maneuvers popular in their home countries.

Meanwhile, WCW's Starrcade

Starrcade (1997)

Starrcade was the fifteenth annual Starrcade professional wrestling pay-per-view event. It was the tenth Starrcade event produced by World Championship Wrestling , and it took place on December 28, 1997 from the MCI Center in Washington, D.C...

pay-per-view in Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....

drew WCW's highest buyrate to that date, largely because of Eric Bischoff

Eric Bischoff

Eric Aaron Bischoff is an American entrepreneur, and professional wrestling booker and on-screen personality currently signed to Total Nonstop Action Wrestling...

building up the main-event of Hulk Hogan vs. Sting, a match that fans had been waiting to see since Sting first presented himself as the leader of an anti-nWo faction a year before. The ending to the match—which saw Bret Hart making his WCW debut to accuse the referee of corruption, making himself the referee, and awarding the championship belt to Sting, only for the belt to be stripped on a technicality—was seen as an anticlimactic finish to an event fans had patiently awaited, and the numerous reversals and technicalities employed to further the storyline were received as confusing and convoluted.

1997–1998: Stone Cold Steve Austin and Mr. McMahon

Despite losing to Nitro week after week, Raw rallied in the ratings when it introduced its new "WWF Attitude" concept, in which the family friendly, clear-cut face vs. heel dynamic of the 1980s and early 90s was jettisoned in favor of morally ambiguous wrestlers and adult oriented, often heavily sexualized storylines. The concept was spearheaded by McMahon along with head WWF writer Vince Russo

Vince Russo

Vincent James "Vince" Russo is an American creative writer and author, well known for his work in the professional wrestling industry. He is notable for his tenure with World Wrestling Federation, World Championship Wrestling and Total Nonstop Action Wrestling...

, who drastically changed the way wrestling television was written and constructed. Russo's booking style was often referred to as "Crash TV": Matches were shortened in favor of story-building backstage vignettes, with an emphasis on shock factor

Shock value

Shock value is the potential of an action , image, text, or other form of communication to provoke a reaction of disgust, shock, anger, fear, or similar negative emotions.-Shock value as humor:...

. Like the WCW's nWo storyline, the WWF began to blur the line between real life and kayfabe

Kayfabe

: Vince McMahon, taking advantage of fans' genuine dislike for him following the Montreal Screwjob

Montreal Screwjob

, recast himself as "Mr. McMahon," an exaggeration of his public persona. This presentation both mimicked Nitro's "Anything can happen" atmosphere, and acknowledged the growing phenomenon of "smarks," wrestling fans who used the internet to gain a wide base of knowledge on the real-life, backstage workings of the industry.

Meanwhile, many other wrestlers' personas were retooled, and wrestlers who had been growing in popularity were given pushes. Mick Foley

Mick Foley

, who had been wrestling as the psychotic heel Mankind, was made into a face after a series of out-of-character interviews documenting Foley's career, the toll it had taken on his body and his marriage, and his youthful ambitions of being a popular wrestler with a hippie

Hippie

The hippie subculture was originally a youth movement that arose in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to other countries around the world. The etymology of the term 'hippie' is from hipster, and was initially used to describe beatniks who had moved into San Francisco's...

persona named Dude Love. From then on, Foley alternated characters, variously appearing as Mankind, Dude Love, and his former WCW/ECW persona of Cactus Jack. The Rock, who had failed as a babyface character named Rocky Maivia, was recast as an arrogant jock who spouted catch phrase

Catch phrase

A catchphrase is a phrase or expression recognized by its repeated utterance. Such phrases often originate in popular culture and in the arts, and typically spread through a variety of mass media , as well as word of mouth...

s. Shawn Michaels, Triple H, and Chyna formed D-Generation X

D-Generation X

D-Generation X was a professional wrestling stable in WWE . The group originated in the midst of the WWF's "Attitude Era" from 1997 to 2000...

(DX), a rule-breaking, frat boy themed stable of wrestlers who laced their vignettes with sexual innuendo and lewd gestures. Although an injury would cause Michaels to take a four-year hiatus from wrestling, the stable soared in popularity under the leadership of Triple H, who added the New Age Outlaws

New Age Outlaws

The New Age Outlaws, later known as the James Gang and the Voodoo Kin Mafia, were a professional wrestling tag team in World Wrestling Federation, Total Nonstop Action Wrestling , Jersey All Pro Wrestling, and Maryland Championship Wrestling consisting of B.G...

and Sean Waltman

Sean Waltman

Sean Michael Waltman is an American professional wrestler currently signed with WWE in their developmental program. He wrestled there under the ring names 1–2–3 Kid and X-Pac off and on from 1993–2002, World Championship Wrestling under the ring name Syxx, and Total Nonstop Action Wrestling ...

to the group's ranks. Waltman had recently left the WCW after wrestling there for several years as Syxx, and his return to the WWF (after having wrestled there in the early 90s as "The 1-2-3 Kid") signaled that the WCW's allure had begun to fade.

The night after WrestleMania XIV

WrestleMania XIV

WrestleMania XIV was the fourteenth annual WrestleMania professional wrestling pay-per-view event produced by the World Wrestling Federation , which took place on March 29, 1998 at the FleetCenter in Boston, Massachusetts....

, McMahon began a feud with fan-favorite Stone Cold Steve Austin

Stone Cold Steve Austin

Steve Austin , better known by his ring name "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, is an American film and television actor and retired professional wrestler...

; the men's rivalry, cast as a battle between blue collar

Blue-collar worker

A blue-collar worker is a member of the working class who performs manual labor. Blue-collar work may involve skilled or unskilled, manufacturing, mining, construction, mechanical, maintenance, technical installation and many other types of physical work...

redneck

Redneck

Redneck is a historically derogatory slang term used in reference to poor, uneducated white farmers, especially from the southern United States...

Austin and white collar

White-collar worker

The term white-collar worker refers to a person who performs professional, managerial, or administrative work, in contrast with a blue-collar worker, whose job requires manual labor...

executive McMahon, became one of the defining storylines of the Attitude era, as each engaged in ever escalating acts of sabotage and violence against the other. On April 13, 1998, an advertised Austin vs. McMahon main event was enough for Raw to finally beat Nitro in the ratings for the first time in nearly two years. Two weeks later, the WWF taunted WCW's slipping ratings by sending members of DX to the Norfolk Scope

Norfolk Scope

Norfolk Scope is a multipurpose culture, entertainment, convention and sports arena at the northern perimeter of downtown Norfolk, Virginia, designed by Italian architect/engineer Pier Luigi Nervi in conjunction with the local firm of Williams and Tazewell...

in Norfolk, Virginia

Norfolk, Virginia

Norfolk is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. With a population of 242,803 as of the 2010 Census, it is Virginia's second-largest city behind neighboring Virginia Beach....

in an attempt to crash a live taping of Nitro; the WWF was in town, filming Raw at the nearby Hampton Coliseum

Hampton Coliseum

The Hampton Coliseum is a multi-use cultural, entertainment and sports arena in Hampton, Virginia. Construction on the arena began on May 24, 1968 and the venue opened in 1970 as the first large multi-purpose arena in the Hampton Roads region and the state of Virginia, opening a year prior to...

in Hampton, Virginia

Hampton, Virginia

Hampton is an independent city that is not part of any county in Southeast Virginia. Its population is 137,436. As one of the seven major cities that compose the Hampton Roads metropolitan area, it is on the southeastern end of the Virginia Peninsula. Located on the Hampton Roads Beltway, it hosts...

. Earlier in the day, Triple H and other wrestlers appeared outside the arena in military fatigues, challenging Eric Bischoff to come out and face them. The event was videotaped by a WWF camera crew for inclusion on Raw, and signaled that WCW's clout had begun to slip.

Raw's ratings began to rise steadily and consistently, bringing the newly-christened "Attitude Era" to its highest point.

1998–1999: WCW struggles

Hoping to counter the McMahon/Austin feud, WCW divided the nWo into the Hulk Hogan-led heel "nWo Hollywood" faction and the Kevin Nash-led face "nWo Wolfpac" faction. Although the Wolfpac itself proved popular with fans, the overall storyline was seen as a simple rehashing of the original nWo "Invasion" storyline, which had begun to bore audiences with predictable match outcomes and repetitive vignettes. Ted Turner also decided to expand the brand by introducing a second weekly program-- WCW Thunder

WCW Thunder

WCW Thunder was a professional wrestling show produced by World Championship Wrestling which aired on TBS from January 8, 1998 to March 21, 2001...

-- on his TBS

TBS (TV channel)

TBS , stylized in the logo as tbs, is an American cable television channel owned by Time Warner that shows a variety of programming, with a focus on comedy. TBS was originally known as WTCG, a UHF terrestrial television station that broadcast from Atlanta, Georgia, during the late 1970s...

channel. The introduction of Thunder troubled Eric Bischoff, who warned Turner that a second weekly program could potentially result in fan burnout, as viewing both programs would require five hours of viewing time a week.

WCW's next big attempt to regain ratings supremacy was by marketing ex-NFL

National Football League

player Bill Goldberg

Bill Goldberg

Goldberg earned a scholarship to play for the University of Georgia Bulldogs football team where he served as a defensive tackle. He was taken in the 11th round, with the 302nd overall selection, in the 1990 NFL Draft....

as an invincible monster with a record-breaking streak of 176 consecutive wins. Goldberg proved to be massively popular with the fans and enjoyed some crossover success in mainstream popular culture. On July 6, 1998, airing from the Georgia Dome

Georgia Dome

The Georgia Dome is a domed stadium located in Atlanta, Georgia, United States, between downtown to the east and Vine City to the west. It is primarily the home stadium for the NFL Atlanta Falcons and the NCAA Division I FCS Georgia State Panthers football team. It is owned and operated by the...

in Atlanta, Georgia, Nitro defeated Raw in the ratings when Goldberg pinned Hulk Hogan cleanly to win the WCW World Heavyweight Championship. The match drew a 6.91 rating for the quarter-hour, the highest rating recorded in the ratings war up to that time; however, the decision to stage the match on live cable television was questioned backstage at WCW, as some believed that the match should have been the highlight of a pay-per-view, where it could have generated more revenue. Although Goldberg's "invincible" angle ultimately wore thin with fans, Goldberg's popularity remained consistent until the promotion's demise in 2001.

On August 10, 1998, WCW regained the lead for 6 weeks. During this time WCW brought in The Ultimate Warrior

Warrior (wrestler)

Also see Warrior .Warrior is an American retired professional wrestler who notably performed under the ring names The Ultimate Warrior and Warrior...

, who was now known as The Warrior, and then later reformed the Four Horsemen

Four Horsemen (professional wrestling)

for Ric Flair's television return. WCW's final victory in the Monday Night Wars came on October 26, following the previous night's Halloween Havoc pay-per-view. The episode included a repeat airing of the Halloween Havoc World Title match between Diamond Dallas Page and Goldberg, which some PPV viewers had not seen the night before due to a loss of the feed at 11pm Eastern Time.

During this period, Kevin Nash was widely believed to be in charge of booking shows and giving himself undue attention in storylines. After winning the World War 3

WCW World War 3

World War 3 was an annual professional wrestling pay-per-view event produced by World Championship Wrestling. The pay-per-view's title also was the name of its signature match, a three-ring, sixty-man battle royal which was their answer to the World Wrestling Federation's Royal Rumble. The event...

battle royal in November 1998, he ended Goldberg's winning streak and won the World Title at Starrcade 1998

Starrcade (1998)

Starrcade was the sixteenth annual Starrcade professional wrestling pay-per-view event. It was the eleventh Starrcade event produced by World Championship Wrestling , and it took place on December 27, 1998 from the MCI Center in Washington, D.C....

the following month. In his defense, Nash claims that he did not take up the booking position until February 1999, two months after his victory over Goldberg. Nash's booking was heavily criticized by fellow wrestlers and fans, including Eddie Guerrero in his autobiography Cheating Death, Stealing Life: The Eddie Guerrero Story. The newfound emphasis on Nash's character set the stage for the beginning of 1999 and what is widely viewed as the beginning of WCW's long-term decline, from which it would never recover.

1999–2000: WCW's decline

As 1999 began, both shows were consistently getting 5.0 or higher Nielsen ratings and over ten million people tuned in to watch Raw and Nitro every week. Wrestling gained newfound appreciation, as wrestlers made the mainstream media, appearing on magazine

Magazine

Magazines, periodicals, glossies or serials are publications, generally published on a regular schedule, containing a variety of articles. They are generally financed by advertising, by a purchase price, by pre-paid magazine subscriptions, or all three...

covers like Entertainment Weekly

Entertainment Weekly

Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...

and TV Guide

TV Guide

TV Guide is a weekly American magazine with listings of TV shows.In addition to TV listings, the publication features television-related news, celebrity interviews, gossip and film reviews and crossword puzzles...

. By November 1998, however, the momentum would be in the WWF's favor for the remainder of the war. On January 4, 1999 Nitro broadcast live once again from the Georgia Dome

Georgia Dome

. In the second of three hours (the show had expanded to two hours in 1996 and three in 1998), Eric Bischoff, who had learned of the results of the taped Raw that was set to air that night, ordered announcer Tony Schiavone to make the following statement:

Ratings indicated that immediately after Schiavone made those comments, 600,000 people switched channels to Raw to see Mankind win the WWF Championship

WWE Championship

The WWE Championship is a professional wrestling world heavyweight championship in WWE. It is the world title of the Raw brand and one of two in WWE, complementing the World Heavyweight Championship of the SmackDown brand. It was established under the then WWWF in 1963...

, many of whom wished to see a guaranteed title change and/or a title victory by Foley. After Mankind won the title, many fans then switched back to Nitro (which still had five minutes of air time left), suggesting that WCW had a show that the fans wanted to see and might have emerged the victor that night had they not given away the Raw main event results. The final ratings for the night were 5.7 for Raw and 5.0 for Nitro. During the year following the incident, many WWF fans brought signs to the shows saying "Mick Foley put my ass in this seat".

This Nitro's main event was originally scheduled to be Goldberg vs. Kevin Nash for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship and was going to be their anticipated rematch. Goldberg was arrested (kayfabe) mid-show, however, and accused of "aggravated stalking" by Miss Elizabeth

Miss Elizabeth

Elizabeth Ann Hulette , best known as Miss Elizabeth, was an American professional wrestling manager. She gained international fame from the mid-1980s to the early 1990s in the World Wrestling Federation, and the mid-1990s in World Championship Wrestling in her role as the manager to the late...

. He was released when Elizabeth couldn't keep her story straight. Meanwhile, Hollywood Hogan

Hulk Hogan

returned to WCW after a hiatus and challenged Nash to a match, which Nash accepted. This led to the infamous "Fingerpoke of Doom" which saw Hogan merely poking Nash in the chest with his finger, causing Nash to lie down for Hogan to win the belt. It led to another heel turn for Hogan and the reformation of the nWo. The credibility of the company, which did not present the match that had been advertised, was damaged severely (a Goldberg vs. Nash rematch from Starrcade 1998

Starrcade (1998)

), as well as what was perceived to be an underhanded way of selling out the arena for that night's telecast. Despite the incident, WCW would continue this bait and switch

Bait and switch

Bait-and-switch is a form of fraud, most commonly used in retail sales but also applicable to other contexts. First, customers are "baited" by advertising for a product or service at a low price; second, the customers discover that the advertised good is not available and are "switched" to a...

tactic of booking until their demise in 2001. This "match" may very well have started the permanent ratings slide that was to follow for WCW, as Nitro only got a 5.0 rating twice afterwards; its 5.8 rating on February 8 (on a night when Raw was pre-empted by the Westminster Dog Show

Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show

The Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show is a two-day, all-breed benched conformation show that takes place at Madison Square Garden in New York City every year. The first Westminster show was held in 1877....

) was the last time it would get such a number.

Raw was dominating Nitro to the point where WCW was making "quick fixes" to stem the tide, including hiring rapper

Rapping

Rapping refers to "spoken or chanted rhyming lyrics". The art form can be broken down into different components, as in the book How to Rap where it is separated into “content”, “flow” , and “delivery”...

Master P

Percy Robert Miller , better known by his stage name Master P or his business name P. Miller, is an American rapper, actor, entrepreneur, investor, and producer. He is the founder of the popular label No Limit Records, which went bankrupt and was relaunched as New No Limit Records through Koch...

, as well as bringing in Megadeth

Megadeth

Megadeth is an American heavy metal band from Los Angeles, California which was formed in 1983 by guitarist/vocalist Dave Mustaine, bassist Dave Ellefson and guitarist Greg Handevidt, following Mustaine's expulsion from Metallica. The band has since released 13 studio albums, three live albums, two...

, Chad Brock

Chad Brock

Chad Brock is an American country music artist and disc jockey. Before beginning his musical career in the late 1990s, he was a professional wrestler in World Championship Wrestling , until an injury forced him to retire....

, and KISS

KISS (band)

Kiss is an American rock band formed in New York City in January 1973. Well-known for its members' face paint and flamboyant stage outfits, the group rose to prominence in the mid to late 1970s on the basis of their elaborate live performances, which featured fire breathing, blood spitting,...

for concerts (all of which flopped in the ratings). On September 10, 1999 Bischoff was removed from power. He states in his autobiography that he intended to resign on the day and when word leaked, they decided to remove him before he could resign. Meanwhile, Raw's numbers continued to rise; a 25-minute long This Is Your Life

This Is Your Life

This Is Your Life is an American television documentary series broadcast on NBC, originally hosted by its producer, Ralph Edwards from 1952 to 1961. In the show, the host surprises a guest, and proceeds to take them through their life in front of an audience including friends and family.Edwards...

themed skit between The Rock and Mick Foley drew an 8.4 quarter-hour rating on September 27, 1999.

On October 5, 1999, Vince Russo and Ed Ferrara, the head writers of WWF television programs, were lured away by WCW, and were immediately replaced in the WWF by Chris Kreski

Chris Kreski

Chris Kreski was an American writer, biographer and screenwriter.-Writing:In 1989, during his tenure as the head writer for Remote Control, Kreski met actor Barry Williams, who was one of three celebrity contestants during a "Brady Day" episode. When Williams said that he'd thought about writing a...

. Russo and Ferrara failed to capture the magic of their WWF days, however, when they turned Nitro into more of a Raw clone, and they became known on-screen as unseen management known as "The Powers That Be". Ferrara even became a parody

Parody

A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...

of Jim Ross, named Oklahoma. In December 1999, Bret Hart suffered a serious career-ending concussion during a match with Goldberg at Starrcade

Starrcade (1999)

Starrcade was the seventeenth annual Starrcade professional wrestling pay-per-view event. It was the twelfth Starrcade event produced by World Championship Wrestling , and it took place on December 19, 1999 from the MCI Center in Washington, D.C....

. The WCW promotion

Professional wrestling promotion

A professional wrestling promotion is a company or business that regularly performs shows involving professional wrestling. Promotion also describes a role which entails management, advertising and logistics of running a wrestling event...

was entering severe financial and creative depressions, both of which would only get worse in the months to come. Nitro's ratings failed to increase, and in January 2000, both Russo and Ferrara were suspended from the company after they considered putting the world title on Tank Abbott

Tank Abbott

David Lee Abbott is an American mixed martial arts fighter and former professional wrestler. He has described his fighting style, which he developed brawling in the bars and streets of Huntington Beach, California, as "street fighting"...

. The subsequent promotion of Kevin Sullivan

Kevin Sullivan (wrestler)

Kevin Francis Sullivan is an American professional wrestler and booker, perhaps best known for his role in WCW as "The Taskmaster" and his leading of the "Dungeon of Doom".-Early career:...

to head booker caused an uproar among WCW's wrestlers. In spite of winning the WCW title at Souled Out 2000, Chris Benoit

Chris Benoit

Christopher Michael "Chris" Benoit was a Canadian professional wrestler whose career and life ended in a murder–suicide...

quit in protest, along with Eddie Guerrero, Perry Saturn and Dean Malenko

Dean Malenko

Dean Simon is a retired professional wrestler, better known by his ring name Dean Malenko. He is currently signed to WWE working as a road agent. He is best known for his time with Extreme Championship Wrestling , New Japan Pro Wrestling and World Championship Wrestling...

. All four of them entered the WWF as The Radicalz

The Radicalz

The Radicalz were a professional wrestling stable in the World Wrestling Federation . Their members were former World Championship Wrestling performers Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, Perry Saturn and Dean Malenko. Terri Runnels later joined the group by proxy after becoming Saturn's onscreen...

, premiering on Raw's January 31 episode—15 days after Benoit's title win. Nitro was cut to two hours in January 2000 in an effort to bolster the aggregate ratings score, but the elimination of the third hour didn't mean higher ratings for Nitro, which by April averaged around a 2.5 (while Raw drew double, or sometimes triple that amount).

In April 2000, the WCW hired the reigning ECW World Heavyweight Champion, Mike Awesome

Mike Awesome

Michael Lee Alfonso , better known by his ring name Mike Awesome, was an American professional wrestler best known in America for his work in Extreme Championship Wrestling, World Championship Wrestling, and in World Wrestling Federation and also in Japan for his work with Frontier Martial-Arts...

, who left ECW over a contract dispute. His appearance on WCW television led to legal threats from ECW owner Paul Heyman. A compromise was reached which resulted in Awesome losing the title at an ECW event to Tazz

Tazz

Peter Senerchia is a retired American professional wrestler and current color commentator best known by his ring name Tazz, originally Tazmaniac and later shortened to simply Taz...

, who was formerly of ECW and at the time contracted to the WWF. Tazz would later appear on WWF programming with the title. The WWF used this as a symbolic demonstration of superiority over WCW. On April 10, 2000, Bischoff (now a creative consultant) and Russo, returned with equal power to work as a team and attempted to reboot WCW. Bischoff was allowed back with booking powers, but no longer had control of the company finances like he did in his previous reign. The premise of the WCW revival was that a changing of the guard was in order. The Millionaire's Club, consisting of WCW's veteran stars such as Hogan, Flair and Diamond Dallas Page, were accused of preventing the younger talent from ascending to main event status and feuded with The New Blood, consisting of WCW's younger stars such as Billy Kidman, Booker T

Booker Huffman

Robert Booker Tio Huffman , better known by his ring name Booker T, is a semi-retired American professional wrestler and currently signed to WWE, on its SmackDown brand, as part of the announcing team. Booker is best known for his time in both the World Wrestling Entertainment and World...

and Buff Bagwell

Buff Bagwell

Marcus Alexander Bagwell is an American professional wrestler and actor, better known by his ring name, Buff Bagwell. He is best known for his tenure with World Championship Wrestling between 1991 and 2001, where he was a five time World Tag Team Champion.-Professional wrestling career: Bagwell...

. In theory, the younger stars would finally get an even playing field to break out as big stars in wrestling. A lot of the newer stars were seen as being relatively green or lacking the charisma and/or ability to truly get over with fans, however, and while the new storyline sparked initial interest, it ultimately failed to turn around the ratings, as fans begin to see the storyline as a ripoff of the WCW vs. nWo storyline from 1996–97 and WCW continued its downward spiral. WCW became even more desperate, even going as far as placing the WCW World Heavyweight Championship upon actor David Arquette

David Arquette

David Arquette is an American actor, film director, producer, screenwriter, fashion designer, and occasional professional wrestler. A member of the Arquette acting family, he first became known during the mid 1990s after starring in several Hollywood films, such as the Scream series, Wild Bill and...

, who was making promotional appearances for WCW's feature film

Feature film

In the film industry, a feature film is a film production made for initial distribution in theaters and being the main attraction of the screening, rather than a short film screened before it; a full length movie...

Ready to Rumble

Ready to Rumble is a 2000 American comedy film directed by Brian Robbins and written by Steven Brill, which is based on Turner Broadcasting's now defunct professional wrestling promotion, World Championship Wrestling...

(a critical failure itself).

In 2000, Ted Turner was no longer running the company, which had been purchased by Time Warner

Time Warner

Time Warner is one of the world's largest media companies, headquartered in the Time Warner Center in New York City. Formerly two separate companies, Warner Communications, Inc...

in 1996 and AOL

AOL

AOL Inc. is an American global Internet services and media company. AOL is headquartered at 770 Broadway in New York. Founded in 1983 as Control Video Corporation, it has franchised its services to companies in several nations around the world or set up international versions of its services...

in 2000. That year, WCW lost $

United States dollar

The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....

62 million, due to guaranteed contracts of their older performers, plummeting advertising revenues, dropping house show

House show

attendance, controversial booking decisions (like Arquette and Russo winning the WCW title), expensive stunts to boost the dismal ratings and abysmal pay-per-view buyrates. Goldberg, arguably the biggest star of the promotion at the time, suffered a self-sustained arm injury during a backstage vignette taping that kept him on the shelf for half the year. Upon his return, his momentum was derailed, after turning heel at The Great American Bash, despite being the most popular performer in the company.

2001: WWFE, Inc. purchases WCW

In January 2001, Fusient Media Ventures, led by Eric Bischoff, announced that they were going to purchase WCW. The deal was contingent on the Turner networks keeping Nitro on TNT on Monday and Thunder on TBS on Wednesday. When Jamie Kellner

Jamie Kellner

Jamie Kellner is an American television executive. He was chairman and chief executive officer of Turner Broadcasting System, Inc., a division of Time Warner which includes TBS, TNT, and Cartoon Network. Kellner took over the post in 2001 and handed over the company to Philip Kent in 2003...

took over as CEO

Chief executive officer

A chief executive officer , managing director , Executive Director for non-profit organizations, or chief executive is the highest-ranking corporate officer or administrator in charge of total management of an organization...

of Turner Broadcasting

Turner Broadcasting System

Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. is the Time Warner subsidiary managing the collection of cable networks and properties started and acquired by Robert Edward "Ted" Turner starting in the mid-1970s. The company has its headquarters in the CNN Center in Atlanta, Georgia. TBS, Inc...

, he removed all WCW programming from the network.

With no national television outlet to air the shows, Fusient dropped their offer to purchase the promotion. The WWF, the only company who would not need the television time slots Kellner had cancelled, then made their offer. On March 23, 2001, all of WCW's trademarks and archived video library

WWE Video Library

The WWE video library is currently the largest collection of professional wrestling videos and copyrights in the world. It is comprised not only of past and current works by WWE but the works of now defunct professional wrestling promotions dating back to the 1940s...

, as well as a select twenty-five contracts, were sold to Vince McMahon and World Wrestling Federation Entertainment, Inc. WCW was purchased for a mere $3,000,000. Most of the main event-level stars including Flair, Goldberg, Kevin Nash, and Sting were contracted directly to parent company AOL Time Warner instead of WCW, and thus AOL Time Warner was forced to continue to pay many of the wrestlers for years.

TNT did allow a final Nitro show to air from Panama City Beach, Florida

Panama City Beach, Florida

Panama City Beach is a city in Bay County, Florida, United States, on the Gulf of Mexico coast. The city is often referred to under the umbrella term of "Panama City", despite being a distinct municipality from the older and larger inland Panama City to the east, making Panama City and Panama City...

which had been scheduled for the following Monday on March 26. McMahon opened the last-ever episode of WCW Monday Nitro with a simulcast

Simulcast

Simulcast, shorthand for "simultaneous broadcast", refers to programs or events broadcast across more than one medium, or more than one service on the same medium, at the same time. For example, Absolute Radio is simulcast on both AM and on satellite radio, and the BBC's Prom concerts are often...

with WWF Monday Night Raw, which aired from Cleveland, Ohio, with a self-praising speech. The final WCW World Heavyweight Championship match for the show and the company saw WCW United States Champion

WWE United States Championship

The WWE United States Championship is a professional wrestling championship in WWE. It was originally a National Wrestling Alliance and World Championship Wrestling championship, and is currently the secondary championship of the Raw brand....

Booker T defeat Scott Steiner

Scott Steiner

Scott Carl Rechsteiner is an American professional wrestler better known by his ring name Scott Steiner. Steiner is perhaps best known for his appearances with World Championship Wrestling alongside his older brother Rick as the Steiner Brothers and as a member of the New World Order...

to win the WCW World Heavyweight Championship

WCW World Heavyweight Championship

. The main event featured Sting defeating Ric Flair with the Scorpion Deathlock as a culmination of their trademark feud, then both men embraced one another at the match's conclusion. This was a direct parallel to the very first Nitro. After the Sting/Flair match, Vince appeared on Raw to close Nitro and to declare victory over WCW. Vince's son Shane McMahon

Shane McMahon

Shane Brandon McMahon is an American executive, currently serving as the Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of YOU On Demand. A former executive and professional wrestler for World Wrestling Entertainment , he is the son of WWE Chairman and CEO Vince McMahon and former US Senate candidate Linda...

then appeared on Nitro, declaring that it was actually he who had bought WCW. This initiated the Invasion storyline that would have Shane's character leading the WCW invasion of the WWF, which lasted from March to November 2001 and marked the end of WCW as a brand. The last Nitro drew a 3.0 rating. The final ratings tally in 253 head-to-head showdowns was: 158 wins for Raw (including 122 straight from November 1998 until the war ended), 110 for Nitro, and three ties.

Earlier that month, ECW owner Paul Heyman had begun an announcing contract with WWF as ECW had also fallen to financial problems and was forced to shutdown. Thus, the World Wrestling Federation became the sole prominent professional wrestling promotion in the United States.

Aftermath

WWF business steadily declined in North America

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

after the end of the wars, with a noticeable drop in buyrates and ratings. To compensate for the decrease in domestic revenue, WWF expanded their business outside of the United States. By 2002, the WWF roster had doubled in size due to the overabundance of contracted workers. As a result of the increase, the WWF was divided into franchises through its two main television programs, Raw and SmackDown!, assigning the now divided roster to either franchise while also designating championships and appointing figurehead

Figurehead

A figurehead is a carved wooden decoration found at the prow of ships largely made between the 16th and 19th century.-History:Although earlier ships had often had some form of bow ornamentation A figurehead is a carved wooden decoration found at the prow of ships largely made between the 16th and...

s to each franchise. This expansion became known as the Brand Extension

WWE Brand Extension

WWE, formerly the World Wrestling Federation and World Wrestling Entertainment , currently promotes its core business of professional wrestling through two "brands" named after their two major television shows Raw and SmackDown...

. The franchises or "brands" act as complementing promotions under the parent company. The institution of concepts like separate rosters, "General Managers" and talent drafts was intended to emulate the rivalry that had ended with WCW.

In May 2002, the WWF was renamed to World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). Ric Flair, Kevin Nash, and Goldberg eventually signed contracts with WWE only after the conclusion of The Invasion though it is generally thought that their participation in the storyline would have benefited the promotion. WWE later purchased ECW's assets and by 2005 began reintroducing ECW through content from the ECW video library and a series books. With heightened and rejuvenated interest in the ECW franchise, WWE organized ECW One Night Stand

ECW One Night Stand (2005)

ECW One Night Stand was a professional wrestling pay-per-view event produced by World Wrestling Entertainment . It was held on June 12, 2005 at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York, New York. The main event was a tag team match between The Dudley Boyz and the team of Tommy Dreamer and The Sandman...

in June, an ECW reunion event With the financial and critical success of the production, WWE produced the second ECW One Night Stand

ECW One Night Stand (2006)

ECW One Night Stand was a professional wrestling pay-per-view event produced by World Wrestling Entertainment . It was held on June 11, 2006 at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York, New York....

in June 2006 and relaunched the ECW franchise as a WWE brand, complementary to Raw and SmackDown. The brand would continue to operate until 2010.

In 2004, WWE produced a DVD

DVD

A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....

called The Monday Night Wars. Two hours in length, the DVD left out a large portion of the "wars," breaking off around 1997 before jumping straight to the post-WCW era of WWE. The objectivity of the DVD's content was questioned, as some believed the documentary was simply telling the WWE side of the story. On August 25, 2009, WWE released The Rise and Fall of WCW on DVD. The DVD looks back at the roots of WCW during the days of GCW and Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling, to the glory days of Monday Nitro and the nWo, and to its demise and sale to WWE.

Since the launch of the Video On Demand service WWE 24/7 (now WWE Classics On Demand), a show called The Monday Night War (hosted by Michael Cole

Michael Cole

Michael Sean Coulthard , better known by his ring name Michael Cole, is an American professional wrestling commentator, currently signed to WWE on both its Rawand SmackDown brands. Coulthard is a former news journalist....

) shows both shows sequentially for a given date (for instance, a Raw followed by a Nitro from the first official week of the Monday Night War). The sequence of which show would be shown first alternated between episodes, and at times, a short segment called "War Stories" would show following a key moment in the Monday Night Wars would follow a particular segment with interviews by the people involved. Soon, the new episodes were split, with the Nitro and the Raw from each week having their own War show (though they would be on the VOD library selection during the same time). This was to be replaced by new episodes once every two weeks. However, recently, a new feature called Monday Night War: The Beginning has been debuting. It has been claimed to bring viewers back to the "genesis" of the Monday Night War, showing the old episodes of the actual MNW show (more than likely for those customers who were not able to see the episodes due to cable carriage deals being worked out). Since then, new episode would debut for two weeks, then be replaced by two "The Beginning" episodes, then the process would repeat. The length of time in which "The Beginning" shows would air have not been announced.

WCW has also further been referenced in WWE media through the appearence of the Monday Nitro Arena in THQ

THQ

THQ Inc. is an American developer and publisher of video games. Founded in 1989 in the United States, the company develops products for video game consoles, handheld game systems, as well as for personal computers and wireless devices...

's video game WWE SmackDown vs Raw 2011 and the sequal WWE '12

WWE '12

WWE '12 is a professional wrestling video game developed by Yuke's and published by THQ for the PlayStation 3, Wii, and Xbox 360 systems. It is the first game in the WWE series and the fourteenth overall in the combined series. It is the sequel to WWE SmackDown vs...

Legacy

As a result of the Monday Night Wars, professional wrestling became a prime time

Prime time

Prime time or primetime is the block of broadcast programming during the middle of the evening for television programing.The term prime time is often defined in terms of a fixed time period—for example, from 19:00 to 22:00 or 20:00 to 23:00 Prime time or primetime is the block of broadcast...

tradition on Monday nights in America. It also lessened the prevalence of squash matches (where star wrestlers would defeat jobbers

Job (professional wrestling)

) on television

Television

Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...

, as both companies were compelled to show competitive, pay-per-view quality matches on a weekly basis in an effort to increase ratings.

The Monday Night Wars resulted in millions of new viewers. Consequently, the late 1990s are commonly referred to as professional wrestling's last boom period

Boom and bust

A credit boom-bust cycle is an episode characterized by a sustained increase in several economics indicators followed by a sharp and rapid contraction. Commonly the boom is driven by a rapid expansion of credit to the private sector accompanied with rising prices of commodities and stock market index...

. Stars such as Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Rock, Bill Goldberg and Sting became household names, and some attempted to parlay their newfound fame into other mediums and found success in them, much like Hulk Hogan of the 1980s and early 1990s: notable examples being Mick Foley, who became a New York Times

The New York Times

The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

best selling author with his autobiography, Have a Nice Day

Have a Nice Day: A Tale of Blood and Sweatsocks

Have a Nice Day!: A Tale of Blood and Sweatsocks is an autobiography of former World Wrestling Entertainment and TNA wrestler Mick Foley. It details his life all the way from his upbringing in New York to winning the WWF Championship from The Rock in December 1998...

, and Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, who branched out to become a successful film actor

Actor

An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...

.

WCW's closure left a gap in the market which several companies attempted to fill. In 2001, X Wrestling Federation and World Wrestling All-Stars

World Wrestling All-Stars

The World Wrestling All-Stars was a professional wrestling promotion founded by Australian concert promoter Andrew McManus in 2001. The promotion was operated by McManus' International Touring Company. WWA was one of several promotions to come into existence shortly after the closings of Extreme...

opened, but both folded by 2004. Total Nonstop Action Wrestling

Total Nonstop Action Wrestling

Total Nonstop Action Wrestling is a privately held professional wrestling promotion founded by Jeff Jarrett and Jerry Jarrett. The company broadcasts its events on television and the Internet fifty two weeks a year with over a million weekly viewers on its primary television program, Impact...

(TNA) and Ring of Honor

Ring of Honor

Ring of Honor ' is an American professional wrestling promotion, founded in 2002 by Rob Feinstein and Gabe Sapolsky. From 2004 to 2011, the promotion was under the ownership of Cary Silkin before being sold to the Sinclair Broadcast Group in May 2011...

(ROH) both emerged in early 2002 and have enjoyed moderate success since that time. At first running weekly pay-per-views, TNA has since switched to monthly supercard pay-per-views supported by a weekly show on cable television

Cable television

originally entitled TNA Impact! and now Impact Wrestling. In late 2007, ROH also started airing bi-monthly, pre-taped pay-per-views, and in 2009, ROH began airing a weekly wrestling program on HDNet

HDNet

HDNet is a men's interest television channel in the United States, broadcasting exclusively in high-definition format and available via cable and satellite television...

. However, it was announced in early 2011 that HDNet would drop ROH from its schedule.

2010: TNA vs WWE

On October 27, 2009, Hulk Hogan announced that he and Eric Bischoff had signed with Total Nonstop Action Wrestling in a press conference held at Madison Square Garden

Madison Square Garden

, the place considered to be the home of WWE. TNA President Dixie Carter stated "Our goal is to become the world's biggest professional wrestling company. Hulk defines professional wrestling and we look forward to partnering with him in a variety of ways as we continue to grow TNA globally."

In signing with TNA, they would be reunited with the controversial former WCW booker Vince Russo who they had vowed to never work with again after butting heads in WCW. However, they stated that Russo would not be fired, and the three would attempt to work together. A short time after on December 5, 2009, Hogan made an announcement during The Ultimate Fighter: Heavyweights Finale

The Ultimate Fighter: Heavyweights Finale

The Ultimate Fighter: Heavyweights Finale, also referred to as The Ultimate Fighter 10 Finale, was a mixed martial arts event that was held by the Ultimate Fighting Championship on December 5, 2009...

that TNA Impact!, which normally airs on Thursdays would go head to head with WWE Raw on Monday January 4 in a three-hour live broadcast. This would be the first time since March 2001 that two wrestling promotions would go head-to-head in a Monday night ratings competition. It was also confirmed to be the live debut of Hogan. The WWE countered by announcing the return of Bret Hart, who hadn’t appeared in WWE since the Montreal Screwjob in 1997. Leading up to the show, TNA President Dixie Carter stated that while MTV

MTV

(which owns Spike) was not expecting Impact! to beat Raw in the ratings, it would be considered a success if they managed to at least maintain their usual Thursday night Impact! rating. Spike president Kevin Kay

Kevin Kay

Kevin Kay is an American television executive. In October 2007, he was named president of Viacom's Spike TV, a division of the MTV Network Entertainment Group, after the post remained vacant since December 2006. Kay, who joined the network when it was known as TNN, reports to Doug Herzog, who also...

also announced there were plans to air Impact! on Mondays quarterly through 2010 and added that if the ratings proved successful on January 4, it could be moved to Monday nights permanently.

The Monday night Impact! featured the debuts and returns of Scott Hall, Sean Waltman, Eric Bischoff, The Nasty Boys

The Nasty Boys

The Nasty Boys are a professional wrestling tag team consisting of Brian Knobbs and Jerry Sags, active from the mid to late 1980s and throughout the 1990s. Their gimmick was that of anti-social punks who specialized in hardcore wrestling and brawling...

, Sting, Jeff Jarrett, Rob Van Dam

Rob Van Dam

Robert Alexander "Rob" Szatkowski , better known by his ring name Rob Van Dam , is an American professional wrestler and actor who is currently signed to Total Nonstop Action Wrestling ....

, Jeff Hardy

Jeff Hardy

Jeffrey Nero "Jeff" Hardy is an American professional wrestler, who is currently signed to Total Nonstop Action Wrestling , where he is a former two–time TNA World Heavyweight Champion...

, Ric Flair, Sean Morley

Sean Morley

Sean Allen Morley is a Canadian professional wrestler better known by his ring name Val Venis, during his time with World Wrestling Federation, later known as World Wrestling Entertainment...

, Orlando Jordan

Orlando Jordan

Orlando Jordan is an American professional wrestler, most recently signed to Total Nonstop Action Wrestling. Jordan is best known for his tenure in World Wrestling Entertainment, where he was a one-time United States Champion....

, Shannon Moore

Shannon Moore

Shannon Moore is an American professional wrestler, who is signed to Total Nonstop Action Wrestling . He is best known for his work with World Championship Wrestling between 1999 and 2001 and with World Wrestling Entertainment for several years in the 2000s.Moore befriended Matt and Jeff Hardy...

and Bubba the Love Sponge

Bubba the Love Sponge

Todd Alan Clem is an American radio personality better known by his Legal name Bubba the Love Sponge Clem. He is the host of The Bubba the Love Sponge Show on various Cox Radio and Beasley Broadcast Group stations, formerly on Sirius XM Howard 101, as well as on RadioIO.-Early career and the...

in addition to Hogan. WWE Raw featured the return of Bret Hart, who confronted Vince McMahon and Shawn Michaels for the first time in thirteen years. The ratings showed that, much alike the first Monday Night War, Raw came out on top, averaging 5.6 million viewers while Impact! averaged 2.2 million viewers,the show peaked with 3 million viewers for the Hulk Hogan segment but then the viewership declined towards the end of the show to near 2.2 million viewers. However, despite not beating Raw in the ratings, TNA managed to set a new record for Impact!, beating the previous one of 1.97 million viewers, and thus gaining the confidence of Spike representatives.

On March 8, 2010, Impact! moved to Monday nights at 9pm EST to compete head-to-head with Raw. Eric Bischoff was once again competing on the opposite side of Vince McMahon's WWE and in an interview with Bubba the Love Sponge, he said that he believed "history is repeating itself". This has proved to be true since the new war is beginning the same way as the original did; TNA have hired the same ex-WWE talent that WCW did, they have recreated the "outsiders" storyline from when Kevin Nash and Scott Hall joined WCW and most importantly, they are being led by Hulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff. Ironically, Spike had carried Raw from 2000 until 2005, when Raw returned to USA. WWE spokesman Robert Zimmerman responded to TNA's move by saying "We're not too concerned. We're in good shape." Bischoff later stated that TNA aren't focused on beating WWE in the ratings straight away, but rather gaining a significant share of their audience and growing TNA's own audience.

On the March 8, 2010, Raw beat Impact! with a 3.4 rating which equated to approximately 5.1 million viewers, while Impact! did a 0.98 with 1.4 million viewers. The following week on the March 15 edition, Impact! scored its lowest rating since November 2006 with a .84 rating. No quarter hour segment of Impact! reached past the previous week's overall rating. The broadcast lost 15% of the audience it opened with, going from a .87 opening quarter hour to a .72 in the A.J. Styles

A.J. Styles

Allen Neal Jones , better known by his ring name A.J. Styles is an American professional wrestler currently working for Total Nonstop Action Wrestling...

versus Jeff Hardy

Jeff Hardy

Jeffrey Nero "Jeff" Hardy is an American professional wrestler, who is currently signed to Total Nonstop Action Wrestling , where he is a former two–time TNA World Heavyweight Champion...

main event. Impact! averaged 1.1 million viewers, an overall decrease of 21.4% in viewership from the previous week. Raw scored a 3.71 rating and averaged 5.60 million viewers, an overall increase of 10% in viewership from the previous week. The broadcast's first hour was the most viewed first hour since August 24, 2009, while the second was the most viewed second hour since January 4, 2010. On March 22, days before WrestleMania XXVI

WrestleMania XXVI

WrestleMania XXVI was the twenty-sixth annual WrestleMania professional wrestling pay-per-view event produced by World Wrestling Entertainment , which took place on March 28, 2010 at the University of Phoenix Stadium in the Phoenix suburb of Glendale, Arizona. This was the fourth WrestleMania to...

, Raw scored a 3.2 and Impact scored a 0.86. Raw's rating was down more than 1 million viewers equating to about 20%. Ratings for Impact! had improved slightly over the last week as they offered a Career vs. Career match between Jeff Jarrett

Jeff Jarrett

Jeffrey Leonard Jarrett is an American professional wrestler and wrestling promoter. He is currently signed to Total Nonstop Action Wrestling , an organization he co-founded along with his father and in which he holds some stock but not total control...

and Mick Foley

Mick Foley

.

The night after WrestleMania XXVI, Raw scored a 3.7 rating, up from last week and Impact! scored a 0.62. After these declining ratings, Spike executives announced the April 5 live Impact! would air an hour earlier than Raw. The April 5 edition of Raw lost 14% of their viewers with a 3.15 rating while Impact! scored a 0.9 rating, their highest rating since the March 15th episode gaining a 33% in total viewers as they offered Kurt Angle vs. Mr. Anderson in a Ladder Match. After better ratings for the April 5 edition of Impact!, TNA decided to start Impact! one hour earlier permanently. The April 12 edition of Raw made a comeback with a 3.24 rating while the taped Impact! scored a 0.8 rating managing to keep most of their audience. Then on April 19, the night after TNA Lockdown, Raw scored a 3.05 rating their lowest score in two years, while Impact! scored a 0.95 rating their highest score since April 5 as they offered a TNA World Heavyweight Championship match between RVD and AJ Styles. On April 26, Raw gained very few viewers with a 3.08 rating while Impact! lost 48% of their audience with a 0.6 rating.

The feud was short lived, as Impact! moved back to Thursday nights starting with the May 13 show. On the final battle between Raw and Impact, Raw drew a 3.05 and Impact drew a 0.8 rating gaining a 37.5% in total viewers.

1980-1987: Cable television

1987–1993: Scheduling conflicts and Monday Night Raw

1993–1994: Eric Bischoff enters WCW

1994: Extreme Championship Wrestling

1995–1996: The debut of WCW Monday Nitro

1996–1997: WCW and the New World Order

1996–1997: WWF struggles

1997: The Montreal Screwjob

1997–1998: Stone Cold Steve Austin and Mr. McMahon

1998–1999: WCW struggles

1999–2000: WCW's decline

2001: WWFE, Inc. purchases WCW

Aftermath

Legacy

2010: TNA vs WWE

See also