10 Huge Wrestling Matches That Were Given Away On Free TV

8. Randy Savage vs Ric Flair - WCW World Heavyweight Championship Match - Nitro, January 22nd, 1996

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlZ1WwTGfaU When Randy Savage first defected to WCW in 1994, he mostly floundered around the mid-card, or followed Hulk Hogan around. Towards the end of '95, Macho Man finally received a push when he won the 60-man World War 3 match and became WCW World Heavyweight Champion. He soon lost it to Ric Flair at Starrcade, starting off '96 with the two feuding over the WCW World Title. In order to try and pull viewers from the WWF's Monday Night Raw, Nitro were beginning to push World Title matches on Nitro more frequently - one of the most anticipated being The Macho Man vs The Nature Boy. The match wasn't necessarily all that good, it's easy to question whether Savage was really trying for most of his WCW run, interference by Hogan also didn't help matters. Regardless, WCW made good on their promise and bumped the title back to Savage, in hopes of attracting more viewers to their weekly shows. The problem with that kind of booking is that WCW often used the WCW Title as a prop to make big or exciting matches on TV, but it happened enough that it was a regular occurrence, it rarely felt huge, exciting or built-up. Regardless, there's no doubt people tuned into Savage vs Flair for the WCW Title, as it certainly looked good on paper.