It's difficult to explain to wrestling fans who didn't live through the period just how on fire WCW and the nWo angle was in 1997. It wasn't uncommon for young fans to abandon their love of the then-WWF, converting over to the WCW side, mainly because the New World Order concept had such a cool vibe. Even so, there were a plethora of fans who recognised that things were all a bit one-sided by '97 in the company - the nWo were definitely the focal point, but apart from the silent stalking of Sting, there didn't seem to be much of a threat to their overall domination. Enter one Lex Luger, who tore the roof off the arena in August, 1997, defeating Hollywood Hogan to win the WCW World Title. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEuQRggqU7A There's a strong case to be made that matches such as this shouldn't have been on free television, and WCW were throwing away millions of potential Pay-Per-View revenue. It's hard to argue with that view, but this was a unique time, when both WCW and the WWF were desperate to top one another weekly, so that's likely why such a bout was presented on Nitro. Admittedly, there was some attempted interference from the other members of the nWo, but something different happened here. Normally, during these big main events, the faction would interject and draw a disqualification, effectively costing the babyface his crack at Hogan, but Luger managed to fight everyone off, before hoisting Hollywood up into his trademark Torture Rack. Signalling to the referee that he was submitting, Hogan gave up and the fans went bananas, realising that Lex had done the impossible. Again, hard to imagine now, but this was treated like a landmark moment for WCW in the fight against the nWo invasion.
