Earlier this week, it was ratings day for the WWE, where they look over the hour by hour breakdowns from Monday night, seeing what's working and what's not. Though, these days it's easy to imagine the importance of these numbers has taken a far back seat to the coming release of the WWE Network streaming service. There was a time, however, when that report was life and death for the WWE, because in those halcyon days, they had a single point of competition; the WCW. A product of the titanic Turner Broadcasting company, WCW was the 'Brand X' to many people around the country due to WWE's nationwide broadcast television exposure on 'Saturday Night's Main Event' on the NBC network, and the USA Network's Saturday programming, along with Prime Time Wrestling had such market penetration, WCW had a hard time gaining mainstream viewers - being viewed as the po-dunk southern fried brand of wrestling that wasn't the glossy, family friendly product Vince McMahon was offering. WCW lost money with its booking department changing leadership and losing top talent over a number of years - they had Mankind, Diesel, Steve Austin, and showed they couldn't take these men and market them out of the middle of the card. Spoiler Alert: All three men went on to be WWE World Champion. But along came a man who'd been around the periphery of the WCW as a broadcaster, and had gained the trust of many of the higher-ups in the wrestling promotion, including Arn Anderson and Ric Flair. The man was Eric Bischoff, and he was climbing up the corporate broadcasting ladder. More importantly, Bischoff had the ear of Ted Turner about his wrestling product. Ted loved wrestling, and WCW's programming was some of the reason his TBS Superstation could stay afloat in the 80s. His loyalty to wrestling, and the young firebrand's vision of what WCW wrestling could be would bring about the program that would make those ratings sheets so important: Monday Nitro. This is going to be a review segment about the entirety of the first episode of Nitro - The good, the bad, and the ugly - a breakdown of the matches, my basic review for the casual observer, and my observations on what was going on that made the show significant. So, get ready - because we're live!
Dan has taken a chairshot to the face from Ballz Mahoney. He grew up in Tampa, mere blocks from the Sportatorium, watching wrestling and taking it all in. He's a writer, and a professional illustrator.
