One MIND-BLOWING Secret From Every Year Of WCW History
7. 1995 | The Original Name Of Monday Nitro
In 1995, WCW went head-to-head with WWF Monday Night Raw.
Going head-to-head with Raw was considered a huge risk, but Eric Bischoff was convinced that Raw was only beating WCW Saturday Night in the ratings because of the night each show aired. Warner was initially apprehensive about going head-to-head with Raw; Bischoff’s boss, Harvey Schiller, was once quoted as saying that companies that spend too much time worried about the competition aren’t spending enough time focused on their own product. This, in addition to the prospect of forcing any floating voters to choose what was the more popular promotion as of June 1995, was a major concern.
However, Ted Turner was driven to agree to the idea of going head-to-head with Raw through vengeance: he was pissed off at Vince McMahon, who had (hilariously) sent him letters urging him to shutter WCW, since it was such an embarrassment that it had sullied his name. That did it. WCW was going head-to-head with WWF Raw…
… with a show provisionally entitled ‘WCW Head-To-Head’.
That is per the June 19 Wrestling Observer Newsletter, and if it seems absolutely stupid, on-the-nose, and something that would bite WCW on the arse if the company got slaughtered in the head-to-head ratings battle, just bear in mind that this was WCW, and the prospect suddenly becomes far more realistic.
In the end, the WCW Monday show famously performed quite well, and went by the name ‘Nitro’, which was a cool-sounding promise of explosive action. The cruiserweight division and bombastic New World Order angles lived up to it.
What’s funny about this story is that Eric Bischoff will drone on and on about how Dave Meltzer doesn’t know anything and never did - and yet, in the June 12 Observer, he correctly reported that Bischoff and Turner had taken a secret meeting. This - the announcement that forever changed pro wrestling in the United States - was the reason behind it.