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Wcw Nitro v Wwe Raw


The Miz

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I started watching wwe in early 1993 when my folks got sky. Then in 1995 I was channel surfing and discovered the cartoon network which was the home of wcw Nitro. It was a refreshing change to the wwe. The cruiserweights were exciting, I loved seeing the older wrestler. Hogan, Flair, Piper, Lugar etc... When the wars really heated up after the nwo formation I still enjoyed wcw but still preferred wwe. I found myself getting annoyed when wcw picked up wrestler after wrestler from the wwe. What are your thoughts from the era and which show did you prefer?

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It was always a close race for me to begin with, until Stone Cold really came to prominence in early 1997. I remember reading a special in the cable guide, talking about Hulk Hogan and how he was now wrestling for WCW on monday nights. I'd seen WCW in the early 90's on ITV and had a few tapes, but I hadn't seen anything new since about 1993. So that coming friday, I tuned in to cartoon network just in time to see the opening of Nitro, and I was hooked. Right from the beginning it was just, different from anything I'd seen on WWF. I can't really remember many matches from that night, except Ric Flair vs The Giant (I think) with a run in from Savage. It shocked me because the last I'd seen of Macho Man was when he was commentating on WWF tv. But he was a favourite of mine when I was first getting into wrestling so I was pleased to see him wrestling again. I may be mistaken with this, but I'm pretty sure that night was also the first time Scott Hall turned up in the crowd. I was a big Razor Ramon fan at the time and couldn't believe my eyes when he climbed over the guardrail and declared war on WCW. And then of course Nash joined a few weeks later, and then at Bash at the beach Hogan turned and wrestling was never the same again. I still watched WWF every week, but Nitro was my show. Watching this special on Sky1 right now is bringing some very fond memories back to me :)

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Nitro. That's not to say at times I didn't enjoy Raw just as much (or more) but given the choice I always chose Nitro first. In fact at the peak when you had 7 hours of wrestling to choose from on a Friday night I would always Nitro/Thunder back-to-back and then catch the repeat of Raw at 1/2am. Even if Nitro was particularly bad (I'm thinking mid-99) I would still always make sure to watch it and wait for Raw later.I've said it before but I feel so lucky to have been a fan at the time, and probably be at the perfect age (early-teens) to really appreciate everything that was going on.

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My allegiances switched to WCW the second I saw Diesel on their show.I remained a Nitro guy probably until late 99/ early 2000 when Austin fucked off, and WWE started putting out programming that actually deserved their ratings dominance. It helped that WCW was piss at the time, too. I still kept watching Nitro, though. The move to Thursday nights helped make it easier to catch, and I was rewarded for my loyalty with that tremendous Johnny Ace booking spell towards the end.Overall, I'm definitely a Nitro guy.

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I much preferred Nitro because of the nWo storyline from formation, consolidation and recruitment, the Sting storyline, fucking around with the lives of the Steiners, the referees and everything, and the simple fact week on week I was more interested in what was going on. There also seemed less dullards than in the WWF, there was an excellent mix of established characters, technicians and high flying daredevils.

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I didn't really have a notable overall allegiance. Like Cleetus, the moment Nash walked out on Nitro I did tend to side with WCW and wind my brothers up that WCW was going to nick everyone from WWF now, but generally I watched and enjoyed them both. At a push I'd say WCW, though.

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Raw fo' sho. If I'm honest, when I think about it, I've always been a WWE fan first, wrestling fan second. Barring bits of the ITV era, my exposure to WCW as a whole was pretty limited in comparison to the WWF up until I started getting Power Slam and Nitro was airing on TNT, but even then I just viewed Nitro as sort of, "Oh, more wrestling, bonus", than "Wow, this is shitloads better/worse than WWE". Plus, I was still only 11/12 in 96, so I totally bought into the wrestling war, Vince's propaganda and WCW being the enemy. I still enjoyed the show, but I wouldn't be swapping Savio Vega vs Crush for the nWo on any day of the week because I was pretty well trained to enjoy Vince's product. I still am.My favourite year of Nitro is still 2000, because it's fucking potty. I liked having distinctly different propositions for my wrestling at that point. WWE was awesome, had all my favourite people having great matches and being funny, and was something my mates wanted to talk about for the first time since we were all about 7. WCW put shit on poles and broke character and stuff. It was all great.

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Nitro really did change the business. Raw was a one hour taped show featuring bits and bobs of storyline development and hardly any PPV main event level matches. You'd get your Owen Hart vs Shawn Michaels type headliners, but you would never see Razor vs Shawn or Diesel vs Bret on Raw. Nitro turns up and we get a live two hour Monday night show featuring major angles every week and the likes of Hogan vs Luger, Sting vs Hogan, The Giant vs Flair, Mega Powers vs The Horsemen. People talk about how ECW influenced WWF, but the WWF's model was completely different until Bischoff got in their face. WCW's fingers prints are still all over wrestling today. Both TNA and WWE are still using WCW's original blueprint from the 1995.

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