WCW Nitro is 30 years old today!

[tiger_rick]

September 4th 1995. WCW Nitro debuted from the Mall Of America in Bloomington, Minnesota (Or Minneapolis if you've always believed that like I have). Lex Luger walking out in his best shirt while everyone in the world thought he still worked for the WWF was the first surprise in a long line of them leading to Bischoff kicking Vince's arse for a year and a half.

Best Nitro memories? When did everyone realise it was a thing and there was even a wrestling war on? 

 

[TheScarlettChad]

I wasn't watching at the time but surely Hall showing up was a proper shot fired to kick off the war? 

[Arch Stanton]

21 minutes ago, TheScarlettChad said:

I wasn't watching at the time but surely Hall showing up was a proper shot fired to kick off the war? 

Good point. Surprised nobody's really pointed that out before.

[Snitsky's back acne]

I'm wracking my brain trying think what channel Nitro was on on Sky.

WCW was always on the German channel DSF (which I always get mixed up with sofa company DFS) so maybe that's what I'm thinking of.

Raw wasn't on Sky until around this time in 95 was it? Always used to get my Raw fill from WWF Mania with Todd Petting-zoo...I mean Toad Petty-poop (thank you, Johnny Polo). 

[SuperBacon]

I got back into wrestling around autumn 96, and started buying PWI, Powerslam and any wrestling magazine I could get my hands on. We then got cable, and I don't know how I knew WCW was on Cartoon Network/TNT but I must've read it somewhere in one of those mags. Friday nights were wicked, as I moved next to two wrestling obsessed brothers and we'd watch both shows each Friday.

I loved it. The cruiserweight division was amazing, the nwo was the hottest angle ever at that time and when Raw became Raw is War, it all seemed very real and gritty all of a sudden, after years of cartoonishness.

Coupled with the fact that 97-99 era Jericho is probably my favourite wrestler behind Bret Hart meant I was bang into WCW and probably preferred it to WWF at the time (until Bret started his unbelievable 97 run)

The only thing that annoyed me was there was no way of watching the PPVs, which took me out a little bit.

Anyway, I don't think I've seen a single Nitro from early 99 on as I didn't have the means to watch and was sort of outgrowing wrestling, until I came back round when I was a bit older.

Probably my favourite Nitro match:

Listen to that crowd in the home stretch. Absolutely quality.

[Chico Torres]

9 minutes ago, Snitsky's back acne said:

I'm wracking my brain trying think what channel Nitro was on on Sky.

WCW was always on the German channel DSF (which I always get mixed up with sofa company DFS) so maybe that's what I'm thinking of.

Raw wasn't on Sky until around this time in 95 was it? Always used to get my Raw fill from WWF Mania with Todd Petting-zoo...I mean Toad Petty-poop (thank you, Johnny Polo). 

It was on TNT on Friday nights, after the Cartoon Network shut down. I think the first episode shown here was from March 1996 and had a Macho Man vs Finlay match.

Raw started being shown here in September 1995 on Fridays.

[WyattSheepMask]

16 minutes ago, Snitsky's back acne said:

I'm wracking my brain trying think what channel Nitro was on on Sky.

WCW was always on the German channel DSF (which I always get mixed up with sofa company DFS) so maybe that's what I'm thinking of.

Raw wasn't on Sky until around this time in 95 was it? Always used to get my Raw fill from WWF Mania with Todd Petting-zoo...I mean Toad Petty-poop (thank you, Johnny Polo). 

Channel 22, when Cartoon Network would finish at 7pm then go to TNT. We used to get Nitro on Fridays if memory serves me right.

First episode, or part of an episode that I saw was Lugar & Sting v The Steiners in a tag team main event. The show went off the air with Sting telling Scott Hall “you know where you are, you’re in the jungle baby!”, which was the penultimate episode of Nitro before The Great American Bash that year

Edited September 4, 2025 by WyattSheepMask

[tiger_rick]

10 minutes ago, SuperBacon said:

Probably my favourite Nitro match:

Great post. That match is awesome. It's about 4 minutes long and most of that is distraction but I could watch it any day of the year.

I find watching some of the big stuff from 1998 really sad. Goldberg vs. Hogan, particularly but the above match and the Sting Wolfpac turn too are things I'll rewatch often and the massive crowds absolutely love the promotion and pop fucking huge for those moments. To think that the company was absolutely on fire in July 1998 and beyond repair by March 1999 is ridiculous. It's so sad and Bischoff should never have worked again. 

[BomberPat]

I'm fascinated by what kind of wrestling fan I would have been had I known WCW was a thing. I've said on here plenty of times that my first wave of wrestling fandom dropped off around '96/early '97, and was purely WWF, and then I didn't get back into wrestling until 2000.

I always knew that there was some other wrestling, because I understood that Hulk Hogan was a wrestler but wasn't on the show I watched. I also knew that Big Daddy and Giant Haystacks existed, so in my small child head I conflated old World of Sport stuff with WCW in my head, and assumed it was old-fashioned and for boring old people - not helped for it being on the channel that showed black and white movies and came on when Cartoon Network went off; about as clear a message of "that's it kids, fun's over" as you can get!

These days, I find a lot about old WCW way more appealing than the WWF of the same time period - the presentation is more my vibe, and there's a mix of styles and backgrounds, rather than everyone being expected to work the WWF style. I doubt I'd have appreciated all of that as a kid, but I was a right contrarian little prick - I always bought weird off-brand POGs when everyone else was collecting the real thing, starting collecting Digimon cards rather than Pokémon cards, and would spend hours scouring the weirder TV channels once we got Sky, so I can definitely see a world where I got into WCW over the WWF. But I also suspect that in that timeline I would have stopped watching wrestler either when WCW died, or much earlier when it started going to shit.

[Supremo]

All the losers spending their Friday nights out drinking and shagging.

Not us. Not the cool kids.

 

[wordsfromlee]

41 minutes ago, WyattSheepMask said:

Channel 22, when Cartoon Network would finish at 7pm then go to TNT. We used to get Nitro on Fridays if memory serves me right.

I’m sure it was 10pm because I recall my Friday evenings at my nans house being BBC2 at 9pm for Red Dwarf/Bottom/The Fast Show/Buzzcocks double bill depending on the time of year, then over to Cartoon Network for the switchover to TNT and Nitro at 10pm. 

[DazzM]

WCW Nitro gave me my first proper markout moment.

I had been watching Wrestling since Wrestlemania 9, but only really able to in bits and bobs when my aunt gave me recorded programs and PPVs. Fast forward a bit, I didn't have Sky Sports, and didn't really have access to the real programs outside of Todd Pettingills round up shows and the jobber shows on Sky 1.

We got cable in our house and that had TNT then they started showing Nitro. This was before the Internet started to spoil things, so my friend and I were watching the night of Goldberg VS Hogan in the midst of the nWo madness. 

Obviously didn't know Goldberg was going to win, so to see him win it unexpectedly with the crowd reaction and the sheer joy of me and my friend. It's a fond wrestling memory that sticks with me. 

 

[Chico Torres]

The best Hogan title change on Nitro was Flexy Lexy a WCW OG finally winning the world title. A proper WCW guy from the “Worldwide on ITV at 3am” days beating Mr WWF.

(I think he lost it about 3 days later but still…)

 

[BomberPat]

Wikipedia tells me Cartoon Network switched off at 7pm from 1993 until 1996, and at 9pm from 1996 until it went to 24 hours. 

[Weezenal]

Not totally Nitro related, but I didn’t know Bret went to WCW until I saw a random WCW magazine in a WHSmith in Catford. Was watching WWE at the time and think I only knew about the screw job when I saw Wrestling with the Shadows, which I think I also randomly saw on BBC 2 by chance.