Looking back at the first ever WCW Nitro - September 4th 1995

On September 4th 1995 WCW presented the first ever episode of Nitro, from the Mall of America in Bloomington Minnesota. In November of 1998 Jim Crocket Promotions was bought out by media mogul Ted Turner. I won't go into details here as that deserves a whole video another day. In 1993 after a series of failed leaders, Turner promoted Eric Bischoff from his on air role as an announcer to be an executive producer. By 1997 he would be the president of the company. The way Eric tells the story, he was summoned to a meeting at CNN centre, and expected a brow beating as WCW had been a consistent money loser even before Turner bought it. In the meeting Turner asked what they could do to compete with Vince, whose flagship show Raw had begun two years earlier. According to Eric, he pitched the idea of going head to head with Raw, but airing live as opposed to Raw which was pre-taped at the time, coning up with the idea on the fly, which Turner went for. According to Wrestling Observer's of the time the meeting took place on June 5th, not at that time no details were available. In the July 24th edition Dave Meltzer reported that TNT would air a show called "something like Wrestling Nitro" starting on September 4th. Nitros lead in was scheduled to be reruns of Thunder in Paradise, an action-adventure show from the creators of Baywatch starring Hulk Hogan as Randolph J "Hurricane" Spencer. Being an early 90's kid I saw this before I even knew what pro wrestling was.

In the first ever WCW Nitro match, Flyin' Brian defeated Jushin Liger. How fitting that Nitro would begin by featuring two future legends. According to edition of the Wrestling Observer from as early as July, WCW had plans to start Nitro every week with a strong wrestling match, inspired by Raw having wrestlers like Bret Hart putting on good matches. This was not actually the first time that Pillman and Liger had met in the ring. In 1991 when Liger first came to WCW, he defeated Pillman for the WCW light heavyweight title, a championship that was only active for just shy of a year. Brian would win it back from Liger two months later. In 1992 the two would actually team up in an NWA tag team championship tournament where they would make it to the second round and lose to Nikita Koloff and Ricky Steamboat at the 92 Great American Bash. Here in 95, the two would meet in the Mall of America, in a really fun match that holds up even today. Post match the two shake hands and show respect to each other.

Heres a trivia note for you, despite Liger and Brians reputations as being legendary cruiserweight wrestlers, neither actually held the WCW cruiserweight championship, which wasn't introduced until 1996. However if you look at the titles history on WWE.com you'll find that the first two champions are Pillman then Liger. Thats because WWE recognises the Light Heavyweight title I mentioned earlier as part of the cruiserweight titles lineage, so Pillman is retroactively the first cruiserweight champion, and Liger the second.

In 2019, 24 years later during Ligers retirement tour that lasted almost a year, he would share the ring with current AEW wrestler, and Flyin Brians son, Brian Pillman Jr. On March 7th 2019 Liger in a press conference announced that at the following years Wrestle Kingdom he would retire from in ring competition what would end up being a 36 year career. The following day Pillman Jr tweeted about how it would have been an honour to share the ring just once with one of his Dads famous rivals. Thanks to Defy Wrestling, this would happen as part of a six man tag on August 23rd 2019.

In my research for this topic I couldn't find in any definitive reason why the first Nitro emanated from the Mall of America, but the gaudy video package on the show for Hulk Hogans 'Pastamania' restaurant in Mall might have had something to do with it. If you're curious, Hogans pasta venture opened in June of 95 and wouldn't last one year in business. This isn't the only culinary failure in Hogans past. If you lived through the 90's like I did, you will likely remember the George Foreman Grill, which launched in 1994 and was promoted by the boxer, earning him an estimated two hundred million dollars over its lifetime. Legend has is that the endorsement of the grill was originally offered to Hulk Hogan, who turned it down in favour of a meatball maker that failed to reach the same success. This story did come from Hogan himself though, who also claims that he was almost in Metallica.

Next on Nitro we would see history play out, as Ric Flair would wrestle Sting. By this point the two had been rivals for years, with their first famous match taking place at the Clash of the Champions 1 in 1988. That match would end in a 45 minute time limit draw, something we clearly weren't going to see on this one hour edition of Nitro. In 96 Nitro would be extended to two hours, then to three in 1998. By 2000 they went back down to two, who knew a weekly three hour show might not do as well in ratings? At the final ever Nitro on March 26th 2001, WCW saw no better way choice for WCW's final ever match than to harken back to one of their hottest feuds, as Sting and Flair would wrestle one last time. They would actually wrestle once more for TNA in 2011 but we don't talk about that one so shush...

There is another reason for this match being famous though, as on the opening bell, the WWF's Lex Luger would enter ringside. Flair and Sting reacted like they had seen a ghost, and with good reason. Twenty four hours earlier Lex had been in New Brunswick Canada wrestling on a WWE house show. he would team with Shawn Michaels in a winning effort against Owen Hart and Yokozuna, but a day later had shown up on the rivals new show. Very few people knew Luger would be making an appearance, and what better way to do it than have him walk into such a public place like a mall. For all anyone knew he might be there to get his shopping done.

Given the constraints Flair and Sting faced here that they didn't in their world title matches, this was never going to be the a classic like they had before. They wrestle a very enjoyable abridged version of their previous matches until Arn Anderson, who has split up with Flair at this point, comes down the aisle. The dynamic of Sting vs Flair matches usually was that Sting completely outmatched Flair physically to the point of no-selling Flair at some points, but Flair would find sneaky ways to get back in control, while often cowering away from Sting. They wrestle for about 10 minutes, until Flair cheats by locking in the figure four and pulling on the ropes for leverage. This causes Arn to enter the ring and the referee calls for the bell. The official decision is a no contest as Arn and Ric brawl to the backstage area, or whatever you would call that in a mall.

Before this segment can end there is a commotion at ringside. Scott Norton returns to WCW, fresh off a tour with New Japan. Norton has a heated argument with Eric Bischoff which Mongo tries to cool down, eventually Randy Savage runs in and challenges Norton to a match, which would take place on next weeks Nitro. During the commotion Eric Bischoff is referred to on air as the 'GM'. I'm not sure if it was public knowlege or not that Bischoff was WCW's president at the time, much like how Vince McMahon would lead commentary while not publicly being presented as the owner until some miscommunication that might have happened in Canada once.

Next we see a highlight video for Sabu. I knew he had a brief run in WCW, but seeing him in that ring is still a bizarre thing to me. He would have three Nitro matches with two being victories over Mr. JL, later known as Jerry Lynn, and his final WCW match would be a win over Dicso Inferno. In April of 1995, Sabu had double booked himself for ECW and New Japan and chose the latter. Given that Sabu was booked for a big tag team three way dance that had been built to, Paul Heyman got in the ring and fired Sabu publicly, and cut a firey promo about how Sabu had let the fans down. This is likely why Sabu had his short WCW run, but he and Heyman apparently made up as Sabu returned to ECW by the November to Remember event, and shortly after left for another New Japan tour. His entire WCW tenure lasted about 9 weeks.

At this point in the show they are showing the crowd while the commentators plug upcoming

events, and I spotted his monstrocity. He is known as Wildcat Willie, and he was served as a mascot for WCW on both Nitro and WCW Saturday Night. According to the internet the man in the costume is a man named Gary Hedrick, who also played Jeeves, the butler of the Blue Bloods. On his 83 weeks podcast in 2019, Eric Bischoff explained that Wildcat Willie was created to hype the crowd up during dark segments, but occasionally would be seen on television. He was an invention of a man names Bob Due, who head of love events when Eric when he joined the company. The inspiration was based on sports team mascots, the greatest of all time being Kingsley, the Partick Thistle mascot. Google image him please. Eric also notes that the idea behind Wildcat Willie was similar in concept to that of the Nitro Girls who came around in 1997. Similar in concept, but galaxies apart in presentation...

Mascots in wrestling come around every now and then. In 2007 TNA brought in a Kangaroo called Stomper, for reasons that I cannot find anywhere in the internet. Stomper looked a bit like a Crash Bandicoot ripoff, and didn't last all that long. In the early years of Raw they would have ring girls similar to boxing and later UFC, but that felt out of place as there were no rounds to hold the cards up for. I can't talk about mascots without mentioning perhaps the most famous one of all, the Gobbeldy Gooker. The man sized Turkey hatched from a giant egg at Survivor Series 1990, the same night the Undertaker debuted. The original plan for the Gooker was that he would be a mascot, but would also wrestle, so they needed a trained wrestler in the suit. As a result Hector Guerrero, brother of Eddie danced with Mean Gene, once and only once.

Eric Bischoff throws to the introduction of another returning wrestler, Michael Wallstreet formerly known in WWE as Irwin R Shyster, IRS. Wallstreet was Mike Rotundo, who had previously in WCW as a member of the Varsity Club led by Kevin Sullivan. He returned looking like a clone of his former tag team partner the Million Dollar Man Ted Dibiase, and even referenced the IRS in his promo.

We now come to the main event,  a match between Big Bubba Rogers and WCW world champion Hulk Hogan. Bubba was Ray Traylor, known to WWE fans as the Big Bossman. Hogan had a reputation for bringing opponents he liked and friends of his to the company he was with at the time, so we saw the likes of Jimmy Hart, the Nasty Boys and many others follow him to WCW. Traylor had many main events with Hogan, including a famous cage match in Madison Square Garden in 1989. One of the ways WCW was able to lure Hogan to sign with them was to offer him creative control of his matches and storylines, effectively allowing him the power to veto anything he didn't like, but also giving him a say in who he wrestled. This would come back to bite WCW many times, such as in 1994 when their biggest event on the calendar Starrcade was main evented by Hogan vs Brutus Beefcake of all people.

Early in the match Eric Bischoff notes that Hogan spent a lot of time in Minnesota and so has the fans support. This is a reference to Hogans time in the AWA, where he started to make waves before joining WWE. Hogan leaving the AWA is regarded as one of its promoter Verne Gagne's greatest mistakes, as legend has it that Verne didn't want see the benefit in Hogan appearing in Rocky 3 as Thunderlips. Let me run that back, Verne didn't see the benefit in Hogan appearing in the world famous $270 million dollar grossing Rocky 3. Give me one more try. Verne didn't see the benefit in Hogan being associated with Sylvester Stallone and Mr. T... I could go on but you get the point by now.

Can you tell I don't to talk about this match? Its fine and all but after Pillman, Liger, Flair and Sting this feels like a massive gear change. It's a typical Hogan TV match, with him winning using his moves of doom sequence John Cena style. Post match Hogan is attacked by the Dungeon of Doom, who he has been feuding with. Lex Luger comes out to help Hogan, but the two back into each other leading to a confrontation between the two. This is interesting historically, as when Hogan left the WWE in 1993 Luger was the man chosen to take his place. Actually Sid was, but for some bizarre reason he turned down the chance to be the next Hulk Hogan. Luger got his chance at Summerslam 1993, following the now infamous Lex Express bus tour, so its interesting to see the two share the ring here. Luger would eventually defeat Hogan for the WCW title in 1997, in a match famous for how popular Luger was on that night.

Randy Savage and Sting come back out to try and cool things down to no avail. After an ad break Mean Gene comes out to interview both men, building to a match next week between the two, which in true WCW fashion would end in a DQ.

You likely don't need me to tell you this, but despite its legendary fall from grace WCW Nitro was a net positive for the entire wrestling business. It may have taken a while, but it eventually caused WWE to up their game, leading to the most lucrative era in pro wrestling history, when wrestling found a new attitude.