On September 4, 1995, the debut episode of Monday Nitro emanated from the cavernous Mall Of America in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Up until the final Nitro, WCW did all they could to not just overtake Vince McMahon and the WWE, but they did all they could to put the WWE out of business.
Related: 10 Bizarre WCW Nitro Matches That Fans Forgot About
That mentality of course sparked The Monday Night War. While Nitro had some interesting moments during the early stages of Nitro and then got cooking during the nWo Era. It was when the company became the proverbial “coffin on wheels,” and began bobsledding out of businesses when the silly nonsense started to take hold - only don’t say “nonsense” when you read that last sentence.
10 The Reboot
With a dwindling roster and dwindling returns on Creative, it was clear that WCW needed to shake things up a bit. But rather shake things up a little bit at a time (similar to what Triple H has done and has been doing), Vince Russo and Eric Bischoff decided to nuke the whole roster.
They arrived as on-air and behind the scenes heads and stripped all the current champions of their belts and reset as many storylines as they could. It seemed clunky and it was clunky.
9 You Wanted The Best…
It should have been a glorious moment for WCW. The legendary glam-rock band, KISS not only licensed their likenesses to the company in hopes for a huge wrestling crossover. While they didn’t exactly happen (re: Dale Torborg), the company did secure a moment for KISS to show up on Nitro for a performance.
Related: How WWE Raw & WCW Nitro Were The Same (& How They're Different)
Brian Adams (not Torborg) was introduced as The Demon. “The Hottest Band In The World” delivered a poor lip-syncing rendition of The God Of Thunder for some reason.
8 nWo Nitro
As the nWo was gaining power by the numbers heading into Starrcade 1997, the bad boys of wrestling were getting tired of waiting for some aspects of their hostile takeover to take place. They ran off all of WCW personnel, tore down the WCW Nitro set and started making nWo Nitro set instead.
The WCW crew were forced to change into nWo Nitro shirts and proclaim they were nWo 4-Life. The entire thing might have been cool if not for having to watch 10–20 minutes of this and plenty more of Bischoff presenting Hollywood Hogan with all sorts of presents.
7 Warrior’s Reflection
To be fair, practically the entire Ultimate Warrior run in WCW could make this list. From the neon-painted nimrod’s nonsensical and way too long debut all the way to the ridiculousness WrestleMania 6 rematch at Halloween Havoc 1998, just none of it worked.
Related: 10 Disturbing Things You Forgot Happened On WCW Nitro
But even for fantastical wrestling storytelling it was way out there to have Warrior appear in a mirror and have Hulk go insane at the sight of him. Even though everyone could see him, Bischoff had to pretend he couldn’t.
6 Russo’s The Champion
It is without question the darkest days of WCW when Vince Russo was in charge. The guy just flat out had questionable booking decisions. But none more questionable than booking himself to defeat Booker T in a steel cage for the WCW Heavyweight Championship.
Yes of course he also booked it that he won by accident and almost immediately vacated the title, however there were about 956 different ways to book that storyline than have Vince Russo win wrestling’s richest prize.
5 Chucky
It was a strange crossover heading into Halloween Havoc 1998, but demented doll Chucky from The Child’s Play movies came to Monday Nitro. While the possessed puppet was coming onto the show to promote Bride Of Chucky, he also ran into Rick Steiner and his old him he was messing up his chance to win an Academy Award.
While it is thought of as one of the worst segments in Nitro history, the WWE has brought the doll back a few times, most recently in a segment with Rick’s son, Bron Breakker.
4 Last Call Scott Hall
The wrestling business has always dipped its collective big toe into personal issues to create compelling stories. But to most fans, they’re generally has to be a limit. Playing off the very real, very troubling alcoholic issues of Scott Hall was a bridge too far for plenty of fans and didn’t quite hit the way anyone in WCW was hoping it would.
Related: 10 Things Scott Hall Never Accomplished In Wrestling
Even though it sort of started the war between The Black And White and The Wolfpac.
3 Flair’s Heart Attack
Also, a piss-poor attempt as using realism in a wrestling angle. Injuries in the ring are unfortunately real enough and even more tragically, death. But WCW just kept plugging along with Ric Flair having a Heart Attack on a live Nitro. Now while a person can have a heart attack at any age, it’s generally associated with elderly folks.
Ol’ Slick Ric was just 49 years old during his Cardiac Event. That's three years younger than Jericho is now and that is by no means not old at all. Even if it was, Naitch should have put his foot down in the angle in hindsight.
2 Viagra on a Pole Match
Really, this could've been any of Vince Russo's 'on a pole match' ideas, but we decided to stick with one. In what was clearly a sign of Russo's philosophy of 'throw everything at the wall and hope something sticks', somehow it was decided that Billy Kidman and Shane Douglas should compete in a battle for the magic blue pills on top of a pole.
With both wrestlers feuding for the attention of Torrie Wilson, to WCW, this somehow felt like the right stipulation for a match between the two. Needless to say, this match is better off left unwatched.
1 The Fingerpoke Of Doom
You knew where this one was going. For any fans that question why The Fingerpoke Of Doom is touted as the beginning of the end for WCW while Shawn and Hunter essentially pulling the same nonsense a year earlier for the European title is thought of as comical for several reasons.
But the most pressing and glaring reason is that the European title was a secondary title while the WCW world heavyweight title was at one point considered the riches prize in all of professional wrestling and the nWo squandered all of its meaning in one fell swoop, thinking that would put “butts in seats.”
