When was the last good nitro?

[prolific passer]

Been watching some old nitro clips on youtube and just was wondering in your opinion when the last good nitro was?
Last time they beat raw in ratings was 10/26/98. Few months before the finger poke of doom.
Some go to the March 29, 1999 episode due to it being the last of the old nitro set before the new logo change. Raw did 6.5 to Nitro 3.5 that night though.
So was it before or after that 3/29/99 episode?

[Dominator83]

Outside of the David Arquette thing, I liked a lot of the Russo/Bischoff stuff in the spring/summer of 2000

Come at me bros! The feuds of millionaires club vs new blood was good, the Sting/Vampiro feud was good, Kidman/Hogan was good, Lance Storm was great, "career killer" Mike awesome was....awesome! Until of course they decided to ruin him with those awful gimmicks like Fat chick thriller and that 70s guy. Kronik I loved as a tag team. And they still had some good young upstarts like palumbo and Sean O'Haire. Nitro was underrated at that time

[prolific passer]

Outside of the David Arquette thing, I liked a lot of the Russo/Bischoff stuff in the spring/summer of 2000

Come at me bros! The feuds of millionaires club vs new blood was good, the Sting/Vampiro feud was good, Kidman/Hogan was good, Lance Storm was great, "career killer" Mike awesome was....awesome! Until of course they decided to ruin him with those awful gimmicks like Fat chick thriller and that 70s guy. Kronik I loved as a tag team. And they still had some good young upstarts like palumbo and Sean O'Haire. Nitro was underrated at that time

Wcw started picking up steam during that time but it got snuffed out after a while.

Some point to the finger poke of doom as the end but Nitro was losing to raw for 2 full months by that time. They were still going pretty strong till late winter/early spring of 99.

Maybe DDP should have ended the streak at halloween havoc as I think Goldberg would have not had a problem with. Or Booker T at starrcade as Booker also had a great 98 as the tv champ. Booker, Wrath, and Goldberg all had nice win streaks that year.

[Scott Hall]

Outside of the David Arquette thing, I liked a lot of the Russo/Bischoff stuff in the spring/summer of 2000

Come at me bros! The feuds of millionaires club vs new blood was good, the Sting/Vampiro feud was good, Kidman/Hogan was good, Lance Storm was great, "career killer" Mike awesome was....awesome! Until of course they decided to ruin him with those awful gimmicks like Fat chick thriller and that 70s guy. Kronik I loved as a tag team. And they still had some good young upstarts like palumbo and Sean O'Haire. Nitro was underrated at that time

Wcw started picking up steam during that time but it got snuffed out after a while.

Some point to the finger poke of doom as the end but Nitro was losing to raw for 2 full months by that time. They were still going pretty strong till late winter/early spring of 99.

Maybe DDP should have ended the streak at halloween havoc as I think Goldberg would have not had a problem with. Or Booker T at starrcade as Booker also had a great 98 as the tv champ. Booker, Wrath, and Goldberg all had nice win streaks that year.

I agree with both of you guys... Off the top of my head the last "Great" Nitro was that late March 1999 one you mentioned. Also
there were some really good ones maybe great ones in September 1999 around when Hogan briefly turned back to the
Red and Yellow, Bret was having good matches with Benoit and I remember Goldberg, Sid, Bigelow and even the Kiss
Demon being major players or interesting.

Also loved the New Blood vs. Millionaires angle they did was totally loving that and then it all came crashing down
fast think that was early 2000?

Speaking of Nitro.... When the pandemic hit and we had all this free time I decided to catch up on a bunch of stuff
I never got to watch before back in the day and figured this was the perfect time. Where I live we didn't get RAW "live"
until May 1996 and Nitro until November 1997. So I started off watching the first RAW and any Superstars, Wrestling
Challenge, Action Zone etc episodes along the way and have been going in chronological order. The other night I just finished
SummerSlam 1995 and the WWF has been off for 3 weeks because of the USA channel showing the U.S. Open. I've been
watching one RAW (or PPV when its time) a day and now I watched the first Nitro. Surreal to have just seen Luger run in
during the main event (and look like a chump) of the Diesel vs. Mabel match and now he's on Nitro. Now I'm gonna watch
one RAW and Nitro (or corresponding PPV) of the same week a day.

[Dominator83]

Outside of the David Arquette thing, I liked a lot of the Russo/Bischoff stuff in the spring/summer of 2000

Come at me bros! The feuds of millionaires club vs new blood was good, the Sting/Vampiro feud was good, Kidman/Hogan was good, Lance Storm was great, "career killer" Mike awesome was....awesome! Until of course they decided to ruin him with those awful gimmicks like Fat chick thriller and that 70s guy. Kronik I loved as a tag team. And they still had some good young upstarts like palumbo and Sean O'Haire. Nitro was underrated at that time

Wcw started picking up steam during that time but it got snuffed out after a while.

Some point to the finger poke of doom as the end but Nitro was losing to raw for 2 full months by that time. They were still going pretty strong till late winter/early spring of 99.

Maybe DDP should have ended the streak at halloween havoc as I think Goldberg would have not had a problem with. Or Booker T at starrcade as Booker also had a great 98 as the tv champ. Booker, Wrath, and Goldberg all had nice win streaks that year.

I agree with both of you guys... Off the top of my head the last "Great" Nitro was that late March 1999 one you mentioned. Also
there were some really good ones maybe great ones in September 1999 around when Hogan briefly turned back to the
Red and Yellow, Bret was having good matches with Benoit and I remember Goldberg, Sid, Bigelow and even the Kiss
Demon being major players or interesting.

Also loved the New Blood vs. Millionaires angle they did was totally loving that and then it all came crashing down
fast think that was early 2000?

Speaking of Nitro.... When the pandemic hit and we had all this free time I decided to catch up on a bunch of stuff
I never got to watch before back in the day and figured this was the perfect time. Where I live we didn't get RAW "live"
until May 1996 and Nitro until November 1997. So I started off watching the first RAW and any Superstars, Wrestling
Challenge, Action Zone etc episodes along the way and have been going in chronological order. The other night I just finished
SummerSlam 1995 and the WWF has been off for 3 weeks because of the USA channel showing the U.S. Open. I've been
watching one RAW (or PPV when its time) a day and now I watched the first Nitro. Surreal to have just seen Luger run in
during the main event (and look like a chump) of the Diesel vs. Mabel match and now he's on Nitro. Now I'm gonna watch
one RAW and Nitro (or corresponding PPV) of the same week a day.

To add to the timeline, the fingerpoke of doom was well before Russo/Bischoff. In fact it was well before Russo himself even got there. But yea that was awful. The main issue I had was that they then did that massive nWo thing again, and by that point it was just super watered down and every Tom, Dick and Harry was in it. The product sucked.

[Scott Hall]

Wcw started picking up steam during that time but it got snuffed out after a while.

Some point to the finger poke of doom as the end but Nitro was losing to raw for 2 full months by that time. They were still going pretty strong till late winter/early spring of 99.

Maybe DDP should have ended the streak at halloween havoc as I think Goldberg would have not had a problem with. Or Booker T at starrcade as Booker also had a great 98 as the tv champ. Booker, Wrath, and Goldberg all had nice win streaks that year.

I agree with both of you guys... Off the top of my head the last "Great" Nitro was that late March 1999 one you mentioned. Also
there were some really good ones maybe great ones in September 1999 around when Hogan briefly turned back to the
Red and Yellow, Bret was having good matches with Benoit and I remember Goldberg, Sid, Bigelow and even the Kiss
Demon being major players or interesting.

Also loved the New Blood vs. Millionaires angle they did was totally loving that and then it all came crashing down
fast think that was early 2000?

Speaking of Nitro.... When the pandemic hit and we had all this free time I decided to catch up on a bunch of stuff
I never got to watch before back in the day and figured this was the perfect time. Where I live we didn't get RAW "live"
until May 1996 and Nitro until November 1997. So I started off watching the first RAW and any Superstars, Wrestling
Challenge, Action Zone etc episodes along the way and have been going in chronological order. The other night I just finished
SummerSlam 1995 and the WWF has been off for 3 weeks because of the USA channel showing the U.S. Open. I've been
watching one RAW (or PPV when its time) a day and now I watched the first Nitro. Surreal to have just seen Luger run in
during the main event (and look like a chump) of the Diesel vs. Mabel match and now he's on Nitro. Now I'm gonna watch
one RAW and Nitro (or corresponding PPV) of the same week a day.

To add to the timeline, the fingerpoke of doom was well before Russo/Bischoff. In fact it was well before Russo himself even got there. But yea that was awful. The main issue I had was that they then did that massive nWo thing again, and by that point it was just super watered down and every Tom, Dick and Harry was in it. The product sucked.

Yeah so much stuff going on with the booking but I think a lot of other things that go under the radar are more important
then some fans think. When Nitro changed their set to me it really was telling I thought it looked so cheap and lame
and almost gave the vibe they were losing a lot of money or they were really the 2nd rate company. Then the announcers
when Bobby Heenan goes he's tough to replace but you replace him with Mark Madden this guy with no credibility who
the viewer has no idea who he is. They also added Scott Hudson who was the same although he wasn't bad but going up
against Jim Ross and Lawler in their prime was a no win situation.

Also the 1998 WCW roster was one of the most loaded rosters of any promotion in history and by late 1999 and into 2000
it's amazing how much the roster had deteriorated. Russo was doing stupid ish like Judy Bagwell on a poll match, giving
the belt to David Arquette etc etc.

Russo also made the same mistake that Vince did with the new generation and even some sports fans who are almost
addicted to and that's rebuilding or tanking. Being older or a veteran is considered being a liability and everybody who's
young is automatically talented and gonna be a star or some guys were just "being held down" and "need time to develop"
what we learned was most of them just didn't have "it" and were just midcarders or curtain jerkers at best. Russo was
trying to do a rebuild with career mid carder guys and young guys right out of the power plant with no experience or
giving guys horrible gimmicks.

You can't do a rebuild when you're in a one on one "war" with somebody. WCW literally just started doing
everything wrong and it started that week of Starrcade 1998 with Goldberg losing the streak in that fashion
and then like you said with the finger point of doom on that New Years 1999 Nitro and it literally just became
a snow ball effect of bad decisions and down grades actually reminds me of current WWE.

[jakecronus8]

Don’t know the last good nitro, but I do think the 8/4/97 episode with Luger making Hogan submit to the torture rack was the absolute peak moment of WCW’s history. That crowd was insane.

[prolific passer]

I forgot how good of a duo Bagwell and Steiner were and how funny they were.

[prolific passer]

Nitro actually had it's highest ratings in early 99 than they did during the 83 week win streak. I mean raw was beating them at times 5.5 to 5 in early 99.

[Scott Hall]

Goldberg beating Hogan in front of 50,000 red hot fans in a sold out Georgia Dome has gotta
be peak WCW right?

[prolific passer]

Goldberg beating Hogan in front of 50,000 red hot fans in a sold out Georgia Dome has gotta
be peak WCW right?

Yeah it was.
Late summer of 96 with the rise of Austin 3:16 and the nWo to the early portion of 99 was the peak years in wrestling.

[Coach Smiley]

I've been backing up all my wrestling videos while working from home and I was going through all the WCW ppvs, the booking was so unbelievably tight from May 1996 right up to Starrcade 1997 (aside from flooding the nWo with jobbers and killing the horsemen). In hindsight they should have had Sting win 100% clean and go into a champion vs champion program with Bret. And they should have broke up the nWo and had Nash feud Hogan for what was left. And keep building Goldberg of course.

But to the question, I would say the last great Nitro was return of Flair in fall 1998. Climax was Luger winning the strap tied with Goldberg winning it.

And there were absolutely no redeeming qualities about the Russo era lol

[jakecronus8]

The horsemen should’ve teamed up with sting to take down the nWo. You had two guys in Hogan and nash that had all the politicking power so that was just never gonna be in the cards. Bischoff also has admitted that he didn’t properly value Flair as the face of WCW.

[prolific passer]

Standards and practices hurt wcw but the politics is what killed them.
They really found a way to make a PG product as edgy as it can be.