by Rick Scaia
Exclusive to OnlineOnslaught.com

[Note from the present day: it was an annual tradition, first at WrestleManiacs and then at WrestleLine, for me to publish a RAW vs. Nitro retrospective every September to commemorate the start of the Monday Night Wars on September 4, 1995.  Then, WCW went out of business in 2001, and the tradition died.  But here, on our usual sanctioned "OOld School" day, we're gonna go back and revive it!

My detailed final edition of the the Monday Night Wars feature will be published in serial fashion over the next few Thursdays.  The publication schedule means that the final parts will be posted here at OO on Thursday, September 4: the exact 8 year anniversary of the beginning of the RAW vs. Nitro battle!

I've been meaning for almost two years now to publish this feature at OO, and having a weekly throwback column has finally motivated me to dust it off, reformat it, and present it here for posterity.  It has been polished and corrected a bit since 2001 -- most references should be current, though I refused to change "WWF" to "WWE" at any point along the way -- and should stand as my "final word" on the Monday wars.  Enjoy.]

Year Five:  Shaken, Stirred, and SmackedDown! 
August 30, 1999 - August 21, 2000 (Part Six of Eight)

YEAR FIVE MONDAY NIGHT WAR SNAPSHOT 
Click Here for Head-to-Head Ratings Chart for Year Five 
Head to Head Battles: 48 
Nitro Wins: 0 
RAW Wins: 48 
Draws: 0 
Nitro Average Rating: 2.9 (down 1.1 from Year Four) 
RAW Average Rating: 6.2 (up 0.5 from Year Four) 
Combined Average Rating: 9.1 (down 0.6 from Year Four) 
Unopposed Nights: 4 (three for Nitro and one for RAW)
Highest Head to Head Rating: 7.4 for RAW (on May 1, 2000) 
Largest Margin of Victory: 5.0 for RAW (on May 1, 2000) 
Longest Winning Streak: 48 weeks for RAW (spanning all of Year Five)

The official head-to-head start of Year Five didn't take place until the second Monday of September...  but before we got there, the War included two unopposed nights for Nitro.  And those two nights may very well have set the tone for the year of desperation and frustration that was to follow for WCW.  WWF RAW aired in late night in three-quarters of the country on those first two Mondays, and STILL managed to draw ratings superior to what WCW Nitro earned in its usual prime time slot.  Those two weeks don't count as wins in our tally of the head-to-head battles between the shows, but they are still as good an indication as any of just how dominant RAW had become.  Despite the handicap of airing after midnight in the eastern time zone, RAW could still out-draw Nitro.

But it didn't necessarily seem destined to remain such a lop-sided battle.  You see, within the first two months of Year Five, the WWF had lost its top writers, Vince Russo and Ed Ferrera; they were credited (not uncommonly by Russo himself) for the WWF's turnaround and success with a new faster-paced brand of TV, and they decided (along with other WWF backstage personnel) to jump to WCW in late September to help return the Turner product to competitive status.  In that same time frame, the WWF also lost its InterContinental Champion (and arguably its most over heel at that time), Jeff Jarrett, to WCW; he stayed in the WWF just long enough to drop the IC Title to Chyna one night on PPV, only to appear on Nitro the very next night.  In that same time frame, the WWF was sticking to its guns, promoting Triple H as its heel champion, although he had yet to prove himself as a viable commodity and was being criticized by (short-sighted) "expert" observers as ill-equipped to carry a promotion.  In that same time frame, the WWF added a second two-hour prime time show (SmackDown! on UPN) that many felt would over-expose the WWF product and make it impossible to keep RAW as fast-paced and competitive as in years past (since some things would have to be held back for the new show).  In that same time frame, the WWF found out they were losing their top signature star, Steve Austin, as a result of a chronic neck injury.  In that same time frame, the WWF went public and immediately faced a deluge of bad press and publicity (mostly thanks to the Parents Television Council) that threatened to take the shine of their still-strong performance on TV and at the box office.

All signs pointed to the WWF fading, and WCW surging to provide stiff competition for the Fed.  Those signs were wrong.  Year Five did not see Vince Russo provide the creativity and leadership necessary to carry WCW back to the top of the heap; rather, it saw WCW go through five creative/management regimes as the company experienced its most chaotic and least stable year ever.  Year Five did not see the WWF buckle under the losses of a top heel and key creative personnel; rather, the creative direction barely missed a beat and was actually vastly improved by an added emphasis on athleticism and the in-ring product (a philosophical change that was aided by debuts/acquisitions of Kurt Angle, the Radicals, and the Dudleys).  Year Five did not see the Fed struggle at the box office due to a weak-performing heel champion; rather, it saw Triple H prove "smart" critics wrong by becoming the industry's most marketable villain in recent memory.  Year Five did not see SmackDown! dilute the WWF product at all; rather, it was so successful that it sent the WCW's established Thursday show, Thunder, scurrying for the relative safety of Wednesday night, and did so without denting RAW's success.  Year Five also saw the WWF wait out the short-lived bad press (even turning it into a storyline late in Year Five, in the form of the Right to Censor) and easily overcome the hiatus of Steve Austin thanks to the meteoric rise of the Rock and the Fed's strong supporting cast of babyfaces (including a final main event run by Mick Foley and the emergence of Chris Jericho).

We'll start with a breakdown of WCW's woes in Year Five.  Things started off with a bang for the Turner-owned company, as September '99 saw the end of Eric Bischoff's run in charge of WCW.  After holding control as WCW's Executive Vice President for the majority of the 90's, his big spending and small ratings were landing the company in a hole they didn't want to be in.  Bischoff remained on the Turner payroll, but was "re-assigned" (basically, he was put on paid vacation).  Bischoff's duties were split up:  the business side was taken over by tighter-fisted Turner TV execs, while an interim committee was tossed together to handle the creative side of things.

While the folks in charge of the business side of WCW remained in power till the sale of WCW that signaled the end of the War, the creative regime had four more iterations to go through just in Year Five alone.

The second shake-up came inside of just a few weeks, as it was announced in September that Vince Russo and his assistant Ed Ferrera would be taking over creative duties sometime in mid-October.  Their first Nitro took place on October 18, 1999, and featured the WCW return of Jeff Jarrett as a key surprise.  The show drew a 3.3 rating, up from a 2.6 the previous week (which had been Nitro's worst since New Year's Day, 1996), as well as up from the 3.0 the "interim committee" had averaged in its month-plus run against RAW.

The Dynamic Duo of Russo and Ferrera quickly wrote themselves into storylines (only after promising that they wouldn't do that, of course).  Ferrera performed the role of "Oklahoma," an utterly ill-advised parody of Jim Ross that was more unfunny than it was inappropriate (regardless of what your more righteous observers may have said at the time).  And Russo was the off-screen voice of the omnipotent "Powers That Be," who were now in charge of WCW within storylines.  The Powers That Be Era lasted exactly 14 weeks.

In those 14 weeks, Russo faced a lot of political pressures from people who felt threatened by his agenda of replacing older stars with fresher talent, as well as by his vision of the sort of product WCW should present to fans.  During those 14 weeks, Russo managed to average a 3.2 for editions of Nitro he booked.  As already outlined, this beat the 3.0 average earned by the post-Bischoff interim committee.  And Russo's 3.2 was nearly back on par with the 3.3 average enjoyed by Nitro in the final three months of Eric Bischoff's tenure.  But apparently, politics is more important than results, because over the weekend of January 15 and 16, Russo and WCW parted ways due to the irreconcilable philosophical differences.

The split had repercussions felt throughout the wrestling business, as many WCW stars were so sure this was a sign of the company's desire to rededicate themselves to old guard performers (or at best, a sign of the utter chaos and disorganization that characterized the company) that they wanted out of WCW.  Because Russo parted just prior to a pay-per-view, WCW tried to prove those theories wrong by giving disgruntled Chris Benoit the WCW World Title at the PPV.  Benoit -- along with Eddie Guerrero, Perry Saturn, and Dean Malenko -- saw through the ploy and still asked for their releases from WCW.  Benoit was willing to go on TV the next night on Nitro and drop the title to anyone of WCW's choosing, but instead, the company opted to quietly return the title to Sid Vicious on a technicality, and granted the foursome their unconditional releases.  They were never mentioned by WCW again and made their WWF debuts two weeks later on RAW.

Following Russo's departure, the third power shift (and fourth creative regime, overall), saw a different interim committee take over the reigns of WCW; this time, the hope was that things wouldn't be so "interim."  Ed Ferrera avoided the political pitfalls faced by Russo, and remained a contributor, as did other WWF'ers who came over in the Russo defection, Terry Taylor and Bill Banks.  Kevin Sullivan was a major player in the new regime, too.  Even respected rocker Bob Mould was said to be tossing ideas out for WCW's consideration.  Whoever was responsible, they presided over what most now point to as WCW's darkest hour.  For 12 weeks (which included 11 head-to-head battles with RAW), this team served up uninspired storytelling, outlandish gimmickry, questionable personnel choices, and at least one mind-boggling combination of all three factors in the form of the Ultimate Brainfart:  Al Greene wrestling as "The Dog."

This committee averaged an abysmal 2.8 for ten straight-up tussles with RAW; I'm even being nice and disregarding the "best of" Nitro that could not, technically, be made the responsibility of this creative regime.  As bad as the shows were, at least this time, WCW management had tangible evidence to help them move decisively to make a necessary creative change.  With four creative directions in the past nine months, it was obvious that "interim committees" didn't work, as they resulted in the least successful sets of ratings of the four eras.  That left WCW to choose between Russo, Bischoff, or something completely different.

They chose all three.

On April 10, 2000, WCW was completely re-invented when the company decided to give Russo a second try, to give Bischoff a second try, and to give the two men (who had never really seen eye-to-eye) a very first try at working together as a tandem.  The thinking was that Bischoff would be an overall "idea man" and would shoot ideas at Russo, who would then focus on detailed, week-to-week scripting of television.  If this represented a major re-alignment of WCW's backstage structure, it also wound up being the impetus for huge on-screen changes.  Russo and Bischoff announced an alliance on their first Nitro, in which they created the concept of the New Blood (a young group of wrestlers who would wrest control of WCW from the aging Millionaire's Club) and stripped all existing WCW titleholders of their belts in an effort to crown all new champs and legitimize this New Era as a substantial and real shift in terms of WCW's booking philosophy.

WCW was aided during this fifth and final creative era by the return of Goldberg from a six-plus month hiatus due to injury, and by the emergence of several "Was it a shoot or wasn't it?" storylines designed to appeal to the core fanbase of smart/internet fans.  But even with those things in their favor, WCW didn't get it done after that most recent power shift.  In their first three months, Russo and Bischoff delivered an average Nitro rating of 2.8, almost exactly on pace with the prior interim committee.  

After those first few months, Vince Russo was left flying pretty much solo as WCW's chief creative guy, as Eric Bischoff faded into the woodwork (his lingering allegiance to older, established stars meant Bischoff never quite saw eye to eye with Russo).  In the last two months of Year Five, Nitro's average dipped again, averaging just a 2.5 in seven battles with RAW.  Taken as a whole, Russo's five month-long "New Blood" era averaged a 2.7 at the end of Year Five.  That's the lowest average for any of WCW's creative regimes during Year Five.

Overall for the year, Nitro averaged a 2.9, which just barely edges out the 2.8 Nitro averaged in its seminal Year One in a successful attempt to avoid being WCW's most dismal year in terms of Monday Night performance.  In the meantime, the WWF had its best year of the Monday Night War, averaging a 6.2 in Year Five, up a half-point over Year Four's 5.7.  It's hard to spot where the WWF lost anything (or WCW has gained anything) in the jump of Vince Russo from one company to the other.  You can either argue that WCW has missed out on the benefits of Russo's creativity as a result of their chaotic backstage environment, or you can argue that Russo was not the most important factor in the WWF's turn-around and thus could not realistically be expected to single-handedly turn WCW around.

In either case, what seemed like it could be the Promotional Move of the Year by WCW turned out to be Year Five's biggest non-story.  WCW's political and backstage problems over-shadowed any possibility that any of the five creative regimes could actually succeed at any substantive level.  And as the year wrapped up, things weren't looking like they were gonna get any better:  another creative shake-up was looming on the horizon, and rumors that WCW would be sold or shut down began to circulate.

MILESTONES AND MINUTIAE: On July 10, 2000, the WWF broke WCW's presumed-unbreakable record of 83 consecutive head-to-head Monday night ratings wins; on that night, RAW beat Nitro for the 84th week in a row, en route to winning every single head-to-head battle for the rest of the War.... after regularly combining for average ratings well above 10.0 throughout Year Four, RAW and Nitro only broke that barrier twice in Year Five (on January 10, 2000, and on May 24, 2000).... RAW earned the War's only margin of victory of 5.0 or greater on May 1, 2000, as the show pulled record 7.4 average rating to Nitro's 2.4.... on April 3, 2000, Nitro drew a 1.8 for a two hour show, the first time since RAW's dark ages of late '96/early '97 that either program dipped below 2.0 (and the very first time Nitro had ever drawn that poorly, as compared to RAW's three previous forays below wrestling's equivalent of the Mendoza Line)....  Nitro returned to two hours on January 3, 2000, after a two year run as a three-hour show; Nitro adopted an 8-10pm (eastern) timeslot in order to maintain one hour unopposed by RAW (which ran from 9-11pm).

Continued in "RAW vs. Nitro: Year Six"...

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