What wrestling show fell of more from it's height Raw or Nitro?

[Playaz Eyez]

this is false. it was never all about the NWO. the only people who feel this way are WWF fans who casually watched WCW because of the NWO.

nitro had the best mix of variety of all the major wrestling shows.

not to mention, nitro was already the hottest show in wrestling long before the NWO even started up.

Gonna need you to go back and revisit some of those shows. Non-NWO stuff was truly secondary, to the point where NWO guys would just interfere in Lizmark vs El Dandy type matches just because

And going back to the OP, it’s crazy to think about Nitro only being a thing for 6 years, and you could say it had 3 good ones(?), and Raw has been on 28 years and had good shows for what, maybe 5 years? What an awful ratio but I’ll still say Nitro just cause it’s off air

 

[stro]

this is false. it was never all about the NWO. the only people who feel this way are WWF fans who casually watched WCW because of the NWO.

nitro had the best mix of variety of all the major wrestling shows.

not to mention, nitro was already the hottest show in wrestling long before the NWO even started up.

Raw and Nitro were pretty much trading every week or every other week with usually less than .5 difference in the ratings. Raw actually had a 7 week win streak up to the week before Hall showed up on Nitro and happened to have a higher rating the week Nash showed up on Nitro, which is lol. Nitro actually had some of its all time lowest ratings in those 7 weeks, part of which was probably NBA Playoffs related but still. The ratings Nitro was pulling pre-NWO is pretty consistent with the ratings it was pulling in 2000/2001 and those are treated like an absolute disaster.

It's definitely misleading to say Nitro was the hottest show pre-NWO. It wasn't, unless we're going to also agree that Raw was super hot in early 1996 as well. It was doing about the same as Raw and the difference most weeks between the shows was minuscule. Until the NWO angle started and Nitro went on the win streak, at which point they went nearly 2 full years of not being below a 3.0 in the ratings outside of two weeks. Prior to Hall's debut on Nitro, Nitro had hit 3.0 or higher 7 times in 37 weeks. After it wasn't until late April of 1998 where they missed that mark (and they got crushed that week, it was actually their worst rating of the entire run as it was a 1 hour, 2 match edition thanks to the NBA Playoffs).

 

[Wacky D]

Gonna need you to go back and revisit some of those shows. Non-NWO stuff was truly secondary, to the point where NWO guys would just interfere in Lizmark vs El Dandy type matches just because

And going back to the OP, it’s crazy to think about Nitro only being a thing for 6 years, and you could say it had 3 good ones(?), and Raw has been on 28 years and had good shows for what, maybe 5 years? What an awful ratio but I’ll still say Nitro just cause it’s off air

well the same could be said for the WWF, where everything was secondary that didnt involve austin or vince. and you had austin coming in stunning random people during their matches.

and el dandy/lizmark isnt mysterio/guererro.

they both jacked that concept from 911/ECW anyway.

Raw and Nitro were pretty much trading every week or every other week with usually less than .5 difference in the ratings. Raw actually had a 7 week win streak up to the week before Hall showed up on Nitro and happened to have a higher rating the week Nash showed up on Nitro, which is lol. Nitro actually had some of its all time lowest ratings in those 7 weeks, part of which was probably NBA Playoffs related but still. The ratings Nitro was pulling pre-NWO is pretty consistent with the ratings it was pulling in 2000/2001 and those are treated like an absolute disaster.

It's definitely misleading to say Nitro was the hottest show pre-NWO. It wasn't, unless we're going to also agree that Raw was super hot in early 1996 as well. It was doing about the same as Raw and the difference most weeks between the shows was minuscule. Until the NWO angle started and Nitro went on the win streak, at which point they went nearly 2 full years of not being below a 3.0 in the ratings outside of two weeks. Prior to Hall's debut on Nitro, Nitro had hit 3.0 or higher 7 times in 37 weeks. After it wasn't until late April of 1998 where they missed that mark (and they got crushed that week, it was actually their worst rating of the entire run as it was a 1 hour, 2 match edition thanks to the NBA Playoffs).

raw had that win streak thanks to the combination of the ultimate warrior returning and as you said, nitro being bumped around by the nba playoffs

youre also glossing over the fact that raw was already a staple and the WWF had the vast majority of brand loyalty in their favor. meanwhile nitro was a brand-new show and TNT never aired wrestling beforehand. the fact that they immediately came in trading victories is a W, seeing how raw had the head-start.

and nitro was clearly the better show from day one. i dont see how thats even arguable.

of course, the NWO was the knockout punch, and it wouldve been the deathblow if it wasnt for brand loyalty keeping the WWF afloat. the numbers dont tell the whole story without perspective. WCW had far less room for error while the WWF had all the wiggle room in the world.

 

[stro]

I didn't say anything about quality, I'm saying the ratings for Raw and Nitro were pretty much the same until the NWO angle, and no one thinks Raw in early to mid 1996 was killing it in the ratings. Nitro was not blowing Raw out of the water or anything and lost as often as they won on any given week. I agree that Nitro was a better show even pre-NWO. Nitro was new, but WCW wasn't new to Turner networks and Saturday Night always did better ratings than WWF's weekend shows. It also had a ton of promotion and many of the WWF's most well known stars of the prior 5-10 years along with the biggest stars of the Crockett Era plus a lot of fresh new stars getting time to shine in a production style much different from the WWF's. It's not like it was a new brand with new unproven stars. It's not like AEW being formed around "underground" and international stars or WWE mid carders. WCW had a lineage on Turner networks going back to the early 1970s.

Nitro in 1995-1996 had: Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage, Ric Flair, Sting, Lex Luger, Big Boss Man, Earthquake, Jim Duggan, Brutus Beefcake, Arn Anderson, Mean Gene, Bobby Heenan. You point to Warrior's return to the WWF being a reason for the ratings spike for Raw, well look at all of his contemporaries that were on Nitro. It would stand to reason that if Warrior was a draw for Raw at the time, all those guys from the same period were going to be a draw for Nitro, no?

 

[Killer Instinct]

Haven't watched an episode of RAW since December of 2016. Even though I was a child when WCW was dying and I knew what I was witnessing in '99 - '00 paled in comparison to what I witnessed in '96 - '98 , I was still watching weekly I have no idea how people are still watching WWE at this point. None. It legitimately blows my mind.