Monday Nitro – April 3, 2000: They Can’t Even Get History Right

Monday Nitro #234
Date: April 3, 2000
Location: Worcester Centrum, Worcester, Massachusetts
Attendance: 0
Hosts: Mark Madden, Tony Schiavone

There isn’t much to say here. WCW is being rebooted at the moment so this is a big recap show called the History of Money Nitro. In other words, they’re in a big arena, which I’m assuming they had to pay the full rent for and have no people involved. I’m assuming that means no revenue for this week, which is a fine way to open the new regime. Let’s get to it.

Madden and Schiavone are in an empty arena and say next week is a new beginning for WCW, which has pretty much sucked recently. Yeah when your lead announcers are saying the show is bad, you’re not in good shape. Russo is an ex-WWF writer and Bischoff was good once so maybe they can save us.

The first highlight video focuses on Hogan, including his in ring, ahem, abilities, and the celebrities he’s brought in over the years.

The hosts talk about Hogan’s signing leading to Nitro launching and how crazy people thought Bischoff was for going head to head with the WWF.

We look at the opening of the first episode with Tony talking about nervously walking around the Mall of America for three hours before the show started. We get some clips of Jushin Thunder Liger vs. Brian Pillman in the first match ever on the show. Amazingly enough it’s better than Hogan’s work.

More clips from the first show including Luger’s arrival, Flair vs. Sting and Hogan vs. Big Bubba.

Then the show expanded to two hours and the roster got bigger, which made Nitro cool. True.

Clip of the first two hour show with Scott Hall jumping the barricade. We get some clips of other stuff on that show and my goodness did Hall arrive just in time.

Video on the cruiserweights.

The hosts say that even at this point, the WWF was still way ahead. It was more even but it’s their show. Let them trash themselves if they want to.

Now on to the big idea: Hall and Nash. Ignore that we saw Hall five minutes ago. My one takeaway from this, over nineteen years later: play is still not an adjective.

Quick chat about the Hogan heel turn, with Madden saying Hulk didn’t want to do it. I would get on them for killing kayfabe even worse but A, it was already mostly dead and B, this is nothing compared to what Russo did.

LONG stretch of clips on the NWO’s rise to dominance and Sting trying to be the savior.

We open hour #2 with a package on the Nitro Girls. Why does this need history? They’re good looking women and WCW’s version of cheerleaders. What history is there to cover?

The hosts talk about the 100^th episode with Luger winning the title, only to lose it five days later, making the whole thing a waste of time.

An hour and ten minutes into the show and they FINALLY talk about Goldberg, who was proof that Bischoff could create new stars. Create new stars, see the most obvious move in the world, same thing really.

Long video on Goldberg.

Talk of various celebrities who have appeared on Nitro.

The hosts move on to Nitro falling, which they basically attribute to Vince Russo and Bischoff having problems outside of his control, namely injuries. Now stay with me here: after talking about Bischoff being burned out and the company falling apart due to issues beyond his control, we move to Flair vs. Bischoff for control of the company. So is this supposed to be a real history or the storyline history? I know WCW wouldn’t know, but Heaven help us with Russo coming back to make it even more unclear.

Video of the awesome four World Title match way back in the spring.

Package on the Sting heel turn which bombed and all the ensuing mess.

Madden describes Crash TV and says it was working in WCW. Why Russo was fired so soon isn’t mentioned of course.

Package on some of Russo’s stuff from his first run.

The wrestlers’ comments on the new bosses coming in take us out.

Overall Rating: F. So let’s see: they don’t know if they’re talking history or storylines, they spend about 20 minutes of a two hour broadcast talking about the thing they’re trying to get over, and the rest of the time on history, which is going to mean nothing next week when the whole thing gets rebooted. All I know from this show is that WCW used to be cool, but then it all fell apart and that’s very sad as a wrestling fan.

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