Was 3 hours of monday Nitro too much for WCW and a cause for its destruction?

[Matt7584]

Nitro began airing for 3 hours in 1996. At the time it was great. 8-9 everyone was tuned in for nitro and then from 9-11 was the monday night wars. in late 98 and early 99 nitro rating started to diminish and they would lose the war by late 1999 and eventually be bought out by the WWF in 2001. The goal of wrestling production is being able to fill out a program with matches and promo's in certain amount of time. WCW thought that if we hire more wrestlers then we can fill out 3 hours. The problem is that you are stuck with wrestlers who don't belong on tv on tv because they needed fill out time. Even their promos seem to last too long because they needed to fill out time. Eventually they became boring and second thought to wrestling fans.

Was 3 hours of constant wrestling programing too much for WCW to handle? did this lead to their destruction?

 

[legorilla]

No. The hour uncontested probably helped WCW actually gain the dominance they had over the WWF at the time - put over a compelling story setup your main event card, and you have a whole hour uncontested to pull people in. In fact, had TNA been any real threat, the E was seriously considering a third hour to raw.

 

[Tech N9ne]

I don't think so. If anything, it might have made them last longer. They had a lot of people signed to the company. 3 Hours truly helped distribute that talent on TV. Even then, there were still guys that were held back and weren't happy with their time.

So, I'll say no. I think it probably helped with some of the egos and what not, backstage. Imagine how many people would have been unhappy if it was only 2 hours long. Think of all the guys that would have been left off the show.

 

[Steamboat Ricky]

If you are going to make a thread about Nitro being 3 hours...you might want to know when exactly it started to be 3 hours.


It started to be 3 hours on Jan 28, 1998...2 years after you suggested. And WCW was destroyed because of Time Warner's choice to be rid of it. Pretty simple.

 

[punkrules]

wcws downfall was the fact they tried something and if it didn't catch on they would change it 2 weeks later, you need patience with some storylines and wcw didn't have it plus pushing the wrong guys

 

[AntiChristDeicide]

The third hour for Nitro was a great idea for wcw. I say that, because in the first hour you had a promo to establesh the main event then a couple of lower car matches. Then in the second hour you had mid to upper card talent matches, maybe a promo to still establish the main event or to push the storyline. The third hours was mostly main event talent. This way you had all your talent showcased wich was good if you wanted to see a particular wrestler.

 

[CuddleBuns84]

I think it was 3 hours when the nWo took off. There was times in was only 2 hours and 15 minutes, and ended early.

Now, was the three hours too much for WCW. Oh hell no!

Bill Goldberg stated it best! It was three hours and it had something for everyone. The Nitro Girls. The luch-a-dores. The mid-card. The main event. The hours was done pretty well. It had a lot of something for everyone.

I think what caused it's destruction was a plague of bad booking.

Everyone always claim that the finger poke of doom killed the company, but I thought it was 2-3 months of bad booking afterwards. For example: Uncensored 99. Where Hogan and Flair had a 9 minute, not a ten minute, but a 9 minute, steel cage match. Then, Flair turned Heel, a month after the nWo finger poke of doom. Then they tried to copy Vince Russo's storylines. Then they hired Vince Russo. Then they tried to make Hogan go face in the Black and White. Then they sent Bischoff home because he was costing them money.

I had to stop. Because that wasn't the killer of WCW. So many aspects lead up to that company's destruction. It wasn't even funny. From losing great talent due to poor booking, to just poor booking.

I can't really see how a 3 hours of nitro ended the company. Now, if you wanted to say, how a crappy show of Thunder did a lot of damage, well... I'm on that one. They could done so much with that show, but they just threw mid-cards, or no names on that show. It was crap.

 

[TheKev]

WCW was killed of by the same thing that is hurting TNA so much now. Bad booking, spending too much on wrestlers who are only there for a paycheck. Pushing the old holding back the young. Oh and giving Hogan too much TV time.

 

[ThaSandman]

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but I feel that Steamboat Ricky is right. Time Warner got out of the wrestling business. Yes WCW as a product was on the decline, but that was because their were becoming stale and WWF at the time was not. The wrestling business or fan base would never fully leave WCW in my opinion, just like fans watch TNA and ROH now for something different. No Time Warner backing means no money or no TV time slots. Without those 2 things you have no company no matter how good or bad the product is at the time.

 

[TheRealDeal]

I think people like Ric Flair couldn't have said it better.. Nitro spent too much time challenging itself to defeat RAW on the ratings that it forgot about all the talent.. The 3 hours being the cause of destruction?? No, it helped actually cause it gave time for them to balance everything from the Lucha Libre Wrestling to the Main event.. Bischoff leaving and Russo entering! Either way, they would both cause a decline but Bischoff's lack of pushing talent and Russo's hogwash storylines. I can't seriously believe he was going to put Abbott as a champion and to think I'm doing the Monday Night wars as my topic for a research paper..

 

[The Crock]

The three hour shows kept them alive for as long as possible. They had an hour where every wrestling fan tuned into WCW Nitro, then the next two hours were the trouble for them. It's the exact opposite of the way you're painting it. That third hour was a vital asset to WCW. They couldn't beat the WWE head-to-head so having an hour all to themselves helped ratings along and kept the cash coming in. Take away the third hour, take away everything. WCW couldn't make it without the first uncontested hour, it's as simple as that.

 

[Davi323]

agreed. Three hours didn't kill Nitro, stupid ass shit coming out of Vince Russo did. WCW did itself in with moronic storylines. The first hour of Nitro was usually the best, because thats when the luchadores were showcased. The first hour meant La Parka, Eddie, Rey, sometimes Jericho, psycosis, Juventud, etc. The first hour usually was stuff the WWF couldn't duplicate.

 

[GrandSword]

I loved WCW Nitro when it was 3 hours, some of favourite shows where the 3 hour episodes. Matches were given plenty of time, unlike today where most of them don't even make the 5 min mark. Westlers got to go out there and show what they could do, it was great IMO

 

[Chrome]

Was 3 hours of constant wrestling programing too much for WCW to handle? did this lead to their destruction?

heck no..they had a large roster..

what people NEVER talk about.. is most Attitude era fans were WCW fans..because NWO started the attitude.

BUT when WWF started to get hot.. WCW was hot too.. HOWEVER.. WCW would rerun RIGHT after it ended where Raw would not. So people started watching RAW then would watch Nitro on the re-run.

This did not help the ratings war.

TNT replaying Nitro after it was over, was a dumb move. Forcing people to choose between two live shows? would have had a more accurate rating.

 

[Megadeth]

The third hour of nitro didn't really hurt WCW as much as Thunder did. According to Eric Bischoff's book, the original plan with the nWo was to eventually split it into it's own brand and give them their own show, similar to how WWE has Raw and Smackdown currently. According to Bischoff, Ted Turner was the one who made the decision to do Thunder, so Eric couldn't really do much about it, as he new they were not really ready to split the nWo into it's own brand yet. And this was when Ted still controlled everything, but they were starting to do the merger, so even though the show would be on TBS, the TBS department wasn't going to really cover any of the expense of the new show, so Bischoff had to fund this new show that he didn't even really want to do at the time. And that is actually why Nitro switched from 2 to 3 hours, as adding an extra hour to Nitro didn't really cost them much, and gave them more revenue from advertising. Plus Time Warner had a hiring freeze at the time, so Bischoff couldn't really go out and hire a new production crew for Thunder so he had to use some of the other in-house people from Time Warner who were not really wrestling guys to do production.

So back to the main point, the 3 hours for Nitro itself would have been fine, it was the extra 2 hours for Thunder that really started to do them in.