They say that the winners of wars write the history books and professional wrestling is no different. The Monday night ratings war between WWE’s show Monday Night Raw and the WCW’s show Monday Nitro has long since been over with the purchase of WCW’s assets by Vince McMahon in 2001. But the legacy of the ratings war lives on; so much of what made wrestling so big in the late 90’s and the format we see today was due to it. This 2006 DVD attempts to revisit some of what happened during those times and does a really good job of doing so.

Back in 1993, the WWF (now WWE) hatched a new show to spark interest in their product – Monday Night RAW, broadcast live every week (well, almost every week), initially from smaller, more intimate venues. The live show resulted in a fresh energy that was missing from the pre-taped shows. Ted Turner’s WCW was trying to make a go as a real competitor with the WWF. And so under the guidance of Eric Bischoff, WCW started Monday Nitro in September 1996, their own live wrestling show that would compete head to head with RAW in the very same timeslot. The TV ratings for each show, right down to the quarter hour, would be compared and scrutinized as each company would try to one-up the other for the next five years. This was the Monday Night War and it made for some extremely interesting television.

As Bischoff explains, Nitro was the wrestling show that was all about surprises, mostly ex-WWF talent lured by big paychecks, then having them show up without notice. However, it was with arrival of Kevin Nash (formerly Diesel) and Scott Hall (formerly Razor Ramon) that the ratings began to turn in WCW’s favor. This was due to their formation of the New World Order, the “invading” group of heel wrestlers led by newly turned heel, Hulk Hogan. It made for great buzz, and an even fresher show than RAW. The WWF’s financial situation in 1996/97 didn’t help – it was slowly bleeding talent to WCW, RAW was being taped every second week instead of the live format and it couldn’t even afford to keep its biggest star, Bret Hart.

It’s very interesting to hear the accounts of that time from not only Vince McMahon but also Eric Bischoff and many of the management and wrestlers directly involved at the time. For example, Vince still seems resentful that the Nitro announcers would announce the taped RAW results before they went on the air, while Bischoff doesn’t feel bad for doing it at all. To him it really was a war of business and he did what he felt was necessary to win. According to the DVD, it was this cut-throat attitude that sparked Vince and co. to fire back with a new format for RAW – one that was edgier than anything before: the WWF Attitude era, led by new stars like The Rock, Degeneration-X and Stone Cold Steve Austin. Creatively and profitably, it was one of the best times for the WWF as they continued to push themselves and the product in many new directions. Austin vs McMahon, raunchy characters like Val Venis and controversial storylines were at the forefront. Sure, it was trashy TV at times but it was damned entertaining. Between the two shows, the wrestling business had never been bigger as both company were putting on two 2 or 3-hour shows every week as well as a pay per view each every month, just unheard of before this time.

In 1999, the tide began turning back to RAW not only because of their new product but also what was happening in WCW. Not only had the NWO angle become stagnant and bloated, WCW did not create any new top stars, staying focused on the (literally) old ones who were also basically calling the shots. Talented mid-card wrestlers like Chris Jericho, Eddie Guerrero and Chris Benoit left for the WWF, frustrated that they never got chances at the top spots. Ratings were falling. Management and creative changes that did come were too little, too late as the Monday Night War ended when WCW was shut down and sold to Vince McMahon in March of 2001.

The DVD overall is very well put together, WWE DVD production values are always great. I really like the “Inside Baseball”- style behind the scenes feel of it as those interviewed talk very candidly about what was going on in front of as well as behind the cameras. Lots of flashbacks to old shows are shown as well (and in the DVD extras), revisiting a lot of the most memorable moments that made big impacts on the ratings. For example, Mick Foley speaks emotionally about the pre-taped RAW where he won his first WWF Title, and how the Nitro announcers tried to not only spoil it but also dismiss the achievement, much to his disappointment. However what resulted was a major ratings change that night that equated to an estimated 300,000 viewers immediately changing the channel from Nitro over to RAW just to see Mankind win the championship from The Rock. These kinds of inside stories are what make the DVD something special and not just a recap of storylines. That being said, and as I mentioned at the beginning of this review, the history books are written by the winners. The DVD is of course biased toward WWF/WWE, a lot of “this is what WCW did to us, and this is how we fought back” slants on things – so the viewer shouldn’t take everything at face value. The inclusion of Bischoff and WCW stars at the time does lend some credibility, but it is a WWE product. However it’s still a very entertaining package and worth a viewing to look back at what was the peak of professional wrestling’s popularity.

For the comments: What are your favorite and/or most hated Monday Night Wars moments? One my favorites is the confrontation between Steve Austin and Mike Tyson with Vince just losing his mind over it, before he was Mr. McMahon. One of those moments that blurred what was scripted and real. On the hated side, I’ll never understand why Goldberg vs Hulk Hogan, for the title, was on Nitro – one of the coolest and what should have been profitable (in PPV money) moments in the company’s history was blown on free TV just to generate a short ratings boost. Just insane to throw that away.