WWE Hall Of Famer Eric Bischoff Explains Mentality In Launching WCW Monday Nitro

"WCW Monday Nitro" was Eric Bischoff and Ted Turner's answer to "Monday Night Raw." It also became the battleground where the promotion waged their side of the "Monday Night Wars" against WWE in the late 90s. In an episode of his "83 Weeks" podcast, Bischoff recalled first creating the show and outlined what he wanted to achieve with it.

"When I launched Nitro in '95, I made up my mind that while there may be some enhancement matches, we're bringing pay-per-view quality matches to television," Bischoff claimed. 

The veteran then noted that Turner expressly told him that they were a television company first and foremost, and there was no ambiguity as to whether they should hold things out for pay-per-view. Furthermore, he claimed that "dirt-sheet marks" were the ones who thought otherwise. "It worked so well that WWE started doing it, and now WWE does it for three hours on this night, two hours the next night, and AEW is trying to be something and they're following suit."

He added, "Now, you have to have star power on your show, you can't save your stars, and their stories, and their characters for a one-a-month appearance, a once-every-couple-of-months on a pay-per-view," he explained. "You've got to advance those characters and stories on a weekly basis to keep the audiences' attention." 

Bischoff further explained that the audiences have become accustomed to this pattern in wrestling today, and that it would be very hard for wrestling to go back to the early '90s style of weekly squash matches and minimal storytelling on television. Bischoff has criticized AEW for its lack of compelling storylines, believing that the company is more concerned with putting on matches just for the sake of it.

If you use any quotes from this article, please credit "83 Weeks" and provide a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.