Hey Yo - 20 Years Ago Today the Monday Night Wars Really Began

[AlMo]

The seeds for WWE's Attitude Era were already planted before the nWo. And with the Attitude Era, I think DX still happens. Not sure how much of a response DX was to nWo, but you may be right on that.

Monday Night War was already happening before the nWo.

Hogan had to turn eventually. He was getting booed a lot in 1995 or so.

Wait, why would the absence of the nWo lead to WWE being out of business?

IMO, you're wrong about the attitude era happening without the NWO. The NWO was something so new and so different that it took the wrestling world by storm (apparently Bischoff got the idea from japanese wrestling) and imo the target audience completely changed at this point. WCW changed the wrestling demographic imo while the wwe was still a "family" show with a bunch of cartoon like character on their roster. Vince pushed Stonecold as their response NWO like character while HHH and HBK were the ones who pushed DX down Vince's threat because they were sick of how bland the wwe had become in comparison to WCW.

 

[Megahab]

WCW never really could match up to the WWE prior to the NWO days. I guess WCW was competition and I guess you should always pay attention to the competition but when NWO came around this wasn't a "worry", it was a serious threat and for about a year and half WCW were in complete control of the ratings war. When the NWO gained steam, the WWE were the ones doing the chasing and I'm sure at one point there was a serious concern for the future of the company. Luckily, the WWE had Vince to see them through.

The nWo storyline started in May 1996.

Nitro debuted in September 1995 and were immediately neck-and-neck with Raw in TV ratings. Within a few months, Nitro was beating Raw on a lot of Mondays.

Also, WWE was for sure worried about WCW before the nWo. They were already devoting so much TV time to all those Billionaire Ted-Huckster-Nacho Man skits.

IMO, you're wrong about the attitude era happening without the NWO. The NWO was something so new and so different that it took the wrestling world by storm (apparently Bischoff got the idea from japanese wrestling) and imo the target audience completely changed at this point. WCW changed the wrestling demographic imo while the wwe was still a "family" show with a bunch of cartoon like character on their roster. Vince pushed Stonecold as their response NWO like character while HHH and HBK were the ones who pushed DX down Vince's threat because they were sick of how bland the wwe had become in comparison to WCW.

I don't know. WWE was already starting to get edgier around late 1995-early 1996.

 

[Emperoreddy]

WWE was just getting more crass.

The invasion storyline and eventually the NWO was fresh. As a kid it felt like Vince was really invading WCW for a bit there.

Vince had a chance to tell a story in 92 with Flair (he already had some of the other horsemen too) but didn't follow through.