page_title: Monday Night Wars
section_title: 1987–1993: Scheduling conflicts and Monday Night Raw
hierarchical_section_title: Monday Night Wars / History / Before the War / 1987–1993: Scheduling conflicts and Monday Night Raw
caption_attribution_description: English: Vince McMahon, the Chairman of the Board of the World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. boards a C-17 Globemaster III at Charleston Air Force Base, S.C. The 437th Aerial Port Squadron hosts the WWE stars and crew before a flight to Ramstein Air Base, Germany, Dec. 5, 2006. The WWE is performing for troops deployed overseas during a holiday tour put together by Armed Forces Entertainment. This will be the fourth time the WWE has teamed with Armed Forces Entertainment to entertain deployed troops.日本語: ビンス・マクマホン 2006年12月5日 ドイツ・ラムシュタイン米空軍基地
context_page_description: The Monday Night Wars were a period of mainstream televised American professional wrestling where the World Wrestling Federation's Monday Night Raw and World Championship Wrestling's Monday Nitro were broadcast opposite each other in a battle for Nielsen ratings each week. The ratings war lasted from September 4, 1995, to March 26, 2001.
  The rating war was part of a larger overall struggle between the two companies, originating in personal animosity between WWF owner Vince McMahon and WCW owner Ted Turner. The rivalry between the companies steadily escalated throughout the 1990s to include the use of cutthroat tactics and the defections of employees between the two companies. Throughout the wars, the WWF and WCW would both adopt different concepts and narrative techniques innovated by ECW; meanwhile, both companies would establish both formal and informal partnerships with the company, with ECW performers either appearing on WWF and WCW shows while still under contract, or outright leaving ECW to work for one of the other two promotions.
context_section_description: During a span of five months between November 1987 and March 1988, a bitter event-scheduling war broke out between Vince McMahon and Jim Crockett, Jr., the owner of JCP. Throughout the 1980s, Crockett had steadily bought out other NWA-affiliated promotions in an attempt to make his organization a national one similar to the WWF. As a result, the term "NWA" became virtually synonymous with JCP. On Thanksgiving night 1987, McMahon's WWF aired Survivor Series on pay-per-view (PPV) against the NWA's Starrcade, which Crockett marketed as the NWA's answer to WrestleMania. However, many cable companies could only offer one live PPV event at a time. The WWF then threatened that any cable company that chose not to carry Survivor Series would not carry any WWF PPV events sixty days before and twenty-one days after the show. Therefore, the WWF PPV was cleared 10–1 over Starrcade, as only three cable companies opted to remain loyal to their contract with Crockett.
  After this incident, the PPV industry warned McMahon not to schedule PPV events simultaneously with the NWA again. However, he was still not willing to fully cooperate with Crockett. On January 24, 1988, another scheduling conflict took place between the WWF and NWA: the NWA presented the Bunkhouse Stampede on PPV, while WWF aired the Royal Rumble for free on the USA Network. Later that year, with WWF's WrestleMania IV around the corner, Crockett decided to use McMahon's own tactics against him, developing his own PPV-caliber event and airing it for free on TBS opposite WrestleMania. The result was the Clash of the Champions I. On March 27, 1988 – the same night as WrestleMania IV – the first Clash of the Champions aired. This show made Sting a star after he wrestled NWA World Heavyweight Champion Ric Flair to a 45-minute draw. The NWA repeated the practice again the following year, with a Clash coinciding with WWF's WrestleMania V. Although the main event of the Clash saw NWA World Heavyweight Champion Ricky Steamboat defeat Flair in a best-of-three-falls match that lasted for almost an hour, ratings and attendance for the event fell well below expectations compared to WrestleMania V. Thus, the practice of conflicting major events would cease for six years.
  By 1988, Crockett's acquisition spree had severely drained his coffers. As a result, he was forced to sell his company to Turner, who wanted to retain the steady, strong ratings of the JCP wrestling programs. Turner named the company World Championship Wrestling (WCW) after the flagship TV show; it remained affiliated with the NWA until 1993.
  As 1993 began, Prime Time Wrestling was struggling in the ratings and was canceled by USA. The show that succeeded it, Monday Night Raw, changed how wrestling on cable TV would be presented. The WWF decided that it should use its cable time as a showcase for original matches and storylines that would serve as the major build-up to the quarterly pay-per-view broadcasts. The original Raw broke new ground in televised professional wrestling. Traditionally, wrestling shows were taped on sound stages with small audiences or at large arena shows. The Raw formula was very different than that of Prime Time Wrestling: instead of taped matches, with studio voice overs and taped chat, Raw was a show shot to a live audience, with storylines unfolding as they happened. The first episode featured Sean Mooney reporting from the streets of New York City and interviews by Bobby Heenan, Yokozuna defeating Koko B. Ware, The Steiner Brothers defeating The Executioners; WWF Intercontinental Champion Shawn Michaels defeating Max Moon; and The Undertaker defeating Damien Demento. The show also featured an interview with Razor Ramon.
  Raw originated from The Grand Ballroom at the Manhattan Center, a New York City theater, and aired live each week. The combination of an intimate venue and live action proved highly successful. However, the weekly live schedule became a financial drain on the WWF, and the company began taping shows; sometimes up to a month's worth of shows were taped at a time.
caption: Vince McMahon, owner of WWF
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