Powered by Hulk Hogan beating Randy Savage to capture the WCW Hvt. Title in the TV main event, WCW Nitro regained the ratings lead on Monday night, Apr. 20, ending Raw’s winning streak at one week. Nitro drew a 5.1 rating compared to Raw’s 4.4 rating in the two head-to-head hours. The Hogan-Savage main event drew an all-time record viewership for cable wrestling, a 6.5 rating, beating the previous record set by the Steve Austin-Vince McMahon angle the week before, which drew a 6.0. In the battle of quarter hours, Nitro won five, Raw won two, and there was one tie.
The combined rating for the two head-to-head hours was 9.5, easily breaking the previous Monday night record of 9.0 set two weeks earlier. The total combined average audience for both shows over the course of the two hours was 6.95 million. In the unopposed first hour, Nitro drew a 5.2 rating.
Hogan had been dropping hints on TV that he was going to regain the WCW Title, so it wasn’t a shock that he came out of the weekend with the title again. What was surprising is how he got the title — with the help of Bret Hart. What was also surprising is how well Savage wrestled despite his knee injury. In the Nitro main event, Hogan dominated offense early, including a pretty solid chairshot to Savage’s head at ringside. After a hope spot, Savage began selling his knee injury at 6:00. As Hogan distracted the ref, Disciple at ringside yanked on Savage’s leg. Hogan began whipping and choking Savage with his belt at 8:30. At 9:00 Hogan went for a casual legdrop, but Savage moved and began his first full-fledged comeback. Savage grabbed the belt from Hogan and whipped him to the mat. Savage quickly went to the top rope and came off with his elbow drop finisher. Savage, though, rather than covering Hogan, grabbed his right knee in pain. Hogan eventually got up and began punching away at Savage. Then he gave Savage the spinning toe hold, trying to get a submission. At 11:00 Hogan applied the figure-four leglock. Savage reached the ropes 30 seconds later and Hogan broke the hold even though it was a no-DQ match. Savage got up and choked Hogan. When the ref tried to stop Savage for some reason, Savage threw him aside.
Disciple then entered the ring and gave the ref the stunner. Hogan and Disciple yanked Savage’s bad leg around the ringpost. Disciple gave Savage the stunner onto the WCW Title belt. At that point Kevin Nash ran to the ring to even the odds. Eric Bischoff ran in and grabbed Nash by the leg. Hogan went to hit Nash with the belt, but Nash ducked and Hogan hit the Disciple instead. Nash set up the Jackknife on Hogan, but Bischoff stopped him momentarily. Nash shoved Bischoff aside and gave Hogan the Jackknife. The crowd popped. Nash laid Savage on top of Hogan. Bret Hart ran to the ring, nailed Nash with the WCW belt, then put Hogan on top of Savage. Ref Nick Patrick came to long enough to count to three and award the belt to Hogan. Bret raised Hogan’s arm. Roddy Piper ran to the ring with a look of disbelief on his face. He confronted Bret. Bret finally lost his cool and punched Piper. Bret gave a heelish grin toward the crowd as the show went off the air.
A lot of questions regarding Bret’s reasons for doing what he did should be answered either this Wednesday on Thunder or next Monday on Nitro. WCW needed a spark to have a chance to regain a sizable Monday night ratings lead. One scenario suggested was that Sting would turn heel, helping Hogan beat Savage. Instead, Bret was injected — finally — into the middle of the main event storyline. Bret had been underutilized by WCW in part because of politics and in part because Eric Bischoff wanted to save him until they needed him. The apparent plan is for Bret to regain the edge that he lost since joining WCW, give some strong promos, and perhaps align himself with Hogan, but by fall begin to break up with Hogan to set up the Starrcade main event of Hogan vs. Bret. He may also say he helped Hogan win the belt because Hogan is who he wants to beat for the title. In the meantime, Bret can feud with Kevin Nash, Randy Savage (when he’s healthy), and any other WCW babyfaces who feel betrayed by Bret’s actions on Nitro.
If Bret can gain any semblance of fire, he should assure WCW of building a new ratings winning streak over Raw on Mondays since his actions will be of particular interest to WWF fans. Despite the absence of Ric Flair and Scott Hall, by injecting Bret into the main event storyline and better utilizing Kevin Nash, WCW has added some life to what had become a predictable top-of-the-card set of storylines.
Sting was not a major part of the post-Spring Stampede Nitro. Now that Sting has dropped the belt, WCW has a chance to reinvigorate his character, who may retreat back to the rafters now that he has lost the WCW Title. He could also come back with more energy and new resolve since the style he had been employing wasn’t enough to defend against the combined powers of the NWO.
