On September 4, 1995, the WWF's chief competitor World Championship Wrestling (WCW) began airing its new wrestling show, Monday Nitro, live each week on TNT.[12] Raw and Nitro went head-to-head for the first time on September 11, 1995. Due to Raw still being pre-recorded on certain weeks, Nitro play-by-play voice Eric Bischoff, who also was WCW's Vice President at the time, would frequently give away the results of WWF's taped Raw shows on the live WCW show. Some fans also looked at Raw taping results on the steadily growing Internet; this caused the ratings of the taped Raw episodes to decrease.
Controversy erupted on the November 4, 1996 episode when Brian Pillman, engaged in a feud with Stone Cold Steve Austin, pulled a gun on Austin during a home-invasion segment. Pillman was also heard shouting the word "fucking" during the segment, which, due to the live nature of Raw, went uncensored. Executives at USA Network were not pleased with the episode, and forced the WWF and Pillman to apologize for the incident. Pillman was sent to a mental hospital a few days after the incident.[13][14] The November 4, 1996 episode is also the first appearance of The Rock, as Rocky Maivia.[15]At the start of the ratings war in 1995 through to mid-1996, Raw and Nitro exchanged victories over each other in a closely contested rivalry. Beginning in mid-1996, however, thanks primarily to the nWoangle, Nitro started a ratings win-streak that lasted for 84 consecutive weeks, ending on April 13, 1998.[12]
The poor rating (2.2) for the January 20, 1997 episode of Raw, the night after the Royal Rumble, caused the WWF and USA Network to increase Raw to two hours and prevent TNT's Nitro from having an unopposed hour. The WWF also decided to run Raw as a live show more often to combat Nitro, with the normal schedule being one live Raw followed by a taped episode.
On February 3, 1997, Raw went to a two-hour format,[12] to compete with the extra hour on Nitro, as an edgier, more hostile attitude was starting to come in full stream in the WWF. In an attempt to break the momentum of what had turned into ratings domination by Nitro, Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) was brought in as Jerry Lawler challenged ECW on February 17, 1997. In an episode where Raw returned to the Manhattan Center, the challenge was answered with Taz, Mikey Whipwreck, Sabu, Tommy Dreamer, D-Von Dudley, and The Sandman and "ECW representative" Paul Heyman appearing and performing ECW-style matches for the WWF audience.[16]
On March 3, 1997, a house show from Berlin, Germany, which was filmed with few cameras and poor lighting and featured an array of cold matches with no storyline builds to them, aired as that week's episode of Raw. The show was very poorly received by fans (earning only a 1.9 rating, one of the lowest the show has ever recorded) and WWF executives, alike.[17][18] The following week, Raw was completely revamped with a new set, new theme music (originally "The Beautiful People" by Marilyn Manson, later a WWF-created song), and was renamed Raw Is War. The March 17, 1997 episode featured a heated Bret Hart/Vince McMahon altercation where Hart shoved McMahon to the mat and engaged in a profanity-laden tirade, much of which went uncensored.[19]
After WrestleMania XIV in March 1998, which featured Mike Tyson as a ring enforcer, and Shawn Michaels' final match up until 2002, the WWF regained the lead in the Monday Night Wars with its new "WWF Attitude" brand, led in particular by rising stars Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Rock, Triple H, Mankind and an established star The Undertaker. The classic feud between the villainous WWF Chairman Mr. McMahon and fan favorite Stone Cold Steve Austin caught the interest of fans. The April 13, 1998 episode of Raw Is War, which was headlined by a match between Austin and McMahon, marked the first time that WCW had lost the head-to-head Monday night ratings battle in the 84 weeks since 1996.[20]Throughout 1997, further controversial elements emerged with Raw Is War and WWF programming. Notable angles included Bret Hart and his Hart Foundation declaring war on the United States lifestyle, Paul Bearer delivering an intense promo on June 30 claiming that The Undertaker's brother Kane was still alive after surviving a house fire twenty years prior and claiming that The Undertaker had started it, gang warfare between the Nation of Domination, The Disciples of Apocalypse and Los Boricuas erupting in the summer, Stone Cold Steve Austin's building feud with WWF executives, and primarily Vince McMahon (who was now known as the legit owner of the WWF), and the emergence of D-Generation X (DX) as an anti-establishment group. On November 17, Vince McMahon was interviewed by Jim Ross about the infamous Montreal Screwjob at the Survivor Series, and said to the world that "Bret screwed Bret" and claimed that Hart was a tragic figure on that night, thus starting the Mr. McMahon gimmick. Hart had then left for WCW immediately following the Survivor Series event.
On Raw Is War, fans were immersed in the feud between Mr. McMahon and Stone Cold Steve Austin, while superstars like Triple H, Mankind and The Rock were gradually elevated to main event status in the WWF. Other superstars such as Kane, Val Venis, The New Age Outlaws and Edge were coming through the ranks and exposing the WWF as territory where new talent could ascend, as opposed to WCW. Matters were so heated between the two programs that, when both shows were in the Hampton Roads area on the same night (Raw Is War in Hampton, Virginia, Nitro in Norfolk, Virginia), DX was sent to film a "war" segment at the Norfolk Scope where they berated WCW and interviewed fans on camera who stated that they received their Nitro tickets for free (presumably in an attempt by WCW to pack the arena to capacity due to low ticket sales).[21]
On January 4, 1999, Mick Foley, who had wrestled for WCW during the early 1990s as Cactus Jack, won the WWF Championship as Mankind on Raw Is War. On orders from Bischoff, Nitro announcer Tony Schiavone gave away this previously taped result on a live Nitro and then sarcastically added, "That's gonna put some butts in the seats", consequently resulting in over 600,000 viewers switching channels to Raw Is War to see the underdog capture the WWF Championship. This was also the night that Nitro aired a WCW World Heavyweight Championship match in which Kevin Nash blatantly laid down for Hollywood Hogan after Hogan poked him in the chest.
Tragedy befell the WWF at the Over the Edge pay-per-view on May 23, 1999 when Owen Hart died in an in-ring stunt gone wrong. The following night on Raw (which was named Raw Is Owen), the entire episode was dedicated to the memory of Hart with various WWF personalities delivering out-of-character comments on the accident. While the episode was the second highest rated episode of Raw up to that point,[17] it was regarded by several critics, including Hart's brother, Bret, as being in bad taste.[22]
On September 27, 1999, Mick Foley helped Raw Is War achieve some of its highest ratings ever with a segment featuring himself (as Mankind) and The Rock. In a send-up of the TV series This Is Your Life, Mankind presented people from The Rock's past, such as a home economics teacher, gym teacher and old high school girlfriend, all of whom were hilariously rejected by The Rock. The This is Your Life segment remains one of the highest rated segments in Raw viewership history, with an 8.4 rating.
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