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Remember The Day - March 26, 2001 - The Final WCW Monday Nitro

By Michael “Mike The Mark” Barton

From a fan’s standpoint, I don’t remember how I felt when I turned on WCW Nitro on that fateful night. While I knew the product itself needed changes and things had gotten really bad behind the scenes, I never thought for a second about what I was about to witness. In hindsight, I was watching the end of an era in pro wrestling live in front of my eyes. After the World Championship Wrestling logo flashed, the scene was almost surreal. There was Vince McMahon, owner of the World Wrestling Federation, on my television screen. Here is the exact quote from Vince at the start of the show:

“Imagine that. Me, Vince McMahon…imagine that. here I am on WCW television. How can that happen? Well, there’s only one way. You see, it was only a matter of time before I, Vince McMahon, bought my competition. Thats right, I own WCW….”

Sitting in a room with friends as we always did on Monday nights, there was this look of shock and disbelief. We purposely didn’t read spoliers back then, because wrestling was better without knowing what was about to take place. Even when my brother was getting the Observer regularly, I wouldn’t read anything online or in the newsletter until much later in the week, if not the week after. I preferred to be excited by a few hours each week on Monday. On this night, I wish I had known about it beforehand, because I wasn’t ready for what was about to take place.

The show started off with a promo from Ric Flair, at that time the most well known figure within the company. I still do not know to this day if his promo was a shoot or a work, as WCW had gotten to the point where you were constantly being swerved to the point that, not only did you not know what was real and what wasn’t, but you almost didn’t care. (If you didn’t watch back then, think of the current TNA product). For a company that was swimming in money a short time earlier, I knew that things had gotten really bad. Vince Russo (who isn’t the only one to blame) was not in control. He didn’t control the locker room. He didn’t control the wrestlers. Politics did. It was total anarchy. But it was like a bad car accident that you couldn’t take your eyes off of. And on this final night, Flair was brilliant! There was a fire in his eyes I hadn’t seen in some time. He told us that the last match would be between him and Sting, his long time rival. He also made a very funny comment, when talking about 1981 and how Vince’s father, Vince McMahon Sr., voted for Flair to become World Champion of what was the National Wrestling Alliance back then. There was a committee that voted on the NWA World Champion at that time, and Vince Sr. was in fact one of the people on that committee.

The matches on the show, outside of Flair-Sting, were all for championships. It was called The Night of Champions. That in itself was sad as none of the titles meant anything at that point. They had all been made worthless by the booking of the product. And I am sure that on this night, the WWF was in charge of the product. Booker T became the final WCW World Champion (sorry, I do not count anything about WCW that happened after this point, as it all happened on WWF/WWE Television).

I remember all of us talking about what all of this meant, and we were watching the show but weren’t really paying attention. We were too busy talking about what this meant and making phone calls to everyone we knew who watched wrestling. I found the rundown of the show and the matches, and those are posted at the bottom of my article.

The only time we stopped talking were during the segments where Vince McMahon was on TV, and at the very end of the night. Well, there was one other very funny moment I caught, and it was right after a WWF segment involving William Regal. He really ran down WCW, and after the commercial break, Tony Schavione lost it. The quote was “…come on, we’ve had to do some crazy things in WCW Steve Regal, including putting your ass over on TV!” Wow! Scott Hudson brought him back quickly. It was at this point that I figured the announcers may not have known about their futures.

The final segment was ironic, as it was a swerve. WCW was all about swerving the fans by now, and the WWF did the same thing. Shane McMahon came out during the simulcast on TNT and USA and stated he had bought WCW out from under his father, who wanted Ted Turner himself to come to Wrestlemania to sign over the company in the storyline. We all sat there, still stunned by the night’s events, hoping that the companies would co-exist somehow. While we all were smart enough to know that it was highly unlikely, I think we didn’t want the wars to end. It was probably the best time in the world to be a pro wrestling fan. It’s probably why I still watch today, hoping that sometime down the road another company will come down the pipe and we will see wrestling history again. With the current state of affairs, I sincerely doubt it, but a mark can dream, can’t he?

Final WCW Nitro Results:

Booker T d. Scott Steiner to unify The WCW United States and World Titles.

Rey Mysterio & Billy Kidman defeated Three Count & Hayashi and Yang for a shot at the Cruiserweight Tag Team Titles later in the show.

Shane Helms defeated Chavo Guerrero for the Cruiserweight Title.

Sean O’Haire & Chuck Palumbo defeated Lance Storm and Mike Awesome to retain the World Tag Team Titles.

Shawn Stasiak defeated Bam Bam Bigelow.

Rey Mysterio & Billy Kidman defeated Elix Skipper and Kid Romeo to win the Cruiserweight Tag Team Titles.

Sting defeated Ric Flair, and they both hugged after the match.