It’s the Anniversary of a Pivotal Day For WWE in the Monday Night Wars

The Monday Night Wars are in the distant past now. The WWE bested WCW in that battle over a decade ago. There are several reasons for why the WWE won, and there are many moments you can point to.

However, there is one moment that was certainly a pivotal one in the war between RAW and Nitro, and it happened 18 years ago Wednesday.

The moment in question is when Mick Foley, in his Mankind guise, beat The Rock for the WWE championship. Things were very different back in 1999, though. While WCW’s Monday Night Nitro went live, RAW was pre-taped.

As such, WCW knew that RAW was going to end with Mankind beating The Rock, giving Foley his first World title. In an effort to try and discourage WCW viewers from flipping over to their competitors, they announced right on Nitro that Foley won, in an incredibly dismissive tone to boot.

httpss://twitter.com/WWE/status/816721057511915520

httpss://youtube.com/watch?v=O8nbJikFTv8

So what happened? Well, as WWE’s tweet says, 600,000+ viewers turned from Nitro to RAW in order to watch Foley win. WCW’s plan backfired, and RAW won the battle that night, and not for the last time. Watching the clip from the match is kind of insane, because the WWE is a very different landscape now. The match is total chaos, and it ends with “Stone Cold” Steve Austin heading down to the ring, smashing The Rock over the head with a chair, and then helping Mankind crawl over to get the win. Hey, you can’t argue with the results.

Did you turn from Nitro to RAW to watch Foley win the title? Let us know in the comments, and check out the Wrestling Rumors Facebook page.