Favorite year of WCW Nitro !

97 was good, the continuation of the NWO storyline, Sting vs Hogan, however the matches were not as good as in 96, too many Nitros ending with NWO run ins, the cruiserweights were getting de pushes, Guerrero was great as a heel until he got de pushed (couldnt have any heels drawing heat outside the

1996: excellent matches Flair vs Savage & Flair vs Guerrero, debut of NWO, the ascension of The Giant, aka Big Show as a legit star, DDP rising from the bottom of the mid card to become a major player, the energy on the show even before the NWO, when Flair, Savage, Sting, & Luger were carrying the load was palpable. 1996 was the best year.

97 was good, the continuation of the NWO storyline, Sting vs Hogan, however the matches were not as good as in 96, too many Nitros ending with NWO run ins, the cruiserweights were getting de pushes, Guerrero was great as a heel until he got de pushed (couldnt have any heels drawing heat outside the NWO), really the build to Hogan-Sting and the Arn Anderson Retirement/Henning Betrayal were probably the best moments of 97

98 was a cluster. Breaking up the NWO, Hogan hardly around, half of WCW was in the NWO, now half a fan fav group with guys like Sting & Luger and sometimes Brett Hart (who was horribly booked), the heel side was filled with mid carders and jobbers outside of Steiner & Hogan, Goldberg was by far the best thing. Best Nitro Moment: Goldberg beats Hogan and Flair returns. The great Nash promo on his own year long undefeted streak before Starrcade 98 was excellent. By the end of the year, with Hogan MIA, Henning, Luger, Sting, & Hart all sidelined, every two hour Nitro was 20 minutes of Flair vs Bischoff and Nash talking, some of those segments were very good but not enough to save the overall content of the show.

99 Started out great - Ive posted before that I really liked The Fingerpoke of Doom initially, great surprise move, plus it ended the ridiculous split NWO feud, purged all the old timers and mid carders (how many killer heel groups have Virgil, Horace Hogan, Disco Inferno as their "Intern", etc). The Fingerpoke reunited the lean, mean NWO machine and immediately established them as legit heel force, only now with Flair, Hogan & Bischoff's arch nemesis, in control of the company. They should have kept Goldberg alligned with Flair, held off Goldberg vs Nash II till a major PPV (SuperBrawl maybe, not as a mid card match on a spring show no one cared about), and kept the belt on Hogan till summer when we'd have Goldberg-Hogan II, working Flair, Sting, Hart, DDP around them. Instead they wasted Hart's return, dumped Goldberg into the mid card, turned Flair heel, and immediately broke up the NWO. I cant even think of 1999 in WCW without crying about how good it could have been.

2000 never got off the ground. The New Blood vs Millionaires Club/Establishment was an NWO re do, only with midcarders and unknown wrestlers as the heels forcing the WCW guys to put aside their differences and work together (not as believable as Hogan, Nash, & Hall joining together and forcing the WCW guys to unite), made worse as Russo tried to bury all the name guys WCW fans cared about, by the summer Hogan, Flair, Sting, Luger all gone, Nash stopped wrestling and just collected a pay check for promos, Hart was finished (they had nothing for him but he was injured in 99), Savage wanted no part of anything, it got hard to watch. Im not even sure I can pick a "Best Moment" from 2000, the initial New Blood debut maybe, Flair vs Jarret, Booker T becomes the top face, it's tough

To me, 1996 was the best year start to finish. The other years had some highlights to be sure but 96 was the most consistently good.

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