Nitro: The Incredible Rise and Inevitable Collapse of Ted Turner's WCW

by Guy Evans

The show closing surprise was big news to wrestling fans, but to the mainstream audience, an advertised appearance by Chicago Bulls forward Dennis Rodman stole all of the headlines. Fully decked out in an nWo shirt, ‘The Worm’ proudly wore Hogan’s title belt over his shoulder, attracting significant publicity in his role as merely a bystander at ringside. While it remained unclear how WCW could possibly control Rodman in future appearances - his on-court antics, including an attack on a cameraman, were setting new records for NBA fines - the bad-boy of basketball appeared to foster a genuine affection for Hogan, effectively his counterpart in wrestling. Indeed, a week prior to Uncensored, TBS viewers noted Hogan and Bischoff sitting behind the Bulls bench for a road game at Madison Square Garden. Later that night, Rodman filmed a vignette that aired on Nitro, contributing to an impressive pay-per-view buy rate that would easily outdraw (by almost 100,000 purchases) the WWF’s flagship event in March, Wrestlemania.