One of the hallmarks of the booking strategy in the mid to late 1990s for World Championship Wrestling (WCW) was to end its broadcasts with an all out brawl pitting members of WCW against members of the New World Order (nWo).
And on this date in WCW history (June 9, 1997), it was no different.
The main event on Monday Nitro was a tag team match that saw Ric Flair and Roddy Piper take on The Outsiders, Kevin Nash and Scott Hall, as a sort of preview of their tag team title match at The Great American Bash pay-per-view (PPV) that was just six days away. The match was moving along just fine but right when Piper was getting ready to make a hot tag to Flair to give the babyfaces the advantage, the nWo -- as they so often did -- ran in and started beating everyone down.
Only this time, the locker room basically emptied and a veritable riot broke out. The Four Horsemen hit the ring, Kevin Greene was out there, Harlem Heat and the Steiner brothers showed up, Glacier was there; it felt like half the roster had come out. What's more, it wasn't even just WCW vs. nWo anymore. Various feuds were continuing with brawls all around the arena.
The ring was full, the entrance aisle was loaded, even the announce position was overrun with wrestlers going back-and-forth. After a while, Diamond Dallas Page made his way out but he was quickly overrun by Hollywood Hulk Hogan (who arrived right after) and the rest of the nWo.
The entire incident culminated with Sting rappelling from the rafters and fending off the nWo long enough to airlift DDP out of the war zone. It was an awesome scene to end Nitro and you can watch it all go down