Monday Night Wars

The Monday Night Wars or Monday Night War was an era of mainstream televised American professional wrestling, from September 4, 1995 to March 26, 2001, in which the World Wrestling Federation's (WWF, now WWE) Monday Night Raw (later Raw Is War) and World Championship Wrestling's (WCW) Monday Nitro were broadcast opposite each other in a battle for Nielsen ratings each week. It largely overlapped with the Attitude Era, a period in which the WWF used the term "WWF Attitude" to describe its programming from November 9, 1997 to May 6, 2002.

The rating war was part of a larger overall struggle between the two companies, originating in personal animosity between WWF owner Vince McMahon and WCW owner Ted Turner. The rivalry between the companies steadily escalated throughout the 1990s to include the use of cutthroat tactics and the defections of employees between the two companies. Throughout the wars, the WWF and WCW would both adopt different concepts and narrative techniques. Meanwhile, both companies would establish both formal and informal partnerships with Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW), with ECW performers either appearing on WWF and WCW shows while still under contract, or outright leaving ECW to work for one of the other two promotions.

While WCW was the dominant promotion for much of the mid-1990s, a variety of factors coalesced to turn the tide in the WWF's favor at the end of the decade, including a radical rebranding of their formerly family-friendly product to highly sexualized and violent shows geared towards older teens and adults. WCW ultimately ran into financial difficulties as a result of the amount of money they had promised wrestlers during a hiring binge in the early and middle part of the decade, which had been aimed at acquiring large portions of the WWF's talent roster. Behind the scenes, executives who had longed to see WCW removed from the Turner organization were eventually able to see it come to fruition after Turner Broadcasting's merger with Time Warner and their merger with America Online (AOL). With Turner no longer in control, the corporate executives of the combined AOL Time Warner would sell WCW's assets. Despite efforts to salvage the company, it was ultimately sold to McMahon, ending the Monday Night Wars.

In retrospect, wrestling commentators have come to see the Monday Night Wars as a golden age of professional wrestling, along with the 1940s–1950s and 1980s booms, with the competition between the two companies bringing out their best quality product both in terms of creativity and the performances of their wrestlers.