John Watson

West Sayville, New York, USA

Biography

John Michael Watson, better known by his ring name Mikey Whipwreck, is an American semi-retired professional wrestler working for All Elite Wrestling (AEW) as a trainer, and global ambassador. He is best known for his career with Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW), where he was an ECW Triple Crown Champion. Whipwreck is a former world champion, winning the ECW World Heavyweight Championship once. He also became a two-time World Television Champion and a three-time World Tag Team Champion in ECW. Watson began his professional wrestling career in ECW in 1994 and received the push of an underdog, who quickly captured the Television Championship, his first title in the company. He would later form an on-and-off partnership with Cactus Jack, with whom he held the World Tag Team Championship twice between 1994 and 1996. A year later, Whipwreck captured the World Heavyweight Championship at age 22 and became the youngest ECW World Heavyweight Champion. He would compete as a mid-carder in the company before leaving in 1998 but returned to the company in late 1999 after a short stint with World Championship Wrestling (WCW). Shortly after his return, Whipwreck aligned with The Sinister Minister and formed a tag team with Yoshihiro Tajiri called The Unholy Alliance and won his third World Tag Team Championship with Yoshihiro Tajiri. The team existed until ECW's closure in 2001. Since October 28, 2018, Whipwreck along with Jerry Lynn and Mike Freland, started and co-hosts a podcast named Front Row Material.

Movies

WCW Monday Nitro was a weekly professional wrestling telecast produced by World Championship Wrestling, created by Ted Turner and Eric Bischoff. The show aired Monday nights on TNT, going head-to-head with the World Wrestling Federation's Monday Night Raw from September 4, 1995 to March 26, 2001. Production ceased shortly after WCW was purchased by the WWF. The debut of Nitro began the Monday Night Wars, a ratings battle between the WWF and WCW that lasted for almost six years and saw each company resort to cutthroat tactics to try to compete with the competition. In mid-1996, Nitro began to draw better ratings than Raw based on the strength of the nWo storyline, an anarchist wrestling stable that wanted to take over WCW. Nitro continued to beat Raw for 84 consecutive weeks, forcing WWE owner Vince McMahon to change the way he did business. As the nWo storyline grew stagnant, fan interest in the storyline waned, and Raw began to edge out Nitro in the ratings. The turning point for the organizations came during the January 4, 1999 broadcast of Nitro, during which lead commentator Tony Schiavone gave away the results of matches for that night's Raw broadcast. As Raw was taped and Nitro was live, Bischoff believed that knowing the outcome would dissuade viewers from watching the program. Excited by the prospect of seeing perennial WWF underdog Mick Foley win the WWF Championship, a large number of Nitro viewers changed channels to watch Raw, switching back to Nitro after Foley won the title. From that week forward, Raw beat Nitro in the ratings by a significant amount, and WCW was never able to regain the success it once had.

More info
WCW Monday Nitro
1995