Mall of America in Minneapolis, Minnesota (Pilot)

The very first episode of Nitro was broadcast from the Mall of America in Minneapolis, Minnesota on September 4, 1995. The featured matches on the one-hour broadcast were Brian Pillman versus Jushin Thunder Liger, Ric Flair versus WCW United States Heavyweight Champion Sting, and WCW World Heavyweight Champion Hulk Hogan taking on Big Bubba Rogers. The show was also highlighted by the return of Lex Luger to WCW after having spent the previous two years wrestling for the WWF, where he had been one of the promotion's top stars. Luger's appearance was particularly jarring because he had just wrestled a match for the WWF the previous evening on a Live Pay-Per-View card; the match was his final contractual obligation with the company, and Luger signed with WCW the morning of his appearance. The event set the tone for Nitro's "anything can happen" atmosphere, and prefigured the similar defections of WWF wrestlers Scott Hall and Kevin Nash the following year.