Great-ing Gimmicks of the Past: The Birth of the nWo – WCW, 1996
History
Even though the Monday Night Wars were not fully in effect, relations between the WWF and WCW had long been chilly. This was only amplified as, starting in 1994, WCW was able to use Ted Turner’s checkbook to steal established talent from the WWF. Vince McMahon retaliated two ways – first, he dubbed the current crop of WWF superstars made up of names like Diesel, Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels, and Razor Ramon as the new WWF generation. Secondly, he started running skits starring Billionaire Ted, who was usually in a meeting with other wrestling greats – Scheme Gene (who was shilling his hotline), the Huckster, and the Nacho Man. McMahon had no idea that he was about to get blindsided.
May 28, 1996. It was a special night for WCW – finally Nitro was going to two hours. However, they had another surprise planned…
The first hour was well underway and Steve Doll was taking on the Mauler. Suddenly, a man with black hair hopped the rail and grabbed a microphone. He wasn’t identified on the air, but wrestling fans recognized him as the WWF’s Razor Ramon. Older fans remembered him from his AWA days as Big Scott Hall. Ramon grabbed a microphone and started calling out for the Huckster, the Nacho Man, and Scheme Gene. Security quickly hustled him out.
Razor put in another appearance toward the end of the show. He challenged the entire roster of WCW and implied that the WWF had sent him to invade. Eric Bischoff quickly threw him out.
The next week things appeared to be back to normal. Just after Rick and Scott Steiner had defeated the Giant and Lex Luger, Razor showed up again, and this time he got in Sting’s face. Sting slapped him and then the police showed up to escort Razor out. Razor’s parting shot was to promise that a friend would join him the next week.
Razor came out again to close out the next week’s Nitro. Bischoff taunted him by asking where his other guys were, and Diesel walked out behind Hall. Bischoff shut up and even wound up inviting them to the next pay-per-view, the Great American Bash.
At the Bash, Bischoff had an interview with Razor (Hall) and Diesel (Kevin Nash). He asked the question that everyone had been wanting an answer to – were they still employed by the WWF? Both said no, and then they demanded to know who would answer their challenge. Bischoff refused to tell them, so Nash powerbombed him through the stage.
It didn’t take long for the answer to come out. WCW would be represented by Sting, Lex Luger, and Randy Savage. The invaders would be represented by the still-unnamed Scott Hall, Kevin Nash, and a mystery third man.
The 22nd’s Nitro opened with Sting, Luger, and Savage, all wearing face paint, and trying to do an interview. I say trying because they kept being interrupted by other WCW wrestlers such as Harlem Heat and the Steiners, who showed up to offer their support to Team WCW.
In the main event Sting and Luger defended their tag titles in a triangle match against the Steiners and Harlem Heat. As things broke down inside the ring, Nash and Hall (now called the Outsiders) made their way to the ring carrying baseball bats. Police officers stopped them by surrounding the ring. Inside, Luger lost the belts to Harlem Heat.
The second hour of Nitro opened the next week as Bischoff came out, called the Outsiders by their names, and said that WCW wasn’t afraid of them. Meanwhile, Hall and Nash showed up in the crowd after buying tickets to the show. They sat down with an empty seat between them.
Finally Hall and Nash started causing trouble, and that brought Sting, Luger, and Savage out to brawl with them. Security tried to break it up, but they lost control as the entire WCW locker room emptied and attacked. The fight ended as Hall and Nash were thrown out.
That brought us to Bash at the Beach, with the “Hostile Takeover” match the main event. Hall and Nash came out by themselves. Gene Okerlund went up to them, demanding to know who their third man was and where he was. Nash just replied that the two of them could handle it by themselves.
Early in the match, Luger went down and had to be stretchered out, which ended WCW’s advantage. Hall and Nash went on to take turns obliterating Sting. Finally Sting tagged out to Savage, and Nash quickly stopped that.
Suddenly, some familiar music hit and Hulk Hogan made his return, running to the ring to help support his friends. He slid into the ring…
…and hit Savage with his legdrop. Hulk Hogan was the third man.
Needless to say, the crowd went nuts. Gene Okerlund braved a barrage of trash to get an interview. Hogan seized the moment and talked about how disgusted he’d become with WCW in the year he’d been in the company. He went on to call himself, Hall, and Nash, the New World Order of wrestling, and that they would become bigger than the organization “up north.”
The show ended as Tony Schiavone, sounding like he was on the brink of tears, sent fervent wishes to Hogan that he would go straight to hell.
And that was the birth of the New World Order.
Analysis
A lot of people give WCW a lot of (deserved) grief. After all, it seemed like whenever they would blow something, they would blow it to the best of their ability.
However, this angle falls into the opposite category – WCW got it right.
The angle was almost perfect in every way. Hall just showed up out of the blue, and in the infant internet days, most fans thought he was still with the WWF. Ditto for Nash.
It also can’t be ignored that both of those men were at the core of McMahon’s “new WWF generation.” While most guys WCW had stolen had been around longer (Hogan, Savage, Earthquake (John Tenta), Big Bossman (Ray Traylor), and Brutus Beefcake (Ed Leslie) for example), Razor and Diesel were at the top of the WWF ladder.
Shocks also worked. Razor’s arrival was similar to that of Lex Luger on the Nitro launch. Luger had left the WWF when his contract expired and immediately (thanks to the WWF’s habit of taping a month’s worth of Raw shows at one time) showed up on Nitro.
Of course, if we’re talking about shocks, the end cannot be forgotten either. Hulk Hogan, the epitome of the good guy wrestler, turned on his sometime friend Randy Savage to become the number one heel in wrestling.
This shows one of the keys in building a wrestling company. If you’ve got TV, you need people to watch. You can’t count on people to just flip the channel and hit the show. You need to get people interested. You need to get them talking. And that’s what this did.
By the way, Vince McMahon’s response was to send Jim Ross out to announce that Razor Ramon and Diesel would be returning to the WWF. However, when they came out, it was Rick Bogner and Glen Jacobs in the Razor and Diesel costumes. The “fake” Razor and Diesel infuriated the fans, and they were soon sent to the USWA. Bogner was eventually released, while Jacobs was given a red suit and a mask to become Kane.
Where are they now?
Scott Hall was released from WCW in 2000. He made his way to ECW, but was soon released after a DUI arrest. Hall then headed to New Japan, where he was extremely popular. Two of his most memorable matches there were losses – one to Keiji Mutoh (the AJPW Triple Crown Champion at the time), and another to a rookie trying to break through by the name of Hiroshi Tanahashi.
Kevin Nash remained with WCW until the company was bought by the WWF. Nash chose to stay at home for the remainder of 2001 to enjoy the rest of his guaranteed contract with Time-Warner, which expired December 31st of that year.
Hulk Hogan returned to his more familiar face role in mid 1999. Strangely, he wound up laying down for Sting at Halloween Havoc and disappeared again.
Hogan returned in 2000. He soon found himself in the Millionaire’s Club, who were feuding with the New Blood.
Hogan left WCW after the Bash at the Beach 2000 pay-per-view, where he faced Jeff Jarrett for the WCW world title. Hogan used his creative control to change the finish of the match and give himself the world title. The “match” occurred when Jarrett walked out, Hogan covered him, and left with the belt. WCW booker Vince Russo then came out and cut an interview on Hogan, basically saying that washed-up guys like Hogan were the problem with WCW, and naming Hogan’s title the “Hulk Hogan Retirement Belt.”
Hogan was furious and filed a defamation of character lawsuit (which was later thrown out of court). He would not be seen again until 2002 with the exception of an appearance at the XWF tapings.
The three men would reunite in the WWF in February of 2002, as Vince McMahon brought in the New World Order.
The reunion would be short-lived. During his Wrestlemania match against the Rock, the crowd turned Hogan into a solid face.
Scott Hall was released in early May. Since 2002, he has made sporadic appearances for TNA.
Kevin Nash was injured about this same time and continued suffering from injuries throughout 2003. At the end of 2003, Nash declined to sign a new WWE contract and headed to TNA, where he and Scott Hall joined forces with Jeff Jarrett to form the Kings of Wrestling.
The Kings were short-lived and Hall disappeared again at the beginning of 2005. Nash spent much of 2005 on the shelf, battling a staph infection. Today Nash is working with Alex Shelley and Johnny Devine as he battles TNA’s X-Division. He is currently scheduled to face Chris Sabin at Hard Justice for the number one contendership to Senshi’s X-Division title.
Hulk Hogan remained with the WWE into 2003, when he was “fired” and repackaged as Mr. America. Later in the year, Hogan left the WWE over creative problems.
Hogan went to Japan and faced Masahiro Chono at a New Japan show. Afterward, he was attacked by Jeff Jarrett in preparation for a run in TNA.
The TNA run never happened as Hogan had to go in for knee surgery. He returned to the WWE in 2005 as he was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame by Sylvester Stallone. Today Hogan still makes appearances for the WWE, as well as starring in his own reality show on VH1 titled Hogan Knows Best.
Next Week
He’s a man, not a fish.
