From the Desk of
By Greg Prowse
One of the recurring themes on this site will be my love of old-school wrestling. On the WWE 24/7 channel (which would be awesome to have in Australia just by-the-by), they have presented a series of shows called Legends of Wrestling Roundtable. They are usually hosted by JR., sometimes by Mean Gene. Some of the topics covered include the bad arses of wrestling, wrestling territories, Wrestlemania and worst gimmicks amongst others.
One particular episode focused on wrestling factions, groups of wrestlers all working towards a common goal. One of the panelists was the great Ric Flair - who as you would imagine really puts over the Horsemen. When asked what he thought was the worst faction in the history of wrestling, Flair named the New World Order. This probably wasn't so surprising due to Flair's lack of love for the Hulkster and Bischoff, and the fact that Flair seemed to lay down for them every single night.
On first inspection, you may think it sour grapes on the part of Flair. Whilst the Horsemen were cast aside - under numerous regimes at WCW to be fair to Uncle Eric - the nWo were pushed like Supermen, continually going over every wrestler they faced, and wiping out a substantial number of other factions.
Of course, it cannot be denied the impact the nWo had on the wrestling business. It could be said in confidence that the arrival of Scott Hall and Kevin Nash from the WWF may have single-handedly turned WCW's fortunes around, after many frustrating, debt-ridden years of playing second fiddle to the Vin-man. It didn't hurt that Uncle Eric had a tremendous idea for them - to come in as WWF invaders and declare war on WCW.
It was certainly compelling stuff, as anybody who witnessed it would attest. Hall came in first, interrupting a match and declaring war; then came Nash confronting Bischoff on commentary. Bash at the Beach 96 would go down as one of the most memorable pay per view events in wrestling, as the mysterious "third man" going into the event against Sting, Savage and Luger turned out to be the biggest babyface of all time, Mr. Hulk Hogan. Hogan proceeded to leg-drop Savage into oblivion, and cut a killer promo that resulted in the ring rapidly filling with garbage.
As time went on, the nWo added other members, including the former 123 Kid - Sean Waltman AKA Syxx - as well as The Giant, Ted Dibiase, Vincent - formerly Virgil - amongst others. There was even an nWo Sting, that was thought to be THE Sting, but was a convincing look-alike, culminating in Sting trading in the colourful makeup and Bart Simpson hair-do to wearing black and white Crow facepaint and trenchcoats and hiding in rafters as a result of his disgust over WCW not trusting him. (Interestingly, Sting was considered as the third man at Bash at the Beach, the role Hogan would go on to play and give himself at least another five-ten years of longevity).
Now, it's that "amongst others" bit that I mentioned in the previous paragraph which is where Flair's logic comes into play. What began as the hottest thing in wrestling, which arguably took WCW to their highest of heights and an amazing eighty-four weeks in a row of winning the Monday Night ratings, to becoming a massive cancer.
The group went from being the most elite of bad guys to suddenly including...Stevie Ray...Scott Norton...Brian Adams...VK Wallstreet...Buff Bagwell? There was also an nWo Japan, which saw several appearances of the team of Masahiro Chono and The Great Muta - who pretty much did jobs in all their matches. The group also acquired talents such as Scott Steiner, Randy Savage, Konnan, Curt Hennig and Rick Rude. Even Bischoff joined them.
There got to be so many members, that a Wolfpac group - consisting originally of Hall, Nash and Syxx - was formed. The original black and white nWo - headed by Hogan - and the red and black Wolfpac would feud over who was the dominant nWo faction, only for Nash and Hogan to swerve us all - the infamous finger poke of doom finish, Nash effectively gift-wrapping the World Heavyweight title for Hogan. During the course of the Wolfpac, Sting, Luger, Savage and Konnan would also wear the red and black. (Man, Sting looked like crap with red face-paint).
1997 also saw the nWo get their own pay per view - Souled Out. Adding weight to the argument, the pay per view didn't generate the revenue WCW was hoping for, and so from 1998 until 2001 when it was renamed Sin, it was considered a joint WCW/nWo pay per view.
With seemingly half of WCW now with the nWo, the idea grew stale by 1998. In their infinite wisdom as time went on, WCW would create more nWo-inspired factions. We saw the formation of the Latino World Order, led by Eddy Guerrero. It consisted of pretty much all the Mexican wrestlers under contract (probably close to a dozen). The only hold-out was Rey Misterio Jnr., who oddly over time came to adopt the colours in a feud with the heel Wolfpac. Even the Warrior got in on the act with his One Warrior Nation (oWn). I even heard a rumour recently on a wrestling board there were plans for a Black World Order, consisting of only African-American wrestlers and led by Booker T!
Not to mention when the GREATEST COUP IN WRESTLING took place in 2000, when we saw the coming together of Uncle Eric and Vinny Roo, who attempted to turn WCW around in what was easily their biggest slump. Apart from many asinine ideas, they also thought it was a great idea to bring back the nWo after it had been put on the shelf, only this time, it was a black and silver version, and consisted from memory of Nash, Jarrett, Bret Hart and maybe one other. I couldn't be arsed researching it because it was diabolically terrible.
About the only entertaining nWo inspired faction during the big recruitment drive years when almost every wrestler on the roster either joined the nWo, or was rumoured to be joining the nWo, was over in ECW. The Blue World Order was an hilarious parody featuring Stevie Richards (Big Stevie Cool), Blue Meanie (Da Blue Guy), Super Nova (Hollywood Nova), JT Smith ("The Inchworm" Dennis Rodman) and Rob Feinstein (7-11). What was originally intended to be a one night parody - and the climax of a series of parodies - ended up being one of the hottest groups in ECW. (The bWo t-shirt was for a time the biggest selling item from the ECW merchandise catalog).
Apart from that, the nWo and all it's influenced parties was as stale as bread left on a radiator for three months.
Flair also pointed to the fact that the babyfaces were very rarely able to combat the nefarious heels. One thing I've learnt from years of wrestling is that whilst the heel may get the upper hand, they ultimately lose in the end to the babyface. Formulaic? Maybe. But it's worked for years; it's a tried and tested formula. Flair pointed to the incident during a Wargames match at Fall Brawl '97 where he had his head slammed in the cage door to force his Horsemen teammates to give the match to the nWo. The very next night, the Horsemen should have beaten the dog p*ss out of the nWo. Nope, didn't happen.
In other words, the babyfaces were unable to get their revenge, and whilst it's always good to have strong heels for the babyfaces to go up against, it can't be a case of the babyfaces NEVER getting back at the heels to give them their come-uppance. Not only did the babyfaces rarely get the better of the nWo, large amounts of TV time was given to Hogan and co. (You generally saw Hogan every Nitro cut a 20 minute promo, basically reiterating what he said the previous week). Ultimately, the fans are going to go with the winning team, or the personalities getting most of the exposure, especially in that era where heels would get cheered. Naturally, the nWo were seen as being cooler then WCW, which I believe created a huge problem.
Bischoff intended it to go that way. He has said many times he wanted to create two distinct brands; WCW and the nWo. In my opinion, this was a diabolical idea that ultimately caused WCW to implode on itself. I don't think it's ever a good idea to make someone or something BIGGER then the promotion. Especially a heel group, when at the end of the day, the babyface should always come up smelling like roses. It's the natural order of things (no pun intended); people want to see good guys get ahead. But, when the good guys are continually beaten down into the dust, interest fades and things get stale. At least that's how I saw it go down.
For these reasons, Flair stated that the nWo was the worst faction because it put WCW out of business. The bone of contention from the nWo camp would be; when AOL and Time Warner merged, the shareholders were able to over-rule Billionaire Ted and get wrestling off their books. That's the black and white reason.
But it could also be argued that because of the nWo's dominance on TV and pay per view, in very rarely allowing the babyfaces to get the better of them, that it caused the fans to lose interest and switch off.
During the period of the nWo's dominance, WCW had an amazing mid-card. You had names like Benoit, Jericho, Guerrero, Saturn, Raven - with the exception of Eddy, all those guys in my opinion were more over in WCW then they were when they set foot in WWE. Any one of those guys could have broken out and made money for the company, at the same time providing a strong wrestling product that may have kept the fan's interest and prevented the closure of the company. When Benoit, Eddy, Malenko and Saturn jumped to the WWF, it effectively took the engine out of the company.
Having reflected on the highs and lows of the nWo, were they really the worst faction in wrestling history? Yes they were highly influential, and turned the tables on the mighty WWF, giving them the strongest competition and shock to the system that Vince McMahon had ever experienced. The original concept of Hogan, Hall, Nash and Syxx was a good group of ex-WWF guys who the fans knew could kick arse and give the WCW boys a run for their money. However, when the group came to have 20-30 guys on their books - including the president - not to mention the multitudes of nWo-inspired factions, and the massive amount of TV time given to the nWo, perhaps it isn't just sour grapes.
Perhaps there is an argument to suggest the nWo was one of the worst factions in wrestling.
