19 Years Ago...."We're Taking Over"

So 19 years ago today at WCW Bash At The Beach, the nWo was formed. Of course, The Outsiders (Scott Hall & Kevin Nash) had arrived in WCW in what was made to look like an invasion from the WWF, who could forget Hall's line on the microphone on Nitro "you know who I am but you don't know why I'm here". Not too long after, Nash came in and the would go on to attack Eric Bischoff  at the Great American Bash. 

So the WWF were battling WCW in a ratings war, Hall & Nash came over and all the talk was about who if anyone, would also come in from the WWF. Well, after the GAB attack, it was announced that The Outsiders would be joined by someone else at the BATB to face then WCW's top 3 guys in a tag match, those 3 were of course Lex Luger, Sting & 'Macho Man' Randy Savage. There was plenty of speculation of who it would be but nothing concrete. 

So the match began with the WCW guys against Hall & Nash and all those watching on PPV and in the arena were wondering who the 3rd guy would be. Savage would get injured and was carried out, and some point after, Hulk Hogan came out and of course the majority thought he was coming to save the WCW guys where in fact, he was there to turn on them and allign himself with The Outsiders. The place went crazy with all sorts of stuff being thrown into the ring while Hogan was on the microphone had said they were the "new world order of wrestling" and this was the birth if you like of the nWo.

Like a lot of things in wrestling, the nWo wasn't an original idea it's well-known that Bischoff had seen basically the same angle take place in Japan and brought it to the states. It's ironic really as with their working relationship with NJPW there would go on to be an nWo Japan featuring the likes of Masahiro Chono & Keiji Muto (Great Muta).

 

For a decent time the nWo was a hot angle, it helped WCW smash the WWF in the ratings war but eventually, it would become watered down with people joining who really had no place, Vincent (Virgil in the WWF) comes to mind.

 

With Hogan being the third man it was a big deal, he had to be convinced it was the right thing to do even though he was being booed in the arenas he was going to. Kevin Sullivan who was booking for WCW at the time recently revealed that he lived 10 minutes away and kept Hogan in his house until the semi-main event, up until that point, Sting would of been the 3rd man.

 

In closing, the nWo was an interesting concept at first but soon lost it's way. Hogan, Hall & Nash would later come into the WWE as the nWo but that was short lived.