Once and for all: nWo Wolfpac; good or bad move?

[relentless1]

ah the Wolfpac... the splinter faction from the original nWo.. the face version: Nash, Sting, Luger, Macho, K Dogg and a few others... do you all think this was a good move or no? How would you have done it differently? Different members, different storylines? Was this a major reason for WCWs 98 decline or did it keep the flames lit for a bit longer??

 

[sikkbones]

popular for its time... But the fingerpoke of doom and wwe basicly blaming the wolfpac for destroying wcw has basicly diluted any legacy the wolfpac had.

Best part of the faction? Lobster sting, and the theme song.

 

[Kyphael]

Once the nWo peaked and they hadn't made it its own brand with its own show and PPV's, what else could they do, really? Civil war and a face splinter from the group made sense. Plus, that theme song is probably one of the greatest theme songs in pro wrestling history.

 

[WWEWrestleFest]

Anyone who says the Wolfpac was a bad idea wasn't actually watching wrestling in 1998. They got just as loud pops as Austin did.

By the way, how do you make the choice on the poll "Wolfpac 4 ever!!" and not "Wolfpac 4 Life"

What would I have done differently? The initial split was basically Savage and Nash breaking away from Hogan. And then Hall joined Hogan. It would have been better if Hall and Nash had broke away from Hogan and Savage.

 

[shooter_mcgavin]

Anyone who says the Wolfpac was a bad idea wasn't actually watching wrestling in 1998. They got just as loud pops as Austin did.

Yes that's true the Wolfpac, if I can remember, was a very cool group. I guess the problem more of the Wolfpac is that there wasn't seem to be an end game or end goal after the nWo split.

Though putting Sting in the group was a very bad idea.

Probably the best end goal would have been at Starrcade or at a PPV some time later. Goldberg vs. Nash vs. Hogan. Goldberg puts his title on the line while if either Nash or Hogan do not win the title their nWo will have to disband.

Goldberg wins of course ending the nWo forever.

 

[relentless1]

By the way, how do you make the choice on the poll "Wolfpac 4 ever!!" and not "Wolfpac 4 Life"

Wolfpac 4 ever was the one up that konnan used to do to the black n white;

yo yo yo them fools in the black and white be talking about they fo life but the wolfpack somos lunos vatos locos foooor everrrr
- k dogg

lol

and I always thought that the Wolfpac was a sound, logical fantastic idea and the times that they did do gang warfare was off the charts entertaining but they didn't go all the way with it. It should have lead up to a big blow out in a War Games match Hollywood vs Wolfpac loser disbands with the Wolfpac winning and becoming the cool face group in the same vein as the DX Army only with the rap edge to it that they had going on. Also Luger and Sting should've never been a part of the group; those spots should've been used to bring mid card talent to the fore front namely Booker T and Rey Mysterio maybe Buff Bagwell also as a manager/enforcer type due to his injury. Also Scott Hall should've never been with Hogan. Ever.

Wolfpac roster:

Nash
Hall
Booker T
Konnan
Rey Mysterio
Buff Bagwell


Hollywood roster:

Hogan
Savage
Bischoff
Giant
Big Poppa Pump
Curt Hennig
Rick Rude
Brian Adams
Scott Norton
The Disciple
Vincent


gang warfare until Fall Brawl; winner take all War Games

Hogan
Steiner
Giant
Hennig

vs

Hall
Nash
Booker
Konnan

Wolfpac wins; Hollywood splits.

Giant remains with Hogan as a bodyguard, Bischoff remains with Hogan as political clout, Hollywood gets into a proper feud with Bret Hart and loses to him at Starrcade.

Grunge vs Rap; The Wolfpac feuds with the Flock making them into stars; Hall/Nash face Raven/Saturn at Starrcade.

Vincent and the Disciple disappear, Norton and Adams form a successful bruiser tag team, Hennig and Windham also form a team managed by Rude

Steiner goes crazy without Hogan holding his leash and beats up everybody and wins World War 3 and the World Title match against Goldberg at Starrcade

 

[Spencesc11]

Once Hogan left the Black and White it had no credibility. Imagine had they done this...

Original NWO - (Hogan, Giant, B. Hart, Hennig, S. Steiner, Norton & Bagwell) vs. NWO Wolfpack (Savage, Nash, Hall, Sting, Luger, R. Steiner, & Konan)

That would've been a great Civil War type series with top guys on both rosters!!!

Plus you would've still had top guys representing WCW - (Goldberg, DDP, Booker T, etc..)

 

[Azane]

Wolfpac was must see TV for several months, I remember being excited to see how the Red and Black was going to destroy the Black and White; Especially after the original NWO was getting stale. The rebels killing it off would of been the best justice.

Honestly, the story should have written itself, would of been a good way to kill both nwo factions, and usher in a new WCW Era. But the Fingerpoke just brought us back to the NWO being too dominant and prevalent.

I wouldn't have done much different until the Fingerpoke; I would of had both factions fight and slowly erode. Lower members just keep breaking off because it isnt worth it. Have a huge profile match on par with Hogan vs Nash, where the stables basically disband themselves.

The Wolfpac was the reason my Brother and I setup a 2nd tv + Cable box in 98' so we could watch both shows and toggle mute whenever something interesting showed up.
The last episode of WCW we watched like this was the Fingerpoke. So, for us personally, the fingerpoke was what killed WCW. The next time We watched Nitro together wasnt until the Vince Buyout episode.

 

[FromGlasgow]

Personally I liked it, Gave us an alternative to the WCW vs NWO feud we had gotten for years, I would have liked to have seen a better outcome and end to the feud between the two groups rather than it just fading away and all joining a combined NWO faction at the finger poke of doom.

 

[Dagger Dias]

The nWo Wolfpac itself as a faction was a very good idea. I loved the red and black. They had a cool face version of the nWo here. It even got us Sting with red and black face paint! What I didn't like was how things went later on. When Nash ended Goldberg's streak (which I still to this day disagree 100% with) it really messed things up. Then of course we have the Fingerpoke. With Goldberg's streak gone and the nWo back together as one big dominant faction it was colossally stupid. WCW never recovered from this. In short, the Wolfpac as a faction was a good idea. How the two factions got back together was what was the bad idea.

 

[akathelaw]

The smart thing to do would have been to make the Wolfpac its own identity, meaning no nWo logo or affiliation. I also like the other idea that older stars like Macho should've stayed aligned with Hogan. Had Wolfpac been a smaller faction that successfully took on the nWo in the name of WCW, there would've been a more satisfying end to the nWo storyline. nWo Wolfpac was confusing because of the nWo stance on taking over WCW. When Sting joined it proved that they no longer cared about telling a great story, just trying to get pops.

 

[Vanilla Midget]

It only made sense to splinter off a babyface version of the group. nWo was one of the hottest things happening in wrestling. WCW was never able to put together a viable babyface faction to feud with nWo. They tried with the Horseman, but were they ever truly as over as nWo?

What's the biggest heel? nWo. Who's the most over? nWo. The whole thing wrote itself to an extent. WCW had great singles faces like Goldberg and Sting to feud with nWo, but they couldn't and never did create another faction that was as over.

So nWo feuds with nWo. However, the that feud was never really the focal point of WCW in 1998. Most WCW ppvs were headlined by Hogan not feuding with the Wolfpac. Hogan had a few matches with vs DDP and celebrities, and then later it would be Goldberg vs usually not nWo.

The first main event the Wolfpac had after formation was the War Games match at fall brawl, in a losing effort. Their last main event was Nash winning the World title, subsequently leading to the groups downfall.

None of this means it wasn't good, it just was never really the focal point you'd think nWo vs nWo would have been in 1998. They were all possible main event guys working a midcard angle with the potential of being a main event angle. I think that says something about how loaded the WCW roster was during the 90s.

It's interesting to think that the face faction really only existed from May to the end of December in 1998. WCW chose to push DDP and later Goldberg as top faces instead of a new babyface version of nWo. The Wolfpac only existed for about 7 months in its original form, compare that to modern factions like The Shield existing for two years.

Despite the ugliness that was a lot of WCW bookings, this is a classic faction that was extremely over. It had low points, Sting being a part of it made little sense, and Luger is just hard to like (he's a natural heel).

I think Macho absolutely belonged here instead of Hollywood. He was a hard character not to cheer for. Despite this being the nice cool guy nWo, Sting probably should have only been an ally and never a member. Teenage me did mark out when he first showed up in red paint.

Maybe they should have never been called nWo, but then you can't sell those red nWo t-shirts. It made sense financially if it broke a lot of logic. WCW was developing that problem in 1998 (Jay Leno arm bar on Hogan).

This angle could have brought WCW to new heights, but inevitably the Wolfpac were not featured very prominently on PPV and the angle was quickly swept under the rug to revert to a World Champion Hogan leading nWo, and the eventual demise of the company.

 

[nWo2]

Best Faction Everrrrrrrrrrrrr - check my name, read my stats.

You guys have had great booking ideas, much better than WCW following the streak.

Goldberg triple threat to end it all, Wolfpac vs The Flock, adding Booker, Mysterio, etc...

 

[MWRedskins]

the Wolfpac was a good idea and a good move......but it still hurt that it was nWo. with that said, it was a different nWo in that it was more of a cool nWo....an nWo that the fans could actually like because Nash was able to show off his face potential, Sting was in it, Luger was doing well at the time and of course Konnan.

the issue with the Wolfpac was when the two nWo groups merged together. in short, to keep it hot, the Wolfpac should've destroyed Hollywood's nWo and then have Hogan go back to his old character (after he takes time off) and when Hogan returns, have Hulk Hogan (this time helping WCW) helping Goldberg take down a recently turned Wolfpac.....but instead, they merged the two, had Hogan win the title and anger the fans when WCW should've really tried to set up a Goldberg vs. Nash re-match for the title at a later ppv.

 

[justtxyank]

Of course it was the right move and really it died for reasons beyond control.

Savage blew his knee out quickly after, Sting was barely even trying, etc. etc.

Sting should never have joined the Wolfpac and then War Games should have been winner take all, WCW vs Wolfpac vs Hollywood. WCW wins, now is over, they all go on to their individual feuds and then if they want to resurrect the nWo later it would be more effective. All the B team crap really hurt the credibility of the nWo.

 

[GhettoV1]

To me both Sting and Lex Luger represented WCW (and before NWA Crockett) and should've never been in the nWo wolfpac.

 

[V/CV/]

We are all acustom to the fact that style is something that is very important everyone has different styles and the NWO red and black was just an alternate style to the black and white it was awesome it was needed and it was respected.
While the NWO white and black had a bit of a rock and roll appeal of the 1980s early 90s the NWO red and black wolf pack had that rap appeal but not this hip-hop crap of today.
It was as cool & trendy as the black and white.
They were so similar yet Polar Opposites in many regards while the NWO white and black tried to take over WCW the red and black did not care and generally had a more laid-back feel.
In the end the rubbish about WCW killing itself or the product not being good is nothing but rubbish the white and black the red and black and everything WCW was nothing but amazing as other posts show AOL were the ones who put the final dagger into WCWs activity and Vince McMahon just had the remains served to him, but who says there can't be a resurrection.

 

[tdmoon]

We are all acustom to the fact that style is something that is very important everyone has different styles and the NWO red and black was just an alternate style to the black and white it was awesome it was needed and it was respected.
While the NWO white and black had a bit of a rock and roll appeal of the 1980s early 90s the NWO red and black wolf pack had that rap appeal but not this hip-hop crap of today.
It was as cool & trendy as the black and white.
They were so similar yet Polar Opposites in many regards while the NWO white and black tried to take over WCW the red and black did not care and generally had a more laid-back feel.
In the end the rubbish about WCW killing itself or the product not being good is nothing but rubbish the white and black the red and black and everything WCW was nothing but amazing as other posts show AOL were the ones who put the final dagger into WCWs activity and Vince McMahon just had the remains served to him, ****ADVERTISEMENT REMOVED**** but who says there can't be a resurrection.

This is actually why I didn't care for the Wolfpac. They seemed to me like they were trying so hard to be hip and cool but instead just looked sad. Here you had a bunch of forty year olds talking and acting half their age. I can't deny the star power and if they hadn't tried coming across as being oh so cool I may have been a fan, but to me they just seemed kind of lame and pathetic.

I also agree with the poster above(Ghetto VI) in that Luger and Sting should have represented WCW and didn't belong in any version of the NWO.

 

[Wolf Pac]

Definitely wasn't a bad move. They were one of the most popular stables that year along with DX and you saw a lot of fans wear Wolfpac shirts. They probably shouldn't have had NWO Hollywood and Wolfpac join forces though and kept them separate and had it lead to a huge Triple Threat match between Hogan (Hollywood), Nash (Wolfpac) and Goldberg (WCW) for the WCW Title.

I think Booker T and Rick Steiner should've joined The Wolfpac to oppose their brothers in NWO Hollywood. Booker had a street background, so he would've fit in with the hip-cool image of the faction and well...Rick Steiner was a Dog Faced Gremlin, which is close to being a wolf.