Could the nWo have worked BETTER in the WWE?

[The Crock]

The nWo was a historic stable in WCW. During the end of its WCW run it became a bit bigger and there were so many incarnations that it just became bland. Following the death of WCW, Vince McMahon decided to give the stable a shot in the WWE. The storyline was that Vince brought in Hogan, Pac, and Hall (nWo) to destroy the WWE, because he didn't want to share power with Ric Flair. At this time Hogan was getting a face reaction, but he was a heel with the faction. Later on they were hampered by injuries, firings, and other things and eventually the storyline/stable was abandoned as a whole.

That being said, do you believe it could have worked better? Could the nWo have been a thing of legend in the WWE? I say no. Like I said before, the nWo had already become an all-inclusive type of group in WCW. Everybody was in the nWo, and there were far too many incarnations of it. It was a tired concept, it was something that the fans had already seen, they just weren't interested. At the end of the angle it became something of a Kliq reunion, and they even acknowledged it in on air, that might have been able to work because maybe the fans would have been interested. Even then, I don't think it would have been that successful. The fans really didn't seem all that interested. Hogan hadn't been in the WWE for about 8 years, and the fans were excited for him. They were cheering him on. Without Hogan, the leader, it was destined to fail. There were too many problems for nWo to have succeeded in the WWE.

Thoughts?

 

[Hulk Hogan's Brother]

I agree Crock. It was a tired concept. What would have happened even if Hogan would not have turned face? Another invasion? That would have bored the hell out of the fans. Hogan, Nash and Hall were all a few years older in 2002 than they were in 1996 and its not that they were fantastic workers in 1996. Hall is the only passable in ring worker of the three, in my opinion. Another invasion in 2002 would have meant the three of them dominating the main event scene with shitty matches once again. Frankly I am happy with the way the nWo went.

And as you have said without Hogan as leader it would have not worked. Niether Hall nor Nash are comparable in star power to the Hulkster or to Rock or Austin who would have been the main opposition to the nWo had the invasion taken place. Another thing that was missing when you compare it to the original nWo was the perception that they had been sent over from the other company to destroy the opposition. That was one of the biggest selling points of the nWo and without that factor being prevalant this time around, I do not feel it would have had the same impact.

 

[Rhyno!]

I don't think the nWo Invasion was smart or interesting. Financially it probably done the job but like you said, Hall was the only one who was capable as a wrestler, nWo's prime was in WCW, after WCW they were never gonna make the same impact on WWE as they did on WCW for obvious reasons.

Moderator note: This post has been edited to have a rule breaking signature removed.

 

[johnbragg]

My first reaction is no. I "checked in" in 1999-2000, so I'll represent for late Attitude Era fans.

Problem one, Vince's reasons for bringing in the NWO made no sense. Vince was going to destroy WWF. Yeah right. That crippled the angle from the beginning.

Problem two was that the character concepts were already a little dated. The NWO, even with Shawn Michaels added in at the end, was a little "X-Packy", a little stuck in 1998. (I remember a great Edge/Christian promo battle vs X-Pac where X-PAc tries to run them down as ex-Brood members, only to be defeated by "Yeah, it's called Character Development. Maybe you should check it out.")

Maybe after Hogan turned face and went to Smackdown, it could have been made to work as a Kliq stable out to dominate Raw. You would have had to have HHH join, but then you would have had HHH going for the world title, Nash as manager and spokesman, and some combination of Hall, X-PAc and Michaels going for the tag titles. There's a belt for everyone, pretty much, and enough star power for the NWO Kliq to run roughshod over the roster.

Would that have been much different than HHH running roughshod over the roster by himself, except for a quick HBK title run? I don't know.

 

[Mr. Artistic guy]

Absolutely. Forget the members. Forget Hogan, Hall and Nash, it didn't need them to succeed. NWO is less a typical stable and more of a concept in wrestling. It's about causing havok, winning via scrupulous methods and being the last guys standing with a pain can in your hand by any means necessary. It could have continued on with different talent. And I know there will be the arguement that this is wheat happened when there was Booker, HBK,Nash, Show and x-pac going round but the reason it failed is because they weren't acting like the NWO would have acted.

They just cruised around not really doing much except kicking out members similar to what nexus is doing now, and that just makes people have a lack of faith in the stable, not fear it. It NWO was ever going to succeed in WWE, it would have needed to be the dominant thing going, that is the only way it knew how to survive. It also needs a lot of members to really draw heat for the group, and draw symapthy for the faces because the odds are stacked against them.

See that is where I see the link between themselves and nexus, guys coming in making a name for themselves, and they don't have to wrestle or abide by any set rules they just wreak havok and be the last image before the end of the show so people remember them. The difference is that NWO were already vets by the time they formed and were much cooler as a group. But theoretically they could and should have made a much bigger impact on the WWE landscape at the time, but it may have meant no evolution because when NWO is around, there is only room for NWO.

For me, underused.

 

[orton0384]

I would say you need to change your header as I came into this thinking it was what if the nWo was created and made and worked in the wwe.

For this 2002 proposition of course no. We all know it didn't. It couldn't. It died in the same year it came in. There really is not much to speculate on in my opinion. It failed because Hulk Hogan(blech) took his Hulkamania thing back and Nash got injured so of course it fell apart. Even the great Shawn Michaels couldn't save it.

If you reswitch this to a diff title like what I mentioned before then yes I could give two cents on that.

 

[reed214]

Big Show, Booker T, HBK joining it it appeared to be on course to be a watered down version. but with Hogans face turn it wasnt going to hold with him anymore and as Vince has showed 1,000 times, he will not back any idea that he didnt create. thank goodness Stone Cold and Scott Hall got into that fight on the airplane or it might have stuck around longer.

 

[deadtaker]

The real purpose of the NWO in WCW was an invasion angle. You had WWF guys coming in to try and take over WCW and see who was better. You already had the invasion angle happen that totally failed in WWE. The way it should have worked was not with Hogan, Nash, and Hall but with some of the bigger, younger WCW guys who hadn't yet come over to WWE.

You had Goldberg, Scott Steiner, Sting(even though he never actually came over at any point), Rey Mysterio. You sprinkle in some of the guys who made there name in WCW who came over in the original invasion angle or before like The Big Show, Booker T, Chris Jericho and Chris Benoit and you have the NWO angle in reverse. WCW guys trying to destroy WWE with Ric Flair at the helm as half owner.

Thats how I see it possibly work if they were to ever try it.

 

[Tastycles]

No. The whole point the nWo worked in WCW was because it was the only group ever in wrestling history that could ever feasibly have "taken over" the product. They looked like they were bankrolled first by the WWF, then by Ted DiBiase, and it was the sort of thing where it was an us vs them mentality. It's major reason for working though was that it hadn't been done before.

Ignoring the originality clause, it's obvious that there wasn't the genuine real world threat to the WWE in the same way that there had been to the WCW. Everything about the nWo that made it unique, then, was gone and as a result you were left with people who didn't really have any believable purpose. It never would have worked, and I doubt sincerely it was done for any other reason than to sell a few t-shirts.

 

[King Patrick Star]

I think the New World Order in World Wrestling Entertainment would have worked if Vince had the patients to let it work. Here’s how I would have done it.

1. Keep Hulk Hogan Heel. Regardless of the reaction the “Hulkster” was getting at WM X8, Vince should have stayed the course, and milk the Cash Cow for what it should have been worth. Vince should have kept “Hollywood” going until the PPV before WM XX. That one month, from No Way Out to WM XX, would have been the greatest return in history…at Madison Square Garden…against Vince McMahon…in Red and Yellow!!

2. Right after Eric Bischoff becomes Raw’s General Manager…really, no one thought of this??...give Eric the New World Order. Eric could have done a lot more in his tenure in the WWE.

3. With the inaugural WWE Raw / Smackdown Draft, move Hollywood, Big Show, Booker T., Goldust (maybe once in a while revert to “Dustin Rhodes” the same way Mick Foley switched between his 4 Faces), Big Poppa Pump, and the Nature Boy over to Smackdown. This gives Hogan “his” New World Order, without the “Wolfpac”. They can be the N. W. O. Black and Red…and Yellow, or N. W. O. Hollywood.

4. This keeps HBK, Big Daddy Cool, the Bad Guy, and the 1-2-3-6-X-Pac-Kid on the Red Show. Have HBK actually deliver Triple H, and there you have it. They can be the N. W. O. Black and Green, or the New D-Generation X World Order (nDXWo), or simply the Kliq (or Clique).

5. The key is to keep both factions affiliated, especially during the “Big 4 PPVs, where they would only cross paths and help each other.

The different stories to come out of this are endless.

1. This of course would change Orton and Batista’s path, but “Evolution” could wait a year.

2. The New World Order could have feuded with the Radicalz. At this point in WWE history, it would have been worth every match. Flair could have even turned on Smackdown’s N. W. O. Hollywood and re-formed the 4 Horsemen with the Radicalz.

3. The Kliq could have feuded with the next Stars of the WWE, E & C, the Hardy’s, the Dudleys, the Brothers of Destruction, etc.

4. I would not mind replacing the Mexi-cools with the L. W. O., if done right.

5. Chris Jericho could have teased joining back and forth between any faction, even going as far as telling Eddie he wants to join the L. W. O. as “Corazón de León”.

6. Goldberg could destroy every single one of them in the Royal Rumble, but eliminated by Lesnar.

I think the N. W. O. could have gone for at least two years. Just imagine the turns. Imagine the N. W. O.’s future members and future endeavored. Mr. Perfect to Hollywood World Order. Justin Credible to the Kliq. The N. W. O. vs. Austin, Rock, Angle, Taker, and Kane. Endless!!

 

[THE SWAG]

i think it could have worked if it was given time, the pressed the panic button to fast on it, but they should have made it where it was wcw guys before the original nwo took over, ddp, steiner, and luger or something to that affect, then it could have worked with nash being the mouth peice

 

[mikesean43]

nwo would have never ever worked out in the wwe reson been is becuz at that time vince wasnt think in that way in da begin be4 hall and nash left he didnt see wcw as real com, eric on da other hand was hungry and was looking for a way to kill wwe vince wasnt ready for that. now if nwo would have never started in wcw all vince would have done just like he has be4 with other wcw talents was mess it up, and u seen wat he did to da nwo when he brought them back at no way out

 

[Hollywood Naitch]

I do not think the nWo could ever have had the same impact in the WWE in 2002 as it had in WCW back in 1996.

I was always a bit irritated by the fact Vince was supposedly willing to destroy his own company, just to prevent Ric Flair from having a share in it? This is the same Vince McMahon who had just fought tooth and nail to save his company the previous summer from the WCW/ECW Invasion. What a waste of time that was!

I loved the initial idea of the nWo invading, I just hated that Vince was part of it.

The major problem that immediately handicapped the angle was the role of Hulk Hogan. The fans just did not want to boo him. I recently rewatched WM 18 and the face reaction to Hogan is unbelievable. There was absolutely no chance that he was ever going to be booed, having been out of the company for so long. That is a major problem right there, and one that WWE tried to fix by turning Hogan face almost immediately.

So, without Hulk you are left with Hall and Nash, the other 2 nWo originals, with X-Pac (another former nWo member) added to the mix. This could still have worked, as Nash and Hall were both legitimate superstars and could certainly have made an impact. If Nash had been given the World Title and Hall was IC Champ, with X-Pac taking one of the lower card titles, or teaming up with another new member as Tag-Team Champs, then the nWo could have run the company just like Evolution did a few years later.

However, Nash was incredibly injury prone even back in 2002 and wasnt capable of working a schedule that was required of a Champion, the quality of his matches was awful, and Hall had one of his usual fuck-ups and ended up getting fired pretty quickly, while we all known Waltman's well documented problems. The members of the nWo were just not reliable enough at this point to be placed in the high-profile position needed to make the nWo seem a threat.

Additional members like Big Show, Booker T and HBK were added, but to me that made it no longer feel like the "nWo". I wanted the faction to remain full of original WCW members, anything else felt like it was being watered down, and sure enough the stable eventually failed without really accomplishing anything at all.

I would like to have seen it work, with Nash and Hall holding titles in high-profile spots in the company, with the nWo running the show. It would have been great for a 6 month storyline, but neither Hall or Nash was capable of pulling it off in 2002, Hogan was too over to play his Hollywood role, HBK in the nWo was ridiculous, Booker and Big Show didnt fit in as nWo members, X-Pac was worthless and Vince trying to ruin his own company having just saved it from the clutches of his kids just made the angle into a farce.

Rant over

 

[byrnside]

I think it all depends on how you look at it.

If you're looking at it from the perspective of the nWo concept originating in the WWE, then no, I'd have to say it wouldn't have worked. As I've said countless times, for me, the nWo being cool was because Hall and Nash were portrayed as invading WCW. As a big WWF fan, I was all about it. I tuned into WCW almost religiously to see what they would do next or how far they would take it. At the time WCW really didn't have many stars that Vince could've signed, nor did Vince have the money for it to work the other way around.

From the 2002 perspective, it could've worked better, but mainly because [as was said] Hogan's return was far too popular for it. I always thought it would've been a lot cooler for Vince to have brought Hall and Nash in to do it, then have them tease bringing in Hogan to join them and Hogan actually come in as a face to feud with Nash/Hall. But then again, we wouldn't have had the classic match from 'Mania XVIII with Hogan v. The Rock.

 

[finoj05]

nWo 2002 should have been a re-do of the WCW Invasion but with the additions of Flair, Booker T and DDP, as well as other former WCW guys like The Big Show and maybe even Jericho. They had the opportunity to re-try the failed Alliance angle but with guys who weren't in their company before 2001 but decided to do the nWo re-hash. Then they wouldn't have had to rely on Nash and Hall for the angle to continue. Eric Bischoff coming in would have completed that in mid-2002 and it would have been a full-on revenge angle. Scott Steiner, Goldberg and Rey Mysterio came in within the next year and could have been worked into both sides of the angle (Rey and Goldberg obviously would be baby faces).