If Vince gave it a proper chance, could nWo in WWF have worked?

[relentless1]

a few arguments have arisen on here as it pertains to vince and his massive ego stopping anything wcw from flourishing in his company, some think one way, others think another, i tend to think that vince did somewhat bury most of the wcw talent and why not right?

Anyways this thought has been buggin me for a bit, when nWo came in it was hogan hall nash, you had former members on the roster such as mr perfect x pac and the big show, hhh was thee, scot stiener eric bischoff and hbk were a few months away from deuting, my question is, if vince wanted to, could he have made the nWo as good if not better than wcw did? what do you think he souldve done differently to make sure the nWo became a huge storyline in WWF/E?

Personally i think the WWFs production value alone would have helped make nWo something special in WWF, i mean just look at how they improved on the entrance theme with the cut into the feed and the black and white entrance. had vince put effort into keeping it together i think nWo couldve been a year long angle, couldve made millions for him.

 

[Jack-Hammer]

By the time WCW came under the control of WWE, the bloom was definitely off the rose when it came to anything pertaining to the nWo. WCW put, mostly, all their eggs in the nWo basket and kept it going for longer than they should have. The only angles, feuds, storylines and matches that were usually treated with any degree of relevance all had something to do with the nWo being involved. Everyone else was just kind of left flapping in the breeze, that went especially in the cases of young talent.

At one point, it got to where there were all these different factions of the nWo. You know, you had the Wolfpack who wore red & black nWo t-shirts with the other nWo faction wearing the black & white stuff. It also seemed like that damn near half the roster in WCW had been part of the nWo and it was degraded from this revolutionary force in wrestling to being, ultimately, just a generic shadow of what it once was.

The nWo had most definitely lost steam by the time Vince purchased WCW. The thing about Vince McMahon is that he's often the single most villified person in the history of wrestling, at least among the IWC and disgruntled former employees. Vince had no ego issues when taking guys originally from WCW and making them legitimate stars and doing anything meaningful with them. Chris Jericho, Eddie Guerrero, Chris Benoit, Rey Mysterio and Booker T are proof that Vince intentionally burying any and all things WCW is just more internet propoganda. Those 5 guys won lots of titles in WWE, got lots of pushes and all won World Championships while on the WWE roster. Did Vince possibly miss the boat with some WCW talent? Probably so. After all, you can't just look at someone or see what they've got and just immediately say "he's money". It doesn't work like that. It never has and it never will work like that. If Vince had that level of clairvoyance, then the XFL wouldn't have failed, WWE Studios wouldn't keep putting out lousy movies and Vince would be able to pick the right guy for the right spot in his wrestling company each and every time.

 

[The Suplexer Perfecter]

Hogan would be way over and they turned him face, Hall would get fired, and Nash would get injured.

So I don't think it would matter if he gave it a "proper chance".

They were even older, and people didn't care anyway, especially by mid 2002.

 

[VinnieSunshine]

I say no. Just like Jack said, NWO had basically run its course.

Back when NWO started, it was about outsiders from another company coming in and trying to control WCW. The NWO was during a time when stars could just jump from onw company to the other. It really was a shock to see Nash and Hall walk onto WCW TV.

I think a similar faction could've worked had there been relevant talent, but with WWE owning WCW and ECW, they had all the talent at the time. If there was another company that had stars and WWE picked them up, then its possible a newer NWO-ish faction would've worked.

Im not trying to bash TNA, but even if WWE was to get a few guys from there, it still wouldn't be as powerful because I doubt the casual fan would know who they are. Die-hard WWE fans that never watched TNA wouldn't know.

Besides, back then there was no internet (it was just starting) so there were no dirtsheets to let everyone know who was jumping ship. Now, if AJ Styles or Samoa Joe were to come to WWE, fans would know ahead of time. We know that Kings of Wrestling are signed by WWE, so when they debut its not going to be as powerful.

 

[Azane]

What more did Vince need to invest into them?
He made a ground shattering promo of him "Injecting the WWF with poison"
He put them at the Main event, and Hulk Hogan actually flourished for a few years.
Hall fell through, like usual, love the guy but hate his ethics
Nash can't compete.
Heck, they had HBK join the nWo and almost Triple HHH, you came close to a DXWO, but the point wasn't selling, because the nWo was nearly a decade old at that point.

 

[CenaSux4Life78]

I think it would have worked, if creative hadn't put people who were involved with the NWO back in it. Yes HBK and Booker T were not in it before. But from what I remember, a good portion was made up of former NWO guys. If they had kept the core 3, assuming Hall didnt fuck up, and maybe added one or two fresh guys it could have worked. The fresh guys would have been people that are lower mid-card or just breaking into the upper mid-card and just needed that little extra push.

 

[RicoLen]

Hogan would be way over and they turned him face, Hall would get fired, and Nash would get injured.

So I don't think it would matter if he gave it a "proper chance".

I think that's pretty much it. The fans wanted Hulkamania, Nash got injured, and Hall lost the battle to his demons, as always. At the end of the day, despite the moronic IWC, Hulk Hogan will always be hugely over with fans in the WWE. Hulkamania Rules Brother. For that reason and that reason alone, it'd be almost impossible to have that same lineup for the nWo.

However if Hall had stayed clean, and Nash had stayed healthy (if, if, if) then they could have recruited HBK, & HHH, and we could have had a great Kliq in-feud as they split up and formed DX vs nWo with all members in both stables at some point in time or another.

I kinda think that's where they were headed with nWo in the WWF at the time too. HBK made a surprise return and joined the nWo, and HHH was hesitant to get involved with them. I would be willing to bet that HHH would have reformed DX in some way to feud with nWo.

 

[DirtyD79]

No, by then the whole nWo thing had pretty much run it's course and became oversaturated. You had nWo, nWo Hollywood, nWo Wolfpac, nWo 2000, Latino World Order, blue World order, and every pork & beans indy fed in the universe trying to do their own low rent nWo(this was before every money mark indy promoter decided to be a low rent Mr. McMahon). There was simply nothing more to say or do that hadn't been said or done with nWo by then.

 

[Krossbreed]

the timeline didnt match up by the time wcw went under nwo was no more. So from a fan perspective the reunited nwo really felt put back together for the fans amusement...nwo in wwe felt so weak and unauthentic.

nwo in wwe is as authentic as hbk as the leader of nwo...its just not the same.

What they shouldve did was have steve austin call out hulk hogan and then after a clean match they could have scott hall and nash do a run in to reform nwo but wwe doesnt want a heel hulk hogan i dont know what thats about...but they shouldve tried it.

heres a dream match for survivor series...team nwo verses team DX

Hogan, nash, hall verses hhh, x-pac and hbk

or better yet...

team nwo (hogan, nash and hall) vs team wwe (stone cold, the rock and hhh)

 

[klunderbunker]

No.

The idea of the NWO was an outside group that was invading and taking over. The key idea to the NWO and in particular Bash at the Beach 96 was that you had no idea who was going to be next. When the NWO arrived in WWE, I mentioned to a friend that Big Show and Waltman would join in about 2 months and I was right. Adding Shawn and Booker didn't mean anything because the shock value wasn't there. No one had ever seen anything like Nash and Hall invading and it was huge. In WWF, they were midcard guys while Hogan left after abotu 6 weeks. It didn't mean anything at all and the problem in short was that they caught lightning in a bottle in 96/97 and you can't do that twice.

No, it wouldn't have worked, at least not as anything more than a midcard stable for that and other less important reasons.

 

[DeathClutch]

No, nWo was WCW's mega creation like DX was WWE's. The closest WWE ever came to having a mega group with many guys scattered between the main event and low card was the corporate ministry. nWo 2011/2012 might work if given a new fresh look and direction but keeping it running with the same angle as previously then no.

I'd like to see Miz, Truth, John Laurenititus and Nash form some kind of team with a few lower-mid card guys in it.

 

[ilapierre]

There's a lot of cynical posters on here who all like to say the same thing about the NWO running it's course. I'm gonna take the opposite stance and say that anything WWE decided to do could have worked if WWE wanted to follow through with it and shove it down our throats ie John Cena era. Not only could the NWO have worked again 10 years ago but I believe it could work today. This is the exact type of wrestling climate that needs to be changed even if its by a bunch of old guys.

When the NWO began I found it interesting because you had Hogan with Nash and Hall. At the time I thought it would be amazing to see Hulkamania vs Diesel or Razor Ramon as Hogan had left WWE before these two rose the ranks. Now you had these guys all together. Hogan had joined forces with arch enemy Ted Dibiase and Virgil who backed Andre The Giant against Hogan all those years ago. Now The Giant, Andre's supposed son and very much reminiscent of him, joined the NWO. It was neat to think what the NWO could have been with Andre involved and that The Giant was a homage. Now you had them all together battling Randy Savage who had teamed with Hogan vs Andre and Dibiase. Flair, Sting, Luger were all involved and it was amazing. Wrestling past was linked with the present and made things make sense again and that's why wrestling blew up. You had the best from all these eras coming together and battling it out: old and new. And it was real, it was a war between WWE and WCW. Whether your a wanky little smark who hates the NWO or not, you have to admit that the angle brought out the best out of the best ever wrestler's careers. It defined them, it's a part of them forever and it really shouldn't be thrown in the garbage like an angle. It didn't make Hogan or Flair or Piper but it definitely defined their characters and put their careers into perspective more than anything before or after. The NWO 'taking over' felt real and was a natural progression of wrestling history. It linked the past with the present. I do believe the NWO could have worked even after Nash's injury in 2002 because it was giving us dream opportunities with The Rock, Stone Cold, Brock Lesnar around. Even John Cena was starting out around the time the NWO folded. Nash could still participate in a non wrestling role till he recovered, you had Michaels, Booker T, X Pac and Bischoff coming back. You had Triple H join RAW. Eric Bischoff was the RAW GM and he could have lead the NWO against WWE guys. RAW could be a battle to topple the NWO who could have taken over and if fans didn't like it they could tune into Smackdown and the angle could be phased out if it was that bad. It wouldn't have been though. Hulk Hogan as a face could have had epic battles fighting off the NWO. It didn't have to last forever but they could have run a program to link the past and present to build some of the WWE guys up bigger. I feel like WWE has run bad business ever since taking over WCW and didn't transition eras very well. Right now in 2011 i feel like they're figuring out where they went wrong. I really feel like an angle with the old clique against each other and then perhaps together against Vince could make some of the newer guys mean something.

I know a lot of you think the NWO would have been and still would be a step backward and it has long run its course. But I really feel that the NWO never had a proper ending. A strong NWO like group of old and new guys for one full year could help bring out the best of today's guys and bring a natural closure to the NWO angle. Tie up the loose ends of history and wrestling would mean so much more moving forward.

The NWO is a special part of wrestling history that hardcore WWE lovers/NWO haters will just never get their mind around. The NWO should be revisited while the old guys can still be part of it. DX came back for a year or so and there was closure for that angle, so why couldn't there be an NWO revival? It would spark the interest of the old fans and it would generate fan hate among the new generation more than any heel. The history of wrestling shouldn't be kept hidden in a closet. It should be embraced. The NWO is a major part of wrestling history, it's a major reason why i'm still somewhat a fan, it's a reason many of us started or continued watching. I bet more people out there watch the old NWO days on youtube than they do watch WWE's current programming. Ratings dropped from 5s to 3s and that's millions of fans who don't tune into RAW but millions watch the old youtube clips. The NWO is ultimately a part of the identities of the people who took part in the angle and revolutionized business. Nothing guys do, who were involved in the original angle, lives up to it and when these guys walk away from who their characters were just doesn't add up or make sense. It's not a natural progression, it's not good business and its not good for those who were involved. It's like switching Stone Cold heel, just doesn't make sense and is bad for business. The NWO was suppose to be 4 life and it should never have been scrapped or tossed aside like some two month angle like the West Texas Rednecks or the Spirit Squad. It should have run its course by having an angle that gave it full closure. That should have happened in 2002 and I hope something happens in the next few months to right that wrong before these old guys are really way too old to make it work.

 

[ChiefAlot]

OK. ill go in another direction. If i missed a post that said this my bad. i pretty much skimmed threw them.

Now in my view I saw NWO work because it seemed like an invasion. If Vince would have jumped on that shipped a few weekes before wcw did then I bet he would have blown them out of the water. It made it seem that wwe was taking over wcw. Then it got found out and lawsuits were filed and the shirad was over. But it did its job. Now I agree that wcw ran it into the ground but maybe it would have been diff with Vince controlling the strings. Just my thougt on it.

 

[Krossbreed]

Maybe if it were a fresh new nwo...hogan nash and hall could be celebrating a win in the ring then hall and nash turn on hogan...then scott says...you werent the original 3rd man for the nwo chico it was suppose to be hhh but big vince wouldnt let him out his contract.

I think they would at that point be an edgier nwo with emphasis on "new"! It would be cool for them to beat down hogan and even beat down a returning hbk saying vince only cared about his show stopper...so we left...yea hhh is sick of u too chico! Even throw in that hhh married the bosses daugter and had stephanie giving him power in wwe...that would resemble the old nwo

 

[boozinjedi]

Vince brought it back only so he could kill it.

It should've at least been allowed to stay around long enough to have the dream match,

Hall & Nash vs. HHH & HBK,

nWo vs. DX,finally!!

 

[Peoples_Champ]

I think there was a chance of this catching fire. Slight chance, but one nonetheless. The nWo could have been an outcome of the whole Invasion angle.

After the Invasion angle, the WCW heels (Hogan, Hall, Nash) could have been nWo, the WCW faces (DDP, Booker T) could be WWFE faces and the important wild cards (Shane McMahon, Ric Flair, ECW wrestlers, William Regal, Big Show) not pledging their allegiance right away. As the wild cards began to pick sides, the evolution to the next storyline could have come with Austin's inevitable heel turn - his worked shoot promo could be about originally being a WCW wrestler and how he hated WCW and the WCW faces because they buried him. To me, this could have gone on for 12-18 months after the Invasion angle and made a ton of money.

The nWo angle would start at 2002 Royal Rumble (tease with one of the last 5 entrants having the nWo music but nobody coming out, everyone in the ring stops fighting and they stare at the entrance, even looking around to the crowd to see if anyone is invading and going so far to talk to one another for a few seconds - eventually winner HHH could eliminate someone in the ensuing chaos to keep himself looking strong). After four weeks of promos teasing the return of the stable, Hogan comes out in the last 5-10 minutes of the go-home Raw to distract Steve Austin. At the No Way Out PPV, Hogan can be backstage wishing Austin good luck, insisting he wont interfere in his title match. At the end of the match, the Outsiders do a run-in on Austin. Wrestlemania X8 should not have seen the immediate expulsion of Hogan from the stable, it should have happened a couple weeks later on TV so Hogan & Rock could team against the Outsiders at the April PPV with Hogan winning the title at King of the Ring or even Summerslam.

The nWo, on the other hand, should be a vehicle to feud with and promote lower midcarders (Hardyz, Bradshaw, Eddie Guerrero). Every couple months one person joins or leaves, and closer to big PPVs, the nWo is involved in a major angle against a main eventer. Eventually, Survivor Series 2002, I would have Ric Flair join the nWo in the ultimate swerve, setting up a major match between him and a face (Hogan? Rock? Austin?) at WM19 with the stipulation being that the nWo must disband if the face wins. Promoting the official end of the nWo for two months (January - March) would be a major selling point and the WWE could sell a ton of shirts because of it (even with McMahon hinting that nWo tshirts will no longer be for sale at WWE shows).

Whatever way it was done, there was still lots of money that could have been squeezed from the stable. If Harley Race could come back from obscurity to become a main eventer years later, so could this stable return to its past prominence.

 

[Hollywood Naitch]

I dont think Vince ever thought about making the nWo a temporary thing.

It was a very big deal seeing WCW's premier faction arrive in the WWE, especially with the returns of 3 major stars in Hogan, Hall and Nash. I would have expected Vince was going to give them a good run.

However, the benefits of Hogan going back face after overwhelming crowd support outweighed the benefits of keeping him in the nWo, Nash getting injured would have happened anyway and Vince also had no say in Scott Hall going off the rails as always. It would have happened regardless.

So, Vince didn't deliberately give the nWo little chance of success. Injuries, personal problems and the overwhelming push for Hogan to return to the red and yellow ended any chance the nWo had of succeeding. Adding X-Pac, Big Show and Booker to the faction was a decent idea, but thats just 3 already established WWE acts just wearing different shirts. The "poison" aspect of the nWo was gone after Hogan, Hall and Nash disappeared, so what was the point of continuing with the faction? None.

 

[King Patrick Star]

I think the New World Order would have worked if Booker T. and possibly Shawn Michaels didn’t join. Syxx and The Giant were “perfect” additions, and in my opinion, the missing piece was Mr. Perfect. The only WWE Superstar that was never a part of the New World Order in WCW that I would have liked to see join is DDP, Diamond Dallas Page.

Booker T. did not fit in the NWO the way Stevie Ray did. If anything Stevie Ray should have been the one to kick Booker T out.

As for the Heart Break Kid, I would have rather seen DX reform around this time instead of later and battled the NWO for a few months before leading to a Kliq reunion reminiscent of when Hollywood and Wolfpac rejoined forces to form NWO Elite.

Simply put, more time invested would have equaled better results, but with Hall and Nash issues, this would have never worked, regardless of how much Vince would have invested in it.

I would have loved to have seen Hall and Nash vs. HBK and HHH vs. Hogan and Flair in a Triple Threat TLC match at WM XIX. HAHAHAHA!!

 

[RicoLen]

OK bare with me because this IS total fantasy, I admit that right up front, but suspend your disbelief and just go with it for a moment. The question this thread asks is: "If Vince gave it a proper chance, could nWo in WWF have worked?"

Let's take this a different direction and apply this to today and totally re-imagine it and keep only the essence of what made it big. Let's try and come up with some fantastic scenario where the nWo WOULD work today, but couldn't because of a bunch of different problems. Then try and work out the problems. I bet we could come up with something that would make the nWo work today.

So to that end... Now, this certainly would never happen, at least not like this, but if it could...

What if James Storm, Robert Roode, & Jeff Jarrett were to show up in the WWE today. For this example we'll just ignore what's going on in TNA and see about fixing those problems later by using different guys on the roster, etc.

Let's start with James Storm. Let's say that The Miz & Cena are having a match on MNR and it spills outside the ring and suddenly we see Storm grab Miz and pulls him into the audience and beats the crap out of him and then leaves.

Things escalate ala Scott Hall's first few appearances only with James Storm instead, then comes Robert Roode, and they're beating the crap out of the undercard backstage during some divas match, blah blah blah. Come the next PPV they interfere in a match between HHH & Kevin Nash and take out HHH. Everyone thinks Nash is involved, they even give Nash a salute and leave him alone. Then comes the main event where Cena is facing CM Punk or some such thing, Nash comes out and takes out Cena, then Storm & Roode take on Punk, Punk kicks some ass, starts to escape through the crowd but is headed off by Jarrett, and then it's 3 on 1 while Nash continues to wail on Cena.

Next night on Raw to start the night, Cena shoots a promo and pledges to take out the trash. Later in the night we find out that Nash was just paid by Lauriniatis to take out Cena and not actually with the TNA guys. Storm, Roode, & Jarrett show up for the main event to give a promo and then fight Cena, Punk, & Orton, but before the match is over Cena turns heel and joins with Storm, Roode, & Jarrett. As a result Punk & Orton are squashed.

Ok, admittedly there's a lot of holes in that such as Jarrett will never leave TNA, Roode & Storm aren't leaving either, and a few other things. BUT If something along those lines were to happen, and Cena were to turn heel and join whoever. Would this re-imagined nWo stable get over and become a big deal?

I think in a controversial way it would be huge, with many people hating it and more liking it, and everyone tuning in every night to see what happened next.

If you wanted to make it a big stable you could easily bring in guys like Morrison, who has all the reason in the world right now to be unhappy in the WWE, as well as bringing back guys that were laid off like David Hart Smith, & Chris Masters.

Now, go ahead, poke hole in it. I know perfectly well there are a lot, but let's attack this from the perspective of what needs to be fixed to make it work, rather than "this could never work." I don't think it's true. I think nWo at the very heart of it, the essence of what made it big could work. Nexus was a very good re-imagining of the nWo imo. But I think you could do it with moderately big name "outsiders" a huge heel turn (could even be CM Punk too, doesn't have to be Cena) from a main eventer in the current WWE roster.

 

[One to Remember]

Even if hulkamania had to run wild again in 2002 they did not have to kill it off. Even though it was a rehash it was a ready made excuse to restore other groups like DX, Ministry, NOD, and at somepoint thru some means the kliq. Maybe dx and the nwo could war until a kliq member stopped them all one day and asked them what they were doing. Maybe then dx could turn on the new age outlaws and the nwo on its lesser members. The nwo needed to break away from vince though. You all need to take into account thAt atleast these guys were in their forties back then also. Hall should had been watched carefully and other core nwo members should had joined quickly. Hennig could had worked. The nwo only needed hogan in. 1996 to work..

 

[PsychoBlack]

The nWo would have no chance in WWE. Reason being is that it's arguably the greatest most well known storyline ever. Majority of people watching wrestling nowadays grew up off of the nWo. It would not be received well at all that Vince just decided to recycle a storyline so blatantly. It didn't work for WCW the million times they wanted to rehash it so i dont think WWE would be able to pull it off either.

 

[KatCoog]

I say no. Not only was the NWO pretty played out by that point, but wrestling fans were too smart by then as well.

With the right combination of wrestlers, they might have been able to survive for a little while longer as just another faction that could garner a reaction in a good angle.

What made them work in WCW was the surprise factor (I remember thinking "holy crap...that's Diesel and Razor Ramon" when Hall and Nash showed up), the viciousness in their attacks that was previously unseen in pro wrestling and the curiosity of who else might defect within WCW and from WWF. None of those things were at play when they debuted in WWE.

 

[New Hot Fed]

If booked by someone else it would have worked.

But like Goldberg, it needed the WCW environment with the WCW booking team.

I think Vince could have gotten more mileage of it if he would have not turned Hogan. So what if he was cheered in Toronto, the nWo were cheered as heels. But in the WWF/E you can't have that. Vince saw the rebirth of Hulkamania, saw $$$, reacted like a two year old and made him face again. The nWo was toast from then on. And the Hulkamania Rebirth sucked.

 

[relentless1]

so a decade ago the nWo made its return to the WWF, we all knew or assumed that they would make a huge impact there (atleast i did) we also know that the nWo was derailed due to hoagns unexpected face turn. my question is, where would the nWo have gone had hogan remained a heel?? where could it have gone when he turned face??

 

[Xumer]

In my opinion, NWO's steam was killed when HHH decided to go into business for himself instead of joining like Shawn did. They could have had a DX vs. NWO feud down the line but everyone knew from the get go that Nwo AND Dx were both based on the kliq and that's what everyone wanted to see. The kliq FINALLY united together in the same company at the same time but much like he did with punk this year, he had to get himself over above all.