Who The NWO's 3rd Man Should Have Been

[STFU Donnie]

Any time you attempt to re-write history the tendency is to let hindsight drive too many of your ideas, without acknowledging what was happening at the time. It's a fine line, but you have to try to walk it. In this case all I'm "imagining" is that Eric Bischoff is as smart as he thinks he is...With that in mind, we know some things that were happening in the Spring/Summer of 1996:

Eric Bischoff has signed Kevin Nash and Scott Hall to lucrative deals and has the idea for the NWO. He also had to find a third man for Bash at the Beach. He had broached the subject of a heel turn with Hogan 6 months earlier, acknowledging that Hulkamania was no longer working, which Hogan brushed off saying no way and with creative control, Hogan called his own shots. Bischoff then approached Sting, who reluctantly agreed. Now Bischoff's claims Hogan called him and wanted to be the 3rd man, but Kevin Sullivan claims Hogan had to be convinced and Sullivan even stayed with him the night before the show to ensure nobody got in Hulk's ear and changed his mind.

We also know from Bischoff that Hogan's deal was coming up and after Hog Wild, they would begin negotiations. Then in Denver, Hogan made it known that Vince McMahon had called him and wanted to talk. Whether this was even true, who knows. Bischoff claims in his book that he knew all along Hogan didn't have many options, but at the same time he needed Hogan. Bischoff also says it was easy to come to terms...but rather than getting Hogan's contract more in line with what he had drawn, Bischoff still gave him HUGE money...and he still had creative control.

From all of this, I deduce that Hogan knew he was running cold, then he saw Nash and Hall coming in with huge deals that would have to be justified, which meant they were going to be used in a big way, and then he saw how Nash and Hall were really good, a breath of fresh air, and a threat to him. So he calls Eric to make sure he's at Nash and Hall's side after the biggest heel turn in history with a high profile role, ensuring that when his deal expires in the fall, he will be in a strong negotiating position to receive the great terms from WCW or go to Vince and be ready to work top babyfaces Shawn Michaels, Bret Hart, and Taker as a HUGE heel with the leverage that WWE business was down.

So my first leap of faith is that "Smart" Bischoff would understand Hogan was working him and positioning himself in the strongest position possible in order to retain his current powerful and lucrative deal, which was far greater than his true worth as demonstrated by business in 1995. Now if I'm Bischoff and I see this, but I still think Hulk could be great as a heel...but I know he's a tough guy to deal with since he outright refused to turn heel only 6 months earlier (and had the creative control to do so), then I keep Hogan at home and tell him that once he's re-signed (at terms to WCW's advantage rather than Hogan), THEN his plan will be to reveal Hogan as the 4th guy and ringleader of the NWO in the fall.

I understand the risk is Vince could sign Hogan, but Eric could still manage to top any offer (the way Bischoff did it was negotiating against himself as Hogan never came to the table with anything concrete from Vince), while eliminating creative control and making sure Hogan could only go to Vince as stale, babyface, red & yellow Hogan...who Vince had already actively mocked on TV as the Huckster. It's a risk worth taking in my opinion, especially since Eric writes in his book that all Hogan ever said was how much he distrusted Vince.

So if "Smart" Bischoff holds Hulk back as the 4th man until after he re-signs, the problem of the 3rd man still exists. I love Sting, but by Eric's account he only went along reticently with the plan to become a heel and he WAS the WCW that Hall and Nash were attacking, so joining them would have made ZERO sense.

If "Smart" Bischoff has been running WCW then there was already a PERFECT 3rd man just sitting there waiting to capitalize on what was already one of the hottest acts of 1996.

The 3rd man for the NWO should have been Brian Pillman.

According to Kim Wood, his close friend and former coach, Pillman's deal was coming up at the end of 1996 and he suspected that Bischoff had no plans to use him in a significant way, so he could give him a lesser contract than he currently had. That's when Pillman came up with "The Loose Cannon". Bischoff writes in his book that he loved the idea and wanted to keep it secret so it appeared to be a shoot. That is smart. He also writes that he knew by giving Pillman his early release to keep up the appearance of a shoot, he was risking Pillman jumping to WWE, but that it was worth the risk. That is dumb.

At the start of 1996, WCW had just had their 1st profitable year and WWE's ratings and business were dropping and their panic was revealed in lawsuits against WCW and the Billionaire Ted skits, according to Bischoff. So Bischoff felt the wind was at his back and he had the budget that would allow him to poach Hall and Nash AND resign Hogan to a huge deal. With all of that in mind, he should have listened to Pillman, bought into the idea, and negotiated a new deal to run well beyond 1996 before doing anything. Let's play it all out even if it all worked according to plan. Pillman works a great angle, then they let him out of his contract, only to end up re-signing a hotter wrestler. A "Smart" Bischoff would have locked Pillman up at pre-Loose Cannon market value, with incentives if his character took off and THEN run the revolutionary angle that set him on fire.

So again I'm imagining a "Smart" Bischoff seeing a wrestler working him for a better deal and understanding how to work contracts to WCW's favor, signing Pillman through 1998, and then doing the Loose Cannon angle with Pillman and Sullivan and pretending to release him, while loaning him to ECW to keep up the facade.

Now we have to deal with Pillman's accident on April 15 1996. Again, I'm going to listen to his close friend Kim Wood. According to Wood, Pillman knew he was on a high wire after WCW's released him. If everything worked, he would cash in with either WCW or WWE or it would all blow up in his face and he would end up with nothing. Wood said Pillman felt the pressure of supporting his children and his wife's children and this pressure was with him when he had the accident, claiming to have seen the face of his ex-wife who had committed suicide.

With that in mind, if Bischoff had been smart, then on the night of April 15, Pillman's state of mind would have been that he had a solid contract, with an angle that worked perfectly and he was still a hot performer, and that in 2-3 months he would be joining Kevin Nash and Scott Hall in the invasion of WCW. I think it's reasonable to say Pillman's stress level would be manageable and maybe the accident never happens. A big maybe I know...but still conceivable.

So with a "Smart" Eric Bischoff running WCW. An under contract Pillman becomes the Loose Cannon shooting on the booker Kevin Sullivan, then is "fired" and begins working shows in ECW and keeping his name in the sheets and his 900 number, trashing WCW at every turn. Then Nash and Hall invade, promising a 3rd member. Nash, Hall, and Pillman take out Savage and Luger. Then after Hogan signs a deal without creative control and more in line with the deals given Hall and Nash, he does his big turn at Wargames after all the suspicion was on Sting. And from there, maybe WCW manages to have very close to the same 1997 and 1998...but without Hogan holding the entire company in his hands with his ability to change booking with creative control. And maybe with a "Smart" Eric Bischoff running WCW there is a chance they can keep the good times going a little bit longer.

Anyway, that's my revisionist history and I'm curious if there is agreement or if some of you think Pillman wouldn't have worked or that Hogan had to be the 3rd guy and wouldn't have worked as well as the 4th or whether the NWO might not have caught fire without Hogan's turn at Bash at the Beach, with all the trash throwing and media attention? I'm open to discussion...

 

[justtxyank]

So basically your idea is that instead of having Hogan turn heel at the hottest point in any angle's run (the early stages) and make history, what really should have happened was a midcarder who had been a heel for the past year anyway should have been revealed as the 3rd member.

I'm going to go ahead and say no. While I am on board with the idea that other names could have worked, even if not as well as Hogan, this idea might be the worst alternative suggestion I've heard. That's not to say Pillman couldn't have played a good role with the nWo, but as the big surprise 3rd man? No way.

 

[salopstick]

Hogan was the only logical choice, sting wouldn't be logical, savage wasn't big enough plus he had already been a heel for a large part of his wwf career so the turn wouldn't be that big.

No other wrestler on wcw roster could have made the third man work, the only thing bigger than hogan would have been if Eric poached HBK

Hogans turn was immense because he was the biggest face the business had seen in 20 years and was professional wrestling.

The mistake alas was the creative control which e entually ruined the angle

 

[STFU Donnie]

If there's anybody out there that knows of a truly smart site...PLEASE message me. I try to treat wrestling like a smart fan, somebody who looks at wrestling from the business and creative side. I posit an idea that only changes the timeline of history and adds a small wrinkle to extend the big payoff by two months...TWO MONTHS!!!!...while eliminating one of the single biggest causes of WCW's downfall which is Hogan's insane contract, which allowed him to book himself wherever he wanted on the show against whomever he wanted, allowed him to change the entire card if he didn't like something, and gave him a cut of every PPV and replace it with one that just made him a well compensated talent.

And the response I get is "Nope WCW should do everything as they did and go out of business less than 5 years later."

I give up...

 

[The Butcher]

If there's anybody out there that knows of a truly smart site...PLEASE message me. I try to treat wrestling like a smart fan, somebody who looks at wrestling from the business and creative side. I posit an idea that only changes the timeline of history and adds a small wrinkle to extend the big payoff by two months...TWO MONTHS!!!!...while eliminating one of the single biggest causes of WCW's downfall which is Hogan's insane contract, which allowed him to book himself wherever he wanted on the show against whomever he wanted, allowed him to change the entire card if he didn't like something, and gave him a cut of every PPV and replace it with one that just made him a well compensated talent.

And the response I get is "Nope WCW should do everything as they did and go out of business less than 5 years later."

I give up...

Don't blame us because you're chock full of bad ideas. WWE has villains aplenty, they can't, won't, and shouldn't rebuild the territories, kayfabe can't come back, and Hogan was the best option to be the nWo's third man. You find a wrestling site where a majority of the posters agree with you, stay there.

 

[TheHitMark-SirJoseOle]

I think Brian Pillman would have been a great addition to the nWo, as the third man though? I am not really sure, that whole angle was predicated on there being an Earth shattering big reveal. Pillman, I believe had already jumped to the World Wrestling Federation by this time, and that accident of his that he had in the springtime of 1996 changed his career and contributed to the end of his life a year and a half later. I do like a lot of your thinking man, I am just not sure if things would have worked out that well especially since Pillman's career had so few matches left.

Still, this is a really solid and thought provoking post.

 

[Ziiro]

Are you trolling us?

Seriously, Hogan is the only one that could have made this angle as big as it got. Hogan was a babyface from damn near day 1 of his career. A super face turning heel makes only a bigger heel. I don't care who you plucked away from WWF at the time, no one would have made a bigger splash on this than Hogan. Hogan was a hero to children and wrestling fans alike. To suggest someone else would have made better sense or take this angle to the height it reached is both ridiculous and shows how much of a mind you don't have for booking.

In all seriousness though, Hogan was brilliant in the nWo. Hollywood Hogan is arguably one of the best heels of the last 30 years. Him turning to join the group made that possible.

 

[STILLNWO4LIFE]

Luger could have possibly been a good third man, though he wasn't really big enough. I know Flair was the horseman leader then but what a sick twist that would have been.

 

[Kliq69]

There is another choice.... I can't think it would have been more shocking than Hogan's turn, but Bret Hart was a free agent during the spring/summer of 96. Had they dangled enough money to get him to jump ship (and theoretically you could still have Hogan be revealed later in the angle) and be the third man, it would have been pretty big as well. Bret dropped the belt at Mania 12 and wasn't seen again. Had his very next appearance been at Bash at the Beach in WCW, he would have been seen as another legitimate headliner immediately. It would have also given more credence to the angle being WWF guys invading WCW, Hogan could have turned during a match against them at War Games and it would have been just as big as his Bash turn.

Of course HBK would have been the best possible choice, but he was locked up long-term with no real way out of his contract, so to have involved HBK in the angle would have been nearly impossible.

 

[Owen 3:16 says I just stole your Slammy!!]

I would of stick to Hogan. Hogan was the big name in the '80's and was a WWF guy, it made perfect sense to have Hogan. But, If i had to choose somebody else not including Hogan. I would of chose Randy Savage. Savage, was also a big name and one of the top wrestlers of all time. It would of also make sense too cause he was a huge star in the WWF.

 

[Weems2k]

It's threads like these why the IWC lunkheads will never be taken seriously, and thought as smart. Are you freaking kidding me? Hogan's heel turn, and the nWo brought wrestling back in the mainstream. Everyone wanted a NWO shirt. It almost put your almighty Vince out of business. With the exception of Bret Hart, or maybe Sting, Hogan was always the right choice.

 

[davy g]

I agree , Hogan by far was the best choice. It shocked everyone & no expected it and like it or not it recharged Hogans career. My thought at the time was Curt Henning, it made sense to me because of his relationship with Scott Hall in the AWA, thats why im sure me & nobody else was shocked when Flair got the cage door slammed on his head . Ouch that still hurts + Hogan had that swagger and that Jimmy Hendrix entrance that made him Hollywood , i can still hear him cutting a promo saying something about the brotherhood or when your NWO your NWO 4Life, classic !

 

[thedon2001]

If there's anybody out there that knows of a truly smart site...PLEASE message me. I try to treat wrestling like a smart fan, somebody who looks at wrestling from the business and creative side. I posit an idea that only changes the timeline of history and adds a small wrinkle to extend the big payoff by two months...TWO MONTHS!!!!...while eliminating one of the single biggest causes of WCW's downfall which is Hogan's insane contract, which allowed him to book himself wherever he wanted on the show against whomever he wanted, allowed him to change the entire card if he didn't like something, and gave him a cut of every PPV and replace it with one that just made him a well compensated talent.

And the response I get is "Nope WCW should do everything as they did and go out of business less than 5 years later."

I give up...

if you look at things from the business side of things then you should know that Hogan's contract wasn't the problem. The problem lied with WCW's inability to create new story lines, new wrestlers, and their lack of evolving their product.

If you looked at WCW vs WWE you'll notice that WWE had an identity. They had the golden era, next generation, and the attitude era. WCW's identity was always that of "WWE wrestlers who left". WCW was built on WWE guys jumping ship. When the attitude era began to create more revenue for WWE many of the wrestlers stopped jumping over and WCW was left with what they had, which was a stale storyline without any new stars.

The wrestling business is always centered on evolving because times, fans, and circumstances change. Vince knows this better than anyone and if you compared story lines and characters developed by Vince vs that of Bishoff there's really no way Bishoff had a chance in the long run.

 

[JoeyJoeJoe]

If there's anybody out there that knows of a truly smart site...PLEASE message me. I try to treat wrestling like a smart fan, somebody who looks at wrestling from the business and creative side. I posit an idea that only changes the timeline of history and adds a small wrinkle to extend the big payoff by two months...TWO MONTHS!!!!...while eliminating one of the single biggest causes of WCW's downfall which is Hogan's insane contract, which allowed him to book himself wherever he wanted on the show against whomever he wanted, allowed him to change the entire card if he didn't like something, and gave him a cut of every PPV and replace it with one that just made him a well compensated talent.

And the response I get is "Nope WCW should do everything as they did and go out of business less than 5 years later."

I give up...

Alright dude, I've been reading your stuff for awhile now and I think you generally write good posts, but you wayyyy too sensitive for your own good.

Deal with criticism or move on.

And personally, to add gasoline to the fire, this idea is stupid. Pillman is not Hogan. You miss the point of the 3rd man.

The 3rd man was the big hook to start the angle. That was everything. That was the big payoff.

Pillman would've been EXCEPTIONALLY anti-climactic, possibly enough so to kill the angle deader than dead. I can hear it now:

"Oh look, they're bringing in Brian Pillman to play the Shawn Michaels role in the Kliq. Screw this."

But seriously, you've written good stuff, but you need to wash the sand out of your vag.

 

[HBsam31]

I get it that Hogan's big contract was not good for WCW, but I think you are underestimating how big that moment was when Hogan turned heel. If it would have been Brian Pillman after all that build we would have said "oh the third man is Brian Pillman" "What a letdown". He was a midcarder at that point, and he really hadn't started running with the "Loose Cannon" bit yet. It would not have near the impact that Hogan did. The NWO and Hogan was the reason that WCW was even on the map at that time. I understand Hogan helped put WCW out of business, but if it wasn't for that angle they never would have achieved the success that they did for anyone to even care that they went out of business. I loved WCW before the NWO, but the NWO is what brought in the viewers, and like it or not Hogan was a huge part of that. Sting would have been the only guy that could have had that kind of impact. Bret Hart would have been another. Sting didn't make sense, and Hart stayed with WWE a bit longer so Hogan had to be the third man.

 

[TheHardcoreForumLegend]

i personally think Brian Pillman would have been great in this role at that time everyone thought he was signed to the wwf so showing up at bash at the beach would have been seen as crazy in my eyes at least the fact that the loose cannon gimmick was taking off in a big way you would always have the what would Pillman do thought in the back of your head so i think it still would have been must seen tv with hogan eventually turning later in the year

 

[hardy8778]

To be honest there was other men that could've been a better guy for the third man spot but at that time Hogan couldn't of chose a better moment to turn heel as many people on here said there was Sting who could've been an ok third member and even Pillman who had the potential to be a tremendous member but not to the draw of hogan for the sole face hogan was Americas most favored wrestler whose con tract was up but Bischoff the genious convinced hogan to stay and resign and gave hogan the right away to start the demise of wcw by giving creative control on his contract trust me i am not saying the nwo wasn't a great stable but it could've been the greatest stable ever if hogan was added later and you would've had an oddball guy like bret hart show up at bash at the beach and lay out either sting or luger and replace one of them and attack savage and then have Nash Hall and Hart create the nwo because face it any great face who instantly jumped ship and turned heel at bash of the beach 1996 could've had the same effect and there is no arguing about that cause hogan says on the dvd that the only way the Nwo angle ever worked was the fact he was leader but you give that to a guy like bret hart i think he would of been even greater than hogan hell i think if they would've went the Ric Flair route even if he and bischoff hated each others guts they could've made it work but not to the effect that top faces like hogan and Sting and Hart would of done

 

[King Patrick Star]

Okay, there are others who could have played the 3rd man. The key is having someone who was World Champion. I don't think Pillman would have made as much of an impact as other WCW Stars who jumped shipped and joined the New World Order, but he would have been a great addition.

The choices I have in mind to take Hollywood's spot, without taking contracts and histoey into consideration, in no particular order, or sense of common, are:
Shawn Michaels
Bret Hart
A serious, down to Earth, gimmick free Ultimate Warrior
Undertaker without the gimmick
Ric Flair
Macho Man Randy Savage
Sid Viscous
The Giant

Anyone one of these World Champions could have made a quick impact in the storyline, but none will be as close as Hollywood.

 

[The IWC Butcher]

If there's anybody out there that knows of a truly smart site...PLEASE message me. I try to treat wrestling like a smart fan, somebody who looks at wrestling from the business and creative side. I posit an idea that only changes the timeline of history and adds a small wrinkle to extend the big payoff by two months...TWO MONTHS!!!!...while eliminating one of the single biggest causes of WCW's downfall which is Hogan's insane contract, which allowed him to book himself wherever he wanted on the show against whomever he wanted, allowed him to change the entire card if he didn't like something, and gave him a cut of every PPV and replace it with one that just made him a well compensated talent.

And the response I get is "Nope WCW should do everything as they did and go out of business less than 5 years later."

I give up...

There are some fun older wrestling fans on this site (hell I'm 33), you got tools that take it way too seriously, others just like to troll and some are really young... I simply try to enjoy the smarter fans and laugh at the ones who hate TNA ... WWE rules!!!! WWE super fans bc they re the ones getting trolled by WWE... It's a cool idea... I always thought the logical thing was have the Wolfpac become faces and Hogan become exactly what he was...I'm mean Hall & Nash were getting more pops than most of the roster while Hogan have legit heat... Pillman would have been interesting, I think Hogan just had too much control and from what I read he didn't want to work with Pillman at all bc of Sullivan's legit heat with Pillman.

HBK would have been the nail in the coffin for WWE had he joined. One move that to this day made no sense...why did the Giant join. Less than a month ago Hall, Nash interfere and Hogan bashes him with the belt... So he then joins... That was a move I didn't quite get considering the Giant left in January...

I think Hogan, Bischoff, with Hogan's buddies Saggs, Earthquake, Duggan, Vincent just total Hogan lackeys as the nWo Hollywood with Rodman... Nash and Hall realize how lame and selfish Hollywood was they break away as the Wolfpac, not WCW not with Hogan but like an Austin anti hero crew would have been gold...you could then intertwine WCW (Savage, Luger, Sting) Vs Wolfpac Vs Hogan's crew... Now if Hogan brought in Warrior to be his ally... That would have been so bad it's good... Warrior & Hogan would everything Hall& Nash were against.... Hahahahahaha

 

[STFU Donnie]

Alright dude, I've been reading your stuff for awhile now and I think you generally write good posts, but you wayyyy too sensitive for your own good.

Deal with criticism or move on.

And personally, to add gasoline to the fire, this idea is stupid. Pillman is not Hogan. You miss the point of the 3rd man.

The 3rd man was the big hook to start the angle. That was everything. That was the big payoff.

Pillman would've been EXCEPTIONALLY anti-climactic, possibly enough so to kill the angle deader than dead. I can hear it now:

"Oh look, they're bringing in Brian Pillman to play the Shawn Michaels role in the Kliq. Screw this."

But seriously, you've written good stuff, but you need to wash the sand out of your vag.

So I write something with the whole idea that Hogan's big turn still happens, but only after he signs a deal where he doesn't have creative control. Pillman is a stopgap, just something to keep the NWO going for two more months until Hogan can do the turn and have the big moment. That's it. Nothing more.

I'm assuming people understand just how many things he altered in WCW with this power. He decided who he faced, whether he wanted to be champ (Savage quit because of this), he could change segments that had nothing to do with him (remember Bret writing about needing Hogan to sign of on the segment where Goldberg speared him in Toronto), when he went on (In 2000, Kevin Sullivan was trying to rebuild the WCW belt and build Sid for a showdown with Goldberg...but Hogan changed his undercard match with Flair to a Yapapi strap match and made it the main event), and what his role was (Nash was booking 1999 to be about Goldberg running down all the heels before getting Hogan and the belt back at Starrcade...then Hogan comes back, decides to be a babyface and become champ again...because he could).

But rather than discussion or more accurately any acknowledgement of what I actually wrote, the response is as though I'm saying Hogans out and they still build up a big reveal and make it Pillman.

Fair enough, people here have no more reading comprehension than those in the comment section and this forum is just an extension of the comment section and not a place for discussion, so I'm not wasting my time anymore.

My vag is quite clean and I'm not upset, I just mistakenly believed this was a place where people were truly "smart" and informed, but judging from 90% of the responses to my posts that is clearly not the case. People here watch WWE DVDs and think they know history. That's cool...but as I said, I'm not wasting my time anymore.

Time to look for new horizons....

 

[theiceman]

The reason why the Pillman choice doesn't make sense is because the idea of the Outsiders was that they were believed to be invading WCW from WWF. So, it would make the most sense for the 3rd man to be someone who wrestling fans identify with as a "WWF guy". Up until that point, Brian Pillman was nothing more than an exceptional mid card talent and that's all that he ever was. With the momentum that Hall and Nash had coming into WCW, the Pillman reveal would have killed off the nWo before they had the chance to make any serious money.

At that time, there were only two other men on the planet that could have come close to making the splash as the 3rd man that Hogan would have. Those two men are Shawn Michaels and Bret Hart....and both were signed to WWF contracts at the time.

Not only was Hulk Hogan the face of the WWF for 10 years, he was the top babyface in the industry. Our generation had never seen a heel Hulk Hogan.....and up until that point, a heel turn was unthinkable. He was the poster boy, signing autographs, kissing babies, acting in movies, and the TOP merchandise mover(a very important factor). Hulk Hogan turning heel was like a kick in the gut to the Hulkamaniacs for the last 13 years or so...it almost made TOO MUCH SENSE for him to be the third man.

I understand your stance on trying to hypothetically avoid giving Hogan his money, but the truth is that while Hulk Hogan's ridiculous contract caused a lot of problems, Hulk Hogan in the nWo made WCW a boatload of money and instantly put WCW Nitro over Raw in the ratings. Hogan's heel turn and reveal is perhaps the most shocking moment in the history of wrestling.....and to suggest that replacing him with "Flyin" Brian Pillman would have been better for business is just ridiculous.

 

[justtxyank]

Yawn.

Way to overreact Donnie. Big time.

If your question is "Would a new contract that paid Hogan less money and cut his perks been good for WCW" then obviously the answer is yes. I didn't realize the point of your post was to validate such an obvious question for you.

Your scenario though was an elaborate rewrite of the start of the nWo angle and as everyone has responded, it would have sucked. You would have pulled the big hook out of it. Delaying it two months accomplishes nothing. Your hypo of delaying it two months just to redo a Hogan contract is just weird.

This also has one MAJOR issue and that is that you have to actually buy into the Bischoff story that he intended to bring back Pillman. Has anyone other than Pillman verified this story?

 

[JoeyJoeJoe]

My vag is quite clean and I'm not upset, I just mistakenly believed this was a place where people were truly "smart" and informed, but judging from 90% of the responses to my posts that is clearly not the case.

No, you just want people to fall over themselves agreeing with you. There were other options for dealing with Hogan and his creative control. I reject the idea that this was the sole reason for WCW's downfall; it clearly wasn't. Hogan essentially had creative control everywhere he went, including the WWF. There was no way Hogan was signing that contract without it.

This is your problem...you want everyone to play in your little sandbox of fantasy booking, and then you get PO'd when someone contradicts you.

Go start your own board, and post all day long.

 

[Kliq4Life]

I am old enough to have lived through this(35) that I can safely say in that moment NO ONE ELSE made anymore sense then Hogan. The main thing is too remember Hogan WAS "WWF"!!! That was the point with Hall and Nash they were also "WWF"!!! Those 3 were sent down by the "North" to destroy the WCW. End of story now can we all move on.

 

[Jack-Hammer]

Yeah, I'm sorry but I don't really see how anyone could have remotely been the 3rd member of the nWo and been able to generate as much buzz as Hulk Hogan. This was during the infancy days of the internet in which spoilers to upcoming feuds, angles, matches and television tapings weren't plastered all over any wrestling website at any given time. As a result, it was one of the last truly major surprises left in wrestling.

Hulk Hogan had been the bottom line top star in all of wrestling for more than a decade by this time. He was THE top face in WCW and he was seen as the ultimate good guy. Anything he'd done as a heel was long since forgotten about or overshadowed by his accomplishments from 1984 onward. As a result, the idea of Hulk Hogan turning heel and betraying WCW to the invading Hall & Nash, then joining them and ultimately leading them, was the biggest way to generate a massive payoff.

With all due respect to Brian Pillman, Pillman was NEVER, EVER and I do mean EVER anywhere close to being as much of a star as Hulk Hogan. Also, as we've seen with several other wrestlers who have died much too soon, such as Owen Hart, I think people sometimes let nostalgia convince them that Pillman was far better than he actually was. Not that he wasn't good, because he was, but we're ultimately left to wonder about what might have been. As for what was, Pillman was just never really a top guy. Being the 3rd man of the invading nWo wouldn't have changed that. By that time, both Hall & Nash were two guys who had long since established themselves as a couple of the top guys in the WWF. Hall was a 4 time IC champ, the first 4 time IC champ in history, and feuded with most of the top guys in WWF at the time. Nash also feuded with most of the top guys in the company while he was there. He was a former IC champ, tag champ and his 358 day run as WWF Champion is the fourth longest of the past quarter century. Both Hall & Nash were already much bigger stars than Pillman had ever been. Frankly, revealing Pillman as the 3rd man would have been the equivalent of them simply pulling out X-Pac. Hogan joining them rocked pro wrestling while Pillman would have been just another face turned heel.

I think that Pillman could have been a useful member of the nWo. Had he not gone to ECW, maybe he wouldn't have gotten into that accident in April '96. He reportedly fell asleep while driving, hit a tree head on, was in a coma for a week and his ankle was so completely shattered that it had to be fused together. After this, Pillman's in-ring career was pretty much over.

So yeah, I just don't see it with Pillman. Compared to guys like Hall & Nash, someone other than a major star would have been anti-climactic. Probably the only one who could have really dealt as big of a blow, kayfabe, to WCW as Hogan defecting to the nWo would have been Sting. Really even before Hogan was there and after he got there, most people still looked at Sting as the philosophical flag bearer of WCW. Sting turning his back on WCW would have generated a huge buzz. I don't think it would have been as big as Hogan's, but it would have been the only one that could have come remotely close. Guys like Sting & Hogan were two guys who were long term, proven draws while Pillman wasn't. Pillman's greatest successes in wrestling had taken place 3-5 years earlier as WCW World Light Heavyweight Champion and one half of the WCW World Tag Team Champions with Stunning Steve Austin.