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nWo: The Revolution

Weird that Bryan & Vinny were reviewing the nWo DVD on their show this morning, because I actually got bored last night and watched it on Netflix myself.  I was just as unmoved as they were, as it's pretty much a one-hour condensation of five years and still manages to feel like it overstays its welcome by 15 minutes.  Most of it is reused interviews with the exception of new talking heads from guys like Joe Hennig, Matt Striker and Cody Rhodes, and most of it is very, very kayfaby with only occasional glimpses into what was actually going on.  I was amused by Cody's tales of 11-year old Cody calling Dusty Rhodes to ask if Rey Mysterio was OK after the lawn dart incident and getting kayfabed by his own dad, but that's Dusty for ya.  Goldberg wasn't even mentioned, everything was blamed on guaranteed contracts, and Jay Leno was portrayed as the height of the promotion because MAINSTREAM.  I also found it weird that they played up the REALNESS of the angle (ironically championed by Dusty Rhodes, as he pointed out the folly of doing the same stuff over and over) but didn't even touch on Bischoff's grandstand challenge to Vince McMahon and the giant real lawsuit that resulted.  They also didn't touch on Fake Diesel and Razor.  And Vince Russo was there, denying everything as usual.  

It was an OK use of an hour, but time to bury this dead horse already.  

Comments

  1. Still think there is room for a Rise and Fall of the nWo doc in the mold of the ECW one.

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  2. Watching old episodes of WCW Monday Nitro on Classics on Demand. Particularly in that era of NWO vs WCW, I cannot believe I was able to watch that stuff and not complain about it back in the day when I was a kid. Hollywood Hogan promo, NWO beatdown, second HollyWood Hogan promo, second NWO beatdown, Eric Bischoff interview promo, Sting coming to the rescue. Every week for two years. They were lucky that social media was not in existence back in that time.

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  3. Eh, I enjoyed it well enough. It's my favorite angle ever, and I don't think this DVD did it enough justice.


    Cody was TREMENDOUS, though, in taking on the WWF people who bashed the angle without watching it in real time. If you weren't watching Nitro weekly, and you didn't attend any shows, you'll never really know how big and how important the angle was. It was absolutely electric. I'll never forget showing up to my middle school for the first day and finding that the outgoing high school seniors had spraypainted "nWo" in giant letters across the front wall of the building.

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  4. I wore my NWO shirt on my first day of high school.

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  5. It was great because you never knew if during the beatdown a new nWo member would debut or someone would jump from WWE to help WCW. Literally anything could happen at any time so if shit segments were worth watching.

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  6. I think it would be great if you could get everyone to be honest - but Nash, Hogan, and Bischoff lie their asses off every time they open their mouths about anything, so it would be hard to get a really good, honest documentary. Especially once you add in the traditional burial of Goldberg, blaming everything that went wrong on Time Warner, and perhaps Flair continuing to claim that the nWo didn't draw a dime.

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  7. Yep. This exactly. Watching it live, there was really that feel of "anything can happen" that hasn't been a part of wrestling since 2001 or so.

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  8. At it's height, Nitro brought something for everyone - intermixed with the nWo stuff you had some great cruiserweight matches, and WCW did more to introduce Lucha Libre to mainstream U.S. wrestling audiences than anything before or since. Three hours did drag however, no matter how good some of the parts where (sound familiar?).



    And at the time, it was still pretty new to have 'marquee' match-ups on free TV, even if the endings were non-finishes or screwjobs. We were still used to having a 1 or 2 hour wrestling program that featured maybe one non-jobber match,and Nitro was throwing out 'name' match-ups every week up and down the lineup.

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  9. Those guys lie, but so do the WWE guys and those with a built-in WWE bias.


    As you mentioned, Flair (depending on who's signing his paycheck) will likely continue his claim that the nWo never drew a dime and Hall and Nash had no abilities whatsoever.

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  10. "Cultstatus, this...is your life!"

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  11. It would be nice if those guys realized the only people they're working is themselves.

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  12. Nitro didn't start to get bad until the Fall of '97. After the Luger title win and then immediate job back to Hogan, they were just killing time until Starrcade and the show suffered as a result.


    You still had the great cruiserweight matches but nothing was really going on and stories weren't really advancing. Even Halloween Havoc '97 featured rematches from earlier in the year (Hogan/Piper and Savage/DDP).


    All that said, I still ate it up as a 10 year old because I wanted to see Hogan/Sting so bad and looked past nothing else happening. At the same time though, WWF was really starting to peak and getting some buzz. And WWF just kept on ascending while WCW started descending, with the first big blow at Starrcade '97, then Goldberg losing to Nash via stun-gun at Starrcade '98 and the finger poke of doom... and the rest is history.

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  13. Having listened to Hall and Nash's separate interviews with Austin Hall comes off much, much better to me. I think he's able to be more candid about himself and doesn't come across as NEARLY the mark for himself that Nash does.

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  14. The NWO remind me of when I watch some old matches (specifically light heavyweight): you're sitting there wondering what the big deal is because it ushered in a style that has continued to evolve.



    I got smartened up to wrestling about a month after the NWO broke so it was a heady time. It's amazing how many things worked to make that angle (Hogan agrees to turn heel, Hogan cuts his promos so they have to be edited, that sort of thing).

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  15. I think most wrestlers are marks for themselves (Bret and Flair, for instance), but the WWE guys constantly trying to undermine the angle is frustrating.



    I love Nash's shoots and whatnot, but yeah, he definitely tries to sugarcoat things he's done. But then again, so do Flair, HHH, Bret, Hogan and most other top-level stars.

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  16. I agree. I completely lucked into the angle. I was never a huge Hogan fan, but I had rented an old Hulkamania coliseum video and when I finished watching I decided I'd check out WCW since I knew that's where Hogan had gone after leaving the "WWF" in '93. Turns out it was literally right after Bash at the Beach '96 that I tuned in and I was blown away by the whole thing. I couldn't believe Hogan was a "bad guy"...I hadn't been smartened up yet. I was always a fan of the villains so I was instantly into this angle. I watched WCW faithfully until around mid '98 or so when Austin 3:16 really exploded and I switched back. But if it wasn't for the NWO, I never would have given WCW a chance.

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  17. And I think that's my biggest issue with WWE-issued nWo stuff: it focuses so much on the negative, and to me that shit got old a long time ago. I'm far more interested in the things that made it work -- Hogan's heel transformation, the editing of those vignettes, Hall and Nash's cool factor, making the audience second-guess everyone as to whether they'd turn, Bischoff's visionary ideas that led to the angle succeeding.


    I think many online and some in the industry have tried to perpetuate a myth that the nWo just kind of happened, and WCW did nothing good to make it happen.

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  18. It's not always the whitewashing, but he tends to treat his opinions as fact ("the wrestling business died when Benoit hugged Eddie at Wrestlemania 20 because they were both small!").

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  19. I always wondered why they never used the 4 Horsemen as the face opposition to the nWo and then Nash explained that you had to have the Dungeon of Doom and Horsemen picking at each other.

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  20. "And I think that's my biggest issue with WWE-issued nWo stuff: it focuses so much on the negative,"

    Yep, the WWE just refuses to admit that somebody came up with an angle that was hotter, fresher, and more interesting than anything they had done. So they have to focus on the crap (and to be fair, there was a fair amount of crap).

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  21. It's revisionist history and simplifying what happened. You see it all the time. You see it now with Nash ("I don't get why people bag on him" YOU WERE BAGGING ON HIM BEFORE THOSE AUSTIN INTERVIEWS!), Vince isn't a genius (Yes he is) and the transformation of the Rock into the lovechild of Ric Flair and Hulk Hogan. Did the nWo overstay it's welcome? Yeah. But so did Hulkamania and I'm willing to bet if Vince had it to do over again he wouldn't turn Austin heel.

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  22. Yep, the WWE just refuses to admit that somebody came up with an angle
    that was hotter, fresher, and more interesting than anything they had
    done. So they have to focus on the crap


    THIS. Though history is written by the winner the WWE history of the nWo seems to go: Hall & Nash show up, Hogan turns at Bash 1996, then Austin 3:16 rises in 1997/1998 and the nWo sinks under the weight of it's own ego closing in 2001.

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  23. Stranger in the AlpsSeptember 4, 2013 at 2:38 PM

    I always used to laugh when guys like Schiavone would deride the nWo fans as fat 25 year old losers who lived in their mom's basement. it was said with such snide conviction. Lo and behold, every time I saw an nWo t-shirt, it was worn by a slobbery lookin' mutant in shorts, with pasty white thighs and white tube socks...with a Ding Dong hanging out of his mouth. I'm not kidding, either. Also, as a smark, I didn't hate the angle, but I hated the nWo, because I hate slimey douchebags.

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  24. They were prominent parts of the nWo opposition at several points in times - specifically Wargames 96 and 97, and the stuff with Team Piper. I don't think Bischoff and whoever ws booking really considered any of the Horsemen, with the possible exception of Flair, to be 'main eventers'.

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  25. So they were wrestling fans?

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  26. I read Bruce Hart's book and the bullshit is astounding. He gave Davey Boy Smith his name, claimed Bret stole the Hart Foundation sunglasses and pick and black look from him and also wrote Bret's weekly newspaper column.

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  27. This is with the benefit of hindsight but I thought that the Horsemen should have become the bulwark of face opposition to the nWo, bring in Sting and Luger to join Arn and Flair, maybe bring in Benoit or the Giant when Arn has to retire.

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  28. Cocaine's a helluva drug.

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  29. You chose to live in Mississippi, you can't complain about the sights.

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  30. If Fuj doesn't change his screen name to Yurple for the occasion I'll be really disappointed.

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  31. I remember an interview a while back where Arn said if you're going to end the Horsemen, you want to do it like in War Games 97, where they get out-ganged and just demolished.

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  32. Stranger in the AlpsSeptember 4, 2013 at 2:47 PM

    Eastern Canada, actually. But the same applies.

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  33. Threadjack!

    More Chikara lunacy...

    - A few weekbut wanteds ago, Chikara wrestler Icarus posted a video asking fans to rally around the promotion and bring it back. He posted on the forum that he needed to know who had his back and on September 14 at the Philadelphia Art Museum steps at 11 AM, everyone should show their support. A link was posted for people to fill out their contact information. After a day, Icarus told people on Twitter that his account was hacked, and when clicking on the link, fans found a Condor Security logo. There are now rumors that the Chikara storyline is still ongoing and the last Director of Fun, Wink Vavvaseur and Condor are behind it. Several members of the forums began receiving phone calls from security personnel telling them to stay away from the Art Museum steps on September 14.

    So, I read about this on their forum not long ago but wanted to wait until more info came out. Is Quack out in left field with this whole thing or do you guys like the ultra interactive approach? I love Chikara, but this angle actually got in the way of me going to a show because it was canceled to push the angle. If the point of wrestling is to make money, isn't this doing the opposite and this making a fairly successful indie into a losing enterprise?

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  34. I have no idea what you just said.

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  35. You've summed it up pretty nicely there.

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  36. I always wished it had been Hogan, Hall, Nash, and Syxx for the nWo. Why DID Hogan miss that match?


    Almost 16 years later and I STILL remember the Nitro opening on the slow pan of Flair's injured face from the night before.

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  37. That's what I loved when I started watching WCW. I was so accustomed to jobber matches and squashes, so to see all of these "name" guys going at it even in short matches was exciting. Plus like you said there was a little bit of everything on Nitro. You had the big name main eventers like Hogan, Flair, Savage, Sting, the workhorses like Benoit, DDP, Anderson, and the cruisers like Mysterio, Guerrero, Malenko and so on. It was an exciting time to be a fan as the business was evolving before our eyes.

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  38. This is exactly it. The one that will always stand out to me is the appearance of Rick Rude. I was blown away.

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  39. Congrats on this momentous occasion.

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  40. Madness. Wonderful.

    Good for business? Eh, probably not.

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  41. Amsterdam_Adam_CurrySeptember 4, 2013 at 3:21 PM

    He lost me at "weekbut wanteds".

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  42. Maybe they shut it down b/c they needed the break to get finances in order? I know nothing about this situation. Just a thought.

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  43. Ah damn. Sorry guys. I'll fix that. Sometimes disqus and my phone work funny.

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  44. The thing I remember most was that Tony Schiavone was so upset by the image that he said he couldn't do the show and walked off the air, which turned the nWo face as far as I was concerned at the time.

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  45. Amsterdam_Adam_CurrySeptember 4, 2013 at 4:22 PM

    I hate trying to post here on a phone.

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  46. The Nwo implodes when Sting beats Hollywood Hogan at Starrcade' 97. Kevin Nash and Scott Hall all turn on Hulk and beat him so bad at Superbrawl VIII he leaves the company as they form the Wolfpac. Meanwhile Sting is allowed to be Champ and goes through an assortment of challengers from Bret Hart,Scott Hall,Ric Flair and Diamond Dallas Page until it's Sting who passes the torch to Bill Goldberg in the summer of 1998.


    Hulk Hogan returns in the fall and joins up with Goldberg,Sting,Savage and Hart to finish off the Wolfpac at Fall Brawl in the match beyond. Hulk then announces his retirement to run for president but he wants one more match at Starrcade and he wants it against Goldberg! Face vs Face.


    Naturally Hulk turns heel again and reforms the Elite Nwo with Nash,Hall & Luger and goes over Goldberg for the title and 1999's A+ Angle is Goldberg plowing through everyone before taking the strap back from Hogan for good and killing the Nwo forever at Bash At The Beach '99!

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  47. Well, there were all these crazy rumors that his wife had under written the company and because they were getting divorced he wanted to close the promotion so she couldn't get it. But, he flat out denied this on his podcast. No one has any real idea what's going on because all the employee were forced/asked to sign non-disclosure agreements at their final ppv.

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  48. The problem with the nWo for me was always that their matches sucked. I enjoyed the character Hollywood Hogan and his egomaniacal promos. But the wrestler Hollywood Hogan was the laziest dipshit I've ever seen. It didn't matter his opponent: Piper, Savage, Sting, Luger, Warrior..the matches always sucked.

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  49. You were doing good until the whole Elite thing...

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  50. In WWE canon, DX was far more influential than the nWo, even though the
    nWo came first and was much, much more "real" than anything WWE was
    doing at the time.

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  51. " bring in Sting and Luger to join Arn and Flair".

    Well they kind of did that with Wargames '96. It was originally announced as Horsemen vs. nWo, but Luger and Sting convinced the Horsemen to let them in instead, since they had experienced Wargames. It was a great interview segment if I remember correctly, that really got across the brutality of the match.

    " maybe bring in Benoit or the Giant when Arn has to retire."


    Well, Benoit and Mongo joined the Horsemen a month or two before the nWo formed.

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  52. Hogan wasn't in the match because the nWo side consisted of the guys who were part of the group making fun of Anderson's retirement. Behind the scenes, Hogan may have had a contract that allowed him to miss some PPVs. I know he missed a few at the start of his WCW run.

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  53. Kudos to Arn. He always seemed like a a guy who 'gets it'.

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  54. That's the best part.

    The problem is that in 1998, nobody wanted red and yellow hulk.

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  55. I can't speak for Mississippi but I lived close by in Louisiana during the nWo's hot streak until my job moved me to Michigan near the end of 1999 and during that time I had been to a few WCW shows in Baton Rouge, New Orleans and Monroe respectively and funnily enough, while I had seen more than a few losers during my stay in the bayou state, nearly all of them were rail thin drug addicts.
    Louisiana seemed to be severely lacking in fat, basement dwelling mutants but there was definitely no shortage of skinny, abandoned house dwelling junkies.

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  56. In the immortal words of Steve Guttenburg: "Anybody who can swallow two Snow Balls and a Ding Dong shouldn't have a problem with pride".

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  57. I agree but more people buy ppvs from star power, not match quality. We love great matches but casual fans just want the entertainment.

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  58. Hulk didn't return to red and yellow until mid 99.

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  59. Not in this scenario.

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  60. Holy shit im watching it again now and I want to throw a rock at my TV because of matt stryker. He and big show explaining the "cool factor" of the nwo makes me sick.

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