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nWo Members

By
Scott,

How did WCW determine some of the lesser additions to the nWo?  Guys like Dibiase, Virgil/Vincent, Trayler, Leslie, Adams, Syxx, Savage, et al made sense because of the theme of former WWF guys staging a 'hostile takeover.'  Mid-card additions like Scott Norton, Konnan, Buff Bagwell, Chono/Tenzan/Muta never quite added up to me though.  Obviously WCW never had a lot of rhyme or reason to their decisions, but it seems a bit odd even by their standards, given that they never really did anything with some of those guys anyway.  Were the Norton and Konnan type additions just hook-ups to Hogan/Nash/Hall friends?

Also, do you think there is anyone on the WCW roster back then who would have benefited from being added to the nWo?  If the stable was open to anyone (not just former WWF guys), Eddie Guerrero seems to me like a guy who could have reaped the benefit of being the 'workrate guy' in the nWo.
Once you got past the first six or seven guys, it basically turned into "Who can we add this week to be shocking?"  The NJ additions were because of a licensing agreement with NJ, obviously.  And yeah, beyond that it was just guys like Horace and Konnan who were juiced in.

As for benefits from being added, is there really anyone outside of DDP who WASN'T a member at some point?  Raven, maybe?  

Comments

  1. ezuvguJanuary 12, 2013 at 9:07 PM

    Chono, Tenzan and Muta were added because NJPW was running their own version of the nWo, which was a successful angle for them in the late 90s. Norton was a major star in NJPW for a while because he got over in Japan. AJPW, which is now Muta's promotion, did an nWo reunion last year. Those weren't bad moves because of WCW's working agreement.

    Adding most of the roster to the nWo at some point or another and having multiple nWo factions feuding with each other wasn't a good idea. It has to be hard to get heat on a heel group if almost everybody has been a member at one point or another. Didn't WCW have Sting (the real one) and Bret Hart join the nWo in 1998? Adding the guys that should be the top opponents of the nWo to the nWo (obviously, Sting VS Hogan was built for a year and Bret Hart had been run out of WWF by a group that was basically nWo Connecticut) made no sense.

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  2. Matt JohnsonJanuary 12, 2013 at 9:08 PM

    Goldberg and the Horsemen were never in the nWo.

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  3. Matt JohnsonJanuary 12, 2013 at 9:08 PM

    Booker T and Jericho as well.

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  4. David Bonzai Saldana-MontgomerJanuary 12, 2013 at 9:08 PM

    "What about Raven?" indeed.

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  5. bigsexy3333January 12, 2013 at 9:11 PM

    I like redface Wolfpac Sting less than current washed up Joker Sting.

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  6. TPrincessJanuary 12, 2013 at 10:19 PM

    I think they were still fumbling with the idea of an nWo based show at some point and figured they needed mid-card talent like Buff, Norton and Rotunda to fill things out. I will always miss Stevie Ray's adventures with the nWo black and white.

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  7. Tommy_WiseauJanuary 12, 2013 at 10:22 PM

    Syxx made sense, as he was a WWF guy and was closely associated with Hall and Nash.

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  8. cultstatusJanuary 13, 2013 at 1:44 AM

    Trying to spin off the nWo into their own promotion was the dumbest idea Bischoff ever had. If the nWo was kept to Hall, Nash, Hogan, DiBiase, and Syxx, it would have lasted a lot longer.

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  9. Lee MaughanJanuary 13, 2013 at 4:38 AM

    DDP actually joined the Wolfpac once and it pissed me off so bad. At the time, I was a big DDP mark and loved the Wolfpac, and was still pre-internet. At the end of one Nitro, they offered the black and red shirt to Page and he ummed and ahhed about it for a while as the crowd was about ready to explode. And then the show went off the air! I was utterly furious, but I couldn't wait until next Friday to find out (Nitro and Raw aired head to head on a five day delay in the UK at this point).

    I spent the weekend obsessing about it, all week at school thinking about and then FINALLY Friday came and Nitro was on the air...and there wasn't a single mention of it. No clips from last week, no acceptance or refusal. Nothing. I was BEYOND furious with WCW about that. So annoyed, and I made sure to flip over and watch ECW instead out of spite (ECW aired every weeknight so at one point, we had all three major groups on TV at 11pm.)

    A couple of weeks later I read in Power Slam magazine that DDP had accepted the shirt once the cameras stopped rolling and got the expected mega pop. By the time I read that though, the angle had passed, and I didn't care any more. Well done WCW, another winner!

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  10. Lee KelsallJanuary 13, 2013 at 11:12 AM

    Am I right in thinking Booker doing the nWo in the WWF?

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  11. Lee KelsallJanuary 13, 2013 at 11:14 AM

    I don't think it was a bad idea in theory to give the rub to other guys. Buff Bagwell certainly became more of a star with an nWo shirt on than he would've been had he just turned on Riggs and gone it alone. I think it elevated a few people, and sure it dragged others down, but the last thing guys like Nash and Hogan needed in WCW was MORE protection.

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  12. Lee KelsallJanuary 13, 2013 at 11:18 AM

    The Sting thing drove me crazy. I know he was joining the Wolfpac and not Hogan, but still. To make Sting vs the nWo your promotions focus for a year and a half, and then just have him join for no good reason (was there ever an explanation beyond Everyone Else Was Doing It?) was absolutely terrible.

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  13. BeardMoneyJanuary 13, 2013 at 11:57 AM

    Is it safe to say Rotunda was the absolute jobbiest NWO member ever? The VK Wallstreet gimmick was just death for that guy. They never even played up his affiliation with Ted Dibiase, he was so far gone. Then he got kicked out and didn't even get a token face turn like Ray Trailer. Years later, not even a Varsity Club reunion could reboot his career.

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  14. ScottyflamingoJanuary 13, 2013 at 1:05 PM

    DDP should have been the fourth man instead of Dibiase. Dibiase was pointless and didn't do anything after the one night. But DDP made perfect since because he had teamed with Hall and managed Nash (or vice versa).

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  15. Dougie2876January 13, 2013 at 3:49 PM

    He didn't get kicked out.

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  16. Dougie2876January 13, 2013 at 3:50 PM

    He was way better as the holdout.

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  17. BeardMoneyJanuary 13, 2013 at 5:23 PM

    Oh that's right. WCW yanked him out by his contract. That's so much worse; like his mom coming down to the playground and telling him he can't hang out with the bad kids anymore. Then I think they tried doing an angle where he was just a pariah, but he was so far past anyone carrying about him that no angle would stick to him anymore.

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  18. ATL2013January 13, 2013 at 6:32 PM

    Dibiase made kayfabe sense as the "financier" of all the promotional stuff (vignettes, merch, n such)

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  19. ATL2013January 13, 2013 at 6:33 PM

    Eddie would have been awesome as the cruiserweight representative of the nWo. I think after the initial Invasion, Hall & Syxx could have continued on as the Outsiders tag team while Nash went on to more of a singles push in '97.

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  20. brak_attackJanuary 13, 2013 at 8:19 PM

    DiBiase actually talks about it on the new nWo DVD. He said he was supposed to be the voice and spokesperson for the group, but once the faction caught on Bischoff wanted to be a part of it and he basically took over that role, rendering DiBiase useless.

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  21. Buster AbbottJanuary 13, 2013 at 8:24 PM

    I didn't mind Konaan or Buff joining since Konaan's heel turn gave him an actual personality and helped the NWO's "gang" vibe, while Buff's heel turn also gave him a legit character for the first time in his career. (Plus, it seemed like Buff was on the rise as a future homegrown star, so him turning on Riggs was like a very poor man's version of Michaels tossing Jannetty through the window.)

    I didn't even mind Norton joining up, since he was muscle and served as Buff's backup. What did water everything down, of course, were guys like Wallstreet, Big Bubba, Vincent and other guys who had been little more than jobs guys in WCW for much of the previous two years.

    Giant's turn didn't make much sense especially given that he re-turned just a few months later. Savage's turn made zero sense.

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  22. Mar SoloJanuary 14, 2013 at 12:15 AM

    He did, which was hilarious in the sense that Ric Flair made him a member of the nWo despite having no affiliation with the group, and not Nash.

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