4 LIFE | The NWO Story (Full Faction Documentary)

there have been a lot of great Stables throughout wrestling history names like the four horsemen D-Generation X and the shield are evidence enough of this that said well all these were great and did huge things for their respective companies perhaps no other Collective has ever changed the industry as much as the one first created by Hulk Hogan Kevin Nash and Scott Hall in 1996. yes we're finally looking at the biggest of them all the one which arguably started the late 90s boom period and took WCW to previously unseen levels of success then went a long way towards killing that same company with its own lethal dose of poison just a few years later so join us today as we take a deep dive into their entire run from start to finish in for Life the NWO story of course the origins of what would become the New World Order really stretched back to mid 90s WWF as there between 1994 and 1996 five men would come together behind the scenes to form the click a group who went on to pretty much run the show in New York for a while and cause major headaches for everyone around them but given the fact that the group's numbers included Shawn Michaels diesel Razor Ramon Hunter Hearst Helmsley and the 123 kid they were able to get away with any heat they created on account of how important they were to the on-screen product at the time unfortunately though the click's reign of terror would seemingly come to an end in the spring of 1996 as at this point with WWF in poor financial State and Diesel and Razor Ramon being unhappy with their payoffs they choose to leave and instead take the offer of a big money contract from Vince McMahon's Chief Rivals world championship wrestling and that's where the other part of the NWO origin comes into play as while he was negotiating with the two soon-to-be incoming WWF Stars WCW boss Eric Bischoff would also be attending a New Japan Pro Wrestling show where he watched an invasion style angle play out when rival promotion Union of wrestling Force International attempted a hostile takeover so realizing there was something in this idea he'd take it back with him to the U.S where now realizing he had the perfect two figures with which to carry it out he'd immediately get to work on changing the North American wrestling scene forever yes it was on the May 27th episode of nitro that year when just days after wrestling his final match for WWF Razor Ramon would come out of the crowd during a match between the Mueller and Steve Dahl and immediately bringing the show to a halt then he'd enter the ring and grab a mic from there telling everyone you all know who I am but you don't know why I'm here of course the intention here was to portray the idea that Ramon was still under contract with Vince McMahon and that he'd been sent over to invade the competition something which the bad guy only added fuel to when he continued his promo by telling WCW to be ready for a war and for a big surprise he had planned in the weeks to come and just two weeks later that big surprise would prove to be diesel as on the June 10th episode of nitro he would appear too now using his real name of Kevin Nash just as Ramon had reverted to using his actual name of Scott Hall that's right with each man now using their legitimate names and showing up weekend and week out wearing street clothes usually disrupting the show in some form before being escorted out by security it only served to add to the realism of the whole thing and make many fans of the time start tuning in as they waited to see how this whole thing would play out but of course back in New York WWF would quickly try to put a stop to this win unhappy about seeing their Rivals gaining steam they'd file a lawsuit against the southern wrestling promotion claiming here that the company were using intellectual property owned by McMahon himself and the Crux of this argument would be that despite no longer calling himself Reza Ramon Scott Hall was still effectively playing the same character complete with all the same mannerisms as before ultimately though this lawsuit would go nowhere and after Hall and Nash came out on a subsequent episode of nitro and confirmed they were not working for WWF things would calm down that said by this point it didn't matter if they were real life Invaders or not because people were already sold on this storyline with it standing out from the rest of the cartoonish efforts on display on the North American scene at the time so now that he had fans hooked Eric Bischoff would take things to the next level when in the lead up to July 7's bash at the beach pay-per-view he'd book a match between The Outsiders says Hall and Nash had then started calling themselves and three of wcw's top stars in sting Lex Luger and Macho Man Randy Savage but why three we hear you ask well that was because prior to this The Outsiders had announced that they had a third man on their team who they would be introducing fans to very soon and that after they did nothing would ever be the same again sure it may have sounded like big talk and something they couldn't possibly deliver on at that time but little did fans know they were telling the truth and this would become evident when at the pay-per-view a few weeks later this mystery figure would be revealed to be none other than Hulk Hogan yes if the initial outsider's angle was a barrel of gasoline just waiting to go off the addition of the biggest baby face in wrestling history now turned heel in joining forces with them was the moment which ignited the whole thing sure some fans have been booing the hulkster for some time prior to this but once they saw him switch to the dark side it was like they suddenly remembered he'd been the man who had shaped their childhood and that they didn't want to lose him so after he delivered the leg drop hurt around the world to Randy Savage then raised the arms of his new partners in crime Hogan would be interviewed in the ring by Mean Gene okerland all while he was being showered by trash from the enraged live crowd and during this promo he would announce his reasons for turning on those very fans with him claiming that as they had been booing him previously he owed them nothing anymore then once he was done clarifying this he'd proclaimed this new stable to be the New World Order of wrestling and from then on in they'd be running the show of course in reality Hogan almost wouldn't be part of this angle at all as feeling anxious about turning heel and potentially killing his career he'd have to be talked into it by Eric Bischoff then kept away from anyone who might try to change his mind for the rest of the day after that yes in an alternative reality where the hulkster decided to remain Babyface it would have been sting who revealed himself to be the third man on this night that said had this happened it wouldn't have had nearly the same impact as aside from Hogan also being a former WWF guy who could continue on the idea that WCW was being k-fabe invaded by people from the Rival promotion his heel turn also represented something most fans thought they would never see but now that they had seen it they needed to keep tuning in so as to keep up to date on what would happen next and with the spike in interest then WCW would go mainstream overtaking WWF in the ratings and becoming profitable for the first time in their history yes as the weeks and months went on the New World Order would become the cool thing to talk about on the playground with their t-shirts regularly being seen everywhere and the idea of a second boom period for the industry starting to take shape of course given the presentation of the group though that shouldn't have come as a surprise because careful to portray them as outside Invaders they only appear in either pre-taped segments which were aired in black and white and paid for by their mysterious benefactor or during the body of the show itself when they showed up unscheduled and caused chaos for whatever match was going on at one point in fact they caused so much chaos that the police would legitimately be called and that was because during the July 19th episode of nitro in a scene which played up to the realism of the whole angle WCW cameraman would suddenly be forced to rush backstage so as to capture footage of an incident in progress around the production area and when they got there what they found was the NWO executing a hit-and-run style attack with Nash notably lawn darting Rey Mysterio into the side of the production truck all before Hollywood Hogan as he had now re-christened himself spray painted that same truck with the group's initials so with at least one fan believing this to be a real Attack then Eric Bischoff would have to deal with the cops showing up soon thereafter something he was no doubt very happy about as it meant what he was doing was working big time that said well to Bischoff and Hogan this whole thing was new ground to be mine for Holland Nash it was business as usual because while their Antics with the click had never been this dramatic over in WWF they had been accused of creating just as toxic an environment and this was why as far as they and the rest of their click buddies back in New York were concerned the whole thing was just a simple case of expansion with the NWO representing the Atlanta branch of the group all while the soon to be formed Degeneration X would hold the fort up north hell they would even go as far as to give each other shout outs on screen regularly Bridging the gaps between the companies by throwing up a two-sweet hand signal to their friends on the other side of the divide a hand signal which had first started life with the click and which would go on to become a calling card of the new world order from there but while this was happening Eric Bischoff had no such intention of making nice with Vince McMahon's company no he wanted to kill them outright and that was why seeking to build on what he'd already done and truly create the sense that the NWO were taking over WCW he'd have Hollywood Hogan win the WCW title from the giant that August Hog Wild then disrespect the belt and all it stood for when he allowed the former face of WWF to spray paint it with the group's initials and this would probably Mark the high point of the NWO because while it would continue to be successful for some time after the part where it was just three men running rough shot over the company and keeping a Stranglehold over the top title would never really be matched again that said as far as Eric Bischoff was concerned at the time three members of the group just weren't enough because the way he saw it the New World Order wasn't just a stable now it was an entire company in itself one which would soon threaten the very existence of WCW so that was why as the weeks and months went on new recruits would be added the first of which was the Million Dollar Man Ted DiBiase with him revealing himself at this point to be the secret Cafe benefactor of the group then after that further members would join up when not only did the Giants switch sides but the one two three kid another member of the click back in WWF would jump across the dividing line so as to reunite with his old buddies Holland Nash with him now re-christening himself as six yes it was really starting to feel like WCW were losing control to the outside force at this point as not only were they failing to get the upper hand in the ring but fans were starting to get behind the heel stable too and so as the whole situation continued to draw record interest from audiences both old and new and the perception began to shift that the outside Invaders were the cool ones the company would decide that something had to be done in order to stop things before they could get any worse that was why at September 15's Fall Brawl the heels and baby faces of world championship wrestling would band together to take on the NWO in a war games match but of course by the time the bell rang for this one the real story would be which side sting was on as in the weeks leading up to the bout Hogan and his gang of rebels would try to convince the world that the WCW stalwart had joined forces with the Enemy for Sting's part however he would deny this was the case and would claim that the version of him who had apparently joined the NWO was nothing more than a cheap imposter and while he would eventually be proven right in this the distrust he'd been shown by his friends would lead him to retreating from the whole situation and having nothing more to do with either side thereafter that's right this would Mark the point where sting morphed into the crow version of his character as for the next 15 months he wouldn't wrestle a single match no instead he'd spend his time perched up in the rafters of the building with a baseball bat in hand carefully watching what was going on below him and showing no signs of Allegiance either way and while that storyline was simmering the New World Order would continue their takeover when not long after The Outsiders won the WCW Tag Team titles the group recruited further members in the form of referee Nick Patrick head of security Vincent and personal valet a Hollywood Hogan Miss Elizabeth on top of this it was also around the same time that as the original Three members of the group were the only ones now being recognized as WCW employees anymore on account of them holding titles the rest of the stable would be forced to perform against each other in their own segments on the hijacked Saturday night show and while they couldn't get airtime here they'd use Ted DiBiase's riches to buy some on Nitro instead something they need as it was at this point that their Leader's old rival Roddy Piper would come into the company yes the one man who Hogan had never been able to pin would make his presence fell to the lead-up to that December star cave but while he had no allegiance to either the NWO or WCW during this interpromotional war only going after Hogan specifically someone surprising was about to pick a side because on the November 18th episode of nitro Eric Bischoff would reveal that he was leaving the sinking ship of WCW behind and was instead formally shacking up with the new world order a group he'd apparently been aligned with in secret the whole time but of course to many fans this was the point where the whole thing jumped the shark as with the outlaw group now being directly aligned with management it made the whole thing seem a bit less cool that said the moment does hold a lot of significance outside of this as it pretty much gave birth to the heel authority figure a full year and a half before Vince McMahon ever did it himself in WWF and with WCW being so far ahead of the competition at this point then Bischoff would initiate the next phase of his plan when hoping to expand the heel stable into other territories he'd form NWO Japan a branch led by masahirochono over a New Japan Pro Wrestling then after that the boss would announce the next company pay-per-view sold out as being an NWO show rather than a WCW one with this one seeing an all-heal stable-led commentary Booth referee assignment and backstage crew however as anyone who watched the show would soon learn the idea of an entire card of matches being run by the heels wouldn't really work out as it led to far too many screwy Antics by the time it was done but as far as Hogan and Co were concerned the negative reception towards this show didn't mean anything to them as they were about to bolster their ranks with another former WWF star in the form of Randy Savage yes the Macho Man Would Don the black and white here as he became another in a long line of people defecting from Team WCW that said for as big of a moment as this should have been it was somewhat overshadowed by the growing sense that the group was becoming so swollen with lesser members such as Big Bubba Rogers VK Wall Street Buff Bagwell and Scott Norton it was beginning to lose the elite feel it had during its early days with it now starting to come across as a charity case rather than a collective of the best and brightest prospects out there and perhaps recognizing things were starting to buckle under the weight of themselves then sting would take this opportunity to strike when on the March 3rd 1997 episode of nitro he'd finally repelled down from the rafters after months of inactivity with him at this point choosing a side in the war when he laid out the NWO with his baseball bat so for those wondering how the whole Invasion story would come to its conclusion it seemed like this had now been set up because sooner or later Hollywood Hogan was going to have to step in the ring with the stinger and when he did it likely wasn't going to end well for him before that would happen though the champ would continue to dodge his future Challenger for the next few months as whenever sting came down from the rafters thereafter Hogan would make sure he was nowhere to be seen but then he had problems of his own to deal with anyway as by April of that year tensions were beginning to build within the NWO when not only did Randy Savage and Eric Bischoff almost come to blows but tadibiase would quit the group after having had a change of heart regarding their actions so hoping to rally the troops once more and get them in check Hollywood Hogan would bring in basketball star Dennis Rodman as an honorary member of the group that July but that wouldn't do much to ease the growing friction between The Outsiders and the hulkster with the three rarely being seen on screen together by this point so while Hall and Nash were off doing their own thing when they got involved in a war games match with the four horsemen at Fall Brawl in September Hogan would be dealing with even more problems when he briefly lost the WCW World titled Lex Luger on the August 4th episode of nitro and sure he would win it back again five days later but from a morale point of view it was a huge blow as it showed the NWO were now beatable so understanding this was the moment for team WCW to wage their final assault then sting would issue the challenge to the hulkster soon after and with the champ being unable to duck his opponent any longer now the whole thing was booked for the main event of starrcade on December 28th but to make matters even more interesting with this one just a month prior the Montreal screwjob had taken place in WWF and as a result Bret Hart was coming into the company with all the momentum in the world so with him being booked as the special guest enforcer here it felt like now was the time for the whole angle to reach its peak with the Stinger finally winning the gold and sending the invading Force packing yes it was the peak moment in wcw's history and the night they were going to finally kill WWF once and for all with the payoff to the greatest storyline of all time at least that was the plan the reality however was much different as while staying would win the title in Star cave the victory would end up being massively overshadowed by the botched ending which saw referee Nick Patrick failed to execute the planned fast count when Hogan pinned his Challenger earlier on in about making it look like rather than the heel getting a screwy Victory which would then have to be overturned by The Hitman he'd instead won fair and square and was being screwed over himself when things were restarted how did this happen well if you believe the rumors the hulkster himself had paid off Patrick for real behind the scenes prior to the event as in his mind if he was seen to have visibly beaten sting he'd come out of the event still looking as strong as ever and while it's certainly believable that he would do such a thing given his history of politicking we hope it's not true as if it is it's a decision which instantly killed the entire payoff to the 18-month long angle because with fans feeling like Sting hadn't won things legitimately then remained a question as to who the real Champion was coming out of it so rather than start to fade away at this point as it probably should have the NWO would only strengthen with the angles that now seem to have no ending in sight continuing to truck along as by the summer Hogan would be WCW world champion again on top of that even more people would join the group with the addition of folks like Ed Leslie Scott Steiner Dusty Rhodes Rick Rood and Kurt Hennig taking things to such unmanageable levels that the New World Order would be forced to Splinter off into two distinct and separate factions NWO Hollywood led by the WCW champion and the NWO wolf pack LED by Kevin Nash yes by now WCW had fallen to the level of third tier player in the ongoing War as things increasingly became about NWO versus NWO and the internal battle for Supremacy between Hogan and Nash and with fans starting to tune out at this point as they realize there was no payoff coming anytime soon WCW would lose ground to WWF as the tides of the Monday Night War began to shift to seeing this happening there are now two options for Eric Bischoff to choose from try to shake things up with a new storyline or double down on what he'd already been doing and hope it would work out for him in the long run and unfortunately for fans he'd choose the latter with the NWO becoming so nonsensical at this point that sting himself Mr WCW would join up with the wolf pack of course that was only the on-screen woes as behind the curtain things were even worse that's right with the original Three members of the group having such strong political power they would increasingly use this to get match finishes changed at the last minute should they not feel like doing the job that night and this meant writing a cohesive show each week became next to Impossible something which Bischoff himself understood as with ratings falling fast he'd feel the pressure from Network Executives to turn things around so luckily then he had one last Ace in the Hole and that was Bill Goldberg who was Bill Goldberg in short he was a phenomenon a former football player who'd gotten involved in the wrestling industry a few years prior only to quickly get over with fans on account of his intensity in Charisma and by that point Goldberg was on a win streak which had reached an excess of 100-0 something which meant it was only a matter of time until he would be challenging for the WCW World title that was why realizing it was coming sooner or later Hogan would bite the bullet and accept the match for the July 6th episode of nitro but while he had hoped The Challengers bout with Scott Hall earlier in the night would soften him up enough for the champ to retain this would not happen as by the end of the show in front of a sold-out Georgia Dome the era of Goldberg would have begun but still this would not Mark the end of the NWO storyline because while the new Champion was taking on Kurt Henning in the second to last match at bash to the beach a few days later the main event would see Hogan overshadow him when he got involved in a celebrity bout teaming with Dennis Rodman to take on Diamond Dallas Page and Carl Malone then as if there were any doubt who the real stars of the show were a month later it rode wild it would be Hogan and Bischoff once again main Eventing against DDP and tonight's show hosts Jay Leno all well Goldberg was relegated to going on second to last against the Giant and things would continue on like this for the rest of the year with anything WCW related playing second fiddle 2 on one side Kevin Nash and Scott Halls Feud and on the other side hulkster's programs against the likes of the Ultimate Warrior following that and what turned out to be the final straw for many fans the lethal dose of poison the NWO had injected into the company with climax with Kevin Nash booking himself to end the undefeated streak of Goldberg at December 27 1998 starcade killing the company's Golden Goose in the process but at least Hollywood Hogan's announcement that he would be retiring from The Ring prior to this had left those who are still watching with some hope things could be rebuilt it's just a shame that this would all turn out to be a ruse as on the January 4th 1999 episode of nitro right at the same time as over on the other channel WWF for having the feel-good moment to end all feel-good moments when Mick Foley won the world title Hogan would seemingly come out of retirement to face off against new WCW Champion Kevin Nash only for the two two then revealed they were still in kahoots after the now Infamous finger poke of Doom which saw Nash lay down for his old friend and basically give him the title back yes two and a half years on from the point where the angle had first started and we were right back to square one again with nothing which had taken place during that time seeming to have mattered at all of course by then there were no more stories left to tell with the faction so things just limped on as 1999 continued with WCW losing more and more ground to the competition each and every week by the time we got to the spring in fact the whole thing would have pretty much fizzled out into nothing as with Hogan largely being absent from TV and Scott Hall's alcohol issue seeing him pretty much get fired there was just no spark left and to make matters worse by this point most of the air time the NWO were getting came from their B Team a jobber branch of the group which featured the likes of Vincent Stevie Ray and Scott Norton so with the TV network growing increasingly frustrated at the lack of forward momentum for WCW it wouldn't be long before Eric Bischoff was given the boot from his backstage role as head of creative and replaced with Vince Russo but that would only make matters worse as it happened because despite his new direction for the company soon putting in unceremonious end to the whole angle when all of its members began going their own way he would try to bring it back again A year later under the guise of NWO 2000 when he booked Kevin Nash and Scott Hall to bring in Jeff Jarrett and Bret Hart as their new teammates unfortunately though by that point in time nobody was interested in another NWO reunion and with the universe seeming to understand this pretty quickly after things got started a series of injuries would see it have to be aborted yes Not only would Kevin Nash break his ankle in the weeks which followed putting him out of action for the foreseeable future but Bret Hart would suffer a career-ending concussion while taking part in a match against Goldberg in January of that year too on top of this Scott Hall's continued addiction issues would see him be taken off TV entirely around this same time leaving this new incarnation of the group with nowhere to go so with all that in mind it seemed like the New World Order were truly dead once and for all and that It ultimately ended in the limpest fashion possible should it have come to its natural conclusion after starcade 1997 probably but not wanting to end what he felt was the company's biggest Cash Cow at the time Eric Bischoff would make the in retrospect poor decision to continue to milk it until long after there was nothing left but that wouldn't Mark the end of the NWO storyline forever as it happened because when WCW was bought out by WWF the group would get a second chance at redeeming themselves when in February of 2002 the original Three members Hogan Paul and Nash were brought in to inject a whole new company with a lethal dose of poison of course given how they'd abused their backstage power in their prior roles there was a lot of hesitation behind the scenes about them being brought into the fold at all here with many people believing it would do more harm than good ultimately though feeling like the positives outweighed the negatives Vince McMahon would sign them up to debut at that month no way out pay-per-view where they would interfere in the main event and cause Stone Cold Steve Austin the Undisputed World title and while this looked to be a strong start for the group things would quickly fall apart when after Scott Hall lost to Steve Austin at WrestleMania 18 Hulk Hogan would turn Babyface following his bout with the rock with him from there returning to his old red and yellow ways and abandoning the group so needing to bolster up their numbers once again The Outsiders would recruit their old friends six someone now going by the name of x-pot as he rejoined the fold then not long after that the Big Show and Ric Flair would join the stable too making it seem at least initially like things might still be able to live on for a while yet sadly though it was also around this point that Scott Hall's addiction issues would see him be fired from the company following his role in the infamous plane ride from hell and as if that wasn't bad enough not long after the company had tried to add some Main Event power to the whole thing in the form of a soon-to-be coming out of retirement Sean Michaels during a 10-man tag on an episode of Raw Kevin Nash would tear his quad muscle effectively ending his involvement in the group that was why with it now pretty much being reduced to a mid card act and a shadow of its former self Vince McMahon would decide to pull the plug on the NWO on July 15th of that year with this being the last time it would ever be featured as a full-time Act sure it would return for the odd Cameo appearance here and there in the Years following such as the time Hall and Nash appeared on an episode of Raw in August of 2014 so as to celebrate Hulk Hogan's birthday or the time all three original members came out to help sting at WrestleMania 31 but apart from that the new world order was now well and truly over with there now being nothing there except for the memories of what it once was so looking back on it then where did it all go wrong well it's easy to point to Starkey 1997 or the finger poke of Doom as two possible jump the shark moments the downfall really goes as far back as the group first aligning themselves on screen with Eric Bischoff before this though the NWO was arguably the greatest Sable in all of wrestling and one which undoubtedly had the most lasting impact were it not for them in fact there's a good chance the late 90s boom period would have never happened and who knows where the industry would be if this never came to pass on top of that in the years since the Legacy they've Left Behind has gone on to inspire other similar groups such as the bullet Club a stable which took much inspiration from Hogan Hall and Nash and used it to plant its roots in pretty much every major wrestling company around the world by this point sadly though in March of 2022 Scott Hall would tragically pass away after suffering from complications during hip surgery leaving both Hogan and Nash to carry on the legacy of the NWO and sure come the end of its run in WCW the faction may have done more to harm the company than helping what would the backstage power so many of its key members abused and the Booker's refusal to let the angle come to an end but that shouldn't take away from what the new world order did when it was at its best and that was make wrestling cool and exciting again for the first time in a long time and that's something which no matter what happened later will forever make them to sway eight well guys what did you think of the video let us know in the comments below don't forget to smash the like button subscribe to the channel as well as follow wrestle with Andy on Instagram and Twitter thanks for watching and we'll see you next time

Channel: WRESTLE WITH ANDY

Views: 615,090

Keywords: wwe, wwe documentary, wrestling documentary, wrestle with andy, wrestlewithandy, wwe bios, wrestling bio, wwe news, wrestling news, aew, nxt, raw, Kevin nash, diesel, wwf disel, wcw nwo, wrestling nwo, nwo wolfpack, Kevin Nash story, Kevin Nash Scott hall, base at the beach 96, Kevin Nash tna, the kliq, wwe the kliq, wwf kliq, diesel wwf champion, bid daddy cool, Kevin Nash wwe, NWO, WWE NWO, hulk hogan, hulk hogan nwo, the nwo, wrestling faction, wwe faction, wcw faction

Id: ToVvgk7LaoI

Length: 30min 9sec (1809 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 25 2022