Was the NWO angle the best storyline ever?

[Kris P Lettus]

I watched the NWO documentary on netflix last night and started thinking that it might just be the greatest wrestling angle in history. Two huge names, both former champions, show up on Nitro, the night after they were on a WWE PPV. Bischoff was brilliant in leading us the fans on to the fact that Vince had sent them to destroy WCW. "WCW! Where the big boys play! Well, we're not here to PLAY!"

Then, at Bash at the Beach in 96, everyone thought the Ousiders were gonna get destroyed by Luger, Sting, and Savage, but the opposite happened. Hall and Nash dominated only to have Hogan appear to a HUGE pop. Hogan marches down there, Hall and Nash clear out, and you think Hogan is gonna help his fallen brother Macho Man. BOOM oldskool legdrop right on Savages beard.

All the fallout with others joining, the awesome production of the black and white vignettes (they shot them like that to chop up Hogan's oldskool WWF style promos, to match them to Hall and Nash's freash, more shoot style promos), the simplicity of the shirts and logo, the fake gang signs, everything.

Everything about it was awesome.

So, was the NWO angle the best in prowrestling history.

I'd say yes.

[Brigstocke]

Poor Mans Nexus

[Asmo]

The best storyline ever? I can't say. Quality wise, i can think of several examples. Including Montreal Screwjob.

But it could certainly be the angle with the most positive impact. All in terms of getting an audience / making wrestling red-hot / profits?

[Seth82]

I'd say NO.

mine would be Michael Hayes slamming the cage door on Kerry's head thus leading to Von Erichs vs Freebirds.

Freebirds when they first came into WCCW were seen as friends of the Von Erich's. So them turning on Kerry and the brothers was a huge huge deal at the time.

[road doggy dogg]

In a word, yes.

[road doggy dogg]

Basically made a rich man's TNA watchable, which is pretty remarkable

[Kris P Lettus]

Yes, RDD

[CSL]

by some distance for me

[CSL]

best part of the angle:

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<iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/qD5jToxnQ80" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

[Kris P Lettus]

YES

Nash throwing Rey like a lawn dart into the side of the production trailer is forever burned into my memory.

[Heyman]

In my opinion, nWo storyline was only second to Vince/Austin.

Vince/Austin was the greatest storyline of all-time and was the lead storyline of the Attitude Era. The storyline helped spurn the highest ratings in wrestling history, while effectively shutting down the competition.

Vince/Austin also did not drag on, and they quit while they were ahead. The same cannot be said for the nWo.

[Kris P Lettus]

Austins heel promo on Jake the Snake (at king of the ring 96?) was a very important moment for prowrestling.

"You talk about yr John 3:16......well, Austin 3:16 said I just whipped yr ass!!!!1!"

[Nark Order]

Yeah. Probably. The nWo was the best and worst thing to ever happen to wrestling.

[whiteyford]

Preferred Raven/Dreamer. The nWo was great up until they let everyone in and watered it down, split it up etc.

[Innovator]

Through 1996 yes it was. In hindsight by the middle of 1997 it should have been time for WCW to start coming back and Sting/Hogan should've been the decisive end.

Only good part to come out of it after the middle of 1997 was the Wolfpac theme

[Fignuts]

I'm with Heyman on this.

NWO could have been the best ever, but there was no big payoff. It dragged on too long and got stale. Wolfpack freshened it up a bit, but we all know how that ended.

Austin/McMahon was just better executed.

[Emperor Smeat]

Yes although it did drag on for way too long.

In hindsight by the middle of 1997 it should have been time for WCW to start coming back and Sting/Hogan should've been the decisive end.
Either that or Hogan/Goldberg a year later.

[Corporate CockSnogger]

Yeah prob. Only thing from before I started watching hat I ever went back to watch. The "but whose side is he on?" line on commentary when Hogan came out was shit though.

[voncouch]

Look at the adjective!

[Hanso Amore]

I'd say NO.

mine would be Michael Hayes slamming the cage door on Kerry's head thus leading to Von Erichs vs Freebirds.

Freebirds when they first came into WCCW were seen as friends of the Von Erich's. So them turning on Kerry and the brothers was a huge huge deal at the time.

Shut the fuck up

[Corporate CockSnogger]

Actually yeah maybe Austin/Vince/Corporation might be better. Vince McMahon is the best character in wrestling history.

[Hanso Amore]

Can't blame them for dragging through 1997 when they were a ratings juggernaught and making millions. Hard to get someone to say oh well let's end this now.

Catch 22

[Rammsteinmad]

No.

"The best angle" needs to end as perfectly as it started. The NWO angle started off perfectly, and hell, as a 9-year-old mark at the time, I was soaking it all up. But it dragged on for way too long. To the point that the NWO consisted of Horace Hogan, Vincent, Scott Norton, Bryan Adams and Stevie Ray. Yay.

Probably one of the best concepts of all time, and started off perfectly, but did it end as well as it started, absolutely not.

[whiteyford]

Lets not besmirch Scott Norton, there's never a reason for that.

[CSL]

if we're going to look at things through Ebert tinted specs, absolutely it dragged on too long and so forth. Still head and shoulders the most exciting angle ever. If it had finished at Starrcade '97, Sting sinking the ship so to speak, it would be untouchable.

[CSL]

also, the fact that the WCW Invasion isn't the de-facto anwer to this is quite tragic

[SlickyTrickyDamon]

No, because it never got the faces significantly over. Everybody jobbed to the nWo left right and center. There was never a real sense of comeuppance for the heels for dare opposing WCW. Heels are supposed to be un-selfish and do whatever they can to get the faces over in the end. There was no WCW victory just the nWo fading away. Hogan wouldn't allow it so no. It was not the greatest storyline in wrestling history.

[CSL]

they did, it was the best "heels go on a rampage, hero saves the day" story I've ever seen in wrestling and took something like 15/16 months to play out. They just then decided to continue it for another however many years.

[CSL]

and lol gotta love the obligatory "blame Hogan" generalization

[SlickyTrickyDamon]

It's not generalization Starrcade 1997 was botched. Sting should have won definitively. If it ended then it would have been a great story. Everybody then could go on and join WCW back up after getting punished for trying to take over WCW. Nobody would question why the nWo isn't around anymore so it wouldn't hang over the heads of the guys in the nWo all of their career.

[CSL]

he beat him cleanly by submission in the middle of the ring. And yes, in an ideal world it would have ended there. Not so sure about the "hanging over the heads of guys" part.

[SlickyTrickyDamon]

Delusional CSL. Hogan got a clean 1-2-3 during the match. Match ruined. Ruined Bret's WCW run too because he tried to invalidate a perfectly executed 3 count and made him look like a fucking idiot.

[CSL]

lol delusional, you're an odd boy slick damo. Nick Patrick botched, it was supposed to be a quick count and he shit the bed. Then the match is restarted and Sting goes over clean. It's not the first botch in wrestling history. Awkward timing, yeah. But the crowd still ate up the intended finish the way they were supposed to. And of course it didn't ruin Bret's WCW career, that was a combination of daft booking and Bret not being arsed or really wanting to be there.

[Heisenberg]

I'm nWo 4 Lyfe so I'm gonna save you the reading and say yes.

[Innovator]

and lol gotta love the obligatory "blame Hogan" generalization

I like the "Blame Bischoff" one more. Dude burned through money like no other.

[Corndad]

Either Austin/Vince or Hogan/Andre.

[Lock Jaw]

Yes. The Sting/Hogan match is still to me felt like the "biggest conflict ever". Like the most hyped event ever. No other match before or since has come close.

The payoff of the match was pretty terrible, though. Everything up to the end of that match was glorious though.

[#1-norm-fan]

I was only NWO for like... 2 years. That catchphrase is bullshit.

[slik]

Actually yeah maybe Austin/Vince/Corporation might be better. Vince McMahon is the best character in wrestling history.

I agree with this with NWO and Bret Hart/Montreal as the second and third runner up.

[Bad News Gertner]

Hogan vs Sting was such a great build up, and it had interesting side feuds leading up to it like Hogan vs Piper and Hogan vs Luger. People shit on Luger but he was white hot in the summer of 97.

[#1-norm-fan]

I loved Lex Luger at pretty much every point in his career. Lex Express American hero era included.

[Shisen Kopf]

USA #1 Lex Luger was great. When he body slammed Yokozuna on the 4th of July that was awesome.

[#1-norm-fan]

And it led to The Patriottaker.

http://i.imgur.com/SdWfGfT.png

[Sting Fan]

The nWo did great things for DDPs career also. That time of will he join, wont he join, oh no hes the lone wolf, holy crap Sting had DDPs back helped him get some real momentum up.

If WCW had put a fullstop on it at Starcade 97 and used the guys it had built and started on the road to stardom who knows where we might be today. Instead they recycled it a million times and it was one of the killers of the WCW brand.

[road doggy dogg]

I dunno, before nWo came around would never see any bros in high school or on softball teams or at work ETC ETC ETC wearing any sort of wrestling shirt. nWo changed that. Bros everywhere rocking the nWo shirt. They made it less shameful to be a pro wrestling fan, arguably having a bigger impact on the mainstream acceptance of the "sport" than anything prior. WWE might have eventually won with the Attitude era and Austin etc, but nWo was the catalyst.

[Bobo]

It was awesome yes but as I've said before I feel the only way the storyline worked as well as it did was because of Hogan's involvement and the shock value of the ultimate good guy turning bad.

Having Hall and Nash invade as they did was great too and broke new ground but they certainly didn't bring any star power to the storyline or the kind that hogan did and yes the hogan sting buildup to Starrcade was for me apart from the Goldberg streak, one of the highest points of WCW.

However I get the feeling people like Hall and Bischoff never seemed to let go of the NWO storyline and seem to think wrestling started and ended with the NWO which was completely untrue.

Personally I think the best every storyline was Austin v McMahon.

[Bobo]

The nWo did great things for DDPs career also. That time of will he join, wont he join, oh no hes the lone wolf, holy crap Sting had DDPs back helped him get some real momentum up.

If WCW had put a fullstop on it at Starcade 97 and used the guys it had built and started on the road to stardom who knows where we might be today. Instead they recycled it a million times and it was one of the killers of the WCW brand.

The worst decision was the finger poke of doom and ending goldberg's streak. But that's what happens when you have a retard like Kevin Nash as the chief booker. Then again Goldberg was more than happy to go along with it as were the est of the creative staff so Nash shouldn't be the only one to blame there.


But I stand by what I said, NWO would never have been the success it was if it hadn't been for Hogan. Had they gone with Savage or Sting instead then it would have died an early death.

[screech]

I thought Nash didn't start booking until after Goldberg's streak ended, like two months later or something.

[CSL]

I dunno, before nWo came around would never see any bros in high school or on softball teams or at work ETC ETC ETC wearing any sort of wrestling shirt. nWo changed that. Bros everywhere rocking the nWo shirt. They made it less shameful to be a pro wrestling fan, arguably having a bigger impact on the mainstream acceptance of the "sport" than anything prior. WWE might have eventually won with the Attitude era and Austin etc, but nWo was the catalyst.

this x1000. There's no Attitude era, no "boom period" without Hogan turning heel and forming the nWo. The whole thing completely changed the face of pro wrestling.

[Blue Demon]

as people said, if it didn't drag on for too long it would've been, Austin-McMahon was probably the best.

[#1-norm-fan]

Yeah, I'd still say Austin vs McMahon was the better storyline. I wouldn't use "it changed the face of pro wrestling" as a reason the NWO storyline is the BEST. If you're using that, then Hulk vs Andre wins. There's no NWO without that.

[Hanso Amore]

Oh that's silly.

[#1-norm-fan]

lol

[CSL]

nah not using it as a reason, just restating the importance of it. The only criteria that matters at all in this thread for me is how much I enjoyed it. Also, Rock and Wrestling/Mr. T/Cyndi Lauper/MTV etc was the "boom". WWF was already well on it's way/firing on all cylinders by the time WM III rolled around, we'd have still had the nWo, Austin/McMahon, the Attitude Era. If anything, Hogan/Andre was a big, fat, gigantic slab of icing on the cake, the crowning, the "look at what we did" moment.

[Heisenberg]

http://www.wwe.com/f/styles/superstar_large/public/talent/profile/2012/09/Scott_Hall_1_full.pngFuck off chico, nWo 4 lyfe