-Alright. Let's do a little sound check.0
Just can you tell us who you are
And what your relation is to this particular story?
-My name is eric aaron -- a-a-r-o-n -- bischoff.
Date of birth, 5/27/1955.
And I'm here to talk about the nwo because...
[bleep] I created it.
♪♪
-You are the...
-♪ driving in the fast lane ♪
-In many ways, the nwo was kind of a proof of concept
For the entertainment business that you can put the villain,
The bad guy, in the protagonist role.
-You're never gonna see another bad guy like me, chico.
-Starting in the '90s, it was a brand-new feeling
Where the regular, boring, good-guy hero
From the '80s was no longer compelling.
-♪ it feels right ♪
-These guys are disgusting.
Oh, no! Oh!
-People like bad guys.
-They are spray-painting him!
♪♪
-Here's the nwo!
-Ready or not, here we come!
-Shows like "sopranos",
Shows like "breaking bad," shows like "the wire,"
Where the featured protagonists in these shows are bad people,
And that's how the nwo was.
But they were the ones being cheered.
-All of a sudden, it was kind of liberating for the fans
Who had been toeing the line
To all of a sudden cheer for the bad guy.
-Let's get right in.
-Alright, we have seen the end of hulkamania.
-One of the reasons that people...
Find something interesting... Sometimes attractive...
In a good villain is they see themselves.
-I'm the man!
I am god!
-♪ driving in the fast lane ♪
♪ foot down, accelerate ♪
♪ it feels right ♪
[ birds chirping ]
-I think professional wrestling, like anything else,
You watch it, you enjoy it,
Becomes a part of your regular viewing habits
And maybe even a part of your life.
Yes, it's physical.
It's dynamic.
It's risky.
But more than all that, it's psychology.
It's storytelling.
It's like any other form of entertainment.
When a story is really good,
When the psychology behind a story is good...
It seems like real life.
♪♪
It is funny, like any other form of storytelling,
It really always comes down to a good guy and a bad guy.
Historically, most people want to be the good guy.
♪♪
But that's not what the nwo was all about.
The nwo turned that... Idea on its head.
It was a turning point in a lot of ways.
It became cool to be a bad guy.
♪♪
Welcome back to world championship wrestling.
I'm eric bischoff, and this is the wcw magazine.
I got hired in wcw as a backup announcer.
[ cheers and applause ]
Hello, everybody!
And from the studios of world championship wrestling,
This is...
Wcw was in the tank.
Wcw's ratings were dismal.
It will be sting taking on the prisoner.
The show looked horrible.
They were giving tickets away.
Obviously, we -- we have a --
We had a little bit of a technical difficulty here.
Wcw couldn't draw flies if they rolled in cow manure.
♪♪
Even when you got somewhat of a crowd,
They weren't really invested.
They were taking the tickets because they were free,
But most of them weren't
Really into any of the stories or characters.
So you can't possibly get a reaction that you can go,
"oh, well, they really liked that,
So maybe we should do more of that and less of this,"
Because you're dealing with an artificial crowd,
For the most part.
Ted turner, who, by the way, was the only fan of wcw
In turner broadcasting,
Came down to wcw and essentially said,
"here's the deal.
This is wcw's last shot."
If this company can't turn itself around
In a relatively short period of time,
Ted is gonna pull the plug.
It wasn't long after that that I was made a vice president.
I began to have more influence over creative.
As we go forward now,
We needed somebody to attract national advertisers.
We needed a bigger,
Broader appeal of a star in our company.
-♪ I am a real american ♪
♪ fight for the rights of every man ♪
-[ chanting ] we want hulk! We want hulk!
We want hulk! We want hulk!
-Hogan! Hogan! Hogan! Hogan! Hogan! Hogan! Hogan!
-Hulk hogan had left wwe.
-This is the beginning
Of a new era for world championship wrestling.
Hulk hogan, five-time world wrestling federation champ,
All of a sudden back in the professional ranks,
But this time with wcw.
-Hulk hogan transformed what professional wrestling was
In the eyes of not only the public and the viewing audience,
But advertisers and television executives,
And that's what wcw needed in 1994.
-Well, you know something, mean gene?
I told ya hulkamania was gonna run wild in the wcw, brother.
Look at all the hulkamaniacs.
Can you hear them, mean gene?
[ cheers and applause ]
The reason I went to wcw is basically,
Vince and I had a different opinion
On where my career was at.
[ waves crashing ]
I felt that my run definitely wasn't over.
It was like a fresh start.
It had a little bit of a weird feel to it.
I was so used to those big live crowds
Every Monday and Thursday, you know,
So it didn't take long, you know, to get in eric's ear
And explain to him that we really need to be competitive.
And anything less than that, and I'd have been gone.
♪♪
-Hello, everyone, and welcome to the japan supershow iii.
I'm eric bischoff.
67,000 people on hand here at the tokyo dome.
Tremendous lineup.
1993, '94, I started doing business
With a company called new japan pro-wrestling.
[ cheers and applause ]
♪♪
When I first went to japan, I saw such a contrast.
Wwe's live-event business was in the tank.
It was in the toilet.
Wcw's couldn't even find the toilet,
Whereas in japan, they were putting
60,000 or 80,000 people in the tokyo dome.
So I thought, "okay, how do I migrate some of the elements
That I saw working in japan?"
[ cheers and applause ]
I think what the japanese did so much better
Than anybody in the u.S. At that time
Was suspending disbelief.
If you can consistently do things
That make the audience forget...
That everything is scripted, that's the sweet spot.
[ cheers and applause ]
Something is going to happen
That's gonna make the audience say to themselves,
Either subconsciously or to someone watching with them...
"hey, look, I know all that stuff's scripted,
But that -- that wasn't supposed to happen."
[ reel clicking ]
[ cheers and applause in distance ]
-You people... You know who I am.
♪♪
[ footsteps approach ]
-You're never gonna see another bad guy like me, chico.
Say hello to razor ramon.
-He means business.
-I'm gonna show you...
Just how bad the bad guy can be.
I remember going to events and asking them,
"what can I do to improve my work?"
I said, "is it my microphone skills that enhancement?
Is it my ring work?"
And he said, "absolutely not.
I'm very pleased with your performance."
I said, "well, I'm curious because...
My pay has plateaued
Compared to the guys who preceded me,
And I'm wondering what I need to do to make that big money
Like these guys who went before me."
And he just kind of went, "hmm,"
And I was summoned to the office for meetings after that.
And we couldn't really come to any kind of agreement,
And I ended up getting my notice.
Nobody cares where you come from, chico.
They only care where you're going.
And like about a week later, kevin nash gave his notice.
-Two reasons -- more money and less dates.
♪♪
For three years, I had been there.
We had a no-cannabis rule.
♪♪
Scott and I weren't gonna take a piss test
If they were gonna administer one,
So we smoked on the way to the garden.
We had, like, an astro van, something horrible,
And we drove into the city.
And we knew going to turner
That we would not be back in the garden.
That was the significance of the garden.
[ cheers and applause ]
We just got lost in the emotion of it because it was over.
[ cheers and applause ]
-I felt like, "wow, chapter completed.
This chapter is done.
Now I gonna go to see wcw
To see what's waiting for me there."
-You are looking live as professional wrestling's
Hottest television program has just gotten bigger.
Welcome to wcw Monday nitro on tnt!
-I arrive in macon, georgia.
Eric bischoff picks me up at the airport.
And, you know, I've never met eric and, you know,
I'm handsomely paid by them and, you know, blah, blah, blah.
Here we go, and I'm a little skeptical.
I mean, I've just left the biggest show there is.
I was just in madison square garden the night before,
And now here we go to macon, georgia.
All due respect to the residents of macon,
But it ain't new york city.
-The program you already love is now getting bigger.
One of the things that I wanted to do
To make our show different than the wwe show --
I wanted nitro to feel gritty.
I wanted it to feel live.
Welcome back live to the first hour
Of this edition of wcw Monday nitro on tnt,
Tony schiavone and larry zbyszko,
And we are taking a look at the mauler completely maul
His opponent, steve doll.
-Well, you know, steve doll
Is trying to get the offensive going, but --
-Wait a minute. What the hell is going on here?
It's a lot easier sometimes.
You get a lot more real reaction,
Honest reaction, by surprising as many people
As you can that are on camera,
Which is why when I had scott hall
Walk down through the crowd, nobody's seen that before.
Interrupt the match in the middle of a match
On live television, nobody's ever seen that before.
I didn't even tell the two guys in the match.
They had no idea what was going on.
[ cheers and applause ]
-What's with this?
-And instead of hitting the ring
And, like, beating these guys up,
I just went right to the microphone,
Right to the hard camera, and did my interview,
And they stopped wrestling.
And it was -- it became real,
Like, "what are you doing, scott?
What are you doing?"
You people... You know who I am...
[ cheers and applause ]
...But you don't know why I'm here.
-All of that created that sense of believability
And allowed for the suspension of disbelief
That really launched the nwo.
-You want to go to war?
You want a war?
You're gonna get one.
♪♪
-Watching scott hall come into the ring,
You go, "holy crap.
This is good stuff."
You know, I caught myself, you know, watching it, like,
"oh, my god," you know, "what's he doing here?"
I went, "oh, my god. I knew he was coming, but I --
I got locked into the moment with him."
-The only reason it worked was because I'm a wwe guy.
I'm razor. I'm razor.
I was just in madison square garden the night before.
People thought vince sent me there.
I knew then that it was working.
Yo, ken doll...
[ cheers and applause ]
I had such a good time last week...
That I came back for more.
-It became clear to me
That the more I could get the audience to ask questions...
The more engaged they were.
[ cheers and applause ]
Wait a minute! Wait a minute!
-Huh? Okay.
Okay, tough guy.
I got a little -- no, I got a big surprise for you...
Next week.
-That created questions.
Who is it? Who could it possibly be?
Scott hall was a surprise. It was a shock.
The way he came down was a shock.
Now we're teasing who his big buddy was going to be.
That was designed intentionally to get the audience
To start asking questions and debate amongst themselves.
Where is it? The big surprise.
I mean, I heard a lot of talk, but where's the walk?
[ cheers and applause ]
-Even though we were heelish, we were so much cooler
Than... Everybody else on this show.
The measuring stick just changed around here, buddy.
You're looking at it.
-There was also that sentiment in the '90s,
Who wouldn't want to punch their boss in the face or, you know,
Powerbomb their boss off of a stage onto a table,
As kevin nash did to eric bischoff.
They were involved in these segments
Where they were jumping other wrestlers from behind.
They were bullying the commentary team.
They were doing all of these outside-the-ring things
To get under wcw's skin.
-Came to see the big boys! [ laughs ]
-We tossed around some ideas, and I was thinking, like,
"how about aluminum baseball bats?"
Like, right before we went out, eric said,
"do not bring the bats to the ring."
And I went..."okay."
Like, that means, "bring the bats to the ring."
-They've got baseball bats in their hand!
[ cheers and applause ]
They've got baseball bats in their hand!
-We went off the air with the charlotte cops
Coming underneath the rope and unbuttoning their holsters
And putting their hands on the firearms.
And I don't think anybody had ever seen that
In professional wrestling before.
-Ladies and gentlemen, never before have we seen
Or witnessed anything like this.
The outsiders in the ring, and they are hammering away!
-See ya, monty! Whoo!
-The first thing the nwo did and the storyline did
Was they kind of changed
The rules of engagement of pro wrestling.
The way that they drew up the storyline was to make it
Blur the lines between what was real and what was not.
-Well, many of you know that for the last several weeks,
Since may 27th, as a matter of fact,
We've had a number of...
Let's just call them interruptions on nitro.
-Hall and nash together, when they came to wcw,
They were known as the outsiders.
That was the first name that anyone gave them.
Even before they were starting to call them
By their real names, scott hall and kevin nash,
They were referred to as the outsiders,
But what they're asking for is a match.
-You want a match. You want a war.
You want it inside of the ring, you're gonna get it.
-They want a match against wcw's top stars,
And they say three.
There's only two of them at that time.
There's only hall and nash, so there was that implication
That there's going to be a surprise third member.
-You know, you tell billionaire ted
To break out the money and get anybody you can
Because the big man
And the medium-sized man and our surprise buddy
Are gonna carve them...
-From that point forward,
The evolution of that story was all about who's the third man?
-I've got to know who that third man is.
-Well -- -why can't we know it?
-We've talked about that before.
That was all intentional and by design.
However, I had no idea that it was going to have...
The impact it ultimately had had.
[ birds chirping ]
-Go get the rabbits.
Early '96, hulk has been with us for a little over a year.
Initially, there was all kinds of enthusiasm --
Ticker-tape parade at disney, a lot of media.
Got a lot of coverage in the press,
All very positive.
Wrestling fans initially were really excited,
But after about a year, kind of seemed like fans
Were just -- I don't know.
It was kind of like a "been there, done that,"
And it just got me thinking, you know,
"I wonder -- I wonder if hulk would consider...
Shifting gears and turning heel.
♪♪
-I felt a little bit of a lag, so I started disappearing,
Doing movies and different stuff,
Trying to give the fans a break from my stuff.
When eric first came to me with this, I said no.
-He looked at me and he said, "brother,
Until you walk a mile in my red and yellow boots,
You'll never really understand this character."
-I've been training and saying my prayers
And eating my vitamins, and everywhere I go, man,
The people are training in the parking lots,
Posing in the gyms.
The women are getting better shape.
-Hulk had two very young kids.
I think they were still
In grade school or junior high at the time,
And their whole lives, daddy has been this red and yellow hero
And this character that everybody loved.
And hulk hogan the character was doing
Make-a-wish appearances.
It meant a lot to hulk.
-I was concerned about a lot of the kids
Because I had so many things
Along those years being hulk hogan that,
"oh, my gosh, I grew up without a father.
If it wasn't for you, I would've never made it,"
Or, "I quit doing drugs because of you,"
Or, "my childhood was horrible, except I believed in you,"
And I was like, "oh, boy, this is gonna be tough."
-It's not like he could go back and become
That red and yellow character the very next week.
Once you make this decision, once you pull the trigger
And the bullet leaves the barrel,
You're not putting it back in for a long, long time.
-A former five-time world champion,
The six-foot, seven-inch...
As we go forward now into the bash at the beach,
Which is going to be the big reveal
Of who the third man was...
♪♪
Later on, ladies and gentlemen,
We will have this big six-man main event.
Who is the third man? We are still not sure.
You will find out by calling your cable operator
And saying you want...
I had the story pretty much laid out
Exactly the way it played out, but instead of hulk hogan,
It was originally gonna be sting.
At the time, sting was the biggest hero in wcw.
I wanted sting to turn heel.
-Ladies and gentlemen, the most popular wrestler of 1994
As voted by you, the fans, this is sting!
[ applause ]
-I make speech!
-Sting finally got comfortable with that.
Then I get a phone call one day from hulk hogan.
Hulk said, "so..."
Always curls his lips up.
"so...Who's the third man?"
-Eric was thinking about putting sting in there.
Once I saw, you know, scott show big kev
Powerbomb eric off the stage, I went, "oh, boy.
When I turn heel,
This is gonna either destroy my career
Or this is gonna be the greatest thing
That ever happened in wrestling."
-So much has been said, written, and talked about.
So many unexpected occurrences
Have happened over the past couple of weeks.
-The day comes.
Bash at the beach pay-per-view, July of '96.
I was not 100% sure
That hulk was gonna follow through.
-At 5:30, we still don't know if he was in or out.
-You know, we're doing this "who's the third man?" thing,
This big angle at the bash at the beach.
We're gonna launch the nwo.
Now we go to the ring.
Hulk is still not there,
And we still don't know if hulk agrees or not,
Because in his contract,
He has approval over what his character does.
And he's been a hero to millions his whole career.
I remember looking at bischoff, going, "what's up?"
And he goes, "well, listen, if it's not hulk,
We're gonna send sting."
All due respect to sting, it wouldn't have worked.
-Wcw picks their top three, and it's lex luger,
Sting, and the macho man.
-Three against two, the way I like it.
-I'll tell you what,
I'm still seeing that bad intentions going on.
This whole hand has not been dealt.
The hand has not been dealt, brother.
-It's just hall and nash.
There's no third person.
The commentary team is trying
To sell this as, "what's going on?
Where is this third person?
Is a third person even in the match?"
You know, "who is this third person?"
-They have said the third man is here,
But he is not in the ring.
-As the wcw team starts to get the better
A little bit of hall and nash...
Hulk hogan comes out.
[ cheers and applause ]
-Hulk hogan is here! Hulk hogan's here!
Hulk hogan is in the building!
-You're damn right, he is! -Go get 'em, hulkster!
-It was just crazy when I came out.
I wanted that natural reaction from the fans.
How could our hero stab us in the heart?
[ cheers and applause ]
-I could feel the audience.
Here comes their hero.
Everybody was certain
He was there to defend the honor of wcw,
And then the leg drop.
[ cheers and applause ]
♪♪
-What is he doing?! -Oh, my god!
Is he the third man?!
-He's the third man! -What the hell is going on here?
-He is the third man in this picture!
-Look at this! Oh, my god!
What the hell is going on?!
Oh, my god. Are you kidding me?!
[ cheers and applause ]
♪♪
-Unbelievable, brother.
-I remember scott looking at him, going,
"whatever you do, man,
Make sure the referee counts three."
And the first thing he does
Is picks up the referee and throws him out of the ring.
[ cheers and applause ]
♪♪
And scott has to do the count.
If you look back at it,
There's never a count at the match
Of, like, us actually beating them,
And that's -- I mean,
Those little details are priceless.
-See those little hulksters
With the tears rolling down their face right now?
-A career of a lifetime, right down the drain, kid.
-It was such an abrupt change of energy.
-Incredible. What a show.
-Everyone is shocked, tony.
Look at the ring.
-The most incredible scene.
Ladies -- we're -- I don't know where we're going.
-He has -- he has slept with the devil.
-I'm thinking, "oh, my gosh.
I've just completely lost this audience.
This is the worst idea in the history of ideas.
I'm gonna burn in wrestling hell for this."
-There you go. That's right.
-I never thought I'd see people
Throwing debris and hulk at hulk hogan.
-This was not supposed to happen.
[ chuckles ]
Heard that before, right? Not supposed to happen.
-Mean gene, the first thing you need to do
Is to tell these people to shut up
If you want to hear what I got to say.
[ cheers and applause ]
But when I was in the ring, they were cutting the promo
With scott and kevin, me and gene,
And they started throwing the stuff.
I felt the building rumbling.
I said, "oh, man, we might have a riot in here."
-I don't want to downplay the fact that I'm really,
Really, really relieved because I was not 100% sure
That hulk was gonna follow through,
But once he got to the building and we talked,
I knew, "okay, it's on."
I'm talking him through his interview one last time.
I'm saying, "hulk, and when you're finally done
And you said everything you're gonna say,
You grab that microphone and you say,
'and this is the new world order of professional wrestling.'"
-You can call this the new world order of wrestling, brother.
These two men right here...
-As soon as I said it, I went, "wow. That's cool.
Nwo, new world order."
[ cheers and applause ]
-I knew that if I turned into a bad guy
And I said the training, the prayers and the vitamins
And everything I did for all you kids
And the make-a-wish kids, I did it for the money,
You know, I knew it would light the people up so much,
It would reignite their interest in their hulk hogan.
I had no idea with scott and kevin
As two big lead horses with me
How the whole business would flip in an instant.
-Jimmy hart -- jimmy hart threw something in the ring.
Lex's got it. He took big bubba out.
And now... -Oh! Here we go!
-The outsiders in the ring, and they are hammering away!
-This was a sneak attack. There's hogan!
-There he is! -There's hulk hogan.
There's no yellow. There's no red.
He's wearing black.
-Now, here we are.
Hulk hogan has turned heel.
We know who the third man is.
We know they refer to themselves as the new world order...
And it was a beautiful thing.
It was spontaneous combustion of the best kind, right?
Happened in the moment.
Well, guess what didn't happen
While all those great things were happening in the moment?
We had no plan.
We got to come up with a logo.
We got to come up with merchandise.
We've got to come up with a look
And an identity for this new faction.
So we're scrambling.
We went to the disney mgm design team
Because we were there on location,
And they came to me with about 8 or 10
Different ideas for logos and graphics
And color combinations and things.
And one of them was the nwo kind of graffiti logo,
And I went, "that's the one."
[ static ]
-Alright. I'm good to go.
-I don't mind sharing the wealth...
Pillaging...
Well, I think it did take a while
For scott and kevin and I to click.
When we first started out... None of us liked each other.
Hulk hogan and the brotherhood, the outsiders.
Scott and kevin had real me in.
-I wanted to tell you -- I wanted to ask you something.
-Okay, guys.
-He was doing the,
"brother, brother. Hey, brother."
You know, "let me tell you something."
He was still doing that.
We're like, "no, man. We're not doing that."
-Ready? Go.
We don't care how you used to do it around here.
We don't care what you think works
Because, chico, look at your track record.
It ain't been working.
It's nwo.
Learn to love it.
-[ rapping ] ♪ yeah, I played the block ♪
♪ like we played it loud ♪
♪ go hard or go home, that's the model ♪
♪ and if the cops follow, strap on my seatbelt ♪
♪ open doors, get the message like an e-mail ♪
♪ you want the details? ♪
♪ I can't ♪
♪ 'til these clowns match up like ♪
♪ you ain't an og ♪
♪ you don't know me ♪
♪ yeah, you brought on like moby ♪
♪ thinking you better, you give me his name ♪
♪ you ain't got to be rihanna, baby, to feel the ring ♪
♪ got some homies in the hood ♪
♪ they'll switch it ♪
♪ call me the antidote ♪
♪ I ain't that dude, no ♪
♪ I ain't that dude, I ain't that dude ♪
♪ I ain't that dude, no ♪
♪ I ain't that dude, I ain't that dude ♪
♪ I ain't that dude, no ♪ -it's only business.
-Here's a guy that's a generation older
Than these younger guys.
I can feel the vibe, man. I can tell.
It just took us a while to, "okay, everybody's cool."
-He just basically sat down and goes,
"where are you guys getting this from?"
Like the whole, "for life."
That was one of mack 10's songs during that time.
They were robbing a burger place,
And one dude says,
"man, I've been wanting to do this for life."
And we just -- nwo for life.
Because it's nwo for life.
[ laughter ]
-Once they learned to trust me and figured out
How to mold me to fit in, because those two guys did it,
That that's where those promos came from.
-The following announcement has been paid for
By the new world order.
-And there you see the outsiders are here.
-They're in the control room now.
-Hold on. What do we got here? -What does that do? Oh!
Fade to black.
Oh! Shouldn't have bought that cheap tv.
[ both laugh ]
-Wait, they are completely hijacking this program!
We need to get security...
-In storyline, the nwo's goal was to take over.
It ended up really happening in practice...
And what I mean by that is the nwo kind of took over
Wcw shows in the sense that they were the featured acts.
-I proudly present --
Yo, here's the nwo!
-Ready or not, here we come!
-One of the advantages that I saw in doing live television
Is that you can take the viewer into the arena
And reveal things that they'd never seen before.
-These guys are disgusting.
-And because they were seeing it for the first time,
"well, this must be real,
Because I've never seen this before."
-Security trying to put a stop to this here.
Go to the back!
-One of those that stands out was at disney.
It was in '96.
We had this big scene at the end of the show
Where the nwo kind of attacked everybody backstage.
[ indistinct shouting ]
Kevin nash in particular grabbed little rey mysterio,
Picked him up, and lawn-darted him.
-Oh, no! -Laid waste to everybody,
Destroyed equipment -- chaotic scene.
[ indistinct shouting ]
-Serious injuries, maybe career-ending injuries here.
-All of a sudden, we hear sirens.
"what the hell?"
Cops are showing up.
Fire trucks are showing up.
Couple of ambulances showed up.
It's like, "what? Somebody got hurt really bad here."
And evidently, some of the people
In the local area around disney,
Mgm studios, saw what was going on live
And decided they needed to call 911.
♪♪
And that's another moment where you go,
"oh, yeah, this is working.
They're buying it."
♪♪
-Hi, I'm sean waltman.
In the original nwo, I was called syxx and syxx-pac.
-The man you're looking at right now,
He was formerly the 1-2-3 kid when he was with the wwf.
Now, we do know he was released from that organization,
No longer with them,
But what in the world is he doing here?
-Vince basically told me, "look, we'd like you to stay,
But if you stay, you're gonna have to start from scratch."
This was his exact words.
He said, "or if you can get a better deal
For you and your family
And you want to go work for that billionaire [bleep]
I'll give you a week to think about it. Let me know."
I heard nitro is the hottest show going today.
I thought I'd come check it out, you know what I mean?
-Yeah, well, you're here. -It was a hard decision,
But I knew it was the one I had to make.
I wanted to be a part of it
Because it was automatically being a part
Of the top storyline in the business.
Nwo was the catalyst that started the biggest
Boom period of pro-wrestling history.
It was the coolest thing on television.
The nwo, to me, was like a big street gang,
Just trying to take over, and by any means possible.
[ cheers and applause ]
I mean, I remember one time,
We -- they only showed it on television once
Because apparently, it was a bit too -- too much.
You know, we ran the steiner brothers off the road
And crashed their car.
-Check both w--
Proceed when clear.
-Let's see what they're about.
-I was holding the camera, filming everything,
And we kept bumping --
Like, kev was driving, and he kept bumping them.
Get them again! Get them!
[ both laugh ]
♪♪
[ tires screech ]
Oh!
Oh, man.
Oh, my goodness.
You just never knew what was gonna happen.
We ran through everyone for what seemed like forever,
To the point where all the, like, the wcw guys were like,
"what the [bleep] going on?"
Like, like, it was too much for a lot of people.
-Wearing black instead of his customary
And traditional yellow and red, presenting the wcw
Heavyweight champion of the world...Giant!
-Putting the world title on hulk hogan versus the giant
Was a super easy decision.
[ cheers and applause ]
-Hello!
-There was just this extra "'f' you" to having hulk hogan,
Who betrayed millions of people around the world, betrayed wcw,
And now hulk hogan has wcw's greatest prize.
-Hogan's got the -- he's got the --
-He laid him out!
-I can't believe this!
-One, two -- no!
[ bell dinging ]
-A new champion! A new champion!
-What do they --
Oh, that's spray paint.
Oh, my god, they're gonna spray paint --
-I cannot believe this. This is unbelievable.
-Somebody -- somebody need to go there --
-They are -- [ cheers and applause ]
-There it is, brother!
The nwo!
The nwo is the only way to go, and what you gonna do?
Thank you, brothers.
-No longer was this just a group
Causing disruption behind the scenes.
This is a group whose leader,
Hulk hogan, is now the wcw champion,
And it took things to a whole different level.
[ cheers and applause ]
-When hollywood hogan
Won the wcw title from the giant at hog wild,
If that was not an indication that this storyline
Was here to stay for a long period of time,
That was it.
You know, you're putting the title --
The number-one most important thing,
Really, in the company,
In the promotion, is the world title --
You're putting it on a guy from the nwo.
-Well, I can see that the dungeon of doom
And the four horseman are now together,
Representing world championship --
-Here comes the giant!
Look out, nwo!
-Thank god for the giant.
-Never thought we would hear it.
The giant is gonna have their lunch.
The giant is in the building.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!
[ cheers and applause ]
The giant!
[ cheers and applause ]
The giant!
No!
-If someone who represents wcw could join the nwo,
Then who couldn't join the nwo?
-Whether you like it or you don't,
It's the best thing going today.
-It showed the unpredictability of who could join the nwo,
Who could become a part of it, and that -- that deeper feeling
That was going on in the storyline
Of you just didn't know who was gonna join next.
There was almost a paranoia with fans about,
"well, if this guy is in the nwo,
Then anyone could be."
-You know what? Maybe it's time to dig in.
Maybe now, we start to fight.
As the on-camera talent, I was doing everything I could
To stop this nwo thing from happening.
It's got to stop. It is going to stop.
It's going to stop now
Because this company is not going to tolerate it --
Not at the corporate level, not at the level here that...
-In order for this to grow
And to continue to grow, we need, like, less parameters.
-Tell me something --
You piece of [bleep]
You are a -- [ cheers and applause ]
-The idea is suggested that I become...
The secret weapon of the nwo.
Now, on face value, well, that makes no sense,
But if you think about it, who better?
Who better to defect?
[ cheers and applause ]
-Now... Now that everybody realizes...
Who everybody's working for...
I mean, my god, this guy here was the foundation of the wcw.
Now he works for the nwo.
-So in the beginning, it seemed like --
Like eric was, like, the turner exec, head of wcw
Trying to fend off the nwo.
Eric was like palpatine.
-Only through me can you achieve a power greater than any jedi.
-Thought he was, like, the leader of the senate,
Ended up being the sith lord.
-You're the sith lord.
-Eric bischoff is revealed
As the the mastermind behind the nwo.
♪♪
It was a brilliant stroke because the nwo was doing
All these, you know, crazy things that, you know,
They're creating chaos backstage,
And in the ring,
They're bringing baseball bats, they're attacking people.
How are they getting away with all this stuff?
Oh, that's why they're getting away with all this stuff.
Eric bischoff, who is literally the executive producer of wcw,
Has turned and he's part of the nwo,
And he's allowing them to get away with all these things.
-And as much fun as it was, and it was very effective
From the very beginning because it was believable,
I didn't think about how it was going to impact
My day-to-day work.
Hello, everybody, and welcome.
Nwo Monday nitro is on the air.
I'm eric bischoff.
Now all of a sudden,
Without me realizing it or paying attention to it,
A lot of people in turner broadcasting are watching nitro
Because it's the number-one show on cable.
We're kind of a big deal within turner broadcasting,
But I didn't realize it. I didn't think about it...
We have some business we have to attend to here.
For those of you that weren't able to join us
On pay-per-view last night, major, major injustice.
...Until on an episode of nitro in a scene,
I fire a referee
For making a decision that I didn't approve of.
But under the circumstances, I have -- there is --
I have no other choice.
You are hereby terminated.
[ laughter ] you're fired.
-My wife and children are watching.
-I don't want to hear about your family problems.
I'm telling you, you're fired.
His name was randy anderson.
He went by pee wee.
Everybody loved pee wee anderson --
Everybody that he worked with, the audience loved him.
In real life, randy had cancer,
And somebody came up with the idea --
It was probably me -- where I fire randy,
And then a couple of weeks later,
He comes back to the ring.
Presumably now, I've had time to think about it,
Because randy has cancer.
What -- what are your kids' names?
Names -- what are their names?
This is on live television.
I'll tell you what -- kids, come on up here.
It's alright, randy.
-They're children.
-It's alright.
Kids, would you do me a favor?
And I look down at his little son,
And I said, "tell your daddy..."
Tell your daddy he's fired.
Get on with his life.
-Do it for little tiny tim.
God bless us, everyone.
-Is there anything...
-'course, the kids are crushed.
Randy looks like he's gonna break down and cry.
His wife doesn't know what to do,
And he turns around and he walks off
As the crowd is wanting to just fillet me like a fish
Because they were so angry for what I just did.
Tell you story walking.
[ indistinct shouting ]
-The next day, I come to work, get in my office,
And there's a note on my desk from my assistant,
Says, "dr. Schiller," who was my boss, harvey schiller,
"wants to speak to you immediately."
Well, that never happens.
♪♪
So evidently, what had happened is so many people
In rome, georgia, where randy was from,
Were watching that show, got so angry,
Reached out to human resources at turner broadcasting
To complain about the fact that I fired randy anderson,
Who's undergoing cancer treatment,
In front of his children and wife on national television
And I was disgrace to the community.
Human resources immediately calls harvey schiller
And is like, "what's this maniac up to?!
You can't have an executive firing people
On national television!
We're gonna get sued!"
But the executives that were watching it
Didn't realize it was wrestling.
That's how real our stuff was,
And that line between live or memorex,
As they used to say, is it real, is it not real?
It's that sweet spot, that -- it's a gray area.
Created enough of that confusion in a good way
To make people believe that what they were watching was real.
-The biggest icon in wrestling.
[ cheers and applause ]
-Over a very brief period of time now,
The entire traditional paradigm...
Of wrestling storytelling and characters
Had been turned upside down.
♪♪
Bad guys are doing cool things...
And...Getting cheered.
Whoa.
[ cheers and applause ]
Cool if you're a bad guy doing cool things,
Getting cheered, not so cool if you're a guy
Who makes his living being a good guy
And now you've got to get that audience behind you.
-Let's just stick with good, old family entertainment wrestling.
I could feel a shift happening in our business.
I relate to the people, or at least I try to.
You know, there are a lot of great wrestlers
That just have a style of -- of
Walking into the ring and -- and tunnel vision,
Thinking about their opponent and -- and nothing else.
You know, black tights, black boots.
"let's get down to business" kind of wrestlers, you know.
And me, I like to throw a little bit of color into it, obviously.
So I'm somebody that everybody can relate to, hopefully.
They wanted to see something else
A little bit more cutting edge, a little bit more hardcore.
[ cheers and applause ]
Right around that time,
I knew that my character was gonna have to change.
I will walk into this either a loser...Or a giant killer.
They didn't want "woo" anymore.
I mean, that was right around the corner.
I could just feel it coming.
...Feel like a giant killer!
I knew I had to change,
And I set out to try to figure out something,
Some kind of way to change my character
And be a little bit more cutting edge.
How you doing? -How you doing, sting?
[ chatter ]
[ cheers and applause ]
There's nobody around.
-Well, the problem was nwo in the mid-'90s was so cool --
The baby faces, you know, that still painted their faces
Or the bright red and yellow colors like I did
Or the neon colors and -- and stuff.
That was kind of like, "eh."
-Alright, we'll you see there.
♪♪
-This particular story had way too much edge on it
To try to go back to any kind of a candy-coated, kiddy,
Teen, pre-teen, hero solution to it.
The formula wasn't gonna work anymore.
The audience was way past that formula.
We needed a hero with an edge,
With as much of an edge as the nwo had,
But it had to be somebody with credibility.
If you want that hero
To be a hero that's going to register
In every way, including financially,
It's got to be somebody that the audience already believes in.
♪♪
-The nwo really needed a foil,
So what wcw did was they took sting
And they made him an anti-hero.
-I remember having a conversation with eric bischoff,
And I think kevin might have been there.
I know scott was there, scott hall.
You know, I'm slicking my hair back,
Getting ready to go to the ring,
And he's in the mirror next to me
And he's putting his face paint on.
At that point in his career, he wore his hair really short
And fried blond, like, just white blond, you know?
And he started -- he was growing it out.
It was kind of brown.
I remember thinking,
"well, you're letting your hair grow out?"
He goes, "yeah."
I said, "you still gonna wear, like, the happy-guy tights?"
He was wearing, like, these neon tights and all that stuff.
He goes, "yeah."
-"why don't you paint your face white or something, you know?
Wear a trench coat or something like that, you know?"
And, "eh." -and I don't know him.
I have nothing to gain by saying this,
But that's the way I like to do business.
If I think it's good for our company,
Whether I like you as a person or not
And you're part of the team, "here's what I think, bro."
And I said, "you ever see 'the crow'?"
-The crow could bring that soul back
To put the wrong things right.
-And scott's describing
All these different scenes where the crow would pop up.
And by the time he got done, I'm looking at sting,
And sting's eyes were like this big.
Just like, "give me more."
-Think it's time you break on through...
To the other side.
[ thunder rumbles ]
-Somewhere here in the arena, there is sting.
-Oh, he's actually haunting the place.
Look at the man. He has no soul.
-The sting character was so mysterious at that time.
Started out up in the rafters, the spotlight here and there,
Smoke and mirrors.
-The dark side of sting. It is very scary.
-They brought the devil out of him.
-This character seems to be gaining a lot of momentum.
People are really buying into the fact
That blond flattop hair was going away
And, you know, all of a sudden, the hair was dark
And it was growing longer.
Don't open your mouth and become sting again.
Less is more.
That's one of the biggest lessons
That I learned at that particular time.
-He didn't speak for, I don't know,
9 months, 10 months.
He became... Like the cool antihero.
There was no more heroes. Just didn't exist.
-Sting kind of, like, gave us momentum
Because anybody that helped sting
Or anybody that sting helped or stood by sting,
They gave him instant credibility
And made him a formidable foe for us.
-The long, slow point right at hollywood hulk hogan.
-For years, all I ever heard about,
"vince mcmahon knows a year in advance
What he's going to do."
Hell, I was lucky to get through week to week.
All I constantly, constantly hearing it,
So I thought, "okay, here's my shot.
Sting-hogan.
I want the longest build in history."
-Wcw is back.
There has never been a better time...
-And that really, I think, started the american people's
Obsession or infatuation with the anti-hero,
With the bad guy as the protagonist.
Well, that's what we want.
♪♪
-It was obvious so early on
That we had crossed over into mainstream
In a way that I have never experienced.
-It became so much bigger than wrestling.
-Please welcome our buddy hulk hogan.
-What is the sponsor? Nwo.
-For the nwo in the '90s,
It was a time of the anti-establishment,
And the nwo was a story that took that to another level.
-Hey, your busting my leg!
-The hottest thing in pop culture at that time
Was death row.
That's why I would tie my bandana backwards,
Like tupac.
Like, we'll be the cool guys.
-Bud light, baby, bud light!
Whoo!
-Dennis rodman joined the nwo.
-Dennis rodman went awol on Monday,
And he decided to do the wrestling thing.
-Dennis rodman was one of the most popular
And controversial and edgiest nba players.
-He's in your league.
That's why you're with the nwo, my friend.
-That's right, baby. New world order, baby.
-Favorite memory would probably be the nwo guys
Going out to the ring with rodman,
In chicago smoking cigars,
And having phil jackson out of his mind...
Calling me going, "where's rodman at?
He needs to get back to practice,"
And I said, "he doesn't want to come back."
He wants to hang out with us.
I don't know what to tell you."
We're the nwo!
You're messing with us for life.
-This is entertainment, and the hair color, the tattoos,
The piercings, the wildness, why not?
It's a perfect fit.
-It felt like there was something more there
Than your traditional pro-wrestling program.
-The bottom line is this is all serious business, joke man.
You crossed the line. -I didn't cross --
Let me get you a hat, okay?
-I'm tired of it.
-You know what they say, the old cliche.
The bigger they are...
-The harder they fall!
-Is we all know how hard it is to become successful.
What I learned is that it's far more difficult
To remain successful than it is to become successful.
-I'm the man!
I am god!
♪♪
-The Monday-night wars -- it was the reason
For everything in pro wrestling during the '90s.
-You know, ted turner wanted to put lightning in a bottle...
And the only conversation I had with him
Is if you're gonna put lightning in a bottle,
You've got to go head to head with vince.
The nwo with hollywood at the helm
Is just too damn sweet!
-It's hard for me sometimes to be as honest with myself
As I'd like to be.
Nitro, Monday night raw were head-to-head in competition,
Too close to call most weeks, from the very beginning.
It wasn't until the nwo story that wcw and nitro
Began to dominate the ratings.
It did so for a year and a half, almost two years.
♪♪
That would not have happened had it not been for the nwo.
-He wants to punch out a fan!
-That was the goal, was to become the number-one company.
I don't think the goal was ever to put vince out of business,
Even though we got really, really close.
-♪ we are the champions ♪
-I've had a conversation with vince where he was just
A couple of weeks away from shutting the doors.
-The number-one program in the world,
It's nitro with world championship wrestling.
-I believed from day one when I cut that promo
That this was gonna work,
That they were gonna cheer for the bad guys,
But I didn't realize how big it was gonna get.
It got to the point where the only way to get destroyed
Was the people that created it.
-The battle between good and evil has begun.
[ cheers and applause ]
-The catalyst for the Monday-night wars was the nwo.
The rocket fuel for those wars was sting-hogan.
♪♪
-Sting to the rescue for world championship wrestling!
-You want him, you got him!
[ cheers and applause ]
-He threw the bat away.
-Right here, let's go!
Right now!
-We did a fantastic job of building that story.
It exceeded 12 months.
-Now, hold on here. -Wait a minute.
-That -- that's sting. Who's that?
-It's another one!
It's a sting-fest! I mean, they're everywhere!
[ cheers and applause ]
-Oh!
-We were putting so much pressure
On abc and Monday night football that abc network,
Who had the rights to Monday night football,
Had to take out an ad to convince advertisers
Not to spend their money with us.
The audience was so invested in that story,
I knew that the payoff was gonna be fantastic.
-The thing that gets me madder than anything else
Is all those idiots out there with those sting masks on!
I was here last week.
I'm here this week.
And if sting had any guts, he'd show his...
Because I will beat him up.
-You know, guys, hogan's lost it.
-There's hogan's nightmare right there.
-The payoff was originally going to be sting,
Finally, after all of this time...
♪♪
...Putting a period at the end of the sentence
And walking away with a wcw victory.
-You know, that's an image that wrestling fans,
Sports fans around the world, will never forget --
Sting, the door swings open.
He walks slowly towards hollywood hogan,
And he signs the contract,
Not taking his eyes off his enemy, off his opponent.
-That was the plan for almost the entire 18 months...
-Sting and hogan -- the contract has been signed.
The two men will meet for the world title.
-...Until the night we got to the arena.
-Ladies and gentlemen, we welcome you
To the biggest night in the history of this grand sport.
-We had a plan all these months,
And then suddenly, there was a shift.
[ bell ringing ]
-Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to starrcade '97
For the heavyweight championship of the world.
-Hulk looked at me and said, "not today."
-Let's get ready to rumble!
[ cheers and applause ]
♪♪
-Let's just stick with the original plan,
Deliver what we said we were gonna do,
And move on from there.
You know, not -- not this last-minute stuff.
-I had a problem with it because if you're gonna beat me
When I get this type of momentum,
This is about making money.
Whenever you beat somebody,
You beat them in a way that they're better off
After they're beat than they were before,
And eric really wasn't sure
Where we were going with this thing.
-He had creative control.
You can't give a wrestler creative control.
Can't happen.
Just can't happen.
He doesn't have to do anything he doesn't want to do.
-Despite the fact
That hulk hogan did have creative control,
And he never exercised it, he never threatened to use it,
He never implied that he might,
It was like, "yeah, it's there, but it's not."
Except for that night,
And because hulk wasn't feeling it,
He called an audible.
And it was a mad scramble.
-It got to the point where... There was too much tension.
I said, "okay, bro, I'll put him over.
No big deal. We'll figure it out."
-Not really sure what we were going to do
Literally until walking through the curtain,
And even then, it's like, you know, anything can happen.
[ cheers and applause ]
-That's a cold stare, is what that is.
-We had to figure out what we were gonna do that night,
And we determined and agreed that the best way to do that
Was with a controversial, disputable ending of the match.
[ cheers and applause ]
-Ladies and gentlemen...
-Come on, hero! Come on, hero!
-The goal was to give hogan the quick count
That gave sting justification
And the right to demand a rematch.
[ cheers and applause ]
-Big leg drop.
One, two, three!
[ cheers and applause ]
-The quick count wasn't a quick count.
-One, two, three!
-When a change that big is made at the last minute,
There's a lot of scrambling going on,
And there's an opportunity
For a lot of really bad communication as a result of it.
-The referee counts one, two, three.
He doesn't kick out.
-One, two, three!
-The quick count was the last-minute plan.
It was the band-aid that was put on the original plan.
-So he was supposed to kick out?
-Yeah, and he didn't kick out.
-One, two, three!
-I know some timing issues. -One...
-We got messed up on some timing.
-...Two...
-There were some things that happened timing-wise.
-...Three! -Watching it from the monitor
Felt like watching the hindenburg.
You know, just like, "oh, the humanity."
-One, two, three!
-I like things to be, you know,
I like them to go, you know, not always as planned.
-No one in the building in washington, d.C.,
Thought at that time that it was a fast count,
But in the storyline, bret hart comes out.
[ indistinct shouting ]
-I don't remember bret hart being involved.
I don't remember another referee coming down.
I remember anything like that ever being talked about.
-Man, I can't even remember now sitting here.
-Sting eventually wins the title.
He beats hulk hogan.
And it was just a confusing mess of what happened,
And it just felt so anticlimactic
For something that they were building for so long
And they had built brilliantly.
And then the climax was just... Kind of a wet fart.
-What a wonderful night that was.
♪♪
[ cheers and applause ]
-Last night, ladies and gentlemen,
History was made.
After 18 months, sting returned to the ring.
There is a new world heavyweight champion.
He is sting with world championship wrestling.
[ cheers and applause ]
-When the viewer puts trust into a product,
Into characters, into a brand,
And then all those things disappoint the viewer,
There is a loss of trust.
-But if you don't deliver
On that anticipation that you've built
And the investment that the audience has made in your story,
They're pissed at you, they're disappointed in you,
And they don't trust you anymore.
[ cheers and applause ]
Nothing in terms of a build-up in the finish
Has ever been more of a disappointment.
[ cheers and applause ]
-I certainly think that it was
The beginning of the end for wcw.
♪♪
-Me and rodzilla -- we be taking over, bro.
[ cheers and applause ]
-In '98, the nwo starts to fracture,
And they become two separate groups.
The nwo wolfpac is wearing black and red.
-Wolfpac in the house!
-The nwo hollywood is wearing black and white,
And now they're warring factions.
So instead of being at war with wcw,
They're actually at war with each other.
That was definitely a departure from what the original idea
For the nwo was supposed to be.
-I'm sure you've heard the sad saga...
Of kevin nash losing his little buddy.
[ cheers and applause ]
Hey, kev --
Hey, kev, you're an embarrassment to me,
And I used to call you my big brother.
You're not half the man hollywood hogan is.
-They broke kevin and scott up,
And no one wanted to see kevin and scott broke up.
That was [bleep]
-The whole split of the nwo
Was probably more a function of frustration.
-We're gonna humiliate him!
We're gonna teach him who the master is,
Then we're gonna choke slam him.
-There were a lot of internal structural financial changes
Being made mid-stream.
My budget was being gutted.
Didn't understand it.
Tried to fight it. That was my biggest mistake.
I tried to fight it because I thought I could.
-We're seeing a man whose life has fallen apart.
Oh!
-I picked fights with people
I should have never picked fights with corporately.
I was just fighting that battle and finally,
I just threw up my hands and said,
"okay, well, we can't do all the stuff we want to do,
So what do we do?"
Well, we can create some internal strife,
Conflict within the nwo and have the nwo have a split.
♪♪
It was random, and it was ineffective.
And it really took the steam out of the nwo.
Nwo heavyweight champion of the world,
Big sexy kevin nash!
-There's actual books that say
That I single-handedly killed wcw.
-You? -Yeah.
-What -- who said that?
-There's books. -What's the premise?
-Because the fingerpoke of doom.
[ scoffs ] -the what?
-They always say the fingerpoke of doom.
-Very tentative look on hogan's face,
But nash ready to go at it.
-Taking their time with each other.
-Well, the finger point of doom...Wrong.
Makes no sense.
Embarrassing.
-Let's see if that gets a reaction from hollywood here.
-Sorry I was a part of it.
Can I please take it back?
I mean, I got no words for it.
It was just completely wrong, wrong thing to do.
-He's been in so many big matches.
♪♪
-What was that about?
What's going on here?
What?
What just happened here?
[ cheers and applause ]
-Ladies and gentlemen... -Oh, my god!
-...The winner
And new heavyweight champion of the world,
Hollywood hogan.
-[ speaks indistinctly ]
-The continued b.S. Finishes
And just the way that the nwo was presented,
They weren't giving the fans... Something satisfying.
♪♪
-I think the fingerpoint of doom
Definitely contributed to the demise.
You know, I mean, if you're -- you're going downhill
And, you know, somebody pushes you,
It makes it even worse.
[ thunder rumbles ]
And eric got caught up.
[ thunder rumbles ]
-I became...Pretty distracted.
I want my lawyer!
I want him now!
-What's he yelling? He wants his lawyer?
-Some of his business decisions...Weren't...
I don't think what they would be
Now that he knows what he knows now.
-You're out of here! You are fired.
He's out of here, end of story.
-We know eric's really our boss...
-Eric bischoff, president, wcw.
-...But when eric forgot that for a short while,
That's when I feel eric kind of like
Got in the "cool zone."
-Is that eric bischoff?
-It's a new look, isn't it?
-The lines were blurry for all of us.
-We know all about that martial-arts background.
Bischoff's seven years perfecting his craft
In his own words as a trained killer.
-He wants a piece of me?
He wants to get in the ring with moi?
-Sometimes it was cool for the nwo
Or cool for scott and kevin or cool for hollywood hogan.
-Hollywood hogan has said that he will run for the president
Of the united states in the year 2000.
-But it wasn't cool for the business at hand.
America shall be the richest country.
Every child shall have an education,
And we shall make the whole world
A peaceful place to live in.
It wasn't cool for what needed to be done
To compete with vince.
That's where I feel the guard was dropped.
-I'm just having more and more fun every time I come out here.
-Hey, yo.
-Eric becoming a mark for hall and nash at the time --
-What does that mean, a mark?
-Well, it means instead of being their boss,
He becomes a fan.
-This is a very disgusting, confusing picture.
This is a joke. -It's a crime, is what it is.
-What I felt was, "man, we need to tighten this ship up.
Man, we got to get back to what this business is all about
And not, you know, sitting up in a suite, you know,
With a bunch of girls from a strip club drinking wine
While wcw is wrestling down there."
-And I never, ever thought it would be quite this good.
-Just tell the girls to go home
And go down and backstab these guys
And beat them with spray paint and leave them laying, you know?
But that's just my opinion.
This is life.
-I like the way you think, though.
-I learned from you.
That bus last year, remember?
-If the bus ain't rocking, don't come knocking, right?
-Rodzilla.
-At the dawn of the internet age,
There is stunning new evidence
Of the growing power of the new media.
Internet pioneer america online announced today
It is buying big, sprawling time warner,
Creating the world's largest media conglomerate.
-There's a possibility for some friction,
But I don't think that's going to happen.
I think we're all committed to making this thing work
And creating the most exciting and socially conscious company
That the world has ever seen.
[ laughter ]
-I want to make an announcement now that next Monday night
In panama city very well could be
The last night of wrestling on the turner networks.
-It was just a matter of time before I, vince mcmahon,
Bought my competition.
That's right.
I own wcw.
-The merger changed our priorities.
You know, instead of having two really high-rated shows
On tbs and tnt,
They were more interested in movies of the week,
New programing, turner classics,
And they didn't want "wrasslin'" as part of their portfolio.
-Next week, ladies and gentlemen,
The finale of wcw Monday nitro on tnt.
♪♪
-I think we might have had half a chance...
If there wasn't a time warner merger.
-Welcome to a landmark night in the industry!
We are stunned. We are floored.
On the very last telecast of wcw Monday nitro on tnt.
-Wcw gets sold to wwe
For somewhere between $3 million and $4 million.
-For the first time ever in sports entertainment history,
This broadcast is not only being seen here on tnn
And cleveland, ohio...
[ cheers and applause ]
...But it is also being seen
Across turner network television.
-The landscape of our industry is changing.
-What should I do with wcw?
-When we went to the wwe, I think, once again,
Just like hulk hogan leaving the wwe and going to wcw,
There was a short --
Short, little red and yellow running
And the nwo thing took over.
I think us coming back to the wwe
Would have had the same effect.
-Hollywood hogan, hall and nash --
The three men who who built the old wcw
But did more to destroy that company,
That brand, than any other entity
Are now full-fledged members of the world wrestling federation,
Thanks to mr. Mcmahon.
[ cheers and applause ]
♪♪
-So we come in.
The rock challenges me, yes or no for for wrestlemania.
-How do you feel
About headlining one more wrestlemania with the rock?
-Oh, my god!
-Scott and kevin come down. We beat the crap out of him.
[ cheers and applause ]
We take him outside. We put him in an ambulance.
We chain the ambulance. I run him over with a semi.
I did everything I could to get heat on myself
And on scott and kevin.
They'd have the people boo me out of the building.
[ cheers and applause ]
I walk out at wrestlemania 18, and they cheer me
Out of the building against the rock.
[ cheers and applause ]
♪♪
As soon as the rock starts punching me, they boo him.
[ crowd booing ]
♪♪
Soon as I block a punch and start making a comeback,
The whole place cheers.
[ cheers and applause ]
Certain baby faces, and there were a bunch of them,
That were very upset that we were getting cheered
And they all of a sudden were getting booed.
I think the nwo, in my opinion,
Came in too hot and too strong, all of a sudden.
Once vince saw what happened at wrestlemania
With me and the rock... Flew back to tampa the next day
Got my red and yellow stuff, flew back to montreal.
♪♪
And I think that was pretty much the end of the nwo.
It ended very quickly.
♪♪
[ rain pattering ]
-You're never gonna see another bad guy like me, chico.
[ cheers and applause ]
-You want a war?
You're gonna get one.
-Those in the regional pro-wrestling community
Are sharing their thoughts about wrestler scott hall,
Who died Monday at the age of 63.
♪♪
-This is weird because this is --
This is the first thing we've done without scott.
-This weekend or this film?
-This, from talking about nwo.
He was my boy. Still is.
♪♪
It's funny, I was talking to sean waltman the other day,
And it was just like, sometimes, it's just like, he's not gone.
♪♪
I think that when it came to scott and I,
You could always -- you could tell we were having fun.
♪♪
Everything else on that show might have been fake,
But our [bleep] was real.
As far as just the bond.
♪♪
People know when something is real.
-The following short film is produced
And directed by the outsiders.
-We hope you enjoy it. We did. [ laughs ]
♪♪
And just all the time we spent together.
♪♪
Give me a second.
This is, like, the retired athlete.
They always say when an athlete retires,
If he gets choked up,
It's better to say thank you and walk away.
There's nothing worse than seeing a...Man cry.
-The most impactful moment I've had...In all of these years
Happened about maybe five or six years ago.
I was in a comic-con in phoenix...
And I was actually moderating or hosting a panel.
What's it feel like to be back in phoenix?
How long has it been since you've been here?
-Man, I think one of the last times was one of --
When we did the nitros.
-Really? Yeah, that's what hulk and jimmy said, too.
But, I mean, honestly,
I think that's one of the last times for me.
-And there was a young lady. Her name is amanda.
-You know, I was her first crush.
-He was. He was my first crush. -She told me that --
She told me that earlier today.
It made me feel so good!
-She told me this amazing story about how
When she was a little kid...
She had a tough family situation,
And the only time that she got to spend with her dad --
I'll start...
[bleep] I start crying every time I tell this story.
[ chuckles ] it's funny.
♪♪
[ clears throat ]
She said the only time she ever had
To really have... Father-daughter time
Was on Monday nights because he worked different jobs.
And he was an alcoholic. He had issues.
But on Monday nights, that was father-daughter time.
They'd watch nitro.
Loved the nwo.
And when she told me that story, it was like,
"oh, god, stop." you know?
1,500 people here watching me cry like -- like a baby.
And, you know, that was the end of it.
I got away from that show. It was over. It was done.
It was, you know, a nice story.
And, of course, she finds a way to track me down,
And she sent my wife an e-mail
And really went into detail about that same story
And said, "look, you know, my mother's no longer here.
My father's no longer here.
I'm getting married."
♪♪
[bleep]
[ chuckles ]
"would eric walk me down the aisle?"
[ chuckles ]
And...Of course I said yes.
♪♪
I walked her down the aisle, and that's when I realized...
♪♪
...Stuff has a bigger impact on people
Than you realize when you're doing it.
When you hear a story about how...
What we did actually brought people together
And created bonds, made it way more meaningful.
♪♪
-What do you think the legacy of nwo is?
[ cheers and applause ]
♪♪
-You know who I am, but you don't know why I'm here.
-The legacy of the nwo is innovation.
It's inventing a new way of telling stories.
-The most historic 48 hours...
-This wasn't just a group of people.
This was an idea.
[ cheers and applause ]
It became a part of pop culture
In a way that we hadn't really seen before.
♪♪
-It is my pleasure to welcome to the wwe hall of fame
Class of 2020, hulk hogan, scott hall,
Kevin nash, and sean waltman, the nwo!
-It really was bigger than I ever dreamed it would be.
-New -- new world order.
[ cheers and applause ]
♪♪
-I think one of the most touching things in my career
Is the fact that you go out and you do personal appearances
And you look, and there's a line of people.
And 80% of those people got nwo shirts on.
There's a 5-year-old kid who walks up in front of you,
And he goes like this.
He's got his nwo shirt on.
You say to yourself,
"wow, man, this nwo thing is for life."
♪♪