Original subtitles

Let's do a little sound check. 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 I created it.

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's role.

Starting in the 90s, it was a brand -new feeling where the regular,

boring, good -guy hero from the 80s was no longer compelling.

These guys are disgusting.

Oh no!

People like bad guys.

Shows like Sopranos, shows like Breaking Bad, shows like The Wire where the

featured protagonist 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

line to all of a sudden cheer for the bad guy.

Let's get back to you.

All right, we have seen the end of Hulkamania.

One of the reasons that people find something interesting,

sometimes attractive, you know, a good villain.

Is they see themselves.

I'm the man.

I am God.

Driving in the fast lane.

Foot down, accelerate.

If he.

I think professional wrestling, like anything else, you watch it, you enjoy

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

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

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.

Hello everybody!

And from the studios of World Championship Wrestling, this is... WCW

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 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, they really like 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 and 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 going to 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.

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

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 you Hulkamania was going to run

in the WCW, brother.

Look at all the Hulkamaniacs. Can you hear them, Mean Gene?

The reason I went to WCW is basically Vince and I had a

different opinion on where my career was at.

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

gone.

Welcome to the Japan Super Show 3. I'm Eric Bishop.

67 ,000 people on hand here at the Tokyo Dome.

Tremendous lineup.

In 1993 -94, I started doing business with a company called New Japan Pro

Wrestling.

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.

WCWs couldn't even find the toilet.

Whereas in Japan, they were putting 60 or 80 ,000 people

in the Tokyo Dome.

So I thought, okay, how do I migrate some of the elements that I saw working

Japan?

I think what the Japanese did so much better than anybody in the US at that

was suspending disbelief.

If you can consistently do things that make the audience forget that

everything is scripted, that's the sweet spot.

Something is going to happen that's going to 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

happen.

You people, you know who I am.

You're never going to see another bad guy like me, Chico.

Say hello to Razor Ramon.

He means nothing. I'm going to show you just how bad

the bad guy can be.

I remember going to Vince and asking him, what can I do to improve my work?

I said, is it my microphone skills that need 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 giving my notice.

Nobody cares where you come from, Chico.

They only care where you're going.

Like about a week later, Kevin asked for his notice.

Two reasons.

More money and less dates.

For three years that I had been there, we had a no -cannabis rule.

Scott and I weren't going to take a piss test if they were going to administer

one. So we smoked on the way to the garden.

We had like an Astrovan, something horrible.

And we drove into the city.

And we knew going to Turner that we would not be back in the garden. That

the significance of the garden.

We just got lost in the emotion of it because it was over.

I felt like, wow, chapter completed.

This chapter is done.

Now I'm going to go to WCW and see what's waiting for me there.

in Macon, Georgia, Eric Bischoff pissed me off at the airport.

And, you know, I've never met Eric, and 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 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 Zbysko.

And we are taking a look at the mauler, completely mauled, his opponent, Steve

Dahl. Well, you know, Steve Dahl was trying to get an offensive going.

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,

the match in the middle of a match on live television, nobody had ever seen

before. I didn't even tell the two guys in the match.

They had no idea what was going on.

And instead of hitting the ring and beating these guys up, I just went right

the microphone, right to the hard camera and did my interview.

And they stopped wrestling.

And it became real.

Like, what are you doing, Scott? What are you doing?

You people, you know who I am.

But you don't know why I'm here.

All of that created that sense of believability and allowed for the

of disbelief that really launched the NWO.

You want to go to war?

You want a war?

You're going to get one.

I'm watching Scott Hall come into the ring.

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? And I

went, oh, my God, I knew he was coming, but 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.

I have 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.

Wait a minute.

Wait a minute.

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.

we're teasing who his big buddy was going to be. That was designed

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?

Even though we were heelish, we were so much cooler than everybody

else on the 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

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.

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 rink.

And I went, okay.

Like, that means bring the bats to the rink.

We went off the air with the Charlotte cops coming underneath the rope

and unbuttoning their holsters and putting their hands on their firearms.

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 hit the ring, and they are hammering away!

See ya, buddy!

Woo!

The first thing the NWO did, and the storyline did, was they kind of changed

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.

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

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

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 going

to get it. They want a match against WWE'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

You know, you tell billionaire Ted to break out the money and get anybody he

because the big man and the medium -sized man and our

surprise buddy.

are going to 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. 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 that ultimately

it had.

Go get the rabbits.

Early 96, Hulk had 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, it kind of seemed like fans were just...

I don't know. It was kind of like a bender done that.

And it just got me thinking. 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

boots, you'll never really understand this character.

I've been training and praying in my prayers to eat my vitamins. And

I go, man, the people are training in the parking lots, posing in the gyms.

women are getting better shaped.

Hulk had two very young kids. I think they were still in grade school or

high at the time.

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'd have never made it, or I'd quit doing drugs because of you.

My childhood was horrible, except I believed in you, and I was like, ooh,

this is going to be tough.

It's not like he could go back and become that red and yellow character the

next week.

Once you make this decision, once you pull the trigger and the bullet leaves

barrel, you're not putting it back in for a long, long time.

A former five -time world champion, the 6 '7". 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.

Had the story pretty much laid out exactly the way it played out.

But instead of Hulk Hogan, it was originally going to be Stick.

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!

Sting finally got comfortable with it.

Then I get a phone call one day.

It's from Hulk Hogan.

Hulk said, so?

He 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 going to either destroy my career or this is

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.

day comes.

Bash at the Beach pay -per -view, July of 96.

I was not 100 % sure that Hulk was going to follow through.

At 5 .30, we still didn'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

at the Beach. We're going to 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.

We're looking at Bishop going, what's up? And he goes, well, listen, if it's

Hulk, we're going to send Sting.

All due respect to Sting, it wouldn't have worked.

WCW picks their top three, and it's Lex Luger, thing 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 the third person is

third person even in the match you know who is this third person they have said

the third man As the WWE team starts to get the better a little bit upon

that, Hulk Hogan comes out.

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?

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.

Oh, my God. What the hell is going on? Oh, my God.

Are you kidding me?

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.

And Scott has to do the count.

If you look back at it, there's never a count at the match of us actually

beating them.

I mean, those little details are priceless.

See those little youngsters with the tears rolling down their face right now?

A career of a lifetime.

It's 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, I don't know where we're going.

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 going to burn in wrestling hell for this.

There you go. That's right. I never thought I'd see people throwing debris

Hulk Hogan.

This was not supposed to happen.

Huh. Heard that before, right? Not supposed to happen.

Me, 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.

But when I was in the ring, you know, cutting the promo with Scott and Kevin,

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 going to follow through.

But once he got to the building and we talked, I knew, okay, it's on.

I'm talking through his interview one last time. I'm saying, and when you're

finally done and you said everything you're going to 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 that, I went, wow, that's cool.

NWO, New World Order.

I knew that if I turned into a bad guy and I said the training, the prayers,

vitamins and everything I did for all you kids and the Make -A -Wish kids, I

it for the money.

You know, I knew it would light the people up so much.

It would reignite their interest in Hulk Hogan. I had no idea it was Scott and

Kevin.

as two big lead horses with me, how the whole business would flip in an instant.

Hulk Hogan is 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 tide,

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've got to come up with a logo.

We've 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 eight or ten 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.

All right, 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 to reel me in.

I'm going to ask you something while we're going to go.

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 N -W -O.

Learn to love.

Yeah, I play the block. My concert played a lot. Go hard or go home. That's

block model.

And if the cops follow, he rap on my seatbelt.

Hope you boys get the message like an email.

You want the details?

I can't do that.

Tell this clown to match up like Pity Pat.

You ain't an OG, and you don't know me.

Yeah, you brought on a like you old B. I've been thinking you better than give

me his name.

You ain't got to be Rihanna, baby. You feel the rain. You got some youngins in

the hood that'll splinter like a cantaloupe.

It's only business.

Here's a guy that's a generation older than these younger guys.

I could feel the vibe, man. I can tell.

It just took us a while to go, okay, everybody's cool.

He just basically sat down and he goes, where are you guys getting this from?

Like the whole for life.

That was one of Mac 10 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 put NWO for life.

Because it's NWO for life.

Once they learned to trust me and figured out how to mold me to fit in,

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.

They're in the control room now.

Hold on, what do we got here? What's that do?

Oh!

Fade to black.

Wait a second. Oh, shouldn't have bought that cheap TV.

Wait, they are completely hijacking this program.

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 act.

My trolley presents, 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

the viewer into the arena and reveal things that they've 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.

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.

Kevin Nash in particular grabbed little Ray Mysterio, picked him up, and lawn

darted him. Oh, no!

Laid waste to everybody, destroyed equipment.

It was a chaotic scene.

All I can say is that we need to listen and look in because we have some serious

injuries, maybe career -ending injuries here.

All of a sudden, we hear sirens.

The hell?

Cops are showing up.

Fire trucks are showing up.

A couple 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.

Yep, this is working.

They're buying it.

Hi,

I'm Sean Waltman.

In the original NWO, I was called Six and Sixpock.

The man you're looking at right now, he was formerly the 1 -2 -3 kid when he was

with the WWF. And we do know he was released from that...

Vince basically told me, look, I'd like you to stay, but if you stay, you're

going to 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, I'll give you a week

to think about it. Let me know.

I heard Nitro's the hottest show going today. I thought I'd come check it out.

You know what I mean?

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

storyline in the business.

The MWO was the catalyst that started the biggest boom period in pro wrestling

history.

It was the coolest thing on television.

The MWO, to me, was like a big street gang, just trying to take over by any

means possible.

I mean, I remember one time we, they only showed it on television once

apparently it was a bit too much.

You know, we ran the Steiner brothers off the road and crashed their car.

Right. Check both.

Proceed when clear.

I was holding the camera, filming everything.

And we kept bumping, like Kev was driving and he kept bumping them. Get

again. Get him!

He just never knew what was going to happen. We ran through everyone for what

seemed like forever.

To the point where all the WCW guys were like, what the f*** is going on?

It was too much for a lot of people.

Putting the world title on Hulk Hogan versus the Giant was a super easy

decision.

There was just this extra F

-U to having Hulk Hogan, who betrayed millions of people around the world,

betrayed WCW, and now Hulk Hogan.

has WCW's greatest prize.

Oh,

that's spray paint.

Oh, my God. They're going to spray paint. I cannot believe this. This is

unbelievable. Somebody needs to go in there right now. They are straight.

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

whole different level.

When Hollywood Hogan won the WCW title from the Giant at Hog Wilds, 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 and 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 Horsemen are now together.

Here comes the giant. Look out, NWO. Thank God for the

giant.

Never thought we would hear it.

The giant is going to have...

If someone who represents WCW is going to 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 deeper feeling that was going on in the storyline of you

just didn't know who was going to join next. There was almost a paranoia with

fans about, well, if this guy is in the NWO, than 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 MWO

from happening.

It has 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 all of us... In order for this to grow and continue to grow,

need, like, less parameters.

The idea is suggested that I become the

secret weapon of the NWO.

Now, on face value, that makes no sense.

But if you think about it, who better?

Who better to defect?

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 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 mastermind behind the NWO.

It was a brilliant stroke because...

The NWO is doing all these crazy things.

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

show on cable.

We're kind of a big deal with internal 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 no other choice.

You are hereby terminated.

You're fired. I don't want to hear about your family problems. I'm telling you,

you are 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 weeks later he comes back to the

ring.

Presumably now I've had time to think about it because Randy has cancer.

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 all right, Randy.

It's all right.

Kids, would you do me a favor?

I looked 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 a little tiny kid.

God bless us, everyone.

Of course, the kids are crushed.

Randy looks like he's going to break down and cry. His wife doesn't know what

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.

The next day,

I come to work, get into my office, and there's a note on my desk from my

assistant that says, Dr. Schiller, who's my boss, Harvey Schiller, wants to

speak to you immediately.

Well, that never happened.

So evidently what had happened is so many people in Rome, Georgia, where

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

television, and I was a 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 going to 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 liver 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

they were watching was real.

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.

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

wrestlers that just have a style of walking into the ring and tunnel vision.

thinking about their opponent and nothing else, you know, black tights,

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

more hardcore.

Right around that time, I knew that my character was going to 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.

I 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.

Well,

the problem was the NWO in the mid -90s was so cool.

The baby faces, you know, that still painted their faces or the bright red

yellow colors like I did or the neon colors.

and stuff, that was kind of like, eh.

All right, we'll see you there.

This particular story had way too much edge on it to try to go back to any

kind of a candy -coated, kiddie, teen, preteen hero solution to it. That

wasn't going to 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 WSW 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 flicking my hair back, getting ready to go to the ring, and

in the mirror next to me, and he's putting his face paint on.

At that point, his career, he wore his hair really short and fried blonde, like

just white blonde, you know.

And he started, he was growing it out. It was kind of brown. I remember

thinking, well, are you letting your hair grow out? He goes, yeah.

I said, are you still going to wear, like, the happy guy tights? He was

like, these neon tights and all that stuff. He goes, yeah.

Why don't you paint your face white or something and, you know, wear a trench

coat or something like that, you know.

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,

you're part of the team, here's what I think, bro.

And I said, you ever see The Crow?

crow covering 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 sing and sing's eyes were like this big like

give me more i think it's time you break on through

to the other side

The Sting character was so mysterious at that time.

It started out up in the rafters, the spotlight here and there, and 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 blonde, flat -top hair was going

away, and 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, nine months, ten months.

He became like the cool anti -hero.

There was no more heroes. This didn't exist.

Sting kind of like gave us momentum because anybody that helped Sting or

that Sting helped or stood by Sting.

It 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 was a year in advance of what

he's going to do.

Hell, I was lucky to get through week to week. Oh, I constantly, constantly hear

it. So I thought, okay, here's my shot.

Sting Hogan.

I want the longest build in history.

And that really, I think, started the American people's obsession or

with the antihero, with the bad guy, as the protagonist.

That's what we want.

It was obvious so early on that we had crossed over into mainstream in a way

that I had never experienced.

It became so much bigger than wrestling. Let's welcome our buddy Hulk Hogan.

What is a 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, you're 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.

Dennis Rodman joined the NWO. Dennis Rodman went AWOL on Monday and he

to do the wrestling thing. Dennis Rodman was one of the most popular and

controversial and edgiest NBA players.

That's why you're with the NWO, my friend. That's right, baby. New world

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.

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

I didn't cross the line. Let me get your hat, okay? I'm tired of it.

You know what they say, the old police say, the bigger they are, the bigger

are.

As 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 going to 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

cool.

It's hard for me sometimes to be as honest with myself as I'd like to be.

Nitro, Monday Night Raw, we're 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.

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!

We are the champions! I've had a conversation with Vince where he was

couple 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 going to work, that

they were going to cheer for the bad guys, but I didn't realize how big it

going to get.

It got to the point where the only way to get destroyed it was the people that

created it.

The battle between good and evil has begun.

The catalyst for the Monday Night Wars was the NWO.

The rocket fuel for those wars, Sting Hogan.

Sting to the rescue for world championship wrestling.

Do you want him? You got him.

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.

But that sting, who's that? It's another one.

It's a sting pest.

I mean, they're everywhere.

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 going to 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 yellow streak because I would 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

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.

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!

Let's just stick with the original plan.

Deliver what we said we were going to do and move on from there.

Not this last minute stuff.

I had a problem with it because if you're going to beat me when I get this

of momentum, this is about making money.

Whenever you beat somebody, you beat them in a way that they're better off

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 had 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,

brother, 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.

That's a cold stare is what that is.

We had to figure out what we were going to do that night, and we determined and

agreed that the best way to do that was with a controversial, disputable ending

of the match.

The goal was to give Hogan the quick count that gave Sting justification

and the right to demand a rematch.

Quick count wasn't a quick count.

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

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.

We got messed up on some timing.

There were some things that happened timing -wise.

Watching it from the monitor felt like watching the Hindenburg.

You know, just like, ah, the humanity.

One, two, three.

I like things to be, 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.

I don't remember Bret Hart being involved.

I don't remember another referee come down. I don't remember anything like

ever being talked about. Man, I can't even remember now sitting here.

Singh eventually wins the title.

He beats Poco.

And it was just a confusing mess of what happened, and it just felt so

anticlimactic. It was 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.

Last night, ladies and gentlemen, history was made. After 18 months, Sting

returned to the ring. There is a new World Heavyweight... 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.

If you don't deliver on that anticipation that you've built in the

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.

Nothing in terms of a build -up and a finish has ever been more of a

disappointment.

I certainly think that it was the beginning of the end for WCW.

Me and Rodzilla, we be taking over, bro.

In 98, the NWO starts to fracture, and they become two separate groups. The NWO

Wolfpack is wearing black and red.

Wolfpack in the house!

The NWO Hollywood is wearing black and white, and now they're warring factions.

So instead of being at war with WW, 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.

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 bull.

The whole split of the NWO was probably more a

function of frustration.

We're going to humiliate him. We're going to teach him who the master is.

we're going to choke Simon.

There were a lot of internal, structural, financial changes being made

midstream.

My budget.

was being gutted.

Didn't understand it. Tried to fight it. That was my biggest mistake, because I

tried to fight it, because I thought I could.

We're seeing a man whose life has fallen apart.

Oh, wait, whoa.

I'd pick fights with people I should have never picked fights with,

I was just fighting that battle, and finally I just threw up my hands and

okay, well, we can't do all the stuff we wanted to do, so what do we do?

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.

Heavyweight champion of the world, Big Sexy Kevin!

There's actual books that say that I single -handedly killed WCW.

You? Yeah. Who said that? There's books.

What's the premise?

Because the finger poke of doom.

The what?

They always say the finger poke 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.

There's been so many big matches.

What's that about?

What? What?

What's going on here?

What?

The continued BS finishes and just the way that the NWO was presented, they

weren't giving the fans something satisfying.

I think the finger point of doom definitely contributed to the demise.

You know, I mean, if you're going downhill and, you know, somebody pushes

it makes it even worse.

And Eric would get caught up.

I became pretty distracted.

Some of his business decisions.

They 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 it.

about that martial arts background.

He's got seven years perfecting his craft. In his own words, he's a trained

killer. He wants a piece of me?

He wants to get in the ring with me?

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

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

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 the 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.

I used to tell the girls to go home and go down and backstab these guys and beat

them in 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?

At the dawn of the Internet age, there is stunning new evidence of the growing

power of the new medium. Internet pioneer America Online announced today

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.

I want to make an announcement now that next Monday night at Panama City, very

well, could be the last night of wrestling on the Turner Networks. It was

matter of time before I, Vince McMahon, bought my competition.

That's right.

I own WCW. The merger changed their 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 programming, Turner classics,

and they didn't want wrestling as part of their portfolio.

Next week, ladies and gentlemen, the finale of WCW Monday Night Throw on TNT.

I think we might have had half a chance if there

wasn't the Tom Warner merger.

Welcome to a landmark night in the industry.

We are done. We are floored.

On the very last telecast of WCW Monday Night Grove on TNT.

WCW gets sold to WWE for somewhere between $3 and $4 million.

For the first time ever.

And sports entertainment history, this broadcast is not only being seen here on

TNN and Cleveland, Ohio, but it's 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, going to WCW, there was a short little red and yellow run, and then the

NWO thing took over.

I think us coming back to the WWE would have had the same effect.

Hollywood Hogan, Paul and Nax, the three men 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

thanks to Mr.

McMahon.

So we come in.

The Rock challenges me, yes or no, for WrestleMania.

How do you feel about headlining one more WrestleMania with The Rock?

Scott and Kevin come down. We beat the crap out of him.

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 and have the people boo me out of

the building.

I walk out at WrestleMania 18 and they cheer me out of the building against The

Rock.

As soon as The Rock starts

punching me, they boo him.

As soon as I block a punch and start making a comeback, the whole place

Certain babyfaces, and there were a bunch of them, that were very upset that

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 they 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, but ended very quickly.

You're never going to see another bad guy like me, Tico.

You want a war?

You're going to get one.

Those in the regional pro wrestling community are sharing their thoughts

wrestler Scott Hall, who died Monday at the age of 63.

This is weird because this is the first thing we've done.

Without Scott.

This.

From talking about NWO.

He was my boy.

Still is.

It's funny. I was talking to Sean Waltman the other day. And I was just

Sometimes it's just like he's not gone.

I think that when it came to Scott and I, you could tell we were having fun.

Everything else on that show might have been fake, but it was real.

As far as just the bond.

People know when something's real.

Short film is produced and directed by the Outsiders. We hope you enjoy it. We

did.

That's 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 that.

The most impactful moment I've had in all of

these years happened about maybe five or six years ago.

I was at 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

been here?

Man, I think one of the last times was when we did the nitros.

Really? Yeah, that's what Hulk and Jimmy said too.

I mean, honestly, I think that's one of the last times for me.

And there was a young lady, her name was Amanda.

I was her first crush.

She told me that earlier today. 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 say, I start crying every time I tell this story.

It's funny.

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 watched Nitro.

Loved the NWO.

And she told me that story.

I was like, oh, God, stop.

There's 1 ,500 people here watching me cry like a baby.

And that was the end of it. I got away from that show. It was over. It was

It was a nice story.

And, of course, she finds a way to track me down.

And she sent my wife an email and really went into detail about that same story.

And said, look, my mother's no longer here, my father's no longer here.

I'm getting married.

Would Eric walk me down the aisle?

Of course, I said yes.

I walked her down the aisle.

And that's when I realized that 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, it made it way more meaningful.

What do you think the legacy of NWO is?

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.

This wasn't just a group of people, this was an idea.

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.

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're looking, there's a line of people

80 % of those people got NWO shirts on.

There's a five -year -old kid that 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 the life.