If the NWO never happened...

[Guest bigm350]

If the NWO never happened in 1996 how would wrestling's landscape look today? Would WCW still be in business? Would the WWF still be pulling in ratings in the 2's? Where would ECW have fit in?

 

I beleive the NWO angle truly revolutionized the wrestling business; not just for WCW but for the WWF as well. If not for the NWO we might not have had the rebellious type of wrestler, which the WWF played off of with DX and Austin.

 

It was definitely the spark that started the wrestling boom ; now what if that spark was never lit?

[Guest LooneyTune]

I hate these kind of what if questions... there's two ways to answer... what if Bischoff didn't steal the idea from a Japanese promotion, or what if the company vs. company war type angle never existed to begin with?

 

Either way, it would've been the same thing. WCW was pushing main event matches on free TV (as free as cable TV can be), so WWF was forced to fight back.

 

If the nWo never happend, WCW would still be in business, because morale was super-fucking-low in 1997-on because WCW wrestlers were booked like shit, and Nash had Bischoff by the balls to do whatever he wanted.

[Fökai 0]

I beleive the NWO angle truly revolutionized the wrestling business; not just for WCW but for the WWF as well. If not for the NWO we might not have had the rebellious type of wrestler, which the WWF played off of with DX and Austin.

The WWF's Stone Cold gimmick was birthed only a few weeks after Hall first showed up on Nitro.

[Guest bigm350]

I hate these kind of what if questions... there's two ways to answer... what if Bischoff didn't steal the idea from a Japanese promotion, or what if the company vs. company war type angle never existed to begin with?

 

Either way, it would've been the same thing. WCW was pushing main event matches on free TV (as free as cable TV can be), so WWF was forced to fight back.

 

If the nWo never happend, WCW would still be in business, because morale was super-fucking-low in 1997-on because WCW wrestlers were booked like shit, and Nash had Bischoff by the balls to do whatever he wanted.

How is this different than all the other 'what if' topics we have here in General Wrestling?

[razazteca 0]

Hogan's career would of ended in 1996.

[Zack Malibu 0]

No it wouldn't have. He would have eventually been made to turn heel, although probably not with as much fanfare as he got for the nWo turn.

[Guest bigm350]

I beleive the NWO angle truly revolutionized the wrestling business; not just for WCW but for the WWF as well. If not for the NWO we might not have had the rebellious type of wrestler, which the WWF played off of with DX and Austin.

The WWF's Stone Cold gimmick was birthed only a few weeks after Hall first showed up on Nitro.

True. But the NWO caught fire alot quicker than Austin did in 96. Especially when Hogan was the third man. The boom was started by the NWO, was fresh for awhile, until almost every wrestler in WCW joined the group, then started getting stale fast. Austin's rattlesnake persona didn't surpass the NWO's heat until his feuds with the Hart Foundation and Vince McMahon.

[razazteca 0]

No it wouldn't have. He would have eventually been made to turn heel, although probably not with as much fanfare as he got for the nWo turn.

But during the time period before the NWO Hogan was changing his colors from Ketchup & Mustard to black every couple of months or so and it started to get stale real quick. The transition to Hollywood Hogan extended his career for a few years before he had to revert back to the red & yella brotha and go on the nostoglia bs gimmick again.

[Guest Hass of Pain]

I thought most of the stuff that WWE did to bring itself back to the forefront was more copied from what ECW was doing at the time than anything WCW did. Steve Austin developed his promo style in ECW and copied the beer drinking from The Sandman, so I hardly think it's fair to say anything WCW was doing at the time was that cutting edge. DX wasn't really that similar to anything WCW was doing either.

 

I doubt there's anyway to know what would have happened with WCW had the nWo never came to be. The company never would have reached the 200 million dollar a year level, but it also wouldn't have been in the position to open it's wallets and give ridiculous contracts to so many people that they were flying in 80 wrestlers to Nitro each week and spending like it was going out of style. My guess is that it would still be around, but who knows in what capacity.