[1996-09-23-WCW-Nitro] NWO takes over Nitro

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

We get the last few moments of a Savage vs Greg Valentine match where Savage is destroying Valentine with a chair. Hall, Nash, and Syxx run in and attacks Savage.

 

I crack up at The Giant coming in dressed in a vest and dark jeans acting as the ring announcer and announcing Hogan, who comes out and gets heat at a ridiculous level.

 

The highlight here is Nash beating up Savage with a Slim Jim.

 

The crowd is on the verge of rioting during all of this.

 

Hogan does another amazing promo and then spraypaints Savage's head black. Hall and Nash then go terrorize Bischoff and force him to stay put. Then they debut Virgil as "Vincent".

 

Later in the show, we get the last few seconds of Hall and Nash beating High Voltage.

 

We also get Scott Hall asking if Andre is really his dad.

 

Lots of memorable stuff here.

[El-P]

The beatdown and angle is great. nWo taking over the booth is great.

 

Vincent debuting, not so much. Served no purpose at all except a not so funny pun at Vince. This is the beginning of nWo getting crowded with useless hacks sadly.

 

Also, the remainder of the broadcast showed why an nWo TV show would not be a good idea. Of course with most the stars on the roster in Japan, it was a smart way to do things and it was fresh at the time, but watching it back now it just brought back bad memories of Souled Out...

[PeteF3]

Savage goes nuts on Greg Valentine with a chair and gets disqualified--did Savage win one match between January and his joining the NWO 14 months later? The NWO pulverize him again afterward, with Nash whipping him with a Slim Jim and Hogan doing something about Savage's bald spot. Bischoff in reaction to that: "What does HE see when he looks in a mirror??!" Afterward they head to the broadcast booth and have some fun antagonizing Bischoff. "Vincent" debuts as NWO Head of Security--he's good forcing Bischoff to stay seated, but yeah, this is starting to look bloated.

 

The NWO t-shirt is now for sale. The level of detail WCW put into this was amazing: the mailing address isn't Atlanta, it's a PO Box in Warwick, Rhode Island. NWO souvenirs at live events were sold at their own booth, with handwritten price signs and no fancy displays, like bootleggers had set up shop in the arena. Operators at the 800-number would answer "New World Order" and thank buyers for supporting the group at the end of the call. Great stuff that the WWF never really could have done, and certainly didn't do when it had the NWO.

 

The NWO spent the rest of the hour destroying random people, with Giant continuing to show off his comedic chops as the ring announcer. The Outsiders destroy High Voltage in a "tournament" match to earn a shot at Harlem Heat's tag titles.

 

There are glimpses of the NWO getting out of control, but this was an effective way to cover for a half-missing roster for an hour.

[drew wardlaw]

This would have been simultaneously thrilling and unbelievably frustrating to be at live. I saw someone else say this in another NWO thread, but that's a pretty bold move to sabotage your own show for the sake of an angle/rating. Kind of a microcosm of WCWs entire history when you think about it.

[Loss]

Nash has mentioned that there was a signature pin collection that was supposed to come featuring Ric Flair, Sting and Hall and Nash. Nash squashed it and argued with the merchandise people about it in a funny story.

 

"But we don't work for WCW."

"But you do work for WCW."

"But we don't."

"But you do."

 

And yeah, the biggest difference between WCW and WWE is summed up in the NWO t-shirt. When WWE started selling it in 2002, it had the same WWE logo on the back as everything else in their catalog. You see that and you sort of know right away it's not going to work.

[soup23]

A great beatdown and that Hogan shirt is boss. The invasion of the announce booth has too many memorable lines to list off but it was classic stuff and another memorable skit in this era of Nitro. Giant being Hogan's hype man will be my lasting impression. He doesn't really fit in but does at the same time.