The Wolfpac was very popular for a bit. But the premature split saw the angle lose its focus, then quickly run out of steam. Hogan’s finger-poke title win over Kevin Nash in 1999 was meant to reunite the key members of the nWo as an elite faction, but the effect was exactly the opposite. The absurd finish put those involved in a bad light. You could feel the “cool” factor drain away.
I’ve often questioned the long-term inclusion of Hogan in the nWo. It was necessary for the Bash at the Beach ’96 angle. But maybe the nWo should have discarded Hogan once he’d fulfilled his purpose, both storyline and otherwise. It wasn’t long before Hogan made the group very secondary to him. Nearly every bad decision made concerning the nWo was made at Hogan’s behest.
But don’t forget, Hogan had creative control. The minute the ring filled with garbage at Bash at the Beach, he was locked in.
The nWo 2000 attempt failed miserably. So did the try at reunification in WWE. Nobody likes old rebels. But don’t tell DX that.
As someone who worked for WCW during the nWo era, I can tell you first-hand there was nothing like it. To see the crowd split 50-50, the sound cascading around the arena…nothing done in wrestling had ever produced a reaction like that. I suspect nothing ever will.
But it actually failed in more ways than it succeeded. It was a perfect angle, but was killed by selfishness, short-sightedness and stupidity. I thought it was foolproof – until fools got hold of it.
