The Complete History Of The New World Order | Wrestling Timelines
December 22, 1997 - nWo Nitro
The much-rumoured nWo Nitro happens, when the stable “takes over” Monday Nitro.
The nWo hangs their signage over the set as Bischoff, Rick Rude and Kevin Nash perform commentary duties. It’s not as obnoxious as the Souled Out broadcast booth - they put the babyfaces over - but then, that makes the whole bit pointless. An impartial booth doesn’t make sense. A heel booth is damaging.
There might be no way this works.
nWo Nitro is Eric Bischoff worshipping Hollywood Hogan for much of an hour. Bischoff presents Hogan with an array of gifts and serenades him with holiday songs.
It ends, infamously, with Sting and Bret Hart giving Hogan a gift of their own. It is a mannequin head of Hollywood Hogan. Hogan sells for this as if he has been decapitated and is staring at a part of his own corpse. Shaking violently, he is frightened by what is a corny bit of symbolism. This is the least cool Sting stunt, and the timing is suboptimal.
This is the closing shot of the Starrcade ‘97 go-home show.
This specific idea for an isolated ‘nWo Nitro’ might all work, if it is framed as an oppressive dystopia - a smug, deliberately unentertaining segment designed to evoke groans.
This is what might become of Nitro, if Bischoff wins at Starrcade, and Sting doesn’t prevail!
But that’s not what we’re doing here: what we’re doing is a pilot of a proper nWo show. The threat of a weekly Souled Out 1997 is about as effective as it sounds.
This is so poorly-received, even dropping half a ratings point, that the idea is abandoned. The imminent second WCW weekly TV show, imposed by Turner, will go by ‘Thunder’. It will be a WCW show with minimal effort put into it - more of the same.
“More of the same” will come to define WCW over the coming year.