The Complete History Of The New World Order | Wrestling Timelines
April 29, 1996 - Battle Plan
Eric Bischoff - while many of Kevin Sullivan’s ideas are attributed to him - is very shrewd. He’s not particularly creative, and his intelligence will be debated, but he’s at least clever enough to determine what is and is not working in pro wrestling.
He is a magpie.
He knows that the hardcore fans love high-flying wrestlers, since the Super J-Cup and When Worlds Collide are the hottest videos on the tape-trading market, so he builds a state-of-the-art cruiserweight division. (This further allows him to differentiate WCW from the WWF). He knows that Extreme Championship Wrestling is the most fashionable hipster league in the world, so he signs many of Paul Heyman’s wrestlers. Bischoff knows that the WWF is doing terribly at the box office under its cartoonish approach, and senses that fans are gravitating towards a more “edgy” direction in drop-D tune with the wider ‘90s culture.
Bischoff also becomes aware of the hottest, best-drawing storyline in the business after attending NJPW Battle Formation, at which Shinya Hashimoto takes the IWGP Heavyweight title back from UWF-i interloper Nobuhiko Takada in one of the most heated matches ever.
The New Japan Vs. UWF-i programme is short-lived; New Japan stubbornly gets in its own way. It’s white-hot while it lasts, though.
The idea of inter-promotional warfare, of a promotion’s fans standing up for it against a snooty invading force that deems itself superior, is intoxicating. It’s politically complex, and ego inevitably ruins most variations of the invasion storyline, but it’s as close to the tribal thrill of sport that pro wrestling gets.
This gives Bischoff an idea.
(An idea that actually comes back around; in partner promotion NJPW, a splinter group named nWo Japan forms years later.)