The NWO was WCW's golden goose throughout the early period of the Monday Night Wars. Kevin Nash and Scott Hall had made the jump to the company and had begun attacking wrestlers while referring to themselves as The Outsiders, heavily implying that they were aiming to destroy the company from the inside at the behest of the WWF. Fans bought into the concept and eventually the stable exploded following Hulk Hogan's heel turn and revelation that he was the third member of the organisation. It was a huge moment in wrestling history and fans switched over to WCW in droves. Everybody wanted to see what the NWO would get up to next and many wanted to see the group eventually get their comeuppance for the evil they had wrought. The group eventually took over practically every aspect of WCW's broadcasts and were pretty much ever-present in all of the major angles presented in the company for the better part of the next two years. Unfortunately even the greatest of concepts eventually grow stale and, following the botched finish to the Sting vs Hulk Hogan match at Starrcade 97, many fans began to grow weary of the NWO always seeming to come out on top. The large majority of the roster had been members at one point or another, including WCW head Eric Bischoff, and it had been made implicitly clear that the NWO was the dominant group to the point where many viewers simply no longer believed that WCW would get its retribution. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59Nbmm0CFms Though the group eventually began to fragment and dissolved into the Black and White and Wolfpac factions, this did little to improve things and was eventually cancelled out by its reformation in 1999. By contrast the WWF was offering fresh programming featuring their ever-growing cast of superstars, leading many to move onto the fresher product. The NWO eventually limped to its death long after the WWF had established itself as the dominant player and its later years are generally seen as little more than an attempt by the likes of Hogan and Nash to keep themselves at the top of the card.
Lee Price is a writer for 411mania.com and Starburst Magazine, which is published in the UK. He is currently working as a freelance writer. He hopes to one day fund his addiction to video games by writing about video games, and he maintains a sporadically updated blog at leesrandombulls*it.wordpress.com
