10 Times Backstage Politics Ruined WCW
6. WWF Fakes Fear Gives Outsiders More Clout
Welcome to the latest chapter in: 'This Is So WCW It Hurts'.
The promotion's power players were deathly afraid that Kevin Nash and Scott Hall might return to the WWF months after signing in 1996. Why? Well, the fed had been shouting from rooftops that "Razor and Diesel" were en route back to Raw. Jim Ross said so on TV, and nobody thought for a second that it'd be Halloween costume knock offs played by Rick Bognar and (future) Kane Glenn Jacobs.
So, WCW stupidly restructured new deals for Hall and Nash, and gave them even more money, plus the infamous “favoured nations” clause. In a 2007 shoot interview, the chuckling double act pretty much said this was the worst thing the company could’ve done, because then it meant they didn’t need to work hard for their cash.
They'd just been handed $400,000 extra each, and they had some of the creative control that Hulk Hogan also had in his contract. How could they have possibly jumped back anyway?! They'd inked terms with Turner over the summer of '96, so there was no way they could've exited those lucrative deals for a return to Vince McMahon so quickly.
Panic set in regardless, and WCW bent over backwards to make sure that The Outsiders remained on the inside lest their shiny new nWo concept shatter into a million pieces or turn into the next Dungeon Of Doom. As a result, Hall and Nash laughed all the way to the bank then realised that they probably didn't need to work house shows if they didn't feel like it.