Kevin Nash says the nWo could never work in today’s wrestling business because social media would expose the entire angle before it even had a chance to get started.
The WWE Hall of Famer discussed the nWo’s lasting impact during his Kliq This podcast after Sean Oliver asked what modern wrestling could learn from the faction. Nash did not offer up a blueprint for WWE or AEW to follow. Instead, he explained why the biggest weapon the nWo had no longer exists. Mystery.
When Scott Hall first walked onto WCW television in 1996, nobody knew exactly what was happening. Hall was no longer Razor Ramon, but he looked like Razor Ramon, sounded like Razor Ramon and acted like he had been sent there to start a war. Nash followed him weeks later, creating even more confusion over whether WWE wrestlers were legitimately invading WCW. WCW allowed that question to sit there without immediately explaining everything. Nash says that would never survive in the current wrestling climate.
“You couldn’t do what we did. The nWo couldn’t have happened. You could definitely surprise people, but there’s no fucking way possible, with social media as strong as it is, that you could have done it. That was eight or nine weeks where people didn’t know whether or not Scott and I were really there.”
Today, contract information leaks online, wrestlers are photographed at airports and backstage plans can hit social media before a show even goes on the air. Nash believes the Hall and Nash invasion would have been picked apart almost immediately.
The angle also played dangerously close to the line between wrestling and a real corporate fight. Nash said WWE’s attorneys would have quickly forced WCW to respond instead of allowing the confusion to continue for nearly two months.
“They would have just made it a legal thing. They would have sent us a cease and desist. They would have done something. We would have had to respond quicker than we did.”
That delay was what made the nWo feel real. People were not simply waiting to see who would win a match. They were trying to figure out whether Hall and Nash were actually allowed to be on WCW television and whether WWE was involved in the story.
Oliver asked whether today’s promotions could at least copy the nWo’s believable personalities, attitude and stripped-down presentation. Nash said even that part of the formula came from a situation that could only happen once.
Hall and Nash were already major WWE stars as Razor Ramon and Diesel. They then appeared on WCW television using the names Scott Hall and Kevin Nash—the same names found on their driver’s licenses.
“You can only do that one time. You can only have two guys who were Diesel and Razor come out as Hall and Nash, which are the guys who are on their driver’s licenses.”
Nash’s point was that WCW did not take two random wrestlers, give them black shirts and tell them to act like outsiders. Hall and Nash arrived with years of WWE exposure attached to them, which made the invasion look like something that was never supposed to happen.
Oliver also suggested that wrestlers today could benefit from dropping the exaggerated characters and presenting themselves more like real people. Nash pushed back on that idea too, arguing that wrestling already has plenty of serious performers trying to look cool. He pointed to Danhausen as someone who became popular because he went in the opposite direction.
“I think there are enough of those now, to the point where Danhausen is super over because he’s the anti-norm to that whole thing.”
The nWo also worked because Hall, Nash and Hulk Hogan were not simply acting like silent tough guys. They were arrogant, sarcastic and funny. They looked like they were having the time of their lives while tearing WCW apart, and the audience wanted to be part of it.
Nash said that chemistry was not something another promotion could recreate by forcing three wrestlers together and printing a new logo.
“It was just the right thing at the right time. It’s generational guys. It’s the guys. Talent. Lightning in a bottle.”
WWE, AEW and nearly every other major wrestling company have tried to create their own version of the nWo, but Nash believes the world that allowed the original angle to work is gone. The invasion needed weeks of confusion, real corporate tension and two established WWE stars walking onto another company’s television without anybody knowing where the storyline ended and reality began. In today’s business, social media would probably have the entire thing figured out before the next episode aired.
Do you agree with Kevin Nash that social media would kill an nWo-style invasion today, or is there still a way for WWE or AEW to fool everybody? Leave your thoughts and feedback in the comments below.
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