The nWo had a major effect on the professional wrestling world, and the group’s influence can still be felt today.
Marc Raimondi spoke with WrestleZone Managing Editor Bill Pritchard while promoting his new book, Say Hello to the Bad Guys: How Professional Wrestling’s New World Order Changed America. Raimondi is a lifelong pro wrestling fan who considers the “one true sport” to be America’s greatest art. He said “a convergence of ideas” led to writing the book. However, a story about the nWo’s WWE Hall of Fame induction in 2019 served as the catalyst.
“I wrote that story with a lot of heart and passion, more than probably my editor would have wanted. At that juncture, it probably should have been a 500-word quick, get-in-and-get-out type of piece. But I kind of overwrote it. And a year and then a half later, I get an email from an editor at Simon and Schuster, who asked me if I wanted to write a book about the nWo. And the reason why they contacted me was because of that article,” Raimondi said.
“They saw that I put a lot of tender love and care into that, and more of a cultural look at it than what the ‘nuts and bolts’ of the story is. That was kind of the vision. It was kind of a combination of my hypothesis that wrestling is all around us and we have been so affected by it. Especially in the 90s. Because that’s kind of where most of us grew up watching the Monday Night Wars and that big wrestling boom. And it’s become part of us,” he continued. “And the nWo is the wave to ride. [It’s] the perfect vehicle to tell that story because that’s what kicked it off. It was the catalyst for that entire boom period.”
Marc Raimondi highlights how important Hulk Hogan’s run was for WCW
Bad Guys documents the nWo’s rise, but it also details how the stage was set for the group. In one passage, Raimondi mentions how Hulk Hogan even signing with WCW in the first place led to more credibility and exposure for the company. That is not unlike Chris Jericho’s effect on AEW, as his addition made the wrestling world take the upstart promotion more seriously in 2019. Raimondi agreed with the comparison, noting how pro wrestling has always been a star-driven business.
“Completely agree. Absolutely. The wrestling business, it’s evolved, obviously since the 90s and the 80s. But the business model is still the same. It’s a star-driven business. And someone like Hollywood Hogan helped lift WCW up when he signed with them. And then, when he did become Hollywood Hogan in the nWo, that was the catalyst for them ending up beating the WWF for 83 straight weeks in the ratings and [WCW] finally becoming profitable as a company. There’s a lot of things that went into that. But Hogan’s place is 100% incredibly vital to that.”
Raimondi, who covered MMA for 11 years, compared pro wrestling to UFC in the sense that they both thrive on creating and marketing their biggest stars. What the audience wants will change, he noted, but stars selling tickets and events have always been what drives interest.
Marc Raimondi on where he believes nWo had gone off-track
The nWo started off hot, but many fans will agree that the group faltered as it went on. It seemed like everyone in WCW eventually joined the group. This included a number of spinoffs (nWo Wolfpac, nWo Hollywood, nWo 2000, to name a few). Raimondi believes the nWo started to go wrong when the initial spinoff group, the Wolfpac, was introduced in 1998. As cool as that group was at the time, it also undermined the main point of the nWo’s original mission.
“As much as I loved the Wolfpac as a kid — and I know people really loved the Wolfpac. I understand why,” Raimondi explained. “[But] when the Wolfpack broke off from the nWo Black and White, that was to me kind of like the end of the nWo, the crux of what the nWo story was supposed to be. Because they were coming in, they were invading, they were going to take over WCW. And then, about two years later in ’98, they just ended up in-fighting. And they never really succeeded in talking over anything.”
“The invasion storyline was over. They were no longer invading; they were kind of just like two wrestling factions battling each other. It no longer became this novel idea of people coming in from the outside. So, I would say kind of like in that stretch, in like mid-’98. Even though the business was still really good, I feel like, creative really started to deteriorate in ’98.”
WCW’s creative problems started to show
In theory, the nWo vs. nWo battle could have been great. However, the lack of a payoff (and an actual match between respective nWo leaders Nash and Hogan) hurt WCW’s credibility and allowed creative problems in the company to snowball.
“After delivering things that were satisfying the fans for a year and a half to almost two years, that [Wolfpac vs. nWo story] left a lot to be desired. And I think the credibility they had built up for a period of time had begun to dissipate. And I think mid-’98 is kind of where that really started to manifest and fall off. Just like Sting should have gone over in Starrcade ’97, the fans wanted so badly for Kevin Nash to whoop Hollywood Hogan’s butt. And, just never happened.”
Marc Raimondi on what people should take from his new book
Say Hello to the Bad Guys aims to serve a few different demographics. This includes the casuals and non-fans and the diehards. Raimondi hopes to not only validate pro wrestling’s influence on popular culture, but he also wants to show how the nWo was a launching point for that impact.
“For people who are big wrestling fans, I know there’s been a ton of documentaries and coverage of that era of wrestling. This one is a little bit different because it explains how that era of wrestling influenced culture. nWo is kind of the launching point to that, so I think it’s interesting for them. There will probably be a lot of things that the hardcore fans know about the nWo, and there’s some things they don’t. But I think more than anything, it’s kind of my love letter to pro wrestling. My goal with this book is to kind of validate pro wrestling on a mainstream stage.”
Marc Raimondi’s new book, Say Hello to the Bad Guys: How Professional Wrestling’s New World Order Changed America, is available now.
