nWo question
By Scott Keith on 29 April 2015
Since you're doing all the summer '96 reviews, something I always wondered – obviously the planning and execution of the invasion angle was incredible, but did they have the actual nWo name picked in advance? Basically I've always wondered if they just grabbed that term from Hogan's in-ring promo after the turn and ran with it, or if that promo was specifically scripted because the t-shirts were printed up and ready to go.
Well Hogan originally said "New World Organization", so it wasn't really him. According to the Observer at the time, WCW was pushing for just calling the group "The Outsiders" in the most on-the-nose naming in quite some time, although that ended up just being Hall and Nash, obviously. So it appears to be a rare case of WCW actually picking up on the cultural zeitgeist of something and running with it without fucking it up.