Vince bringing in the NWO to kill the company in storyline actually killed the company in reality

[stro]

"...then the poison of the NWO will flow through the World Wrestling Federation veins, wiping out everything in its path. It'll destroy the fan interest. It will destroy all fan interest all over the world. Thus, it will destroy the careers of every WWF superstar, and ultimately, that NWO poison will destroy the World Wrestling Federation itself."

The company was literally never the same once Vince brought the NWO in. Fan interest in fact did get destroyed. Ratings have never recovered. Think of all the careers over the past 18 years that died and faded away. The lethal dose of poison is still working its away through the cancer riddled husk of WWE's corpus .

 

[Womb Raider]

Yeah idk about that one chief


That storyline was massively fukked tho. I didn’t even know HBK never intended to wrestle until now

 

[prophecypro]

I dont know how an NWO vs Austin/Rock programme didnt end up being a bigger success but somehow thats what happened

 

[TinFoilSnapBack]

The way the entire invasion angle was handled was a huge turning point, and WWF/E has not been the same since.

 

[HipHopStan]

The nWo storyline really only lasted two months if you think about it. They debuted in February, and by April, Hogan was back to red & yellow, Nash was out due to an injury (and then he came back for the quad tear), and Scott Hall was feuding with Bradshaw (and was subsequently fired.) What we got after that was fukkery. X-Pac, Big Show, Booker T all joined, HBK returned in a managerial role, and even Ric Flair was helping out the nWo until it was put out of its misery.

 

[Chris Cool]

Naw it fell off during the invasion.

 

[BlackAchilles]

Correlation=/=causation

End of WCW and ECW, end of the 90's "crash tv" wave, Rock going to Hollywood, Austin retiring, Foley going into semi-retirement etc ... shyt even if we're just talking about botched angles the whole invasion thing being terrible was a way bigger dud than NWO

 

[R=G]

The follow up to WM 17...things have never been the same. The Invasion should of changed the industry like the nwo formation did. They fukked it up.

 

[Renzo]

It was the ascension of trash ass Cena that killed the product off..spent over a decade trying to get that chump over..ratings declined every year he was the face of the company.

 

[MushroomX]

It didn't kill the company, but it did kill the NWO for good as being hip. Kevin Nash tore his Quad not to long after coming back and Scott Hall got released after the Plane Ride from Hell. The only person who really came out of it was Hogan for his match with Rock.

 

[Mook]

I dont know how an NWO vs Austin/Rock programme didnt end up being a bigger success but somehow thats what happened

Stone cold never got his ass whipped. I remember that Scott Hall got duct taped in a chair or something. Vince really cant write good tv. NWO in 96 and 97 its clear why that storyline was so hot. Wrestling finally looked like a modern product. WWE after smackdown debuted still looks like some fake colorful kids shyt. Its hard to explain, but WCW really had this gritty real look in those days.

 

[prophecypro]

Stone cold never got his ass whipped. I remember that Scott Hall got duct taped in a chair or something. Vince really cant write good tv. NWO in 96 and 97 its clear why that storyline was so hot. Wrestling finally looked like a modern product. WWE after smackdown debuted still looks like some fake colorful kids shyt. Its hard to explain, but WCW really had this gritty real look in those days.

They also went comically overboard with the Truck to the ambulance

 

[stro]

It was the ascension of trash ass Cena that killed the product off..spent over a decade trying to get that chump over..ratings declined every year he was the face of the company.

Ratings have literally been in decline since the night after WM 17. Even this thread is a joke, obviously the NWO didn't kill WWE. It just happens I just watched that promo and it made me lol. The boom-bust cycle of the wrestling industry goes back to at least the dawn of television and I'd imagine probably happened in the pre-TV days as well. The reality is the Attitude Era was such an aberration that the industry in America didn't stabilize back to normal until the past 2-3 years. In the past, it was more like an 8-10 year decline and then big spike of popularity, but in AE case, it's been 20 years to get back to baseline.

Except in this era there are a billion more entertainment sources and a significant chunk of the wrestling audience didn't continue with WWE, didn't come back for TNA, didn't come back for ROH, and haven't come back for AEW. Jerry Spring and Maury aren't doing the ratings they were doing in 1999, either. That audience changed, the appetite for that style changed, the culture moved on and we're back to what it was like pre-Hulkamania or 1991-1992.

 

[NYChase718]

Around July 2002 on Raw...Vince mcmahon randomly coming out to the nWo theme and saying the nWo is dead.

 

[Hey_zeus]

I dont know how an NWO vs Austin/Rock programme didnt end up being a bigger success but somehow thats what happened

The back to back fumble of the Invasion storyline and NWO vs Austin/Rock really is wild when you think about it.