Eric Bischoff Recalls the nWo’s Origins, When Hall & Nash Knew Hulk Hogan Would Join Them

– Eric Bischoff spoke on his 83 Weeks podcast about the origins of the New World Order, getting Hulk Hogan to be the third man and more. Highlights are below per Wrestling Inc:

On the creation of the nWo: “It’s hard for me to create a timeline that occurred 20 years ago, especially with the angle of the nWo. The catalyst of the nWo angle started a year prior. To try and point out the day and month and how it coincided with the contract issue is difficult for me to do. When I knew Scott Hall was coming in, probably a couple of weeks before he was due to arrive, at least in my mind, from what I remember now, that is when the idea started to form in my head. I knew that I wanted to do this reality-based angle. I wanted to do this storyline where the audience didn’t know whether or not the story was real or it was scripted. Scott and Kevin worked with WCW previously. Scott and Kevin both felt that WCW didn’t treat them well, and that they weren’t being treated as stars, etc. We have heard it all before. They went to WWF and became bigger stars, or big stars in WWF. Storyline-wise it became apparent to me that it was a perfect catalyst of these two guys that used to work here and got pissed off, they left, became big stars and then came back to exact revenge. That was the premise of the nWo storyline.”

On Scott Hall’s first appearance in WCW: “We knew he wasn’t going to wrestle. I knew I was going to bring him in to kind of crash the party at the time. I had the beats figured out in my head for the next few weeks and I knew he wasn’t going to wrestle, so I told him to bring his street clothes.”

On when Hall and Nash knew Hulk Hoogan would be the third member of the stable: “I think at that time, probably a week before is when I started letting the people need to know know. I think I let Kevin Nash know. I know I was out in Los Angeles doing something because we met for a beer at Sunset Blvd, at some biker bar. I wasn’t sure if it was going to be Hulk Hogan or Sting. One was a plan A and the other plan B. I tried to let him know how much he should know, and the other part was because I was worried he would leak it out, so probably a week before I let those that needed to know know that Hogan was going to be the third member.”