Controversy Creates Cash (28 page)

The powerbomb started with Kevin grabbing me by the back of my head and tucking it down between his thighs. He reached over my back and locked his hands around my stomach, then flipped me up so I was basically sitting on his shoulders with my crotch in his face.

Now Kevin is seven feet tall. I was on his shoulders, so my head had to be a good nine or ten feet up in the air. To complete the move, he had to throw me off the stage, which itself is what? Five feet off the ground? And I was supposed to hit a target the size of a small mattress.

Great plan, except Kevin was completely blind. He couldn’t see anything. If I missed the pad, I was going to hit concrete.

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But we were well past the point of no return. He launched me blind. Fortunately, at the very last second he saw what he thought was the target and managed to twist me in its direction.
Most
of me hit
most
of the pad, and as much as it hurt, it was a hell of a lot better than the alternative.

Pad or no pad, the toss was a huge bump—figuratively as well as literally. By tossing WCW’s boss so unceremoniously, the Outsiders had declared war on the WCW. In traditional wrestling terms, they were heels. But they were very
cool
heels, generating enormous heat for themselves—not least of all because a lot of WCW fans wouldn’t have minded tossing me from the stage themselves.

Never Rehearse

Kevin had trouble finding the target when he threw me because we hadn’t rehearsed the move. That was my fault—I don’t like to rehearse, and don’t whenever possible. I’m really superstitious about rehearsing things. I love the adrenaline rush, and if I rehearse something, I don’t get the rush.

These days at WWE, they make me rehearse the trickier moves.

Despite what people may think about Vince McMahon, he really does care about what happens to the people who work for him.

Knowing I don’t like to rehearse certain things, Vince has pulled me aside on several occasions and said, “No, you will rehearse this, Eric.” And so I have. Reluctantly.

Injuries

With the exception of my perennial knee injuries and a few broken bones, I’ve never really gotten seriously hurt. Maybe that’s luck. Or maybe it’s because the things I’ve been involved in have been fairly limited. Even so, I’ve always had this feeling that I’m indestructible.

The broken bones may be evidence to the contrary. I was doing a WWE house show with Eugene (the character who was supposedly 214

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my mentally challenged nephew) at Madison Square Garden one time when he bodyslammed me. He followed that up with—well, I’m not sure what the move was, because by that time my eyes were closed. He ended up landing hard on my chest. Either because I’m not in shape anymore or because he misjudged, I cracked one of my ribs. It was more a nuisance than anything else. It didn’t keep me from doing anything important. I didn’t bother telling anyone at the time.

It made it difficult for me to cough or sneeze or laugh, but otherwise . . .

There was another incident in WWE with Kane, where he choke-slammed me off the side of the stage. Kane is one incredibly powerful guy. He brought me over to the edge of the stage and picked me all the way up.

One of the things you don’t want to do as the guy taking that bump is reach down and try to find the floor with your hand. You want to take that bump across your back. Tuck your head in your chest so your head doesn’t bounce, flatten your back out, roll your shoulders up a little bit, and take it all across your shoulder blades.

But being inexperienced and not having rehearsed it because I’m stubborn that way, about halfway down I started reaching for the floor. My hand hit first, and I fractured my thumb. Compared to what so many other performers have been through, these injuries are really not worth mentioning. But that’s the point.

Now that I’m older and it takes me longer to heal, I’ve become a little more careful. Still, I’d rather get hurt than have a move look phony.

The Third Guy

Instantly Hot

The Outsider angle caught fire immediately. And as soon as that happened, the natural question was: Who’s next? Who will the next person be to attack the WCW?

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We spent four or five weeks developing the idea, giving hints and laying the groundwork. We planned to unveil the “third guy” at the
Bash at the Beach
Pay-Per-View in July.

I didn’t know myself. It had to be someone
inside
WCW, but beyond that, I wasn’t sure.

I decided to approach Sting, but I didn’t know if he’d do it. Joining the Outsiders meant he’d have to turn heel, and Sting had always been a very successful babyface character.

Sting was receptive—not knock-me-over enthusiastic, but receptive. Everyone could see the power this storyline was developing.

Just a few weeks old, it was already one of the most interesting stories in the last five or ten years. We began discussing how the storyline might develop. I talked to him a couple of times, in person and over the phone. No one else knew we were talking, not even Scott and Kevin. The identity of the third person had to be kept an extremely tight secret.

Hogan Checks In

About this time, I got a phone call from Hogan.

“Hey, brother, what are you doing? Come on out to L.A. I want to talk to you.”

I hadn’t spoken to him in months. He was out west working on a movie called
Santa with Muscles,
so I flew out to see what was on his mind.

Hogan sent a limo for me. It took me out to the mountains about an hour and a half from L.A. I got to his trailer about nine or ten. He’d just finished filming, and there was a cooler of beers and a couple of Cuban cigars—Montecristo No. 4’s, I believe—sitting out.

We kicked back and caught up on things.

“So, brother, who’s the third guy?”

“Well, Hulkster,”
I told him.
“I don’t know yet. I haven’t made up
my mind.”

“Well, I know who the third guy should be.”
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“Who would that be?”

“You’re looking at him.”

“Well, that’s interesting, Hulk, but the only way that’s going to work
would be if you turn heel.”

“Brother, I’m already there.”

Hogan as Heel

Four or five months ago, Hogan had—gently—thrown me out of his house for suggesting he turn heel. Now, as he saw the Outsiders story unfold, he wanted to be part of it.

By this time I realized that Hogan was a master negotiator. I don’t want to call him a manipulator, because of the negative con-notations of the word, but if anyone can smell an opportunity and turn it to his benefit, it’s Hulk Hogan. So I knew that as exciting as the idea was, there was a good possibility that another boot would drop.

We talked a bit. We weren’t renegotiating the financial aspects of his deal, but because Hogan had creative control, I had to dance around a lot of what might happen story-wise.

We didn’t really know how the angle would go. I thought it would be successful, but we couldn’t be absolutely sure that it would be. If the audience shit on it, we would have to take it in one direction. If it went over, we’d go in another. And that had to be worked out in advance with Hogan, to make sure it would work.

He also had a lot of questions about Scott and Kevin, and whether they were team players—valid questions, given their track records.

Would He or Wouldn’t He?

Despite what he’d said, a large part of Hogan remained apprehensive. He had been a babyface for almost all of his professional career. To shed that persona, to shed the red and yellow, was a big step.

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You have to understand, the red and yellow meant a lot outside the ring. Hulk Hogan is a good human being outside the ring. He’s got a big heart. He’s a guy who does a lot of work for charity. He knew that if he turned heel, all of that would be affected. A lot of kids buy into a character like Hogan or Sting. When you turn that good guy into a bad guy, you really do affect, in some small way, the lives of those children. And Hogan took that
very
seriously. He knew there would be a lot of Make-A-Wish kids, and a lot of the young people he worked with, wondering why Hogan was now a bad guy. They’d literally feel betrayed by their hero. For a lot of people, something like that wouldn’t factor into a decision. But it was something Hulk was very concerned about.

Hulk also had two young kids at the time, and had to think about how this transition would affect them. As silly as that might seem to the outside world, what a wrestler does can have an immense impact on his family, especially young kids. Their friends don’t understand the business, and no one can really explain it to them. Kids can be mean, and no parent wants to subject their children to things that are tough to deal with, especially if it’s not necessary. Hogan already had more money than he could spend, so he didn’t need to turn heel.

We discussed all of the implications daily, all the way up to Daytona where the Pay-Per-View was going to take place. Even then, I wasn’t entirely sure Hulk was going to go through with it.

Sting

Being the team player and professional that he was, Sting stood there on the sidelines, ready to go if needed. It wasn’t until an hour before the show—when Hogan showed up at the arena—that I knew for certain he was going to do it. I went to Sting and thanked him, saying how much I appreciated his standing by.

It was a tough conversation to have, because I knew that on some level he thought I didn’t have confidence in him to pull it off.

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But that wasn’t the case. He could have pulled it off, and it would have worked.

It’s just that Hogan turning heel was bigger. A lot bigger.

I think deep down inside Sting knew that. I think in some ways he might even have been a little relieved, because as willing as he was to take the chance, he knew what his character meant as a babyface, and turning heel would have been venturing into the unknown.

A New World Order

In a way my uncertainty over Hogan may have helped build the surprise. There had been no leaks because no one knew anything to leak. Kevin Nash and Scott Hall didn’t know for sure who was going to be heel until Hogan showed up. And I didn’t tell the announcers what was going on because they had a bad habit of foreshadowing what was going to happen. I wanted a real reaction out of them.

Walking around backstage, getting ready to go on, I felt electric. I knew it was going to work.

At this point, I had not even thought about what to call the con-spiracy or organization or whatever it was Hogan was joining, beyond the Outsiders. That name wouldn’t really work once he came over, but what would?

I walked Hogan through the match and the interview that he’d have to give afterward. He didn’t like reading off scripts, so I didn’t write anything out; we just went over the general direction so he could ad-lib.

As I was working through this dialogue with him, the name just popped into my head. I said, “Hulk, when you grab that mic, I want you to say, This is the beginning of the new . . . world . . . order.” The words kind of sprang into my mouth: New World Order.

New World Order.

new World order

Hogan claims the term was biblical. It may be. Maybe it was out THE REVOLUTION TAKES HOLD

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there in political commentary: the first President Bush had spoken about a new world order a few years before. The general idea has been out there in different ways. But as far as we were concerned, it was spontaneous and unplanned.

As soon as I said those words, I realized they were going to work. They summed up everything we’d been doing, not just with the angle, but with
Nitro.
It was a new world order for wrestling.

And the fans loved it.

An After-Sex Cigarette

A split second after Hogan made it clear he was the third man, I saw a fan throw a cup of Coke or Pepsi at the ring in disgust and anger.

I knew it had not only worked, but it had gone over big. Really big.

As Hogan filled the air with trash talk about Ted Turner and the WCW and what it stood for, people went
nuts.
They filled the ring with garbage. All the effort that had gone into keeping this thing quiet was worth it. The reality, the story, the anticipation, the surprise, the action, were all 100 percent right on the money. Viewers loved the war we’d created, and they were going to love it even more as the story continued.

When the show ended, I had the wrestling equivalent of an after-sex cigarette: I went back to my office, had my assistant bring me a beer, closed the door, and basked in the afterglow.

Elements of Success

Five Elements—SARSA

The nWo storyline evolved over time, but looking back at things now, it’s a little easier to explain why it worked. It filled all of the important elements of storytelling—story, action, reality, surprise, 220

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and anticipation. That’s the winning formula that we tried to follow on
Nitro.
We followed it unconsciously until I was able to articulate it for myself and then my staff, right around this time.

The Olympics were going on in Atlanta that summer. There was a lot of buzz in the press about the coverage. The previous Olympics had been a bust in the ratings, and I remember reading a lot about what NBC was going to do to try and turn that situation around.

Dick Ebersol was the executive at NBC in charge of the Olympics. He told a reporter for
USA Today
that the Olympics were going to be about story, action, and surprises. “Those are the elements that we are going to focus on to make the Olympics interesting,” he said.

I cut the article out and saved it for several years, because it summarized exactly what we were trying to do. To keep the audience in that “sweet spot” where they were willing to suspend their disbelief, where they were guessing whether things were real or not, we needed a certain level of reality. Real life mixed in with the storylines, and angles blurred the distinction between entertainment and reality. When the line was blurred, the audience felt that anything could happen. And when they felt that way, they had to keep tuning in to see what the next thing was, the third man or whatever.