The legend of the nWo was made the moment it was formed in July of 1996. When Hulk Hogan's leg made impact across the throat of Randy Savage in Daytona Beach, Florida. . .professional wrestling was changed forever. A new era in mainstream wrestling began as WCW finally caught up to the bar that ECW had been setting for two years and put their biggest and most expensive hired guns at the forefront of a full fledged mainstream wrestling revolution.

The concept of a heel change was nothing new in pro wrestling, it had been done thousands of times before and has been done thousands of times since. But when the biggest star in the history of the business, the picture of a baby face, and the picture of pro wrestling turned heel, all bets were off, and all empty soft drink cups and bottles were sent flying. Teaming up with two of the five faces of the WWF's New Generation, Hulk Hogan, Scott Hall, and Kevin Nash formed the new World order of professional wrestling, and a name was never more fitting than the one that tagged the greatest stable wrestling had ever seen.

For the nWo became more than just a stable. It became more identifiable and profitable than the company that they were a stable in. But the confines and limits of a stable was in no way able to hold back the epic amount of talent possessed in this group of political sports entertainment renegades. With the likes of The Giant, Ted Dibiase, Sean Waltman, Scott Steiner, Eric Bishoff, Lex Luger, and the Macho Man joining ranks, the nWo became so popular and profitable that WCW relabeled their pay per views for a calendar year and was advertised as WCW/NWO, a feet that had never been reached by a stable before and will never be reached by a stable again.

Even the term stable does not to justice to what the nWo was and is in the eyes of the wrestling fans who witnessed their long time at the top of the wrestling world. From July 1996 to April 1999 the nWo was the central attraction of World Championship Wrestling during the Monday Night War, and was the force that kept WCW winning the war consistently for over a year and a half without a single lost battle. The nWo was not just a stable, it was a phenomenon. A phenomenon in the nineties led by the same man who led wrestling’s previous phenomenon during the Mania Era of the 1980s. The nWo was such a phenomenon that it brought so many fans to the business that three national wrestling promotions were able to have their highest rated and most profitable periods during the same span while competing against each other.

But the phenomenon of the nWo wasn't limited to the business of professional wrestling, the nWo was a phenomenon because of what it did for the sport of professional wrestling. Redefining what a heel could be and what a heel could do by giving a sport that was based on the concept of black and white, many shades of gray that gave the wrestlers more options as to what they could do on camera, and also gave the fans more options on what they could cheer and what they could support. The nWo were so destructive, were such badasses, were so rebellious, fresh, and uncontrollable that they eventually became cool, and became what was cheered, and what the fans wanted to see. Completely redefining wrestling is something that comes around only once a generation if that, and the nWo was such a phenomenon that it did exactly that, forcing change in an industry steeped in tradition, similarity, nepotism, and routine. A concept that forced it's competition to also begin acknowledging the change in the audience first seen and capitalized on by ECW and caused the WWF to form it's own renegade stable dubbed Degeneration X and ushered in a new style and way of doing things in the company that would come to be known as the Attitude Era.

The nWo was untouchable for a full year and a half, never suffering any long sustaining loss and only grew in size do to their inability to be defeated. Their untouchable and undeniable phenomenon was due to the three leaders of the stable being vocal in the ring and vocal behind the scenes as well. The harnessed political power that the three carried with them at all times during their tenure at the top of the mountain had never been seen before and has been a concept since taken fiercely mixed with nepotism and used in relations of the day to day operations in what is now known as World Wrestling Entertainment. The nWo were a dominant wrestling faction and a stroke wielding political force in professional wrestling and with Eric Bishoff whole heartedly supporting every move the nWo made, there was no limit to what they could do or how long they could last. Hogan, Hall, and Nash took advantage of that until a month before WCW was bought and put out of business. Hulk Hogan went through multiple spans of holding the WCW World Title for six months plus, Kevin Nash acquired the title multiple times himself even though most of his matches in the company were in the tag division with partner Scott Hall. Hall himself held every title up except the world title to ensure the complete dominance of the nWo in the record books of professional wrestling as well as the business and political ends.

The destructive force that was the nWo destroyed WCW and everything it stood for. Running over and running through every WCW wrestler, star, and legend including Sting the nWo left no one in the company standing and gave the company no legs to stand on. Soon the destruction wasn't limited to what took place on camera as the egos and political pull of the leaders of the group disabled WCW from building new talent that the fans of the company could get behind. That inability led to WCW eventually losing out to the WWF in the Monday Night Wars and soon after losing to WWF in the ratings for as long as they had dominated them, WCW was sold to the WWF and put out of business. The fall and selling of the company can be directly attributed to the very thing that made the company the kings of wrestling in the first place, the phenomenon of the nWo. Hogan, Hall, and Nash collected their checks and watch WCW turn to dust with complete lack of emotion and soon accepted the idea of being a completely destructive force in wrestling and when contracted by Vince McMahon attempted to do the same to the World Wrestling Federation.

The nWo kicked in the doors of the WWF and immediately went after the biggest draws the WWF had seen since the Mania Era, The Rock and Steve Austin. The Rock felt the full extent of what the nWo was capable of by being beaten with a hammer having his ambulance run over with an 18 wheeler with Hollywood Hogan at the wheel. Steve Austin was smashed with a block of cement and was cost his only shot at the Undisputed Title at the hands of the new World order. But the nWo left its biggest mark behind the scenes when Hulk Hogan turned face and ended Triple H's WrestleMania Undisputed Title run at just one month, a record low for a WrestleMania winner. Triple H was so furious that he took advantage of his marriage to Stephanie McMahon and became the most politically manipulative wrestler since Hulk Hogan himself and did to the WWE what the nWo did to WCW, disabling the company from building new stars and sending the company and the entire industry into a free fall of declining interest, ratings, and buy rates.

With no apologies the destructive force of the nWo had made another huge destructive impact on the business in another decade and soon exited the WWE with plenty of money in hand. With the three original leaders again split apart, they each made separate appearances for either the WWE or Total Nonstop Action wrestling as top faces, and all three finally seemed content to end their political manipulation, never ending greed for bigger pay days, and quests for glory through complete destruction of a wrestling company.

However. . .fate has a different plan in store for the new World order. Because the creator, supplier, financial backer, and political enabler of the new World order has a mandate of revenge and spite against a man and an ideal that he cannot stand and has been on a ten year mission to destroy both. What has he found to enable him to come into the fold without risking the involvement of police and federal judges? Why has he been sought out by one of eHw's own to help complete his objective of greed and hatred? With no political power in any current wrestling promotion how has he been or who has enabled him to pursue a war using his greatest creation and wrestling most historic destructible force?

. . . Only time will tell as we continue on the Prologue to War. . .