Text By Jed Shaffer

What if...What if D-Generation X got into the Norfolk Scope during their attack on WCW Nitro?

Part I

(The following Re-Writing The Book is written not as a narrative story, but as an article on a wrestling website, commemorating the tenth anniversary of the D-Generation X invasion of WCW Monday Nitro, and looking back at how the event changed the wrestling landscape.)

Time and again, one will hear an event or a wrestling match proclaimed by some over-zealous headset jockey as "a turning point" or "the most important moment in the history of the business". And if you believed Tony Schiavone, Nitro had at least one every week.

Of course, we all know those moments aren't as common as one might think. But the ones that do exist ... well, no one can deny that they did signify a paradigm shift; sometimes just for a person's career, but sometimes a whole company, or even the entire industry. Vince McMahon Sr. pulling the WWWF out of the NWA. Hulk Hogan winning the WWF World Title. The formation of the nWo. The Montreal Screwjob. The Jim Crockett/TurnerSports buyout. Every one of these rings out through history as a watershed moment, a point in time where a seismic shift to which future events can be traced back to.

Perhaps none ring out more though, than what, at the time, seemed like a simple little throwaway publicity stunt.
It's hard to imagine a wrestling industry where D-Generation X hadn't gotten into the building where WCW Monday Nitro was being held in 1998. Would they have just stood around outside the Norfolk Scope, yelling at the building, filming themselves making crotch-chops with the crowd and acting like a bunch of idiots? Would they have continued their little stunts, maybe gone down to Atlanta to hunt down the elusive WCW headquarters, or maybe even CNN Towers? It seems almost inconceivable that Vince McMahon, D-X and the WWF could come off as anything but shameless publicity whores with such stunts, that they would ever hope to catch the juggernaut that was WCW at the time with such childish tactics (even if said tactics were cut whole cloth from tactics WCW had used to undermine WWF's fanbase). But perhaps it only seems unimaginable because of what we, as wrestling fans, witnessed in the ensuing months, and years, after D-X got into the Scope ... events that turned, quite literally, the entire industry on its collective ear.

It seems appropriate, then, to commemorate the tenth anniversary of D-X's invasion by looking back at the moment that seemed so innocuous, even as it revelled in a moronic, childish glee ... but, in reality, a moment that reshaped the wrestling landscape in ways nobody could have foreseen. With the help of quotes from interviews and online chats from people who were there and the backstage reports from numerous sources, I hope to paint the definitive picture of the tumultuous events that followed that one Earth-shattering day in the spring of 1998.

April 27, 1998: The turning point:

The members of D-Generation X and Vince McMahon didn't expect to get into the Norfolk Scope, where Monday Nitro was being staged that night; interviews with Triple H and Vince indicate their expectations were that they'd shoot some footage, "try" to get in but get "locked out", call the competition cowards and call it a day. But WCW President Eric Bischoff saw things a little differently. First off, Bischoff had a history of pulling stunts against the competition; his revealing of WWF Monday Night Raw show results on weeks that Raw was pre-taped was one of the questionable tactic he used to help push Nitro into the #1 slot and make the WWF look inferior by a step.

But more importantly, on this day, Bischoff was facing the fact that his almost two year domination of Raw was becoming a dogfight once again. On the heels of Steve Austin's rise to the top of the WWF (a WCW reject, cast aside as "unmarketable" in his plain black tights and boots), along with other new stars like Mick Foley (another WCW castoff), D-Generation X (led by yet another ex-WCW'er--and a curtain jerker in WCW at that), The Rock and a host of others, WCW, led by a bunch of former WWF'ers knee deep in their 40's and riding the same nWo vs. WCW angle wave for two years running, was starting to lose the edge. And here, presented to him gift-wrapped on a silver platter, was a way to not only strike back at the competition in a fresh new way, but to do so in such a way as to suck the very growing wind out of the WWF's sails.

"Bischoff didn't have a clue what was going on," said Hulk Hogan in a 2000 interview with Dave Meltzer. "Nash wanted my spot, and he wasn't ready for it, so he went to Bischoff and played him. Bischoff was as much a leader in WCW as I am a ballet dancer." While Hogan would go on to claim he never dirtied his hands in the political pool of WCW, his words about Bischoff and Nash resonate with a startling truth that virtually everyone in WCW at the time agrees on. There was a power struggle for the top position both in front of the camera, and as the man with Eric Bischoff's ear. And while Hogan and his heel turn might've helped propel WCW to heights never before seen, two years of reigning supreme with atrocious matches and run-in ending after run-in ending wasn't getting the job done anymore. The crowd was openly begging for a change. Nash, apparently the beneficiary of advance word that D-X was on their way to the arena to fake an invasion (an act that, to this day, nobody will admit to doing), knew he had a golden ticket in his hands, something that could put Nitro on top again. Something that could curry him enough favor to vault him into the top spot on-camera, and the #1 guy behind the scenes. Something Hogan could never, in his wildest dreams, provide.

It was too good an offer to pass up for Bischoff. So, as per normal for WCW, Nitro was re-written on the fly, from the main event on down to the curtain jerkers, all to accomodate this one segment. At the top of Nitro's second hour--the hour that ran opposed to the first hour of Raw--Bischoff dropped his 100-megaton neutron bomb: the WWF's own D-Generation X, welcomed to a WCW ring by their buddies, The Outsiders. That the segment contributed nothing to the show in and of itself was a point Bischoff wasn't willing to listen to; having contracted WWF wrestlers on WCW television was the coup de grace he was convinced would be the killing blow he'd been looking for. As D-X excused themselves after the segment ended and made it back to Raw in time to participate in the show, Bischoff sat in the back and counted the dollar signs in his imagination ... and how many shovelfuls of dirt he'd just dumped on the hand trying to claw out from the grave he'd buried the WWF in over the past two years.

The immediate impact: May 1998:

An old proverb says that revenge is a dish best served cold. Another proverb, albeit more of a joking one, says that no good deed goes unpunished. Kevin Nash found out about the second one right quick. Despite giving Bischoff a silver bullet which, indeed, helped Nitro crush Raw in the all-important Monday night ratings war, in the weeks leading up to Slamboree, Nash found both his storylines and his profile behind the scenes no better for his contribution. He was mired in a slow-burn (some would say so slow as to be at a standstill) break-off from the nWo and was scheduled to drop the tag titles to the makeshift team of The Giant and Sting at Slamboree, which would springboard into a break-up angle against his Outsiders running buddy, Scott Hall. With Nitro enjoying more ratings victories, and the WWF subject to a rash of rumors about the state of the company thanks to the D-X guest appearence, Nash should've been in position to reap the rewards.

But over the next two weeks, Bischoff's ear was continually tuned to Hogan's suggestions, while Nash was told that the Outsiders breaking up was "necessary for business". When rumors floated that the Outsiders break-up was meant to keep Nash occupied so Hogan could work a program with Goldberg (including being the man to stop Goldberg's streak), Nash's patience with Bischoff snapped, and the first old proverb came to pass. Said Vince McMahon in the "D-Generation X" DVD in 2006: "When Hunter called me to tell me they'd gotten into the Scope and that Bischoff was going to put them on TV, I told him to extend the offer in kind. Did I think they'd take us up? I'd heard things, rumors, about WCW. I was hoping they'd take the offer, but no, we weren't counting on it. We had our own long-range plan to become number-one again, and we weren't going to pin our hopes on a maybe."

The offer, as it were, turned out to be a reciprocal visit by The Outsiders to Raw. Nobody in their right mind would make the mistake of thinking that Bischoff would endorse this idea, least of all Hall and Nash. Fortunately for them, nobody in WCW had a clue about the offer. So, when one Monday night in May, Raw opened with D-Generation X welcoming a couple of "buddies from a prison down south", Eric Bischoff found himself in the same boat as the crowd, the "smart" fans and the industry at large: blind-sided. Like the WCW segment with D-X, the segment on Raw made no pretense at moving any WWF storylines forward. But, unlike its counterpart segment, this one raised eyebrows for reasons beyond the novelty of seeing another company's wrestlers on the wrong show: Kevin Nash's shoot promo.

"There's only one reason we're here on Raw instead of doing our jobs on Nitro tonight," said Nash that night. "Two years ago, we came out on Nitro and told him all the seniors and dialysis patients he had in WCW couldn't measure up to us. Here it is, two years later, and he still has us yukking it up with Harlem Heat and the Steiners, while those decrepit old bastards stumble through match after match like a tranquilized turtle. There's a reason you got all those dinosaurs on the cheap, Eric: Vinnie Mac here saw it was time to put a bullet in the old horse's head. New blood. That's what we were supposed to be, remember, Eric? New blood. A shake-up. And what happens? After we tear apart all those walking corpses? You stick us with Hogan! You stick us with the most greedy, self-serving, manipulative son of a bitch in the company! It wasn't that bald, backstabbing bastard who made people flip to watch Nitro. It wasn't Hogan that made people buy Bash At The Beach two years ago; that was me and Scotty! Where was the third man, Eric? Undertaker, Bret, Bulldog ... 'Oh, I'm gonna pick the WWF clean. This is only the beginning'. Your promises ain't worth [bleep], and neither are you. Well, mine are, Uncle Eric, so here's my promise to you: me and Scotty, we're declaring war again. And this time, I promise ... it ain't no storyline."

Anyone who tuned in to Nitro for the rest of the night would think the company was coming undone right then and there, and for good reason: by the next day, every dirt sheet and website in existence would buzz with stories of Bischoff's psychotic rantings and throwing of furniture. Hogan would walk out of Nitro that very night, as would Randy Savage and Lex Luger, turning the show's script upside down and cancelling matches that had been hyped all night, some all week. JJ Dillon would step into the void for the evening as booker and hold down the fort, but the damage was done. Nitro got beaten in the all-important (to Bischoff) Nielsens, and since WCW never updated the live crowd about the change in card, the replacement main event was received with a tidal wave of garbage and fans screaming with rage. WCW promptly issued refunds and make-good tickets for future events, turning the evening into a loser for both company morale, the ratings and the bottom line.

Another old saying, although more vulgar than the other two, goes like this: shit flies downward. When the higher-ups at TurnerSports found out about the Raw incident, and the mutiny by Hogan, Savage and Luger that followed, the shit indeed did fly downward, right onto Eric Bischoff. With his job on the line, Bischoff took action in two ways: the first was in the form of a lawsuit against TitanSports/WWF (for monetary damages for having WCW wrestlers on WWF programming), Kevin Nash and Scott Hall (for breach of contract). Bischoff believed he had an open and shut case, and for once, he was right ... but it was open and shut against him, as not only did WCW fail to prove that Nash and Hall had breached their contract and were under the employ of the WWF, but it was brilliantly pointed out that all of WCW's arguments--mainly, that having WCW wrestlers on a competition's programming did undue and irreparable damage to WCW's integrity--could be applied to WCW's use of D-Generation X on WCW programming. This, coupled with the WWF's very prudent decision not to file a counter-suit on those very grounds (and showing that their brand had not, in fact, come under sustained duress because of D-X's Nitro appearance), gave WCW little recourse but to drop the lawsuits, serving Bischoff a major defeat and humiliation.

His second order of retaliatory business would be to deliver punishment to Hall and Nash, in the form of conditional releases which specifically forbade them from going to the WWF until the terms of their WCW contracts expired in 2001. Three years off TV is a lifetime in wrestling, enough to erode the drawing power of the mightiest marquee player down to nothing. In an America Online chat just days after issuing a press release on the terminations of Hall and Nash, Bischoff would refer to them as (ironically) "degenerates", blame them for the discord in WCW since their arrival, and promised without them "poisoning the well", fans would see a new, more cohesive WCW emerge. He did not address the issue of the WCW tag titles, last held by The Outsiders, or a replacement main event for Slamboree; and when a host of fans voiced concerns that maybe Nash was on the money in his shoot promo, Bischoff dismissed them by saying they were all "under the spell of some big galoof who wouldn't know how to book a hotel room, let alone a wrestling show". Oddly enough, the three men who stormed out of Nitro for no logical explanation, ruining the top half of the card for that night's Nitro and nearly inciting a riot, went unpunished. Nobody--save Hogan, Luger and Savage--seemed pleased with that.

With the red-hot Austin vs. McMahon storyline--which, somehow, managed to encompass Undertaker, Kane and Mick Foley in not one but two identities--on the front burner, and hot undercard programs like D-X against The Rock and his Nation Of Domination, and a pumped up product that pushed the boundaries of taste with hardcore violence, foul language, and lots and lots and lots of sex, WWF found itself reasserting its position as "the most dominant brand in sports entertainment" as it had proclaimed for years. Bischoff, meanwhile, would apply bandage after bandage on what was obviously becoming a hemorrhaging company, hotshotting titles here, there and everywhere in an effort to generate interest. A Hardcore division was established, and then left for dead inside of two weeks. Rather than move the tag titles onto someone else, they were abandoned without a word spoken--quite literally, as Bischoff instructed Tony Schiavone and the rest of the announce crew to pretend like the belts never existed. Celebrities were brought in for angles and matches that didn't draw. The planned nWo split was mutated into Sting forming a faction--The Hive, a name that earned more scorn for the Stinger and WCW's creative team then possibly any decision in the year prior--that featured a few nWo exiles, but the group mostly fought with nWo midcarders. Bret Hart, the free agent WCW had so actively sought for almost two years, jumped between face, heel and tweener so many times, he drawing power was eroded to the levels of Silver King or Billy Kidman. And, as the summer drew to an end, Bischoff put out feelers to yet another old former WWF'er: The Ultimate Warrior.

An "extreme"-ly bad summer--1998:

In 1998, ECW was in a bit of an odd position. On the one hand, they had tremendous buzz, thanks to aggressive courting of the Internet Wrestling Community, some ingenious and original booking, fresh personalities in the ring, and a style of wrestling the "big two" couldn't touch. They'd broken the PPV barrier the year before, and while they weren't a global force, it seemed that, as long as they could keep the ledger ink in the black, the promotion was destined to grow.

Naysayers would be quick to point out, though, that ECW was little more then a glorified regional promotion. Their "original personalities" were a hodge-podge of "big two" castoffs and a few never-will-bes. Money was always tight for the company, so while WCW-to-WWF and WWF-to-WCW jumps were commonplace, nobody willingly jumped to ECW. There was just no upside from going to a global company to a regional one voluntarily, and their leader/guru (some would say cult leader) Paul Heyman, knew this. The only broaching of national television they'd made was a syndicated program that was not in most major markets, and their product was a little too cutting edge for the networks to even sneeze at.

But one thing they did have was a comfy-cozy relationship with the WWF. Heyman had not been averse to taking a few payoffs from Vince McMahon, as it kept the doors open, and he was happy to reciprocate by occasionally forfeiting one of his boys to the WWF if it meant a bigger paycheck and a better life then he could provide. So, to assume that Vince might've slid a little extra cash during this turbulent period in wrestling so the company could keep chugging along (and maybe, just maybe, nip at WCW's heels while Vince tried to put a foot on WCW's head) wouldn't be out of line.

But what happened at ECW's Heatwave PPV would turn the rumors of payoffs and backdoor relationships on their ears.

The main event was a six-man match pitting Tommy Dreamer, The Sandman and Little Spike Dudley against Spike's half-brothers, Buh-Buh Ray, D-Von and Big Dick Dudley. Moments after Dreamer scored the winning pinfall, the lights in the arena went out, a normal happening in ECW when a surprise was about to unfold. But instead of coming back up and having some wrestler or personality standing mid-ring like in the past, a song came over the PA: 2Pac's "2 Of America's Most Wanted". Just enough lights came up around the entrance arch to illuminate the faces of Kevin Nash and Scott Hall as they stepped into ECW. They didn't attack; they didn't talk. Hell, they barely even moved. And yet, the former Outsiders garnered a reaction bigger than anybody on the ECW roster could even dream of.

Literally, within minutes, the internet was on fire, and would remain so for weeks to come as wrestling journalists and fans alike tried to figure out how in the blue hell a regional promotion that constantly danced on the edge of Chapter 11 snared the biggest free agents in wrestling. Reading boards and columns at that time produced a plethora of ideas, from the plausible to the insane: Paul Heyman had secured a loan to pay for their appearences; ECW had been bought out by another company (New Japan, for some reason, became the top contender, a rumor both promotions were quick to denounce); Hall and Nash weren't fired at all, but were working the industry in a weird variant on the Brian Pillman/ECW/WCW scene from a few years prior (and some would take that a step further and insist it both the Pillman angle, and a whole new nWo-style invasion, a rumor Paul Heyman publically laughed at in a statement on ECW's website). But the main rumor, the one that, when people stopped and thought about it for more then a second, seemed the most logical and likely, was that Vince McMahon was paying their ECW salaries in a backdoor deal.

And, naturally, this was the conclusion Eric Bischoff leapt to. Another lawsuit was filed, citing (once again) breach of contract by Nash and Hall, and an unfair business practices suit was lodged against the WWF. The WWF's resident pit-bull of a lawyer, Jerry McDevitt, came this close to ridiculing Bischoff and his recent litigious nature, laughing off the charges as "the height of frivolous lawsuits" and something he expected to be "tossed out quicker then the judge can bang his gavel". Raising eyebrows further was that Heyman, whose own father was a lawyer, came to court represented by McDevitt. Bischoff cried foul and cited the WWF's lawyer representing the owner of ECW as proof towards his own case, but McDevitt argued that, as the two lawsuits stemmed from one central issue, it made sense to consolidate legal teams, and the WWF was happy to extend the favor to Heyman in the interest of getting both lawsuits out of their hair. And while the court did make note of the "peculiar coziness" of Heyman and the WWF, the lawsuits were tossed out: the suits against Hall and Nash on the grounds that their employment by ECW was not a violation of their WCW contract (regardless of where the money came from to pay their appearence fees), and other on the grounds that the WWF was entitled to monetarily aid ECW in any way they saw fit, and it was not the WWF's responsibility to monitor or advise how Heyman spent the money. With four lawsuits thrown out in a matter of months (and a fifth, against Ric Flair, for an entirely unrelated matter that had kept him off TV for months, still languishing in the courts) and two mutinies under his belt--one of which resulted in two of the company's biggest wrestlers leaving--Bischoff's reign suddenly made people yearn for the glory days of Bill Watts and Jim Herd. And that got the dirt sheets spinning with rumors about Bischoff's tenure coming to a end. Nothing would pan out--much to the chagrin of the boys in the lockerroom--but WCW would suffer nonetheless from Bischoff's focusing on legal matters over the company, as the morale in the lockerroom, already abysmal because of the good ol' boys and their glass ceiling went from sour to one step away from anarchy. Konnan would walk out of the company and go back to AAA, taking with him Juventud Guerrera and Psicosis and helping engineer the termination of the working relationship between AAA and WCW. The Giant, meanwhile, would gripe to anyone listening (sometimes on camera, in the form of a countdown of days left on his contract) that as soon as his contract was up at the beginning of 1999, he was "going North". Industry pundits wondered how, while the company was still turning a healthy profit and decent ratings, the bloom could fall off a rose so quickly and dramatically.

The stakes are raised--Fall, 1998:

Coming into the fall--a normally hot time for WCW, with the annual Fall Brawl/WarGames and Halloween Havoc events major tentpoles in the company's PPV calendar--WCW could be best described as a ship with a few holes and people working diligently with buckets to keep the ship afloat ... but no one attempting to repair the breaches. With the WWF starting to pull ahead regularly and WCW floundering for direction, Bischoff discarded any thought of a long-range plan and went for stunt booking.

First on Bischoff's grand design was to capitalize on the one home-grown talent WCW had that was catching fire as hot as anyone in the WWF: Bill Goldberg. Hogan, seeing the money to be made in a Goldberg program--and seeing a way to put himself back in a hot front-burner angle--proposed an angle to put the WCW World Title on Goldberg, and be the one to serve Goldberg his first defeat when he won it back. But rather then build this up for a big PPV like Halloween Havoc or Starrcade, or even the next PPV, Bischoff pulled the trigger on the Goldberg era on Nitro. He popped a big rating doing it, defeating Raw for the first time in months, but many within the company questioned the logic of sacrificing the PPV dollars for such a match for the sake of getting a one-night Nielsen victory. Further vexing them, and critics--a group whose number seemed to be growing every week--was Goldberg's booking following this; his title defenses would fall in the middle of the card, against lower-mid-card jokes like Jerry Flynn and Vincent, and midcarders who seemed shoehorned into a title match for the sake of having a title match on the show, like Perry Saturn and Hugh Morrus. Industry insiders speculated that perhaps the upper echelon of WCW wasn't ready to job to Goldberg ... which brought into question why WCW would put the company's centerpiece championship on a man whom no one was comfortable putting over. But of course, Bischoff insisted everything was hunky-dory.

The next step on Bischoff's grand design was celebrities. The WWF had used celebrity guest appearences to add mainstream credibility and garner attention, and Bischoff believed he could do the same, but in a way Vince had never broached: he'd put celebrities in the ring. Unfortunately for viewers, Bischoff picked people for their popularity and not for what they could contribute in-ring. This policy produced modern horrors like Diamond Dallas Page partnering with Jay Leno (yes, that Jay Leno) against Hollywood Hogan and Bischoff. Strangely, Goldberg--still undefeated and their reigning World Champion--wouldn't headline a PPV until October, a full three months after winning the prize that, by all rights, meant the wearer was the promotion's #1 guy; instead, he's slum it up in the semi-main, always under whatever atrocity Hogan was perpetuating (and 1998 saw Hogan perpetuate enough atrocities to qualify for a trial under the War Crimes Tribunal). The undercards on these events were fantastic, with amazing cruiserweight action from luchadores and Japanese cruisers, technical wrestling from the likes of Chris Jericho, Chris Benoit and Dean Malenko, and ECW-style brawling from Raven and Saturn. But none of them got near the main event, which was dominated by the perpetual cycle--some would say downward spiral--of Hogan, Luger, Piper, Sting and Savage (when the mercurial, and oft-injured, star could be bothered to show). But despite all the brightly-lit flashing neon warning signs at the top of the card, Bischoff plunged ahead with his trusty main eventers and more disastrous celebrity booking, including bringing in Motley Crue drummer--and accidental porn star--Tommy Lee to run an angle. Unfortunately, Bischoff decided to forego suggestions on some creative way to parlay Lee's X-rated notoriety into mainstream attention, and instead shoved him in a stupid feud with perennial mid-carder Disco Inferno (yes, Disco freaking Inferno) pitting hevay metal against disco. Two weeks worth of 10,000 people booing in unison convinced Bischoff to cancel the arrangement.

September brought fruition to the pursuit of an actual, honest-to-God wrestler for Bischoff, someone he thought would bring in the ratings through nostalgia: The Ultimate Warrior ... although he had to go by "The Warrior" to avoid a trademark infringement lawsuit from the WWF. Few questioned the angle to Bischoff's face, but word would get back to him that the idea was beyond stupid; when some names were put with the rumors, those people found their pushes killed, or their jobs eliminated. Despite the naysayers, Bischoff remained convinced that victory, in the long run, would be his. If he expected this victory to come through The Warrior, though, he would be corrected right quick; Warrior's rambling, incoherent promos, and the ludicrous booking around the Hogan/Warrior rematch--not to mention the match being 8 years past the point of relevancy--killed the angle dead long before the payoff match at Halloween Havoc ... and yet, they pushed on and "paid off" the angle in a match so vile, it is known to cause internal hemorrhaging and spontaneous combustion in viewers. Amazingly, WCW Champion Goldberg main-evented Havoc against DDP ... but WCW found a way to ruin that, too, by producing a 3 and a 1/2 hour PPV instead of their normal 3 hours without telling the PPV carriers of the over-run. And while forcing WCW fans to buy the PPV replay to see the match rang of deceit and trickery, Bischoff--someone to whom "bait and switch" was as ethical a business practice as any other--should've had no qualms about such a thing, fans would probably have been willing to fork over an extra $29.95 to just see that match ... instead, Bischoff flushed millions of extra PPV dollars down the toilet by airing the match, for free, on Nitro the following night. An interesting side effect of the Havoc over-run debacle was that, since the Goldberg/DPP match got cut off on PPV, Hogan had main-evented the PPV by default. The same old people worked the semi-mains, while the hard workers toiled in the mid-card and got nowhere. But buyrates were still hot, and while the ratings were beneath Raw, they were still pulling in big numbers. Bischoff knew they were only one hot angle away from recapturing the crown, and he believed that he had it.

Meanwhile, the WWF was riding high on the heels of their transforming to a more edgy, adult-oriented product that some critics said was a watered-down ECW: Stone Cold Steve Austin, the beer-drinking everyman and his fight against the tyrannical boss of Vince McMahon. The almost Shakesperean saga of Undertaker, his brother Kane--burned in a house fire as a child--and the man between them, Paul Bearer. Mick Foley's quixotic quest to become Vince McMahon's surrogate son, all the while fighting to be accepted by the crowd. The Rock's crazy catchphrases and third-person references were almost forcing a face turn, despite being brazenly obnoxious and egotistical. And, of course, there was D-Generation X. Many angles intertwined. Sometimes they didn't make sense, but they were fresh, they were brash, and they were leagues better then WCW. The Austin/McMahon war took on a new twist in the fall, with McMahon's recruitment of The Undertaker and his brother Kane to get the WWF Title off of the uncooperative Austin, and through a series of clever--WCW fans would say convoluted--plot twists, the title became vacant, setting up a tournament for the Survivor Series on November 15th. While the obvious path would seem to point to Austin defying the odds and vexing his boss again, tournaments were historically a place to crown new champions, and with no less than three anti-McMahon participants (Austin, Shamrock and Rock), and a suck-up surrogate son in Mick Foley, the possibility to make a red-hot angle into a blazing inferno seemed certain.

Back in WCW, Bischoff, having seen the development of WWF storylines, had decided that, with Hogan on another of his absences (and contemplating a ridiculous publicity stunt with a fake retirement and announcing his candidacy for the Presidency almost two years before the next election), and the crowd turning severely on seeing the same old people, he had no choice but to shake things up. He decided he would give WWF exile Bret Hart the victory in the World War 3 battle royal, putting him in line for the WCW Championship, leading to a big Goldberg/Bret showdown. One can only guess how Bischoff made the leap that pushing Bret Hart, who had up to this point been booked so badly that fans wouldn't clap if he handed out 100-dollar bills, to the WCW Title would right the ship and help them catch up to the WWF. Some cynics thought Bischoff believed pushing Bret would net him some good will with the boys, as morale was taking a nosedive, and pushing someone new would be an encouraging sign of change. Few believed that Bret would be on top for long; about as long as Hogan's "retirement", many guessed. So, as November approached, Bischoff began preaching his new gameplan to all who would hear, and that Bret's rise to the WCW Championship would be on everyone's tongues as winter rolled around.

He couldn't have been more wrong.

"One of Paul's greatest abilities is he knows how to book someone to make them look good," said Tommy Dreamer in an online chat on ECW.com in 2000. "He hides their weaknesses and focuses on their strengths. He knows fans aren't gonna buy me and Raven in a straight wrestling match, or Jerry Lynn and RVD in a flaming tables match." It is a mantra ECW fans, employees and wrestlers alike repeat ad infinitum, and if you watch the product for any length of time, it certainly does seem to ring true; rarely, if ever, was an ECW worker exposed in any way. Everyone looked strong through creative booking, everyone got over whether they won, lost or drew, and because of this, ECW had a rabid, cult-like fanbase.

And when it came to booking Kevin Nash and Scott Hall in ECW, the party line couldn't be more true; ECW had an image to uphold, and an expectation to live up to with its fans. The audience demanded extreme athletics, like the kind seen from Lynn, RVD and Sabu. They liked buckets of blood and carnage, supplied by brawlers like Dreamer and the Dudleys. They liked sex and hot women, as evidenced by the lesbian storyline years earlier with Beulah and Kimona. ECW was where the most jaded wrestling fan was guaranteed to find something to suit their tastes, because Heyman booked angles and matches so cleverly, nothing seemed faked or forced. Kevin Nash and Scott Hall, never the exemplar for high-flying or technicality, and certainly not the barbed-wire-and-Singapore-cane types, couldn't provide any of the qualities Joe ECW-Fan was looking for. And pundits were quick to harp on Heyman for it, saying that the Mad Scientist Of ECW had finally come up on something even he couldn't work around.

But there was one other ingredient that ECW had thrived and grown on: controversy. Whether it was Brian Pillman's infamous "smart mark" promo, Steve Austin's "Monday NyQuil" and "Steve-ster" skits, or Cactus Jack's anti-hardcore/pro-WCW angle in 1996, ECW had a history of poking a sharp stick in the eye of their competitors. Hall and Nash could provide that in spades.

As ECW's November To Remember PPV neared on November 1st, a funny thing happened: commercials started airing on TV, especially during WWF programming (a move that sent detractors through the roof, claiming it a smoking gun towards an ECW/WWF conspiracy), highlighting their huge main event, pitting ECW World Champion Shane Douglas and his Triple Threat stable against Rob Van Dam, Sabu and Taz ... and, more importantly, teasing the audience with the faces of Hall and Nash. Credit has to be given to Heyman for the brilliant marketing plan: while men like Rob Van Dam, Tommy Dreamer and Sabu might have been the heart and soul of ECW and the faces around which the future of the company was built, Heyman knew that, to hook the growing body of fans just coming into wrestling and thinking that the WWF and WCW were the entire industry, he needed to get their attention on their level. RVD and Shane Douglas were non-entites to most people. But Hall and Nash were very well-known: formerly main-event-level wrestlers in both the major feds, video games, MTV Spring Break guest hosts. They were bigger then anyone ECW ever had. Simply flashing the faces of Hall and Nash, two of the most famous faces to have gone through both WCW and the WWF, on the screen during an ECW promo without saying a word, without promising anything, was a masterstroke. And for those who traded tapes or were fortunate enough to see the syndicated show, they knew to expect something: for a couple months, Hall and Nash had watched from the crowd or the entrance ramp, even joining Joey Styles on commentary a couple times. Faces and heels alike would confront them, and every time, Hall and Nash would preach a policy of non-physicality while they "waited for Jimmy Heyman's Kool-Aid to kick in" (as Nash would say on one occasion). Something was up, clearly ... and whether it was a casual fan just seeing the provocative teaser commercial, or a loyal ECW fan who followed their every move, everyone could see that they were building to something at November To Remember.

According to everyone in the company at the time, Heyman gathered the roster before the opening bell and riled the troops with an inspired speech--in Tommy Dreamer's words, "a declaration of war against opponents that didn't need naming"--that this event, perhaps more than their first PPV a year and a half before, was their make-it-or-break-it moment. With the media blitz targeted at old and new fans alike, the hope was to break the .30 buyrate threshold ECW had yet to conquer, and Heyman was determined that those curious newbies who checked it out to see the Outsiders in ECW would get hooked by a blow-away wrestling product. Those who bit on the Hall and Nash hook discovered a product that promised the edginess that WWF only teased, while showing a level of competition that WCW could only dream of aspiring to. The event received praise from all corners of the wrestling media, with some calling it the greatest top-to-bottom event of the 90's. The buyrate would be the ultimate litmus test, but Heyman had an ace up his sleeve: whatever newbies he couldn't get this time around, he'd get next time. There were plenty of ways of making the same hook sparkle like new.

And the closing moments of the event did just that; Sabu, beaten and bloodied, scored the winning pinfall against the hated Triple Threat, pinning Shane Douglas. The crowd erupted, but the applause was quickly and abruptly nullified by six now-familiar words: "Ain't nuttin' but a gangsta party ...", the opening words to the entrance music for Hall and Nash. The former Outsiders sauntered their way to the ring, still dressed in street clothes, as Joey Styles and the crowd held their breaths to see what would happen. When Hall grabbed Shane Douglas and drilled him with a Razor's Edge, the crowd came unglued ... and was promptly silenced when Nash made Taz eat a boot, then powerbombed him. One by one, all six participants in the night's main event were physically dissected and decimated. On their way back down the aisle, Hall flashed the familiar nWo handsign "4-Life" and did a crotch-chop, while Nash put up a pair of middle fingers.

Once again, the internet set on fire with the number of rumors and newsbits flying to and fro; ECW's website crashed several times as the influx of traffic--triple what the site had ever, and growing in the days to follow--overwhelmed their servers. News sites and columnists discussed, debated and argued Heyman's trickery in ending the PPV with a cliffhanger, essentially forcing anybody who tuned in just to see what all the buzz was with Hall and Nash to buy the next PPV, too. The rumor mill exploded with stories that Hall and Nash's immediate insertion, and domination, of six main event players was causing major rifts in the roster; this, in fact, turned out to be quite true. Bam Bam Bigelow, who had suffered once before under the oppressive power of the Clique in the WWF, served notice and signed with WCW. Shane Douglas, the ECW Champion, let it be known that after he dropped the strap to Taz at the next ECW PPV in January, he'd also be departing. Said Heyman several years later in an interview; "You gotta break eggs to make an omlette. I wish Shane and Bam Bam coulda seen that and understood it; you gotta spend money to make money, and that's what I was doing. But I don't blame 'em."

And, indeed, the "spend money to make money" (even if it was Vince McMahon's money) philosophy seemed to be paying off; attendance and merch sales were at record highs for the fledgling company. Nobody was willing to discuss the initial buyrate estimates, but industry insiders speculated that the mythical .30 barrier was shattered with ease.

None of this worried Bischoff, however. Reports from the time say that Bischoff had actually regained his cocky edge from years past; he was confident his booking plans--pushing Bret, having Goldberg take his first loss and go back to hunting the champ, and even considering a green-light on the long-proposed Apocalypse stable from Chris Benoit--would be more than enough to help WCW right their ship. Certainly of no worry was ECW and the Hall and Nash angle. In fact, in an AOL chat, when asked about the angle, Bischoff referred to it as a "dime-store knockoff of the nWo, doomed to fail", and that "no fan in their right mind would be suckered in by such a blatant ripoff, especially from some two-bit idiots in a bingo hall".

The WWF, meanwhile, chugged along; the Survivor Series, which would bow before WCW's World War 3, would feature a tournament for the vacant WWF Title. Many industry pundits, remembering the fiasco of WrestleMania IV's sprawling, never-ending tournament, predicted Survivor Series would disappoint. Some (mostly partisan WCW apologists who couldn't admit to quality in a WWF program at gunpoint) even went so far as to predict WW3 would outsell SurSer and lead a second WCW resurgance.

Another well-known facet of the peculiar WWF/ECW relationship, aside from Vince's constant siphoning of money, was a loose agreement for talent exchanges; occasionally, the WWF would send people down to ECW to help them out, or to get someone fine-tuned for television. ECW benefited by having "big names" come into their small pond. Everybody made out. But, aside from the short-lived ECW invasion of 1997, the talent "exchange" was really one-sided: people got sent to ECW for a short time. Anybody who went from ECW to the WWF was always signed.

November 1998 broke that pattern.

The Survivor Series tournament, while not exciting from a workrate standpoint, weaved together a bunch of stories in truly astonishing fashion: Austin fought against the McMahon machine to try and regain his title, only to be screwed by Shane McMahon in a double-cross. Mankind, the corporate choice, got favors and a greased path to the finals. The brotherly reunion between Kane and Undertaker fractured in the shadow of the WWF Championship. And The Rock fought interference from corporate stooges and rigged brackets to make it to the finals, thus promising a new champion. From a sports-entertainment standpoint, the show was an unqualified, and unexpected, success. In the closing moments, fans held their collective breath when Mankind managed to drop Undertaker with a double-arm DDT and make the cover.

And in what became the most talked-about swerve since Hulk Hogan revealed himself as the third man, Scott Hall and Kevin Nash came out of the crowd and stormed the ringside area from either side; on one side, Hall dragged the ref out by the feet and cold-cocked him, while Nash climbed in the ring and pulverized Mankind. Shane McMahon raced down to ringside, still in his referee's shirt, as Nash put The Rock on Mankind. The audience sat in total surprises and confusion as Shane McMahon gave an unnecessary fast-count to anoint The Rock the new WWF Champion. Outside the ring, Hall and Nash exchanged handshakes with an elated Vince. The group converged in the ring as realization set in with the viewers: the Rock/McMahon feud over the past few months had been a sham, as had the favoritism for Mankind. They had screwed Steve Austin, they had screwed Mankind, and they had fooled everyone. And, in the biggest surprise of all, Hall and Nash had served as an insurance policy. But the night wasn't over, as Vince was more then happy to hand a microphone over to his guest conspirators for a few minutes, where they would cut a pair of promos that would turn the wrestling world upside-down:

Hall: "Hey, yo. You people, you know who we are, but you don't know why we're here. Hey, Kevin, this soundin' familiar? Where is Billionaire Ted? Where's Uncle Eric? Those punks, they don't mean nothing here. Us? We go wherever I want, whenever we want. And where's Paul E. Dangerously? I got a call for ya on your big ol' cell phone, Paulie. I got a challenge for ya, and for anybody else in ECW. You wanna get extreme? You wanna run with the bulls? This here, me and Big Kev, that's us. Them boys down it Atlanta, they ain't nothing, and you, Paulie ... you're just ... like ... them."

Nash: "Ya see, me and Scotty, we been kickin' it, relaxing on Paulie's dime in them bingo halls. Cause, you know, we need somewheres to have a margarita while we wait for our WCW contracts to expire. And as me and Scott sit there and watch, and we see these guys hit each other with VCR's and garbage cans and guys doin' gymnastics routines, and it hits us: ECW sucks! Buncha midgets and scrubs, bashing each other with garbage and imitating Mary Lou Retton. Just a bunch of nobodies, a couple has-beens and a bunch of never-will-bes. And here we are; two guys that managed to take down the great and powerful WCW from the inside. That took a damn good while, but we did it. ECW? Dude, that'd take us ... what ... a couple days? Maybe a week, if we had a good buzz on? Where's the challenge in that? But me and Scott, we start to thinkin' that, this time, if we can take the place over ... we don't gotta worry 'bout no bald guys with air guitars getting in our way and hogging all the time, or some blow-dried jerk-off like Eric Bischoff cutting us off at the knees. We'd just need a little help keepin' things smooth during the transition. So who better to call then the guy who's gonna give us jobs once we get out of these stupid little contracts? And ol' Vinnie Mac, he says 'you do me a favor, I'll do you one'. So, here we are, makin' Corporate Daddy proud! You see, Eric? This is how you do business! This is something you could never do! Man to man, eye to eye. So me and Scott, and with a little help from Vince ... we're gonna do a whole different kind of business where you're concerned, ya stupid son of a bitch! We're gonna walk into that rat-infested YMCA basement that Paulie's running in Philly, we're gonna gut it, clean it up real nice, get it workin' the way it should, and we're gonna ram it down your throat until you choke! We're gonna take ECW, we're gonna take it over, sharpen the blade, and we're gonna get all genocidal on anything WCW!"

The fallout from Survivor Series, for all three promotions, was felt immediately. For the WWF, the ramifications on screen were projected in advertisements for the next Raw and on their website, speculating about a hostile takeover from Hall and Nash, and what the "favor" could be that Vince owed them. No answers were given, and Vince would only go on to say that, if he needed another favor, he "knew who to call". Behind the cameras, the WWF's legal team made sure to file papers in the appropriate places that Hall and Nash were not contracted WWF superstars, but the average person had no idea where to look to find this information. This left the rumor mills and dirt sheets in a tizzy, trying to sort fact from fiction. Meltzer told one "truth", Keller told another, Bob Ryder insisted he knew the facts, and so did Scherer; none of them got it right.

ECW, meanwhile, issued a stern statement on their website that very night from Paul Heyman, which he also read on the syndicated show as a lead-in segment in tones that made the situation sound like nuclear war: "On Sunday, November 15th, Kevin Nash and Scott Hall, two contracted performers for Extreme Championship Wrestling, appeared in the ring at the World Wrestling Federation's Survivor Series event. For months, ECW has provided these gentlemen with continual paychecks, and an open forum in which they could vent frustrations and opinions. Not once have they been asked to do so much as a single minute of in-ring work during the several months they've been a part of the ECW family. ECW has gone out of their way to make Hall and Nash feel that ECW was not just a stopover, but an actual new home, and they repaid this kindness by attacking ECW wrestlers and denigrating their product on our competitor's programming. Their words and actions have proven that the investment made in securing the so-called talents of these men was time and money wasted. We will not sink to the level of thugs and mercenaries like Hall and Nash and engage them in a fruitless war of words or actions. So, it is with great regret for the wasted time and effort put in to securing the services of these men, that I am forced to announce that the contracts between Kevin Nash, Scott Hall and ECW are terminated immediately. They are no longer welcome in either the backstage area, or as members of the audience, and will be escorted with extreme prejudice from any ECW event immediately, should they try to make their presence, hostile or otherwise, known."

Worked-shoot angles had been attempted before in wrestling, to varying degrees of success (usually, failure); never, though, had the lines between reality and work been blurred to such an extent. Most industry insiders suspected this was just another in the line of talent swaps executed between the WWF and ECW, only done with an inter-promotional angle of sorts in mind. But the detractors of that theory were quick to point out that the Survivor Series promos were also pointedly directed at Eric Bischoff. And many a person had used ECW as a stopover to collect a paycheck while awaiting a no-compete clause to run out, or for the competition of their former employer to come calling. Nobody could quite believe that Hall and Nash were free to deal with the WWF so soon ... and yet, here they were, calling Vince "boss" and declaring war on both WCW and ECW. The seamless blending of real-life animosities, reputations and relationships, coupled with scripted events was so seamless, it even had members of both WWF and ECW locker rooms questioning where the line was drawn (if one was drawn at all).

New horizons: winter, 1998/1999:

While the ECW/WWF worked-shoot angle may not have fooled Eric Bischoff, it did worry him; in light of the new angle, pushing Bret was ... nothing. It was just another former WWF'er, dominating all the homegrown and native talent WCW had cultivated, like Hogan and Savage had done since 1994. Bret was more or less forgotten by the new crop of WWF fans anyway, and those that remembered him did so unfavorably. An inter-promotional angle, with Hall and Nash at the center of it, needed something so enormous, so controversial as to make people forget that the WWF and ECW were really just rehashing WCW's leftovers. So, Bischoff adjusted his plans.

No, he didn't just adjust; he drastically re-wrote the script. Step one: Bischoff swallowed his pride and brought back the man whom he'd driven out of WCW over a petty miscommunication, Ric Flair. Using their real-life heat, Bischoff built up an angle with him that would lead to a match at World War 3, where Flair would win the Presidency. Step two: While building up heat between Goldberg and Bret, Flair, having banished Bischoff from WCW, would reconstitute the 4 Horsemen, with Arn Anderson filling in the old JJ Dillon role, Chris Benoit and Dean Malenko ... and would actively court Bret Hart for the fourth active slot. Bret would turn them down, and as the Horsemen started to help Bret despite his protests, Goldberg would question Bret's honesty. Virtually everyone in the wrestling media was astonished to see Bischoff willingly let Ric Flair and the 4 Horsemen--a stable he'd declared a dead entity two years prior--take center stage. What nobody understood--but everyone suspected--was that Bischoff had been so rocked by the events of the past six months, that he was starting to crack. While Bischoff disputes it to this day, Bret Hart, WCW executive producer Craig Leathers, Ric Flair and a virtual army of the WCW rank and file all tell the same story: Bischoff was starting to pull away from WCW. He had friends in Hollywood, and with WCW coming unglued, many speculate he saw that the opportunity to spin his capital into more mainstream success might slip away if he stayed aboard a sinking ship much longer. According to Diamond Dallas Page, Bischoff viewed his master plan as his last chance to save WCW, and to everything else he wore blinders. The edition of Nitro two weeks before Starrcade, in fact, had precisely zero input from Bischoff and was booked, in its entirety, by Leathers, Bret, Flair, Anderson and Sting. For those who watched it--and though it was still a generous portion of the audience, the number was smaller then it used to be--it was a throwback to the more wrestling-based, gritty action of the NWA. Reviews were through the roof, blowing away the reception for the continuing Austin/Undertaker/McMahon saga, even if the show was just a placeholder show while everyone waited for Bischoff to return for the final push to Starrcade.

The next week, Bischoff would come back, with the mysterious Step Three in hand.
Unfortunately, Hogan came back, too. He wanted to know why his rematch with Goldberg was going to that "boring Canadian midget" (an epithet overheard, and reported to Dave Meltzer, by several WCW workers). Bischoff explained that they needed to go in a new direction, and that he could face Bam Bam Bigelow at the PPV if he wanted. Hogan was adamant he get Goldberg. The meeting moved behind closed doors; to this day, neither Hogan nor Bischoff had revealed what was said. But what is known that Hogan left the arena immediately, and promised not to return until "that double-crossing bastard" was gone. It has been said that his long walk to the parking garage was received by a massive ovation of yelling and clapping from the WCW wrestlers.

What is known, though, is that Bischoff held back on announcing his mysterious Step Three--the finish of Starrcade--through Nitro, and for reasons unknown to everyone except him, en route to Starrcade, he re-wrote it. Again. He went into Starrcade that night confident that nothing ECW or the WWF could do would touch what he was about to unleash.

In one sense, Bischoff was exactly right, in that nothing ECW or the WWF had ever done earned a similar reaction. For by the end of Starrcade, the fans would go home on not one, not two, but three sour notes: Goldberg's undefeated streak had indeed come to a halt, beaten by Bret Hart. Second, Bret Hart swerved everyone and revealed he was a Horsemen the whole time, thus turning the beloved, and long-missed, elite stable into another generic domineering heel faction, and turning himself heel for the umpteenth time that year.

And third, and perhaps most distasteful: to get the belt off Goldberg and onto Bret, they re-enacted the Montreal Screwjob, with Flair in the place of Vince McMahon, and Goldberg taking the role of the screwed party.

The angle did get people talking, but unfortunately, for all the wrong reasons. How could Bret Hart, a man who appeared so honorable and noble in the "Wrestling With Shadows" documentary, stoop to participating in a Montreal-inspired ending? Why did Goldberg's streak have to end? Why did the Horsemen have to be heels? How could Starrcade, WCW's centerpiece show, end with a proverbial kick in the nuts? Some found a shred of solace when the original booking plans were leaked and they saw what could've been: Goldberg would've been the one to turn heel and join the Horsemen, while Bret would've been the victim of the Montreal-inspired ending. Regardless, the distaste for the angle was so pronounced that the following night's Nitro saw ratings plummet a point and a half.

And the news wouldn't get any better for WCW. For all his jaded cynicism, one of Bischoff's most crucial flaws lay in underestimating and misjudging the fans of wrestling. The more intelligent fans might've seen through the worked-shoot ruse, but both the WWF and ECW had managed to go to extreme lengths to cover their tracks, and even to these jaded smarks, it was still engrossing. And since the majority of the fans were not of the cynical variety, to them it looked for all the world like a total shoot, so it was even more captivating. When ECW finally revealed their initial buyrates for November To Remember, it struck everyone--likely even Paul Heyman--like a cannonball to the chest: .78, triple their highest buyrate up to that point. After Hall and Nash appeared on the December 10th WWF PPV, Rock Bottom, and vowed to come to the next ECW Arena show on the 19th, ECW's website was flooded with traffic, all demanding to know where they could see ECW action on television. Bischoff--and all the doubters--could no longer dismiss ECW, as the PPV buyrates, increased attendance and growing mainstream notoriety gave ECW enough name value for their syndicated Hardcore TV show to suddenly get picked up in market after market, including quite a few far outside their touring circuit.

The challenge would be responded to by faces and heels alike, from Tommy Dreamer to Shane Douglas to Taz to the Dudleys, all daring Hall and Nash to step up and "get extreme". When ECW got back from a pair of co-produced shows with FMW in Japan, Nash and Hall were there to welcome ECW back to the states on the 19th. But instead of risking arrest by barging into the arena, Hall and Nash ambushed several wrestlers on their way in, including longtime symbol of ECW, Tommy Dreamer, who got thrown head-first through a windshield. Police were called in anyway, detaining Hall and Nash for the assaults, who were escorted away in cuffs, yelling "WCW junior, that's all you are!". The fans were rabid for Hall and Nash to get theirs in a way much more satisfying, especially when, on a website they set up to distribute their anti-ECW and anti-WCW beliefs, the duo posted pictures showing a vicious assault in a bar of the Blue World Order that left the bWo members bloodied and covered in broken glass. By New Year's Day, fan-built sites dedicated to stomping out the menace that was Hall and Nash had popped up in the hundreds. "We always joked that Paul was a cult leader," said Taz in an interview with Byran Alvarez in 2005. "But when we saw the fan sites, calling for me to break Kevin Nash's neck and put him in a wheelchair, or for Balls Mahoney to render Scott Hall brain-dead with a steel chair ... yeah, the whole 'cult leader' joke wasn't funny anymore."

On the final ECW event before Guilty As Charged, their January PPV, the ECW roster took action, for the fans, for themselves, and for the honor of ECW, striking at a most unexpected target: Paul Heyman. Taz and Shane Douglas, opponents in the ECW World Title match at Guilty As Charged, got into the ring together as the show started and stated they would pull out of Guilty As Charged, with Douglas promising to take the ECW World Title to another company, unless Heyman delivered Hall and Nash at the PPV. Before Heyman could respond, Taz and Douglas would be joined virtually the entire ECW roster. Faced with a united roster--rivals standing beside each other in the face of this incursion--Heyman came out and acquiesced, saying he would summon Hall and Nash to appear at Guilty As Charged to meet him face-to-face. Between commercials and the new distribution of Hardcore TV, hundreds of thousands of new viewers caught this milestone development.

At Guilty As Charged, Hall and Nash, dressed in street clothes, came through the crowd to interrupt an exciting match between Yoshihiro Tajiri and Super Crazy. Heyman immediately came out and ordered his wrestlers to leave the ring before they got hurt. After a few minutes of insults and verbal sparring, Heyman told the duo that, if they were so much better than ECW, to prove it at the next PPV. As Hall and Nash mocked Heyman's serious tone, someone in a bulky hooded sweatshirt and jeans stormed the ring behind Heyman; the person spun Heyman around, kicked them in the gut, then did a crossed-hands crotch-chop and nailed Heyman with a Pedigree. Before they could be overrun by the mob of ECW wrestlers, Hall, Nash and Triple H fled through the crowd and out of the arena.

Within hours, is-it-a-work-or-a-shoot debate would take on whole new dimensions. On the WWF's website, Vince McMahon posted a statement confirming that letting Triple H help out Hall & Nash "wipe out the stain on professional wrestling known as Extreme Championship Wrestling" was the "receipt" for their help at Survivor Series; Vince went further, declaring ECW "the reason professional wrestling cannot gain traction in the mainstream media as a legitimate form of entertainment", and that driving ECW out of business was neither about business nor a personal issue, but a "favor to the industry, a gift to the world, and a noble crusade all rational men and women should stand behind". Vince's position, defending the WWF's--and, in Vince's mind, the entire industry's--sanctity and way of life against that of ECW put he and Triple H in a rather unique spot, as Vince was a face to WWF fans for waving the company banner with pride, but a heel against Steve Austin and other faces. Likewise, Triple H, leader of the popular D-Generation X stable, was now a face for helping to kill off ECW, but aligning himself alongside McMahon gave him heel heat. It was truly the height of WWF head writer Vince Russo's "shades of grey" booking. What irritated its critics, however, was that, while elsewhere on the card it usually fell flat, somehow, everyone involved in the ECW/WWF storyline managed to play both sides successfully. Meanwhile, Hall and Nash's website featured a new snarky posting from the duo, daring ECW to send their finest to Monday Night Raw. And on the ECW website, Paul Heyman launched into a vicious tirade against Vince, Triple H, Hall and Nash, promising that they would feel the full wrath of ECW breathing down their necks. "And," the closing words read, "you can bet your last dollar ECW's best and I will be in attendance at your precious little Monday Night Raw."

WCW, meanwhile, was a case study of one step forward-one step back. Starrcade's initial buyrate estimates were fantastic, but the following night's Nitro, which chronicled Goldberg being put through the paces by the Horsemen and the debut of Bam Bam Bigelow, suffered a sharp and pronounced nosedive. Word soon got out that Bischoff was shaken to his very core by the negative reaction to the new 4 Horsemen, and that he was in panic mode to set things right--he even succumbed to contacting Hulk Hogan about coming back, proposing a number of ideas, including returning as a face to launch a Bret/Hogan program, teaming with Goldberg and relaunching the nWo as a face group to counter the Horsemen. Every proposal was met with the same demand: Hogan getting the win, either over Bret or Goldberg. For reasons that, to this day, have never been fully explained, Bischoff caved and booked the Goldberg/Hogan rematch as a #1 contender's match.

Goldberg, however, wasn't so cooperative; rumors stated he felt he'd taken enough hits to his character in the past couple weeks, and that losing to an old man was the final straw. Bischoff imposed his will: do the job, or lose yours. And so, when they met on Nitro (on free TV for the second time in six months), Goldberg decided to take matters into his own hands and proceeded to work stiff. The match was rendered a no decision when Goldberg planted a stiff superkick on Hogan's jaw; the mandible would break and dislocate, in addition to grade IV concussion, the second highest level of concussions. Hogan filed a lawsuit against WCW and Goldberg the next day; Goldberg was promptly suspended indefinitely without pay. Bischoff's roadmap to retaking the lead in the Monday Night Wars was in tatters.

Before the hammer could come down on his head, Bischoff took the proactive measure of taking a leave of absence for an undisclosed length of time, leaving Craig Leathers in charge of booking and not looking back as he made his way to Hollywood to try and turn his "golden boy who saved wrestling" reputation into something better. Leathers, meanwhile, quickly realized he was in over his head and called on the men who had helped him two weeks before Starrcade: Flair, Arn Anderson, Bret and Sting. The group met with wrestlers and listened to concerns, held a massive wrestlers' meeting and addressed thoughts and fears in the wake of Bischoff's abandonment. Number one on their list of goals, they assured everyone, was to rebuild the WCW brand, using not stunt booking but their legacy as a superior wrestling product, and they began that on the next Nitro, returning to a wrestling-focused show. Despite the unpopular start, the Horsemen were booked like the Horsemen of old: running roughshod, egotistical, but respected even in hatred. Wrestlers like Chris Jericho, Booker T and Raven were given new life and pushed as serious contenders, not just midcard afterthoughts. The WCW Tag Titles were reinstated via a tournament. Cruiserweights were treated with the same gravitas as heavyweights, not as a side-attraction. A long-range booking plan was laid out (something that, no doubt, made everyone who was used to Bischoff's book/rebook-on-the-fly tendencies stop and take pause). And, most importantly, the message was sent to all WCW staff that chasing the WWF wasn't even on the drawing boards until they could get WCW working as a cohesive unit. The renewed sense of direction and purpose was felt quickly in the on-screen product; ratings didn't rebound automatically, but incrementally, they started to inch upwards as good worth of mouth spread about WCW's improved product. On the drawing boards for the next PPV would be headline quality matches: Bret vs. DDP, Benoit & Malenko vs. Sting & Luger, Raven vs. Flair, Booker T vs. Scott Steiner.

But if WCW was growing by inches, WWF was growing by yards. Despite controversial content like a crucifixion angle with Undertaker and Steve Austin, sexual content that was one step away from late-night Cinemax (including a full-nude layout of WWF Diva Sable in Playboy magazine that got plenty of press on Raw, despite the bulk of their audience not even being old enough to buy it) and enough swearing to make Andrew Dice Clay blush ... despite their content earning the scornful eye of conservative media watchdog groups and scaring away advertisers ... their ratings, buyrates and live gates continued to soar out of the stratosphere. Penetration of the mainstream was complete, bordering on ubiquitous; stores like Hot Topic pushed aside rows of Green Day and Nine Inch Nails shirts to put up the latest D-X or Austin 3:16 tee. CD's of WWF theme songs were charting in the Billboard Top 40. Austin graced the covers of Rolling Stone, while TV Guide ran a four-cover collectible series with Austin, Undertaker, D-X and Mick Foley. And with two hot angles in Austin vs. McMahon and WWF vs. ECW, the sky was the limit for the WWF's growth potential.

And if the WWF was growing by yards, ECW was growing by full-fledged miles. The content of the show might've made individual stations nervous about putting the show anywhere but late night, but the ratings--and the phone calls from viewers who didn't want to stay up to 3 in the morning (over 100,000 calls to the Portland, Oregon affiliate alone)--demanded the show get a better slot. Initial buyrates for Guilty As Charged looked to top November To Remember. And demand outweighed supply on ECW event tickets so much that the fed was forced to upgrade venues in some cities to ones with larger seating capacity. And rumblings were being heard about ECW crossing the mighty Mississip', venturing out to markets like Denver, Phoenix, Seattle and LA.

And their growth only continued as they continued to get air-time on WWF programming; Heyman, with a phalanx of ECW stalwarts, showed up on Raw and confronted Vince, who offered to give ECW five slots in the Royal Rumble, if Heyman felt they were good enough to hang with the WWF Superstars. As the two fed owners traded insults, Kevin Nash and Scott Hall appeared on the TitanTron, inside the empty ECW Arena, holding a pickaxe and a sledgehammer. Heyman and his troops remained stoic, even as the duo used their tools to wreck the ECW Arena, yanking down the ECW banners and tearing them apart.

True to his word, Vince allowed five ECW wrestlers into the Rumble--Tommy Dreamer, Taz, Justin Credible, New Jack and Rob Van Dam. Mysteriously, they all drew numbers in the first 10; but, as the Rumble's only rule concerned how eliminations were made, all came armed to the teeth, with chairs, Singapore canes and other plunder (including New Jack's signature staple gun, which was introduced to the head of Hardcore Holly). But what Vince did not count on was that ECW would work together at all times, never turning on each other to get ahead, and the ultimate backfire came about as Vince McMahon, who had entered the Rumble to prevent Steve Austin from winning it, found himself at one point by himself against five very angry, and very well-armed, extreme athletes. Eventually, with the help of his Corporation and D-X (no doubt giving viewers a headache, seeing rival stables fighting alongside each other), ECW was flushed from the ring, but not before doing bloodying the WWF Chairman and eliminating both Triple H and X-Pac. ECW had proven to the world they could not only