WCW 1998: Was Chris Jericho ever primed to join the nWo Black & White?
nWo was still okay in 1998. It only got to be a total joke when Vince Russo centered nWo 2000 around Jeff Jarrett and Bret Hard as the main leaders with Kevin Nash, Scott Hall and Scott Steiner standing around in the background doing promo work, which is fine for those three, but not Jarrett or Bret Hard.
And you said Hall and Nash were mailing it in for WCW by 1998, but because Hogan getting his way via Mr. Automatic Creative Control route contributed to Hall and Nash also refusing to contribute anymore ideas after 1997-98. Others mailing it in in-ring wise by 1998 include The Giant, Curt Hennig, Scott Steiner, Rick Steiner, Buff Bagwell, Konnan, Lex Luger, Ric Flair, Bret Hard, Stevie Ray, Roddy Piper, Brad Armstrong, The Renegade, Ultimate Warrior, Hollywood Hogan, Randy Savage, Scott Norton, British Bulldog and Jim Neidhart too.
It doesn't matter if people in the smark category look at you as mailing it in across the board, so long as your past reputation is already cemented beforehand. Hall and Nash are alright with me because I can't blame them for refusing to bother with fresh ideas by 1998 thanks to Hogan. In 1996, Hall was the guy that came up with the idea for Sting's gimmick change from Surfer Sting to Crow Sting, and gave Steve Borden some hints on the 1994 Crow movie starring the late Brandon Lee.
Surfer Sting was a poor draw compared to Hogan and Flair because WCW was second-rate to the WWF in the late-80s/early 90s because Sting kept his Surfer gimmick around the time when California surfin' was no longer cool by the late 1990s. Anti-heroes were on the rise, plus Hogan and Sting were both at a career crossroads with their clean cut hero gimmicks. Longtime WCW/NWA fans still loved Sting because the entire NWA/WCW lineage wasn't built on cartoon gimmicks, it was the 30-60 minute matches with Ric Flair that cemented him as a WCW fan favorite compared to the WWF bred Hulk Hogan who was more about his cartoon character Hulkamania gimmick. After Hogan's eventual heel turn in 1996, Sting was next in line for a character change and update. '95-'96 was when Sting shrunk from a fairly muscular athlete to a surgically-repaired skinny body (he underwent back surgery after the events of Fall Brawl '96 but came out of it hooked on alcohol, painkillers and had many adulterous affairs prior to converting to Christianity by 1998).
Sting's Guile-esque flattop and colorful face paint meant that he was more charismatic, but his kind of charisma was the same as Rick Steiner, Scott Steiner, Lex Luger, Chris Jericho and Hollywood Hulk Hogan instead of the more unique kind of charisma that Scott Hall, Kevin Nash, Randy Savage, Konnan, Curt Hennig and Rick Rude had as the cool heels. So Surfer Sting did not translate to ultra high box office numbers and ratings. Hogan and the New World Order were the main draws for WCW of the late 1990s, not Sting or Goldberg, given Sting's past history as a disappointment in the box office department.
