WCW’s Hog Wild event on Aug. 10, 1996, famously ended with Hollywood Hogan defeating The Giant for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship, giving the New World Order control over WCW’s top prize just one month after the group had formed. Hogan, Kevin Nash and Scott Hall then took the belt and wrote “NWO” in black spray paint across its front, giving the title one of its most iconic redesigns. Tuesday marked the 25th anniversary of that event, which fans celebrated on social media.
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ON THIS DAY IN WRESTLING HISTORY: WCW Hog Wild 1996. Hulk Hogan beats The Giant(Big Show) for the WCW title. This is the first time Hogan would spray paint NWO over the historic title. This iconic rendition of the title is a classic belt throughout wrestling history. pic.twitter.com/l161RUEEyl
— BLUKROOVY (@blukroovy) August 10, 2021
August 10,1996….WCW Hog Wild (1996)….Hollywood Hulk Hogan defeats the giant for the wcw world title..the NWO belt was born on this day….#ilovethe90s..@hallfans1..#wcwhogwild..#nwobelt… pic.twitter.com/TK10jGR2qT
— MrOBwon35 (@bwon35) August 10, 2021
Hogan’s victory marked the first of nine occasions where the NWO owned the WCW World Heavyweight Championship. Hogan would hold it five times, Nash would get three reigns and Bret Hart was affiliated with the group during his lone world title reign.
The NWO was officially inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame earlier this year, and WWE celebrated the 25th anniversary of the group’s formation with a special “NWO Week” on social media and Peacock. Last week’s edition of the 83 Weeks Podcast featured Eric Bischoff and Nash talk about how the group’s iconic logo was created.
“Craig Leathers was a director and he actually worked, If you remember, Kevin, we were at the Disney/MGM Studios filming during that period of time because Atlanta was all things Olympics,” Bischoff said (h/t Fightful). “We had the general idea, the feel for the nWo, and Craig Leathers went over to the design studio at Disney/MGM Studios — We sat down and said, ‘Okay, here’s what these guys represent. Here’s their attitude. Here’s all this.’ Gave them all the parameters and they came back with about six or eight, maybe ten different ideas and one of those ideas was the nWo logo as we know it today. So, as much as I’d like to take credit for it or give credit to Craig Leathers, it was actually somebody at Disney/MGM Studios that came up with that.”
