Say Hello To The Bad Guys – How the NWO Changed Pro Wrestling 4 Life

Talk Is Jericho

Chris Jericho

Tv & Film, Sports, Wrestling

4.8 • 9.4K Ratings

🗓️ 23 July 2025

⏱️ 69 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Marc Raimondi, ESPN journalist and author of the explosive new book Say Hello To The Bad Guys and Wrestling Observer’s Garrett Gonzalez break down how the nWo didn’t just change pro wrestling, it changed pop culture, and America itself. From the night Hulk Hogan turned heel and aligned with Kevin Nash and Scott Hall to Eric Bischoff’s bold vision for WCW Nitro, they detail the real-world impact of wrestling’s most iconic heel faction. Marc shares behind-the-scenes stories from his interviews with Kevin Nash, Eric Bischoff, and Scott Hall’s family, and explains why the nWo’s rise parallels the evolution of reality TV, hip hop culture, and even modern political theater. They talk about the build-up of Sting, the impact of Hogan’s full creative control, Sean Waltman’s “political” firing, Bret Hart, Goldberg, and why 1997 Starrcade was the beginning of the end of WCW. Get your copy of Say Hello To The Bad Guys: How Professional Wrestling’s New World Order Changed America: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Say-Hello-to-the-Bad-Guys/Marc-Raimondi/9781668013755 Watch this episode on YouTube! https://www.youtube.com/ChrisJerichoFozzy 👍 Don’t forget to Like, Subscribe, and hit the 🔔 to stay updated on new episodes! More from Talk Is Jericho: 📸 Instagram: @chrisjerichofozzy | @talkisjericho 🐦 Twitter/X: @IAmJericho | @TalkIsJericho 🌐 Website: https://www.webisjericho.com/ To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:32.1	Talk is Jericho, baby.
0:35.4	Talk is Jericho.
0:38.3	Talk is Jericho, baby. Talk is Jericho. Talk is Jericho, Mama, talk is me.
0:43.3	New book, Say Hello to the Bad Guys, How Professional Wrestling's New World Order Changed America.
0:49.3	Mark Ramundi is here. And Gonzalez from a wrestling observer newsletter making his talk
0:56.3	as Jericho debut as well. Lots to talk about Mark first foremost. I really enjoyed the book.
1:02.5	What made you decide to write a book about such a huge time in pro wrestling, shall we say?
1:09.1	I would say it probably goes back like many years to just being a wrestling fan as a kid
1:14.5	and consuming a lot of wrestling from like the age of five through the 90s.
1:19.9	I'm a 90s kid.
1:20.8	I was born in 84.
1:21.6	I'm 40.
1:22.2	So, you know, I was like obsessed with wrestling in the 90s as a kid.
1:26.9	And, you know, as an adult, I've gotten back into it quite a bit after a little bit of a lull.
1:32.4	I'm so fascinated by what you guys do, you know, by the art of wrestling, by the sociology of
1:38.4	wrestling.
1:38.7	And I really feel like, and I hope you can back me up on this, Chris, but I really feel like if you, if you know about wrestling, you can see it in a lot of different places. You can see it really in many different mediums, not just wrestling. You can see it like in sports media. You can see the music. You can see it in art. You know, you really see the influence that wrestling has had. So I've always felt that way and I've always like told my friends and some of them probably, you know, want to want to strangle me because I said it so many times that, you know, everything is wrestling. Wrestling is everywhere. If you pay attention, you know, if you really know what you're, you know, what you're seeing and you're receptive to it, you can see wrestling and everything. So I had that mentality, but I didn't really know how to like express that in any way. So I work for ESPN. I've been with ESPN for
2:19.0	six years. And for most of those six years, I did combat sports, mostly the UFC, some wrestling,
2:25.6	some boxing. And in 2019, the NWO got inducted into, at least it was announced that the NWO was
	...

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