Sting would make sporadic appearances throughout 1997 to attack various members of the nWo and saved WCW wrestlers from nWo attacks. Great news as Sting was WCW through and through.
Hogan did and Sting took him down and hit him with the Scorpion Death Drop. Hogan demanded Sting drop the bat to come into the ring, which Sting did. Sting then wanted Hogan in the ring as Hogan was out of the ring with Rodman. Sting showed the world he was WCW all the way as he attacked Hall, Nash, and Savage with the bat and gave them each a Scorpion Death Drop.
Many wondered where Sting's allegiance was with WCW or the nWo. Hogan and the nWo celebrated their latest victory when Sting rappelled down to the ring from the rafters carrying a baseball bat. Hogan brought NBA Superstar Dennis Rodman to the ring with him as a "secret weapon" as he helped with some of the eliminations. Hogan and Team nWo (Scott Hall, Kevin Nash, and Savage) defeated Team WCW (The Giant, Lex Luger, and The Steiner Brothers) and Team Piper (Roddy Piper, Chris Benoit, Jeff Jarrett, and Steve McMichael) in a Triangle Elimination Match at Uncensored. Savage was even reunited with ex-wife Miss Elizabeth after Elizabeth joined the nWo late in 1996. Savage helped Hogan beat Piper and helped Hogan beat Piper down and Savage was the latest to join the nWo. "Macho Man" Randy Savage's WCW contract ran out at the end of 1996 and the only way Eric Bischoff would let him wrestle was to join the nWo. Hogan defeated "Rowdy" Roddy Piper at SuperBrawl when an unlikely ally helped him. The Giant soon joined forces with Lex Luger to take down the nWo. The Giant looked to have Hogan beaten when Nick Patrick refused to count three. The main event at Souled Out was Hollywood Hogan defending the World Heavyweight Title against former nWo member The Giant, who was kicked out of the nWo late in 1996. The Outsiders would lose the tag team titles a couple of times only for Bischoff to hand the belts right back to Hall and Nash due to a "technicality." The Steiner Brothers finally defeated The Outsiders (with Syxx replacing an injured Nash) to win the Tag Team Titles on an episode of Nitro in October. Anderson won after using a foreign object but Bischoff again overturned the decision and Anderson was again "fired." Bischoff had been very arrogant and being very abusive with his power to favor the nWo and screw over WCW. He forced Anderson to defeat Patrick in a match to get his job back. Anderson had been battling Testicular Cancer (which he would eventually pass away from in 2002) and it was even announced in a story where he asked Bischoff to give him his job back which Bischoff cruelly rejected him. However, Bischoff overturned the decision and gave the belts back to The Outsiders. The Steiner Brothers defeated Hall and Nash to win the Tag Team Titles after Patrick was knocked out and WCW referee Randy Anderson ran and counted three for the Steiners. The nWo's Bischoff and Ted DiBiase did play-by-play for the event.
The nWo hosted their own PPV called Souled Out on Januwhere each match was to be refereed by nWo referee Nick Patrick. By the end of the year, he got McMahon's biggest star at the time: Bret "The Hitman" Hart.ġ997 started off as 1996 ended very poorly for WCW with the nWo dominating WCW, Eric Bischoff ruining WCW by leading the nWo in their crusade against WCW, Hollywood Hulk Hogan as the WCW/nWo World Heavyweight Champion, Hall and Nash as WCW World Tag Team Champions, and of course, Sting being all silent and not helping WCW. Turner outspent McMahon to get his WWF superstars Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage, Scott Hall, and Kevin Nash among others. Anytime Vince McMahon looked to have a good idea and perhaps beat WCW, Turner would just spend more money that McMahon and the WWF did not have.
While the WWF had some really good ideas like former WCW wrestler Steve Austin, they still could not compete with Turner and WCW especially on a financial level. WCW was easily winning the "Monday Night Wars" ratings between Nitro and RAW as it simply was no-contest as WCW won the ratings for the entire year of 1997 and had done so since June 1996. WWF was in really bad shape throughout 1997 and it looked as if Ted Turner was finally going to win this wrestling war. Eric Bischoff claimed WCW finally turned a profit in 1995 whether that's true or not remains to be seen but they definitely turned a profit in 1996. 1996 saw the birth of the nWo which helped finally put WCW on top of the WWF.