Origin Story Part 2: Through the Haze of Pyro and Passion

Someone I know may or may not have spray-painted “nWo 4 Life” on the side of a dorm building. Let’s just say: we were very into wrestling. 

Rebellious late-'90s wrestling paired perfectly with college life—especially for a generation that literally called itself X. Between late nights of GoldenEye, Jerry Springer, and Nirvana, attitude was everywhere.

Gone were the cheesy gimmicks. In came the edgy factions who didn’t play by the rules. The line between reality and entertainment blurred, and for the first time the bad guys started to win over the crowd. What?!

As the Monday Night Wars hit full throttle, wrestling wasn’t just cool again—it was a weekly ritual. Watch parties took over campus. I’d tape all five hours of RAW and Nitro every Monday night on the vcr, because I didnt want to miss a moment.

Our obsession spilled into everyday life. We spray-painted black basketball jerseys in the style of the nWo graffiti. Crotch chops became currency. And yeah… we brought signs. Always signs. The rough cut spirit of ‘90s wrestling was a sight to behold—pyro smoke hanging like fog over a sea of handmade messages, each one shouting: we’re here for this. 

The era started for me at Bash at the Beach ‘96, when Scott Hall (Razor) started invading the shows. As I entered my first year of college at UCF, I remember the recognition, "wrestling is fun to watch again." The Monday Night Wars burned like a solid rocket booster through SummerSlam ‘98, and into 1999 but somewhere between Fingerpoke of Doom, 50 nWo members, and me needing to find an "adult job", the trajectory of that kayfabe rocket faded. But for 83 weeks, the Wrestling Wars rioted a loud revolution; Black spray paint, broken furniture, and a tight brotherhood of those who were there in those magical years of wrestling.

Through my late teens, early twenties I’m proud to say I lived through it all with my best friends—and those memories now echo through every design we make at Flying Elbow Designs. 

If you haven’t already, check out Who Killed WCW? on Vice or McMahon on Netflix for a fresh hit of that chaos. 

And if you’ve got your own stories from the era, I’d love to hear them. 

– CAM

Previous: Part 1 - Origin Story: Painted Faces & Neon Shoestrings

Next: Part 3 - Origin Story - coming soon...