The year of the invasion - 1996
In May of 1996, Scott Hall (formerly Razor Ramon) and Kevin Nash (formerly Diesel) leave the WWF and go down to WCW. There they form "The Outsiders" and proclaim that they are from an invading group from "up North" and are going to take over WCW. They start interfering in matches to prove their point. Finally Eric Bischoff, VP of Operations for WCW and overall matchmaker, tells them that they and their "mystery partner" will face Sting, Luger and Savage at Bash At The Beach '96 a week after Nash powerbombs Eric thru a table at a Monday Nitro Great American Bash.

So, BatB rolls around, the match starts, but Hall & Nash's mystery partner is not there. Several minutes into the match Luger gets busted up badly and leaves. About 5 minutes after that Hulk Hogan comes down to the ring to the cheers of the fans. Hogan had been gone for the past 5 months shooting his latest film, "Terror On Devil's Island" after he lost the title to The Giant. Everybody thinks Hogan is going to help Sting and Savage, instead he turns on them, causing a DQ for The Outsiders. At this time Hogan reveals that HE was the "mystery partner" and that indeed he has called the forces from the North to invade WCW, and they will call themselves the "New World Order" as the fans boo and literally trash the ring with litter. (NOTE: why did Luger "get hurt" so early on? Here's why: Hogan didn't want to turn heel and ruin his image or popularity he had with WCW fans. Eventually he agreed to it though, but Bischoff figured that he'd back out. If Hogan decided to no-show BatB, which he wasn't required to show up at, Luger would be the person to turn nWo and become the mystery partner).

The next several weeks became strange and mysterious as the nWo introduced their newest members. Added to their roster was (not in order) Vincent (formerly Virgil, chief of security), "Billionaire Ted" DiBiase (overall group manager and financer), Ray Traylor (formerly Big Boss Man, Guardian Angel), Konnan, The Giant (who previously had a huge face following, most surprising turn), Scott Norton, Marcus "Buff" Bagwell (another face turned heel) Syxx (formerly 1-2-3 Kid) and Michael Wallstreet (formerly Irwin R. Scheister/IRS). Scott Hall asked DDP late in the game if he'd turn, and DDP said he would have, execpt they waited to pick him last; if they had really wanted him they would have asked him first before everybody else. This starts the nWo/DDP feud, the first real feud for the nWo. Hall and Nash declare themselves the nWo tag team champions (after winning squashes in empty arenas) and have ("Billionaire") Ted DiBiase purchase belts for them. Shortly thereafter, they become WCW tag team champs by defeating Harlem Heat.

The nWo decides to fight for control of Monday Nitro in August. The battleground will be WarGames. WCW starts to gear up for the battle of its life. Then comes the dissention. First the nWo kick out Ray Traylor after WCW (J.J. Dillon, who had just returned to WCW, made this ruling on a Nitro)says that his contract is no longer valid. Michael Wallstreet (also because of Dillon's ruling) is shipped off to New Japan Pro Wrestling (known over in Japan as International Wrestling Grand-Prix, or IWGP) to help start nWo Japan, which gathers such stars as Keijo Mutoh (a.k.a. The Great Muta when he wrestles in the United States, and an "alter-ego" in Japan). They then secretly install Rick Fuller (formerly Cobra, Thunder) as the nWo Sting, who starts committing mystery attacks on WCW wrestlers who think it's the real Sting. So War Games comes up and Luger is the first to accuse Sting of jumping nWo among other WCW stars. (Luger had also been the first one attacked--on a Nitro out in the parking lot). By now Sting has ended the crew-cut blonde surfer look, growing out his hair a bit more and dying it black (or he stopped dying it blonde, something like that). WCW is getting their butt kicked by nWo (w/ nWo Sting) when the real Sting shows up with a ball bat and cleans out nWo. As WCW congratulates him, Sting leaves the ring and a refreshed nWo proceeds to demolish the WCW stars. nWo briefly takes control of Nitro, then the angle is dropped. From this point on Sting now comes dressed in trench coat and white face paint; falling out of the rafters; "don't trust anybody let alone speak to them", etc. Hogan takes the heavyweight title from The Giant (at Hog Wild) this night as well. At Halloween Havoc Randy Savage goes up against Hogan and loses in a retirement match.

Addition: At Halloween Havoc, "Rowdy" Roddy Piper debuts in WCW. Subsequently, in November, Eric Bischoff surprisingly turned nWo. At a Nitro, it was revealed that Bischoff had been protecting Hogan from "Rowdy" Roddy Piper by refusing to sign a match between the two. Piper finally got his match at Starrcade, where he beat Hogan in a non-title match via the sleeper.