Original Nation of Domination

[turkeysandwich]

I was just watching Wrestlemania 13 which has the Chicago Street fight between NOD and LOD and Ahmed. It started thinking about what the Nation was supposed to be at that point.

I mean later it was a Black supremacist group, but it started with basically Farooq, Crush, and Savio, then the ancillary guys like PG-13 and D-Lo (who didn't have a name at the time, they would just call him "Nation member.") I mean I think they were supposed to be like the Black Panthers or something, but only one of the wrestlers in the stable was black, so did Vince want a black militant group, but felt that it might be too controversial or something to have only black wrestlers in it? Then as they started to become more Attitudey they pulled the trigger with the Gang Warz stuff?

The funny thing is that I remember when the Original original Nation of Domination which was formed in the USWA. which was more blatantly a black militant group I think Reggie B Fine, Jacqueline, and Kareem Muhammed were in it with PG-13, but then I think before it was over Tracy Smothers was in it, so...I guess not.

[Wade Renegade]

I think the only time it was actually like a true Black supremacist group was when the line-up consisted of Farooq, D-Lo, Ahmed (later The Rock) and Kama. What it was when it first kicked off was anybody's guess. PG-13 and Crush were as white as I am.

When The Rock took over, I think they just became a group designed to do The Rock's bidding. The only one that The Rock treated as his equal was Owen Hart. Owen was white too obviously but by that point they weren't supremacists anyway. Owen joined simply because it made sense as both The Nation & Owen were feuding with DX at the time. The group just drifted apart somewhere in between The Rock turning face briefly, D-Lo & Mark Henry hanging around with Terri & Jacqueline, The Godfather becoming a full fledged pimp and Owen Hart forming a tag team with Jeff Jarrett.

[Citizen Snips Has Left]

I could be wrong, but I believe Savio and Crush were originally signed up because they were also being held down by "The Man". Savio being Puerto Rican and Crush working his "released convict" gimmick at the time. PG-13 is anyone's guess.

If I were to give the WWF a little more credit, I would say they were making an allusion to how other radical groups like The Weathermen sympathized with The Black Panthers in the '60's...but I think that's giving them way too much credit.

[Deleted]

Snips is kinda right, Crush joined because his "manager" was Clarence Mason, the lawyer who didn't think Crush was getting a fair shake because of his criminal past. Clarence joining up with Faarooq made sense, and Crush came with the package.

I like to call the early days of the NOD, the "United Colors of Benetton". That ad campaign they had that showed that people of all creeds can get along and fight racism...by wearing their clothes.

Savio joined in February 1997 when he turned on Ahmed Johnson in a tag-team match in MSG, because he was "tired of shaking hands and kissing babies". (That's a direct quote, it was on an episode of Shotgun Saturday Night.)

Faarooq's character was actually based roughly on former Browns running back Jim Brown, who abdicated his entrance into the NFL Hall of Fame because there "weren't enough black players", and he felt it was in his best interest to refuse his enshrinement to support the cause. It was very anti-establishment at the time.
Simmons also made some calls to the Nation of Islam, because if he was going to have a stable, it was going to be based on that. But, he wanted to make sure that he wasn't going to upset the wrong people (Malcolm X was assassinated by Nation extremists), and they gave Ron their blessing to go with it.

I find it rather odd that they were implied to be a black militant group, yet they seemed to only feud with Ahmed Johnson, which I guess in a roundabout way, skirted past the implication they were against anything not of the African-American race. They were "held down" because of who they were and the perception that they weren't "corporate". (They used something like this with Steve Austin later on, if you remember.)

It was actually a very complex storyline, which made it great. A lot of contradictions seemed to make it work.

I can't comment on when Ahmed joined or anything after that, because I wasn't following all that closely, but the original Nation was cool.

[Trent Valentine]

If you watch the Royal Rumble 1997 match between Ahmed Johnson and Farooq, you can see Jaquelyn present at the beginning as part of the entourage and after the match when Farooq said that it wasn't over between him and Ahmed.

But Snips and Sandman pretty much said it well. They were a group of people who were held down by the man. Savio was a oppressed minority latino that didn't succeed just because he wasn't the great white hope that Shawn Michaels and Stone Cold was. Crush was looking for people to back him because he was treated like a common criminal due to spending time in jail. I'd say the group was a combination of both the Nation of Islam and another black supremacist group from the 60s/70s, The Black Panther party. My guess is they feuded with Ahmed because he was a black man who was nothing more than a sell out, letting success go to his head and forgetting where he came from. Course once the Gang Warz storyline reared its ugly head. (The Blacks, The Latinos, The White Redneck Bikers) Thats when it all went downhill.

[Deleted]

I found it interesting in an issue of RAW Magazine, that Los Boriquas (or whatever they were) better get ready for "a TNT explosion". It implied that Savio Vega was going to convert back to his "TNT" persona he was in the WWC/Puerto Rico and feud with the rest of the stable.

I am so glad that didn't happen. I don't think 3 people would have cared one way or the other.

[Citizen Snips Has Left]

The initial feud with Ahmed Johnson was over Farooq viewing him as an "Uncle Tom". He used those exact words when he appeared on an episode of Livewire.

[Deleted]

Oct 10, 2010 14:08:11 GMT -5 Citizen Snips Has Left said:

The initial feud with Ahmed Johnson was over Farooq viewing him as an "Uncle Tom". He used those exact words when he appeared on an episode of Livewire.

...not to mention every other episode of Raw.

[Dave at the Movies]

I really think the stable was based off The Gangstas back when they were still in Smokey Mountain.

In ECW The Gangstas(New Jack and Mustafa) were just two angry ghetto dudes who got over as faces most of the time because it worked in Philadelphia.

Back in Smokey though they wore Malcolm X on their shirt and did the X sign with their arms a lot. New Jack cut very racist promos like being glad that OJ killed two white people and stuff like that and they got over huge as heels because it was down in the south. They got called the N word and everything by tons of crowds.

Also D'Lo Brown was added to their group as their security guy.





It just so happened that D'Lo also became a security guy for The Nation in WWF after Smokey became a developmental territory for WWF.

[Jimmy]

I liked how the original Nation had those back-up guys like D'Lo in suits; it really showed the 'namless/faceless' militant aspect of it.

[Dave at the Movies]

Oct 10, 2010 16:57:40 GMT -5 Jimmy said:

I liked how the original Nation had those back-up guys like D'Lo in suits; it really showed the 'namless/faceless' militant aspect of it.

Yeah I always thought they should have kept Mason and the extra guys in suits. It gave it a little something extra.

I wonder why Pg-13 didn't stay in WWF. I always thought it was funny that Too Cool basically did the exact same gimmick a year or two later.