1996 in professional wrestling describes the year's events in the world of professional wrestling.
These promotions held notable events in 1996.
The "Mass Transit incident" was an infamous event in professional wrestling that occurred at an Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) house show on November 23, 1996 at the Wonderland Ballroom in Revere, Massachusetts in the United States. It involved Eric Kulas (1979 â May 12, 2002), an aspiring professional wrestler using the ring name "Mass Transit", being bladed too deeply by New Jack of The Gangstas during a tag-team match. Two of Kulas' arteries were severed; he bled profusely and passed out, and needed to be escorted out of the arena with medical attention. Further controversy arose when it came to light that Kulas had lied to ECW owner and booker Paul Heyman about his age and professional wrestling training. The incident led to a future ECW pay-per-view being cancelled (until Heyman negotiated otherwise), a lawsuit from Kulas' family, and went down as one of the most notorious moments of lore in professional wrestling history.
On January 1 – Mexican promoter Adolfo Moreno created the International Wrestling Revolution Group (IWRG) which held its debut show on this date in Arena Naucalpan.
In the main event of World Championship Wrestling (WCW)'s Bash at the Beach pay-per-view on July 7, Scott Hall and Kevin Nash (both of whom had recently defected to WCW from the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) and been presented on-screen as "outsiders") indicated that they would enlist a mystery partner against the team of Randy Savage, Sting, and Lex Luger.
Their partner ended up being Hulk Hogan, who surprisingly attacked long-time Mega Powers partner Savage to conclude the match, thus turning heel for the first time in nearly two decades. In his post-match promo, Hogan indicated his decision to lead the villainous stable which he christened as the New World Order (nWo).
The nWo would be the main focus of WCW programming for the better part of the next three years and led to WCW Monday Nitro defeating WWF Monday Night Raw in the Monday Night War ratings battle for eighty-three consecutive weeks. These developments in WCW are often credited with ultimately pushing the WWF toward producing the "edgier" content which would become the hallmark of the Attitude Era.