 The event was originally conceived in 1997 as a New World Order exclusive pay-per-view, but did not generate the revenue that WCW had hoped it would, due to a low buy rate and a lack of ticket revenue from hosting the event in such a small facility.The pay-per-view was also created as a testing nWo event in order to see if there was enough demand to having two PPVs per month (one as a WCW event and the other as an nWo event).Despite the initial poor review, WCW elected to keep the event on its calendar (as prior to 1997 it did not have a regular January PPV event) and Souled Out became a co-branded WCW/nWo event during the 1998 edition.