Beginning in Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) in July 1996, Stevie Richards and The Blue Meanie had been making parodies of various wrestlers from the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) and World Championship Wrestling (WCW). In early 1996, Raven was forming a stable called Raven's Nest and was gathering new members. He called upon Stevie and Meanie along with Nova. These three would often come to the ring together before Raven made his entrance, imitating rock bands or pop culture references. It was then announced that they would form the bWo at November to Remember '96. Over the next few months, members were added and members left just like the group they were imitating, the nWo. Initially meant to be a one off parody, the Blue World Order became immensely popular and elevated Richards to the main event level in ECW.
The height of the bWo's success came at the first ECW pay per view, Barely Legal. The event saw the debut of bWo Japan (with members Taka Michinoku, Terry Boy, and Dick Togo), and Big Stevie Cool was part of the three-way dance main event for the number one contendership for the ECW World Championship. Just weeks after this event, Richards suffered a severe injury to his neck courtesy of Terry Funk and a metal guardrail, which left him temporarily paralyzed for over an hour. In July 1997, Nova had a match against Taz in which Taz vowed to kill the bWo. He squashed Nova, and although Meanie and Nova continued to tag over the next few months, the bWo was indeed dead in November 1998.
The bWo reunited in 2005 at WWE's ECW reunion show, ECW One Night Stand, coming to the ring before the Dudley Boyz versus Tommy Dreamer and The Sandman match.
On the July 7, 2005 episode of SmackDown!, the bWo reunited once again, this time to confront JBL. This led to a Meanie versus JBL no disqualification match. Richards delivered a chairshot to JBL during the match that busted him open. The Blue Meanie won the match after he hit his finisher, the Meaniesault, and Batista ran in and gave a spinebuster to JBL and threw Meanie on top of JBL.
Later, the bWo challenged The Mexicools to a match at The Great American Bash, with Stevie Richards saying the bWo was tired of the Mexicools interfering in people's matches. The three members appeared on WWE Velocity in a six-man tag match against three jobbers to prepare themselves for their tag match against the Mexicools. At The Great American Bash, the bWo and Mexicools met in a six-man tag match; where they drove into the ring on tricycles to parody the Mexicools' usual ring entrance on lawnmowers. The bWo lost the match after Super Crazy hit a moonsault and Psicosis hit the guillotine legdrop on Big Stevie Cool for the win. As the month of July ended, the bWo faded from the scene. Stevie Richards went back to his old gimmick, as did Hollywood Nova, while Blue Meanie was never officially contracted by WWE.