10 Forgotten WCW Storylines That Were Absolutely Ridiculous
WCW certainly hasn't been the only wrestling promotion that's booked its share of ridiculous storylines. However, considering that it's been dead (21 years as of March 2022) for longer than it was alive (13 years - from the 1988 Jim Crockett Promotions sale to Ted Turner until its 2001 closure), it packed many memorable ones into its short lifetime.
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From its earliest days under the likes of Jim Herd to the Eric Bischoff, Vince Russo and Kevin Sullivan/Nash
eras, the promotion's creative team featured a veritable revolving door of members, and each got to contribute their uniquely-poisoned ingredients. Some were minor and forgettable, while others were signs of something much bigger - and worse - happening within the company. Either way, these ridiculous WCW storylines were certainly memorable - for all the wrong reasons.
10 Tank Abbott Pulls A Knife On Big Al
Tank Abbott made a name for himself in the nascent days of UFC by embracing the entertainment side of sports, so when WCW offered him a contract in 1999, it wasn't an absurd notion. The former Toughman competitor was charismatic in a strange way and even guest-starred on a 1997 episode of Friends.
Big things were assumed to be in Abbott's future, but WCW at that point was a sinking ship, and by the time SuperBrawl 2000 came around, nobody was being booked well. Tank's opponent that evening in a Leather Jacket on a Pole Match was a nobody named 'Big Al,' who was an associate from Abbott's barroom brawling days. In a moment that could have been as infamous as the Pillman-Austin Gun Angle if anybody cared, with Al still laid out at ringside after the match, Tank approached him, bent down and brandished a real-life blade, as a horrified Tony Schiavone suggested that Abbott was simply threatening to cut the clean-shaven Al's beard.
9 Booker T vs. Big T For The Letter 'T'
Staying with SuperBrawl 2000, the very next match saw Booker T face Tony 'Big T/Ahmed Johnson' Norris, who recently joined WCW in an angle with Booker and his Harlem Heat partner and brother, Stevie Ray. Booker was already a rising singles star in the company and through 1998 and 1999 made a name for himself as Television Champion while Ray recovered from an injury.
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Despite Booker's singles momentum, Harlem Heat reunited in mid-1999 after Booker convinced his brother to leave the nWo. However, a conflict would soon come between the two brothers over the inclusion of their new valet/bodyguard, Midnight. Stevie turned on his brother and introduced the bloated former WWE Intercontinental Champion Norris as his new partner. At SuperBrawl, Norris defeated Booker for the rights to the 'Harlem Heat' name, theme music and even the letter 'T' itself in a match that perhaps should have been sponsored by Sesame Street.
8 Hacksaw Jim Duggan Joins Team Canada
Since joining WWE in 1987, 'Hacksaw' Jim Duggan was rarely observed without his favorite props: a 2x4 and an American Flag. When 'Hacksaw' joined WCW in 1994, little changed other than his environment, as no matter what, the 'Tough Guy' was always sure to express his undying love and support for the Red, White and Blue.
At Fall Brawl 2000, Team Canada's Lance Storm was challenged by Hugh G. Rection (Bill 'Hugh Morrus' DeMott with one of wrestling's all-time worst names) for his renamed 'Canadian' (United States) Heavyweight Championship. With the patriotic Duggan named special guest referee, what was supposed to be a shocking heel turn was telegraphed so clearly a blind man could see it coming. The sight of a past-his-prime Duggan, who'd even made an emotional return from a battle with kidney cancer the prior year, later wearing a Maple Leaf in a cheap attempt to get heat was actually kind of sad.
7 Sting Goes To Vader's White Castle Of Fear
Mmm, White Castle. The fast-food chain's delicious, artery-clogging wares have been a national icon for decades, even warranting a starring role in the comedy 'Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle.' Surely, anybody would be a fool to decline a dinner date at one of America's finest fast-food institutions!
Unfortunately, that's not where Big Van Vader was demanding rival Sting meet in the second of WCW's trilogy of cinematic 'mini-movie' vignettes, however, as Vader was referring to a dwelling of his somewhere in Colorado's Rocky Mountains. The whole thing was no worse than the two other mini-movies WCW produced during this period, but when the finale showed the 'Stinger' finally make it to the castle, only for it to transition into the Asheville Civic Center for the two's scheduled SuperBrawl 3 Strap Match, it left fans feeling confused - and hungry.
6 Hulk Hogan Visits The Dungeon of Doom
The 'Stinger' wasn't the only WCW babyface who found themselves in an otherworldly environment in an attempt to gain revenge on their devious foes. In Hulk Hogan's case in 1995, the dastardly group trying to end Hulkamania once-and-for-all was Kevin 'Taskmaster' Sullivan's Dungeon of Doom.
When Hogan made the brave trek to meet Sullivan's group of heel misfits in the literal Dungeon of Doom location during a Clash of the Champions 31 vignette in August 1995, nobody was expecting an Emmy-winning performance. However, fans were baffled by the strangely-written dialogue, which featured an exasperated Hogan declaring "There's no Hulkamaniacs here!" Perhaps the most infamous moment was when the 'Hulkster' stuck his hand into a waterfall and exclaimed "It's not hot!", as though he was expecting the steaming stream to scald him, which of course begs the question: why stick your hand in the water in the first place?
5 Cactus Jack Gets Lost In Cleveland
If you've read Mick Foley's bestselling autobiography Have a Nice Day, you already know he felt WCW's booking of him was so bad, it almost seemed intentional. In 1993, the former Cactus Jack was entangled in a brutal feud with Big Van Vader, culminating in a WCW Saturday Night match between the two which saw Foley suffer a vicious beatdown, punctuated with a powerbomb on the concrete floor which (kayfabe) knocked him unconscious.
The storyline's natural progression would have seen Jack miss a little time to sell the injury, then come back with a vengeance looking for the Mastodon. Before that could happen, however, WCW ran a series of incredibly silly vignettes looking for Jack - who purportedly suffered amnesia. Unfortunately, it just made the wildman billed from Truth or Consequences, New Mexico look like a regular old family man (even mentioning his real-life wife and son by name). When it was all exposed as a ruse with Foley making a surprise return at a subsequent Clash of the Champions, the prevailing question was: what was the point of it all?
4 'New York Rules' Thunder
It may be a controversial opinion, but WCW's Millionaires' Club vs. New Blood feud in Spring 2000 could have been the catalyst the spiraling company needed to wipe the proverbial drawing board clean and hit the 'restart' button. Unfortunately, with Vince Russo's decision to make the storyline about him and not the young up-and-comers to whom he was supposedly giving a break, the writing was on the wall.
While the entire angle was, at best, not great, one specific episode of Thunder nearly encapsulates everything ridiculous about it: the 'New York Rules' edition on May 3. The only difference between the series of matches that evening and regular 'No Disqualification/Anything Goes' matches was that these wouldn't feature referees (the gag, of course, being that WCW's referees were generally pointless anyway, as the company rarely booked clean finishes). Among the evening's many lowlights was a 22-man battle royal won by Ric Flair (in what might have been WCW's most overbooked match ever), after interference by a returning Bret Hart who, thanks to Goldberg's superkick at their Starrcade 1999 main event, couldn't even wrestle.
3 The Giant Falls From Cobo Hall Roof
When Paul 'the Giant' Wight made his in-ring debut at Halloween Havoc 1995, he made history: he won the WCW World Heavyweight Championship in his first match over the industry's top babyface, Hulk Hogan, when Hogan's manager Jimmy Hart turned on the 'Hulkster.' As if this wasn't impressive enough, consider the storyline implications of the fact that he did all this after, just a few hours earlier at the top of the PPV, he was heaved off the side of Detroit's Cobo Hall (a.k.a. the Joe Louis Arena).
Commentators said that upon landing, Wight's impact was braced by the local river, despite its proximity rendering that explanation physically impossible. To be fair, the entire PPV - and year - was filled with ridiculous moments and storylines, as this entry doesn't even consider the fact that the Giant's fall was preceded by a Monster Truck Battle (which was admittedly kind of cool) and followed by the Yeti's infamous debut.
2 Uncensored '95 - The Whole Card
Speaking of WCW in 1995, the company's complete lack of creative direction is perhaps best encapsulated by that year's Uncensored PPV. With ECW beginning to make waves in the independent scene and with the industry's 1980s-style booking floundering in WWE as well, WCW bookers were looking to do something different - and somewhat 'extreme.'
Of course, 'different' doesn't always equal 'good,' and the PPV was widely criticized as the worst major show of the year - including WWE's horrendous King of the Ring offering. Consider this: the main event match between Hulk Hogan and Vader was a Strap Match that Hogan somehow won by dragging Ric Flair to all four ring posts - and it was the best match of the evening!
1 RoboCop Saves Sting - Capitol Combat '90
For many children of the 1980s, RoboCop was one of the coolest futuristic action-adventure film franchises around. The first movie was a surprise hit in 1987 and, when the opportunity for cross-promotion arose in 1990, it made too much sense for WCW not to bite. After all, WWE had seen some success in its attempts to branch out into Hollywood and the franchise's core demographic of young men was exactly who wrestling executives were trying to attract.
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None of this takes away from the fact that a wrestling show - which, even in 1990, was still trying to present itself as being 'real' and relied on the suspension of disbelief - featured a fictional (robot!) character in its top storyline. Weirdly, RoboCop's rescue of Sting from a Four Horsemen beatdown occurred in the middle of the card, but despite the wrestling mostly being pretty good, the image of the 'Stinger' and Officer Alex James Murphy emerging from the fray was by far the most memorable, yet ridiculous, segment of the show.
