Ten Guys Misused By WCW
World Championship Wrestling has been dead and gone for over twelve years. Throughout its history they messed up their chances with several talents who would end up going to other promotions and achieve greatness or they simply never reached their highest level of success. Here are ten wrestlers that come to mind that could have done so much more in WCW, but never did.
Raven
Perhaps the character that had the most to offer for World Championship Wrestling and achieved much less than he could have is Raven. Don’t get me wrong, Raven had a good run with the promotion from his debut in 1997 to about April 1998. However, once he dropped the WCW United States Championship to Goldberg on April 20th, Raven was just a midcarder who never rose up the card. He would get frustrated and quit the promotion in the summer of 1999 and return to ECW.
I wish that Raven didn’t quit and remained with WCW. Vince Russo was a fan of Raven’s, as a apparent by both the booking of Russo in the early days of TNA and interviews I’ve listened to. I believe Raven would have been a huge star for the promotion during the New Blood era. There were several main event feuds that Raven could have competed in that would have been fresh and money making feuds for the promotion. Ric Flair, Hulk Hogan, Sting and Booker T. I think Raven would’ve been able to produce top quality programs with those four men. A man can dream.
Cactus Jack
Another ECW guy who first got success in WCW. He had a breakout match with Sting at Beach Blast 1992 but wouldn’t rise up the card in the promotion again until he turned face in early 1993 and had a feud with Vader in 1993. During 1993 Jack and Vader had some brutal matches on television that got Cactus over huge with the crowd. They had a match at Havoc 1993 which Vader won. After that, Jack would be simply placed in the tag division where he teamed with Maxx Payne and Kevin Sullivan. Cactus would leave in September 1994 and would arrive in the WWF in March 1996.
WCW wasted Jack after Havoc 1993. From everything that I’ve watched of WCW in the mid 1990s the fans were eating up Cactus and enjoyed his hardcore style. There are several feuds that Cactus could have still done in WCW. Especially a deranged Cactus feuding with a babyface Flair or Hogan. Those two feuds would have appealed to internet fans along with the general public. Instead, WCW tossed Jack to the side and let the WWF snatch up a great performer.
Bret Hart
Without question Bret Hart was horribly misused in WCW. Yeah, the Montreal Screw job really ruined Bret, but the booking of Hart in WCW is head scratching and makes you wonder how could a company use someone so poorly. When it came to in-ring action Hart was active from 1998-1999 in WCW. So, that is twenty four pay per views. Out of twenty four pay per views Bret wrestled on eleven pay per views. There was a stretch from November ’98 to October ’99 where Hart didn’t compete on pay per view. Of course, in May 1999 Bret’s younger brother Owen Hart passed away so he took time away from the promotion. Regardless of that from November 98 to April 1999 Bret didn’t appear on pay per view. Actually, he wasn’t even regularly used on television.
Bret was a victim of Eric Bischoff just looking to sign wrestlers with a name to take out the World Wrestling Federation. Besides, working with guys like Hulk Hogan, Kevin Nash and Scott Hall who either didn’t want to work with Bret are felt insulted by him in the WWF. Bret was doomed from the start in WCW. At least he made a lot of money in WCW for the time he was there.
