When I was younger I was a big fan of Shane Douglas. I guess I enjoyed his heel gimmick and his attitude of just being a complete jerk. But, now as I get older and I watch more and more of his stuff, I ask myself, “what was I thinking?”
I have enjoyed his teaming with Ricky Steamboat in WCW from 1992-1993. They were the prototypical babyface tag team. Steamboat was the obvious star and Douglas was more or less his protege. Douglas wasn’t there too long, but had he remained there in the company, turning on Steamboat could have been a huge career move but instead he left and went to ECW.
There is no question that Extreme Championship Wrestling was the only place that Shane Douglas succeeded. His promos have always had curses in the mix, which weren’t allowed in WWF or WCW. So, he could get by the interviews by saying the f-word every sentence. The fans there seemed to love curse words.
He is well known for having a hatred for Ric Flair claiming that Flair held him back and ripped Flair for wrestling well past he was capable of doing so. Naturally, Shane Douglas is still wrestling well past he was capable of doing. As of late, he has been main eventing Extreme Rising events and going over.
The fact of the matter is that I believe Shane thinks he is better than he ever was. Where has he ever drawn? ECW? Honestly, that’s not all that impressive to me.
He failed miserably in World Championship Wrestling in 1999. The Revolution group with Benoit, Malenko and Saturn was a good idea by the company, but they never got a chance to get going. Plus, when you have the group become heels and expect to build around them it’s going to be difficult. Douglas struggled with getting over because he couldn’t be the guy he was in Extreme Championship Wrestling.
Don’t forget that he also failed in World Wrestling Federation. He didn’t enjoy the direction his character was going in the company, which was an evil teacher named Dean Douglas. It’s kind of amusing to me that Shane would just quit after less than a year on the job because he was lied to. Of course, that’s what he tells us. I can’t really believe what he tells us.
Nowadays he is running Extreme Rising, which is apparently drawing good cards in the Northeast area with talent like Sabu, Sandman, Matt Hardy, Stevie Richards, Homicide, and Raven among others. A lot of people crapped on their first show, but the company continues to march forward and have signed a dream match between Jushin Liger and Sabu for April 4th in Philadelphia.
In my opinion, Douglas is a hypocrite who can’t get out of the ring the same reason he hated Ric Flair. He is bitter that he never succeeded in the main event scene on the main stage in wrestling. He was only good for ECW but once he has to adapt to rules he crumbles.
What are your opinions or memories of Shane Douglas? Share them below.
Thanks for reading.
— Bob Colling writes a blog at WrestleRecaps.com.