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It's been nearly two decades since the once-popular promotion was bought by WWE, but the scandals live on.
From its first growing pains on Superstation WTBS to its death throes on TNT, the WCW promotion seemed to flirt with controversy. The now-defunct promotion exists only on reruns available on the WWE network. Despite the fact that WCW went the way of the wild goose nearly twenty years ago, people still like to talk about it.
Given that there's a new, upstart wrestling promotion on the horizon -- All Elite Wrestling -- WCW has re-entered the sphere of conversation surrounding sports entertainment. There were many things that stood out about WCW during its heyday. For one, it was the source of the NWO gimmick, which is perhaps one of the most successful, if overused, wrestling stables in history. Another thing that set WCW apart was its strong tag team division and the cruiserweights, two things that current promotions seem to have difficulty marketing well.
And of course, you can't have a successful business without a scandal or two. Or three. Or, in the case of this list, ten. Here are ten of the dirtiest scandals that have plagued WCW over its years of operation.
Scandal #1: Huge star Ric Flair fired by novice promoter, shows up on WWE television WITH the WCW World Heavyweight Championship belt.
Our first scandal erupted almost from the get-go in WCW. When Ted Turner bought out JC Productions--which owned most of the NWA territories and the contracts of the wrestlers--he made a number of controversial decisions. Protective padding was removed from ringside to give it a more 'old school' feel, and moves from the top rope were forbidden.
While those two rules were real head-scratchers, the worst decision of all was firing the biggest star in the company. At the time, Nature Boy Ric Flair had multiple NWA world heavyweight champion reigns and was indisputably the most recognizable figure the newly christened WCW had under contract. But Ted Turner appointee Jim Herd was, for whatever reason, unable to come to terms with Ric Flair. He fired the nature boy and demanded that he return the WCW title belt.
However, what Jim Herd didn't realize was that the belt was, in fact, Ric Flair's property. He had purchased the belt years earlier so the NWA could use it, feeling that the original NWA title lacked 'flair.' It was customary for the champion to pay a ten thousand dollar deposit on the belt, and Flair demanded Herd pay up before the belt would be returned. Jim Herd refused, and shortly after the WCW title belt wound up on WWE television. Ric Flair called it 'the REAL world's championship' and even though the NWA or WCW were never directly referenced, fans knew what was up. Having your world title wind up on the rival's programming? Definitely scandalous.
Even though the WCW were equally guilty of doing the same with a certain Alundra Blayze or Medusa, she was popularly known as, Flair did it at a time when when it almost equated to being a crine.
The Nature boy can be seen in the video below explaining the course of his action:
Scandal #2: Hiring a man with an unsavory past.
In recent years, professional athletes have increasingly been held accountable for their actions. While their wealth and prestige might still protect them somewhat, if you get caught on camera laying out your wife with a right hook you don't get to play in the NFL anymore.
However, at one time most professional athletes had little to fear for their misbehavior. The exception to this rule was pro boxers and pro wrestlers. Mike Tyson was convicted of rape and sent to prison, and veteran pro grappler Art Barr narrowly avoided a similar fate after being accused of the same crime.
It was thanks to some dicey testimony by the victim, who seemed confused as to whether she wanted to press charges or not. Despite the fact that he avoided a lengthy prison sentence, the crime was enough to get pro wrestling completely banned from Oregon, the state where the crime took place.
After this incident, Art Barr had a hard time finding work--until WCW hired him. Barr was best known as the tag team partner of Eddie Guerrero, but WCW tried to hide his true identity under the make-up and powder wig of the Juicer character, a blatant Beetlejuice rip-off. This was in the days before the internet, so Art Barr's identity and crime were relatively unknown to a majority of fans, so WCW avoided controversy until years after Barr no longer worked for the company.
Scandal #3: Big backstage brawl between Paul Orndorff and Big Van Vader
Back in the early days of WCW, the biggest babyface was unquestionably Hulk Hogan. He had joined the company while filming his Thunder in Paradise syndicated program, eschewing a return to WWE. It was only natural that he feud with the biggest heel under contract with WCW, Big Van Vader.
In fact, bookers had scripted Hogan to lose the WCW world title to Vader on the second episode of Monday Nitro! However, a simple miscommunication resulted in wrestling history changing forever.
At the time Mr. Wonderful Paul Orndorff was still an active wrestler but spent most of his time as an agent for WCW. An agent's job is to make sure the wrestlers get to the shows and promotional events on time, and know the run down of what they are expected to do. When he couldn't find Vader for a photoshoot, Mr. Wonderful assumed that Vader was shirking his responsibilities and made some comments about the Mastodon.
Vader was actually late because he was at a different photoshoot that ran long, but when he hit the building gossip about Orndorff's comments reached his ears. Vader strode up to Mr. Wonderful and pushed him, calling him several vulgar names. Mr. Wonderful responded by punching him with his badly atrophied arm and knocking the Mastodon to the concrete. Paul Orndorff then proceeded to stomp on Vader's head until the big man was bloody.
Since Vader had been the instigator, Eric Bischoff fired him on the spot. Vader wound up in WWE, and Hogan held on to the title for longer than originally planned. Mr. Wonderful would later say that he could have handled the matter better, and Vader would say that he was afraid to beat up 'an old man.'
Vader can be seen explaining the the situation in the video below:
Scandal #4: The Arn Anderson/Sid Vicious Scissors fight.
While the Paul Orndorff/Vader incident was certainly ugly, at least no one was seriously hurt. That was NOT the case with our next WCW scandal: The brutal scissors fight between Arn Anderson and Sid Vicious.
One of the things that seems to repeat itself in the pro wrestling industry is a veteran feeling that a new up-and-coming star doesn't have the proper respect for the business. That was certainly the case with Arn Anderson and Sid Vicious. Arn Anderson had been trying to teach the relatively green Vicious the rules of the business, but Sid's stardom had gone to his head.
Tensions boiled over during a road trip at a posh hotel. Sid Vicious confronted Arn Anderson in his room, and from that point on things got murky. Both men accuse the other of being the one to start the fight, but one thing is clear: Sid at one point grabbed a pair of scissors and stabbed Arn five times. Then, Arn got the scissors away from Sid and stabbed him anywhere from a dozen to twenty times. Anderson ended up with a punctured lung, both men needed stitches, and WCW had another scandal on their hands.
Since Arn was the longest tenured man in the company, Sid Vicious was fired and ended up in WWE as Sid Justice and Sycho Sid. For years WCW refused to consider hiring Vicious out of respect for Arn, however late in the promotion's life the two buried the hatchet and Arn agreed to allow Sid back into the company.
This moment ranges from audacious to downright shocking. There are different versions of this incident that is now a part of popular WCW folklore.
Scandal #5: Backstage executive Kevin Sullivan books his own divorce.
Chris Benoit's sad, miserably tragic end often overshadows much of his career. One thing that is often overlooked is how he essentially stole another man's wife in WCW.
At the time, Kevin Sullivan was an active wrestler, but his main job was working backstage as one of the head bookers. Sullivan would decide which wrestlers to push and what storyline angles they should be involved in. When Sullivan was given the task of getting over the insanely talented but somewhat off-putting Chris Benoit, he decided to take it personally--literally.
Kevin Sullivan's wife Nancy had been a fixture in WCW for years, acting as a manager/valet known as Woman. She managed Doom while they feuded with the Steiner brothers and would go on to be Kevin Sullivan's valet. Sullivan wrote an angle where Chris Benoit would lure away his wife Nancy. Since these were the days of kayfabe, he insisted that Nancy and Benoit travel together, eat together, and try to put out the illusion that they were a legitimate couple.
However, love takes strange turns, and the storyline became real life. Nancy Sullivan divorced Kevin Sullivan and married Chris Benoit. Kevin Sullivan responded by burying Benoit on the card, often having him put over younger talent in squash matches, such as when Benoit lost to The Giant (The Big Show) in mere seconds. WCW officials didn't lift a finger to help Benoit, as they thought he had it coming for breaking up Sullivan's marriage. On the other hand, most of the locker room blamed Sullivan for putting his wife into that spot in the first place.
Scandal #6: The Big Show punches out a fan in a bar fight.
You'd think that given the average pro wrestler is much bigger and stronger than the average person, no one would want to pick fights with them.
That should be doubly true for men like the Big Show, who stands seven feet tall and weigh upwards of four hundred pounds. Seriously, who in their right mind would want to start a fight with him?
One fan apparently thought he was up to the challenge. During his tenure in WCW, where he wrestled under the name The Giant and was considered Andre's kayfabe son, The Big Show tried to check into a hotel. However, some of the hotel bar patrons started heckling him for being a 'fake' wrestler.
Then a fan took things too far and tried to get physical with Mr. Big Show, which was a Mr. Big Mistake. Wight punched the man out and broke his jaw. Though Wight was arrested and had to go to court, video of the incident exonerated him and kept him out of further legal trouble.
Even though the Big Show used his punch as a finisher only towards the later part of his career, we certainly know that it was already in his arsenal.
Scandal #7: Eric Bischoff's management techniques involve throwing coffee on the talent.
Though he passed on over a decade ago, the legacy of the late, great Eddie Guerrero is without question one of the greatest in pro wrestling history. His numerous title reigns all over the world, his pinfall victory over Brock Lesnar, and his ability to connect with the fans have all sealed his fate as a true Wrestling Legend.
However, there was a time that at least one person didn't think Eddie was a very big deal. The time was WCW's mid-1990s run, and the person was Eric Bischoff. Along with Hollywood Hulk Hogan, Bischoff believed that only established stars were going to be able to put WWE out of business. He wanted people who could 'put asses in seats,' as he so glibly stated.
When Eric was confronted backstage by Eddie Guerrero about Latino Heat's role with the company -- a standard practice in wrestling promotions at the time, where wrestlers were expected to be their own career advocates -- Bischoff grew so frustrated that he threw a cup of coffee on Eddie Guerrero.
Fortunately for Bischoff, Eddie's cooler head prevailed and he reported the incident to HR rather than throttling Eric Bischoff on the spot, as we all know he could have done. Eric was forced to apologize, and the incident was even referenced on Monday Nitro and led to the formation of the LWO.
Scandal #8: The fast count that wasn't.
One of the hottest feuds in pro wrestling history was Sting--during his 'crow' phase--taking on the NWO. He focused on the figurehead of the NWO, Hollywood Hogan, and for many months WCW teased a confrontation between the two.
That bout finally took place at Starrcade 1997, where Hogan would put the WCW--or perhaps I should say, NWO--World Heavyweight Championship on the line. Sting and Hogan faced each other in what turned out to be a fairly straightforward wrestling match, until something went wrong.
Hogan hit Sting with his trademark move and went for the pinfall. According to WCW, referee Nick Patrick--who had been shown to have NWO loyalties -- was supposed to make a 'lightning fast' three count. However, when Patrick counted Sting's shoulders to the mat, he went at normal speed. The result was Hogan cleanly pinned the hero Sting on national live television. The announce team would assert the count was 'lightning fast' even though fans could clearly see it was not. Patrick was replaced by interim referee Bret Hart who declared Sting the winner after Hogan tapped out to the Scorpion Deathlock.
There are a lot of theories as to what happened. Some say that Hogan refused to job cleanly to Sting, and the 'fast three count' was a way of protecting his character. Others believe that Hogan and Patrick came up with the ruse on their own, without WCW management knowledge. And still others say--and this is the prevailing theory these days--that Nick Patrick simply made a mistake and forgot to count quickly.
Scandal #9: Nash books himself to win the world title from megastar Goldberg.
It's hard to get across just how ridiculously popular Bill Goldberg was during his late 1990s WCW run. The undefeated streak, the Jackhammer, and his unbelievable victory over Hollywood Hogan live on Nitro was the only thing that seemed able to turn the Monday Night War back to WCW's favor.
So what did WCW do? Take the belt off of him in a screwjob finish, of course.
In 1998 Eric Bischoff had come to rely upon Kevin Nash's advice extensively. When Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, Dean Malenko, and Perry Saturn all asked for their release from the company, Nash said to just let them go, calling them "vanilla midgets." Two of those men would go on to become WWE world champions.
Eric wound up making the arrangement official, and named Kevin Nash as WCW's head booker. Nash had barely had the job for ten seconds when he booked himself to beat Goldberg in a world title match. Though it involved a cattle prod and some NWO shenanigans including Scott Hall, the move is widely regarded as a colossal blunder that directly led toward the downfall of WCW.
Scandal #10: The Monday Night War is lost thanks to Mick Foley and the "Finger Poke of Doom."
The fact is, there were many factors that contributed to the downfall of WCW. From the guaranteed creative control million dollar contracts to the mishandling of younger talent, WCW had a lot to answer for.
However, if you want to point out one moment when WCW truly began its freefall toward oblivion, it was probably January 4, 1999.
During those days, Monday Nitro was always live, whereas Monday Night Raw would sometimes be tape delayed. Since Eric Bischoff knew the results of the rival show, he would often state them live on the air. He once said of Shawn Michaels vs. Sid Vicious for the WWE world title "he beats the big guy with three superkicks. You don't need to change the channel!"
However, his hubris would come back to haunt him when he instructed Tony Schiavonne to give out spoilers for Raw that night. Schaivonne stated "Cactus Jack (Foley's name in WCW) is going to win their world title. Yeah, THAT will put asses in seats!"
The result was that fans changed the channel in droves to see fan favorite Mick Foley win the WWE title. But that was only the first strike in a one two punch. The second came when WCW's own main even title match between Hollywood Hogan and Kevin Nash ended after a finger poke.
After months of teasing internecine warfare between the NWO factions, it seemed fans were finally going to get their pay off when Hogan faced off against Nash. However, the fans were swerved when Nash laid down for Hogan after a blatantly scripted finger poke. The match turned many fans off from WCW, helping seal the fate of the promotion.
There you have it; Ten scandals from WCW's halcyon days. If you have questions or comments, please put them below the article, and as always thanks for reading!
