5: The Renegade Warrior
Mid 90's WCW was all about assembling a roster full of late 80's WWE talent. Following the arrival of Hulk Hogan in 1994 and the 'Macho Man' soon after, WCW looked the sign Ultimate Warrior to their roster but baulked at Warrior's $2.5 million asking fee. Their solution? They signed Warrior look-alike Rick Wilson to reprise the role of the Warrior.
In 1995, Hulk Hogan began cutting promos promising the 'Ultimate Surprise' in the lead up to his tag-team match with Macho Man against Arn Anderson, Vader and Ric Flair. As expected, WCW fans expected Jim Helwig to show up, but instead they got a knock-off called the Renegade Warrior, who had a similar physique but was 4 inches shorter. He wore a similar outfit as the original Warrior and had a red and yellow R painted on his face, but fans saw through the deception and didn't take kindly to it.
WCW continued his massive push nonetheless and the Renegade soon acquired Jimmy Hart as his manager who proclaimed that the Renegade Warrior would be the next big thing in wrestling. Unfortunately, the Renegade was terrible in the ring and even though he went unbeaten for a long period, fans were having none of it. They quickly turned on the Renegade, and WWE even sued WCW who were forced to drop 'Warrior' from the Renegade's name.
The death knell for Renegade's career was his run with the TV title. His matches now had to be longer than squash matches and he was so bad in the ring that the crowd often cheered for his opponents who were supposed to be the heel and he dropped the TV title to Diamond Dallas Page. Following this, Renegade's career spiralled. He was dropped by Jimmy Hart and was mostly used as enhancement talent for the rest of his run.
He was released from his contract in 1998 and tragically committed suicide a few months later.
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