What’s the story?
Former WCW Superstar Alex Wright was recently interviewed by Wrestle: List. During the interview, Wright talked about the decline of WCW, backstage politics, WWE’s buyout of WCW and the offers that he had received from the WWE after the acquisition.
In case you didn’t know...
Alex Wright is a former WCW Superstar who was a one-time WCW World Television Champion, a one-time WCW Cruiserweight Champion and a one-time WCW Tag Team Champion. Wright’s father and uncle were also professional wrestlers, which made him a second generation pro wrestler.
A resident of Germany, Wright was signed up to a contract with Time Warner (the parent company of WCW at the time) at the tender age of 18 after he was scouted by officials on a WCW tour of Germany.
The heart of the matter
Speaking of the atmosphere in the WCW locker room, Wright said that the locker room was an amazing place to be in when he had joined WCW in 1994. Wright said that due to there being only 25-odd wrestlers signed up with the company at the time, things were great for everyone involved.
However, Wright says, that when the WCW roster ballooned up to 250+ members, a lot of backstage politics and “backstabbing” started to happen among the WCW ranks due to everyone wanting to get on TV.
Wright also attributed the failure of his “Berlyn” gimmick to the backstages politics and stated that it wasn’t successful because of Vince Russo not wanting to do anything with gimmicks that had come from Eric Bischoff’s ideas.
Also read: WWE News: Vince Russo talks about the fall of WCW
On the subject of WWE buying WCW, Wright said that the way it all happened was very “unprofessional” as nobody in the locker rooms knew anything about the acquisition and that there was no official communication from the office for the same.
Wright then spoke about the WWE getting in touch with him twice for signing up with them and explained why he declined their offer on both occasions. Wright was quoted as saying:
“After they bought WCW they approached me a couple of times. One time they wanted to give me a buyout of my contract, as I was one of the few wrestlers that had direct contracts with Time Warner, so WWE couldn’t buy that contract.
They offered me a buyout but it wasn’t good so I said no and I sat out my contract.
After that, they approached me twice and there were talks. I was very honoured that they asked me and wanted to give me the chance, but I am the kind of they guy that wants to give 100% when I’m in the ring. I knew I couldn’t do that at the time because I was burnt out.”
What’s next?
Wright runs a wrestling school named “The Wright Stuff” in Nuremberg, Germany. He also runs his own wrestling promotion called New European Championship Wrestling in Germany that he had founded in 2009.
Author’s take
Alex Wright was one of the fastest rising Superstars during his time in the WCW and it will forever remain a question so as to what all he could he have achieved had he decided to sign up with the WWE.
Wright was physically impressive, had several interesting gimmicks and also had a fantastic work rate that had led him to his three title reigns with WCW by the time he was 25 years old, if he had made the jump to the WWE in 2001, he may very well have been an even bigger Superstar. Some things are just not meant to be, I suppose.
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