10 Best WCW Gimmicks (Wasted On Bad Wrestlers)

May 2024 · 6 minute read

The creative side of WCW featured talents often getting tasked with playing wild gimmicks. WCW had a deep roster of great talents representing the past, present, and future of the industry. There are plenty of stories in WCW and beyond about great talents being saddled with bad ideas from the creative team.

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However, an opposite scenario led to good gimmicks being given to wrestlers that couldn’t make them work. Not every talent is good enough to thrive in a favorable angle. Unfortunately, this caused WCW to have disappointing results from things they thought would work. The following great WCW gimmicks were wasted on bad wrestlers at the wrong time.

10 The Wall

The idea of a cool big man wrestler destroying opposing wrestlers has worked in many promotions. WCW came up with the gimmick of The Wall to back up Alex Wright’s new persona of Berlyn. The controversial nature of Berlyn ended that gimmick quickly and led to The Wall being pushed on his own.

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WCW started to have Wall do cooler things like Chokeslamming opponents through tables. This could have been a huge success for someone like Mike Awesome, but it flopped with the lackluster wrestler behind it. Not even a small program with Hulk Hogan could get Wall over with his limitations.

9 Evan Karagias (3 Count Leader)

One of the rare fun acts from WCW’s final year was the 3 Count faction playing a parody of a boy band. Shannon Moore and Shane Helms broke out with their first big break in the group, but Evan Karagias was positioned as the leader with a longer tenure.

3 Count had great matches to make them all look good. However, Karagias stood out as the weak link that was eventually removed for good reason. The lackluster work of Karagias limited the ceiling of what could have been a better long-term act.

8 Major Gunns

WCW started to invest in more female performers in the final few years when trying to catch up to the WWE product. Major Gunns was among their most pushed talents with stints as the eye candy of the Misfits in Action stable.

However, it was the heel turn joining Team Canada that gave her a compelling push. Valets turning heel was a popular wrestling trope that typically worked at the time. Major Gunns didn’t have much wrestling experience or charisma to make the character work as well as some other names would have.

7 The Disciple

Hulk Hogan tried his best to get his best friend Brutus Beefcake pushed in various gimmicks. WCW got sick of pushing him after failed stints as Brother Bruti, The Butcher, The Zodiac and The Booty Man all left Eric Bischoff disappointed.

Beefcake completely changed his look to get his final chance as The Disciple joining the New World Order. Hogan having The Disciple back him up as his main sidekick could have helped so many other wrestlers. Beefcake once again peaked with middle-of-the-pack results.

6 Shawn Stasiak (Stacy Keibler's Boyfriend)

WCW punted on a horrible storyline of Stacy Keibler being pregnant with a mystery father meant to be Ric Flair or Vince Russo. The timing of Russo getting fired led to the new creative minds dropping the angle by having Stacy claim she was lying and dating Shawn Stasiak all along.

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Stasiak received a singles push as Keibler’s boyfriend after his time in the Natural Born Thrillers faction. WCW didn’t get much success from the short-term angle as the company reached the end of the road. WWE had no interest in continuing this act since Stasiak wasn’t thriving with it at all.

5 Sid Vicious (Millennium Man)

WCW signed Sid Vicious coming off a great WWE run as Sycho Sid winning the WWE Championship and main eventing WrestleMania. There was a strong effort entering 1999 to sign new talents that could feud with Goldberg, like Tank Abbott and Bam Bam Bigelow.

Sid received a gimmick calling himself the Millennium Man vowing to enter the new millennium without any defeats. The desire to pass Goldberg’s streak was a great gimmick, but Sid was always a flawed wrestler. WCW never got the investment they put into this character with the Goldberg feud flopping.

4 Mike Sanders

The Natural Born Thrillers faction was one of the better ideas from WCW in the later years. WCW had a problem building new stars and placed together four young standouts with a strong push. Sean O’Haire, Chuck Palumbo, Shawn Stasiak, and Mark Jindrak all worked well together.

Many fans forget that Mike Sanders was a part of the group as their main talker since he barely wrestled. Sanders could cut decent promos, but he was a generally weak wrestler. It also looked strange that he was smaller than the rest in a leadership role.

3 Big T

Ahmed Johnson joining WCW as Big T was a huge failure that made the gimmick look terrible. However, the original concept wasn’t too bad as Stevie Ray’s longtime friend coming around to team with him in Harlem Heat 2000.

The Harlem Heat name value was strong after Stevie and Booker T won ten WCW Tag Team Championship reigns together. WCW was booking a Stevie vs Booker feud for the first time. A better wrestler being Stevie’s new partner could have improved the segments in the idea that could have worked.

2 Tank Abbott

UFC wasn’t a big deal in the 1990s, but WCW saw value in Tank Abbott for his time there. WWE finding success with Ken Shamrock from the MMA world inspired WCW to push their own new wrestler with a legitimate fighting background.

Abbott was pushed as a badass that bullied others in a gimmick that felt perfect for his character. The wrestling skill set of Tank wasn’t impressive enough to build him as a threat to Goldberg as the original plan. WCW eventually gave up on this and placed Abbott in the outlandish role of a boy band fanatic.

1 Paul Roma (Four Horsemen Protégé)

The first few incarnations of the Four Horsemen became a flawless concept for the time showing the drawing power of great factions. WCW tried to reunite the group with Ric Flair and Arn Anderson mentoring new young talent.

Paul Roma made the move from WWE to WCW with promises of a big push. The role of the Four Horsemen protégé was a dream scenario for most wrestlers in Roma’s spot. Unfortunately, he wasn’t good enough to get over and both Flair and Anderson hated this angle from their legendary careers.

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