10 Biggest WWE Stars That Never Wrestled In WCW
The Rock may have won WCW gold but he never tasted the actual promotion.
Sometimes, Vince McMahon and company simply beat WCW to the punch, making their signed talents so happy that a southward flight to Atlanta was never in the cards. Other times, the stars simply never aligned for some of Titan's top talents, even in free agency, to test the waters of Turner-era WCW.
Once Sting and Jushin Liger took part in WWE-sanctioned matches in 2015, the list of marquee WCW/NWA performers without a WWE match pretty much dwindled to The Midnight Express, Abdullah the Butcher, and The Great Muta. Almost as conversely, the list of top-flight WWF talents that have never graced a WCW ring is pretty light in its own right.
There have been those like Edge, Kane, and Billy Gunn that worked as jobbers for Ted Turner's money earlier in their careers (as Damon Striker, Bruiser Mastino, and Skip Montana, respectively). Wrestlers such as those are also excluded from this list. The following names have never taken part in a WCW match, period.
Obviously the likes of John Cena, Brock Lesnar, and anyone else onward that didn't have too much of a chance to sign with WCW before its 2001 purchase is excluded. This is only for wrestlers that fit a considerable chunk of the company's framework. The Young Bucks never wrestled for WCW, but this list isn't for them.
The following entries, however, satisfy all qualifications for entry.
10. Bob Backlund
It wasn't too uncommon for WCW to snatch up ex-WWE Champions like Pacman pellets as soon as they became available, but Backlund eluded the Atlanta outfit. Once Hulk Hogan became WWE's top dog in 1984, Backlund performed briefly for Pro Wrestling USA, a joint venture of the AWA and the NWA, but worked exclusively on the Minnesota side of things. It would be his last matches for close to seven years.
From 1992 through 1997, Backlund once more performed for WWE before settling into semi-retirement, pursuing a political career while making sporadic appearances for WWE for comedic purposes. While WWE throwbacks like Jimmy Snuka, Tito Santana, and George Steele popped up in WCW in early-2000 for a night, Backlund never did cross over.