10 Shocking WCW Plans That Almost Happened
Aliens, the 'preferred' option to end Goldberg's streak, and even more Ultimate Warrior.
For a fair few years, World Championship Wrestling was the go-to place for wrestling fans. Having stepped out of the shadows of Jim Crockett Promotions, and the NWA at large, Ted Turner's promotion changed the wrestling game.
Of course, that same promotion spectacularly collapsed in on itself, with insane ideas, excesses, and outright idiocy causing WCW to close its doors in 2001. And if you think that what we saw play out across WCW's run was utterly nuts, the even crazier truth is that there were so many other outrageous ideas that WCW had, but ultimately (thankfully!) opted against pushing forward with.
We may have seen Judy Bagwell on a forklift, we may have seen Viagra on a pole, we may have seen Tank Abbott running around with a knife, we may have had Rick Steiner bizarrely having beef with Chucky of the Child's Play franchise, and we may have had David Arquette as the WCW World Heavyweight Champion, yet there were so many other WCW ideas that we were lucky didn't manage to make it to TV.
Here then, are ten ridiculous ideas that so nearly came to fruition on WCW television.
10. An Ultimate Warrior Return
Infamously, Ultimate Warrior had a cup of coffee in WCW back in 1998. Largely there just to give Hulk Hogan his 'win back' over Warrior following the pair's WrestleMania VI match, the Ultimate One's WCW tenure only consisted of three matches, saw him convert Ed Leslie's Disciple, had him go a legit 20 minutes over his promo time, and sat in rooms brimming with smoke.
It was admittedly a strange old time, and the Parts Unknown native remains a bizarre footnote in the history of World Championship Wrestling.
Still, despite Warrior announcing his retirement as he departed WCW in late '98, WCW had tentative plans to have the frenetic face-painted fella return to the promotion in 2000. Not just that, but said return would've seen him butting heads with Goldberg.
After opting to end Da Man's famed streak at the hands of Kevin Nash at Starrcade '98, WCW struggled with how to handle Goldberg across the following 18 months - deciding to turn the erratic powerhouse heel at June 2000's Great American Bash.
From the mouth of Vince Russo, there was at one point a plan to bring Ultimate Warrior back to WCW to feud with the heel Goldberg.
Why didn't it happen? As Vinny Ru explains:
"Bro, J.J. [Jeff Jarrett] and I went out to Arizona. At that point, bro, I think it came down to dollars and cents with the WCW. Keep in mind, bro, Bischoff is not in the picture at this point. At this point, they’re watching their dollars. And bro, who knows, at this point they might have already known, ‘Listen man, we’re looking for a seller, we’re looking to shut the doors’. I don’t know. But that’s where it broke down, bro. It broke down during negotiations. I don’t know what they offered him, I don’t know what he wanted. I was never involved in any of that, but that’s where it broke down."
And yes, every single "bro" there is legit.