With talk-show host Jon Stewart's gate-crashing appearance on the most recent edition of Monday Night Raw, it cements another one of the bizarre similarities between WWE in the past decade and World Championship Wrestling. The comparison? Both promotions attempted to form unique alliances with mainstream celebrities to draw ratings and new eyes. However, for as bad as WWE may appear on occasion, it's not as bad as WCW, whose dependence on funk legends, rock legends, rap legends, non-human film stars, TV celebrities and yeah, hall-of-fame NBA power forwards in many ways closed the same doors they opened with celebrity co-signs. Though possibly leading to some not-so-amazing moments, taking a look back at WCW's run of booking mainstream celebrities should certainly prove to lend itself to remembering some less-than-spectacular moments (and also some absolutely hilarious ones, too). In moderation, celebrities certainly accentuate the star-power of performers who are on-the-cusp of breaking through to the next level. In excess, the celebrities basically just become un-trained workers on the card, folks who have appeal and can draw, but when the time comes to actually get into the ring to solve whatever issue they are in the promotion to advance/solve, they're likely to drop the ball and be an embarrassment. All that being said, this should be a fascinating look back.
Besides having been an independent professional wrestling manager for a decade, Marcus Dowling is a Washington, DC-based writer who has contributed to a plethora of online and print magazines and newspapers writing about music and popular culture over the past 15 years.
