10 Superstars WCW Completely Wasted
4. Steve Austin
Did anybody really think that 'Stunning' Steve Austin, with his long, thinning blonde hair, mechanical style and unexceptional physique would become arguably the biggest star in the history of the business? You'd have been laughed out of the WCW booking committee if you had even suggested such a thing, and probably drug tested afterwards.
Austin was one of WCW's best workers in the early 90s, having some great matches with Dustin Rhodes, Barry Windham and Ricky Steamboat. One day Austin turned up to a WCW taping, expected to be given a run with the United States Championship, only to be told by fellow underused midcarder Brian Pillman that they were in fact forming a tag team.
Pillman and Austin, as the Hollywood Blonds, were phenomenal inside the ring and a riot outside of it. Regrettably, their alliance would be a short-lived one, with a Pillman injury putting an end it less than a year after it started. Austin claims to this day, however, that they were being shafted behind-the-scenes before the breakup, anyway.
After the requisite feud with The Loose Cannon, Austin his attention to the US Title in the summer of 1994. He held the belt for a little over two weeks before dropping it to the anachronistic Jim Duggan in an insulting 35 second match. Injuries would hamper Austin's remaining time in WCW, but it mattered little: he was fired by Eric Bischoff while he was out nursing a triceps injury suffered on a tour of Japan.
Neither WCW nor Bischoff saw Austin as a star and didn't see losing him as a big loss. Oh, he'd show them all right...