10 Superstars WWE Completely Wasted

6. Steve Williams

Dr Death Steve Williams
WWE.com

To be fair, when WWE signed former All Japan Triple Crown Champion "Dr. Death" Steve Williams in 1998, they had huge plans for him - he was intended to feud with Stone Cold Steve Austin, and whether or not he ended up as WWE Champion, a program with Austin during the height of the Attitude Era would make Williams a fortune. First, WWE needed to get him over to the fans who had never seen him before, and their idea was... a shootfighting tournament?!

The Brawl for All tournament over the summer of 1998 was designed to create a world-beater in real-life tough guy Williams prior to the Austin feud. Unfortunately, Williams was beaten (and badly injured) by Bart Gunn en route to Gunn's victory in the tournament. WWE saw Williams as damaged goods after that, and following a brief comeback, he was released.

To summarize: WWE tried to create a star by hoping he would win real fights - which everyone watching assumed were fake, anyway. Hopefully somebody learned a lesson.

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Scott Fried is a Slammy Award-winning* writer living and working in New York City. He has been following/writing about professional wrestling for many years and is a graduate of Lance Storm's Storm Wrestling Academy. Follow him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/scottfried. *Best Crowd of the Year, 2013