10 Wrestlers Who Nearly Defected During The Monday Night Wars

You won't believe who the 4th member of the NWO nearly was (actually you will, he is pictured).

Bulldog Nwo At the height of the Monday Night Wars, Raw and Nitro were highlighted by an almost-weekly parade of wrestlers defecting from one company and showing up on the competition€™s program soon after. Think about some of the biggest moments from both promotions during that era: Lex Luger shows up on the first Nitro, Scott Hall interrupts a Nitro match, Chris Jericho interrupts a Rock promo, and the Radicalz take a seat in the front row of Raw. Defections were the norm in the mid- to late 90s through the closing of WCW in early 2001. Look at the WWF and WCW rosters from those days and you€™ll find plenty of examples of superstars who performed for both companies (in Rick Rude€™s case, televised on the same night). But there also are several wrestlers who were either rumored to or very nearly did jump ship one way or the other at some point €“ but for some reason, they decided to stand pat. Some of these guys staying put had a huge impact on the outcome of the Monday Night Wars. So let€™s look at 10 wrestlers who nearly jumped from one promotion to the other during the Monday Night Wars and see what their departures could have meant to the WCW/WWF battle for rating supremacy.
Contributor
Contributor

Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.