10 Wrestlers Who Got Buried For Someone Else Screwing Up
10. Mike Awesome
Did you know the juggernaut of ECW Mike Awesome was a distant relative to ‘The Immortal One’ Hulk Hogan? Awesome was a cousin of Horace Hogan who was the nephew of The Hulkster. This is significant in partially understanding why Awesome’s WCW tenure was less than great.
Awesome made a name for himself by running through the ECW roster in the late ‘90s, with Paul Heyman believing he had unstoppable potential to be a top guy for any promotion. Awesome jumped ship to WCW in 2000 after pay issues and started off strong, feuding with Hulk Hogan and even laying him out on occasion. But he was then belittled with terrible gimmicks like ‘The Fat Chick Thrilla’ where he became infatuated with heavyset women and ‘That ‘70s Guy’ where he became infatuated with the ‘70s (because That ‘70s Show was a popular sitcom on at the time).
Awesome believed he was buried by the booking team in WCW just from being a distant relative to Hulk Hogan, who fell out of favour with WCW management after the whole Bash at the Beach 2000 controversy. On the BATB controversy and the way he was portrayed on TV, Awesome commented:
“I’d like to blame it on that, you know? It makes me feel better. At the time it sure felt like it. I mean it just seemed like all of the sudden Hogan helped bring me in, it was through Bischoff, not really through Russo as much, and then it just seemed like wham! It was like, ‘We can’t fire the guy, let’s see if we can make him quit’.”