12 Cursed Comparisons That DOOMED Promising Wrestlers
11. The Renegade (The Ultimate Warrior)
WCW fans (rightly so) had been expecting The Ultimate Warrior in 1995, not some new character who was blatantly a knock off. After all, Hulk Hogan had been hyping up an "Ultimate Surprise" partner to help he and Randy Savage battle the Dungeon Of Doom heading into Uncensored.
As Jimmy Hart infamously yelped, 'It's The Renegade, baby!'.
This clanger sucked energy from an audience teased with another one of the WWF's biggest stars. Journeyman Rick Wilson, the dude behind this less-than-ultimate rip off, tried his best to make things work but was fighting a losing battle. He wasn't what the audience wanted and that was very much that.
Incredibly, as revealed on VICE's 'Dark Side Of The Ring' episode about Renegade, Warrior himself had given Wilson the rub on an independent show. Not even that was enough to convince people that he was in the same league, which is somewhat ironic given the general feeling on Warrior's skills as the real deal.
Not even his harshest critics could dismiss how much charisma and aura 'The Ultimate One' had though. By comparison, The Renegade was one of those dirt cheap wrestling figures you'd see at a car boot sale/yard sale as a kid.
Y'know the ones: The paint comes off easily, and they're always called things like 'The Phenom' or 'Hulking Superstar'. You get them home and they look awful next to your officially licensed Hasbro WWF toys.
Renegade's tale would prove to be a tragic and depressing one, but he wasn't really given a shot at glory because he was clearly pretending to be Warrior-lite.