12 Things We Learned From Dark Side Of The Ring: The Fall Of Renegade
6. Hulk Hogan Abandoned Him (Then The Roster Followed)
On 'Dark Side', it’s revealed that Hulk Hogan distanced himself from The Renegade character once he spotted that it wasn’t clicking. Arn described Hogan as “a pretty self-centred individual”. Then, footage is shown of Renegade losing a November 1995 match to Kevin Sullivan before his manager Jimmy Hart wiped his face paints off and trashed the character as "a nobody" on camera.
Hart even went so far as to wag a finger in Rick's face and say he could've been "the next Hulk Hogan". Yeah, calm down Jimmy. Not even someone as well-versed in selling angles as he was could sell that to the fanbase. So, it was rather confusing that WCW apparently set Wilson up to fail.
It'd be like WWE bringing in someone to portray Seth Rollins. You know he isn't Seth Rollins, but they pretend he kinda is. Then, Seth Rawlings loses a match and suddenly he's outed as a fake...even though everyone watching knew that already. Puzzling, but it sums WCW up in a way.
After that regrettable plot point, Rick found himself ostracised by the rest of the WCW locker room. Anderson admits that people saw what he had to offer “and that wasn’t much”. Ouch. So, few backstage wanted much of anything to do with the man, and he felt pushed out as a result.
That's pretty depressing. It sure wasn't Wilson's fault that WCW had been dumb enough to think he could fill Warrior's shoes or live up to the hype. He was only trying his best. Realistically, some protection from management would've been nice.