12 Things We Learned From Dark Side Of The Ring: The Fall Of Renegade
5. What He Thought Of Warrior’s WCW Arrival
Rick told James Mitchell that he’d been “misled” and that the whole thing was “such bulls***, man”. He was talking about his fading wrestling career generally too, but knew that Warrior coming into WCW in 1998 was the end of the road for his run as The Renegade. How could he possibly come back from that?
Mitchell was shocked that Wilson didn’t come off as arrogant over a few beers, because he thought for sure he would be after rubbing shoulders with the top table. Eventually, Rick played Warrior’s stunt double for WarGames at Fall Brawl 1998. That was another slap in the face - he was given a cameo role designed to bridge a gap towards Warrior's big pop.
Those were big pops that Renegade had hoped to garner for himself, but he was fighting a losing battle.
Again, wrestling journalist John Pollock nails it when he says that Renegade was much less of a financial disaster for WCW than Warrior ultimately proved to be. That’s fair, especially when you get to the next point in this list and realise how little skin in the game the company actually had financially. Conversely, Warrior cost them a ton for very little return.
His WrestleMania VI rematch vs. Hogan at Halloween Havoc '98 proved to be one of the worst pay-per-view bouts in WCW history (which is saying a hell of a lot!), and then Warrior was gone. He'd gobbled up millions of dollars to stink the joint out.
Without being cruel, that was something Renegade was doing for a fraction of the cost.