Anyone laboring under the impression that Vince Russo brought the Disappointing Mystery Reveal to WCW need look no further than the baffling saga of the Black Scorpion. Sting needed an opponent for Starrcade 1990, and the WCW brain trust decided to invent one from whole cloth. The Scorpion was an absurdist masterpiece, a masked figure who spoke through a voice distorter, came to the ring in a cardboard UFO, and, perhaps most memorably, transformed an audience member into a tiger using stage magic. The Scorpion would taunt Sting about their shared past as a tag team in California, and therefore many fans believed that WCW was attempting to bring in the Ultimate Warrior, who had indeed teamed with Sting on the California indies. In reality, Ole Anderson -- who booked this monstrosity and spoke into the voice changer -- planned to reveal himself as the villain. However, Ole injured his arm and had to give up his dreams of a comeback. A jobber called Al Perez had been the man in the suit, and Ole considered unmasking him and pretending he was someone important, but even that fell through when Al quit the company. With their biggest show of the year mere weeks away, WCW decided that this black magic stage magician who lived in a flying saucer had been Ric Flair all along.
