When James Warrior Hellwig left WWF, the fans on Nitro went wild with speculation that he would show up in WCW, coming in the footsteps of many ex-WWF guys. During the build-up to WCW Uncensored 1995, Hogan began hyping the Ultimate Surprise, which featured promos involving the silhouette of a man with long hair and tassels, which bore a striking similarity to the Ultimate Warrior. Fans believed this to be the Warrior, in part because he was in a state of semi-retirement at the time, so they thought it could actually be Warrior. When the truth was revealed, it was one of the biggest disappointments in WCW history. The Renegade was as much a poor mans Ultimate Warrior as you could get. This was only made worse when Warrior himself dispelled any rumors that Renegade was the real Warrior, which led to the character losing virtually all momentum. Of course, as bad as the character was, and as uninspiring as his wrestling was, the whole point to the Renegade character was made moot when Warrior himself signed with WCW in 1998. WCW wasted a lot of time and money with this guy. He didnt have that much skill as a wrestler, and his whole gimmick existed for the sole purpose of pretending to be someone with much more star power than him. And when Warrior actually joined WCW for real, the Renegade was just another guy on the roster who didnt contribute anything that beneficial to WCW.
Alexander Podgorski is a writer for WhatCulture that has been a fan of professional wrestling since he was 8 years old. He loves all kinds of wrestling, from WWE and sports entertainment, to puroresu in Japan.
He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Queen's University in Political Studies and French, and a Master's Degree in Public Administration. He speaks English, French, Polish, a bit of German, and knows some odd words and phrases in half a dozen other languages.
