50 Absolute Worst Things WWE Has Done In The 21st Century
11. WCW Star DDP Is A…Stalker (2001)
Most of WCW's biggest stars sat at home collecting fat payoffs from their AOL/Time Warner contracts once the company dissolved in 2001. The WWF wanted to bring in names like Hulk Hogan, Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, Goldberg, Ric Flair and others, but they had guaranteed deals Vince McMahon wasn't willing to match. The only main eventers to come over initially were Booker T and Diamond Dallas Page.
Page reportedly agreed to a mutual cut of his WCW payments so he could get started in the federation for less money. In hindsight, he likely wishes he hadn't. The soon to be WWE brought DDP in as a creepy stalker who'd been following The Undertaker's wife Sara around. There was a monster pop when Page took his hood off on Raw in the summer, but enthusiasm quickly died once everybody realised the WWF had turned WCW's 'People's Champion' into a vile predator.
This was a gross miscalculation of DDP's popularity. It seemed like McMahon believed his audience wouldn't have a clue who Page was or what he was about. He was wrong. WWF fans wanted to cheer for Dallas, but he'd been placed in the stalker role and that wasn't going to change until the Invasion angle was close to finishing up.
'Taker treated Page like a lowly jobber whenever he was in the ring with him too, which didn't help matters. DDP defo wasn't rewarded for taking less cents on the dollar to tear up his AOL/Time Warner contract and sign his name on a WWF one. His entire WWF/WWE career turned out to be a waste of time and nowhere close to his WCW stint.
Major bummer.