8 Amazing Wrestlers That Flopped In WCW
6. Mike Awesome
How Good He Was: Technically, Mike Awesome was no Curt Hennig, but he had an intoxicating range of power moves that looked brutal and grabbed eyeballs. As ECW Champion, Awesome had worked fabulous fare against everyone from Spike Dudley to Masato Tanaka. His matches with Tanaka, in particular, became firm favourites for extreme fans.
Hopes were high when WCW signed Mike in April 2000. His changeover from Paul Heyman's league to Atlanta was messy and resulted in a WCW contracted worker wrestling the WWF's Tazz on an ECW show (work that one out!), but that didn't need to stop him from becoming one of Nitro's new breed and a shining light for the company heading into a fresh millennium.
Why He Flopped: Vince Russo had some of the downright worst ideas possible for Awesome. He stood no chance.
Rather than continuing to showcase what made Mike so special on ECW pay-per-view, Russo reimagined him as 'The Fat Chick Thriller'. Yes, his gimmick was that he could make overweight women happy in bed. That was it. Then, when WCW realised that was failing, they turned him into 'That 70s Guy' to try and capitalise on That 70s Show.
It was all brutally bad TV. As if that wasn't enough pain, Awesome (who was from Tampa, Florida) joined Lance Storm's Team Canada for some reason. He'd show up in the WWF during the invasion angle and even win the Hardcore Title on Raw, but the damage was done. He'd never be the same again, and the rot started in WCW.