8 Amazing Wrestlers That Flopped In WCW
4. Jeff Jarrett
How Good He Was: Take a gander at Jeff Jarrett's match vs. Shawn Michaels from In Your House 2 if you want to see ol' 'Double J' at his finest. Other than that, Jarrett worked admirably against others like Razor Ramon on the WWF side, but he arguably had a ceiling. It was a ceiling that Vince Russo would ignore when he snagged Jeff for WCW in 1999.
In total, Jarrett had 2 spells in WCW. One was more successful than the other in terms of pure gold. Generally, 'Double J' is respected as a rock solid hand who can cut decent promos, but he's another who was probably always going to find it hard to step out from the daunting shadows of a packed WCW top line mix between 1996-1997 and again between 1999-2001.
Why He Flopped: It's been touched on above, but Jeff felt very, very forced as a multi-time World Champion from '99 onwards. It obviously isn't strictly his fault that WCW went down the tubes the way it did, but let's not ignore facts: TV audiences, pay-per-view buyrates and house show attendances dwindled partly because people just didn't view Jarrett as a major player, and they didn't want to see him headline the same way they had Ric Flair, Sting, Hogan etc.
Russo had more faith in Jeff than Vince McMahon, that's for sure. The WWF boss kept Jarrett in the upper midcard without letting him tangle with blockbuster names like Steve Austin or The Rock. Meanwhile, WCW treated him like he was on par with those superstars.