MAJOR Wrestling Stars Who Jumped Ship (...And FLOPPED!)
3. The Ultimate Warrior (WWF > WCW)
When: 1998
Why He Flopped: It's difficult to judge The Ultimate Warrior's 1996 return fairly as a fan, because he wasn't on WWF TV/pay-per-view long enough to have any meaningful impact on flagging business. By all accounts, Warrior was a nightmare to deal with behind the scenes though. Again.
WCW didn't necessarily get that side of him in 1998, but they did get some diminishing returns in terms of overall fan interest in a revived feud vs. Hulk Hogan. Although Eric Bischoff might not have wanted to admit it, there just wasn't that much juice in a Halloween Havoc sequel to their remarkably-fun WrestleMania VI original.
In WCW, Warrior stumped fans with nonsensical promos (that went over their allotted time on Nitro) and he clearly sucked in-ring. There was nothing to be thrilled by, and that made his run for the competition way worse than a WWF reprise had been two years earlier.
Semi-ripping off Adam West's Batman by encouraging people to tune in "at the same Warrior time, on the same Warrior channel" was also flat out cringeworthy.