The 411 Wrestling Top 5 6.06.12: Week 174 – Top Five WCW Stars

Hello everyone and welcome to 411 Wrestling’s Top 5 List. What we are going to is take a topic each week and all the writers here on 411 wrestling will have the ability to give us their Top 5 on said topic, plus up to three honorable mentions.

So, on to this week’s topic…

TOP 5 WCW STARS

For the purposes of the column, “WCW” is defined as, “the day Turner bought Crocket promotions until the day WCW was sold to the WWF.”

Scott Rutherford
HM: Lex Luger – You always got the impression during his time in the WWF that Lex was always a WCW guy. It’s just who he was.
HM: “Diamond” Dallas Page – DDP was another great company man and an entertaining entity. He helped carry the babyface main event for a large part of 1998 while Goldberg was on the ascent.
HM: The Outsiders – The injection that WCW needed to really compete with WWF. Their time truly made Monday nights a war.

5. Goldberg – In good conscience I couldn’t rate Bill any higher just based on the fact his run was so short. Without a doubt he was “the guy” in the 1998-1999 period for the company and was drawing big number even when everything around him was falling apart. The fact he turned into such a non-draw during the later stages of WCW was hardly his fault and his less than thrilling run in WWE exposed what happened when they tried to turn him into a regular wrestler.

4. Ric Flair – Anyone in this Top 5 could fill the #1 spot and no doubt Flair would be at the top of most peoples lists. For years he kept the company afloat regardless of the ridiculous and stupid stuff they had him doing. I love Ric Flair as a wrestler and wrestling character and his legacy goes hand-in-hand with WCW’s but his days as a big draw where almost numbered when WCW came into being.

3. Vader – Probably my most controversial pick on my list but I feel it’s justified. Vader came into the WCW main event when the company was striving for something different. He was an anomalous wrestler in that he was an ultra-violent beast that would just beat people up. His series of matches with Sting was legendary for its quality as well as its brutality. Ditto his match with Ric Flair from Starrcade ’93. Was he a huge draw? Debatable but his rise to the WCW main event came because WCW had turned itself into a non-drawing joke and he set the foundation for their future success

2. Hulk Hogan – Strangely that a guy so connected to WWF was also such a big name for WCW. Like it or lump it Hogan was responsible for that final surge that put WCW over WWF and for that alone he was one of the best for WCW. These days debate rages about whether he was also the man that killed the promotion as well but that’s a talk for another day. From 1996-1998 he was the lord of WCW. Period.

1. Sting – No man wore the colors of WCW more proudly than Sting. Most will say that likely hurt him long term as he was willing to do whatever they wanted and that often cast him in a negative light. You could also make that case that WCW never truly used him the right way and probably cost themselves the chance to compete with WWF with their own tall, blonde, muscular champion that appealed to kids and adults alike. His resurrection as “the crow” character certainly was a large part of the nWo/WCW storyline and without it, the concept would never have been as successful as it was.

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Shawn S. Lealos
HM: STEINER BROTHERS – Rick and Scott Steiner were the biggest tag team in WCW for many years. They were also the two biggest WCW stars fighting off the NWO invasion.
HM: DIAMOND DALLAS PAGE – I loved Page in the AWA as a manager but he became a huge star in WCW. People might like to make fun of him, but he was great at the time.
HM: THE OUTSIDERS – When Scott Hall and Kevin Nash showed up, WCW became bigger than the WWE and they were the reason.

5. LEX LUGER – The big return for WCW was when Lex Luger showed up at the Mall of America for the first WCW Monday Night Nitro. Since that moment, he was the face of WCW, along with Sting. He was part of every big storyline and is one of the biggest stars the promotion ever saw, holding every title. I was a fan of Luger since he made the jump from Florida to the Carolinas years before and that continued in his run in WCW. While he is not someone many people look back on favorably, as a big WCW fan, he was one of the best they had.

4. ARN ANDERSON – If you go back to the NWA, Ric Flair was the man. However, when you look at WCW, he was in and out so many times that he was mainly just an attraction for WCW. However, Arn Anderson returned from his stint in WWF and became the true face of the Four Horsemen. Whether it was in front of the cameras or behind the scenes, Anderson was there to make sure that no one forgot the Horsemen. Look no further than when Chris Benoit and Dean Malenko wanted to reform the Horsemen and they knew that Double A was the man they needed the blessing from. I loved the Horsemen, and regardless of how great Flair is, I credit Anderson with the group’s longevity.

3. GOLDBERG – While The Outsiders made people want to watch WCW week after week, Goldberg was the biggest star for a long time. It won’t work now because people want to talk about how green a wrestler is or just complain to be “cool.” However, at the time, Goldberg’s intensity and the way he just killed anyone he stepped into the ring with made him a star people loved to cheer. I hear all the time about how Goldberg winning the World Title from Hulk Hogan on a free Nitro was dumb, but screw that. As a WCW fan, that was one of the biggest moments of the Monday Night Wars. I don’t care if they gave away money; all I know is that I watched the monster beat Hogan on television and never expected it. I hate Goldberg’s attitude now but I loved watching him during his run.

2. HULK HOGAN – Yes, The Outsiders are the men who made people start changing the channels to see what happened next. However, Hulk Hogan turning bad and turning on WCW made the entire angle an event. I pretty much hated Hulk Hogan by the time he came to WCW the first time. I always felt he held down the good guys I wanted to see rise in the WWF and then his early stint in WCW was just silly, with the Dungeon of Doom. However, when he became Hollywood, he was the perfect wrestler to hate. It was a complete career transformation and helped the NWO last longer than anyone expected. Hogan was the No. 1 bad guy almost the entire time and that makes him an easy No. 2.

1. STING – There is one Mr. WCW and that is Sting. I have followed Sting’s career since he was in Bill Watt’s Mid South Wrestling and he remains one of my all-time favorite wrestlers. He is also one of the only men who never went to Vince McMahon and the WWE. His loyalty affords him this spot. At the same time, would the NWO invasion have been so intriguing if Sting had not ascended to the rafters for his character reinvention? For the longest time, he was mysterious and exciting and only Hogan’s selfishness kept that storyline from ending with an epic conclusion. When you talk about WCW, you have to talk about Sting. From beginning to end, no one meant more to the company.

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Jeremy Thomas
HM: Arn Anderson – The Enforcer of the Four Horsemen may have just been the greatest wrestler in the history of the stable. Arn’s WCW career was nothing short of phenomenal. As part of a dominating tag team within a dominating stable he held his own and remained an essential part of the group even after his in-ring career was over.
HM: Goldberg – Goldberg was lighting striking out of nowhere and electrified WCW. Had his character not been ruined by poor booking, he easily would have made my top five but his period of dominance was just too short and too badly marred by events outside his control.
HM: Hulk Hogan – Hate all you want; I’m not putting Hogan out of the top five because I dislike his WCW run or him. I just will always associate him as a WWF/E name first and foremost and any other promotion second or third.

5. Ricky Steamboat – Ricky Steamboat should have been a bigger name in the industry, and his accolades speak to that. Eight-time WCW Tag Team Champion. Two-time WCW Television Champion (during the Turner era anyway, which is the period we’re covering). United States Champion. World Heavyweight Champion. Ricky Steamboat is, as many have mentioned in the past, the one guy who never, ever went heel and yet never seemed stale. That’s damn near impossible to do, but he did. Steamboat had legendary feuds in WCW with the likes of Ric Flair, Steve Austin and many others, both carrying the torch and passing it on when he needed to. I tend to think Ricky gets underrated because his time in the WWF wasn’t always taken seriously despite great matches there, but he was always one of my favorite WCW guys, and it didn’t hurt that he was one of the best pure wrestlers in the promotion’s history either.

4. Vader – Other guys may have won more titles, and other guys may have gotten more marquee main events. But I can’t think of anyone that was just as flat-out dominant in the way he was booked as Big Van Vader. His entrance was badass and then he would go in there and just destroy people. And he wouldn’t just destroy people in the big lumbering giant way that was the accepted form of big men; he did it in a way that made you go wide-eyed and gasp. He was what WWE has tried many, many times to achieve but never truly accomplished; he is what we see them try to do with Kane, Big Show, Ezekiel Jackson and every other big guy who the authority figure uses to try and punish people. By that I mean he’s a guy who, even if he’s not always at the top of the card, you believe to be a credible threat to not just beat someone, but hurt them at any given moment.

3. Lex Luger – Listen, I was never big on Lex Luger personally. I could take or leave him. But Luger was an essential part of WCW in ways that almost can’t even be quantified. He was the promotion’s answer to Hulk Hogan, which is probably why he seemed so diminished when Hogan and Luger were in WCW together. But when Luger had the ball on his own, he was a star. He won every major title in the company multiple times and was just the second Triple Crown Champion of WCW, beat to the punch for the first by Flair by a mere six months. He was a homegrown WCW guy and even in the WWF, he seemed like a WCW because unfortunately Vince didn’t take him as seriously as he should have. And of course, he was WCW’s first shot in the Monday Night War. His legacy will always be that of WCW above anything else.

2. Ric Flair – Really, what do you need to say about him? It’s very, very close between #1 and #2 for me, and I certainly can’t deny that Ric Flair was the most successful wrestler in WCW’s history. He was able to be the promotion’s most popular wrestler when he was a face and the most hated wrestler when he was a heel, without breaking a sweat in either case. The feuds, the promos, and the matches…everything that Ric Flair is and was in WCW is what everyone else aspired to be. Did he do things to the detriment of the company? Sure, when he decided to look out for himself he did. But he also kept the company going when idiots like Jim Herd were booking ridiculous ideas that would have sunk any company without someone like Flair at the head; he saved it much more than he damaged it.

1. Sting – Where Flair was The Man, Sting was WCW. Never jumped ship. Never did anything against the company. He was WCW through and through, and the fans knew and loved it. Honestly, I do think it’s his devotion to WCW that has kept him from jumping to the promotion that bought it and dissolved in WWE. (I don’t buy that he’s worried about the content now, in the PG era.) He was sometimes terribly booked and we can all make jokes about how he was the most gullible wrestler in existence with the number of times he let people turn on him, but he kept it up and kept the support of the fans through everything. Whenever people think of WCW in a positive light, Sting is invariably one of the first things that come to mind and there’s no doubt that they were the best thing to ever happen to each other.

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Gavin Napier
HM: Booker T – I don’t like doing Honorable Mentions, but Booker’s success as a tag team star and every level of singles competition is impossible to ignore.
HM: Scott Steiner – The unintentionally greatest promo man of all time was the last true great monster heel world champion in WCW.
HM: The Outsiders – Their arrival and the subsequent nWo legitimized WCW in a way that pay per views main evented by Hogan and Savage vs. Every Heel In The Company never did.

5. Dean Malenko – Look, I’m aware that DDP, Hogan, Hall, Nash, and maybe even Savage, The Giant, Booker T, Jarrett, and Benoit could take this spot instead. I want to recognize Malenko’s consistency, though. I’m sure most, if not all, of those guys are going to get love on other lists. Malenko carried the cruiserweight division. That title never meant more than when Malenko had it. To this day, I consider him the greatest cruiserweight of all time, but he transcended that division to win the United States and World Tag Team titles. The only thing Dean didn’t accomplish was winning the World title. He was an invaluable part of WCW’s mid card, and deserves recognition for it.

4. Ric Flair – Ric was more of an NWA guy than a WCW, but his time spent feuding with Sting, Steamboat, the Hollywood Blondes, and Savage was great, and vital to the company. Flair, despite being my all time favorite wrestler, can’t rank higher here because of the fact that he ditched the promotion in 1991, crippling it temporarily. His time off television during a dispute with Eric Bischoff and the ridiculous angles he was placed in afterwards are too big to ignore. Still, Flair is an icon in the sport, and WCW was his home for years.

3. Big Van Vader – Vader revolutionized what big men were capable of in wrestling. He took the potential of guys like Bam Bam Bigelow and realized it completely. Vader is a prime example of WWE wasting a potential star just because he wasn’t home grown. Vader never found traction in WWE, but he was a monster in WCW. He was a multiple time world champion, and was dangerous. He put Sting, Ron Simmons, Nikita Koloff, and countless jobbers on the sidelines while embarking on one of the most dominant heel runs anyone has ever had.

2. Goldberg – Goldberg was a shooting star in the history of wrestling. He drew a huge fan base and was a force of nature, but it didn’t last long. Still, if you ask casual fans what they remember from that era, Goldberg is one of the first names that pops up. While the match should have taken place on pay per view, his WCW World Heavyweight Championship win over Hulk Hogan is one of WCW’s enduring moments.

1. Sting – As much as I would have liked to have been different or unique here, this is what it is. From Clash of the Champions 1 til they turned out the lights, Sting was the franchise player in WCW. There were flavors of the month along the way – Vader, Hogan, Nash, Hall, DDP, Goldberg – but Sting was always the guy that embodied the brand. I think that’s why there was such an interest to see Sting vs. Undertaker at Wrestlemania a couple of years ago; these two men represented WCW and WWF/E in ways that no other two wrestlers possibly could. I doubt that we’ll ever see Sting in a WWE ring. It doesn’t affect his legacy negatively at all. Sting was better off staying strong in WCW and helping build TNA than being made to look like a fool like so many of his WCW co workers. After all, Dusty got polka dots, The LoD got a ventriloquist dummy, Vader called himself a fat piece of shit, DDP jobbed to Undertaker’s ex wife, Dean Malenko became a spy, Scott Steiner had debates, KroniK got sandbagged then fired, the nWo was no threat whatsoever, they tried to make Goldberg wrestle, the list goes on and on. WCW was happy to use established guys to their benefit. WWE would rather punish talent for having the audacity to be a star without them. The exceptions were guys that left WCW on bad terms – Austin, Jericho, most of the Radicals. Sting avoided that, and rightfully so. He deserves better.

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NEW PODCASTS:
The OCHO sports show returned on Saturday! Steve Cook and Trent Howell discussed the NBA Conference Finals, the NHL Stanley Cup Finals, the latest news from the land of baseball and the NFL, discussion of Terrell Owens, soccer and even…Kim Kardashian? Oh yes friends, enjoy! You can listen to the show here.

The 411 on Wrestling returned on Monday night! The show was hosted by Larry Csonka and Andy Critchell and featured discussion of the latest edition of WWE Raw, the Chikarasaurus Rex iPPV, all of the latest news in wrestling, your calls, questions and much more! You can listen to the show here.

Thoughts From the Man Cave returned on Tuesday. Samer Kadi joined the Man Cave to review The Ultimate Fighter Live Finale and preview this Friday’s UFC on FX 4 card. We’ll start by looking back at the Finale of this TUF season, discuss what Martin Kampmann did wrong in his win against Jake Ellenberger, why Joe Silva poorly booked the card, and whether or not Michael Chiesa can achieve the same success as Jonathan Brookins. Then a preview of UFC on FX 4, which features an awesome rematch that everyone has forgotten about and a bunch of other fights. You can listen to the show here.

Thoughts From the Man Cave was also back on Wednesday. Jeremy Lambert hosted once again as Steve Cook joined the show to talk about the 3rd annual News From Cooks Corner Hot 100. Steve will take you through his thought process when it came to the rankings and the feedback he’s received thus far on the list. They’ll rundown the top 10 and Jeremy will all out Steve on his biggest mistake on the list. Plus they chat about various news items in sports including the NBA Playoffs, Cincinnati Reds baseball, and the feud between Michelle Beadle and Erin Andrews. You can listen to the show here.

YOUR TURN KNOW IT ALLS
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