David Hunter
Given the success of my 1990’s WWF article, I thought it rather pertinent to look across the aisle at WCW. WCW had a bevy of big name superstars from Ric Flair, Sting, and Vader in the early 1990’s to Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage, Kevin Nash, and Lex Luger in the late 1990’s. So let’s celebrate a few of the more unsung heroes.
#5: Saturn
A personal favorite wrestler of mine, he originally had made his name in ECW as part of The Eliminators with John Kronus. He made the jump to WCW in 1997 as part of Raven’s Flock and his enforcer. Saturn would eventually capture the Television Title and start to stand out for his brutal in-ring style supplementing suplexes with his Rings of Saturn submission hold and his Death Valley Driver finishing move.
Saturn would have various feuds, mostly with competitors over the Television Title including Disco Inferno, Booker T, and Rick Martel. Saturn would memorably break up The Flock then equally memorably feud with Chris Jericho before coming out and starting to wear a dress to his matchups.
Towards the end of his run, he’d briefly join a stable called The Revolution which largely went nowhere until he jumped to the WWF with The Radicalz.
#4: Scott Hall
Despite largely being overshadowed by Hogan and Nash in the nWo, Hall was a key member who gave weight to their threat in the ring while being able to hold his own on the mic. Hall helped serve as a great bridge, making wrestlers such as DDP and Booker T into credible threats as they gradually made their way up the card into the main event picture.
One of the more underrated aspects was that Hall wasn’t afraid to let his opponent get in offense, making him look better as a result, while also imposing a physical presence that showed Hall wouldn’t let just any opponent beat him. Despite later struggles outside the squared circle, Hall deserves a lot of respect as one of the more underrated talents in WCW especially from 1996 through 1998.
#3: Dustin Rhodes
Debuting in WCW in 1991, Rhodes was an immediate hit with the fans and made a great impact in the tag team wrestling scene. By May of that year, Dustin started getting his feet wet teaming up with talent such as Bobby Eaton and Ricky Morton. After feuding with Terry Taylor and The York Foundation, Rhodes would make a big impact teaming up with Ricky Steamboat and winning the Tag Team Titles. Rhodes and Steamboat would feud with a variety of opponents over the tag team titles.
His rise rolled into 1993 when he would become the United States Champion and start taking on opponents such as Barry Windham and Paul Orndorff. Rhodes would eventually start up a fun feud with Rick Rude during the summer of 1993 as he remained champion.
As 1994 and 1995 came on, Dustin continued to prove to be a valuable hand in the ring including matches with Steve Austin and Arn Anderson but was finding himself struggling. He was good enough to challenge for the US Title but was not quite a main event caliber talent in the eyes of WCW and skirted with randomly tag teaming with talent such as The Nasty Boys. Rhodes would close out his tenure in WCW with a fairly forgettable feud with The Blacktop Bully in February and March of 1995 before landing in the WWF as Goldust.
#2: Psychosis
Largely the most underrated and ‘forgotten’ luchadore in comparison to other names such as Rey Mysterio Jr, Juventud Guerrera, and Eddie Guerrero he was one of the more unique talents too. He had a bigger, physical presence that made him a credible threat in the division and his finisher: A flying top rope legdrop was equally solid.
As much as anybody, Psychosis was integral in the formation of the WCW Cruiserweight division often battling a variety of talents and putting forth solid matches on a near weekly basis. Despite all of this, he stunningly never had a Cruiserweight Title reign to his credit and it’s a shame.
#1: Kanyon
Who’s betta than Kanyon? Every… uh, NOBODY! That’s right. Kanyon initially joined WCW as a development talent in May of 1995 taking on various wrestlers such as Diamond Dallas Page, Disco Inferno, and Harlem Heat by July. He was in essence, a jobber made to make his opponents look good while sometimes flashing the offense he had.
He finally got repackaged as Mortis, a character straight out of Mortal Kombat to take on/feud with the likes of the recently debuted Glacier in December of 1996. It took a while but Mortis would debut on Uncensored 1997 in March taking on Glacier and inevitably losing the bout. The feud with Glacier continued including a brief lived teaming up with Bryan Clarke as Wrath. After a stretch of teaming with Wrath into August and September of 1997, Mortis seemed to be in a catch-22 position where he had a unique look but couldn’t quite escape his position as he mostly lost matches he wrestled.
By late January and February of 1998, Mortis started getting himself involved in the growing Raven and DDP feud going on at the time. After a fascinating run through most of 1998, Kanyon would find himself teaming up with DDP and Bam Bam Bigelow as The Triad partially out of their real life New Jersey roots.
Towards the end of his WCW run, Kanyon started infamously mocking DDP in a feud including going around and hilariously diamond cutting random people in (and outside) of arenas.
So there are my top 5 underrated WCW performers of the 1990’s. Agree? Disagree? Post your comments below!
