Ask 411 Wrestling: Who Was Going To Be Black Scorpion If Not Ric Flair?

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I am your party host, Ryan Byers, and I am here to answer some of your burning inquiries about professional wrestling. If you have one of those queries searing a hole in your brain, feel free to send it along to me at [email protected]. Don’t be shy about shooting those over – the more, the merrier.

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Another Ryan is peeking under the hood:

Going back to 1990 WCW (I know, sorry) and the Black Scorpion: If not Flair, who did WCW want to play that character, and was something other than the garbage we got supposed to happen? It seemed like creative was making it up as they went along (probably par for the course for WCW).

According to the January 10, 1992 Wrestling Observer Newsletter, in which a reader asked Dave Meltzer more or less this exact same question, it was reported that creative was, in fact, making this up as they went along.

When the Black Scorpion angle began, WCW had absolutely no idea what the ending was going to be.

The call to have Ric Flair under the mask was made just a few days before Starrcade. In the final build to the show, WCW brass did want Flair in the slot, but the finish to the match had to be negotiated between the Nature Boy and Sting because Flair didn’t want to drop the fall and Sting felt that given how his character looked during the storyline, he needed to win. For a while, it appeared that due to those negotiations, Flair would not be in the match at all. When that was the case, the man considered to be the Black Scorpion was none other than Barry Windham.

In other words, there was no plan. When there was a plan, it was Flair. However, Windham was considered momentarily when it looked like Flair might not come through.

Shaun busted my bracket:

Who can still win both the Jersey J-Cup and ECWA Super 8 Tournament having previously won one or the other?

How did the Hardy’s end up in the ECWA Super 8 Tournament in 1999?

First off, for those who do not have the background, the Jersey J-Cup and the Super 8 are both single elimination tournaments featuring independent wrestlers. ECWA has promoted the Super 8 every year since 1997 in the Northeast. Meanwhile, the Jersey J Cup was originally produced by Jersey Championship Wrestling, then transferred to National Wrestling Superstars, and then was transferred back to Jersey Championship Wrestling . . . which is now known as Game Changer Wrestling. It ran every year from 2000 through 2012, skipped 2013, was held again in 2014, and then did not take place until 2023. It was held last year as well.

In the history of these two tournaments, only one person has won both of them, and that’s Low Ki.

The other prior winners of the Jersey J-Cup are Judas Young, Tom “Reckless Youth” Carter, Jay Lethal, Super Dragon, Mike Kruel, Grim Reefer, Deranged, Rhett Titus, Myke Quest, R.J. Brewer (a.k.a. John Walters), Nicky Oceans, Devon Moore, Chris Dickinson, Jordan Oliver, and Masha Slamovich.

The other prior winners of the Super 8 are Ace Darling, Lance (Simon) Diamond, Steve Bradley, Christopher Daniels (a two-time winner), Donovan Morgan, Paul London, Petey Williams, Davey Richards, Jerry Lynn, Aden Chambers, Nick Logan, Austin Creed (a.k.a. Xavier Woods), Tommaso Ciampa, Papadon, Damian Dragon, Matt Cross, Jason Kincaid, Napalm Bomb (a.k.a. Demarcus Kane), Sean Carr, Richard Holliday, Lance Anoa’i, A Very Good Professional Wrestler (a.k.a. Dasher Hatfield, a.k.a. Avery Good), Killian McMurphy, Darius Carter (another two-time winner), and Joey Ace.

Of those individuals, the remaining active professional wrestlers are Lethal, Reefer, Titus, Brewer, Oliver, Slamovich, London, Creed, Ciampa, Papadon, Cross, Kincaid, Bomb, Carr, Holliday, Anoa’i, Good, McMurphy, Carter, and Ace, so there’s your potential list for winning both tournaments.

I would say that even one of the inactive wrestlers could return to become a double winner, because wrestling retirees are notoriously fickle. However, that is sadly not the case for one of these individuals, as Steve Bradley passed away in 2008 at the age of 32.

Shaun also noted that Matt and Jeff Hardy were in the Super 8 Tournament in 1999. This is accurate. Jeff lost a first round match to Devon “Crowbar” Storm, while Matt defeated Christian York in opening round action only to fall to Christopher Daniels in the semifinals.

How did they get there? The answer is that the WWF had a working arrangement with ECWA that year, with the Fed sending some bigger stars to the indy promotion’s shows in exchange for ECWA giving a platform for some WWF trainees looking for experience. Think of it as a proto developmental system If you look at the ECWA show that ran immediately before the Super 8 in ’99, it featured a ton of WWF-contracted performers, including Giant Silva, Jose Estrada Jr., The Truth Commission, Kurt Angle, “Dr. Death” Steve Williams, Mideon, and Michael Hayes.

Davros is applying the claw:

What’s the story on Baron Von Raschke’s brief stink in the WWF in 1988?

Did he just not fit in or is there more to it?

First off, normally I clean up any typos I catch in the questions that I receive, but something about the phrase “Baron Von Raschke’s brief stink” made me laugh so much that I just had to keep it in. Just call me Amsonite.

In terms of actually answering the question, Raschke did a shoot interview with World Wrestling Insanity several years back in which he addressed his WWF run. Basically, he attributes its abrupt ending to the promotion simply deciding that they wanted to go in another direction creatively. There’s not much more to it than that. It is worth noting that in the same interview the Baron said that the WWF basically ghosted him, not ever officially telling him that they had chosen to end their relationship.

I’m late for a very important date with Brad:

Well, we’re approaching the end of another year. Could you update your list of former WCW personalities that are still active in a significant way?

As a side note, I attended three shows this year, and each had two WCW participants: PCO and Rhyno in TNA, and Father James Mitchell and Joe Cazana in NWA (twice). Joe Cazana is a new entry.

For those of you who might be new around here, Brad has written in with this question every year since 2019. If you want to read prior versions of the answer, you can do so by clicking any of the following links: 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023.

Normally I’ve answered this at the end of the year, but I got a little bit behind this time around, so we’re doing 2024’s list at the beginning of 2025. I’ll be ignoring the first month of this year and just focusing on what happened in ’24.

WWE
Last year’s list of WCW alumni in WWE was AJ Styles, Charles Robinson, Meiko Satomura, Paul Heyman, Rey Misterio Jr., and Triple H.

All of those people were still around in 2024. Granted, Satomura was a bit on the bubble, as she started a retirement tour that saw her mostly wrestling in Japan throughout the year, though as far as I know she was still under WWE contract. In fact, she wrestled on three WWE house shows in Japan in ’24, one of those being a singles loss to Bayley with the WWE Women’s Title on the line. If only AEW treated Emi Sakura this well.

We actually have two additions to the list:

The first is Paul Ellering. Ellering returned to WWE in January 2024, once again managing the Authors of Pain. Previously, he managed the Road Warriors in WCW in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

The second is William Regal. Regal left AEW for WWE in 2023, but as one of the terms of his being granted an AEW release, he could not appear on WWE programming for one year. In 2024, that restriction was lifted, and he again became an on-camera character, bringing him back to this list.

Thus, our 2024 list is AJ Styles, Charles Robinson, Meiko Satomura, Paul Ellering, Paul Heyman, Rey Misterio Jr., Triple H, and William Regal.

AEW/ROH
In 2023, our list for this promotion consisted of Chris Jericho, Christopher Daniels, Dustin Rhodes, Edge, Jake Roberts, Jeff Jarrett, Luther, Ric Flair, and Sting.

All of those guys were still around for at least part of 2024, though we’ll likely see Flair, Sting, and Daniels drop off when we prepare this list for ’25.

For some reason, I didn’t have Paul Wight on last year’s list. He probably should have been. He did wrestle an AEW match in 2024 on Chris Jericho’s annual cruise and is still under contract to the promotion, so I’ll throw him in.

That brings us to a list of Chris Jericho, Christopher Daniels, Dustin Rhodes, Edge, Jake Roberts, Jeff Jarrett, Luther, Paul Wight, Ric Flair, and Sting.

Impact Wrestling
Our list in 2023 was actually the exact same as the list in 2022, which was Johnny Swinger, PCO, Rhyno, and Scott D’Amore.

Swinger definitely falls off for 2024, as he did not wrestle for the promotion in 2024 and to my knowledge is no longer under contract to them.

Rhyno, PCO, and D’Amore all left Impact in fairly high-profile ways, but that didn’t happen for the Manbeast and the former pirate until 2025 and D’Amore was there for a good part of 2024, so they remain on the list.

There are no additions.

Thus, in 2024 we’ve got PCO, Rhyno, and Scott D’Amore.

MLW
Raven was the sole man on MLW’s 2023 list. He’ll stick around, because he continued to act as a manager in the promotion in 2024 and also had one match in the company, competing in the War Chamber – which as you may be able to guess is their version of War Games.

There is a name that joins Raven this year, and it was a bit unexpected for me: Bill Alfonso. Fonzie currently manages in MLW, and he had previously refereed in WCW.

MLW fans also saw a lot of Satoshi Kojima in 2024, including a run as their World Champion, but I’ll deal with Kojima when we get to New Japan, as my understanding is that was really his home promotion in ’24 and he was simply on loan to MLW.

Final MLW list for 2024: Bill Alfonso and Raven.

NWA
Billy Corgan’s weird effort to do something with the corpse of the National Wrestling Alliance was the home of four WCW alumni in 2023: Father James Mitchell, Ricky Morton, Vampiro, and Violent J of the Insane Clown Posse.

Brad in his question correctly notes that we can now add Joe Cazana to this list. For those who may not know, Cazana did enhancement work for WCW in the early 1990s. He was also a regular in Smoky Mountain for a while (being from Knoxville). Now he manages his two sons in the NWA, which resulted in him wrestling a few times in 2024, his first matches in 30 years.

That gives us a final list of Father James Mitchell, Joe Cazana, Ricky Morton, Vampiro, and Violent J of the Insane Clown Posse.

NJPW
The 2022 and 2023 lists were exactly the same, consisting of Gedo, Hiroyoshi Tenzan, Satoshi Kojima, and Yuji Nagata.

Guess what?

It’s the same list for 2024.

AJPW
Aside from occasional guest shots by wrestlers who more properly fit into another category on this list, All Japan Pro Wrestling has hosted no WCW alumni for all of 2021, 2022, 2023, and now 2024, a feat accomplished by no other promotion on this list.

NOAH
Keiji Muto was the sole wrestler on the list for 2023, though we acknowledged it was likely his last time there being that he had a high profile retirement match that year. So far, he has stuck to his word, so he’s not back on this year’s list.

It also appears that there are no additions to make, so NOAH joins AJPW on our list of promotions with no WCW alumni.

Dragon Gate
In both 2022 and 2023, Dragon Gate’s list was Don Fuji, Dragon Kid, and Ultimo Dragon. That will also be Dragon Gate’s list for 2024.

GLEAT
GLEAT was a promotion we first looked at as part of this exercise in 2022, and in both 2022 and 2032 their WCW alumni list has consisted of two names: CIMA and Kaz Hayashi.

That will remain the list in 2024, though we can expect to see it change when we revisit the list a the end of 2025, because Hayashi wrestled a retirement match this past summer, though he retains a backstage role in GLEAT.

AAA
Three classic WCW luchadors were our list for 2023, those being Konnan, LA Park, and the original Psicosis.

LA Park only wrestled two AAA dates that I saw in 2024 and was much more an independent guy, so I’m going to remove him from this list and put him back on the independent list you can read below. Meanwhile, the original Psicosis (a.k.a. Nicho El Millonario) only had one match in all of 2024, and it wasn’t for AAA, so he’s gone too.

Konnan remains an AAA manager, so we will be our only entry on the AAA list for 2024.

CMLL
In 2022 and 2023, Felino was the only WCW alumnus active in CMLL. That’s still the case, though he’s now north of 60 years of age. I’m not aware of any additions that should be made.

And the Rest . . .

Now we move to the wrestlers who have continued to work but aren’t associated with any promotion of any significance.

At the end of 2023, this list was: The Barbarian, Bob Orton Jr., Chavo Guerrero Jr., Jimmy Yang, Ernest Miller, Fidel Sierra, James Storm, Too Cold Scorpio, Crowbar, Lizmark Jr., Miguel Perez Jr., Lodi, Mustafa Saed, Damian 666, Juventud Guerrera, Robert Gibson, Malia Hosaka, Dave “Gangrel” Heath, George South, Koji Kanemoto, Mayumi Ozaki, Rob Van Dam, Shane Douglas, Shark Boy, Tom Brandi, Tommy Rich, Tony Atlas, Villano IV, and The Warlord

The good news? We didn’t have to take anybody off this list because they died, which is somewhat surprising given that we’re talking about the wrestling industry.

However, there are two names we’ll remove due to not wrestling a single match in ’24. The first is Bob Orton Jr., who frankly should have stopped wrestling – he’s 74. The other is Villano IV.

That’s it for deletions, but we’ve also got some additions to this list. As noted above, Johnny Swinger was not active in Impact in 2024 and LA Park was not active in AAA, but they were both independent wrestlers, so they will go on this list.

One past oversight to correct here is Mr. Hughes. Hughes has been wrestling pretty consistently since I started doing this exercise, and I’m not sure how I missed him. He continued to wrestle in 2024, so we’ll add him now.

Big Vito will return tot he list. I’m not sure why, but he had no reported matches in 2023 but did see action in several indy bouts in 2024. You can say the same for his fellow ECW alumnus the Sandman, known in WCW as Hardcore Hak. Oh, you want another former ECW guy for the list? Let’s go with Jason Knight, who also popped up for a handful of matches in ’24. Mikey Whipwreck did it as well. What’s the deal with all these ECW guys getting back into the ring?

“Wildcat” Chris Harris will join us too. He did appear in a handful of indy matches in Ohio and Kentucky. Also, we can add Shannon Moore, who is mostly Florida-based.

How about Nick “Eugene” Dinsmore. He’s actually been wrestling for several years now, but I’ve never included him on this list because I failed to realize that he did have quite a few WCW matches. I’m using a new database of WCW alumni this year, though, and they put me on the right path. Another oversight was Tatsumi Fujinami, who still wrestles.

One of the Natural Born Thrillerz in WCW, Mark Jindrak actually went on to have great success wrestling in Mexico after his WCW and WWE runs came to an end. He was out of commission for the entirety of 2023 but returned to Mexican indies in 2024 and was quite active.

2024 also saw a comeback by Chigusa Nagayo, who was part of the tournament to crown the first-ever WCW Women’s Champion, competing under her alter ego of Zero.

That means our final indy list for 2024 is: The Barbarian, Chavo Guerrero Jr., Jimmy Yang, Ernest Miller, Fidel Sierra, James Storm, Johnny Swinger, LA Park, Too Cold Scorpio, Crowbar, Lizmark Jr., Miguel Perez Jr., Lodi, Mustafa Saed, Damian 666, Mr. Hughes, Big Vito, Sandman, Jason Knight, Mikey Whipwreck, Juventud Guerrera, Robert Gibson, Chris Harris, Shannon Moore, Malia Hosaka, Dave “Gangrel” Heath, Nick Dinsmore, Tatsumi Fujinami, Mark Jindrak, Chigusa Nagayo, George South, Koji Kanemoto, Mayumi Ozaki, Rob Van Dam, Shane Douglas, Shark Boy, Tom Brandi, Tommy Rich, Tony Atlas, and The Warlord

And that’s it. A (hopefully) complete list of all your WCW alumni who maintain some presence in wrestling in 2025.

We’ll return in seven-ish days, and, as always, you can contribute your questions by emailing [email protected]. You can also leave questions in the comments below, but please note that I do not monitor the comments as closely as I do the email account, so emailing is the better way to get things answered.