The Magnificent Seven: The Top 7 WCW Stars

WCW was not perfect. It suffered from questionable management and booking. There points at which the inmates ran the asylum.

Just the same, it had its moments.

Moreover, WCW had its stars. For a thirteen-year period, the promotion featured a number of very special talents who put on great matches, delivered great promos, and helped shape the direction of professional wrestling.

This week, I’m counting down my picks for WCW’s top seven stars. The criteria for this list included in-ring performance, promos skills, long-term influence, drawing power, kayfabe accomplishments, and, as always, a healthy dose of my own personal opinions.

#7. Scott Steiner

Today, fans best remember Steiner for the Big Poppa Pump gimmick. Thus, it can be difficult to recall the dawn of WCW when he wrestled with long brown hair and a singlet, and primarily worked tag matches with his brother Rick.

Even then, Scott Steiner was a standout who blended freakish strength with remarkable athleticism and an amateur pedigree. I’ve heard, but not been able to confirm, that the powers that be in WCW actually sought to move him to the singles ranks then and push him up the card, but that Steiner passed on the opportunity out of loyalty to his older brother and their team. Just the same, the Steiner Brothers team became one of the most celebrated acts of the time, going head to head with The Freebirds, members of the Horsemen, Dom, The Midnight Express, and The Miracle Violence Connection. Their resume also included a high profile Super Brawl showdown with fellow faces Sting and Lex Luger that I suspect may have earned a spot in more conversations of best tag team matches of all time had the promotion not copped out with a schmozz finish.

After a brief detour to the WWF and briefer stopover in ECW, The Steiners returned to WCW in the early stages of the Monday Night War to feud with Harlem Heat and The Outsiders. In early 1998, Steiner made some of the most important changes of his career. Cosmetically, he packed on extra muscle mass, chopped off his mullet, bleached his hair, and grew a goatee. Then, at that year’s SuperBrawl, he officially turned heel and aligned himself with the NWO. Thus Big Poppa Pump was born and after a feud with his brother that stretched a bit too long without any meaningful payoff, he graduated to the top of the card, progressing from the nWo to The New Blood and putting together memorable programs with Goldberg, Kevin Nash, Sid Vicious, DDP, and Booker T. He reigned as WCW World Heavyweight Champion heading into the final broadcast of Monday Nitro, only to drop the strap to Booker T.

Steiner is a remarkable performer who evolved from a main-event face who never was, to main event heel who looked like a killer and arguably emerged as WCW’s most memorable promo man.

#6. Big Van Vader

WWE has trained contemporary fans to only think of WCW in terms of the Monday Night Wars Era, but more than half of the promotion’s history happened before that point, and I would argue that Big Van Vader was the single best star that the company produced pre-War who didn’t ever appear on Nitro (he left the company and surfaced in the WWF just a few months after the Nitro premiere).

From a philosophical perspective, Vader was a pretty fascinating figure for WCW—the continuation of the tradition of long-reigning heel world champions, with the added dimension of being a superheavyweight monster. Vader not only defeated Sting clean to win his first world title—he dominated and decimated the top face of the company. And despite WCW not exactly thriving as a business during his time on top of the card, Vader put forth some wildly entertaining matches with smaller opponents of diverse styles from the explosive Sting, to powerhouses like Ron Simmons and Davey Boy Smith, to wild brawler Cactus Jack, to the technical virtuouso that was Ric Flair on the tail end of the prime of his career.

Vader’s combination of power, speed, and agility made him one of the imposing main event acts of all time—a prototype to which Brock Lesnar added a better physique, amateur skills, and a UFC pedigree to arrive as the greatest monster heel ever.

#5. Diamond Dallas Page

Diamond Dallas Page’s story is one of WCW’s best, in large part, because of how unlikely it is. And I’m not just talking about the oft-told story of how Page never even became a full-time wrestler until he was in his late thirties, or his evolution from comic lower card heel to arguably the most over face in the company. I’m talking about WCW’s predisposition toward celebrating pre-made stars as opposed to building home-grown talent over time. I would contend that Page is the best pure example of WCW doing exactly that.

DDP ent from a 1990s Jersey broski parody, to working a gimmick in which a benefactor awarded him a boatload of money to comedic ends, to subtly, slowly growing more serious. He ended up being a rare, rare example, of a WCW mainstay who stood up against the nWo, never joined any version of them, and came out the better for it.

But come out the better Page did. He engaged in a heated feud with Randy Savage that elevated him to the upper card. He followed up that effort by becoming WCW’s go-to guy to foster celebrity involvement, headlining PPVs in tag teams with Karl Malone and Jay Leno (he would later be allied with David Arquette as well). The matches may not have been great, but for a brief period DDP emerged as one of the most recognizable borderline crossover stars in wreslting. Not long after he would get the biggest win his career, defeating no lesser stars than Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair, and Sting in a four-way bout to win his first world championship.

For the remainder of WCW’s run, DDP, like most guys on the roster, flip-flopped between face and heel alignment, forming the underrated Jersey Triad stable with Kanyon and Bam Bam Bigelow, feuding with Jeff Jarrett, and ultimately losing a world title match to Scott Steiner in the main event of Greed, WCW’s last PPV.

DDP was a WCW mainstay for the latter half of the promotion’s existence, and given his underdog path to glory, perhaps it’s little wonder that he’s still inspiring people today, via his yoga program.

#4. Goldberg

I acknowledged DDP as a rare homegrown talent for WCW, and I’d argue that he, Booker T, and one other man represented the core of that dimension for this company.

That man was Goldberg.

While Booker and Page developed over a period of years, and guys like Sting and Ric Flair had already at least started their legacies with the NWA before WCW became WCW, Goldberg marked the one character with which WCW truly, originally, and organically caught lightning in a bottle in the form of a former football player turned wrestler who, from the fall of 1997 to the summer of 1998 became, without question, one of the top five most recognizable names in wrestling—and arguablye number one.

Goldberg squashed mid-card guys on Nitro. It seemed like a simple, generic enough way to push a guy, but between his explosive spear, the raw power exhibitied in his Jackhammer, his aura of dominance, and the fact that he spoke so little, Goldberg grew into an undefeated megastar, and a totally viable challenger to Hollywood Hogan’s world title.

WCW may have pulled the trigger on Goldberg’s world title win a little too early, pushing his match with Hogan with only a week’s notice and giving it away on Nitro. Just the same, the main event match drew an impressive audience of over 36,000 live and an estimated almost 10 million viewers on live TV—tremendous numbers by any measure, and arguably the promotion’s last great milestone before its irreversible downward slide.

Goldberg would lose the title and his undefeated streak five months later at Starrcade. In retrospect, it can be difficult to remember that Goldberg remained active with the company from then straight through to its dying days three years later, going from so red hot to an upper card guy who only flirted with the main event from that point forward, with his most memorable spots being feuds with Sid, Scott Steiner, and Bret Hart (in which he delivered a kick that inadvertently ended Hart’s career), an ill-advised heel turn, and severely injuring himself when he punched out a car window.

Thus, Goldberg demonstrated so much of the best and worst of WCW—the ability to generate a legit phenomenon, and the combination of erratic booking and misfortune to squander all of that star power far too soon.

#3. Hulk Hogan

Hulk Hogan was induspitably a pre-made superstar, and though he wasn’t literally the first guy WCW brought in to capitalize on past wrestling glory, he was still at the vanguard of a movement to repopulate the promotion’s ranks with late 1980s/early 1990s WWF stars. He entered the company in 1994 and before long had Brutus Beefcake at his side, and guys like John Tenta (his Earthquake rebranded to an Avalanche), Jim Duggan, and The Honky Tonk Man filling major spots on the roster.

The thing is, in the attempt to more or less continuie his WWF run, Hogan largely flopped in WCW. Much to the chagrin of the fanbase, mainstays like Ric Flair and Big Van Vader became cannon fodder to his tired conquering hero schtick. Then there was the feud no one had ever asked for when Beefcake turned on his buddy, followed up with the cartoonish Dungeon of Doom and Alliance to End Hulkamania angles.

Before long, WCW had the two biggest names of the WWF’s previous generation in Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage, plus the company’s own top guys—Sting, Ric Flair, and recently returned Lex Luger. Dream match scenarios should have abounded and though some were realized, WCW couldn’t seem to emerge from the fog of a nostalgia act into must-see television.

All of that shifted when Scott Hall and Kevin Nash arrived on the scene, posed as WWF interlopers, kickstarting the cutting edge NWO angle. The lynchpin for that heel super group? Hogan himself.

Hogan turned heel at Bash at the Beach 1996 and, overnight, went from an, at best, middling main event experiment, to the single hottest act in the business. Hogan as a heel was a revelation, and though he didn’t demonstrate the skills of a technical virtuouso, all of that face charisma he had relied upon for years suddenly transformed into a simply magnificent chicken shit heel persona that I daresay elevated him to the ranks of the top ten heels of all time (but that’s another list…).

The traditional WCW model, feeding from style of the Jim Crockett Promotions, Georgia Championship Wrestling, and the NWA overall, relied upon long-standing heel champions who face challengers would chase. As such, WCW really hit its stride with Hogan as a megastar and a surprisingly master heel who felt fresh in this role, but retained the clout of all of his babyface runs to help push WCW into a new stratosphere, and make Flair, Sting, Luger, Roddy Piper, Goldberg, and others into bankable faces in hot pursuit of him. Thus, Hogan was quite arguably WCW’s most important property during what was arguably the hottest run any wrestling promotion has ever had. That’s certainly good enough for number three on this list.

#2. Sting

Numbers one and two on this countdown are all but interchangeable. I don’t think anyone will be surprised by which two names rose the top, though I’m sure there will be some debate about the order.

The case for Sting: he was the lone upper card-to-main event act who was there when WCW officially launched its brand and stayed with the company for the entirety of its run (literally wrestling in its very last match). Along the way, he was never out of place in the world title picture, including six proper reigns with the WCW World Heavyweight Championship (not counting the spurious International strap which he also held twice). He totally reinvented his persona to fit the times, from high energy surfer to brooding Crow. He engaged in memorable feuds with a sprawling catalog of performers, ranging from Ric Flair to Hulk Hogan to Lex Luger to Big Van Vader to Sid Vicious to Cactus Jack, and probably dozens of other points in between.

On account of not signing with WWE until about twenty years after his prime, much of Sting’s WCW legacy has been lost to the sands of time. It speaks to just how iconic the character and the performer were that, despite WWE more or less ignoring him until the last nine months, he still showed up at Survivor Series 2014 and was instantly recognizable as a main event talent, and fit right into a high profile WrestleMania match with Triple H.

Sting is a major star by any measure—charismatic, good on the mic, and solid in the ring (although, ironically, he was probably just exiting his prime when he grew most famous combatting the NWO). He only falls short of the number one spot because there is one special performer who was just a little bit better in every single one of those areas.

#1. Ric Flair

WCW officially launched in the fall of 1988. Ric Flair was the de facto world champion, a year deep in his fifth run with the NWA World Heavyweight Championship. He would drop the strap three months into the promotion’s run, to Ricky Steamboat—a launching off point for three of the greatest matches in wrestling history between the two—a positively iconic program that set the tone for WCW’s as a more technically sound, in-ring focused national product than the WWF at the time.

Flair would progress to great rivalries with the likes of Terry Funk, Lex Luger, and Sting, only to end up leaving in 1991. He spent two years plying his trade in the WWF—the main argument against him as WCW’s greatest icon—only to return in 1993, first hosting an interview segment, then getting back to thick of the action as a face with memorable programs opposite Rick Rude and Big Van Vader. Flair would turn heel upon the arrival of Hulk Hogan, and willingly accepted as his role as the man who would make Hogan look good in the months to follow, decisively losing in Hogan’s first WCW program.

Flair would remain, relevant, though—feuding with Randy Savage, renewing his rivalry with Sting, and reforming the Four Horsemen on multiple occasions. When the entire dynamic of the promotion shifted to focus on the nWo, Flair was at the fore then as well, as WCW fans seemed far more at home cheering Flair against heel Hogan.

Despite contractual woes between Flair and the WCW brass, The Nature Boy continued to merge in and out of programming, always a major attention getter when he was around, and a contributor to ongoing nWo story arcs, the evolution of his son David’s character, and The New Blood-Millionaire’s Club angle. Through it all, I couldn’t escape the sensation that Flair loved to perform—coming back again and again even after WCW’s lawyers had run him through the ringer, and booking powers like Eric Bischoff had all but taken a piss on his legacy.

It’s demonstrative of WCW’s journey and Flair’s importance in it that he wrestled opposite Sting in the promotion’s very last match. Furthermore, it’s illustrative of his willingness to put over others for the good of the company that he took WCW’s final fall.

Ric Flair is on the short list for just about anyone’s list of greatest wrestlers of all time. With ten world title reigns to his name under the WCW banner and more great matches and great promos than I care to count, Flair emerges as the single greatest wrestler in WCW history.

Which WCW stars would you add to this list? Booker T, Kevin Nash, Randy Savage, Ron Simmons, and Lex Luger were among the names that just missed my list. Let us know what you think in the comments section.

Read more from Mike Chin at his website and follow him on Twitter @miketchin.