As many wrestling fans know, WCW was a strange place where backstage politics, poorly planned storylines, and incredibly expensive guaranteed contracts ruled the day. Some fans who kept up with the inner working of the industry knew how much WCW was slipping towards the end of their time, but the true story of how crazy that company could be wasn't properly told until many of the people that worked there started to reminisce about their time in WCW with stories of drugs, money and the kind of outlandish behavior typically reserved for a line of kindergartners desperately in need of a nap.
It’s then that we learned that for as crazy as WCW was in front of the cameras, the shows themselves were nothing compared to what was going on backstage. Every wrestling origination has a few incredible backstage stories to their name, but WCW seemed to be particularly wild due to the company’s large roster and outlandish sums of cash that performers had no problem trading in for a good time. They’re crazy, they’re immature, and they’re often pretty filthy; they are the top 15 ridiculous backstage stories from WCW.
15 15. The Many Bad Storyline Ideas Of Hardbody Harrison
Don’t feel too bad if you don’t remember the name Hardbody Harrison. He had, as Macho Man Randy Savage would put it, a “cup of coffee in the big time” while a member of WCW. Although he was only a jobber that primarily worked the B-shows, Hardbody Harrison apparently thought that he was a creative genius with ideas that were going to rocket WCW to the top of the world. What kind of ideas? Well, according to Chris Jericho, he once caught him arguing with another wrestler seconds before their match over who was going to be the good guy and who was going to be the bad guy.
He also suggested that Diamond Dallas Page should wear a magic crystal to the ring that Hardbody would steal and drop into a tank of piranhas. The crown jewel, however, is his suggestion that he should start wearing face paint and present himself as Sting’s black nemesis by changing his name to “Stang.”
14 14. Harlem Heat Never Washed Their Wrestling Gear
Wrestlers love to pull off disgusting pranks. It’s a strange fact of life about the professional wrestling industry and one that has led to some of the oddest wrestling stories ever told. However, there are other wrestlers that aren’t necessarily disgusting as part of their gimmick (like the Nasty Boys) or to pull off a couple of pranks, but rather because they are just naturally filthy. For instance, during an infamous AOL chat room interview, Vince McMahon once claimed that Vader would stink up the wrestling mat after every match.
That’s nothing compared to Harlem Heat, however, whose tights allegedly smelled so bad that most wrestlers assumed that they kept them smelling bad as a prank. The truth came out, however, when Sherri Martel started managing them. It turned out that they weren’t trying to pull a prank, but rather that they only brought one pair of tights with them on the road. From that moment on, Sherri started washing their tights behind their back.
13 13. Sycho Sid Stuffs A Squirrel Down His Tights On A Bet
This entire list could easily be filled with stories about wrestler Sid Eudy (more commonly known as Sid Vicious or Sycho Sid). For instance, there’s the infamous story about him attacking Arn Anderson with a pair of scissors (an incident which apparently earned him his crazy moniker) as well as that time that he threatened to beat up Brian Pillman with the first weapon he found and returned wielding a squeegee that he found at a local gas station. He was an interesting guy. Perhaps the strangest story about Sid, however, involves his pet squirrel. As the legend goes, Sid decided to start carrying a pet squirrel on the road with him. One day, a couple of wrestlers bet him that he wouldn’t put the squirrel down his tights for a certain amount of time. Sid took them up on the offer and was rewarded by the squirrel biting him in a most unfortunate area.
12 12. Scotty Riggs Loses A Career Push Over A Flight Upgrade
We’ve all heard stories about the delicate world of wrestling politics. Wrestlers like Kevin Nash and Hulk Hogan apparently turned themselves into household names by making sure that they became friendly with the right people and that every match they were involved in ended in a way that would ultimately benefit them more than anything else. There are so many stories about how delicate the world of wrestling politics is, in fact, that you might start to get the impression that a wrestler could lose their career push over the smallest of incidents.
According to WCW wrestler Scotty Riggs, that’s exactly what happened to him. Riggs claims that he was once sitting on a flight with WCW agent Terry Taylor when the stewardess informed Riggs that he had been upgraded to first class. When Taylor asked why he was not upgraded, the stewardess told him that it was just about who was next on the list. From that moment on, Riggs claimed that he was asked to lose on every show that Taylor booked.
11 11. Chris Benoit Tears Up DDP’s Match Script
Diamond Dallas Page didn’t really become a big wrestling star until pretty late in his life (at least in terms of a wrestler’s age). A big part of the reason why he became a big star was certainly due to the popularity of his finisher and mannerisms, but it was also due to the fact that DDP usually put on some of the best matches on the card. In order to consistently perform these kinds of matches, DDP got into the habit of scripting nearly every moment of his matches out beforehand. Some wrestlers like Goldberg and Randy Savage were perfectly okay with this approach as they usually did this themselves. Other wrestlers weren’t so fond of that idea.
As the story goes, DDP had written the script for his match with Chris Benoit, but he could never seem to find Benoit to give it to him. After he realized Benoit was avoiding him, he hid beneath a set of bleachers and waited for Benoit to pass. When he did, DDP handed him the script at which point Benoit wordlessly ripped it up and proceeded to walk away.
10 10. Rip Rogers Got Revenge On Sycho Sid With The Help Of Protein Bars
There’s a good chance you’ve never heard of Rip Rogers as his prime was in the late ‘70s and mid-80s as a tag team specialist. However, he was one of those guys that was well-liked enough and consistent enough in the ring to remain gainfully employed by several wrestling organizations over the years. In fact, WWE once had him train many of their young wrestlers as a member of the OVW system. Unsurprisingly, Rogers’ tour of the wrestling world meant that he eventually came to spend some time in WCW.
While there, he couldn’t help but notice that Sycho Sid loved to rib on the young guys a little too much. One day, Rogers got tired of this ribbing and decided to do something about it. His solution was to squish together a bunch of protein bars, reach into the back of his tights, pull his hand back out, and proceed to chase Sid out of the building while waving his concoction above his head.
9 9. Kevin Nash Filled An Hour Of Live Television With Old Matches To Prove A Point
Although there have been a lot of people over the years that have had some bad words to share about Kevin Nash, pretty much everyone seems to agree that he was a really likable guy on a personal level. Kevin Nash was so likable, in fact, that WCW decided to let him book the company at one point. Now, you can argue whether or not this was the right call at the time, but the one thing that became clear right away was that Nash liked to have a lot of fun with the role. For instance, when WCW approached him about slumping rating, Nash responded by filling the entire first hour of Monday Night Nitro with pre-taped content mixed in with one live shot of the arena. Why? Well, according to the backstage stories, it was so Nash could prove that ratings were going to be the same no matter what he put on air.
8 8. Sting Accidentally Caused The Divorce Of Two Other Wrestlers
Sting was the heart and soul of WCW. Much as The Undertaker is for WWE, Sting was the one guy that WCW could always rely on to be around when they needed him most. As such, it’s always been kind of strange that Sting seemed to just disappear from WCW television late in 1998. Unlike his previous time away, there was no storyline to support where Sting had gone. He was just not there. Well, according to an old report by Dave Meltzer, the real story behind Sting’s disappearance was that he was in the process of turning his life around by becoming born again and, as part of his personal redemption, he confessed to his wife about some previous affairs. In the process, he also apparently happened to mention some affairs that Rick Steiner and Lex Luger were having. The two suffered through divorces shortly thereafter.
7 7. The Flock Would Smoke Cigarettes and Pop Pills In The Front Row Of Shows
The Flock was one of WCW’s crowning achievements, even if they did borrow most of the storylines involving the group from ECW booking ideas. This group led by Raven just operated differently from every other wrestler on the roster by attacking at random moments and dressing like they just came from a grunge festival. At one point, WCW actually had The Flock sit in the front row of shows to run-in to matches and ham it up with the crowd. Then, without any on-screen explanation, The Flock stopped doing that. What happened? Well, according to Scotty Riggs, the group started to have a little too much fun in the front row and would often get fans to buy them beers in-between popping pills. The whole thing came to a head one night after they almost got themselves kicked out of the arena when Van Hammer lit up a cigarette while sitting in the front row and refused to put it out.
6 6. The Misfits Stole Macho Man’s Girlfriend and Got Into Backstage Fights
One of the best things about WCW’s style of booking a was that they let the wrestlers do a lot of things without strict permission. They encouraged performers to come up with their own ideas and some guys, like Chris Jericho, took full advantage of this policy to become household names. So when Vampiro was told that the writers had nothing for him one night in Minnesota, he decided to go across the street and ask popular punk band The Misfits, who were playing a show at the time, to come out to the ring with him. The gamble paid off, and Vampiro was soon booked with The Misfits on future shows.
Unfortunately, the whole thing had to be scrapped after the band’s lead singer was injured following a fight with Dr. Death Steve Williams and the band’s guitarist stole Macho Man’s then girlfriend Gorgeous George (Stephanie Ballars) from him.
5 5. Vince McMahon Made WCW Put On Sting vs. Flair As The Final WCW Match
The final episode of Monday Night Nitro will forever live in infamy as the definitive moment that the Monday Night War was truly over. WCW wasn’t exactly at their best at this time, but they did still manage to put on a memorable final show that included things like Booker T walking away with the WCW Championship and some great cruiserweight action. Naturally, the night ended with Ric Flair and Sting putting on one final match under the WCW banner. It was such an obvious and brilliant way to close the company, that’s it’s shocking to learn that the match almost never happened.
As the story goes, WCW had no plans whatsoever to have Sting and Ric Flair end the show. It wasn’t until Vince McMahon heard from his son Shane that the match wasn’t going to happen that he stepped in and informed the WCW crew that he wanted the two to put on WCW’s last match.
4 4. Perry Saturn and Raven Would Buy Thousands of Tabs of MDMA For The Locker Room
Many wrestlers that speak about their time in WCW often speak of how out of control the drug usage at the company was. From steroids to more recreational drugs, WCW’s wrestlers had developed a culture where drugs were not only acceptable but in many cases were encouraged for social and performance purposes. WCW did test their performers, but it did little to stem the usage among the growing roster of wrestlers. There is no end to the stories involving wrestlers going a little too far one night with their usage and suffering the consequences, but some of the most amazing stories involve those wrestlers that were able to take large amounts of drugs and continue about their day like nothing happened.
The most incredible of these stories may come from Perry Saturn who claims that he and Raven would fly to Philadelphia to buy 5,000 tabs of Ecstasy and would proceed to take 20 or more pills a day while distributing the rest.
3 3. Kevin Nash Once Proved He Wasn’t Drunk In The Coolest Way Possible
For quite some time, WCW held these special Spring Break episodes of Monday Night Nitro that were typically held at a beach-side location and portrayed a heavy party atmosphere on-screen. As you might imagine, the wrestlers loved these shows as they were a built-in excuse to go a little crazy. At one of these shows, Kevin Nash and Scott Hall proceeded to drink more than they usually did (which, according to various stories, is saying something). They ended up getting completely drunk and were confronted by Eric Bischoff who was none too pleased about how much they had been drinking.
Nash claimed that he wasn’t drunk at all and, to prove it, he had a fan drop a glass of Tequila Sunrise down to him. Nash caught it without spilling any of the drink to prove he was sober. After Bischoff left, he turned to a very impressed Buff Bagwell that saw the whole thing go down and said “I’m so hammered.”
2 2. Van Hammer Once Refused To Wrestle Until He Received A Fake Military Promotion
We got a glimpse at Van Hammer’s eccentric nature earlier on this list when he refused to put out a cigarette while sitting in the stands, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg as it concerns Hammer’s stories. For a guy that was never really all that talented and debuted under a pretty awful rock star gimmick, Van Hammer found a way to insert himself into a lot of famous WCW stories over the years and even remained a WCW employee throughout much of the company’s lifespan. Perhaps this history of steady employment started to get to the man’s head in 2000, as that's the year that Van Hammer decided he was not happy that he had been assigned the name Private Stash as part of his new gimmick as a member of a wrestling military group. The reason he was unhappy is because he thought he was better than a military Private and demanded a higher ranking. To appease him, WCW promoted Hammer to Major Stash.
1 1. Curt Hennig Had An Unfortunate Accident Under The Ring While Waiting To Do A Run-In
Whether in WCW or WWE, Curt Hennig had a reputation for being a fun-loving guy that was so naturally talented in the ring that he often had no problem goofing off a bit more than everyone else. He’s pulled a lot of pranks over the years and is generally considered to be one of the all-time great jokers in wrestling history. Hennig’s most unbelievable story of antics may have not actually been a prank at all, but rather a simple matter of being in the wrong place at a bad time. Locker room legend states that Curt Hennig was sitting under the ring with Scott Norton and The Ultimate Warrior as he waited for their cue to do a run-in.
Unfortunately, he suddenly felt a painful rumble in his belly and a powerful need to relieve himself. Having no other options, he decided to do so under the ring. As the story goes, the smell was so powerfully awful that Scott Norton began to vomit and The Ultimate Warrior was simply forced to endure this mess until he made his appearance.