Jim Ross has revealed that WCW was in talks to sign former Detroit Pistons and Chicago Bulls star Dennis Rodman to a full-time deal back in the 90s.
Rodman made a couple of appearances for the company, once famously taking on fellow NBA star Karl Malone as part of a tag match. According to Ross, the five-time NBA champion could have transitioned to wrestling fully but not everyone was on board with bringing him in on a full-time basis.
"A lot of us never had the confidence that others did in Dennis," the AEW commentator said on his Grilling JR podcast (h/t 411Mania.com).
"You know, we’re not talking about rebounding, or the all-defensive team in the NBA. As a matter of fact, here’s a little pearl for you. When I was officiating college basketball, Dennis was playing at Southeastern Oklahoma State in Durant. And I called a couple of his ballgames. He was a skinny as hell center. Played the post, and he was so fast — he was an extraordinary athlete, it was freaky. But I remember that, and he wasn’t a bad citizen on the court. He wasn’t like you would think he might be.
"But we didn’t have the confidence that a lot of other guys did in that deal. And it was spending a lot of money on an attraction match where one-half of the attraction doesn’t know how to work. So he has no fundamental skills. So to spend a million bucks or so, whatever it might be, for a package of dates didn’t make a lot of sense to me.
"But you know, if Vince had wanted to do it, we’d have gone aggressively to try to get it done. But I just, the negotiations were not easily appeased, and it all came down to the same old deal. If somebody says, ‘It’s not about the money!,’ bulls**t. It’s all about the money. And we just weren’t gonna pony up the cash for an unskilled performer in an attraction match, a special attraction match-type thing. Just didn’t make a lot of sense at the end of the day.”
While he never landed a permanent WCW deal, Rodman made a little over a million dollars for his two appearances for the promotion, according to now SmackDown Live executive director Eric Bischoff. Who knows how things could have turned out had WCW decided to hand the two-time All-Star a contract, but he simply didn't enough of a wrestling background for them to take the chance as he would have probably come in as the highest-paid man on the roster.