The biggest wrestler to never sign with the WWE for a long time was "The Icon" Sting. His reservations always stemmed from the fear that most ex-WCW talent would be buried by the WWE after Vince McMahon purchased WCW in 2001. For the most part, he was right in his assumption. Leaving WCW to join the WWE wasn't always a "death sentence." X-Pac, for example, became a huge star after departing WCW and joining the WWE.
Sting signing with the WWE in 2015 led many fans to assume every wrestling star from WCW has, at one time or another, popped up at the WWE, but that assumption is wrong. This list examines ten WCW wrestlers who shockingly never signed with the WWE.
10 Vampiro
Vampiro always felt like a good fit for the WWE. At the time that he was portraying his darker gimmick, WCW did not have an Undertaker or Brood to match the intensity of his character. He wasn't a huge star in WCW, but he did have some big storylines with Sting and The Great Muta.
Somehow, the WWE never had any creative interest in Vampiro after they purchased WCW, and, to this day, he's never wrestled a single match for the WWE.
9 Scott Norton
Scott Norton always had the typical size of a WWE wrestler. In WCW, he wasn't a huge star, but his time in the NWO and NJPW seemed like a big enough resume for him to at least get a shot in the WWE.
After receiving little interest from WWE after WCW's demise, Norton returned to New Japan Pro Wrestling where he was a main event star for a few years. He even won the IWGP Heavyweight Championship. His later success still never lead to a career in the WWE.
8 Stevie Ray
Few stars from WCW carried their success to the WWE. Booker T, Stevie Ray's brother, and WCW tag team partner, was one of the few who did. As Booker T continued to be a main event superstar in the WWE, fans often hoped for a reunion of Harlem Heat. It never happened.
Booker T wrote his entire legacy in the WWE without Stevie Ray. Most fans assume he would have at least had a tag team title run with Booker if he ever signed with the company. Luckily, Harlem Heat was still inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame despite Stevie Ray never wrestling a single match for the company.
7 The Great Muta
Considering how big of an international draw The Great Muta was, it's shocking he never signed with the WWE. He had great feuds in WCW with huge talents. The WWE roster was stacked at the time of his departure from WCW and he would have had classics in the WWE against Shawn Michaels and Kurt Angle.
He returned to Japan after leaving WCW and The Great Muta is still one of the biggest missed opportunity signings in the history of the WWE.
6 Nikita Koloff
Koloff was a big name in the 80s who eventually spent a few years at WCW in the early years of the company. In the 80s, good wrestlers hopped around promotions fairly frequently, but Koloff never stepped foot in the WWE. He competed well with all the WCW greats, Sting, Lugar, and The Steiner Brothers, while he was at the company, but an injury led to his early retirement from wrestling in 1992.
5 La Parka
La Parka was one of the many great cruiserweights that sometimes stole the show at WCW. Most of the stars he competed against, Rey Mysterio, Eddie Guerrero, and Juventud Guerrera, ended up signing with the WWE at one point or another. La Parka, surprisingly, never ended up there.
He had plenty of swagger as a performer but was one of the lesser-known stars of the bunch. He had a great career after WCW, and although he never joined the WWE, he become a legend in Mexico.
4 Kevin Sullivan
Kevin Sullivan had a great career in WCW. It seemed after his first stint with the company, which featured great feuds and "Sullivan's Slaughterhouse," that he would eventually end up in the WWE, but it never came to be.
Although his career as a wrestler was often up and down, he spent his last days with the company as a booker. Even in a behind-the-scenes role, Sullivan never became a part of the WWE. He did appear at ROH, TNA, and was inducted into the AWA Hall of Fame in 2014.
3 Norman Smiley
Norman Smiley was a great wrestler plagued by horrible gimmicks in WCW. Smiley was even the CMLL World Heavyweight Champion before arriving to the company. His skills and ability to play (dumb) gimmicks seemed perfect for the WWE. Smiley did wrestle a few dark matches for the company, but never officially signed with them. He spent time in the indies and TNA after leaving WCW.
In 2007, he became a coach for the company but never got a chance to showcase his great skills for Raw or Smackdown audiences.
2 Ole Anderson
Ole Anderson made headlines when the Four Horseman were inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame without him. His time in the early days of WCW helped him become a decent name in the world of wrestling. Almost all of his peers ended up joining the WWE, unlike Ole. In his prime, he might have been a good fit for the WWE, but he has well-known issues against a ton of people in the wrestling world including Vince McMahon.
1 Abdullah The Butcher
The "Madman from Sudan" is an international wrestling superstar. His impact is so massive that he joined the WWE Hall of Fame in 2011 without having wrestled a single match for the company. The hardcore edge he added to his matches left a huge impact on the wrestling world that can still be seen to this day.
The great matches he put on against the Steiner Brothers and Cactus Jack were proof he would have made an impact in the WWE, but he never ended up signing with the company. He may have just missed the window, but he was such an innovator he would have been a great addition to the company even later in his career.